Redoubt Read online

  Calling on every bit of his Kirball-field skill, and replicating a trick he and Dallen had practiced over and over, Mags launched himself at Dallen’s back at exactly the same time that Dallen skidded to a halt beside the wagon, turned on a single hoof, and hurtled back toward the forest. Mags landed just behind the saddle, and grabbed for the cantle with his left hand, rather than grabbing for the belt around Franse’s waist. Poor Franse was going to have a hard enough time staying on without him pulling the young priest about, whereas Mags could probably hang upside down under Dallen’s belly and be all right.

  Most of the soldiers were watching the fight unfold between their black-robes and the kidnappers. The other two black-robes now stood in a ring of dark, smoky shapes that were beginning to resemble the thing Mags had fought. The chief black-robe was struggling against Kan-li, who had tossed the chain of the amulet around his neck and was trying to strangle him with it. The few Karsites who’d seen Dallen burst out of the forest and were assuming he was going to charge across the clearing were caught off-guard when he reversed and leaped back the way he had come. They had begun moving to cut him off, but now he was racing away from them too quickly for them to switch from swords to bows.

  There was only one man between them and the forest, a common Karsite soldier who was coming for them with upraised sword. He had a bushy, blond beard, and his mouth was open in a yell. Dallen cut left, and Mags spun the chain in his right hand three times and smashed at the man’s head as if he was sending a Kirball into the goal. The man went down in a spray of blood as Franse winced and whimpered. Poor Franse; he’d probably gotten splattered. The soldier had been wearing an open helm, and the chain hadn’t left much of his face.

  :Hang on, Mags,: Dallen said grimly as they raced into the trees, then came out again on a road that wound through the darkening valley. Dallen’s hooves pounded on the clean, hard surface, and the sound echoed off the walls of the valley. :The black-robes are calling their demons now the sun is down, and it’s even odds whether they’ll go after the kidnappers or us.:

  :We’ll just see about that,: Reaylis responded, Mindvoice tight with fury. :Come on, Franse! Snap to!:

  The Suncat uttered an eerie wail, setting every hair on end. It went on and on, and Mags noticed with a start that the Suncat began to glow too. But not with the sullen red glow of the black-robes’ hands nor the unsettling orange of the kidnappers’—this was a true sun yellow, pure and clean.

  And increasingly bright.

  Well, they weren’t going to make it hard for their pursuers to find them . . .

  :That’s not an issue,: Dalen snapped. :We’re making for White Foal by the fastest route, and that’s the road, and they know it. Our only hope is to outdistance the humans and fend off the demons.:

  Franse was hunched down in the saddle, and although Mags couldn’t see his face, he had the impression the young priest’s eyes were still squeezed tightly closed. But Franse wasn’t frozen with fear now. He was . . . doing something. Working with Reaylis, somehow. Maybe feeding that sun glow?

  :How far are we?: he asked Dallen.

  :Half a candlemark, at my speed. They figured to throw off the Karsites by heading in the least likely direction.:

  Well . . . half a candlemark could be an eternity. But Companions were faster than any horse and had more endurance than any ten horses. So it would be the demons that would be the—

  He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, a shadowy thing coming out of the darkness beyond Reaylis’ glow, and reflexively slashed at it with the chain.

  The demon howled and careened away, back into the darkness. Mags felt a rush of elation. So he could actually hurt these things!

  :Sun and iron,: said Dallen. :Franse and Reaylis are supplying the sun.:

  Indeed, by this time Reaylis was glowing so brightly they were actually illuminating the road as brightly as if they were carrying a bonfire with them.

  Mags got the sudden urge to “join” with Franse and Reaylis in something like the way he was already joined with Dallen. He didn’t even question the impulse, he just held out a mental “hand” and felt it grasped, and through that connection came a warming, pure strength.

  Another demon howled up from behind them; Mags sensed it was wailing from the pain of the light and that only a greater pain was coercing it to come at them. But it couldn’t hold up to Mags smashing the chain through it; it actually fell apart as the chain went through it, a disconcerting and somewhat grisly sight. Bits and ichor flew everywhere. The ichor that landed on all of them melted away in the light from the Suncat. It burned with cold where it touched Mags’ skin, but the sensation faded immediately.

