Читать книгу Wrath of a Mad God - Raymond Feist - Страница 8

JOMMY FROWNED.

Sitting under a canvas cloth hastily rigged to provide shelter from the pitiless rain, he hugged his knees to his chest, he said, ‘But what I don’t understand is why?’

Servan, huddled next to the young officer, replied, ‘We don’t ask why; we simply follow orders.’ They sat on a hillside, overlooking a distant cove: a vantage point that prevented anyone from arriving without being noticed. The problem for the moment was that the rain shrouded the area and lowered visibility to the point at which someone was required to sit close by; in this case, that someone was Servan, and Jommy had been selected to sit with him.

His dark hair matted wet against his forehead, Jommy regarded his companion. In the last few months his slender face had aged dramatically. An arduous life on the march had drained pounds from his youthful frame, while days in the sun and sleeping on the ground had given a tough, leathery quality to his skin. The court-bred noble who Jommy had come to know well over the last few months had been replaced by a young veteran embarking on his third campaign in as many months.

Never friends, the two, along with their other four companions – Tad, Zane, Grandy and Geoffry – had come to appreciate one another as reliable colleagues. In the relatively short time since they had been unceremoniously taken from the university at Roldem and cast into the role of young soldiers of rank, they had received an intensive tutelage in the realities of military life. To Jommy’s unending irritation, Servan had been appointed senior for this campaign, which meant Jommy was expected to follow his orders without question. So far there had been no hint of reprisal for the mischief Jommy had inflicted on Servan during the last operation, when Jommy had been appointed senior, but Jommy just knew it was coming.

The two young officers had been detailed to a position low in the foothills of the region known as the Peaks of the Quor, a rugged, mountainous peninsula jutting northward from the eastern side of the Empire of Great Kesh. About a hundred men, including these two young officers, had been deposited on this beach a week earlier, and all Jommy knew was that a landing was expected here, though the exact identity of the invaders had not been shared with the young officers. All Jommy knew was they wouldn’t be friendly.

Jommy also had aged, but as a farm youth and caravan worker, already used to a harsher life than his companion, he revealed less dramatic evidence of his recent experiences. Rather, his already cock-sure brashness had evolved into a quiet confidence, and his time spent with the other young officers from the university at Roldem had taught him a fair dose of humility; all of them were better at something than he was. Even so, one part of his nature remained unchanged: his almost unique ability to see humour in most situations. This one, however, had tested his limits. The downpour had been unrelenting for four days now. Their only source of warmth was a fire built in a large cave a mile up a miserable hillside, and the enemy they had been told to expect had shown no evidence of arriving on schedule.

‘No,’ said Jommy, ‘I don’t mean why are we here. I mean why are we here?’

‘Did you sleep through the Captain’s orders?’ came a voice from behind them.

Jommy turned to see a shadowy figure who had approached undetected. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ he complained.

The man sat down next to Jommy, ignoring the fact that half his body was still outside the scant protection offered by the make-shift shelter. ‘I wouldn’t be much of a thief if I couldn’t sneak up on you two in a driving storm, would I?’ he replied.

The newcomer was only a few years older than them, yet his face showed premature ageing, including an unexpected sprinkling of grey hair in his dark moustache and beard, a neatly trimmed affair that revealed a streak of vanity in an otherwise chronically unkempt and slovenly person. He was nearly as tall as Jommy, but not quite as burly, yet his movement and carriage betrayed a lean hardness, a whipcord toughness that convinced Jommy he’d be a difficult man to contend with in a stand-up fight.

Servan nodded. ‘Jim,’ he acknowledged. The young thief had somehow managed to get caught up in the same net of intrigue that had bought Servan and Jommy to this lonely hillside. He had put in an appearance the week before, arriving on a ship with supplies for what Jommy had come to think of as the ‘Cursed Expedition’.

Servan and Jommy were both currently serving in the Army of Roldem, though Jommy came from a land on the other side of the world. Servan was nobility, royalty even – somewhere in line to be king, should perhaps ten or eleven relatives expire unexpectedly. Yet they were now assigned to what could only be generously called an unusual company, soldiers from Roldem, the Kingdom of the Isles, Kesh, and even a contingent of miners and sappers from the dwarven city of Dorgin, all under the command of Kaspar of Olasko, former duke of what was now a province of the Kingdom of Roldem. Once a hunted outlaw with a price on his head, sometime over the last few years he had managed to rehabilitate his reputation and now had special status with both Roldem and the Empire of Great Kesh. His adjutant was a Roldem captain named Stefan who happened to be Servan’s cousin, which also made him another distant cousin to the King of Roldem.

The arrival of the newcomer had revealed another puzzling aspect of this expedition. Jim was one of half a dozen men who were not by any stretch of the imagination soldiers, yet were billeted with the soldiers, sent out on missions with soldiers, and expected to follow instructions without question, as if they were soldiers. All Jommy and Servan could get from the usually voluble self-confessed thief was he was part of a special group of ‘volunteers’ who were here to train with the combined forces of Roldem, Kesh, the Kingdom, and a scattering of officers from the Eastern Kingdoms.

