Dhiammara

24 The Phantasm

As Zanna pushed her way forward in Tarnal’s wake, she felt a tug—then her son was no longer holding on to her cloak. “Valand!” she whirled to see the child smashed down into the ground by a warrior’s gauntleted fist and kicked repeatedly and viciously where he lay. As the man pulled back his foot for another blow, a snarling grey shape erupted out of nowhere, leaping up and tearing at the warrior’s throat. Man and wolf staggered backward and fell, vanishing into the fray.

Zanna ran back to where her son lay, white and unmoving, but could not lift him without putting Martek down. Tarnal could not help her. He stood over his family to defend them—but his sword was needed. The crowd thinned for a moment, to show Emmie and Yanis with Vannor, Parric and Dulsina. Vannor and the Cavalry-master were fighting valiantly, back to back; Vannor defending himself admirably with one hand. “Dad,” Zanna shrieked. “Help us, please!”

Yanis tugged at Vannor’s sleeve and shouted something that Zanna could not hear above the screaming and the clash of swords. Then he led Emmie and Dulsina toward the boats with Snowsilver, Emmie’s huge white dog, helping to protect the women from attack. In the meantime, the former High Lord carved a path toward his daughter, his old friend Parric guarding his rear. When the two men reached Zanna, Vannor blanched at the sight of his grandson, lying so limp and still. He scooped up the boy without speaking, and they headed once again toward the water’s edge, Tarnal and Parric defending them. Thinking only of her children’s safety, Zanna hurried toward the boats. She had completely forgotten about Wolf, left somewhere behind her in the midst of all the fighting.

Pendral’s soldiers, who had fallen back in dismay from the redheaded fury and the tall, blond warrior who fought so fiercely at her side, now fled screaming at the sight of the two great cats, all deadly fang and claw and terrifying burning eyes, that accompanied the two human fiends. With no one to hinder them, they burst out of the passage and into the main cavern. Forral paused to take in the scene with a warrior’s experienced eye, and saw that two of the smuggler ships were being manned, with a further flotilla of small boats on their way out across the harbor to join them. He knew there was not much time.—The Nightrunners were badly outnumbered, and more of the enemy seemed to be appearing in a never-ending stream. “Down there—and hurry,” he shouted, pointing with his sword, then plunged down the beach and into the thick of the fray, taking the swiftest route toward the water.

Aurian was about to follow him, when her eye caught sight of a fallen body lying crumpled in the lee of the cavern wall. Something—some vague sense of recognition tugged at her, and without another thought she veered back toward the inert bundle, her heart leaden with dread at what she might find.

“Chiamh,” the Mage whispered. She didn’t dare touch him—not even to stroke the tangled brown hair away from his face. Blood leaked out of a multitude of wounds: the Windeye was hacked and stabbed in many places, with some deep rents and gashes too close to vital organs, and looking very bad indeed. Her Healer’s senses told her that if he was not dead, he must only be clinging by a thread to life, and that thread was fragile and attenuated; already stretched to breaking point. There was no time to waste. Aurian knew she must act instantly—if it was not already too late. She thrust aside her overwhelming anguish to make a cool and competent assessment of the situation.—There seemed no way to save him—to move him would be to kill him, and the risk of losing her own life to the enemy swords was growing greater by the moment—yet Aurian refused to countenance defeat, “Don’t worry, Chiamh—I’m here now,” she told him. “I’ll take care of you.” Concentrating hard to block out the distraction of the battle that was going on around her, she took the Windeye out of time.

Now, an apport spell... The big ships were too far away—Aurian couldn’t shift the Windeye that distance without seriously depleting her own energy, to the extent that she might not make it to safety—and without her to heal him, Chiamh stood no chance at all. There was a smaller boat that had been overlooked, however, moored behind a low, rocky point that jutted out from the shore at the very southern end of the beach. The little craft had gone unnoticed in the shadows, and she had only been able to pick it out because of her Mage’s vision. “Fine,” Aurian muttered. She turned back to Chiamh and—

“Lady! Look out!”

