A Hero Born Read online

  “Our scouts say the Bharashadi have been drawn up into a host large enough to draw our attention, but not sufficient to defeat us.”

  I felt myself smile. “So Kothvir seeks to draw us into a battle with his army, then fall upon us with other forces.”

  “As you suggested he would, brother mine.” Driscoll smiled, and suddenly I knew him to be my long-dead uncle, or a simulacrum of the same. This meant, in my nightmare, I had been cast in the role of my father. “The ravine you have inquired about is lightly guarded and, if we succeed in getting in there, the Bharashadi will have a difficult time defeating us.”

  “Good, then this ravine will be our goal. We will feint at their main force, then make for the ravine. Kothvir was wise not to defend it so heavily as to attract our attention, but his attempt to draw us off makes it too good a goal.” I raised my right hand. “Let us ride. Valiant Lancers! Today the Bharashadi will die.”

  We rode forward, and I saw my dream had left me the Emerald Horse for my mount. Then, in a twist of the perverse logic nightmares demand, I rode around the corner of the trail and immediately found myself embroiled in a combat that raged across the landscape. Bharashadi came at us from all sides, and while 1 had seen no one ride past me, all my compatriots fought before me.

  There, off on my left, I saw Driscoll and his horse swept from a ledge and my sight by an avalanche of Bharashadi warriors. I shouted to him, but I knew he could not hear me above the shrieking of the Black Shadows. At the same time I knew they had killed him, and I knew it was my fault.

  Then in front of me I heard a challenge roared at me. I turned and saw a massive Bharashadi warrior striding forward through his forces. He held a sword, and I realized it was a vindictxvara meant to take me. I concentrated on trying to see the design worked on it, but the dream frustrated my attempt. It was enough that I knew the blade’s mere touch would start my flesh boiling away.

  Leaning down from my saddle, I tugged a spear free of a Chademon corpse. Kothvir broke through his own lines and brandished the sword he had forged to drink my blood. Raising his hands and the blade above his head, he bellowed at me. “Cardew, it is your time. You have long nettled me. Now I destroy you.”

  “Never!” 1 shouted back, and threw the spear.

  It sailed through the air, then hit Kothvir in his rib cage with its full force. He laughed aloud at me, but I saw purple blood drip from his mouth. He pulled the spear from his chest and tossed it contemptuously aside. He never even probed the wound with his hand. He took one step forward, staggered, and fell.

  Something heavy and hard slammed into the Emerald Horse. I kicked free of the stirrups as we went down. I hit hard, then bounced once and lay still. I smelled blood in my nose and tasted dust on my tongue. I tried to get up, failed, then slowly levered myself up and blinked my eyes.

  In the few seconds that the battlefield had been hidden from my sight it had become a ghoulish wasteland. Men and Bharashadi and horses lay twisted and locked in grotesque positions by death. Already carrion creatures had gnawed them to the bone, leaving only patches of flesh and wind-worn clothing covering them. Ivory bones stuck up from the red sand that half buried them. Lifeless skulls exhaled scarlet dust when the breeze blew.

  I looked down at my own legs and saw they had been stripped of flesh and muscle. In horror I raised my hands to my face, but my bony fingers clattered against what was left of my skull. I rose unsteadily to my feet and slowly turned to see the skeletal evidence of the great battle surrounding me like a moat around a castle.

  Then I heard the voice from behind me. “So you have defeated Kothvir, as it was foretold. Pity the Chronicles of Farscry say nothing of what I will do with you!”

  I spun, and shouted, as Lord Disaster grabbed me by my shoulders. I fought him, but I could not break his grip. “Lachlan, Lachlan!” he shouted, and I wondered why he called me by the name I meant to give my next

  son.

  I awoke with a start to find Kit gripping my shoulders. “Lachlan, wake up! You were screaming in your sleep.”

  I shivered, then loosed the death grip I had on his arms. “Forgive me, Kit.”

  My cousin stared at me intently. “What happened? Was it a nightmare?”