The usually curious Jommy was beside himself with curiosity to discover what was going on, but the last few months of serving with various forces from Roldem had taught him that a young officer’s best course was to keep silent and listen. Servan had that knack by nature.

Still, Jommy’s curiosity couldn’t be entirely stemmed, so he thought perhaps a different approach to the subject might get him some hint of what was going on. ‘Jim, you’re from the Kingdom, right?’

‘Yes,’ said the young thief. ‘Born in Krondor; lived there all my life until now.’

‘You claim to be a thief—’ began Jommy.

Jim shifted his weight, lightly brushing against Jommy, then with a grin held up Jommy’s belt pouch. ‘This is yours, I believe?’

Servan tried hard not to laugh while Jommy snatched back his belt-purse, which had been tucked up under his tunic. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘you are a thief.’

‘A very good thief.’

‘A very good thief,’ Jommy conceded. ‘But what I want to know is how a very good thief from Krondor finds himself out here on the edge of the world.’

‘That’s a story,’ said Jim. ‘I’ve travelled a lot, you see.’

‘Oh?’ said Servan, welcoming the distraction from the tedious rain.

‘Yes,’ said the agreeable thief. ‘Been to some very odd places.’ He smiled, and years dropped away from his visage, showing an almost boyish glee. ‘There was this one time when I was forced to seek shelter from just this sort of driving rain in a cave on a distant island.’

Jommy and Servan exchanged a glance, and both smiled and nodded, silently communicating the same thought: not one word of what they were about to hear would be true, but the story should be entertaining.

‘I was … taking a journey out of Krondor.’

‘Business?’ asked Servan.

‘Health,’ said Jim, his grin widening further. ‘It seemed like a good idea to be out of Krondor for a while.’

Jommy tried not to laugh. ‘So you went …?’

‘I took ship out of Krondor, bound for the Far Coast, and then in Carse found a likely bunch of lads who had come by some information on a … venture that would net all involved a handsome living.’

‘Pirates,’ said Jommy and Servan at the same moment.

‘Freebooters, out of Freeport in the Sunset Islands.’ Jim nodded. ‘At the time the captain claimed they sailed under a letter of marque from the Crown, though I never saw it. But being a trusting lad at the time, I took his word.’

Jommy doubted there had been a single moment in the thief’s life when he had ever been a ‘trusting lad’ but he let the comment go.

‘Well, I find myself on this island, in this cave, with this elf lass …’

‘Did you leave something out?’ asked Servan.

‘Oh, a lot actually, but I’m talking about strange places I’ve been.’

‘Let him go on,’ said Jommy with ill-concealed mirth.

‘Anyway, the lads I had shipped with were out looking for me, as I had tumbled to their less-than-honourable intentions as to my share of the treasure—’

‘Treasure?’ began Servan, but Jommy held up his hand. He wanted to hear this story.

‘Well, that’s another part of the tale,’ said Jim. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, I was hiding in this cave when I encounter this elf lass, name of Jazebel—’

‘Jazebel,’ echoed Jommy.

‘Jazebel,’ repeated Jim. ‘And she had her own story of how she’d got there. She was trying to keep from being killed by these bears, only they weren’t rightly bears, more like big furry owls.’

‘Big furry owls,’ said Servan, open astonishment now on his face. Jommy could barely contain himself, all cold, wet misery forgotten in the moment.

‘Well, as I was saying, it was an odd place, far outside the Sunset Isles. She was gathering eggs for some elf magic. But anyway, she and I managed to fend off the creatures long enough to let my bloody companions pass by the cave, then we slipped out and got to a safe spot.’

‘How did you ever get home?’ asked Jommy.

Jim grinned. ‘She had this magic stone, some elf thing, and once we were where she could do some magic, it took us to Elvandar.’

‘Elvandar? Is that near Cloud Land?’ Servan asked, invoking the name of a mythical land from children’s tales.

Jommy said, ‘Elvandar’s real, Servan. I know people who’ve been there.’

‘Next you’ll be telling me you know some elves, too.’

Jommy smiled. ‘Not personally, but I know people who do.’

‘Well,’ said Jim. ‘As I had helped saved the girl and all that, the Queen and her husband feted me with a supper, gave me their thanks and told me I was welcome any time I wanted to come calling. Then they helped me get to the outpost at Jonril – the one up in Crydee Duchy, not the one in Kesh it’s named after – and from there I got back to Krondor.’

‘Amazing,’ said Jommy.

‘More than amazing,’ said Servan, shivering again. ‘Unbelievable.’

Jim reached inside his tunic and pulled out a leather cord around his neck bearing a beautifully carved trinket. ‘The Queen herself gave me this,’ he said. ‘She said any elf would recognize it and I would be named Elf-friend.’

Both Jommy and Servan leaned forward to inspect the trinket more closely. It was a pattern of interlocking knots, carved in what looked to be bone or ivory, and there was something about the design and shape that seemed more than human.

Suddenly serious, the thief said, ‘I’m a lot of things, lads: rogue, adventurer, thief and, when needs be, downright murderous thug, but no man has ever called Jimmyhand a liar.’

‘Jimmyhand?’ asked Jommy.

