Amber Magic

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“The owl,” said Corbin. “Was that the bird you saw at your window two nights ago? Has that changeling been haunting our barn for weeks?”

“Forget it,” said Brand. “We have to run for the house!”

“What about Sam?”

Brand squeezed his shoulder. “We will have to do what we can for him in the morning.”

Corbin nodded grimly and followed Brand down out of the loft. They left the lantern in the loft so that it might appear that they were still there. Signaling each other with gestures, Corbin took Brand to a small side door that led into a toolshed. Moving carefully, they opened the creaking door an inch or so to peer outside. When their eyes had adjusted to the starlight, they could see that dark shapes crept about the foundations of the house. Now and then one of the creatures would raise itself to a window and take a quick, furtive look inside.

The rhinogs were much larger than goblins, but smaller than the average man. It was difficult to see just what they looked like as they seemed to carry shrouds of darkness with them, or perhaps it was only that they excelled at crouching in the deepest pools of shadow available. From their general forms Brand made out that they had long arms, overlarge hands and crooked legs that seemed permanently bent backwards at the knees, not unlike the hind legs of crouching wolves. Their eyes were two glittering rubies of evil swimming in the darkness enclosed within their drawn hoods.

There were more movements, at the front and rear of the barn. Clearly, the enemy lay in ambush, waiting for them to come out into the yard. Brand squeezed Corbin's shoulder, they exchanged glances and set themselves. They would have to make a run for the house. Brand's legs tensed as he readied himself to sprint across the yard.

Together they launched themselves at the front door of the house, hoping no one had locked it since they left. They knocked an old rainbarrel aside as they tore out of the barn. In the still night the sound of it clattering to the ground seemed deafening. An odd hooting sound of rage went up behind them. Brand could sense rather than hear their pursuers. Dark, hunched shapes that sulked beneath trees and huddled against the house rose up and turned toward them.

Brand focused on reaching the door of the house before they could halt him. A dark shape scuttled close and reared up before them. He caught sight of glittering red eyes. Corbin swung the woodaxe wildly, there was an awful thunking sound and a squeal rent the cold air. As they scrambled past the rhinog, a clawed hand caught at Brand's boot. He kicked at the thing and jerked away. Talons scraped and dug into leather, there was another snarling sound, then he was free.

Brand reached the porch and the door first and all but fell into the house. They slammed the door in the leering faces of hunched shapes that mounted the porch steps behind them.

“Modi!” shouted Brand, his chest heaving. For a moment no answer came, and a new fear gripped Brand. Had the enemy taken the house already? Had he risked all only to enter a new trap? Visions of Telyn and Jaks' headless corpses came unbidden to his mind.

Heavy footfalls came down the stairs then, causing Brand to heave a sigh of relief. Only Modi had such heavy boots.

“Enemy?” questioned Modi as he emerged from the darkened hall.

Brand nodded. “Rhinogs. They chased us from the barn.”

Modi looked to Corbin and frowned. “Is he injured?”

Brand followed his gaze and saw Corbin's ashen face, drawn tight with lines of grief. He shook his head. “It's his brother-Sam. The rhinogs killed him.”

Modi nodded. He moved to look out a window, and that's when the door seemed to heave against their backs. Brand and Corbin were still leaning against it, and on the far side the rhinogs had gathered, whispering and hissing. It wasn't as if the door had been shoved, but rather as if it had suddenly come alive and taken in a great swelling breath.

“They work a cantrip!” shouted Modi. “Away from the door!”

Brand and Corbin staggered away from the door and it burst open behind them. The hinges came loose from the doorjamb and the lock shattered into metal shards. Beyond were the smoky, dark shapes of three rhinogs. Long serrated knives gleamed in their clawed hands. Red eyes gleamed beneath their cowls.

Modi strode forward with his battleaxe raised. “Return to your dens! I am Modi of the warriors, and many of you will I slay before this house falls!”

A puff of smoky darkness seemed to obscure the three shapes, and Brand knew sorcery was at hand. He steeled himself for their charge, but instead of attacking, the three shapes seemed to fade from sight. After a moment the magical darkness faded and the porch beyond was empty.

“Have they given up?” asked Corbin.

