The First Protector

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ma'el Report. Day 112,889…

For the first time Sinead is going against my wishes as well as all the dictates of good sense. Yesterday at Declan's urging I had agreed to allow the wagon to fall behind the rest of the caravan in the hope that the robbers would either not see us or dismiss our single vehicle as unimportant, but later she insisted on rejoining the caravan as quickly as possible.

"During the night drive to do so, and between short periods of sleep; she continually studied what she still calls the magic chart and became increasingly agitated. She asserts that unless we catch up with the caravan by sunrise, Declan will die; and unless I use a greater magic than any she has seen me use before, he will die. The concern she displayed for his welfare appeared to be more personal than that previously shown, and I wondered if she might be manifesting the emotional responses that could lead to the inception of a rudimentary form of timesight.

'To test this theory I asked her what kind of magic she thought I could use. She replied that she did not know, but that on the few occasions she had been sleeping she had seen something terrible in her dreams, something falling from the sky that had screamed and thundered and resembled a monstrous insect with great, shining red eyes. She said that it looked worse than the worst nightmares of her childhood but that, strangely, it did not frighten her. Then she said that I should not listen to her bizarre dreams and apologized for wasting my time.

"Shortly afterward I decided to place my thundering and screaming monster on low orbital standby…"

–

The fast gallop along the length of the camel train that Declan had been expecting was reduced to a gentle trot because Bashir found difficulty, in spite of the blasphemously colorful language he was using, making the camel drivers and their few unmounted guards flee as he wanted. The result of their slow progress was that the relief force he was telling them about, Mareth's bowmen, were already coming into sight at a slow, steady run. Bashir and he were about halfway along the camel train when the first arrows began falling around them.

"Don't concern yourself," said Bashir, breaking off his shouted directions to the nearest camel driver. "The remainder of my men are trying to keep them occupied up there so as to give some of the criminal train a chance to escape, but those bowmen are at extreme range and they are shooting in hope rather than with the expectation of hitting anything. It is a criminal waste of arrows. If Mareth was in charge of them he would leave them speaking in women's voices and incapable of fathering children."

Declan laughed and they trotted past three more heavily laden beasts while Bashir shouted to the drivers that they should urge their mounts to all possible speed and scatter across the open land approaches to the caravanserai so as to make it more difficult for any robbers who might chase them. During the next interval between camels, Bashir spoke to him again.

"It was a pleasure and an education fighting beside you, Declan," he said, pointing toward the other end of the camel train. "There is nothing more you can do here, so leave before a chance arrow finds you. Ride back to your master's wagon and… What's wrong?"

Declan had looked in the direction of Bashir's pointing finger, and the sight had made him swear long and luridly. He did not know what Ma'el's translation charm around his neck was making of the Gaelic words, but Bashir was looking impressed.

"My master is what's wrong," he replied furiously, "or rather he and the other servant have done a stupid thing. After I advised them and they agreed, to stay far behind the caravan, they have rejoined the end of it. How can a great and wise magician be so utterly dim-witted at times?"

"Then ride ahead and join him at once," said Bashir. He swiveled in his saddle and called back, "Mareth, take your bowmen to that wagon at the end and help defend it." In a quieter voice he went on, "We will have to make a stand somewhere, so whatever force remains to me will help you for as long as we are able. That much, at least, we owe you. And if your master is a great magician…" his tone became skeptical, "… he may have a spell that will save us. Ride now."

As he galloped closer to the wagon Declan could see Ma'el and Sinead on the driving bench and that the horse, like the majority of the camels he had passed, was unharmed in spite of the arrows flying around them. It seemed that in this land the lives of heavy pack animals were of much more value than those of the servants who drove them so that a camel or a horse would not be deliberately killed. But the thought of Sinead and Ma'el lying riddled with arrows or their bodies hacked to pieces with scimitars did nothing to improve his temper.

"Whose stupidity was this?" he shouted as he pulled his horse to a standstill level with them. "We agreed that you would stay well behind the caravan, out of sight of the robbers, where I might have joined you later. That way we all would have been safe…"

"You would not have been safe!" Sinead broke in. "On the chart we saw the absurdly small party that set out from the caravanserai to rescue us, with your white horse and your cloak showing bravely as you rode to join them. Stupid yourself. I asked Ma'el to rejoin the caravan to try and save your stupid life, and he said that for my sake he would try…"

"Then my thanks to you both," he broke in. With an edge of anger still in his voice he looked at Ma'el and went on, "but your nobility is going to get all of us killed. Master, we are fighting, or rather defending ourselves against hopeless odds and…"

An arrow thudded into the driving bench a few inches from Ma'el's hip. He looked up at the high ground whence it had come and his expression was that of a general calmly studying the tactical situation on a battlefield. Then he rose unhurriedly to his feet and inclined his head gently as he moved aside the curtain behind him.