  I nodded as images from the dream faded and evaporated. “I hope so. If it was an omen of what we will encounter tomorrow, I could see slitting my wrists tonight.” »

  A

  strange company were we as we rode out from First Stop Mansion at dawn. Roarke floated ahead of us on his red disc. Its color, because it matched Chaotic magick, clearly made Taci uneasy. She gladly accepted a position toward the rear of our caravan, forming up the rear guard along with Osane and Donla. I rode at the head—more because the Emerald Horse would not brook competition than from any real desire on my part to lead—leaving Kit and Eirene to ride behind me.

  Roarke, Kit, and I had all agreed about our route of advance. As Roarke’s finger traced a path along a map, I remembered the narrow trail twisting along a ledge in the model’s canyons. It made for an easier path than riding along the top of the canyon area, and, with Roarke flying ahead of and above us, we needed fear no ambushes.

  Even so, as I remembered how that place had looked on the model in the palace, I felt a chill run down my spine. Looking up, I saw how much Kit resembled the Driscoll of my dream, and I could not shake the feeling that we were as doomed as our fathers had been. They had died pursuing Kothvir, and the chances were that we would die chasing Kothvir’s progeny.

  Xoayya’s loss returned to haunt me at this point because I would have valued her perspective on the dream. She was used to dealing with such visions of other places and times. What she found routine threatened to unnerve me.

  I had mentioned the dream to Roarke, but he was unconcerned by it. “You’d not be the first person to see yourself as your own father in your dreams, Locke. Some dreams might be prophetic, but most just reflect fears we lock up in our hearts. You’re afraid that this mission will destroy you the way it destroyed your father. That’s a fear all of us share, but you have a lot more tied up in this than we do. You’re hoping you are up to the challenge and yet, I suspect, you’re a bit afraid of succeeding where your father failed.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it, lad. Your father was a great hero. If you and Kit do what your fathers could not, you’ll eclipse them. That will make the rest of your life difficult because you’ll have to live up to your heritage. You’re smart enough for that to terrify you. It would me.”

  I frowned at him, less because I disagreed with him than because I did not want to address the problem he identified. Every man’s father is a hero to him, and I’d been saved seeing my father grow old and frail, so that heroic image of him never withered and died. But, as Roarke indicated, I could shatter that image by succeeding in my mission. Doing that would leave me without a goal to attain in life, and that was daunting enough a prospect to make me head back to the womb.

  By succeeding I would cause as fundamental a change in my reality as had been caused by knowing a Black Shadow had crossed through the Ward Wall. I had to hope I had the strength to deal with that sort of change, but I didn’t know if I could. Still, Locke, it’s not a problem you have to deal with until it becomes a reality.

  I looked up at Roarke. “What do you suggest I do about the problem?”

  “Accept it.” He smiled at me. “It’s a pitiful child that can’t go further than his parents, especially when they provide him the goals and support he needs. Some of that was lacking in your case, but no matter. Make your parents proud, do what they could not.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “Oh, and one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Kill all the damned Bharashadi you see.”

  As we headed out, I found two members of our group who appeared unapprehensive about this portion of our trek. Cruach trotted along quickly, crisscrossing our path and sniffing at various things I could not puzzle out.
As hounds will, he marked our path quite well and occasionally ran ahead to rest in the shade while we caught up with him.

  The Emerald Horse likewise seemed energized by our mission, and especially proud that I bore the Staff of Emeterio slung across my back. I had difficulty making him keep his pace slow enough for our other mounts. On more than one occasion he evidenced a desire to walk across air instead of following the trail where it looped deep into the mountains. While he did allow me to keep him on the iedge, he consistently walked about a foot above the ground just to show me he could.

  The countryside through which we traveled varied little except where it became harsher and nastier. Acidic rains had eroded any topsoil from the red rocks through which we rode. By some mechanism I couldn’t hope to fathom, twisted and needle-festooned plants clung to life in this bleak landscape, while their meager shade provided hiding places for scorpions and other venomous creatures.

  As we rode on, the sun rose in the east and coursed like a furious red spark through the heavens. It brought with it great heat, and 1 felt myself melting beneath my armor. We had filled our canteens and waterskins at First Stop Mansion, so we were not overly cautious in our drinking. I think we all subconsciously realized that, given our goal, dying of thirst was the least of our problems.

