They said no more through the rest of the night, and when dawn came, they walked out of the bear’s cave to the animal’s grunting relief—and into the sunlight.
“I have a secret camp,” Bryan said after discerning their location. “Not far from here.” He pointed to a distant spur of the mountain.
“Let’s be going, then,” Rhiannon replied, and she started off along the rocky trail.
Bryan paused a moment to watch her go. She had freely discussed her powers concerning the healing, even of talking to the birds to learn of his whereabouts. But when he had shifted the conversation to the darker side of Rhiannon’s magic, to the killing wrath of the animated tree, she had choked up. Apparently the young woman wasn’t comfortable with that facet of her existence. Bryan had to pity her, for he knew that if she meant to spend any length of time on this side of the River Ne’er Ending, she would have to use those destructive tactics quite often.
The notion intrigued Bryan. What was the extent, he wondered, of Rhiannon’s strength? With her by his side, how much more could he do against the talons? Or even more important, what part might this magic-worker play in the overall outcome of the war?
Bryan took up his bow and started down the path after Rhiannon. He would have to let those questions hang unanswered for a while at least, for he had no intention of pressing Rhiannon about them. For all of his curiosity, he could not bear to see that dark cloud pass over her fair features again.
Chapter 21
Enter the Wraith
THE BLACK WARLOCK paced anxiously about the field, his eyes darting from talon to talon, and each of the beasts in turn fell to the ground in abject terror. They knew that their boss was nervous and angry, and they knew, too, that the Black Warlock often released his anger on the nearest living target, friend or foe.
But more than angry, Morgan Thalasi was afraid. He had returned several days before, eager for his next, most glorious assault across the bridges. Mitchell, with his ghost horse, should have returned the very next day, but the wraith had not yet made his appearance.
“I cannot do this alone,” Thalasi growled at a nearby talon. He clenched his bony fist in rage, and the talon slumped to the ground, choking, as if a replica of the Black Warlock’s fist had appeared within its skinny throat.
Thalasi stormed away without concern for the dying thing. He needed Mitchell. Every day, it was necessary to renew his attacks against Avalon and the White Tower to keep his archenemies on the defensive and prevent them from striking out hard against his army. That alone was draining enough, but with no sign of Mitchell, Thalasi also had to continue to manage the rabble forces of the talons, a task made even more difficult by the constant pressure applied by King Benador and his trained and talented army. Several times each day the Calvans charged across the bridges, cutting into the closest ranks of talons, and then retreated to the safety of their seemingly impregnable defenses.
To further the Black Warlock’s troubles, reports from the Baerendels told of groups of heroes harassing the supply caravans and the lines of reinforcements.
Thalasi simply could not keep track of it all. He wondered how many more mistakes he would make, how many more opportunities he would lose for the lack of organization in his army. They should have swept through the western fields and right across the Four Bridges long before the King and his troops ever arrived on the field.
Yet here they sat, hopelessly stalemated.
The Black Warlock’s greatest concern of all was his personal strength. Trying to do so many things prevented him from concentrating on the most important task: the defeat of the other wizards. Though the continuing tie of harmony between the two spirits of the Black Warlock should have added to his power, each day he grew more weary, his strength slipping from him. And Thalasi knew, to his horror, that if the fourth wizard, Ardaz, made his appearance on the field, he and his talons would surely be crushed.
His creation of the wraith was supposed to have changed all of that. With Mitchell handling the day-to-day affairs of the army, the Black Warlock would be free to pursue his magical growth. Only then could he hope to destroy his more powerful enemies, the other wizards and that infernal witch.
“So where are you?” Thalasi screamed to the empty black horizon of the northland.
* * *
He rested when the sun was at its brightest, unable to stand its shining glory. But his march in those darkest hours was tireless, calling on energies unlimited by the restrictions of a mortal body. Mitchell knew the need for haste; he could see the fires of the opposing camps far to the south. But Brielle had stolen the wraith’s mount, and the distance from Avalon to the Four Bridges was a long walk indeed.
Finally, though, the wraith came upon the talon army. His first encounter with the troops he would lead came in the form of a thrown spear. Mitchell saw it coming and merely puffed out the apparition of his chest, accepting the blow from the meager weapon without the slightest flinch.
Three talons charging in behind the throw stopped in their tracks, the blood draining from their hideous faces when they recognized the wraith for what it was.
“Hold!” Mitchell commanded. One of the beasts fled anyway, but the other two could find no strength to move their legs.
“What is your name?” Mitchell demanded of the one who had thrown the spear.
The talon cowered and trembled, giving no indication that it would answer.
“Name?” Mitchell roared, moving right up to the pitiful thing.
The talon garbled something in its native guttural tongue, a language quite unknown to Mitchell. The wraith reached down and grabbed the beast by the front of its shabby jerkin and pulled it to its feet.
“A good throw,” he said, handing the talon back its spear. “And a fine guard you all have set! It is promising to see my troops so alert!”
The talon exchanged a confused look with its companion.
“Who you?” it dared to ask.