‘My … professional name, as it were. After a famous old thief from back in the day, Jimmy the Hand. Some say I’m a lot like him. Others say he might have been my great grand-da – but I think that was my mum trying to make me feel special. So, when I was a wee tyke I’d say, “I’m Jimmyhand”, ’cause I never quite got the “the” part right. So it stuck. I’m rightly named Jim Dasher.’

In the time he had spent with Caleb and his family at Sorcerer’s Isle, Jommy had heard a fair number of ‘back in the day’ stories from the old timers, not a few of which revolved around the notorious Jimmy the Hand, a thief who according to legend became an agent of the Prince of Krondor, then later was given a noble title, rising to the rank of Duke of both Rillanon and Krondor, the two most powerful offices in the Kingdom after the King.

Jommy studied the thief. He hardly knew him, but found him agreeable company, his outrageous stories were a welcome relief from the tedium of days spent waiting for an enemy who might never appear. He had no doubt Jim was every bit as dangerous as he claimed to be, but there was a quality under the surface that Jommy had learned to recognized at an early age out on the road alone: an instinct about who he could trust and who he couldn’t. He nodded, then said, ‘Jim, I’ll never call you a liar until the day I catch you out.’

Jim stared at Jommy for a long moment, then the grin returned. ‘Fair enough.’

Servan turned his attention back to the distant beach they had been assigned to watch. ‘How much longer?’

‘As long as it takes,’ said Jommy.

‘Which won’t be much longer,’ said Jim, pointing off into the rainy gloom. ‘Boat coming.’

‘How can you—’ began Servan, then he saw it, a tiny dark speck that grew larger by the moment as a longboat came into the cove.

‘Must be a ship lying off,’ said Jommy.

‘I’ll tell the Captain,’ said Servan, scrambling from under the lean-to. ‘You watch them.’

Jommy also got out from under the shelter. ‘Let’s get a little closer.’

Jim held him back. ‘Wait. There’s another boat.’

After a moment, Jommy could see a second longboat coming out of the gloom, following the first by a dozen yards. ‘Now,’ whispered Jim, though they were far too distant to be overheard, ‘what do you think of that?’

Jommy said, ‘Well, I can say the intelligence the Captain received was correct so far.’

‘Not about the second boat,’ corrected Jim.

‘Picky,’ Jommy muttered.

The two longboats rowed in to shore, and men leaped out of each and pulled them up on the sand, securing them with stakes and ropes. ‘Looks like they plan on being here for a while,’ said Jommy.

‘What’s that?’ asked Jim, pointing to the second boat.

The crew of the two boats were dressed like common seamen, though each sported a black headcloth, tied behind the left ear. Most were barefoot, marking them as sailors, though some wore heavy boots. But the last man leaving the second boat wore robes of dark orange trimmed with black. His features were masked by a hood, but the other men seemed deferential to the point of fear. None offered to help him exit the craft and all gave him a wide berth as he came ashore.

‘Magician,’ said Jim, almost spitting out the word, ‘I hate magicians.’

‘I’ve met a few I like,’ Jommy said quietly.

‘Well, I haven’t. Damn near had my head removed by a magical trap down in Darindus one time. There’s no trap made by the hand of mortal man I can’t puzzle out with enough time, but magic …’

‘Well,’ said Jommy, ‘I’ve met a few who are all right.’

Jim fell silent as the men in the boat spread out. It was clear that they were checking the surrounding area to see if they were observed. Jommy and Jim reached up and quietly took apart the hastily constructed lean-to, hiding the canvas behind the tree, then they both moved to a denser stand of bushes to the right. Without a word, they shared the same thought: in a few minutes an armed company of men, numbering twice those on the beach, would come over the rise behind them, but until that moment, it would be a good thing not to be seen by these men.

Jommy felt Jim’s hand tighten on his shoulder. Jim pointed at himself and Jommy, then back up the hill. Jommy pointed to a small outcrop a hundred feet back up the trail, and Jim nodded. They moved through the rain which was letting up a bit, causing Jommy to curse under his breath. He wanted more cover, not less, and the weather had picked a very inconvenient time to become more clement after days of punishing him.

When they reached the outcrop they both lay down, ignoring the soaking mud. The men from the boats had spread out to form a perimeter and a few began unloading what looked to be supplies.

‘Looks like they plan on staying a while,’ repeated Jommy.

‘A third boat!’ whispered Jim.

The third boat put in to the right of the others and more sailors leaped out, hauled it on to the beach and quickly began unloading provisions. More crates were passed along and Jim observed, ‘They may be murderous dogs, but they’re disciplined.’

Jommy observed their efficiency without comment.

Jim whispered, ‘Those head-scarves. Saw something like that on some corpses down in the south Sunsets, about a week’s sailing out of Freeport.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Wouldn’t rightly know: these are the first ones I’ve seen who weren’t dead. We came across a smoking hulk, burned down to the waterline, beached on an island with no proper name. The ship was known to my captain, but the corpses wearing those head-scarves were unknown to any sailor on that ship. Bit of a mystery as no man living was around to tell us the story of what had happened. We can only assume that the captain and crew of the burned ship had been carried off as slaves.’