Aurian ducked, and as the blade went whistling over the top of her head, she brought her own sword round in an arc that sheared right into the knees of her opponent, who toppled like a felled tree. Turning the blade with a deft twist of her wrists, the Mage finished her assailant before he could hit the ground.—Only then did she see Grince, who seemed to have popped up out of nowhere, with Frost, his young white dog, at his side. He wore a fierce expression and was brandishing a sword that had clearly been lifted from a corpse, and was far too big for him.

“Thanks,” Aurian told the thief. “Watch my back a minute.” Gathering her powers, she thought of the Windeye as here, visualized him being there, on the boat—and wrapping him in her magic, gave a great mental heave. There was a crack and a gust of wind as the air rushed in to fill an empty space where Chiamh had been.

Aurian heard a gasp and a strangled oath from Grince. “Come on,” she told him, “let’s get out of here.”

“There’s a boat left,” Tarnal shouted. “We’re nearly there. ...” He stopped with a cry of horror. Zanna reached him—and her arms tightened around her son until he cried out in pain. Ignoring his protests, she crushed his face into her shoulder, where he could not see. Half in the shallows, at the water’s edge, lay Emmie and Dulsina. There was no visible mark on Emmie, but clearly she was dead. Dulsina’s skull had been crushed by a heavy blow that had obliterated half her face and left blood and brains leaking out into the sand.—Finally Zanna managed to tear her eyes away from the appalling sight. Her own grief was just too great to consider at present—Dulsina had been a mother to her ever since her own had died. Keeping her mind deliberately numb, refusing to think of Dulsina’s death, Zanna turned to her father. She hadn’t heard a single sound from him—how must he be taking this? Vannor was standing at the edge of the sea, oblivious of the water that was soaking into his boots. He was clutching the body of his grandson as though the ship of his life had foundered and the boy were the only floating spar.

Vannor looked up at Zanna, and there was a terrible emptiness in his eyes, as though his soul had been torn out from behind them. “That’s not my Dulsina,” he said hoarsely. “That’s not her.” And he turned away from the grisly corpse.—There came a hail from behind Zanna, and she turned to see Yanis at the oars of a small boat. Snowsilver, bleeding from a gash in his flank, was tied to a thwart with a piece of rope. Even now the dog was whining piteously and straining to get back to Emmie’s body. Tears streamed down the Nightrunner’s face. “I couldn’t save them,” he said- “I tried, but I couldn’t...”

Only then did Zanna notice that his tunic was soaked in blood. “Yanis—you’re hurt!”

“I couldn’t save them ... Just couldn’t...”

Clearly, he was in deep shock. Someone would have to cope. . . . “Dad, get in the boat,” Zanna said sharply. “Good—now put Valand down and take Martek from me. Go on—that’s it.” She scrambled into the little craft, and Tarnal, with a grateful nod to her, sheathed his sword and took hold of the bows to push the boat off the shingle. Zanna, looking over his shoulder, suddenly shouted.

“Tarnal, wait. Wait just a minute!”

Anvar—Forral, she corrected herself—came rushing down toward the boat with the two great cats. Tarnal hailed him. “If you’re coming, get in.”

“Wait,” said Zanna sharply. “Where’s Aurian?”

“Right behi-” The swordsman uttered a ferocious oath and scanned the beach, trying to pick out the Mage among the knots of fighters.

Shia, with all her attention on the enemy, had fought her way down to the water’s edge before she realized that the Mage was not behind her. She whirled with a roar, “Aurian! Where are you?”

“I’m coming . ..”

“Forral has found a boat.” It was the first time Shia had named him.

“Then go.” The Mage’s replies were terse and distracted—clearly she was fighting for her life up there on the beach. “Chiamh is wounded, in another boat—I must go with him.”

“No! Wait—I’ll be with you in . ..”

“I said go! And take Forral with you. Tell him to get—oh, never mind. Make him get on the bloody boat, Shia, if you have to knock him unconscious and drag him on board. That way we’ll all have a chance of surviving this. Do it!”

“Take care then, my friend!” Shia looked around to see Forral looking around, craning his neck for a sight of the Mage.

“Come on, man!” Tarnal was shouting. “We have to go! Get in or be left behind!”

“I can’t—Aurian is missing!” the swordsman shouted.

“Get in the boat” Shia roared at him, using all the mental force she could muster. “Aurian is coming!”

Forral turned toward her. “What the . . . You . . . ? Did you ... ?”