Modi shook his head, scratching his beard. “It is not their way to fight openly. They have no stomach for it. They are assassins and footpads by nature. Their goblin sires will pull back and devise some new cunning trick.”

Telyn and Gudrin came down then to join them and everything had to be explained. Modi lifted the battered door back into place and used spikes from the woodshed to hold it in place again. Brand armed himself with another woodaxe and helped the others rearrange the furniture into a barricade.

Suddenly, Telyn raised a hand to stop their talk. Brand's mouth opened to ask her what she meant, but then he heard it too. A crackling noise, coming from the back of the house. Moments later smoke poured out of the hall.

“They've fired the house!” hissed Telyn, voicing everyone's thought.

Upstairs, Jak cried out hoarsely and there was a thumping on the floorboards overhead. Brand felt sick, his brother was trying to get out of bed and had fallen. He rushed into the smoky hall.

“Brand!” Telyn cried after him. The smoke-filled hall was a cavern of hanging gray tendrils. His eyes burned immediately and his lungs rebelled with a choked cough. He ducked low, moving in a crouch and it was better, the air cleaner. He passed the kitchen and saw the lurid glare coming from the woodshed. They had fired it, and smoke was pouring into the house. Yellow tongues of flame licked up at the cabinets above the woodshed door. A rack of towels near the sink caught and flared brightly.

Then he was on the stairs and the smoke was worse. He could hear his brother upstairs, coughing and dragging himself across the floor. At least they hadn't crept in the upstairs windows and killed him yet, he told himself.

He found his brother mostly by feel on the floor of the upstairs hall. The lamps had gone out somehow. He set down his woodaxe and groped in the dark. He got a hold of Jak under his arms and heaved him up. A groan of pain escaped his brother's lips.

“Brand?” Jak whispered. “They're up here, Brand.”

Brand caught a fluttering movement in the front bedroom.

“I'm getting you out, Jak,” whispered Brand. He reached for a lamp, thinking to relight it. To his surprise he burnt his fingers on it. Looking closely, he saw that it was still lit, but that it gave only the barest glimmer of smoky, gray light. A lump of ice grew in his stomach as he realized he faced magic. The choking smoke was fogging his mind a bit, but in a flash he realized that they had lured him up here, not killing his brother, but making Jak cry out. That had succeeded in drawing two apart from the others to slaughter them in this inky smoke.

Brand began to drag his brother to the stairs, when he thought to hear a stealthy sound behind him. He looked back and saw the assassin. Visible only as a patch of deeper darkness in the hallway, the rhinog glided with an oddly inhuman, scuttling gait toward his exposed back, a long silvery knife poised low for a killing thrust. There was no time to reach his woodaxe, so Brand did the only thing he could think of, he grabbed up the hall lamp from its bracket on the wall and hurled it at the creature.

The lamp exploded into yellow flame, the glass oil-vessel shattering and soaking his attacker. A horrible keening erupted from the rhinog and it sunk down, engulfed in flames. To Brand's eyes it seemed to melt like a candle tossed into a roaring fire.

He dragged Jak past the burning creature, which soon fell silent and stopped thrashing. At the top of the stairs he got Jak to his feet and drew one of his brother's arms around his shoulders. Struggling and coughing, trying not to stumble, he headed down the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs he looked back. A second, smaller shape now stooped over the smoldering remains of the rhinog. It was the lithe form of a goblin, and Brand knew in his heart he faced the dark creature's sire. He and the goblin met one another's gaze for a moment, and never had Brand felt from another such vile hatred.

Then the smoke obscured the scene and he was out in the front room again, where the others had repelled a sneak-attack through the windows. Aunt Suzenna's prized shutters, which she had painted with rosettes and curling vines of her own design, now hung down, battered and scorched. Smoking black drops of what served the creatures for blood splattered the shutters and the sill.

“Brand!” cried Telyn, hugging him. She took up Jak's other arm. “Is he all right?”

Gudrin stepped forward and examined Jak briefly. “He's breathed too much smoke, but he should make it. If any of us do, that is.”

“They've taken the upstairs,” Brand told them when he could speak. All of them were crouched in the front room, where the smoke wasn't too overpowering yet.

“They're firing the house to drive us out into the dark,” said Gudrin.