Inyx tried to stop the woman from making a quick signal to another grey- clad at the edge of the meadow; then she had to smile. That signal could mean only one thing: the reserves had been summoned from the camp. It was only a matter of moments before Noratumi' s carefully wrought trap was sprung, bringing watery death to all downhill.
" Laugh if you will," came the words laden with scorn. " Claybore will place your head on a pike outside his palace. I will be made ruler of this entire planet."
" Not if he doesn' t regain his tongue," said Inyx.
The expression on the other woman' s face was worth the effort. The surprise momentarily froze her opponent; Inyx lunged forward, dagger tip leading the way. She pinked the officer' s left arm. Not a serious wound, but enough to produce a slowing. Then would come death.
" You know nothing!" shrieked Claybore' s commander. She rushed forward, batted Inyx' s knife out of the way, and locked arms around the woman' s back, pinning her arms to her side. Inyx grunted as the woman applied pressure to the bear hug. Kick as she might, Inyx found herself unable to break free; Bending backwards, her breath gusting from her lungs, Inyx felt her spine cracking and her consciousness fleeing.
Again surprise came to her rescue. A loud roaring followed by anguished cries of death echoed up from the forests. For the barest instant, Claybore' s commander hesitated. Inyx butted her head directly into the nose. She felt a gush of warm red coppery- smelling blood as cartilage broke. The woman screamed in pain and rage and Inyx kicked free.
The officer held her broken nose as she looked from Inyx to the torrential outpourings raging through the forest. She watched her reserves washed away, their armor too heavy for easy escape. That very armor protecting from sword and arrow now weighed them down to a watery death.
" It' s not as easy as you thought, is it?"
" Slut!" screamed the officer.
Rage worked against her. She lost her ability to think; Inyx sidestepped quickly and plunged her dagger deep into her opponent' s groin, the tip finding the nerve center in the hypogastrium. The blonde gasped, stiffened, then fell forward as if a woodsman' s axe had felled the largest tree in the forest. Panting, covered with blood- from her opponents- Inyx stepped back and surveyed the course of the battle.
To her astonishment, Noratumi had not underestimated the fighting prowess of his tiny band. They had met and defeated Claybore' s larger company.
" Not a bad day' s work," crowed Jacy Noratumi, riding up. " Most were killed here in the meadow, totally routed down in the forest. It' ll be a week before the dam is in place again, but that' s small loss. Come, join me." A brawny arm reached down for Inyx to take. She twisted up behind Noratumi, who spurred toward the gates leading into Bron.
" Your people fight well. I' d thought this would be suicidal."
" You fight magnificently yourself. The feast this evening in your honor will be:." Noratumi' s words trailed off as the survivors reformed into a single- file line.
Inyx leaned around the man and stared up the road. The shimmering she had noted from a distance grew worse. The stone walls protecting Bron rippled and danced like reflections in a pond. A thin line of dust on the road held her attention. Not only was the dust pulled up into tiny whirlwinds, the motes trapped in the cones of wind sparkled with a deadly inner light.
" Jacy, don' t," she said, but he had already seen the danger.
The lead rider had been too eager to return home. Whipping his horse to a gallop, he had ridden full into that barely visible barrier- and had flashed out of existence. Not bone, not hair, nothing remained to show he or his mount had ever existed.
They had defeated Claybore' s troops. To enter Bron they had to now defeat his magics.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dancing in front of him came a six- armed horror. Each arm ended in tiny tendrils clutching swords, axes, and flails designed to rip the flesh from his bones. Lan Martak croaked out a warning to Krek, clumsily drew his sword, and prepared to fight.
The creature rushed forth- and through him.
Lan blinked, then sank to his knees, supporting himself on his sword. He didn' t look behind to follow the path taken by the apparition. He knew now it had been a mirage, a product of his own feverish imagination- or of Claybore' s.
" Friend Lan Martak, why do you stop to rest like that? Your knees will burn in this awful heat. Why, my own claws are beginning to melt from the heat. Imagine, chiton melting. It is terrible the hardships I must endure. The degradation of it all! How am I to get about if I have to hobble like some human, only using two legs. Two legs! The disgrace of it is unimaginable to you, I am sure."
" I' m all right, Krek. It: it' s nothing."
The spider turned his head around in a circle that would have been impossible for a human to mimic and said gently, " Claybore sends his visions again?"
" Possibly. Or I might be hallucinating. I haven' t had enough water. The magics to condense the water take too much out of me now, even if it is a simple spell. And the heat. Damn this heat!"
" On this point, we are in complete agreement. Let us not dally here. I can almost feel the coolness of mountain winds rustling through my furry legs."
The young warrior heaved himself to his feet and closed weary eyes, reaching deep within himself for strength. He knew magical spells that enhanced physical power, but he shied away from chanting them. The higher he pushed himself with such spells, the more time it took to recover. The energy use had to be reserved for those times when instant strength was needed. He would be dead within the hour if now he tried to push his endurance magically.
That did not prevent him from using other spells, others requiring only tiny portions of his energy. He reached out and found a tiny glowing spark, fanned it alive magically, allowed it to grow and glow and spin and dazzle his inner eye.
He cast it forth.
It appeared to speed off, diminish with distance, circle the entire universe and then return, all within the span of a rapid heartbeat. He examined the information brought back to him by the mote of light. He sighed when it verified what he had feared.
Claybore' s power grew moment by moment. The sorcerer expended more time and spells against him in an effort to prevent Lan and Krek from reaching the relative safety of the mountains. The desert aided Lan. To attack magically over long distances sapped even Claybore' s augmented power.
Lan wondered at how potent Claybore would be if he regained all his body' s segments. Even as the thought crossed his mind, he pushed it away. Claybore was considerably stronger than Lan with just heart, head, and torso. Another addition to his severed body would put him beyond Lan' s reach.
The young mage examined the dancing mote of energy once more before freeing it to return into other dimensions. All the information possible had been milked from it.
" Claybore cannot attack us directly," he told his spider friend. " He is occupied in some other battle. I had glimpses of another mage, a potent one. The name Iron Tongue intruded repeatedly."
" Is it possible this Iron Tongue actually has within his head Claybore' s tongue?"
Lan shrugged.
" Whoever he is or whatever power he possesses, he and Claybore are locked in a death fight. I also sensed that Claybore' s attention is divided in another direction."
" Inyx?"
" I fear so. It might be best to draw his attention away by some magical attack."
" Can you do it? Your voice comes out weak and broken. Almost as weak and broken as I feel. Oh woe! Why do I walk the Road? I shall die, I know I will die in this web- forsaken, desolate place."
Lan kept his eyes closed. His lips moved in a cracked cadence as he employed his energy- giving spell, but he directed it not at himself but at Krek. In direct proportion, he felt himself increasingly drained as the spider perked up. When Krek bounded to his feet, almost as agile as his healthy self, Lan stopped the chant. A few seconds more and Lan himself would have been unable to walk.