AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It c-c-ame out of the g-g-ground when I walked t-t-toward the little d-d-door,” said Nick. His teeth were chattering from the cold now, much as he tried to keep them still. “Is it . . . um . . . r-r-real?”
“It’s a guard Sending,” said Lirael. “Made of Charter Magic. Real enough, if you had to fight it, though I have to say whoever made it—a long time ago—got the teeth wrong. Real drill-grubs don’t have pointy teeth in the front ring, or pointy teeth at all, for that matter. But we need to get you in out of the cold. Come on!”
Lirael took Nick by the arm and began to lead him toward the gate. But as they approached, the great worm reared up before them, its teeth rotated faster, and gobbets of purple slime began to drip from its mouth.
“Drill-grubs don’t drool. That is pure invention,” said Lirael crossly, but she stopped as Nick flinched back. “However, it does seem to be triggered by your presence, Nick.”
“We can’t let anyone in whom the Starmount Guardian refuses,” said Calleset uneasily. She pulled a small leather-bound book from the pouch on her belt and flicked it open. “That’s rule thirty-six: ‘Should the Starmount Worm, the Sunfall Lion, or’—well, there are others I shouldn’t mention—it says, ‘appear of their own volition, then look to your swords and bar entry to those the guardians scorn.’”
“Scorn?” asked Nick.
“It’s old-fashioned,” said Lirael hurriedly. “It just means keep out.”
Calleset put the book away and stood at attention with her chin up, which unfortunately did nothing to counter her general air of uncertainty.
“So . . . um . . . we can’t let your guest in. Even if he is a prince from over the Wall. I’m sorry.”
“Because of rule thirty-six,” said Lirael. “And you have to follow the rules.”
“Yes,” said Calleset.
Lirael looked at the guard Sending and thought for a moment. She could probably send it away with a spell, or disable it, but this would only create more problems. Two young rangers would never go against their rules and regulations. They might even feel they had to fight her. . . . Lirael felt suddenly ill at the thought of fighting her kin, and hastily dismissed any notion of forcing her way in.
“I presume more rangers will be on their way, from the other posts on the mountain and from inside? Someone of higher rank?”
“Yes,” said Calleset. “The alarm will have sounded everywhere.”
“So we can expect Mirelle or some other officer who can send the guardian back to rest fairly soon?”
Mirelle was the commander of the Rangers, those Clayr who patrolled the glacier, the mountains, and the river valley, and who also guarded the outer gates.
“Maybe just a lieutenant,” said Calleset. The expression on her face suggested that she hoped it was not the commander herself who would show up. “Qilla’s the closest on duty, up here.”
“Qilla got made a lieutenant of the Rangers?”
Qilla was only five or six years older than Lirael, very young to be promoted so high. A lieutenancy in the Rangers was the equivalent of a First Assistant Librarian. Not that ranks in the various employments of the Clayr were considered all that important by the inhabitants of the Glacier; everything was subsidiary to their main task of Seeing the future, or trying to make sense of the many possible futures they Saw.
“Acting lieutenant,” said Calleset, then shut her mouth as if she had said too much.
“We’d better wait for her, then,” said Lirael. “But could Jelesray please go inside and fetch some of the paperwing flyer’s furs for Nicholas? If that isn’t against the rules?”
Calleset inclined her head at the younger ranger, who quickly ran to the sally port. Nick noticed that she went as far around the worm as she could, obviously not really believing it knew the difference between those who should be allowed in and those who should not. He was relieved to see he was not the only person there who found the drill-grub Sending frightening. He wished he could be as uncaring about it as Lirael, who had barely spared the giant worm a glance after she had first shooed it away from the gate.
“Perhaps I should explain that Nicholas was involved in the binding of Orannis,” said Lirael. “And from that, carries the taint of Free Magic in his blood and bone. I suspect that is what the worm reacts to; that kind of Sending is generally not very discerning.”
