an effort to avenge their fellow or to flee.
“Disgusting,” Hobart whispered from where he crouched. “They’re eating one of those cat-things, and the others are just letting them do it.”
“Cows do the same thing when we slaughter them,” Giorge muttered.
“Maybe if we kill the fishmen,” Ortis suggested, “the other things will leave us alone. Cows would, wouldn’t they? If we killed the herdsman?”
Hobart frowned and nodded. “Can you hit them from here?” he asked, his voice barely loud enough for them to hear.
“I think so,” Ortis said. “But it may not be a kill shot from this range, especially in this light.”
“They don’t have any long-range weapons, right?” Angus asked.
“It doesn’t look that way,” Hobart said. “Why?”
“We can get closer, then,” Angus whispered.
“Not without alerting them to our presence,” Ortis said. “I’d rather have a stationary target. The more they move, the less likely the arrows will hit them.”
Hobart nodded. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go back to our horses. We’ll give you two volleys, and then charge. If you don’t hit them, we should be able to reach them before they get into the grain. We’ll never be able to find them once they’re in that stuff.”
They returned to their horses and Ortis joined his other constituent at the lip. As the three archers readied their arrows and took aim, the others mounted their horses. When Ortis let fly the first volley and readied the second, they kneed their horses forward at a brisk walk. As they neared the top of the road, Ortis hurried to the sides and let them pass at a gallop.
When they topped the rise, the cat-things hissed at them for only a few moments before turning to flee toward the grain. They let them go; their attention was focused on the fishmen. One was dead, a pair of arrows through its neck and head. A second had an arrow in one shoulder and held an axe at the ready. The third was stumbling around, an arrow in his foot and another embedded in his armor.
Hobart charged forward and drew his broadsword. Leslie executed a complex maneuver by deftly sidestepping the swinging axe and then lunging in close to the fishman before it could make a return swing. The maneuver gave Hobart a clear opening, and he swung the broadsword down at the exposed neck of the fishman, made contact, righted himself in his saddle, and corrected his balance as Leslie charged the other fishman. The second fishman had only enough time to throw up his arms when the horse reared and slashed out with her hooves….
“That’s that,” Hobart said a half minute later. He dismounted and checked to make sure the fishmen were all dead, and when he got to the one that was nearly decapitated, he finished the job and carried the head back to his horse.
“Did you need to do that?” Angus asked.
Hobart opened a saddlebag and took out a heavy, cloth sack. He opened it and dropped the head inside. After he tied it shut, he turned to Angus and said, “Commander Garret will need proof.”
“You’re going to take that all the way back to Hellsbreath?” Angus asked. “Won’t it rot?”
Hobart nodded. “Yes,” he said. “But it is important.”
“It’s going to attract scavengers,” Angus protested. “Can’t you take something else instead?”
Hobart shrugged. “We should take all of their heads,” he said. “There’s a bounty on them.”
“Look,” Giorge said, pointing toward the grain. The cat-things were disappearing into it as if it were their native habitat, and once they were inside, there was almost no sign of their presence. “Do we pursue them?” he asked. “Or do we investigate the ruins?”
“See the fires?” Hobart said. “There are too many of them.”
“Not necessarily,” Ortis said. “The cat-things fled when we killed the fishmen. They may not fight us.”
Hobart shook his head. “What would they have done if the fishmen hadn’t been killed?”
“Do cows fight when the herder tells them to?” Giorge quipped.
“They aren’t cows,” Hobart reminded him. “Their claws are formidable weapons.”
“More to the point,” Angus said. “What are they doing now?”
“They’re probably on their way to alert the others,” Hobart said, as if he were simply stating an obvious truth. “So, do you want to go into a well-defended, well-prepared stronghold to fight against an enemy of unknown size and strength? Or do you want to go back to Hellsbreath to report in? We can always come back here with the garrison to deal with what’s in the temple.”
“That grain,” Angus suddenly asked. “Is it the same kind of grain that’s grown in Tyr?”
“It looks like it from here,” Ortis said. “Why?”
