The treeline along the southern horizon had first appeared early that morning; by the time Bahzell and Brandark stopped at midday, it was clearly defined and far darker.
"Think we'll make the woods by nightfall?" Brandark asked as he dismounted and stood rubbing his posterior.
"Aye." Bahzell was rummaging in a pack saddle, but he looked up to squint at the trees. Wencit had provided them (by means Bahzell preferred not to consider too deeply) with the finest maps he'd ever seen. Unless his reading of them was sadly mistaken, that was the Shipwood, straddling the Spearmen's border with the Purple Lords, and he was relieved to see it. Four days had passed since they parted from Wencit and Zarantha, and he'd been privately certain they'd never make it this far without being overtaken by someone.
It helped that the snow had melted so quickly after the blizzard. Indeed, Bahzell's northern-bred weather instincts were a bit affronted by how rapidly it had vanished, not that he meant to complain. The hard freeze had lasted long enough for them to get free of the marshes, and if the soggy, mucky sod of the plains made less than pleasant hiking, it was infinitely preferable to horse-belly deep snow.
He found the cheese and dried meat he'd hunted for and let the saddle flap fall. Brandark had already unslung the big skin of beer they'd liberated from their enemies, and the two of them hunkered down to eat while they watched their animals browse on the muddy, winter-killed grass.
It had been an eerie sensation, those first three days, to see Wencit and Zarantha riding alongside them. Knowing they weren't really there at all had made Bahzell uneasy at first, but his initial discomfort had faded into fascination with the sheer perfection of the illusion. The false warriors Wencit had conjured up for the attack on the wizards' camp had been exquisitely detailed, but he hadn't had time to pay those details much heed. This time he did, and his instinctive hatred for wizardry had turned into something very like awe as he studied them.
Wencit, he'd decided, was as much artist as wizard. The false Zarantha and Wencit never spoke to either hradani, but they carried on conversations of their own, and every nuance of tone and gesture was perfect. The immaterial images had left illusory hoofprints in the snow until it melted, and cast shadows at precisely the right angle as the sun moved. They cared for their equally unreal horses at each halt, ate from nonexistent plates beside the campfire, even developed fresh travel stains as they splashed across the muddy plains. Wencit had explained that Bahzell's and Brandark's perceptions were part of the spell, feeding back into the illusion to maintain its integrity and update its details, yet even so it had been difficult at times to remember that Zarantha and the wizard weren't really with them.
Until yesterday morning, that was, when the spell abruptly died.
Bahzell had been looking straight at "Wencit" when it happened, and the wizard's sudden disappearance had hit him like a fist. He'd known it was coming, but the illusion had been so real, so solid. It was as if the real Wencit had been snuffed from existence, and the Horse Stealer had felt an icy chill. It had been almost like an omen, a premonition of disaster poised to strike their distant companions, and the thought had been hard to throw off. He'd managed it finally by remembering the real Zarantha's tearful farewell and her fierce demand that he and Brandark promise to visit her in Jash,n before returning home. He'd used that memory like a talisman, proof that the phantom Zarantha who'd vanished with Wencit hadn't been the real one, yet he still caught himself worrying about her at odd moments.
Like now. He snorted at himself and shook the worry away. There was nothing he could do if she was in trouble, and anyone with Wencit of Rūm to look after her had more help than most mortals could imagine asking for. Besides, he and Brandark had their own worries.
He cocked an eye at the sun while he chewed iron-hard jerky. They should make the trees with an hour of daylight to spare, he thought, and he'd be glad to get under their cover. He felt naked out here, more exposed than he'd ever felt on the Wind Plain, for the Sothōii didn't use wizards to hunt for hradani raiders. Still, if Brandark's plan had worked, any ill-intentioned wizards were probably bending their efforts on finding Wencit and Zarantha by now, which meant the two hradani had only their own enemies to deal with.
And it was just possible that they'd reduced those enemies' numbers a bit. Not likely, but possible. They'd left their prisoners the more exhausted of the captured horses—more out of kindness to the beasts than to their riders, Bahzell admitted—and supplies for two or three weeks, and he'd taken time to issue a blunt warning to the senior of the four surviving dog brothers.
