"It is," a voice rumbled behind him, in the minotaur tongue. Darin wanted to turn, but knew he would faint if he tried, so only stood, swaying gently, until the speaker came around to his front.
The minotaur wore sandals, an apron with many pockets, and a sleeveless vest hung with pouches. In his prime, he must have matched Waydol's height, but now that his muzzle was gray and his russet hide speckled with white, Darin could almost meet his eye.
One eye only-the healer wore a patch over the other, taken by some injury beyond his powers to heal.
"Hello, Grimsoar," Darin said. "I always knew you were too big to be human."
The minotaur healer looked from Darin to Rynthala, and Darin was vaguely aware of having spoken without making sense. Rynthala made an imperative gesture; Darin wanted to remind her about not ordering minotaurs about.
For a moment he thought his reminder had come too late, as the minotaur drew a katar from an apron pocket. Then the minotaur jerked a pouch off his vest and let its contents-some sort of pinkish jelly-ooze over the katar. It was when the minotaur thrust at Darin's cheek with the katar that the knight became sure his wife had doomed them both with a mortal insult to the healer.
Then Rynthala clutched him, holding him motionless, and for a moment rage and pain nearly drove him to smashing her jaw with his good hand. In the next moment there was no room in him for rage, only pain. He was certain that the minotaur had driven the katar clean through his head, and wondered if the point would erupt through the other cheek.
Then the pain in Darin's cheek was gone. Rynthala was still holding him, and the minotaur was running the katar along the wounded hand, so the knight had no way to feel his cheek. Even when the minotaur stepped back and Rynthala released him, he did not quite dare to use his wounded hand to feel his cheek.
He was sure it would fall off if he used it.
But the left hand brought no pain from the wounded cheek, only brushing fingers over a ridged scar. He would have a barbarian's look to him if that scar did not heal, but now he was content that it did not hurt.
And his sword hand was only stiff from its scar, not painful at all. He flexed his fingers; they all moved. No muscles torn, or at least none left unhealed.
He looked around for the minotaur healer. He saw only the backs of two minotaurs, one with bandaged eyes, walking down the hill. He also realized that the storm had died completely that he heard the last rain dripping from the trees and little else. No, he heard distant moans, too deep to be human. Minotaurs did their best to die in silence, but some pain no being of flesh and blood could endure.
He now knew that better than ever before. He hoped that somewhere beyond the world, Waydol also knew that those he had left behind had some care for the human child he had fostered.
Then Rynthala was embracing him, so that his ribs creaked and might have broken had he not been wearing armor. As he bent to kiss her, the last thing he saw above was a flock of seabirds soaring in from the ocean.
Chapter 12
The night after the battle on Suivinari Island, Wilthur the Brown contemplated the future with distaste, although not yet with foreboding.
Certainly he had untapped powers for physical resistance to the invasion, Just as certainly, physical resistance would not be sufficient. The will of the gods was manifest in that matter. His aspirations came too close to upsetting the balance the deities cherished for them to tolerate his extending his attacks offshore-into the depths of either earth or sea, or into the sky. Wilthur privately thought that the gods feared his aspirations to enter among their ranks rather as a hall of nobles fears the petition of a wealthy commoner.
He would not petition. He would preserve his stronghold and, in due course, prevail.
But if physical means could not provide that defense, he knew he had to attack the enemy on a field that had not been forbidden him: their own minds. He had methods requiring spells so demanding that he could only set them upon one being at a time, that would yield poor or even dangerous decisions, without anyone knowing from whence those ideas came.
He had knowledge of the various leaders. After contemplating that knowledge, he decided that the most vulnerable target was the minotaur chief, Zeskuk.
Gerik was warm in bed and in a dream of riding through a field of wheat so ripe that it almost glowed in the sun, when he heard the knocking.
It took a moment for him to separate the noise from the dream. It took him much longer to reach full wakefulness, but he did not wait for that before reaching for his clothes. His hands instead encountered warm skin, and a giggle sounded, almost as loud, and far more pleasant than the knocking.
He had a brief, almost overwhelming impulse to forget the door in favor of the owner of the skin and the source of the giggle. Then he felt a bare foot in the small of his back and suddenly he was rolling out of bed, jerking awake as if he had been plunged into cold water. His clothes followed him, and he fought down a brief impulse to curse.
"Duty calls, my lord," came the voice from the bed. As if he needed further reminder, the knocking grew louder. Gerik allowed himself one rude word about duty, then clad himself and opened the door.
Bertsa Wylum greeted him. From one look at her face, he knew this was no jest. What else it might be-
"You have come, Captain Wylum. Speak," he said.
Wylum wrinkled her nose and gave a mocking parody of the sell-swords' salute. "We have a sighting," she said. "Forty riders in Botsenril Woods."
That was to the south, in a direction from which neither robbers in past years nor ghost-riders this year had usually come. It was also within a half hour's ride of a number of the manor's tenant farms. And forty riders. Far too many for anybody's jest, if the tale held truth….
"One of my most trusted people," Wylum said. She did not describe the watcher further, which suggested to Gerik that he or she would be one of Wylum's secret allies. He knew that she had such, she knew that he and his father had their own, and each trusted the other's judgment in secret matters. Names one did not know, one could not reveal, either through too much wine or less pleasant influences.
"I came myself with the message," Wylum went on. "Less noise before you give permission."
"Permission for what?" Gerik had thought he was too awake to ask that sort of question. Wylum frowned but held her peace until Gerik could command both wits and his tongue. "Yes," he said at last. "By all means take the six riders of the ready guard. Take one or two more for messengers, if that will not delay you."
"Thank you, good sir," Wylum said. "The Botsenril's a tangle, and the roads more like trails. You can creep up close unwatched, but it's not much help if you can't send back what you learn."
"No, and remember that two can play at the game of creeping through the woods," Gerik said. "If these visitors have anyone who knows Botsenril, they could surround you. We need your arm and your wits, and I don't want to hear what my father or Floria Desbarres would say if I allowed you to be killed."
"If it's my time, fathers and Florias have no say," Wylum replied. "But I'll be careful just so you can sleep easy."
"Who said anything about sleep?" Gerik said. "When you go out, sound the alarm. I'm mounting up the rest of the riders, and sending a patrol out to the Alsenor Crossroads. Most of the ways out of the woods go by there, sooner or later."
"Manors left undefended fall to attackers the lord didn't see-sooner or later," Wylum said.
Gerik flushed. "All right, half the remaining riders," he acquiesced. "But you alert the village as you leave. This is not a night for anyone to spend abed."
Wylum's look spoke eloquently of her agreement. She turned, drew her silver whistle, and blew hard.