Steel glinted as one of their men whirled towards a slender, blanket-wrapped figure beside the fire. Zarantha didn’t stir as the blade went up. She simply lay there, watching it rise, seeing it sweep down. She fought desperately against the spell which held her motionless, but there was no escape. She couldn’t even scream-and then a gory thunderbolt swept up beneath the descending blade. It smashed the death stroke aside, and the man who’d tried to kill her screamed as Bahzell cut his legs from under him.
Bahzell straddled Zarantha’s motionless body. Two more guards came at him, and he snarled with the terrible glory of the Rage as he smashed them back. Brandark’s horse reared, trampling another victim, forehooves crashing down like the War God’s mace, and the Bloody Sword lashed out with a backhand blow that flung a body aside in a gout of blood. All around them, men threw aside weapons, turned their backs, fled madly into the snow. Half a dozen of them thought of their horses and ran desperately for the picket line, but Brandark was on their heels. He rode two of them down and scattered the rest, and Bahzell hacked aside the last guardsman foolhardy enough to come at him.
The Horse Stealer whirled on the wizards, blade hissing as he drove a furious slash at the nearer one, but their retainers’ deaths had bought them a few precious seconds. Sparks showered and flashed as Bahzell’s blade slammed into an unseen barrier and rebounded, and the wizard behind that barrier spat a curse and raised both hands-not at the hradani, this time, but at Zarantha.
Bahzell flung himself between those hands and their target. He had no idea if his Rage would protect another from a spell, or even guard him against death magic, but it was the only defense he could give Zarantha. He went to his knees, snarling up at the wizard, covering her with his own body, and the wizard bared his teeth in triumph as he brought both hands down in a convulsive, throwing gesture.
Light glared and hissed between his clenched fists, spitting towards Bahzell like evil green lightning, but it never struck. Something flashed in its path-a brilliant blue disk, brighter even than the lightning-and the hissing light-snake shattered like glass.
The wizard staggered back in disbelief, then jerked his head around as another horseman rode slowly forward. The rider’s eyes flamed brighter than the camp’s fire, and the sword in his hand glittered with the same blue light that had shielded Bahzell and Zarantha. The surviving dog brothers vanished into the howling snow and the last guardsmen yelped in panic and cast down their weapons at the sight, and the wizard who’d tried to kill Zarantha seemed to shrink in on himself. He and his fellow stood rooted to the ground, faces whiter than the blizzard, and Wencit stopped his horse. He dismounted with slow, graceful precision, and sheathed his sword, never taking his wildfire gaze from his enemies.
“My name,” he didn’t raise his voice, but it carried crisp and clear and coldly formal through the howl of the wind in a dialect unheard in Norfressa in centuries, “is Wencit of Rūm, and by my paramount authority as Lord of the Council of Ottovar I judge thee guilty of offense against the Strictures. Wouldst thou defend thyselves, or must I slay thee where thou standest?”
One of the wizards whimpered, but the Carnadosan priest who’d tried to kill Zarantha was made of sterner stuff. He wasted no time on words; his right hand darted to his belt, snatching out a short, thick wand, and brought it up in a darting arc at Wencit.
The wild wizard raised his own hand almost negligently, and the wand exploded in a shower of smoking fragments. The wizard howled and seized his right wrist in his left hand, shaking it frantically as a curl of flame rose from his palm, and Wencit nodded.
“So be it.” His voice held an executioner’s dispassion, and he pointed a finger at his writhing foe. “As thou hast chosen, so shalt thou answer.”
A spear of light-the same wildfire light as his eyes-leapt from his finger, and the priest screamed as it struck his chest. His spine arched, convulsing in agony, and the wildfire crawled up inside him. It spewed from his shrieking mouth in a tide of brilliance, glaring and pulsing with the rhythm of his wildly racing heart, and then he collapsed in upon himself like a figure of straw in the heart of a furnace. Smoke poured up from his crumpling body in a stinking tide, whipped and shredded by the wind, and when it cleared only a smoldering heap of ash remained.
The second wizard fell to his knees, mouth working soundlessly as he raised his hands in piteous supplication, but Wencit’s face was colder than the storm. His hand swung, his finger pointed, a second shaft of light lanced out from it, and his victim shrieked like a soul in hell as he blazed.
Bahzell crouched on his knees, still shielding Zarantha, and even through the Rage he felt a stab of pure, atavistic terror as he stared at Wencit. Wind roared across the hollow, roofing it in a boiling cauldron of white, and the wild wizard loomed against it like a figure out of Kontovar’s most terrifying myths. He lowered his hand slowly while the smoke of his enemies streamed up to whip away on the gale, and his words carried with that same, impossible clarity through the blizzard’s bellow.
“By their works I knew them, by the Strictures I judged, and by my oath I acted,” he said softly, and turned away at last.
Chapter Thirty
There was no dawn. The storm howled on, roaring like an enraged giant, and Bahzell sat beside the fire and watched their prisoners.
There were eleven of them: six Carnadosan guardsmen and five dog brothers. One assassin would die soon; all four of his fellows and two of the guardsmen were wounded, and cold hatred urged the Horse Stealer to cut all their throats. But the aftertaste of the Rage was poison on his tongue, copper-bright with too much blood, too much exaltation in its shedding. Even if it hadn’t been, these men had surrendered; if he killed them now, it would be in cold blood-murder, not battle-and Bahzell Bahnakson was no dog brother.
Thirteen bodies lay piled beyond the fire’s warmth, frozen and stiff. The dead wizards’ remaining henchmen had fled into the shrieking blizzard, most without cloaks, some without even boots. Few would survive the storm, and bleak satisfaction filled Bahzell at the thought as he looked at Zarantha.
She lay across the fire from him, closed eyes like bruised wounds in her stark, white face as she slept with her head on Wencit’s thigh. Her captors had been careful not to abuse her physically, for they’d wanted her strong and fit for sacrifice, and she was tough, Zarantha of Jashân. Yet the horror of what she’d endured-of riding obediently to what she knew was hideous death, a prisoner in her own body-had marked her . . . and the compulsion that had held her so had survived her captors’ deaths.
Wencit’s face had been grim as he bent over her, and Bahzell had knelt behind her, supporting her shoulders against his knee as the wizard’s eyes flamed and the cleansing fire of his wizardry burned deep inside her. Bahzell had felt Zarantha’s terrible shudders as that sorcery warred with the noisome, clinging shroud about her soul, heard her teeth-clenched groan of agony as the compulsion frayed and tore under the power of Wencit’s will, and he’d gathered her in his arms as she sobbed explosively against his mailed chest when the spell broke. He’d smoothed her black hair, murmured to her, held her like a child, and she’d clung to him, burying her face against him.
That had been almost enough to send him raging amidst the prisoners, murder or no, but it hadn’t. He’d only held her, and thought no less of her as she wept, for hradani knew the horror of helplessness in the hands of wizards.
She’d mastered her tears more quickly than he would have believed possible. She’d drawn the discipline of the magi about her and pushed herself back to smile at him, her white cheeks wet.