The sound of movement from behind them caused both young men to turn around. Kaspar and Captain Stefan were coming down the hill in a crouch. Stirrings amongst the undergrowth revealed that men were moving into position to encircle the landing party.

‘How many?’ asked Kaspar, his eyes scanning the cove.

‘About thirty,’ said Jommy, ‘and they have a spell-caster of some kind in their midst. The crew seems downright afraid of him.’

Jim said, ‘Looks like some pirates out of the Sunsets, General.’

Kaspar muttered, ‘What are they doing here?’

Jim whispered, ‘If you sail straight west out of the Sunsets …’

‘You end up in the Sea of Kingdoms,’ finished Kaspar. ‘I know how they got here. What I want to know is why.’ To Captain Stefan, Kaspar said, ‘Pass the word. I want prisoners. Especially that magician if we can manage it.’

‘Magicians,’ said Jim, as if it were a curse word.

Jommy exchanged glances with Kaspar. ‘I said I’ve known some good ones.’

Kaspar’s smile was rueful. ‘And I’ve know some who were bloody monsters,’ returned the General. ‘Captain?’

‘Sir?’

‘Are the men in position?’

The Captain turned and made a slight hand gesture. Wherever he looked up on the hill, Jommy couldn’t see the returned signal, but the Captain said, ‘In position, sir.’

Kaspar nodded. ‘Captain, whenever you’re ready—’

‘What is that?’ asked Jim, pointing.

The others didn’t need Jim to explain what ‘that’ was, for they saw it too. The magician was holding a staff above his head and a pillar of light appeared around him, reaching up into the clouds. A hollow voice speaking in a language unfamiliar to either onlooker answered seemingly from the air around the magician.

Then a figure appeared before the spell-caster, a shadowy thing draped in smoke. Even through the constant sound of the rain they could hear the air thrum with energy and crackle as if sparks were dancing off metal. The thing spoke and again that hollow voice echoed alien words. The magician replied in the foreign tongue and the creature looked around, surveying the area.

The hair on the back of Jommy’s neck stood up as it seemed to lock gazes with him. The figure began to resolve itself into a man-like form, easily seven feet tall. Its shoulders were impossibly broad, and it appeared to have no neck. The creature’s ‘skin’, dark-grey blue without any apparent blemish, rippled and pulsed, as if air flowed under a silk cloth, and the face was featureless, save for two red flames where eyes should be. The skin hardened and began to look like black rock.

‘Now, Captain,’ said Kaspar softly.

Captain Stefan stood up, holding a white cloth in his left hand, and made a single chopping motion.

Chaos erupted.

From the ridge behind them shouts rang out, while arrows arched through the air to strike several of the men on the beach. Instantly three things occurred, as Jommy drew his sword. The men on the beach fanned out in precise order, not panicking, keeping their wits about them, and seeking cover wherever possible – behind the bulwarks of the boats, ridges of sand, and some large piles of driftwood. Several bowmen on the beach returned fire, but they were shooting blindly into the thicket on the hillside while those above had clear targets on the sand.

Men raced past Jommy’s position, soldiers wearing Keshian and Kingdom tabards, and Jommy leaped to his feet, shouting, ‘Come on, Jim!’

The conjured creature roared. It stood defiantly, arms spread as if ready to charge or be charged, and the men approaching could feel waves of heat coming from it as the volume of smoke rising from its black-rock skin increased.

Men faltered as they raced towards it, whilst those waiting for the onslaught were emboldened. Jommy half-ran, half-fell down the hillside, passing several soldiers who were brought to a halt by the demonic being’s outcry. Suddenly he realized he was passing the vanguard and in front of him waited weapons poised to cut him down, plus some creature from an impossible nightmare.

Jommy started to back away, but one of the raiders charged him, ignoring arrows that were still raining down from the hillside. The raider took a step forward then was impaled by a long shaft which knocked him backwards. Jommy crouched, waiting for the others to catch up. He glanced backwards, and saw the soldiers were either motionless or retreating.

He understood why a moment later. The conjured creature was growing! The thing was now a good two feet taller than it had been before and much broader across what Jommy considered to be its shoulders. The arms appeared brawnier, and decorated with what seemed to be burning metal bands, twisting rods of some hot metal that gave off so much heat that Jommy could feel it through the rain. Cracks in the rocky ‘skin’ now appeared and from them tiny flames issued.

‘Jim!’ shouted Jommy, ‘Let’s get out of …’ He glanced around and realized Jim Dasher was nowhere in sight. ‘Damn,’ muttered Jommy as he quickly backed away. ‘He’s either a coward or a lot smarter than I am!’

A pirate raced at Jommy and swung a vicious overhead blow with a weighted cutlass, a blow that was likely either to break Jommy’s blade or cleave him from shoulder to stomach. Training and experience lent the young man the reflex to knock the blade to the right while dodging to the left, avoiding most of the force. The sand on the beach was terrible footing, so Jommy ignored the impulse to spin and slice the man’s spine, instead electing to throw a right elbow at his jaw. Pain shot up his arm to his shoulder as he connected, and the man’s eyes glazed over. Stepping back, Jommy slashed sideways with his blade, slicing the man’s neck. As blood spurted upwards, Jommy continued to back away, unable to take his eyes off the horror that rose up before him.