"I must leave you now," he said, "because there are small course and distance adjustments I must make. Pass the word that I am about to produce a work of great and terrifying magic. They will better understand you if you use their own words and refer to it as a djinn, but that, appearances to the contrary, it will not harm the men of the camel train or our defenders in any way…"

"What kind of djinn?" Declan broke in. "There isn't time for magical tricks…"

"… Some little time will elapse before it arrives," he went on as if Declan had not spoken, "so Sinead and yourself must try to stay alive lest my considerable efforts on your behalf are wasted."

Another arrow hit the curtain of skins he had just pulled shut behind him. It bounced away and fell as if it had struck a rock. Declan pointed at the curtain and said, "I don't suppose…?"

Sinead shook her head. "Ma'el allows nobody to see inside. Nobody."

"Then hide under the wagon," he said. "You should be safe from the arrows there."

"What about you?" she asked.

"It would not be fitting," Declan replied as he unlimbered his long-axe, "for me to hide under a wagon."

Before she could reply, Bashir rode up with Mareth's bowmen running close behind him. He waved his scimitar at the groups of the enemy soldiers moving down the slopes towards them.

'They must have believed our lie that more men are coming to our aid," he said, "because their intention now seems to be to attack and cut out this end of the caravan before our imaginary reinforcements arrive, so this is where the battle will end. We need all the fighters we can get, skilled or otherwise…" he glanced at Sinead, "… so give the boy a weapon."

"She is a healer," said Declan, stressing the first word, "and has forsworn all acts of violence."

"A female healer," said Bashir, showing his teeth briefly. "That explains your anxiety to rejoin your master and, of course, his other servant. But no matter. Give her a sword anyway. If nothing else she may want to fall on it rather than let this bunch of two-legged jackals take her."

He wheeled his horse and went galloping toward the nearest group of the enemy who were charging down on them. Unsheathing his gladius, Declan grasped it carefully by the tip and extended the hilt toward Sinead. She looked very seriously at him as she took it, but before she could speak he fastened the retaining strap of the long-axe tightly around his wrist because he would need to use it one-handed. Without another word he urged his mount forward to follow and draw level with Bashir.

Of the horsemen who had set out from the caravanserai, only Bashir and Declan remained mounted and those on foot, including Mareth's bowmen, numbered less than twenty with the number diminishing with every moment that passed. Because they were the only two mounted targets on their side, the opposing bowmen were giving them most of their attention so that the arrows were whispering past them thick and fast. Declan waved at Bashir and pointed at the largest and closest group of the enemy, three mounted men surrounded by a handful of others keeping pace with them on foot, and propelled the horse forward with a slap on its rump. Bashir nodded, showing his teeth again in a ferocious smile as he took the new direction.

He could not speak for Bashir, Declan told himself, but his action was not especially brave nor stupid. It was simply that with the number of arrows being aimed in his direction, he thought that a safer place to be was in the middle of the enemy group where the bowmen would be hampered by their unwillingness to risk rutting their friends. Bashir might have had the same thought, but the likelihood was that the other was braver than he was and less thoughtful.

As the enemy group came charging down the slope Bashir, being careful to stay out of range of his swinging axe, and Declan rode up to meet them. Used one-handed, the long-axe was not a precise weapon, so he had decided to swing it as wide and fast as he could in a continuous figure-of-eight while he leaned as far as he could to each side and straightening up between swings so that the shaft would not hit his mount's head. Two very brave and unthinking swordsmen tried to attack simultaneously from both flanks. One of them had his scimitar raised to make a jabbing strike upward at Declan's stomach when the twin points of the axe caught and ran down the other's blade to shatter the hilt and make a bloody ruin of the hand holding it. The man screamed and staggered backward out of range. When the swing continued on the other side, that enemy tried to drop below the level of the axehead, no doubt intending to slash upward at Declan's legs or body when it had gone safely past. But he did not duck low enough and his burnoose was suddenly a blood-soaked rag.

While Declan was still extricating the weapon to begin another swing, one of the opposing horsemen was suddenly on top of him, raising his scimitar so high that he must have intended to cut the Hibernian vertically in two. For an instant he thought of letting go of the axe handle and rolling off the horse, then swore as he remembered that the weapon was fastened securely to his wrist. He raised his free hand in a desperate attempt to push the descending blade sideways and away from him.