Mitchell’s grating laughter sent shivers through their spines. “A friend of the master,” he said. “I have come to lead you to victory over your enemies.”
“What you?” the other asked.
Again the otherworldly laughter erupted from the wraith, a godless and eerie sound. “The general,” was all Mitchell offered in reply. With a whisk of his hand he sent the two talons sprawling to the side, and he strode by them toward the center of the encampment.
The talons, chilled by the touch that promised a death of unspeakable horror, did not offer any further resistance, did not even rise from the ground until the wraith was far away.
Thalasi saw the entire northern perimeter of his encampment parting, talons running this way and that, and he heard the excited and horrified whispers erupting all about him. But more than anything else, the Black Warlock felt the presence of his child, this undead thing that numbered among his greatest achievements. For all the relief the Black Warlock felt at the entrance of Hollis Mitchell, though, his primary emotion remained his unending rage, and after his initial elation upon seeing the approach of the wraith, Thalasi went right to work scheming a suitable punishment for his tardy general.
If Mitchell realized that Thalasi would be angry, he showed no outward signs of it. He strode through the ranks of the talons and right up to the Black Warlock.
“Where have you been?” Thalasi demanded. “You should have arrived four days ago!”
“The road was not so empty,” Mitchell replied casually.
Thalasi paused to weigh the implications of the answer and to survey the area around the wraith.
“Where is your steed?” he asked.
“Gone.”
A flame of anger lighted in the deep sockets of Thalasi’s eyes. “Gone?”
“Ashes to ashes,” Mitchell replied sarcastically.
Now the Black Warlock was beginning to understand. He waved the curious talons away and led Mitchell to the privacy of his tent, not wanting to scold the talon commander in front of the creatures
he would lead.
“Who have you battled?” Thalasi asked when he was certain they were alone. “Who was it that destroyed the horse I created for you?” Considering the route Mitchell had crossed, the Black Warlock already suspected the answer and was more than a little concerned.
“It was a witch,” Mitchell answered. “A friend of yours?”
“Save your sarcasm,” Thalasi hissed. “What brought you near Avalon? Are you that much of a fool?”
Mitchell laughed at him. “You fear her?”
“I respect her powers,” Thalasi corrected. “As should you. Especially near the boughs of her domain. You are mighty, wraith, but do not overstep the limitation of that power. Consider yourself fortunate that Brielle did not reduce you to the nothingness you once were.”
“Bah!” Mitchell spat. “Damn her and her wood! I had him! I had Belexus, that cursed ranger. But he got to Avalon and she appeared, the mothering witch.”
“Belexus?” Thalasi stammered, knowing the name all too well from the disastrous assaults on the bridges and from the past encounters between the ranger and the being that had been Martin Reinheiser. “What … why did you meet with that one? You had your orders.”
“I found him, and his friend—who is now deceased,” Mitchell explained, his chuckle unnerving even the Black Warlock. “They had camped along the banks of the river, offering an opportunity for pleasure I could not bypass.”
“So you crossed and attacked them.”
“And I would have had both of them if that damned witch and her flying horse hadn’t saved Belexus.”
Thalasi slammed his palms together, releasing a jolt of black energy that blasted the wraith to the ground in a heap. Mitchell looked up at the master, fearful respect in his flaming eyes for the first time. He thought himself a doomed and damned thing at that moment, as surely as he had seen his doom when Reinheiser had revealed himself as the new Black Warlock at the bottom of the cliff in Blackamara those twenty years before.
“You revealed yourself to them,” Thalasi scolded, but he was calm again, his outrage quickly dissipating as he tried to salvage his plans. “Brielle knows who you are, what you are, and now she will direct attacks against you. I had hoped to reveal you in the final battle over the river, to let King Benador and the others discover their doom even as it fell upon them.”
Mitchell floated to his feet. “They won’t stop us,” he declared. “Maybe I should not have crossed, but the thought of catching Belexus, of stealing him so easily from the Calvan effort! I did not forget what that one did at the Battle of Mountaingate. With his strength and his leadership he can sway a battle as surely as an entire brigade of skilled warriors.”
“True enough,” the Black Warlock admitted. “The Four Bridges would surely have fallen on the first assault if it had not been for his efforts. The Calvans rally around him, throw themselves in the path of spears aimed for him.”
“His friend, that other ranger, Andovar, is dead,” Mitchell said, his evil smile returning. “And Belexus is wounded—perhaps he, too, is dead by now. I doubt that he will rejoin the battle anytime soon.”
“Do not underestimate the healing powers of Brielle and her forest,” Thalasi warned grimly, but he was also wearing an evil smile upon his face. The notion that his wraith had sent the mighty son of Bellerian running in fright amused him profoundly, so much so that he wasn’t certain if the cost had been too high.
“I shall make you another steed,” he said to the wraith. “But later, when I have the time. You are here now, and you must meet with the talon commanders at once and take immediate command of the army. Summer is slipping from us, and I mean to get to the walls of Pallendara before the first snow.”
“We should cross the bridges this week,” Mitchell agreed.
“Perhaps,” replied Thalasi. “But we have many tasks before us.”
