Iron Tongue cr-4 Page 4

  " See? At least fifty mounted soldiers."

  Inyx scanned the trees above, the boles and the ground before shaking her head.

  " There were more. Notice the congestion of hoofprints here and here. Pieces of grey thread dangle from the bark, showing many rode off the path. Rains have caused some hardening of the earth at those points, but tracks have been left."

  " Hmmm," mused Noratumi, " you are right. Very good." He looked at her with renewed admiration. " This path leads directly to Bron. And in that direction, the camp."

  Falling silent, they moved on foot through the forests. After the desert, this was paradise for Inyx. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, taking in full odors rather than the abbreviated dryness she' d found on the sands. Here rose life, lush wetness, exciting breezes, real texture. And with it came the faint sounds of human voices.

  Jacy unnecessarily motioned her to silence. On their bellies, they moved forward until they sighted the soldiers' camp.

  Inyx had seen its ilk before. What worried her was the large number of mounts still tethered. If each one matched a soldier hidden away somewhere in the camp, there were a full hundred in reserve. To attack the other band would be stark foolishness on Noratumi' s part if Claybore could summon up twice that number to take them from the rear.

  Noratumi only smiled, then motioned Inyx away. They moved to the east, past a burbling stream and to a small waterfall.

  Only under the cover of the rushing water did Jacy speak.

  " Up there. Can you make it up on the rocks? They are slippery."

  As agile as a mountain goat, Inyx leaped from rock to rock, found the tiniest of hand- and footholds, and scaled the rock face beside the waterfall with contemptuous ease. Noratumi found the going rougher; he was not only heavier, his boot toes were squared off and slipped on the precarious rock face.

  Atop, waiting for Jacy, the woman studied the lake that created the waterfall. It stretched out for acres. But what attracted her attention was the cause of the waterfall. Some small aquatic creatures had built a dam across the river, restricting flow to the merest of trickles. The creatures allowed only enough flow over the top to reduce the pressure on their wood- and- mud structure.

  " You begin to understand?" asked Noratumi, finally reaching the top. He stood beside Inyx on the lake shore and pointed to the elaborately constructed dam across the mouth of the lake. " That is our secret weapon."

  " But how?"

  He didn' t answer. She realized the question had been improperly phrased and that the man' s sense of propriety had been violated. Or perhaps he might have simply wanted to remain mysterious for her benefit. She cursed under her breath, wondering which it was. All the while Jacy worked, he spoke not a single word to her. Only slowly did Inyx come to understand the man' s intent.

  He lugged a huge fallen log down to the shoreline. Here, using vines, he lofted the log until it swung freely. He tied another vine to the log, then swam across to secure that end to a far tree. This caused the heavy tree trunk to hang suspended over the creatures' dam. If the vine on either side gave way, Inyx saw the destruction that would occur.

  The heavy log would smash downward wrecking the dam; the water pressure would finish the destruction; the tiny stream escaping past the dam would become a torrential outpouring.

  And the grey- clads' camp was on the stream- which would be turned into a raging river.

  " But:" she began to ask again. She clamped her mouth firmly shut. Asking somehow insulted Noratumi. Let him show her, no matter how galled she got at having to wait.

  The man vanished into the forest. Inyx sat on her haunches, idly twisting grasses into pulpy strands, discarding them and starting over. She did not have Lan' s patience. Waiting annoyed her; she preferred immediate action to inactivity. But Jacy Noratumi finally returned. As silently as before, he scaled one tree and began smearing honey stolen from a hive onto the vine.

  Inyx had to smile when she saw the dark arrow of a line of ants home in on the tasty treat. They went directly up the tree, across the limb, down the vine and began eating the honey, even before Noratumi had finished.

  He dropped to the ground and washed his hands in the lake. Only then did he speak.

  " Past experience tells me we have only an hour before the hungry beggars chew through enough of the vine to bring down the log. Let us hurry to the attack! We have a battle to win this day!"

  They hastened to rejoin Noratumi' s small band, now stripped of their travel gear and arrayed in full battle dress. The horses nervously shuffled and pawed at the earth, aware of the impending fight.

