"Took you long enough," said the first at hearing footsteps behind them. "A man could die of thirst waiting on you." Guric cleared his throat.
The men whirled. Upon seeing their captain and four armored soldiers before them, all the guards whirled and stood straight, their eyes forward.
"Your companion," said Guric, "has others duties now."
"Yes, Captain," said the chief guard.
He let them stew a moment. Then he motioned to the gates. "Anything to report?"
"Lord Soran is circling them now," said the older guard. "The Nar are scattering. Lord Soran will land soon, I expect."
Guric paced in front of the guards, inspecting each one. All stared straight ahead, none daring to meet his gaze. Good. He needed them pliable.
He stopped before the chief guard and said, "I want both main gates opened and an honor guard lined up outside. Now."
The chief guard's eyes went wide. "M-my lord? I… I don't understand."
"The Knights are about to get most of that rabble on the move," said Guric, "but their chiefs are going to come inside to meet with the High Warden. For a good tongue lashing, I expect."
"My lord," said the chief guard, 'we were not told of any-"
"I am telling you now," said Guric. He took a step forward, putting his nose only inches from the guard's forehead. "Are you questioning my orders?"
The guard swallowed. "Of course not, captain."
Guric turned and stepped away. "Then do it."
"You heard him," said the chief. "Double quick! Get those gates open. I want Hailac near the winch. Everyone else, a line on each side, just inside the gate."
"Make that just outside," said Guric, loud enough for all to hear.
The chief guard frowned. "Outside the gate, captain?"
"The Knights are just outside," said Guric. "Are you really concerned about a half-dozen old men riding past?"
The eight men selected to line up outside the gates all looked decidedly paler, but they gripped their spears in steady hands as the large double doors swung open with a creak of frosty hinges and rattling chains.
Light poured inside the path, and Guric got his first good look of the scene playing out before him.
It had still not warmed enough for the winter snows to melt, but most of it had been trampled by the thousand or more Nar camped before the main gates. Tents, rope palisades, fires-all laid out with no semblance of order. Each tribe staked its claim and camped. When the next came along, they found a place and did the same.
A few hundred feet above the plain nine scythe wings circled and swooped like a monstrous murder of crows. One of them let out a roar, and even from the great height it hit the ears with an almost physical force. Guric could hear horses in the Nar camp neighing in panic, and over them the shouts of their masters as they tried to get their mounts back under control. Three scythe wings descended in a wide spiral. Guric saw that Soran led them.
"Good," said Guric. "Here it comes, you bastard."
"Captain?" said the chief guard. He was looking at Guric with wide eyes.
Guric smiled. "The Nar. Soran will give it to them. Won't he?"
The chief gave a nervous laugh. "As you say, my lord."
The guards had lined up facing each other, forming a path leading into the gate. Guric and the chief walked between them. The four soldiers Guric had brought remained just inside the gate.
The nearest edge of the Nar encampment was a few hundred yards away. Even as Guric and the chief guard stepped past the last of the guards and stopped, a large company of horsemen galloped out of camp and headed right for them.
"That doesn't look like a half-dozen old men," said one of the guards behind them.
Guric said nothing. The man was right. He counted a score and one horsemen, all hardened warriors, all holding bows.
"Captain…?" said the chief guard.
"Rest easy," said Guric. "This will all be over soon."
The Nar rode at an easy canter, not hurrying. Beyond them, Soran had landed his scythe wing, and his rear guardsmen were about to do the same. The ground shook with the approach of the horses.
"Those don't look like chiefs either," said the chief guard.
"No?" said Guric. He smiled and stepped forward, raising a hand to halt the warriors' advance.
The horsemen reined in their mounts and spread into a wide arc. Guric had to give the guardsmen credit. They kept their posts. The chief guard looked on the Nar surrounding them with dismay, but he stood his ground and kept his mouth shut.
It wasn't until the Nar reached over their shoulders for their arrows that the Damaran guards broke and ran.
"Captain!" the chief guard screamed, then the first arrow struck his throat.
Guric stood unmoving as arrows flew past him, some close enough that he felt the wind of their passage. He closed his eyes and listened to the dying shrieks of his men. Arrows found their marks, and the four soldiers he'd left inside the gates did their duty with swords and daggers. Some small part of Guric cringed at the sounds. But then he thought of Valia. He remembered feeling the life slip out of her as he held her hand. He could still feel the cold emptiness of her dead flesh as he held her until dawn. The screams of dying Damarans didn't mean as much anymore.
Something wasn't right. Soran's hackles were already up as he landed his mount, and when he saw the Creel, he understood why. Even in the cold, the Creel was naked from the waist up, and every bit of exposed skin had been painted with arcane symbols. On shoulders, chest, and forehead, the symbols had been cut directly into his flesh, and blood ran down his face. A shaman at the least. But by the wild look in the man's eyes, Soran feared he might be one of the demon binders.
Soran called upon the Loyal Fury.
The Creel, chanting a litany in some language that was not any tongue of the Nar, raised one hand, and a tiny ember of light shot out. But as it flew it seemed to feed on the air, tumbling and growing into a ball of flame.
Soran raised his own hand, and the sigils etched into his gauntlet flared. Holy light engulfed him and his guardsmen, and as a river swallows a stream, so the power of Torm swallowed the dark magic of the Creel.
Then the arrows began to fall.
CHAPTER FIVE
Hweilan took to the trees and did not look back, weaving through the trunks and stumbling over roots hidden under the snow.
When the ground began to slope under her feet, she realized she'd made a poor choice. These woods ran along the arm of the mountain for a ways, then ended on a rocky escarpment. No paths and far too steep to climb.
Hweilan stopped, realizing she had to make it back to the path.
Then she heard sounds of someone coming through the woods, right on her trail. She couldn't see who it was. Among the pine and spruce that stood like silent sentinels on the hillside, she could discern little more than snow under her feet and dark shapes all around.
Hweilan turned, following the grade of the hill in hopes of the graveyard and finding the path again.
Sounds of pursuit grew closer, and she forsook stealth for speed.
"Stop!" said a voice behind her. A man's voice. She risked a glance behind her. It was the Nar. Oruk. Still a ways behind her, lurching over the uneven ground and favoring one leg, but the look of fury on his face…
Hweilan turned and ran, leaping roots and rocks and ducking under branches. She veered uphill, hoping to find the path again.
She saw it, no more than a few dozen paces ahead of her. Risking a glance back, she saw that Oruk had fallen behind but was still coming on.
Hweilan bolted out of the trees and onto the path. A sort of ululating hiss in the air was all the warning she had.
Something struck the back of her leg, right behind the knee, then pulled round both legs. Hweilan went down, throwing both hands in front of her to break the fall. Her father's bow flew out of grasp. She hit the ground hard, her breath forced out of her, and her face skidded over the thin snow on the path.