“Yes! Now get in the cursed boat, human, before I rip out your guts. Aurian told me to tell you.”

An obdurate expression settled on his face. “I’m not leaving withou ...”

With a snarl, Shia sprang at him, knocking him backward so that he staggered into the boat, pushing it out into the shallow water. Tarnal shot out an arm and dragged him on board. Shia and Khanu looked at the boat, already crowded with passengers, and an unspoken message passed between. Plunging into the water together, they set off swimming toward the waiting ship. Two cats whose great claws were designed for dealing with the cliffs and craggy escarpments of Steelclaw, it was nothing to swarm up the side of a wooden vessel. The other ship had already left. Even as Tarnal, the last of the boat’s passengers, climbed aboard the larger craft, the anchor came rattling up, and strong men, with the help of long poles, began to move the ship out of harbor.

The Mage was enraged at the foes who had inflicted such terrible wounds upon her friend. She took her anger out on the enemy, and felt a grim satisfaction as they fell beneath her blade. Then, as she neared the boat, she saw a sight that pierced the red haze in her brain and left her thoughts exposed with a raw, ice-cold clarity. Two soldiers were stalking Wolf, and had him backed into a crevice in the cavern wall. Aurian could see blood on his mouth and on his fur, and had no idea whether or not it was his own: she only saw the danger to her son. Hearing him whimper with fear, she drowned the piteous sound with a shriek of anger so loud that every skirmish in the cavern faltered for an instant.

Wolf’s assailants never knew what hit them. The Mage was pulling her sword out from between the ribs of the second man almost before the first one’s head had time to hit the ground. Unwisely, though, she had drawn attention to herself with her battle cry, and clearly, the enemy had decided it was time she was stopped. Already, several of them were beginning to close in.

“Can you run?” Aurian demanded of her son.

“I—yes ...”

“Then run!”

They ran, with Grince and Frost pelting at their heels. But they were never going to make it. A group of soldiers was almost treading on their cloak hems, and another knot of foes was running around to get between them and the boat.—The one gap narrowed ... closed ... The Mage found herself running into a thicket of swords. One of the enemy shouted something, but it was impossible to hear through the agonizing buzzing that permeated her skull. Aurian wiped sweat from her eyes with the back of her hand. The air seemed to be growing darker; thicker. When had it turned so cold? It was becoming harder to see the outlines of the soldiers—but surely their faces were contorted with stark terror? Surely they were backing away? Breaking—running! With a jarring, high-pitched snarl, a great black shape glided over the Mage’s head and swooped down upon the fleeing soldiers, settling over a group of three terrified men like a hawk on its prey.

As the Death-Wraith fed, the paralysis dropped from Aurian and her will came back to her. Turning to the mesmerized Grince, she slapped him hard. “Get out of here—now!” she shrieked.

The Mage, the thief and the wolf arrived together at Aurian’s hidden boat. A single, hunted glance over her shoulder told Aurian that the Wraith had risen from the lifeless bodies of the soldiers and was looking for more prey. She saw the smoky red eyes glance in her direction—and then the Wraith deliberately turned away from her and vanished into the tunnels, hunting the fleeing warriors.

Scooping up her son, Aurian hurled him aboard. At Grince’s encouragement, Frost jumped in after him, and together, the Mage and the thief pushed off, then scrambled over the side and into the boat, careful to avoid the blue-limned body of Chiamh. Aurian remembered afterward that the water felt very cold where it had flooded in over the tops of her boots, but at the time she was oblivious of such details. Snatching up the oars, she began to row as hard as she could, in an attempt to speed the craft out of the cavern.—Gevan had stopped taking part in the fighting. For some time now he had lurked in the entrance to one of the passages, looking out in horror at the scenes of carnage and slaughter that were taking place in the main Nightrunner cavern.—He wished he hadn’t come, now. If only he had stayed safe in Nexis, or at least waited on the boats until the fighting was over and the bodies had been cleared away. It would have been one thing to walk into the empty Nightrunner complex and load his pick of the booty onto his new boat before setting off back to the city and a prosperous new life. It was quite another to see folk he had known since childhood being forced to fight or flee for their lives, and being cut down before his eyes.