“Did any of you get a look at their eyes? The cat-things’ eyes?”
“No,” Hobart said. “I was busy with the fishmen.”
“I was focused on shooting arrows at the fishmen,” Ortis said.
“What does it matter?” Giorge asked. “Eyes are eyes, aren’t they?”
Angus frowned, shook his head. “I need to get a closer look at them,” he said. “It they’re what I think they are, it will change everything.”
“Why?” Hobart asked. “What do you think they are?”
Angus shook his head and removed his backpack from his shoulders. “You’re sure fishmen don’t have arrows? Spears? Weapons like that?” he asked as he strapped his backpack to his saddle horn and focused on the magic around him. There were far more strands of flame than he expected for such a high place, but he went past them, reaching for the darkest blue strand of sky magic he could find. Even though it would be difficult to control, he needed a powerful one if he were to fly such a long distance, and the darker the strand the more potent—and dangerous—its magic.
“These three didn’t,” Hobart said. “But the ones to the north often carry spears made from the same kind of reeds as their armor.”
Angus nodded and began tying the knots for the flying spell. When he finished, he leapt upward—shot upward, really; he still didn’t have very good control over velocity, and this was a powerful strand. He shifted position until he was moving toward the temple, and struggled to control his pace. It was a long flight, and when he neared the walls, he realized his mistake: The spell would break free before he could get back; it was too powerful for him to contain for much longer. Should he return as far as he could? Or should he find out what was in the ruins?
They were ruins; only two of the original walls were still standing, and the temple grounds were mostly covered in rubble. Some of that rubble had been cleared away for a large fire, around which slept about three dozen of the cat-things. He saw no sign of fishmen. Would the cat-things attack him if he landed? They hadn’t noticed him yet, but there was no question that they would if he landed inside the ruins. If they didn’t attack, he could cast a spell or two….
He looked for a place to land away from the fires and the cat things. If he landed quietly, perhaps they wouldn’t notice. But he needed them to notice him; he wanted to see their eyes. He needed to see their eyes….
No, the spell first. He would see their eyes then. Wide eyes full of terror….
He rounded the temple one more time to slow down. How far have I come? How many miles? Two? Three? Would they follow him? He’d have to make sure they did, wouldn’t he? It was foolish to come alone; he could get captured, eaten….
There, he thought. The rubble will block their view of me. If they don’t see me, I’ll have time….
He wrapped his black robe tightly around him and did his best to land—fall, really—as quietly as he could. As he descended, he caught a glimpse of the temple interior. The outer wall had collapsed, but the inner chamber was still standing, and inside it was a smaller fire with at least a dozen fishmen gathered around it. There were no cat-things, only the fishmen. And they had axes, no spears or bows. Was that all of them? Or were there other fishmen deeper in the temple ruins?
When he struck the
ground, he didn’t bother to wait to see if he had been heard. The spell was too complex; he needed as much time to cast it as he could get. He released the sky strand and reached for several strands of flame and earth. He began weaving them together as if he were making a blanket, and as he worked, he reached for the strands within himself and integrated them into the complex pattern of the spell. He began to sweat as the threads writhed around him, within him, their potent energy blending with his own, intensifying it.
Minutes passed as he struggled to force the unruly threads into the unnatural design. An eerie silence fell in around him, enveloped him. No hiss or howl from the cat-things. No fishmen charging in to kill him. Just himself and the overwhelming power radiating through him, from him. Then he reached the last knot, the one from which he could not return.
He tied it, and the threads ignited, their flames violently cascading through him, almost wrenching him apart—but the knots held! He had cast it properly! In his exultation, he lifted his hands above him—
They were on fire! They were fire! They burned with white-hot intensity, and he relished the energy surging through him. He let it go, and a ball of flame shot upward and exploded outward, sending out a shower of sparks over the temple grounds. He laughed—a hideous, monstrous laugh—and turned to the rubble in front of him. He held out his hands, stepped forward….
Flames shot from his hands and the stones began to glow red, then white, then melted. He stepped into the