And Khadgar plummeted toward the armed darkness below.
4
Battle and Aftermath
The air rushed out of Khadgar’s lungs as he struck the ground. The earth was gritty beneath his fingers, and he realized he must have landed on a low dune of sandy debris collected along one side of the ridge.
Uneasily the young mage rose to his feet. From the air the ridge looked like a forest fire. From the ground it looked like an opening to hell itself.
The wagons were almost completely consumed by fire now, their contents scattered and blazing along the ridge. Bolts of cloth had been unwound in the dirt, barrels staved and leaking, and food despoiled and mashed into the earth. Around him were bodies as well, human forms dressed in light armor. There was an occasional gleam of a helmet or a sword. Those would be the caravan guards, who failed their task.
Khadgar shrugged a painful shoulder, but it felt bruised as opposed to broken. Even given the sand, he should have landed harder. He shook his head, hard. Whatever ache was left from Medivh’s spell was outweighed by greater aches elsewhere.
There was movement among the wreckage, and Khadgar crouched. Voices barked back and forth in an unfamiliar tongue, a language to Khadgar’s ears both guttural and blasphemous. They were searching for him. They had seen him topple from his mount and now they were searching for him. As he watched, stooped figures shambled through the wreckage, forming hunched silhouettes where they passed before the flames.
Something tickled the back of Khadgar’s brain, but he could not place it. Instead he started to back out of the clearing, hoping the darkness would keep him hidden from the creatures.
Such was not to be. Behind him, a branch snapped or a booted foot found a chuckhole covered by leaves, or leather armor was tangled briefly in some brush. In any event, Khadgar knew he was not alone, and he turned at once to see…
A monstrosity from his vision. A mockery of humanity in green and black.
It was not as large as the creature of his vision, nor as wide, but it was still a nightmare creature. Its heavy jaw was dominated by fangs that jutted upward, its other features small and sinister. For the first time Khadgar realized it had large, upright ears. It probably heard him before it saw him.
Its armor was dark, but it was leather and not the metal of his dream. The creature bore a torch in one hand that caught the deep features of its face, making it all the more monstrous. In its other hand the creature carried a spear decorated with a string of small white objects. With a start Khadgar realized the objects were human ears, trophies of the massacre around them.
All this came to Khadgar in an instant, in the moment’s meeting of man and monster. The beast pointed the grisly-decorated spear at the youth and let out a bellowing challenge.
The challenge was cut short as the young mage muttered a word of power, raised a hand, and unleashed a small bolt of power through the creature’s midsection. The beast slumped in on itself, its bellow cut short.
One part of his mind was stunned by what he had just done, the other knew that he had seen what these creatures could do, in the vision in Karazhan.
The creature had warned the other members of its unit, and now there were war-howls in return around the encampment. Two, four, a dozen such travesties, all converging on his location. Worse yet, there were other howls from the swamp itself.
Khadgar knew he did not have the power to repulse all of them. Summoning the mystic bolt was enough to weaken him. Another would put him in dire danger of fainting. Perhaps he should try to flee?
But these monsters probably knew the dark fen that surrounded them better than he did. If he kept to the sandy ridge, they would find him. If he fled into the swamp, not even Medivh would be able to locate him.
Khadgar looked up into the sky, but there was no sign of either the Magus or the gryphons. Had Medivh landed somewhere, and was sneaking up on the monsters? Or had he returned to the human force to the south, to bring them here?
Or, thought Khadgar grimly, had Medivh’s quicksilver mood changed once again and he had forgotten he had someone with him on this flight?
Khadgar looked quickly out into the darkness, then back toward the site of the ambush itself. There were more shadows moving around the fire, and more howling.
Khadgar picked up the grisly trophy-spear, and strode purposely toward the fire. He might not be able to fire off more than a mystic bolt or two, but the monsters didn’t know that.
Perhaps they were as dumb as they looked. And as inexperienced with wizards as he was with them.
He did surprise them, for what it was worth. The last thing they expected was their prey, the victim they had unseated from its flying mount, suddenly to manifest at the edge of the campfire’s light, bearing the trophy-spear of one of their guards.
Khadgar tossed the spear sideways on the fire, and it sent up a shower of sparks as it landed.
The young mage summoned a bit of flame, a small ball, and held it in his hand. He hoped that it limned his features as seriously as the torch had lit the guard’s. It had better.
“Leave this place,” Khadgar bellowed, praying that his strained voice would not crack. “Leave this place or die.”
One of the larger brutes took two steps forward and Khadgar muttered a word of power. The mystic energies congealed around his flaming hand and blasted the green nonhuman full in the face. The brute had enough time to raise a clawed hand to its ruined features before it toppled.
“Flee,” shouted Khadgar, trying to pitch his voice as deeply as he could, “Flee or face the same fate.” His stomach felt like ice, and he tried not to stare at the burning creature.
A spear launched out of the darkness, and with the last of his energy Khadgar summoned a bit of air, just enough to push it clearly aside. As he did he felt faint. That was the last he could do. He was well and truly tapped out. It would be a good time for his bluff to work.
The surrounding creatures, about a dozen visible, took a step back, then another. One more shout, Khadgar reckoned, and they would flee back into the swamp, and give him enough time to flee himself. He had already decided he would flee south, toward the army encampment.
Instead there was a high, cackling laugh that froze Khadgar’s blood. The ranks of the green warriors parted and another figure shambled forward. It was thinner and more hunched than the others, and wore a robe the color of curdled blood. The color of the sky of Khadgar’s vision. Its features were as green and misshapened as the others, but this one has a gleam of feral intelligence in its eyes.
It held out its hand, palm upward, and took a dagger and pierced its palm with the tip. Reddish blood pooled in the clawed palm.
The robed beast spoke a word that Khadgar had never heard, a word that hurt the ears, and the blood burst into flame.
“Human wants to play?” said the robed monster, roughly matching the human language. “Wants to play at spells? Nothgrin can play!”
“Leave now,” tried Khadgar. “Leave now or die!”
But the young mage’s voice wavered now, and the robed mockery merely laughed. Khadgar scanned the area around him, looking for the best place to run, wondering if he could grab one of the guard’s swords laying on ground. He wondered if this Nothgrin was bluffing as much as Khadgar had been.
Nothgrin took a step toward Khadgar, and two of the brutes to the spellcaster’s right suddenly screamed and burst into flame. It happened with a suddenness that shocked everyone, including Khadgar. Nothgrin wheeled toward the immolated creatures, to see two more join them, bursting into flame like dry sticks. They screamed as well, their knees buckling, and they toppled to the ground.
In the place where the creatures had been now stood Medivh. He seemed to glow of his own volition, diminishing the main fire, the burning wagons, and the burning corpses on the ground, sucking their light into himself. He seemed radiant and relaxed. He smiled at the collected creatures, and it was a savage, brutal smile.