There was little guilt attached to Gevan’s discomfort—he simply felt that if he did not witness the massacre, he would not have to distress himself with unpleasant memories, and would soon be able to forget the part he had played in destroying the community. It wasn’t his fault, anyway—Yanis was to blame.—Gevan had been growing increasingly dissatisfied with the Nightrunners since Yanis’s father had died. He had been Leynard’s second-in-command, and as far as he was concerned, Yanis owed him—favors, respect, attention, and the extra share of the booty that he had once enjoyed. The new Nightrunner leader, however, had clung stubbornly to ideas of his own—which included being his own man, for better or worse, and not letting his father’s old companion run things just because he had the advantage of years. Gevan had been nursing his grudges for over ten years, since Leynard had died, and his resentment had taken on a life of its own, growing, like any other living entity, by the day.—Notwithstanding his other reasons of wealth and respectability, Gevan had truly betrayed the Nightrunners in order to be revenged on Yanis, and that was why, when he saw the leader escaping, he could barely contain his wrath.

“There he goes! The Nightrunner leader! Stop him—he’s escaping!”

The nearest group of soldiers had run out of opponents and were gathered near the top of the beach, picking over the Nightrunner corpses for weapons, adornment, and coins. Gevan ran up to the nearest one and grabbed his shoulder. “Yanis is escaping. You’ve got to stop him!”

Unhurriedly, the warrior got to his feet, drew his knife, and rammed it into Gevan’s stomach, angling the blade sharply upward. The astonishment hit him an instant before the pain. Even as he crumpled, with a thin scream of agony, scrabbling in vain at the fiery torment in his guts, he could not believe what had just happened.

The soldier spat, and he felt the gob of warm slime go trickling down his face. Then he could no longer feel anything. As Gevan went spiraling down into darkness, the young soldier’s voice followed him. “Lord Pendral said there’d be a reward for the one of us as spitted you, once you’d brought us in here,” he said. “I reckon it might as well be me.”

D’arvan, finding himself alone and hopelessly outnumbered, had done the only sensible thing—he had barricaded himself and as many Nightrunners as he could rescue inside his chamber, and used his magic to disguise the door to look like part of the cavern wall. Much to his relief, one of the Mortals he had sheltered was Hargorn; Maya would never have forgiven hm if he had left her old friend to die—not that there seemed much chance of that. D’arvan had pulled the bitterly protesting veteran from the thick of the fray, where he was taking on three soldiers even though blood was pouring down his arm from a long but shallow slice where he’d been caught by the tip of a sword.—It was a long time before they dared emerge. Hargorn, with his arm bound up, was still cursing and haranguing the Mage for his interference when they had heard screams of abject horror, and the sound of stampeding footsteps running back up the passage toward the exit. D’arvan shuddered. There was only one thing he could think of that might terrify experienced soldiers to that extent—and the Gods only knew what would happen now, if the Death-Wraith was on the loose and uncontrolled.

When the Mage and the Nightrunners finally dared to creep out, they found the complex utterly deserted—save for the bodies. The smugglers wept and cursed as they recognized friends and loved ones—but far more numerous were the sprawled corpses of the foe. Most had died without a mark on them, save that their faces were twisted into expressions of stark terror and dread. The Wraith had fed well tonight, D’arvan thought grimly.

Feverishly, the Mage and Hargorn searched through the scattered corpses, sick to their stomachs but determined to see the dreadful business through. It was many grim and weary hours before they could comfort themselves with the knowledge that their friends must have escaped the carnage, though the veteran had wept to discover Dulsina and Emmie, lying together by the water’s edge.—For D’arvan, the worst discovery was the corpse of Finbarr, which was lying on the bed in the chamber where the Wraith had discarded it like an old cloak.—Without his eldritch tenant to animate his body, the Archivist had finally relinquished his tenuous hold on life. D’arvan sat for a time, holding his old friend’s cold hand, appalled by the waste. We came so close, he thought. So close to restoring him. He was one of the best of the Magefolk. His tears fell on Finbarr’s cold and lifeless hand.

After a time, Hargorn entered. He was clearly full of questions but waited quietly by the door, out of respect for D’arvan’s grief. The Mage rose and straightened, his expression stern and unyielding. “We’ll deal with the dead now, then you can take the few surviving Nightrunners to the Vale for the present,” he said. “It won’t be the first time the lady Eilin has harbored refugees. As for me—I intend to make that sniveling Mortal the so-called Lord Pendral rue this day’s work.”

