The wylde’s trainer put her through her paces. He was obviously astonished at how quickly she learned. Baron Waggit couldn’t keep up. The trainer quickly moved from teaching the wylde how to grip the staff and do basic maneuvers into full-body lunges, whirling attacks, spinning parries, and combination moves. “I’ve taught the staff in the Room of Arms for twenty years,” the big knight said to Binnesman at one point, “and never dreamed of a girl like this. When you’re done with her, can I take her to wife?”
Binnesman laughed.
Averan felt jealous. Binnesman was desperate to get the wylde trained, and Averan thought of her as a friend. Averan didn’t like what the wizard was doing to the green woman, turning her into a weapon. She didn’t like it any more than she liked what Gaborn was making her do.
31
Riders Before the Storm
In no contest in life does the advantage accrue to the unprepared.
Gaborn could sense danger rising around Iome. The attack against her was very close.
For a day now, he’d felt it stirring.
He checked the perimeter of his guard. He’d quietly stationed eighty men around the camp. Most of them lounged about—squatting on logs to sharpen axes, or pretending to snooze. A hundred yards away, Sir Borenson and Myrrima made a big show of packing their goods, as if in a hurry to be off for Inkarra, yet, as asked, Borenson let his keen blue eyes stray to the trees along the creek bank, as alert as any five men.
But nothing Gaborn did seemed to allay the threat.
He wandered close to Skalbairn. He’d asked the man to stay near Iome, and the big knight did. But for the moment he had a staff and was sparring with Baron Waggit. It was rough work. Sweat coursed down the baron’s face, and soaked though his tunic. He’d ripped a sleeve in his sparring. His blue eyes gleamed with anticipation. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.
Skalbairn spoke amiably to the baron. “Ah, you should come with me to Internook,” he was saying as the baron tried in vain to bash him with his staff. “It’s not so damned civilized. A man like you would do well there, put his past behind him.”
“Keep sharp,” Gaborn whispered to Skalbairn.
“Always,” Skalbairn said under his breath.
Gaborn made one last search of his perimeter, sauntered over toward Iome and Averan, who sat together. Iome’s arm was wrapped around the child. Averan’s glazed eyes stared inward. The child looked deathly ill. Perspiration poured from her.
Gaborn squatted next to Averan and Iome. “Well?” he asked gently, expectantly. “Any word?”
“It wasn’t Waymaker that I ate,” Averan said. “It was only some...”—she searched for the right word—“worm herder.”
Gaborn squinted at her curiously. “Worm herder?”
“Like a shepherd or a farmer, only to worms and other animals,” she said. “I warned you that you’re fighting peasants.”
She spoke sincerely, but the reavers were up to something, whether Averan knew it or not.
Could the danger actually come from this child? he wondered.
He didn’t want to believe that. Averan was an apprentice Earth Warden after all, dedicated to preserving life. Yet right now he wondered if she wasn’t...deranged. He had to test the theory.
“Iome,” Gaborn asked. “Come here for a moment.” He purposely walked a hundred yards from Averan, stood with his back to her. He rested a foot on a lichen-covered stone, saw that there were small holes in the ground around it where mice made their burrows. A cricket sang nearby.
He briefly studied the reavers’ movements on the rock.
They’d climbed all over it, and now had begun to work. A couple dozen glue mums began chewing down the great trees at the center of the rock, while blade-bearers pushed over the walls of the ancient towers, sent them cascading from the cliffs in ruins. Gaborn was so busy watching the south face of the cliff that it took him by surprise when he heard a roar on the north face. The great statue of Mangan went tumbling four hundred yards to its ruin.
Danger was rising all around him. The deaths of certain men had come this morning as predicted. Iome’s moment was at hand. Tens of thousands in Carris would face their peril tomorrow. After that...the world. When would his enemy make the next strike? Three days? Four?
Gaborn felt desperate. Danger was everywhere. Binnesman had warned him a few days ago that Raj Ahten was not his ultimate enemy. Raj Ahten, the Inkarrans, Lowicker, and Anders—all of them were like masks that concealed some greater peril. There was a mystery here.
Sometimes, he felt that they all worked in concert, perhaps without even knowing it.
Gaborn scanned the fields, searching for any sign of the impending attack.
Iome walked up to his back and whispered, “What’s so important that you must drag me away from the girl?”
He didn’t know how to answer, exactly. He changed the subject, trying to buy a moment’s time, in case the danger presented itself. “It’s as if they hate the works of man,” Gaborn said, jutting his chin toward the reavers. “They can leave nothing that we’ve made intact.”
He reached out with his senses. The jeopardy to Iome was rising explosively. Her proximity to Averan had nothing to do with the danger.
He drew his sword from his sheath, pressed it into Iome’s hand. “Take this.”
She held it as if she’d never seen one before. “What’s this? You think I’m in danger?”
Gaborn could see no reavers nearby, no one close at all.
“Iome,” Gaborn said tentatively, “someone wants you dead.”
She looked at him evenly, nostrils flaring. Still, he could see no antagonist. He wondered if the danger was within her—a weak heart or some hidden ailment.
Distantly there was an explosive sound—almost a scream—a crash of wind racing over the plains a mile to the south. It rose from the dead air, hurling grass and limbs from full-grown oak trees into the sky. It raised a front of dust like a rising pall nearly half a mile wide.
Gaborn had heard that sound before in the forest of the Dunnwood—the shrieking wind, the clash of lightning. He knew what creature rushed toward them.
He spun toward it. Before the storm, rode three men on pale horses. He wondered who they were.
Iome shouted her answer: “The Darkling Glory!”
32
In His Master’s Service
A good servant does not concern himself with dignity. No act of service for his lord should be too mean or too small.
Feykaald had seen enough of the Earth King’s camp. He’d seen Gaborn’s forcibles. He’d watched Gaborn order a devastating charge against the reavers. He’d seen men defy Gaborn as he sought to warn them with a warhorn.
He’d guessed at both Gaborn’s strengths and his limitations. He’d learned that Gaborn would not help Indhopal, no matter how great the argument. Unlike Jureem, Feykaald could see no reason to serve the lad.
Gaborn was a fallen Earth King, nothing more.
Only one reason remained for Feykaald to stay near—the forcibles.
Not in his wildest imaginings had Feykaald believed that Gaborn would have left so many forcibles unused.
All morning he’d wondered what Gaborn planned to do with them, why he hoarded them.
Perhaps Gaborn was too cautious. Perhaps he was the kind of man who insisted on taking endowments himself, rather than vectoring. Perhaps he wanted to give his facilitators time to pick through the finest prospective Dedicates in the kingdom, those with the greatest strength, the keenest intellect, or the most perfect health.
If that were the case, Feykaald could not argue with Gaborn’s purpose. Perhaps, Feykaald thought, this boy is wiser than I gave him credit for.
But Feykaald had no more time to speculate.
He waited only for the right moment. He expected that the reavers would provide it—create enough of a diversion so that he could load a box of forcibles onto a palfrey and make his escape.