  :Of course. We accepted the Blessing of the Sun,: Dallen said absently. :Or you did for both of us.:

  :You are the Sword of the Sunlord. We are the Shield,: Franse added, then another demon roared in from the side, and Mags fended it off. This one was bigger and stronger; he spun the chain in a figure eight to fend off the claws until he got an opening to slash sideways through the body; and like the others, it exploded into goo and bits.

  Not so much Sword as Flail, he thought absently, grateful now that the Weaponsmaster trained them to use anything that came to hand. Him, in particular, given what he was doing for Nikolas.

  :UP!: shouted Dallen, and without even glancing upward, he swung the chain in a circle over his head, causing an explosion of demon parts as the creature dove straight into the chain.

  Another came up from behind at the same time and actually snared its claws in Dallen’s tail. It howled with pain, and smoke sizzled up from the place where it was caught, until Mags silenced it with a horizontal slash across its middle.

  Dallen raced on through the darkness as Mags intercepted demon after demon with either his chain or his fist. The fisted hand took some nasty slashes, but although the cuts burned for a little, it was nothing like the first time he’d fought a demon. There was none of that sense of being poisoned.

  He was losing blood, though . . . and he could feel his arms getting tired and sore.

  We can’t keep this up forever.

  The Suncat’s light was dimming too. He and Franse were getting tired, too.

  The demons understood this all too well. They started coming not singly but in twos and threes. Mags was forced to keep the chain in constant motion, weaving a web of protection all around them, but now the demons were able to get through it with a slash or a cut. Mostly, they didn’t connect, but sometimes they did.

  There was a glow ahead. Up there, on the road, a light. Torches!

  Was it the Guard? Or had the Karsites left an ambush when they came to confront Kan-li and Levor?

  :Karsites,: said Dallen.

  His heart plummeted. It fell even more when the torchlight glinted off the points of the two or three dozen spears that were pointed in their direction. The Karsites had taken up the standard defense against a cavalry charge—three ranks of spears, butts set against the ground, points pointed at the horse. Mags was so transfixed with horror that a demon got through with a slash to his bicep before he drove it away.

  :Hang on!: Dallen shouted, and he put on a burst of speed that made Mags drop the chain and hold to the cantle of the saddle with both hands.

  Mags barely had the chance to register Karsite uniforms in the torchlight, when Dallen made an incredible leap, vaulted right over the waiting spearmen, then barreled through the troops behind the spearmen, ramming horses and men with scant regard for either, using everything he and Mags had learned on the Kirball field. His actions took the Karsites completely by surprise; they must have been expecting that once Dallen saw them, he’d either stop or try to turn and run. They certainly had not expected him to leap over their spears, then ram his way through the rest of the troops. Then again . . . while they knew about Companions, they
clearly didn’t know what one could do. And Dallen was a superb athlete among Companions.

  In moments, Dallen was on the open road again. Mags dared a glance back, seeing the milling soldiers trying to reorganize themselves. They just had not prepared for this.

  They certainly didn’t expect what was following their quarry, either.

  The following wave of demons hit the bewildered troops, a tide of black and shadowy shapes full of razor claws and needle teeth. Someone tried to fight back, reflexively, and the screaming started.

  The demons clearly didn’t care who they tore into, and when the first rank of soldiers attacked by instinct, they turned their wrath on something that wasn’t running away. The Karsites were unprotected by priests. And the black-robes responsible for sending the damned things hadn’t seen fit to leave them with any protection, either. To the demons, these were just easier targets, much preferable to chasing something that hurt them with Sun and Iron. They were perfectly happy—if demons could be happy—to turn their attention to the soldiers.

  Mags turned his face away and shut his ears to it as Dallen galloped toward the Border, the road ahead illuminated gently by the golden glow of Vkandis.

  And in the distance was the faint glow of more torches.

  Theirs, this time.

  * * *

  It was a flawless autumn day. It would be a little colder in Haven, and according to Dallen, the leaves were in full turn. Mags was sorry he was missing it, but the messages of welcome and relief that had come down to him partly made up for that.

  It felt as if he had been away a year, though it hadn’t been more than a moon or so. The Healers here had not wanted to let him go back up until they were absolutely certain that the drugs he’d been fed were all out of his system, his mind was sound, and his wounds were not going to suddenly do something uncanny.