“Or it simply doesn’t l-l-like my face,” said Nick, attempting a joke, which fell flat, as Lirael and Calleset both looked puzzled.
“Drill-grubs are blind,” said Lirael, after a moment. “They sense vibrations. Though this Sending may have been given other senses in its creation, you can see it has no eyes.”
“Yes,” mumbled Nick, teeth chattering. He felt even more miserable now. “How s-s-silly of me.”
Chapter Seventeen
LOOSE SHALE AND CHARTER-SPELLED ARROWS
Near Yellowsands, the Old Kingdom
The first wood-weird came scuttling over the Charter Stone hill a little less than thirty minutes after Ferin had parted company with the main body of villagers. It skirted around the stone, keeping well clear. This particular Free Magic construct was long and low, rather like a cockroach or spider in shape, one made from a rough-hewn hickory trunk and branches, trailing strips of partially sloughed-off bark. The creature had eight legs made from tree roots, joined in multiple segments. Free Magic fire burned at the joints, and also in the eyes and mouth that had been gouged in the end of its central trunk with auger and adze.
It was very quick, faster than any wood-weird Ferin had seen before, as swift as a galloping horse, though it moved in a series of long lunges, with short pauses in between. Well ahead of its fellows, it got down into the valley within a few minutes. There it continued its horrible speedy, scuttling movement: rushing forward, stopping for a moment as if to test the air, then rushing forward again.
Ferin and her companions were a little more than halfway up the shale hill, the ridgeline looming above them. They stopped to look down, and there was a collective pause in everyone’s breath as the wood-weird did not turn aside to follow their path, but continued down the road, following the fleeing villagers. The last dozen or so of the fisher-folk were still in sight, well short of where the road turned behind the southern hill toward the estuary and the tower.
The wood-weird would catch the stragglers in ten minutes at the most, though these last villagers had seen it too, and were now running rather than walking. But there was no way they could escape such a swiftly moving creature.
More wood-weirds appeared on the crest of the village hill, again giving the Charter Stone a wide berth. These were like the one that had attacked Ferin at the Bridge Castle: tall monsters of fir an
d spruce and ironwood, timbers greatly valued on the steppe, where all trees were rare.
Once again, Ferin wondered at the profligate use of the wood-weirds so far from the steppe. The cost in sorcerers, keepers, and rare timber was extreme. She had said the raider must carry the sorcerous strength of two clans at least, but perhaps it was nearer three or even four clans working in concert, at the behest of the Witch With No Face. Her own Athask people had only two shamans and three witches, and of them, only the most senior could create a wood-weird. It took years to make the body, carving the timber and infusing it with spells, preparing it for habitation by a powerful enough Free Magic spirit, which had to be gotten from wherever the sorcerers found such things.
“Charter, please make it turn aside and follow us,” whispered Swinther, his words echoed by Young Laska. The woodcutter was not looking at the slower creatures marching down the Charter Stone hill, only at the spiderlike, eight-legged wood-weird on the road below, which drew closer and closer to the rear guard of the fisher-folk. If you could call it a rear guard, since in terms of effective fighters it consisted only of Constable Megril and Astilaran, the former kicking a well-known dockside lounger along in an effort to make him run faster.
“Can we draw the creature’s attention?” asked Ferin. “With some of your magic?”
“Yes,” replied Young Laska. She smiled a wry smile. “I am more used to trying to conceal myself from such things. But there is a signal we use . . .”
She bent her head and held her hands cupped near her mouth, a look of intense concentration in her eyes. The Borderer blew out a tiny breath, and Ferin watched in fascination as glowing marks tumbled from Young Laska’s lips and gathered in her hands, winding together like a tiny serpent, the head gripping the tail. She took another breath, deeper this time, laid her hands flat, and blew the spinning circle of marks out into the air. Rather than tumbling down the hillside, the glowing ring shot up into the sky and a second later exploded into dozens and dozens of brilliant small stars that fell a dozen feet before disappearing with attendant thunderclaps, not loud and close, but as if from a far-off storm.