Then suddenly the heavy blade was falling, not on Declan but tumbling to the ground, and there was an arrow protruding from the swordsman's right eye. The man rolled off his horse, beating at the sides of his head with both fists. As Declan straightened himself in the saddle and began swinging his axe again, another arrow tugged at his cloak. He wondered briefly whether it had been the marksmanship of one of Mareth's men or the bad aim of an enemy that had saved him.

The remaining three swordsmen on foot had withdrawn out of range of his axe while the others nearby, two of whom carried bows, were running closer. Bashir was engaging one of the two remaining horsemen, their swords clashing together with a sound reminiscent of a busy smithy. The other horseman, who was also staying out of range, was trotting around Declan in a wide circle. Suddenly he stopped, beckoned to one of the running bowmen and shouted for the other to mount behind him. Declan thought quickly, decided that a mounted bowman would be a greater threat than the other one and the swordsmen on the ground.

He urged his mount forward, attempting to time his arrival when the horseman would be helping the bowmen into the second saddle behind him and for a moment both would be preoccupied. With his long-axe blade making a wide, glittering circle around his head, he had almost reached them when the second bowman who, either because his aim was poor or he wasn't an animal lover, sent an arrow deep into his horse's throat. The animal gave an almost human squeal of pain as it reared suddenly and twisted to one side, unseating him. He managed to swing the axe groundward and used it to break his fall. Even so he landed heavily on his side and for a moment he was too shaken to move. The cautious swordsmen were again closing on him, weapons raised, when he struggled onto his knees and began swinging the long-axe again. The axehead caught the wrist of one of them and knocked the legs from under another before they withdrew.

Suddenly he felt a sharp blow and a burning pain in the back of his leg just above the top of his thigh boot and stared disbelievingly at the arrow that was sticking in him. Still swinging the axe around his head, Declan followed its direction of flight back to the bowman on the ground who was also kneeling and nocking another arrow. Just before he judged the other was about to loose it, he flung himself sideways so that the arrow caught him in the shoulder instead of the middle of his chest. But at the same time another arrow, loosed by the newly-mounted bowman who was closer and shooting down from saddle height, took him in the side, then the stabbing pain as another two in quick sucession struck his buttock and just below his hip. He swore because for some reason he could neither push himself upright nor grip the handle of his axe. More swordsmen were closing in, weapons raised to finish him off.

But they remained upraised because suddenly there was a peal of thunder from directly overhead, followed by a bloodcurdling sound that was something between a continuous shriek and the hissing of a thousand serpents, and everyone was looking up at the nightmarish thing that was dropping on them out of the sky.

For a moment they remained paralyzed with fear, then they dropped their weapons and ran back up the slope screaming to each other that a terrible djinn was coming to eat them all.

The monster looked like a gigantic, fat-bellied insect with large holes in its body that showed the sky above and behind it. A mass of thin, spidery legs, some with strange, glittering objects at their ends, sprouted from the body in all directions, but the most frightful feature of all, because the screaming and hissing sounds seemed to be coming from them, were the two enormous, blazing eyes. The thing dropped lower and lower until it was drowning out the cries of the fleeing enemy, then it rose quickly and there was another crack of thunder as it disappeared into a widening circle of blue light in a sky that to Declan seemed to be growing dimmer by the moment.

His wounds were no longer hurting and he was sure that his eyes were open even though he wasn't seeing anything, but he could still hear. Sinead was bending close over him, calling him stupid and using swear words ill-becoming to a young woman, and Ma'el was speaking quietly to Bashir.

He said, 'The djinn will not return if our attackers do not do so, and that is unlikely. I suggest that you gather your surviving force and use it to escort the camel train to the caravanserai while we remain here with my wagon, for there are many matters to which 1 must attend. Please do that now."

"At once, Magi," said Bashir, his voice soft and heavy with feeling. "But first there is the matter of payment for our services. Declan said you would agree to pay whatever the cost might be. But I can assure you, on behalf of my master, that after all that has transpired here you have incurred no debt. In fact, we are indebted to you. 1 shall return the sword, which Declan bore with honor and courage, to my master, but there is a favor that I would ask for myself. It is that I be allowed to take his ferocious long-axe, not to be used because I have not the ability, but to place it in a position of honor in memory of a great warrior who…"

"No!" Sinead broke in sharply. "It is his favorite weapon and he might want to use it again."

Bashir was silent for a moment, then in a gentle voice he said, "I think I understand. I suspect that you have strong feelings for him, as I think he does for you, and you do not want to believe that you will lose him. But, young woman, if you can wrestle Death Himself for this man and win, then you are indeed a healer."

Declan felt himself being moved back to the wagon on a litter that felt as if it was floating on air, then hearing as well as sight left him. The last thing he remembered feeling was a sudden explosion of intense cold.