Kaspar’s voice cut through the air: ‘Hit them hard: now!’

The soldiers were well trained, and despite their growing sense of dread as the conjured being rose up to a height of nearly nine feet, they charged. Those on the beach were dedicated, fanatics even, but they were not trained soldiers, and suddenly the left side of their defence collapsed.

With nowhere to retreat, they fought viciously, but within seconds the soldiers of Kaspar’s command had killed half a dozen and had the rest retreating through the water to the scant protection offered by beached boats. Jommy faced a more determined defence, as soldiers from the Kingdom, Roldem and Kesh joined him in attacking the middle, mere yards away from the creature.

The raiders fought like men possessed, as if they were more afraid to retreat back to where the smouldering creature waited than die facing mortal men. Then the creature strode forward, and the man next to Jommy howled in agony as the diabolical being snatched him up by the neck. The sound of searing meat replaced the choked-off cry and the apparition tossed the soldier aside like a broken toy. Jommy saw flame coming from the creature’s hands and could feel heat waves emanating from it as its appearance continued to evolve. The grey-blue skin was now crisscrossed with glowing red cracks, looking like nothing so much as molten metal under a rock crust, and where rain struck it sizzled and gave off tiny explosions of steam.

Jommy leaped backward, almost falling as he crashed into a soldier coming up behind him. ‘Sir!’ the man shouted in his ear. ‘Another two boats have put in to the north and more of the bastards are coming down on our right flank.’

Jommy hesitated, then realized the soldier must be waiting, and that he was a senior officer, or at least as far as the men near him were concerned. Something had to be done to avoid a total rout. ‘On me!’ he shouted. ‘Rally to me!’

Men hurried to him while the now-flaming monster snagged another screaming man and ripped his arm off while his torso was engulfed in fire.

‘Form circle!’ shouted Jommy, and the men nearby gathered in a tight knot around him. To the soldier who had warned him of the move on their flank, he shouted, ‘Find the General, and tell the others to fall back to wherever he is. We’ll hold them here! Go!’

The messenger ran off.

‘Shield wall!’ was Jommy’s next command, and the trained soldiers linked shields and suddenly he and two others, both irregulars from Krondor, stood in a tiny fortress of shields.

He had no faith in his order. Jommy knew that should the advancing monster strike the front of the shield wall, several of them would be instantly incinerated and the defensive position would collapse. But it was the only thing he could think of doing to buy a few minutes for the rest of the men to fall back to wherever Kaspar waited.

The creature stood motionless for a moment, and the magic-user pointed at the men clustered around Jommy with his staff and shouted something in the alien tongue. The creature took a great stride towards them and Jommy shouted, ‘Steady!’

The creature halted for a moment, and raised his fist up high above them. Jommy shouted, ‘Turtle!’ He dropped his sword and sat down hard, yanking the two men next to him down to keep them from injury.

The men raised their shields overhead, and braced themselves as they would for a barrage of falling arrows. The flaming monster’s fist, now the size of an anvil, crashed down on a pair of shields, causing one man to go to his knees and the other to collapse completely.

‘Bloody hell!’ said one of the irregulars, his eyes wide in terror.

‘Scatter!’ shouted Jommy: confusion was the only way to save as many men as possible. The two irregulars crawled away, while the soldiers did as they had been trained, each man running off directly away from the centre of the turtle, putting as much space as possible between themselves and their comrades. Those in the front fell straight back, then turned and fled.

Kaspar’s own archers had attempted to hurt the creature, but their arrows were having no effect, the iron heads bouncing off the thing’s hide while the shafts burst into flame. Waves of heat rolled over Jommy, as if he were standing before an open oven.

With a sweep of arms now as long as a spear, the creature knocked men aside as if he were playing with children. Whatever he touched burst into flames: men lay screaming and dying.

As Jommy pulled back, the creature seemed to notice him, and started towards him. Jommy braced himself, sure that in an instant he would be either crushed or burned to death. As he raised his sword to defend himself he saw beyond the creature a figure rising out of the surf. Water dripping off his face, his clothing soaked through, Jim Dasher seemed to appear out of nowhere as he came up from a low crouch to stand behind the magician. With a deft move so fast Jommy could barely follow it, the Krondorian thief raised his hands before him, crossed at the wrist, and flipped something over the magician’s head. Suddenly the spell-caster was yanked backwards as Jim brought his knee up into the magician’s spine, and even with the pounding of the surf, the tattoo of the rain and the screams from dying men Jommy could hear the snap of the man’s spine. Blood sprayed from the magician’s neck and he waved his arms for a brief instant before going limp.

As the magician died, the creature faltered, and then stopped and looked around as if waiting to be told what to do next. He howled, an echoing sound that grated on the ears and sent shivers through Jommy’s body. Then the monster lashed out, first one way, then another. Men scattered, even those wearing the black head-cloths more intent on putting space between themselves and the apparition than in continuing the fight. Jommy threw himself backwards, avoiding a sudden reversal of direction by the flaming creature, and rolled on the sand, coming to his feet in a crouch, his sword ready.