“Now, just a minute—you can’t just...”

The silver flame of wrath flashed in D’arvan’s eyes. “Can I not, indeed?” he said grimly. “Can you honestly say, Hargorn, that the mortals of Nexis would not be better off under my rule?” His lips thinned into a glacial smile. “No, for once it will be a positive pleasure to do my father’s bidding.”

The Mage was not the only one whose plans involved a return to Nexis. Already, the Death-Wraith was hurtling like a black comet through the starless night, making its way back by the straightest route toward the city. Over the last days, it had been raking through Finbarr’s mind and memory for the means of negating the time spell—and now, fed to repletion with the lives of so many Mortals, it was certain it had both the power and the means to free its fellows at last. Before much longer, the Nihilim would be loosed once more upon an unsuspecting world.

The Mage emerged from an exhausted daze to find Grince shaking her shoulder.

“Here, lady—let me take over, tt must be my turn by now.”

Aurian straightened her aching shoulders, unlocked her hands from around the oars. It felt good to stop rowing. She was surprised to find that her palms were stinging and beginning to blister, while the land was already a good distance away: a blacker line against the darkness of the starless night sky.—We did it, she thought with dull amazement. We actually got away. The Mage held the dripping oars steady until Grince moved onto the thwart beside her and took them from her. Then she slid down into the well of the boat, letting herself slump wearily against the wooden side.

“Mother? Are you all right?” The mental voice was tentative and scared. Aurian felt a cold nose against her arm. She opened her eyes and looked around to see Wolf. He looked at her, then looked away, hanging his head. “You were very brave,” he said in a small voice. “I thought you didn’t care about me—but I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

An immense weight was suddenly lifted from Aurian’s heart. “Yes, you were wrong,” she told him softly, “but I was gone for so long that I don’t blame you for thinking as you did. I would have thought the same thing myself.” She put her arms around the wolf’s shaggy neck. “Poor Wolf. I haven’t been much of a mother to you so far, have I? When this is all over, I hope I’ll have a chance to put that right.”

“Do—do you think you’ll be able to take off the curse?”

Though he was trying to hide how very much it meant to him, Aurian could detect the desperation behind his words. Nonetheless, she wasn’t going to lie to him—she owed him more than that. “I don’t know for sure,” she told him.

“But believe me, we’re going to have a bloody good try.”

The wolf signed and laid his head on her shoulder.

“Are you hurt?” Aurian asked him anxiously.

“No—well, some bruises, that’s all. Most of the blood belonged to the man who hurt Valand.” Aurian heard grim satisfaction in Wolf’s voice, and hugged him hard. “That’s my son,” she said proudly.

The Mage sat quietly with Wolf until he fell asleep in the bows, and husbanded her own strength against the ordeal to come. Chiamh still lay in the bottom of the boat, cocooned in the blue matrix of the time spell, and she dreaded what she would find when she removed it. In her heart, she knew there was no way that she—or anyone else, for that matter—could heal such dreadful wounds.—She could feel the hard outline of the Harp of Winds strapped to her back, and wished that it possessed healing magic. If only the Staff of Earth had its power back, she thought, her hand closing around the Artifact that hung lifeless at her belt. At least it might give me the chance to do something!—But perhaps this was the penalty for misusing it, she thought. If so, then her rash slaughter of the soldiers beneath the Academy had earned her a far worse punishment than she could ever have imagined.

Her anguish must have been clear on her face, for Grince reached out and gently touched her arm. “Will he die?” he asked softly.

Aurian nodded, and swallowed hard to find her voice. “Yes. I think he will,”

The Windeye’s blood-spattered face, already corpse-pale beneath the vivid blue time spell, dissolved in the shimmer of tears. Aurian recalled their first meeting, in that sordid chamber in the Tower of Incondor that had been her prison for so long. Chiamh had been the only other person to see that Wolf was truly human—and he had taken her riding the winds that very night, all the way to Aerillia. She thought of the day, back at the Xandim fastness, when he had shown her his lonely home at the Place of Winds, and trusted her enough to change into his horse-form and let her ride upon his back. She remembered saving his life with a magical shield, when the Xandim rebelled against Parric as Herdlord, and had almost stoned their Windeye to death.

