The Night of the Swarm

before the eguar. Pines go up like torches; snow vaporises; the edges of the river boil. The eguar rushes straight on, unscathed, shaking off the fire like globs of mud.

The demon turns to run. But what has happened? In that brief moment of stillness, ice has closed around its ankles. Spellcraft. The demon wrenches, claws at the glassy ice. When it finally breaks free it has bloodied both feet, and allowed the eguar to close half the distance.

Now the gorge jackknifes to the left. Once around the bend the demon wrenches a barrel-sized stone from the frozen earth, and screeches with delight when the blow connects. Stunned, the eguar drops on its side. Once again the demon flees.

And once again meets with a strange barrier: this time the very trees have somehow thickened around it, and their criss-crossed branches thwart it at every step. The more it fights, the more entangling they become, until at last in desperation it vomits more fire, scouring out a path through which to flee.

Hard ground beneath its feet: the fire has burned all the way to bedrock. And there, there ahead is the split in the Parsua that means the gorge is near its end. Beyond that, open fields and forests. And beyond the latter, Macadra’s forces in their thousands, waiting only for someone to tell them where to strike.

‘Hold!’

The demon stops dead. Before it, on the branch of a tall pine, sits a large, black owl. It is this creature who has spoken. The maukslar knows this new enemy at a glance, and screams in terror and rage. Then its nostrils catch that telltale reek of sulphur, and it whirls about: the eguar stands twenty feet upstream, its body a hot iron, its great tail thrashing among the stones.

‘You are bleeding to death,’ says the owl. ‘Moreover you are cornered by two foes greater than yourself. Behind you waits Sitroth, the Ancient, who killed the hound of Toltirek. I am Ramachni, servant of Erithusme and ward of the selk. You have felt my grip once; if you feel it again it will be too late to beg for mercy. Depart this world if you would live.’

The demon speaks in a voice like boiling pitch. ‘I beg no mage’s mercy. I dwell in those places where you scarcely dare to wet your feet. One alone dared call me forth. I serve the White Raven, while it pleases me to do so. The White Raven, who outlived your Northern hag.’

‘Erithusme the Great is alive,’ says the owl. ‘Macadra fears her, and with good reason. But I warn you, try no spell of your own. If you do we shall kill you swiftly. Where is Dastu, the boy whose shape you mimic?’

‘In the stomach of the ogress,’ says the demon. ‘The hrathmogs live in fear of her appetite.’

The owl falls silent. When it speaks again its voice has hardened. ‘Go, demon. Return to the Duirmaulc while you can. Your days in Alifros are through.’

The maukslar ’s yellow eyes are fixed on the owl. ‘We shall see whose time is through, when Macadra takes the Nilstone in her hand.’

‘There is a pattern jewel in the creature’s gut,’ says the eguar suddenly. The maukslar jumps, glancing at the beast with scalding hate.

‘A pattern jewel?’ says the owl. ‘That is a crime in itself. Why do you carry such a thing, maukslar, when you know it belongs with others?’

‘My mistress gave it me,’ hisses the demon.

‘Then she took it from a murdered selk,’ says the owl. ‘You must cough it out before you leave this world. It would prevent your departure anyway.’

The maukslar ’s eyes dart, scanning the ground for a weapon.

‘If you refuse,’ says the owl, ‘we will simply wait for you to die, and then remove it from your corpse. Hear me for the last time: go back to the Nine Pits, back among the damned. If you do so we will prevent Macadra from binding you to service again. If you will not go, we will scatter your ashes when you die and prevent your resurrection. The choice remains yours, for a moment longer.’

The maukslar looks from one to the other. It stands now in a pool of its own blood.

‘Do not slay me,’ it says at last. ‘I yield. Take the jewel, and let me take my leave.’

The creature drops on all fours. It retches, back arching like a dog’s. Four or five times its body heaves. Then, painfully, it crawls to a fallen pine and lies over it. At last its snake-like neck convulses, and a great red ruby drops from its mouth into its waiting palm.

‘Leave it there!’ screeches the owl. But the maukslar pays no heed. On its forehead the fell runes blaze. ‘Magic! Beware!’ bellows the eguar. But as it rears up, the fallen pine tree rises, flies with all the force of the demon’s curse, and pierces the eguar’s chest like a stake.

The eguar falls without a sound. But the demon howls in agony. On the high branch, the owl has become a small black mink. Its jaws flex, biting hard at empty air. In the body of the maukslar, bones begin to crack.

Then the maukslar vanishes, so suddenly that drops of its spilling blood seem for a moment to hang suspended in the air. Thrown by his own spell’s sudden release of power, the mage nearly falls from the tree. Exhausted, he flies down the trunk and races towards the eguar.

‘Stay!’

The eguar’s warning comes out like thunder, but it is followed by a rattling wheeze. The mink stops in his tracks. The tree has shattered the creature’s chest.

‘I spew poisons enough when my skin is whole,’ says the eguar. ‘Now that I bleed even you dare not approach.’

‘I may help you,’ says the mage.

‘My body is beyond help,’ says Sitroth. ‘But we may still speak; the eguar are slow even in death. Tell me, Arpathwin, is honour restored?’

‘Yours was never truly lost,’ says the mage, bowing his head. ‘Only wisdom deserted you, briefly. And whom has it not, at some point in life’s long march? The two princes look alike, they say. And since Olik the father passed through the Red Storm, he is no older than his grandson.’

‘No hatchling would err as I did,’ says the eguar. ‘The selk gave me sanctuary and purpose and a feast of bright thoughts, wafting nectar-scented from Ularamyth. I betrayed them. I killed one of their number, and left the North Door without a guard.’

‘You sought vengeance against a murderer of your people,’ says Ramachni. ‘The wisest of us all still have our passions, Sitroth, and as long as living blood runs in our veins they will sometimes prevail. Not even the Gods are immune.’

‘The maukslar has departed?’

Ramachni nods. ‘It has fled Alifros, and cannot return without some aid.’

‘It cast the pattern jewel away into the river,’ the eguar wheezes. ‘I am sorry we did not recover that stone. I would have liked to lay it at Lord Arim’s feet.’

‘One day I shall bring the selk here to find it, and take it home to Ularamyth,’ says Ramachni. ‘There is time.’

As if to belie his words, the twin points of seering light that are the eguar’s eyes wink out. But the creature still draws breath. ‘Arpathwin,’ it says, ‘could you truly name me friend?’

‘What else could I name you?’ says Ramachni. ‘Have we not both seen the centuries pass, the plagues and rebirths, the wonders forgotten in a fleeting year by men? Besides, you are beloved of the selk, and I am their ward and kinsman.’

‘Then you must come near after all. For not all my wisdom is gone. I have remembered something. I have remembered the nature of your Gift.’

The creature’s blood is pooling, sizzling on the stone.

‘Ramachni Fremken,’ it murmurs. ‘ “He who steals the form of his friends.” Arim himself mentioned it once, so many centuries ago. You can take many shapes-’

‘Not so many,’ says Ramachni quickly.

‘-but only the shapes of those you have befriended, and slain. An orphaned owl. A mink caught in a hunter’s trap. A great bear rescued from a life of torment in the arena.’

‘They were woken animals,’ says Ramachni. ‘And they were all ill, or hopelessly wounded. They understood what they gave. Yes, that is my Gift-curse. I add their shapes to my collection as I kill them, kill my friends.’

‘Then let me give the same gift, while I can.’