Then he saw Servan running in his direction, shouting something that Jommy couldn’t make out, but pointing directly at him. At the same instant Jommy sensed someone behind him and realized that Servan wasn’t pointing at him, but at something behind him. He fell to his left, rolled and turned, seeing the blade cut through the air that would have taken his head had Servan not warned him.

Jommy didn’t even think of trying to stand, but instead lashed out with his sword, cutting the man across the heel, severing the tendon. The man screamed and almost fell on top of Jommy. Jommy now shoved his sword point into the raider’s armpit. Blood flowed down the man’s side as the raider tried to retaliate with a looping blow designed to take Jommy’s arm off.

Jommy rolled again hearing the sword strike sand. Now he was on his back. Knowing this was as poor a position for a fight as could be, Jommy kept rolling until he could again see his opponent. Then someone stepped over him and a sword point thrust down, ending the raider’s life.

Servan reached down and pulled Jommy to his feet. ‘We’ve got to fall back!’ shouted the young nobleman. ‘That thing is still killing anything near it, and it’s getting hotter by the minute.’

Jommy didn’t need his companion to tell him that; he could feel waves of heat rolling off the creature. Steam exploded from every step it took in the wet sand. Men on all sides were still locked in struggle, but there was nothing remotely organized about the conflict, and Jommy knew there was no way to coordinate any sort of counter-attack or even organize an orderly withdrawal. ‘We need to have everyone fall back to that big rock over there!’ Jommy shouted, pointing with his sword.

Servan nodded. ‘I don’t know where the General or the Captain are.’

They paused and looked up and down the cove, until Servan cried, ‘Up there!’

Jommy saw Kaspar and Captain Stefan fighting back to back twenty yards up the hillside as half a dozen pirates circled them. Jommy looked at Servan.

‘What now?’

Jommy was a good leader in the field and had a rudimentary grasp of tactics, but Servan was a born leader, a first rate strategist as well as an instinctive tactician. ‘That big rock is our rally point, and I’ll try to get to them—’

Jommy looked over again to where Kaspar and Stefan fought, and saw Jim Dasher – again seemingly out of nowhere – appear behind the two men fighting Kaspar. With a dagger in each hand he stabbed both men in the back of the neck, and they dropped instantly to the ground. Suddenly it wasn’t six against two, but four against three, and as one of the men turned to see what happened to his companions, Kaspar ran him through and it was three against three.

Jommy shouted, ‘I’ll go this way, you go that, get the men moving! Get word to the General where we rally!’

Servan nodded and ran off, circling away from the flailing tower of flames that howled and lashed out in all directions. Jommy headed down the beach to where a knot of his men faced off against an equal number of pirates. Both sides seemed more concerned with getting untangled than with killing one another. Jommy shouted, ‘To me!’

Breaking off the fight, his men retreated towards him, and within moments a fairly orderly withdrawal was underway. Moving to the agreed-upon position, Jommy motioned for the men to follow. ‘Rally at that rock. Look for the General!’

Now the conjured creature, burning as brightly as the hottest fire Jommy had ever seen, lumbered in his direction. ‘Watch out!’ he warned and motioned for his men to move off and circle around to the rally point.

As they pulled away from the flaming monstrosity, men shouted that another boat was landing. ‘Things are getting out of hand,’ Jommy said to himself. As he glanced to see where the raiders were positioning themselves, he realized he was being flanked. If he wasn’t careful, the enemy he had left behind would use his retreating men as a screen, allowing them to loop around and hit Kaspar’s position from the rear.

‘You, you, and you,’ Jommy said pointing at the three nearest soldiers, two from Roldem and one from Kesh, ‘follow me.’ He gave a great war cry and charged at the closest raider.

From behind him he heard one of the soldiers from Roldem shout, ‘Are you mad?’

Jommy shouted back, ‘I want them to think so!’

The others followed and Jommy raced straight at the pirates who, seeing the men running straight at them, braced themselves for a charge. Just short of contact, Jommy shouted, ‘Run!’ and turned and fled back up the beach towards the hillside where Kaspar and Stefan were organizing a defensive position. A quick glance over his shoulder made Jommy wonder at the futility of that: the creature was becoming ever more enraged, thrashing out at anyone within reach. The only benefit this gave to Kaspar’s forces was that the raiders now had to consider the monster as much as the men they were fighting. The difference was that Kaspar could organize his forces and pull them up the hillside to the base camp on the ridge a mile away if he had to. The raiders had nowhere to go but try to launch the boats, but now two of them were flaming from the horror’s touch and no man looked willing to brave getting past it to the remaining boats. Some would no doubt flee up the coast to where the fourth boat had landed, but Jommy doubted it could hold all who wanted to escape the monster.

‘They’ll be coming this way in moments,’ he shouted. ‘Get to the General and dig in!’

Already fatigued from the short but intense struggle on the beach, men ran uphill in the mud, and suddenly Jommy realized there was no sound of fighting behind him. All he could hear was the echoing bellows of the monster, the rain in the woods above, and the panting of men nearly out of breath as they struggled to get to safety.

