That realization was underscored for Magda when the ogre's next blow knocked her from her feet. She kept her hold on Gard, countering with a strike that broke the brute's leg. Still she was vulnerable, if the ogre could only take advantage of the situation.
Fortunately, he couldn't.
Sabak entered the fray, having finished off his own adversary. As the wounded ogre hobbled forward, the hound sank his teeth into the brute's side. He came away with a mouthful of rusted chain mail and more than a little of the flesh beneath. When the ogre toppled, Sabak went for his throat.
A weird howl drew Magda's attention back to Lord Soth. The death knight stood at the bridge's center, arms raised over his head. The air behind him had split open. In full battle regalia, thirteen banshees thundered out of the torn sky. They rode chariots of bone drawn by wyverns. The dragon-winged beasts lifted them high over the bridge, but only long enough to choose a victim. The howling spirits descended upon the troops trapped on the Sithican side of the span.
Magda watched in horror as the banshees drew their weapons, swords and flails of ice, and attacked. The humans tried to run, but that only fueled the wyverns' battle lust. The beasts lashed out at the soldiers with talons, impaling them with barbed tails. Those few the wyverns spared were cut down by the banshees long before they reached safety.
The ogres fared no better. Soth slaughtered the few remaining on the bridge. The rest fell to Sabak or the banshees. The brutes who had yet to climb onto the bridge were the fortunate ones. Their awkwardness or their fear of Soth had left them some hope of escape. Using the bridge as cover, they stumbled back to the Invidian shore. Onkar, the ogre with the missing nose, led the retreat. They skirted the wall of ice, which had finally begun to show the effects of the archers' steel, and vanished into the woods.
For her part, Magda sat in the midst of the carnage and mourned-though for whom, she could not really tell. Herself, she supposed. Gore-spattered and aching, she watched Soth clean his blade on one of the fallen ogres. A wyvern waited patiently for the death knight to be done with the corpse before it began to tear apart the prize. Even Sabak joined in the feasting.
A chill that penetrated even her numbed soul told Magda that Soth was near. She looked up into the gathering darkness and found the death knight standing over her. He was staring at something near the Sithican end of the bridge. Without a word, Soth drew his blade again and walked off. Magda levered herself to her feet and followed.
As she neared the death knight, Magda was able to see what had drawn his attention. In the midst of several dismembered soldiers, so gore-soaked that he had been discounted as a corpse himself, knelt the half-elf. How he had escaped the melee was anyone's guess.
"The battle is over," Soth said.
The half-elf held out empty hands. "I have no weapon," he said piteously. "Please."
Soth studied the half-elf for a moment. Then a flicker of recognition sparked in his eyes. "Tanis Half-Elven," he said venomously.
"No, my lord," replied the half-elf. "Stefan of Mal-Erek."
"Flee then, Stefan of Mal-Erek. You are unarmed, and I follow the Measure even now." Soth's voice chilled the blood-heated air. "Carry your disgrace with you as you leave this land."
The half-elf staggered across the bridge and over the chunks of ice from the felled wall. Magda could almost feel the death knight's disdain for the youth. She asked him about it, though his reply was cryptic.
"I knew one like him on Krynn," Soth said. "His kind was never suited to the sword."
From across the bridge, touched by the final, fading light of day, Malocchio Aderre called out. "This," he cried, indicating the carnage with a broad sweep of his arm, "this means nothing."
Without moving, Soth replied, "You are correct, child lord. I swept aside this attack as if it were nothing. So, too, with any other annoyances you send against me." He sheathed his sword. "We can agree to end this now, since 1 have no further time for such foolishness."
Malocchio ordered his remaining troops to mount. He lingered a moment longer, though, his black-clad form indistinguishable from the gathering gloom of night.
"You're correct, Soth," he said at last. "For now, you have more pressing problems than me, bogey men under your bed with prior claim. But you, Vistana-" again Malocchio Aderre warded himself "-I am your worst fear. I am your only fear."
With those words hanging in the air, Malocchio Aderre vanished. To their credit, the soldiers held their ground for almost ten seconds before fleeing headlong down the road.
"You are under my protection," was all Soth said as he turned and strode away from the bridge.
Magda Kulchevich found, some comfort in those words, but not nearly enough.
Six
There was a dank coolness to the vardo that comforted Inza. The wagon's high shutters were open, which Magda never tolerated so late in the year, and the curtains were drawn tight to keep out even the starlight. The ashes were cold in the stove.
Magda was not there to object. Not two days after her encounter with Lord Aderre, she'd taken to the road, only Sabak by her side. The sudden leave-taking had surprised her troupe; though Inza and the others sometimes traveled for weeks on their own, Magda rarely spent more than a few hours away from the Wanderers. This time, though, she had been gone for eight days. The troupe still had no idea what quest had prompted her to abandon them so soon after Malocchio's threats and a battle that had clearly left her shaken.
Inza didn't really care why her mother had gone, only hoped that her business kept her for a while longer. Not too long, of course, but time enough for the girl to enjoy some privacy.
Except for the time it had taken to handle one minor task she could trust to no one else, Inza hadn't left the vardo for more than a few moments in the past eight days. Much of her time had been spent admiring the intricately carved wooden chest she'd retrieved from Ambrose. The box still held salt, payment for the other goods they'd traded to the mine store. Soon enough, though, the troupe would journey to the border and turn the salt into gold or wine or some other commodity with more value in Sithicus. When they had done so, she would have the chest for her treasures.
There was something hypnotic about the patterns on the chest's lid. Now, as she had done each night since her mother's departure, Inza carefully withdrew the chest from beneath her cot. She ran her fingers over the tangled vines. Not even the deep scratches left by some clumsy oaf at Ambrose's shop could diminish their appeal.
She might have spent hours contemplating those twisting, twining vines, had not a shrill cry from the camp disturbed her meditation.
"By Nuitari's black glow, who has done this?"
It was her mother's voice. Better that she's returned, Inza noted silently. Better that we get this unpleasantness over with.
The girl sighed, pushed herself to her feet, and brushed the dust from her scarlet skirt. Carefully, so as not to disturb any of the junk her mother so prized, she made her way to the entrance. Flinging aside the jewel-spangled cloth that served as the vardo's door, Inza stepped out into the night.
Magda stood beside the communal fire, her travel pack at her feet. Dust caked her boots and legs. Her cloak hung in tatters from her shoulders.
"Why, Mother," Inza said sweetly, "I'm glad you've come back to us. I was worried."
Inza danced down the wagon's steps and entangled her mother in a hug not all that dissimilar from the clinging embrace of the carved vines she so admired. "You must be exhausted," the girl said, still hanging from Magda's neck. "Rest by the fire and let me fix you something warm."