Well—might as well get it over with. She could only do her best. Gods, she prayed, let me be able to help him. Don’t let Chiamh suffer for my mistakes.—Aurian took a deep breath, summoned her powers—and dissolved the spell.—Chiamh sprang up like an uncoiling snake and knocked the Mage back against the stern of the violently rocking boat, pinioning her arms to her sides. “Don’t!—Don’t do anything! I’m all right! I’m all right!”

Aurian stared at him. The terrible wounds had gone. The bloodstains and gaping rents had simply vanished from both his skin and his clothing, and the deathly pallor and spattered blood had disappeared from his face. After several minutes, the Mage closed her mouth. Speech, however, continued to evade her.—Suddenly, she felt unstrung with relief. To her dismay she felt a single tear spill over and go streaking down her face, and bit the inside of her lip hard to prevent any more from following.

“Oh, goddess, what have I done?” Chiamh muttered. He let go of her arms and looked away from her. “Aurian, I’m sorry,” he said wretchedly. “I Didn’t mean to give you such a dreadful shock. It was all an illusion—it was the only thing I could think of to save myself, not to mention Schiannath and Iscalda.—Why would anybody bother killing me, if they thought I was already dead?”

“You complete and utter bastard,” said Aurian, enunciating very carefully.

“How ever did you do it?”

“Well—you remember back at the fastness when I was holding the mob off with an illusion of a demon—only they discovered it was false and nearly killed me?”

Aurian nodded. “I was just thinking of that. Back then, when I thought you were dead,” she added acidly.

Chiamh flushed. “Well,” he went on hastily, “I almost made the same mistake tonight—but I remembered just in time, and I knew that if Schiannath and Iscalda were to get away, they would need some kind of diversion. For a few seconds I was out of everyone’s sight where that passage twists, and I ducked into a doorway and formed a second illusion.” He grinned at her. “Of me this time. Then when the passage straightened, I let the demon-phantasm falter, and they all rushed forward to kill me—except it wasn’t me, of course.”

He frowned. “I was watching, around the edge of the door—it gave me an awful turn to see myself killed like that....”

“It didn’t do much for me, either,” Aurian growled.

“The hardest part,” Chiamh went on, as though she had never spoken, “was creating the illusory wounds as the swords went in, and managing to stiffen the air to form some resistance to the blades. I doubt that there was enough to be realistic, but they were so fired up with blood-lust by that time, they didn’t notice.” He shrugged. “After they had gone, I realized I didn’t stand a chance of fighting my way down to the beach. I mean I can’t see much, as you know, but I could see quite enough to tell me it was hopeless. I looked down at my phantasm, and it looked so realistically dead—and that was when I thought, who would bother killing a man twice? So I dissolved it and took its place, creating the illusion of the wounds around me, instead. When you came along, I didn’t get a chance to warn you, before you took me out of time....—Aurian, I am sorry. It must have been a dreadful sight.”

The Mage shook her head in wonderment. The glacial calm of deep shock, which had been melting with his words, finally burned away in a flash of anger.

“Damn you, do you know what you put me through?” She hauled back her hand to hit him, but somehow found herself embracing him instead. “Chiamh, I could kill you for frightening me like that—if I wasn’t so bloody glad to see you alive.”

He held her—tentatively at first, then tighter. Aurian rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, buoyed by a wave of relief and a happiness that seemed totally irrational, considering the horrors she had witnessed that night, but was no less real for that. Within moments, both Mage and Windeye were fast asleep in each other’s arms.

Grince, still valiantly manning the oars with more energy than skill, looked down with a scowl at his sleeping passengers. “Why, thank you, Grince, for rowing our blasted boat for us all bloody night,” he muttered sourly. “We really do appreciate it.”

Well, they weren’t the only ones who were tired. With a shrug, he pulled the oars back on board and tried to stow them where the drips would matter least.—Then he climbed over the thwart and curled up in the bows beside Frost and Wolf, who were asleep together. The weather seemed calm enough—surely the boat could take care of itself for an hour or two. . . . That was Grince’s last drowsy thought before he too fell asleep.