They reached Kaspar’s position and saw men furiously making defensive positions, with brush and rocks and digging small trenches with swords and daggers. All the while the bowmen struggled to keep their strings dry enough to be effective against the enemy who were surely only moments behind those coming up the hill.

‘Here they come!’ shouted Kaspar.

Jommy reached the first line of defenders and turned. A knot of raiders had formed at the base of the path and were fanning out to attack. He glanced to the north and saw another band of raiders fleeing for the remaining boat. As if reading his thoughts, Kaspar said, ‘If we get through this we’ll send a squad that way to round up any stragglers.’

‘Why shouldn’t we get through this, General?’ asked Servan, still out of breath.

‘They’re attacking uphill and we’re ready,’ said Jommy.

‘I’m not worried about those cutthroats,’ said Kaspar. ‘It’s the thing following them that bothers me. It’s stopped getting bigger, but it’s setting fire to everything it touches.’

‘And we’re standing uphill,’ said Captain Stefan.

‘Ah, maybe we should pull back and get on the other side of the ridge?’ observed Jommy.

‘No time,’ said Kaspar. ‘Archers!’ he shouted.

A few arrows arched overhead and the attackers scattered, but the bow fire was ineffective. ‘Damn rain,’ said Servan.

The men hurrying up the hill looked at those waiting for them and just kept coming. Jommy flexed his knees, his sword ready to parry or strike; and then it struck him. The only battle cries were from his own men: those coming at them were labouring, their panting breath barely able to meet the demands of the climb, let alone enabling them to shout or scream. There was a grim resignation on their faces. They were determined but they didn’t show the usual edge of madness that Jommy had seen in other confrontations. These men knew they were going to die.

Jommy made his way back until he was next to Kaspar. ‘General, those men are going to let us kill them.’

The former Duke of Olasko nodded. ‘They have that look, don’t they?’ He turned and shouted, ‘I want prisoners!’ Then with an eye on the flaming monstrosity behind them, he quietly added, ‘Should any of us survive.’

The creature had wandered aimlessly lashing out at anything it could, but now it seemed to have turned its attention to the hillside. Jommy said, ‘I think it’s seen us.’

‘I have no idea if the thing even has eyes,’ said Kaspar, ‘but we’d better get this under control, because it’s definitely coming this way.’

The first half a dozen raiders to reach the defenders threw themselves forward with manic ferocity. Several of Kaspar’s men were wounded, but every attacker was cut down. Jommy waited, but no one approached him directly. He saw there were a dozen corpses on the ground just below where he waited, and farther down the hillside a knot of perhaps two dozen men watched. One of them said something and others nodded, then they broke forward, and now Jommy could hear shouts and cries. He did not recognize the language, but the intent was clear: they meant to kill as many of Kaspar’s men as they could before dying in their turn.

Jommy saw one of the raiders turn, run down the hill and taunt the creature. How he had managed to do this, Jommy couldn’t imagine, but it mattered little because the man had attracted the monster’s attention. He slowly led the fiendish being up the hill and then waited. Jommy’s eyes widened in astonishment as he saw the raider put down his sword and let the creature crush him as a man would an insect. The man’s scream was short and high-pitched and came to an abrupt halt. His body had exploded into flames a second before the creature’s fiery hand had touched him: even at this distance, those on the hillside could feel the heat.

A second man raced down, halfway between the monster and Kaspar’s position just as the attackers reached the defensive position. But this time instead of a furious assault, the tempo was more that of a probing attack, something Jommy had come to understand was what soldiers did at times when they were trying to gauge the enemy’s strength.

Suddenly he understood. ‘General!’ Jommy shouted.

‘Yes?’ replied Kaspar as he easily slapped aside a half-hearted thrust from a raider who had got between two soldiers. The General slashed with his blade and the raider fell dead, his throat fountaining crimson.

‘They’re bringing that thing up to us! They’re dying in order to bring it here!’ Jommy said.

‘Idiots,’ said Servan, but he looked distinctly nervous.

Jommy was forced to admit their tactic was effective, if you didn’t mind dying to make it work. A third raider had now given himself up to the creature, and the ferocity of the heat was almost unbearable.

As if recognizing the hopelessness of their position, a handful of the enemy feigned attacks and purposefully left themselves open for killing blows.

‘Prisoners!’ shouted Kaspar. ‘Keep one of them alive!’

Jommy couldn’t stand his ground; everyone started to retreat before the forge-like heat of the monster. At the same time the raiders advanced and Jommy was forced to fight while backing up a steep hillside. The footing was wet and treacherous. Jommy killed one man only to almost die as another man shoved his companion into Jommy’s blade. Only a quick blow over Jommy’s shoulder by another soldier gave him the seconds he needed to pull his blade free.

Jommy almost lost his balance as his heel caught on a rock, and he barely avoided an enemy’s sword thrust. He lashed out wildly and even though his opponent was willing to die, he pulled back out of reflex. When he sprang again Jommy was ready and the man died silently.