“Boats,” Mitchell said.
Thalasi considered the option and nodded, pleased that Mitchell was so quickly formulating the plans they would need. “I must leave the mechanics of crossing the river to your judgment,” he explained. “It is my task to discern the best way to defeat the witch and Istaahl in Pallendara, or at least hold them at bay. And I must find you the tools to defeat Ardaz, for he has not yet shown himself, but I do not doubt that he shall.”
“Then make me the tools,” Mitchell replied, still grinning. “And worry about the wizard and the wretched witch. I will have the army ready to cross, and at their lead, I will see to the destruction of the Calvan forces.”
“Among them, only Ardaz can stand against you,” Thalasi declared with all confidence. “And together, we will take care of that one.”
Andovar reached out to her, hopelessly begging her to save him. And Rhiannon reached back, stretched her arms out across the misty barrier to catch the doomed man.
But even as her fingers neared the ranger, the cold blackness of death fell over him in an opaque veil so final that even Rhiannon’s magic could not penetrate it. The young witch screamed again and again, crying out in hopeless denial.
And Andovar screamed back, a distant cry falling, ever falling, away from Rhiannon.
Away from the world of the living.
Her breath came in loud gasps; the streaked sweat on her forehead loomed stark in the thin moonlight.
And Bryan was by her side. “A dream,” he whispered into her ear. “Only a dream.”
Rhiannon looked at him for support, took comfort in his touch as though it was some kind of material litany against her inability to grasp the pleading hands of Andovar.
But even as the young witch began to separate the dream from the reality about her, she realized that something was wrong. “Evil,” she said to Bryan’s concerned look. “There be great evil about this night.”
Bryan glanced around, suddenly back on the alert. One hand went to his sheathed sword.
“Not here,” Rhiannon assured him. She let her sixth sense, her witching sense, guide her eyes back to the east and the north, to the talon encampment.
Bryan did not miss the direction of Rhiannon’s gaze.
“What happened?” he asked.
Rhiannon shrugged. “An ally of the Black Warlock?” she asked as much as answered. “Some great and powerful evil has entered the battlefield.” She groped for words to explain her vague sensations. “Me heart sees a blackness.”
Bryan considered her comments and their present position. They had moved deeper into the mountains, but the half-elf knew paths that would get them back to the north-easternmost slopes overlooking the battlefield in merely two or three days. “Do you wish to go back there?” he asked.
Rhiannon wasn’t certain how she might help against whatever was causing this insistent, frightening sensation, or what her role in such a large-scale battle might be. But she felt it her duty to go back to the field, as though somehow fate demanded that she be in attendance when the Black Warlock made his move.
“I must,” she said to Bryan.
Bryan didn’t try to argue. He, too, wondered what his final place in all of this might be. He had carved a fine niche thus far, but when all was over, his contribution to the overall effort would not be so dramatic, particularly if the Black Warlock proved victorious.
“We will set out in the morning,” he agreed. “But for now, get some sleep. The trails ahead will not be easy marching.”
Rhiannon squeezed his arm in thanks, then slipped back to her blanket bed. But she would find no more sleep that night, not with the vision of Andovar falling into darkness so clear in her thoughts.
And not with her suspicion that this evil she now sensed was somehow connected to Andovar’s death.
The talons were no more comfortable around the wraith of Mitchell than they were around the Black Warlock himself. But like Thalasi, Mitchell incited more than enough terror in the beasts to persuade them to follow his every command. He met with the leaders that very night and laid the groundwork for the effort needed to get them across th
e river.
When the bright summer sun climbed into the sky the next morning, the wraith took shelter under the thick folds of a tent. But the 268talons went to work, organizing their troops into divisions and setting them about the tasks that General Mitchell had outlined.
* * *
Across the river, King Benador and his commanders watched with growing concern as all of the wood the talons could gather—deserted wagons, walls of buildings, even uprooted trees—was brought to the northern corner of the encampment.
“It seems that our enemies have found some direction to their meandering ways,” the King remarked to an adviser at his side.
The other man scanned the entirety of the camp, his eyes falling on battle formations that several groups of talons were practicing. “The wedge,” he remarked pointedly, surprised that the untrained things even knew of such advanced tactics. “We might find them better prepared the next time they decide to storm the bridges.”
“A few days of practice.” Benador shrugged. “It will not stand up against the lifelong dedication of the Warders of the White Walls. Alas for the talons, the result will be the same.”
Benador’s confidence did much to boost the spirits of those around him, but even the determined King had to pause in concern a short time later. For by the day’s end, many boats had already been constructed.
Chapter 22
Bells and Horns
DAY AFTER DAY King Benador watched the activity across the river with growing concern. The talons seemed more of an army now, not just a collection of bloodthirsty killers. Someone or something was putting them in line and giving them the discipline they needed to strike out effectively against the Calvan army. And while the numbers of Benador’s camp continued to grow daily as volunteers found their way in from all across eastern Calva, the talon army swelled even more. On a single day a troop of several thousand flowed in from the Baerendels, all eager to join the Black Warlock in his glorious conquest.