  The only wildlife 1 saw were vultures circling patiently in the sky. They did not fly over us, but remained over a place that I realized had to coincide with our goal. In many ways for vultures to be attracted to the Necroleum made sense, yet I took their presence as an evil premonition. Given the visions in my dream, I expected to ride around a corner on the trail and find myself in a bone yard.

  lust past noon I recognized landmarks that told me we had made it very close to our target. I raised my left hand to stop our progress just shy of the last corner before the canyon we sought, then in the distance I saw Roarke’s disc tip sharply up. A cube formed of thick red lines to define its outline surrounded him and spun quickly to trap him. He tried to steer his platform higher and away from the danger, but could not escape.

  I dug my heels into the Emerald Horse’s ribs, and he responded by leaping straight into the air. His head eclipsed my view of Roarke for a second as we scaled the sheer canyon wall, then we soared up and over the canyon lip. Galloping full force, the Emerald Horse’s gluttonous pace devoured the distance.

  When 1 spotted Roarke again, I saw the magical cube shift. The eight corners sought their opposite, passing through the center and again snapping into place. The action effectively turned the cube inside out, with Roarke caught in the middle. I heard him scream as the corners pierced his body, then the disc vanished. Hanging limp within the cube, Roarke’s body began a descent that took it down into the canyon.

  Reading my mind, the Emerald Horse vaulted over a large boulder and sailed down to the continuation of the trail we had been following. Down below, on the floor of the canyon, I saw Vrasha Packkiller with the Fistfire Sceptre held high above his head. He spun it around and pointed it in my general direction. A whirling red triangle bled out of the dark pearl and spun toward me. The Emerald Horse cut hard to the right, but even as he evaded the magickal attack, the spell veered off and sizzled past.

  I turned and watched the spell as it expanded in flight until each edge had become man-sized. Spinning madly like a roulette wheel, it chopped into the canyon wall and sent shards of rock showering into the air. The spell sank into the stone, lay quiescent for a heartbeat, then pulsed out like an erupting volcano.

  The canyon wall fragmented like hammer-struck crystal just as Kit and Eirene came galloping around the corner. I saw them, then a curtain of dust and rock obliterated them. I thought I heard screams, but the booming rumble of a rockslide silenced them. As I had seen in my dream, Kit had been swept away, never having a chance, never even knowing what had killed him.

  Drawing my sword, I drove the Emerald Horse straight at the Bharashadi sorcerer. All around me I saw bits and pieces of my dream materialize in the canyon. Shades of those who had died with my father now returned to see if I could sell my life as well as he had. Screaming incoherently, I decided 1 would not disappoint them.

  The Bharashadi warriors standing near Vrasha scattered, but the sorcerer held his ground. 1 gritted my teeth and drew my arm back for the blow 1 knew would split his head, uncaring that he swung his staff into line with me. 1 saw the red spark start from the pearl, but 1 ignored it. Nothing could stop me. Nothing would rob me of my revenge.

  Ten feet from my goal, the red spark hit the Emerald Horse square in the chest. I felt my mount stiffen and go cold, then he stopped as if he were a hunter refusing a jump. With no saddle and no warning, I could not stop myself from flying forward. I slammed into his stony head, then tumbled forward, head over heels.

  My unaided flight ended when my shallow arc intersected the ground. 1 landed hard on my tailbone, which numbed my legs and made it feel as if I had been split up the middle. I flopped down on my back, and my sword bounced free of my right hand. My helmet flew off, and I found myself staring up at the sky.

  The Bharashadi sorcerer filled my vision. I saw him smile, then the Fistfire Sceptre’s butt end smashed down against my face mask, and I saw nothing more.

  28

  A

  s 1 came to ! thought the thunder I heard in my ears came from the pounding in my head, i felt a throbbing ache centered on my forehead where Vrasha had bashed me with the Fistfire Sceptre. The armored face mask I had worn had lessened the force of the blow. Instead of actually having a split skull, my head just felt like it had been broken.