  " How much longer before the dam breaks?" Inyx asked, as she slipped into what had been Margora' s padded armor. She started to ask again when she realized that Jacy was ignoring her; the question of their relative rankings had yet to be resolved. Inyx pushed down her irritation at being left in this social limbo. Noratumi enjoyed her company and even sought it out on their trek back to Bron, but she had the feeling of being treated as a diversion rather than a human at times.

  And at other times, he had made her think she was nothing less than a princess. Inyx had been among many peoples with different customs. Learning the ways of Bron required time. When she did figure out what the rules were, Noratumi' s behavior wouldn' t seem as odd. She might not approve of it then, but understanding would be hers.

  " To the city!" the man called from the front of the pathetic column. Inyx admired his determination, but to attack with such a small group against fully fifty armed and ready soldiers smacked of insanity. However, it was an insanity she could share. Pulling free her sword, she thrust it upward as if to gut the sky. The sun caught the blued steel and sent shafts of brilliance radiating toward Bron.

  Noratumi used this as a signal for the attack. Pell mell they thundered toward the meadow road leading to the front gate of the city. Shouting until she was hoarse, Inyx entered the green meadowand the battle.

  Immediately came five riders. Something singled her out from the others. She had no time to decide what this might have been. The five attacked. And she charged.

  Between them she raced, her horse straining to the utmost. Her blade flashed first left and then right, leaving behind lacerated wrists and cursing riders. She ducked under a heavy battle axe, leaned forward, and stabbed with her sword at the axe- wielder, and was rewarded by a liquid cry of anguish as her blade penetrated the exposed area under the man' s arm. He snorted blood from his nostrils, a sure sign she had punctured not only skin but lung. The man toppled off his horse, sending the animal racing off in confusion.

  " Jacy! Do you need help?" she cried, laughing even as she parried a spear- lunge. Jacy Noratumi turned, stared at her with emotionless amber eyes, and shook his head. It was all the answer she expected. Then Inyx found herself engaged with two riders, one of whom carried red officer' s stripes on a sleeve.

  Like Lan Martak, she had never been able to decipher the ranking system used by the grey- clads, but the red stripes indicated more than a simple soldier. A deft twist of her wrist disengaged her blade and sent it snaking into the other man' s throat. She faced the leader of Claybore' s troops.

  They hacked and hammered at one another until Inyx' s arm turned to lead. Knowing that she could not fight in this fashion much longer, Inyx changed tactics. Allowing her sword to be knocked aside, she made no effort to return to line. Instead, she rose up in her stirrups and hurled herself onto her opponent. Both tumbled to the ground in a kicking, swearing pile.

  The officer rolled free and came to her feet. She tossed back her helm, allowing a flow of medium- length blonde hair to catch the wind. A sneer marked her already- scarred face.

  “ So you are the one Claybore seeks," she said, the sibilance of her voice so great she hissed like a snake. " Promotion shall be mine when I deliver you to our leader."

  Inyx laughed harshly, reaching to her belt and pulling forth her dagger.

  " It' ll take more than words, bitch."

 
Inyx tried to stop the woman from making a quick signal to another grey- clad at the edge of the meadow; then she had to smile. That signal could mean only one thing: the reserves had been summoned from the camp. It was only a matter of moments before Noratumi' s carefully wrought trap was sprung, bringing watery death to all downhill.

  " Laugh if you will," came the words laden with scorn. " Claybore will place your head on a pike outside his palace. I will be made ruler of this entire planet."

  " Not if he doesn' t regain his tongue," said Inyx.

  The expression on the other woman' s face was worth the effort. The surprise momentarily froze her opponent; Inyx lunged forward, dagger tip leading the way. She pinked the officer' s left arm. Not a serious wound, but enough to produce a slowing. Then would come death.

  " You know nothing!" shrieked Claybore' s commander. She rushed forward, batted Inyx' s knife out of the way, and locked arms around the woman' s back, pinning her arms to her side. Inyx grunted as the woman applied pressure to the bear hug. Kick as she might, Inyx found herself unable to break free; Bending backwards, her breath gusting from her lungs, Inyx felt her spine cracking and her consciousness fleeing.