A desperate struggle ensued as men wishing to live tried to give way to men willing to die. Jommy felt the tempo of the conflict change and he recognized a difference in the battle around him: panic was imminent. The men of Kaspar’s company were becoming desperate as they attempted a nearly impossible organized withdrawal, and the attackers were becoming frantic as they sought to keep from being captured while leading the monstrosity to their foes.

As they struggled to retreat up the hillside, a loud thrumming filled the air.

The creature was abruptly bathed in light as a shaft of white brilliance shot down from the clouds. It became transfixed, unable to move, and several men took wounds because they had stopped fighting in order to watch it.

Jommy killed a man in front of him, and glanced over the dying raider’s shoulder. The enemy appeared to have sensed that the day had been lost, and they began to back away.

Abruptly both sides disengaged. Jommy shouted, ‘General?’

‘Wait,’ came the order and Jommy did so. He watched the creature below as the raiders moved towards it, never taking their eyes off Kaspar’s men. The rain now appeared to be cooling it off, as if the creature’s mystic fire had lost its power. The sizzling sound of steam exploding off its surface diminished and its colour faded from a brilliant hot yellow back to the red-and-black appearance of molten rock. Jommy looked over his shoulder at Kaspar, and saw another figure high on a rock behind him. ‘Look, General,’ he said, pointing.

A being dressed in buckskin leather, with long flowing golden hair, stood holding a staff above his head. He appeared to be chanting. It was obvious to Jommy and Kaspar this was the author of the mystic light.

With a shudder, the creature dissolved like hot rocks falling apart. Great clouds of smoke filled the air.

‘Prisoners!’ shouted Kaspar: too late. The raiders, seeing no escape, wordlessly turned their swords on one another.

Jommy had seen enough men die in fights to know killing blows when he saw them. He turned to Kaspar and shook his head. The General’s expression was a mixture of disgust at losing his prisoners and open relief at the intervention of the newcomer, who was obviously a magician. With a sigh, he said, ‘Must be one of Pug’s, come to look out for us. Good thing, too—’

Jommy shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, General.’

Captain Stefan and Servan both came to stand by their commander as the figure on the rock put his staff down. ‘It’s an elf,’ said Servan. ‘As I live—’

Kaspar said, ‘I think you’re right, Lieutenant.’

The elf said something, a question from the tone of it.

‘I speak more than a dozen tongues and I don’t recognize it,’ said Kaspar.

The elf walked slowly down from his position above them, then halted half a dozen paces above Kaspar and studied them for a moment. ‘I said, who are you to be trespassing on the Peaks of the Quor?’ He spoke the tongue of Kesh, but with an odd accent and cadence.

‘I’m Kaspar, former Duke of Olasko and commander of this company. As for trespassing, I’m here with the permission of the King of Roldem and the Emperor of Great Kesh, both of whom claim this region.’

The elf’s features showed no emotion, then after a second resolved into an expression of dark humour. ‘Your masters’ vanities do not concern me. This land belongs to the Quor.’

Trying to remain civil, Kaspar said, ‘I want to thank you—’

‘Before you thank me for anything, human, realize I did not save you from the elemental creature. It was a thing of magic so foul I needed to dispose of it before I deal with you.’

‘Deal with us?’ said Kaspar.

‘Yes,’ said the elf. ‘You are all my prisoners.’

Instantly, men took combative stances, for while there was only one elf, they had just seen him vanquish the monster with seemingly no effort. Kaspar said, ‘And do you, alone, intend to capture all of us?’ There were still thirty combat-ready soldiers behind him.

‘No,’ said the elf and then he raised his voice and said something in the other language.

As if by magic elves appeared from behind rocks and trees, at least twice as many as Kaspar’s band. The one thing that stood out most about them was their appearance: all were blond, had sun-browned skin, and the same sky blue eyes as the magician. And all of them wore the same buckskin so that it was almost a uniform, save for a slightly different cut to a tunic or fringe on the sleeves. Some elves had feathers or polished stones woven into their braids or a warrior’s knot, and many wore their hair down, long past the shoulders. Most carried bows, with arrows pointed at them, and another half a dozen carried staves. Kaspar was certain they were magic-users like the elf before them. After a moment he said, ‘Throw down your weapons.’ Reluctantly the men obeyed, and Kaspar said to the elf, ‘We surrender.’

The elf nodded. ‘Gather your wounded who can travel, and come with us.’

It took a few minutes to find those able to move and render them aid so they could travel. A dozen men were too injured to move and the elf said, ‘Leave them. They will be attended to.’

Kaspar nodded and when his men were ready, elves began escorting them up the hillside, along the same trail that led down from the cave Kaspar had used as his base of operations. As they reached a point where the elf had first revealed himself, a strangled cry from behind them caused Jommy to flinch. As he started to turn, he felt a strong hand grip his arm. Jim Dasher said, ‘Don’t look. It’s better not to.’

Jommy nodded. The men too injured to move were being killed quickly by the elves, and although Jommy knew it was probably kinder than letting a man die slowly from a gut wound or exposure, he still hated the thought of it.

Slowly the captives wended their way up the hillside high into the mountains above.

The rain continued.