"I'm not after being a patient man," he'd said in a flat, cold voice, "and by rights I should be cutting your throat, for we're both knowing what would happen if the boot was on the other foot." He'd seen the fear flickering behind the assassin's eyes and snorted. "Don't be brooding on it, for I'll not do it. Instead, I've a message for your precious guild."
He'd paused, frowning at the assassin until the man could endure the silence no longer and swallowed hard. "A message?" he'd asked, and Bahzell had nodded.
"Aye, a message. By my count, you've spent nigh on sixty men in trying to take my ears, and not a bit of luck have you had. Well, I'm minded to call it even if you are, but call off your hounds while you can, dog brother. You'll find your gold hard earned before you bring me down—and I'll not be so reasonable if it should happen I see another of your kind on my heels." He'd smiled coldly. "So far I've done naught but defend myself, but if it should happen you're minded to keep up the hunt, then I'll be having a little hunt of my own—aye, and a mortal lot of other Horse Stealers with me. I'm thinking your guild won't be so very happy at all, at all, if that happens."
He'd given the suddenly pale assassin one more glare, then stalked away, and now he grinned with wry humor at the memory. His warning might not do a bit of good, he admitted, biting off another rocky lump of jerky, but it had certainly made him feel better.
* * *
They made even better time than Bahzell had estimated. He and Brandark still had three good hours of daylight when they reached the Shipwood and plunged into it, and they were just as glad they did. The shade of the forest's towering trees had choked out the underbrush that could make second-growth woodland a trackless tangle, but it was dark and empty, cold and unwelcoming in its winter bareness.
After so long in open grassland, they felt hemmed in and confined as they picked their way through it. Bahzell led the way, wading ankle deep through wet drifts of fallen leaves, and the trees seemed to brood down on him from all sides. He was an invader here, and they disapproved of his presence.
He tried to brush the thought aside by reminding himself how he'd looked forward to getting under cover, yet he was unhappily aware of his own sudden, contrary longing for the long, clear sight lines of the plains. He might have felt naked and exposed out there, but he'd also felt comfortably certain no one could creep up on them unseen. Now he felt the nape of his neck crawl, as if something were waiting to pounce, and he cursed his nerves.
He looked up uneasily. It was dark under the trees, even in leafless winter, but the sky beyond the web of overhead limbs was still clear and blue. Yet the prickle on the back of his neck only intensified, and he stopped dead, turning in place to scan the wet, silent woods.
"What?" Brandark's soft question felt shockingly loud in the quiet, and Bahzell twitched his ears.
"I'm none too sure," he replied quietly, "but something—"
He broke off, ears going flat to his skull, as wind roared suddenly in the branches above him. The day had been still, without so much as a breeze, and he heard Brandark curse behind him as a fist of air smote the forest. One moment all was still; the next a sucking gale snatched at the trees like angry hands. Limbs creaked and groaned, crying out against the sudden violence, and the afternoon light was abruptly quenched. It didn't fade. It wasn't cut off by moving clouds. It simply died, plunging the forest into inky blackness, and a long, savage roll of thunder smashed through the roar of the unnatural wind.
Bahzell staggered as the tumult crashed about him. Small, broken branches pelted them, and Brandark's horse screamed in panic. The pack animals and remounts caught its fear, lunging against their leads and squealing in terror, and Bahzell leapt in among them to calm them. Brandark fought his horse back under control, then dismounted, clinging to its reins with one hand while he lent Bahzell as much aid as he could with the others, but the shriek of the wind battered at them all. Two of the horses broke free and thundered madly away, then a third, and the wind howl went on and on and on and on.
Fresh thunder crashed, louder even than before. A glare like a hundred lightning bolts lit the forest in lurid light, and Brandark shouted something. Bahzell turned his head, but the Bloody Sword wasn't looking at him; he was staring up, ears flat, lips drawn back in a snarl. Bahzell followed his gaze upward—and froze as thunder smashed the heavens yet again.