  Again surprise came to her rescue. A loud roaring followed by anguished cries of death echoed up from the forests. For the barest instant, Claybore' s commander hesitated. Inyx butted her head directly into the nose. She felt a gush of warm red coppery- smelling blood as cartilage broke. The woman screamed in pain and rage and Inyx kicked free.

  The officer held her broken nose as she looked from Inyx to the torrential outpourings raging through the forest. She watched her reserves washed away, their armor too heavy for easy escape. That very armor protecting from sword and arrow now weighed them down to a watery death.

  " It' s not as easy as you thought, is it?"

  " Slut!" screamed the officer.

  Rage worked against her. She lost her ability to think; Inyx sidestepped quickly and plunged her dagger deep into her opponent' s groin, the tip finding the nerve center in the hypogastrium. The blonde gasped, stiffened, then fell forward as if a woodsman' s axe had felled the largest tree in the forest. Panting, covered with blood- from her opponents- Inyx stepped back and surveyed the course of the battle.

  To her astonishment, Noratumi had not underestimated the fighting prowess of his tiny band. They had met and defeated Claybore' s larger company.

  " Not a bad day' s work," crowed Jacy Noratumi, riding up. " Most were killed here in the meadow, totally routed down in the forest. It' ll be a week before the dam is in place again, but that' s small loss. Come, join me." A brawny arm reached down for Inyx to take. She twisted up behind Noratumi, who spurred toward the gates leading into Bron.

  " Your people fight well. I' d thought this would be suicidal."

  " You fight magnificently yourself. The feast this evening in your honor will be:." Noratumi' s words trailed off as the survivors reformed into a single- file line.

  Inyx leaned around the man and stared up the road. The shimmering she had noted from a distance grew worse. The stone walls protecting Bron rippled and danced like reflections in a pond. A thin line of dust on the road held her attention. Not only was the dust pulled up into tiny whirlwinds, the motes trapped in the cones of wind sparkled with a deadly inner light.

  " Jacy, don' t," she said, but he had already seen the danger.

  The lead rider had been too eager to return home. Whipping his horse to a gallop, he had ridden full into that barely visible barrier- and had flashed out of existence. Not bone, not hair, nothing remained to show he or his mount had ever existed.

  They had defeated Claybore' s troops. To enter Bron they had to now defeat his magics.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dancing in front of him came a six- armed horror. Each arm ended in tiny tendrils clutching swords, axes, and flails designed to rip the flesh from his bones. Lan Martak croaked out a warning to Krek, clumsily drew his sword, and prepared to fight.

  The creature rushed forth- and through him.

  Lan blinked, then sank to his knees, supporting himself on his sword. He didn' t look behind to follow the path taken by the apparition. He knew now it had been a mirage, a product of his own feverish imagination- or of Claybore' s.

  " Friend Lan Martak, why do you stop to rest like that? Your knees will burn in this awful heat. Why, my own claws are beginning to melt from the heat. Imagine, chiton melting. It is terrible the hardships I must endure. The degradation of it all! How am I to get about if I have to hobble like some human, only using two legs. Two legs! The disgrace of it is unimaginable to you, I am sure."

  " I' m all right, Krek. It: it' s nothing."

  The spider turned his head around in a circle that would have been impossible for a human to mimic and said gently, " Claybore sends his visions again?"

  " Possibly. Or I might be hallucinating. I haven' t had enough water. The magics to condense the water take too much out of me now, even if it is a simple spell. And the heat. Damn this heat!"

  " On this point, we are in complete agreement. Let us not dally here. I can almost feel the coolness of mountain winds rustling through my furry legs."

  The young warrior heaved himself to his feet and closed weary eyes, reaching deep within himself for strength. He knew magical spells that enhanced physical power, but he shied away from chanting them. The higher he pushed himself with such spells, the more time it took to recover. The energy use had to be reserved for those times when instant strength was needed. He would be dead within the hour if now he tried to push his endurance magically.

  That did not prevent him from using other spells, others requiring only tiny portions of his energy. He reached out and found a tiny glowing spark, fanned it alive magically, allowed it to grow and glow and spin and dazzle his inner eye.

