Both groups of bandits swarmed onto the road, running into each other as Wulfston and Torio converged upon them. The Adept raised his hand, and a thunderbolt roared toward the terrified men, missing the nearest of them by a handspan.
All three wild animals, released from Wulfston’s hypnotic power, turned tail and ran back into the woods at the flash and noise, but the bandits fled along the road, Wulfston and Torio now in pursuit.
“We didn’t have to chase them far,” Torio finished, noting with satisfaction that his audience were all grinning at the image of the fleeing bandits. “I’m sure they’re still spinning tall tales of the day they had the bad judgment to ambush a Lord Adept-although we never saw them again.”
“I wish I’d been there,” said Melissa. “I’ve never seen Lord Wulfston use that ability-but Torio, don’t you agree that it has to be related to Reading? How does he know there are any animals out there to call?”
“I don’t know,” Torio replied. “All I know is that it works-but nothing any of us have done can get Wulfston to learn to Read, any more than I can learn Adept tricks.”
“You will,” said Zanos. “It’s all the same-”
Suddenly, without warning, the wind rose, howling into cyclone force right there in the’ middle of the forest. Trees whipped, birds screamed, and the five travelers had to fight their terrified horses. Ahead of them, huge trees were ripped up by the roots-and fell right across the path they had to take.
It was over as fast as it had come, the wind dropping to nothing, forest debris floating down through the dappled light, the birds and animals still silent in their fear.
With one mind, the Readers Read outward to their limits-but they could find no sign of Maldek or anyone else spying on them. Then they turned to the trees in their path-four of them, tangled into a pile that thoroughly blocked their way forward.
“This is only the beginning,” said Zanos. “We don’t have the physical strength to shove them aside. Is there a way around?”
The better Readers only confirmed what the gladiator already knew: there was not.
“Then it’s fire,” said Zanos. “I’ll start it. Astra, Melissa-you confine it, so it just gives us a path. I’ll have to concentrate on keeping it small. We don’t want to start a forest fire.”
Torio was accustomed to Wulfston’s Adept strength; this situation would hardly have been a challenge to him. But Zanos’ powers were small compared to Wulfston’s; he coaxed a small flame to begin among the dry leaves, then guided it along a branch to the trunk. It was slow work, as they dared not let it leap into flames which might be beyond the powers of the three with Adept ability to control.
It took almost an hour, first to guide the fire, then to Read for every spark and make certain it was completely out before they could ride their horses over the ashes now paving the trail.
And no sooner were they beyond that wearying task than Torio Read a pack of wolves slinking up on them, fearful but hungry.
This trial was easier. Astra said, “I’ll scare them off,” and reached for the animals’ minds with hers. It was a technique neither Torio nor Melissa had studied, but they knew it was the way Readers treated sick minds, combined with Adept powers. Astra let herself Read the wolves’ simple thoughts and desires, then somehow, becoming unReadable, twisted them so that instead of five people and five horses-potential food-the wolves saw five huge, angry bears. Saw them, smelled them- and turned tail and ran.
But as Torio was about to congratulate Astra on ridding them of that nuisance with so little use of power, he realized that while he had been concentrating on what she was doing he had neglected to notice something else-there were people coming toward them through the woods.
“Melissa-Read!” he exclaimed, for she, too, had been fascinated with Astra’s trick, which presumably she could duplicate.
In every direction that they Read, they found people. People? There were flesh-and-blood human bodies moving toward them, breathing, hearts beating-but there seemed to be no minds within them to Read!
All Adepts braced to use their powers? So many? Then it was hopeless, for there must be fifty of them moving purposefully toward them through the dense underbrush, ignoring scratches and bruises, stumbling and picking themselves up-
They moved like no Adepts Torio had ever known. They were more like puppets-like the two people they had seen in Dirdra’s memory.
But these were not the beautiful young people of that scene in Maldek’s castle. These were repulsive creatures, dressed in rags, skin peeling off, missing fingers or toes, eyelids gone to reveal staring eyes-
It seemed an army of the dead!
“Orbu!” gasped Dirdra as the first of them came into sight through the brush.
“They’re mindless-but they are alive!” said Melissa. And as one of them raised a spear as if to heave it at her, she neatly stopped the creature’” heart. It dropped, truly dead.
As if that were the signal, the rest increased their pace, converging on the five travelers, giving off the stench of rotting flesh.
Torio and Zanos drew their swords, lopping off heads as the mindless beings made no attempt to defend themselves, but pressed forward with knives and spears, attempting to reach their prey, trampling the bodies of the fallen as they came.
And behind them another wave of orbu followed, equally mindless although physically in somewhat better condition, as if Maldek had first sent the most defective ones, the most expendable.
Wave after wave of them surged through the woods, enveloping the five companions in their sheer numbers. Torio could not count how many he killed before one reached him with a knife and gashed his thigh. Too late, he cut the thing’s arm off as another pulled him off his horse and stabbed him in his left biceps.
Wherever he sliced at one, another came from a different direction, slashing at him without aim other than to draw blood. Around him, the others fought equally hard, Dirdra kicking them away, stabbing them with a spear she had picked up from one of them, until finally she, too, disappeared under a mass of bodies.
The latecomers were sturdier-heads and limbs were harder to cut off, and Torio’s strength was giving out. This was not the fighting he was trained in-there was no art here. Zanos grabbed one of the creatures and used it to knock down half a dozen others-but they felt no pain, and were up again at once, charging at him. He looked at one and stopped its heart, but three others caught him from behind, and he went down under their weight.
Torio Read a knife slip between Zanos’ ribs and slice through the vessels in his lung-a death blow if he were not healed almost at once! “Astra!” he shouted-but Zanos’ wife was waging her own private war against the loathsome creatures, swinging a short sword in either hand as he had seen her practicing with Zanos aboard ship.
Torio drove his sword through the heart of another orbu, grabbed the spear it dropped, turned, and lunged at two of them, skewering both on the same spear with their own momentum. The things seemed even more agitated, more determined.
And daring to focus beyond his immediate vicinity, he realized-“Maldek’s run out of them! These are the last!”
His cry gave heart to the other fighters. Slipping on blood and flesh, Torio dispatched the last three in the group attacking him, Read Dirdra fling her way out from under the bodies piled on her, Melissa, the only one still on her horse, stop the hearts of two more, and Astra slash the throats of her three final attackers.
Only Zanos did not move. He was unconscious, under a heap of dead orbu.
Frantically, the other four dug Zanos out. Together, Astra and Melissa stopped his bleeding and closed the wound, but they were exhausted. None of the Adepts could perform further until they had rested-but not here, amid the gore of battle.