The fall broke his back before the wolf had a chance to kill him.
From horseback, Master Barsonage jumped awkwardly into the bed of the other wagon. Lashing the leads, the wagoner forced his team over against the wall directly under the wolves. In that position, the leaping wolves carried over the mediator’s head toward the wagon with the broken glass.
While Master Vixix and the wagoner cowered on the bench, the mediator blocked the rails with his girth, swinging his fists like mallets at every wolf within reach, using his furniture-maker’s strength to batter beasts away from his mirrors.
The guards milled in the ravine, thwarting each other, striking ineffectively; the walls crowded them, blocked them. And a number of them had gone ahead of the wagons to meet the attack, with the result that now most of the wolves were behind them. Nearly shrieking in fright, Terisa cried, “Protect Geraden! They’re after Geraden!”
Men shouted, raged; blades flashed; horses collided, knocked each other to the dirt. Nevertheless Terisa’s shout pierced the confusion. The captain of the company roared orders she couldn’t understand through the din.
The nearest riders wheeled back toward the wagons.
A wolf shot past the horses, slavering like a rabid thing. At the same time, two more picked themselves up off the ground behind the wagons, hurtled to the attack. And another sprang from the ravine’s rim, hurling itself at the wagon between it and Geraden.
With a demented wail, the Master who had tried to shoo the first wolf away leaped off the wagon bench and attempted to catch this beast in mid-dive.
Its weight and his leap carried the two of them over the rail among the horses.
Now Geraden remembered his sword. Still forcing his mount between Terisa and the wolves, driving her nag against the wall, he fumbled behind him, got a hand on his sword hilt, struggled to wrench the blade out of its scabbard over his shoulder.
The sword seemed to be stuck. Terisa could see a wolf already lifting from the ground as if it could fly. Wildly, almost unseating herself, she reached for Geraden’s back and caught hold of the scabbard.
The blade rushed free, split the beast’s head open from eyesocket to throat. Geraden was swinging so hard that only the jolt of impact kept him from being pulled off his mount by his own blow.
Out of the chaos, Ribuld’s pike took another wolf by the chest and gutted it. That gave Geraden time to recover his balance – but not enough time for his lack of expertise to mislead him. Unable to haul the heavy blade back and swing it again before the next wolf sprang at him, he simply jammed his sword point into the beast’s maw.
In case the wolf wasn’t dead yet, Ribuld hacked its head off.
Without warning, the attack was over.
Men brandished their swords, shouting across the cries of the wounded; horses wheeled and stamped; the captain yelled warnings, instructions. But no more wolves appeared, either in the ravine or along its rim.
Terisa felt that she was about to fall over from holding her breath too long. Why hadn’t she felt the translation? “Watch out!” she called with as much strength as she had. Maybe it took place too far away. “Eremis still has the mirror.” She had the impression that she was barely audible. Maybe Eremis didn’t have exactly the mirror he needed, so he had to simply release his wolves among these hills and let them hunt for Geraden in their own way. The actual translation may have happened miles or hours ago. “He can translate more whenever he wants.”
“I doubt it,” Geraden muttered, apparently speaking to himself. He held his sword erect in front of him and stared at it as if it appalled him. “Wolves travel in packs.” Blood ran down the blade onto his hands, his forearms; the front of his cloak was splashed with red. “And mirrors have a relatively small range. There isn’t likely to be another pack living that near this one.” As he gripped the hilt, his arms began to shake. “After his attack on Houseldon, Eremis probably had to wait all this time just to get these wolves.”
Abruptly, as if every movement hurt him, Geraden wiped the blade on his cloak and drove it back into its scabbard.
“Eremis can drop an avalanche on us whenever we’re near one of his flat mirrors. But he can’t force a wolf pack on another world into his reach.”
The captain nodded grimly, then announced, “We’re going to take precautions anyway.” He sent five men ahead to catch up with the Tor and report what had happened. Ten more men were assigned scouting duties.
Somehow, Terisa had come through the attack untouched. No blood had marked her. The only stain she bore was the one Adept Havelock had left on her shirt.
This time, no more than six of the people around her were dead. Two horses were dead. Two more had to be put out of their misery. One Master was dead: Cuebard. Until she saw his body, Terisa had never heard his name spoken. The captain counted nineteen dead wolves. “Curse this terrain,” he rasped. “On open ground, we could have chopped them into dogmeat – and suffered nothing but scratches.”
Trying not to hurry, Barsonage and the rest of the Masters unpacked all the mirrors.
Luckily, only one was broken: Master Vixix’s flat glass, with its Image of the Fen of Cadwal.
“Thank the stars.” Despite the cold, Master Barsonage was sweating thickly. “We are more fortunate than we deserve.”
“It’s my fault,” said the captain, growling obscenities at himself. “Castellan Norge is going to hang my balls on a stick. I should have had scouts around us right from the beginning.”
“Don’t worry about it, captain,” Ribuld muttered sardonically. “He needs you too much. He won’t actually unman you unless we win this war and end up safe in Orison again.
“But if that happens, watch your groin.”
Several of the guards laughed, more in reaction to the fight than because they thought Ribuld was funny.
“Are you all right?” Terisa asked Geraden privately.
He shook his head; contradicted himself with a nod; shrugged his shoulders. To the cold wind and the ravine’s wall, he said, “I’ve got another strong feeling.”
“Oh, good.” She tried to help him by sounding wry rather than troubled. “Somehow, I just know I’m going to love this one.”
“I’ve got the strongest feeling—” The muscles at the corners of his jaw knotted, released. “When the fighting really starts, we’d better be sure we’ve got somebody with us who handles a sword better than I do.”
Terisa assented bleakly. And better than Ribuld, too, she thought to herself, remembering Gart, who had beaten Ribuld and his dead friend Argus simultaneously.
Choose your risks more carefully. She intended to do that. If she could just figure out how.
Well before noon, she and Geraden, with Master Barsonage, the Congery, and the guards, rejoined Orison’s army. When the Tor had assured himself that their news was no worse than the report he had received, he rumbled, “Tomorrow you will have five hundred men with you. Master Eremis may strike at you again. And tomorrow there will be a clear danger of encountering High King Festten’s scouts and outriders.”
That made Terisa feel neither worse nor better. Caution was sensible. On the other hand, she felt sure that Mordant’s fate wouldn’t be decided by a chance encounter with scouts or outriders. And she had a distinct sense that Eremis wasn’t going to attack again. With his enemies so close to him now, he would wait until they came all the way into his trap, put themselves completely in his power. He wasn’t interested in anything as relatively straightforward as victory. He wanted to crush and humiliate, to annihilate everyone who opposed him. Whatever he did when his enemies reached Esmerel would be intended to hurt them spiritually as much as physically.