  He cast it forth.

  It appeared to speed off, diminish with distance, circle the entire universe and then return, all within the span of a rapid heartbeat. He examined the information brought back to him by the mote of light. He sighed when it verified what he had feared.

  Claybore' s power grew moment by moment. The sorcerer expended more time and spells against him in an effort to prevent Lan and Krek from reaching the relative safety of the mountains. The desert aided Lan. To attack magically over long distances sapped even Claybore' s augmented power.

  Lan wondered at how potent Claybore would be if he regained all his body' s segments. Even as the thought crossed his mind, he pushed it away. Claybore was considerably stronger than Lan with just heart, head, and torso. Another addition to his severed body would put him beyond Lan' s reach.

  The young mage examined the dancing mote of energy once more before freeing it to return into other dimensions. All the information possible had been milked from it.

  " Claybore cannot attack us directly," he told his spider friend. " He is occupied in some other battle. I had glimpses of another mage, a potent one. The name Iron Tongue intruded repeatedly."

  " Is it possible this Iron Tongue actually has within his head Claybore' s tongue?"

  Lan shrugged.

  " Whoever he is or whatever power he possesses, he and Claybore are locked in a death fight. I also sensed that Claybore' s attention is divided in another direction."

  " Inyx?"

  " I fear so. It might be best to draw his attention away by some magical attack."

  " Can you do it? Your voice comes out weak and broken. Almost as weak and broken as I feel. Oh woe! Why do I walk the Road? I shall die, I know I will die in this web- forsaken, desolate place."

  Lan kept his eyes closed. His lips moved in a cracked cadence as he employed his energy- giving spell, but he directed it not at himself but at Krek. In direct proportion, he felt himself increasingly drained as the spider perked up. When Krek bounded to his feet, almost as agile as his healthy self, Lan stopped the chant. A few seconds more and Lan himself would have been unable to walk.

  " I do feel ever so much better after this
brief respite. Do come along, friend Lan Martak. It is only a short jaunt to the mountains. Not far at all."

  Krek bounced off, his uneven gait faster than Lan could match. The human didn' t care. He might move slower now that he had transferred some of his energy to Krek, but that didn' t mean he wouldn' t arrive sooner or later. Lan Martak had learned much of his own limits since walking the Road. He plunged to new depths of exhaustion only because his burgeoning magical powers gave him new heights of energy.

  " Move," he mumbled to himself. " One foot, then the other. Move, move, move!"

  All day he maintained this ritual. Twilight descended and cooler winds blew into his face. He hardly noticed. He kept up his snail' s pace. The only change that penetrated was under his feet. Crusted sand dunes became tiny pebbles, which changed into solid rock. By the time he heard Krek' s damnably cheerful voice, he struggled along an arroyo dotted with increasingly lush vegetation.

  " We' re out of the desert," he heard himself saying, almost in disbelief. " We made it!"

  " Of course we made it, you silly human. I never doubted for a moment we would. Here, look. See? Is this not the most wonderful pond you have ever seen?"

  " What? Pond? Water!"

  " Oh, yes, it is that. I referred to the waterbugs. So tasty. Succulent, even."

  The arachnid bobbed up and down, mandibles dexterously snapping closed on one insect after another. Krek became so greedy he had to use two of his front legs to force the bugs into his mouth. Lan paid him no attention. Falling flat on his stomach, he plunged his head under the cool, fresh surface of the tiny pond. Only when he began to gasp for air did he surface, sputtering and letting the restoring water run down his face.

  " Are you going to drink that terrible fluid or simply play in it?" demanded Krek. " It appalls me watching you frolic and cavort about so. In water. How absolutely disgusting." The spider quivered all over to make his point.

  " A year' s rest wouldn' t do me more good at the moment," Lan said, hardly exaggerating. This time when he plunged his face down to the rippling surface, he drank. Slowly at first, then with greater need. He forced himself to stop. His body required a certain length of time before it absorbed what he had drunk. A few minutes later, he again sampled the water. Whatever happened, he didn' t want to take in too much and make himself sick.