There was more than thunder in that wind-sick darkness. There was something huge and black, riding the maelstrom on batlike wings. He couldn't see it clearly, but what little he could see was the stuff of nightmares. The glare of lightning leapt back from ebon hide and scale and bony plates, and the hideous shape swept back around, circling like a hawk in search of prey.
Thunder crashed in a final, shattering spasm, more terrible than any that had come before, and then, as suddenly as a slamming door, it died. The wind eased—a little—and both pack mules broke their leads and galloped frantically into the blackness.
"BAHZELL!" The deafening bellow was louder than the thunder had been. It split the darkness like an axe, huge and inhuman, a hissing, cackling sound mortal ears had never been meant to hear. "BAHZELL!" it shrieked again, and Brandark snatched his eyes back down from the heavens to stare at his friend.
Neither spoke. They simply turned as one, dragging their remaining horses with them, and fled while that hideous voice howled across the sky.
The vast, inhuman bellow roared Bahzell's name once more, and unaccustomed panic gripped him. The packhorse he led squealed, lunging against the lead rein in terror as it caught on a low-hanging branch, and he swore as he jerked the leather free. The forest was darker than the pits of Krahana, trees loomed like the rough-barked legs of monsters intent on tripping him up, and still that guttural voice shrieked his name. Brandark's horse went to its knees, and Bahzell slithered to a halt, waiting while the Bloody Sword wrenched the beast back up lest they lose track of one another in the blackness.
Something crashed behind them, like a dozen city gates splintering under a score of rams, and his name hooted and gibbered at them out of the darkness. They redoubled their pace, running blindly, bouncing off trees, stumbling over uneven ground, and the crashing, splintering sounds pursued them. Bahzell could picture the monster ripping entire trees out by the roots, throwing them aside as it rampaged through the forest in pursuit. He heard Brandark's desperate panting beside him as his friend gasped for breath, knew they could run no faster, but the sounds of shattering wood were overtaking them quickly, and he swore savagely. They couldn't outrun something that could batter whole trees from its path, and the thought of being pulled down from behind while he ran like a panicked rabbit was too much to endure.
The ground angled suddenly upward, and he staggered as the abrupt slope surprised him. He scrubbed sweat from his eyes, chest heaving, and saw a hill like a bare, black knob. A long-ago fire had created a clearing about it, and he turned his head as Brandark slithered to a stop beside him.
"We won't . . . find . . . a better spot!" the Bloody Sword gasped, and Bahzell nodded grimly. At least if they faced whatever it was out here it couldn't drop trees on them—unless it brought a trunk or two with it.
"Keep going!" he panted back, but Brandark shook his head. He was already leading the two horses he still had towards the top of the hill, and he actually managed a grin as he looked back over his shoulder.
"No point!" he shouted. "D'you honestly think I can outrun that?!"
Bahzell swore again, but his friend was probably right—and there was no time to argue. He followed Brandark up the hill, and the two of them tethered their remaining horses to the burned out snag of a mammoth oak. Bahzell took time to make sure the knot was secure—partly because he'd need the packhorse's supplies in the improbable event that he survived, but mainly because it was something to do besides simply stand there—then drew his sword. He walked to the very crest of the hill and stood gazing back the way he'd come, and bright, sharp fear filled his mouth. He knew his capabilities; he also knew this was a foe no man could fight and win.
Brandark scrambled up beside him, his own sword in hand, and wind whined about their ears. A faint, corpse-green glow lit the sky above them, and they stood silhouetted against it, listening to the crash of toppling trees as the bat-winged horror stormed towards them. Bahzell's starving lungs sucked in enormous gulps of air after his long, stumbling run, and then he stiffened as an enormous oak toppled in a smash of splintered limbs and shattered trunk. That tree had to be sixty feet tall, but it crashed to earth and bounced, and a monstrous form—all spider legs and bat wings and huge, fanged, pincer-armed head—stalked down its broken length like a dream of Hell taken flesh.