  I opened my eyes and could see nothing. Panic rose in my throat, and I feared I had been blinded by my injury. 1 looked around in the darkness for anything that could help me determine if my sight had been stolen, but I found no reference points. Still, my eyes felt normal, and aside from the lingering ache of my tailbone and my headache, I had no proof of having been severely injured. I decided I could see nothing because there was no light.

  Quelling that bit of anxiety allowed me to think a little bit more clearly. I tried to move and learned two

  things in that frustrated attempt. The first was that 1 had been restrained in a chair of some sort, and probably by magick as I could not feel the bonds that held me in place. Secondly, and more importantly, I learned 1 had been stripped of my armor and, as nearly as I could determine, wore nothing but a loincloth, my father’s ring, and boots.

  The drumming sound continued unabated from the black void into which 1 stared. By moving my head left to right and back, 1 determined that the drums, however many of them there were, had been set up in at least three groups. One lay straight forward and up a bit, while the other two were on either side of that one and higher yet. The echoes from the room also suggested to me that we were in an enclosure. The sound varied enough that I imagined my prison a natural cavern of some sort.

  The air hung heavy and motionless in my prison. I could smell my own nervous sweat, but overlying that 1 caught the cloying scent of desiccated flowers and dry, dusty rubbish. The odors reminded me of opening a long-unused portion of my grandfather’s sword school as a boy. 1 had stepped into a room that had lain undisturbed for over a decade and had the same musty lifeless smell to it.

  In that instant I understood consciously what 1 had known in my heart all along. I had been brought to the Necroleum. Vrasha had gone to great lengths to be able to resurrect Kothvir and the other Bharashadi. It was with the highest irony that Vrasha Packkiller was able to deliver me, Cardew’s son, to the Necroleum so 1 could witness firsthand the consequences of my failure and my father’s failure.

  I would be a sacrifice to that failure. They’d rip me open and read my entrails for omens concerning their coming invasion of the Empire. My death would be the first of millions as the Bharashadi dead exacted their revenge on the people of the Empire.

  The drumming quickened as, high up and off to my left, I saw a reddish glow fill a tunnel. It approached at a steady pace,
coming one step closer for every four pulses from the drums. On the light came, slowly, stately, as if borne by a priest fulfilling a role in an ancient ritual. I realized that my analogy was not very far from the mark because, if Imperial speculation was accurate, the Bharashadi would indeed be sealing a covenant with their god.

  The full-maned sorcerer stepped into view at the tunnel mouth and revealed the source of the light to be the Fistfire Sceptre. On his wrists I saw bracers of gold. The red light flashed from the golden pectoral he wore, and the ruby in his gold circlet scintillated in the sceptre’s glow. Raising the sceptre in both hands above his head, he hissed a word I did not understand.

  From the dark pearl red rays shot out toward the ceiling. The scarlet strands wove themselves into a complex web of red light. The design started with concentric circles spreading out from the sceptre. After spacing themselves out evenly, drifting out at a pace with the drumming, the whole network sprang free of the sceptre. The origin point—a red-gold sphere burning like a miniature sun—drifted to the heart of the circles and centered itself above the dais where 1 sat. Positioned properly, it slowly brightened and filled the room with light.

  I suddenly wished my wounds had rendered me sightless.

  As the light grew I found myself trapped in the eye of a horror storm I sat in a chair on a dais in the bottom of a gash that had once been sliced through the rock by an ancient, twisting river. All around me stalactites and stalagmites stood poised like teeth ready to tear hunks from waiting prey. Stone lay frozen in gentle terraces that sparkled with enough different and varied colors that this place might have been a wonderland to behold at another time.

  But that time was not now because the cavern was part of the Bharashadi Necroleum. On each and every terrace 1 saw knots of mangled and hacked Bharashadi corpses. Flaps of hide had flopped open to reveal splintered ribs and dark organs nestled within the bodies. Skulls gapped where the fibers used to bind them together had long ago rotted away. Severed limbs, some nothing more than bare bones, lay as close to correct as possible next to the bodies of the warriors who had lost them. More complete corpses, these showing only slashes or puncture wounds or still having the shafts of arrows protruding from them, dangled from the ceiling at the ends of slender cords.