  Evidently that was a problem with demon wounds when you didn’t have a Suncat around. Franse and Reaylis had more or less promised to slip across the border every couple of weeks from now on to make sure that there was no one on the Valdemaran side suffering from them, and the Healers had more-or-less promised to bring anyone that was so afflicted here.

  There was no sign of trouble from the road to White Foal Pass. Even Reaylis could not say whether the kidnappers had died at the hands of the black-robes or vice versa, but given that they had faced not only three Demon Summoners, but an entire troop of Karsite soldiers, Mags thought that for once they might have met their match. Neither he nor any of the other Heralds could sense that curious presence that their talismans lent them.

  It was moot, anyway. If they had survived, whatever happened next was going to depend on the decision of their leader, this “Shadao,” and by then . . . well, Mags was not going to be sitting around idle for the next several months.

  He took a deep breath of the leaf-scented air, stretched, and headed for the tent where the glass grinder was working on the last touches to Franse’s lenses. But Franse beat him by emerging from the tent before he got there, followed by Reaylis, tail held high.

  “Leather, huh?” Mags examined the lenses strapped around Franse’s head with a critical eye. Unlike Bear’s lenses, which were held in place with wire, or a set he had seen that had been set into a wooden frame, these had been sewn into a sort of leather half-mask that buckled at the back. The leather-maker who’d made the frame had had the amusing conceit of using a leather that matched the dark, brownish-red of the Suncat’s face, so that when the two of them turned to look at Mags, he saw two masked faces with big eyes looking at him.

  “It is making more sense in forest,” the young priest said, and shrugged. “I am glad making of lenses is over. ‘Is clearer or smaller? Is clearer, or smaller?’ I am hearing that even in dreams.” But he grinned, and Mags grinned back.

  There had been no more interference the rest of the way to the Border, where they had been met by an entire Guard company, five Heralds, two Healers, and a Valdemaran red-robe priest of Vkandis who had a tiny temple on the Valdemar side of the Border and protected this part of it from the demons. He didn’t have a Suncat, and he greeted the sight of Reaylis with disbelief and awe that pleased Franse and that Reaylis accepted as nothing less than his due.

  After all, he was a cat.

  It had taken about a week to round up a lens maker and grind lenses for Franse, and meanwhile the two of them had recovered from exhaustion and wounds.

  Now Franse was returning to Karse, something that had surprised everyone but Dallen and Mags. After what Reaylis had said to him, Mags was not at all surprised to hear that Franse’s sense of duty to his people was sending him home again.

  Well, not exactly “home.”

  “I cannot return to cave, is nothing to return to,” Franse had said philosophically. “Anyway, is no one there is needing us. Here . . . is need.” Then he grinned. “Also, is supplying whatever I need, your Guard. If home is ruined again, no worry, just to be filling out Valdemar requisition! Ha!”

  And now that he had a safe harbor over the Border to retreat to at need—not to mention the ability to see what he was doing—there was nothing to hold him back from helping wherever he could.

  “I’m going to miss you, but I’m glad you’re going back,” Mags said, sincerely.

  Franse clapped him on the back. “Now that skinny little Northerner has given me eyes and courage?” He laughed. “Rabbits, beware! But you—you have task ahead of you as well, my friend. Harder than mine.”

  “Different. Not harder.” Mags already knew he had a puzzle to unravel . . . not to mention a lot to deal with. He had some vague ideas, but right now he needed to talk to wiser heads than his. Not to mention find a way to sort through that tumble of memory-fragments that, for the moment, were just sealed away in a part of his mind until he found a way to deal with them. But the past could not be ignored any longer.

  Franse nodded. “Well. You and I both part tomorrow. What of tonight?”

  Mags slowly grinned. “You ain’t been to the inn here yet, have you?”

  “I have been too busy with pieces of glass and discussions with my fellow priest. And sleeping and healing. Why?” Franse and Reaylis both tilted their heads to the side, looking oddly alike.

  “Because they make the best rabbit stew you ever tasted,” Mags said with satisfaction.

  :Oh, DO lead on!: said Reaylis before Franse could answer, licking his chops. :And take notes, Franse. Take notes. You can see, and that means you can hunt. From now on, I expect to be fed properly. As is, of course, my due.:

  “Of course,” Franse replied aloud. “Just as soon as claw punctures on shoulders finish to heal.”