"BAHZELL!" it howled, and started up the slope.
It was an obscene mix of insect and bat, moving with the darting vitality of a lizard, and foot-long fangs clashed as it snapped its jaws and screamed his name. He remembered Tomanāk's description of demons as something so weak they were hard for the gods to "see" and knew in that moment that he never wanted to meet anything the gods could see clearly. The thing's breath hissed and bubbled, strands of emerald spittle drooled from its teeth and pincers, and the stench of an open grave blew to them from it.
"Ah, Bahzell," Brandark's tenor was unnaturally clear, almost calm, through the wind and the noise of wood splitting in talons of night-black horn, "I realize you've been having something of a religious crisis lately, and I'd never dream of pushing you one way or another. But if you have been considering accepting Tomanāk's offer, well, this might be a very good time for it."
Bahzell gritted his teeth, eyes fixed on the approaching demon. The Rage glittered within him, already reaching out to claim him, yet Brandark's words echoed through it, and he felt a sudden, terrible suspicion. Had Tomanāk known this would happen? Worse, had he arranged for it to trap Bahzell into his service? Twelve hundred years of distrust shouted that the god had done just that, but only for an instant. Just long enough for him to recognize it . . . and reject it instantly. Tomanāk was the god of justice, and justice could be hard, but it didn't lie—and neither did its patron.
More than that, there was no need for Tomanāk to entrap him. Not now. For Tomanāk had been right; Bahzell had only thought he knew what evil was. Now he saw its very embodiment flowing up the muddy slope towards him and realized the War God had known him better than he'd known himself. Bahzell Bahnakson could not look upon such horror and vileness, couldn't picture it stalking someone else, and not fight it. His terror flashed like spits of lightning, and the oncoming demon turned his bowels to water as no mortal foe ever had. He wanted desperately to turn and flee once more, and it wasn't the Rage that stopped him and stiffened his spine. It was outrage stronger even than his fear. The recognition of evil . . . and the knowledge, the acceptance, that it was what he'd been born and bred to fight.
"All right!" he howled to the wind. "If it's wanting me you are, then have me you can!"
He raised his sword in both hands, and the steel flashed like a mirror as a bolt of savage blue lightning split the darkness. He felt it strike the five-foot blade, run down it, flare up his arms and stutter in his heart, and his lips drew back in the snarl of the Rage.
"Bahzell, no!" Brandark screamed. "I didn't mean alone, you idiot!"
The Bloody Sword clutched at his friend's harness, but too late. Bahzell launched himself down the slope at the armored monstrosity that shrieked his name, and a new war cry ripped from his throat in answer.
"Tomanāk!" he bellowed, and the demon reared up on four legs, fanning its bat wings and howling in fury at the sound of that name. Two forelimbs spread wide, reaching out, and for all his towering inches, Bahzell was a pygmy as he charged straight into its grasp.
Brandark shouted a despairing curse and floundered down the hill in Bahzell's wake, then bounced back with a bone-shaking crash as he ran full tilt into an unseen barrier. He staggered back upright, smashing at the invisible wall with his sword and all the fury of his own Rage, but it refused to yield. He couldn't pass it, couldn't follow. He could only watch in sick horror as his best friend hurled himself at his titanic foe.
"BAHZELL!" the demon thundered yet again, lashing out with talonlike claws thicker than Bahzell's arm, but the Horse Stealer twisted impossibly, still hurtling forward. A slime-dripping claw grated along his mail, ripping away a shower of iron scales, and his sword whistled down in a two-handed blow. It struck like a steel avalanche, and eye-tearing blue light flashed as it sheared through segmented bony armor and flesh. Viscous blood spouted, and the monster shrieked and snatched the wounded limb back as if from the heart of a fire, but its other forelimb slashed in to strike Bahzell from behind.
The impact hurled him from his feet. He hit hard, bouncing through the muddy ash of the ancient forest fire, slithering on his belly, but somehow he retained his sword. He twisted around, slowing his headlong sprawl, and rolled back to his knees, and he was under the demon. Its belly loomed above him, plated in thick black scales, and the monster tossed its head, searching for its prey while it howled.
There was no more fear in Bahzell Bahnakson. The Rage was upon him, and something else came with it. A terrible something, equally bright yet hotter—a focused purpose, a total concentration, that melded with the Rage. It fanned the Rage, fueled it, wrapped it about him and drove him to his feet.
Brandark slid down the invisible wall, and his eyes were huge as Bahzell lunged upright under the demon's belly. The Horse Stealer glowed in the darkness, glittering with a blinding blue corona. A stab of brilliance flashed along his blade as he thrust straight upward, and the demon shrieked as three feet of flaming steel punched through its scales.
The monster hurled itself backward with a bubbling, head-lashing howl and curled its wounded forelimb against its body, twisting back and forth while thick, stinking blood pulsed from its belly. It stood that way for one endless second, staring at the hradani mite who'd dared set steel to its flesh, and Bahzell snarled into its faceted, insect eyes.
"Come on, then!" he bellowed, and the demon's head swept down in a murderous arc. Its pincers plowed leaf mold and earth as they ripped back up in a stroke fit to disembowel a titan, and Bahzell stepped straight into them. He brought his blade down to meet them in a howling half-circle of light, and the splintering sound of that impact shook the forest.
Nothing mortal could have withstood the force of the demon's attack, and Bahzell flew backward. He crashed into the oak it had torn to splinters and bounced from the riven trunk, but his explosive grunt of anguish was lost in the monster's scream as its pincer split. Not even Bahzell's stupendous blow could shear it off, but the slick black horn tore and cracked, dangling uselessly, and the Horse Stealer staggered back to his feet.
"Tomanak!" he bellowed once more, slashing out in a perfectly timed stroke, and the demon shrieked afresh as glowing steel split one huge eye. The maimed head jerked back and away, and then Bahzell was under it once more, and his sword spat blue fire as it sheared through the monster's other foreleg.
Brandark Brandarkson crouched on his knees, fighting to believe his own eyes, as the demon crashed half on its side under the fury of Bahzell's attack. It clawed back up, scattering mud and leaves and the splintered limbs of trees, and Bahzell's sword crashed down again. Split scales spat shards of horn, blood spouted, and the demon screamed yet again—this time with a high, squealing note of panic—and scrabbled away from its tiny foe.
But Bahzell followed it, wading into its stench and fury, hurling blow after blow into its teeth. It clawed and bit, but it was half-blind, half-crippled by the damage to its limbs. Flailing wings kept it upright, yet it had lost its lizard-quick sureness. It floundered and beat at him, and he staggered under its massive blows, but he kept his footing, and his blade howled in his hands. He was too close for the demon's fangs to get a clear stroke at him, and he was a thing of steel and wires, not flesh and bone. Tireless and implacable, absorbing the frantic blows he couldn't avoid and striking again and again and again.
The demon slipped and half fell once more, then lunged up, wings beating madly, but that terrible blue sword smashed into its left wing. It sheared through gristle and muscle and bone, and the monster's wordless bellow of agony filled the world. It turned on Bahzell with renewed fury, yet now it was the fury of desperation, and Bahzell howled Tomanāk's name yet again and flung himself bodily upon it.
A boot lashed out, driving its toe into the spouting wound in the demon's wing. A leg straightened, and Brandark stared in disbelief as Bahzell vaulted up onto the monster's back. The creature shook itself, frantic to throw him off, but he flung his blade back over his shoulder, and even through the demon's bellows, Brandark heard his grunt as he brought the sword down.
Five feet of razored steel—and that glittering blue nimbus—exploded across a sinuous, armored neck with an ear-shattering CRACK! It ripped through half-inch scale like tissue, bit deep into unnatural flesh, and the demon stiffened with a whip-crack jerk of agony. For one instant it stood, fanged mouth open in a terrible, soundless shriek, and then it crashed down, toppling in dreadful slow motion—a mountain of horn and scale crumbling in on itself—and took Bahzell with it in its ruin.