Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

Of the three of them, the wolf raider was the most surprised by the encounter, but that in no way meant that he was the slowest to react. His blade already out, he moved in on Cabe. There was no question, no demand for surrender, simply a strange, high cry and then an attack.

Darkhorse easily kept himself between the Aramite and the warlock. The raider slashed at him with the sword and Darkhorse, chuckling in an evil manner, allowed the edge to strike him in the neck. It was as if the attacker had tried to cut through solid stone. The blade snapped and the entire weapon fell from the startled raider’s hand.

His confused hesitation was all the time the deadly stallion needed. Rising just a bit, Darkhorse kicked the Aramite in the chest. The force of the blow was enough to send the armored man flying back into the mist. Cabe winced as a heavy thud finally put an end note to the raider’s haphazard flight.

Where there is one wolf raider, however, there must be others. The Gryphon had often written comments like that in his missives. The Aramites were, for the most part, pack creatures like the animal that was their namesake. Cabe, already cautious, sensed them before he heard them. They were coming from all sides in numbers enough to startle him.

“We’ve run into a patrol!” he whispered to his companion.

“Excellent! Rather would I fight something real than wander much longer in this thick morass!”

“That’s not-” He had not time enough to finish, for the first shapes materialized then.

They moved in with fair but not exceptional precision. It was clear that the wolf raiders were put off by the rank fog, but they had been trained to suffer most any environment in the pursuit of their tasks and so they were adapting as best possible. Listening, Cabe now understood the purpose of the initial cry by the first raider. The Aramites were using it to keep in contact with one another, evidently deciding that stealth was not worth the cost of possibly losing every man to the mist.

“Well?” Darkhorse was suddenly shouting to the oncoming shadows. “Come, come! I have not all day! There are still other tasks I must deal with after I have finished with all of you!”

“Darkhorse . . .” This was not what the warlock had wanted. He had hoped to avoid danger as much as possible, which was one reason he had sought out the shadow steed. Darkhorse, while always willing to face an enemy, generally also respected the safety of his companions. Now, however, he was taking chances that Cabe felt were more than a little risky. The eternal was begging for a fight and it could only be because of Shade again. Wandering through the fog, seeing nothing, the shadow steed’s thoughts must have returned to the subject that had become so much a part of his recent life.

It was too late to do anything about it now. The Aramites were coming at them from all directions and it would have been sheer folly to attempt to teleport away. Something within warned Cabe Bedlam that a teleport threatened his life more than this attack.

Two other swordsmen tried to cut Darkhorse’s forelegs, but met with the same results as their predecessor. The demon steed kicked one of them back into the fog, but the other managed to avoid the blow. He pulled a curled dagger from his belt and threw it, but at Cabe, the rider, rather than Darkhorse. It still had not registered in the minds of the raiders that the horse was the greater of the threats to them. They assumed that with the rider under control or dead, the battle would be won.

The warlock saw the dagger coming and although he had shielded himself against ordinary weapons, he deflected it, deciding that it was not wise to risk himself because of overconfidence. Then he turned as both his magical senses and his ears warned him of several raiders coming from the rear. A lance came within a yard of him, but with a spell he lifted both the weapon and the man and used them to clear four other soldiers nearby. The spell suddenly went awry, however, and the lancer dropped to the ground like a rock. The raider scrambled to his feet and back into the fog.

“Careless,” a voice said.

Cabe looked at Darkhorse, but the stallion was busy dealing with both the raider who had evaded his first assault and two others who had joined the survivor. One was trying to rope the eternal, a foolish maneuver if ever there was one. Darkhorse caught the rope in his teeth and, while the Aramite was still holding it, pulled with such might that he sent the soldier flying into his companion. Both collided with a harsh clang and crumpled to the ground. The soldier who had survived the earlier attack backed away, almost immediately disappearing into the fog. The shadow steed laughed.

Forgetting the voice, Cabe returned to his own dire situation. Where the eternal had no qualms about the destruction of his adversaries, Cabe still felt pain every time he was forced to kill, even though most often it was in self-defense. He held back as much as he could, trying instead to dissuade or knock senseless the attackers. With his abilities suddenly once again in doubt, the warlock felt justified in resorting to flying rocks and tiny windstorms to beat back his opponents.

This did not mean that he was not forced to kill. Some of the Aramites could not be stopped any other way. They brought their own deaths by charging wildly into the storm of rocks. One reached close enough to almost pull Cabe from the saddle. Try as he might, the sorcerer could not free himself and he discovered then that some Aramite weapons would hurt him regardless of his protective spells. The dagger that caught him slightly on the leg was bejeweled and also likely bewitched for just such a battle. Over their long history of war, it made sense that they would learn to deal with spellcasters. In the end, he had struck back out of sheer reflex . . . and had sent a jolt of energy so great in intensity that he had literally burned the man to death in less than a breath.

Still they kept coming. It was almost as if the entire raider force had found them.

“Unngh!” The blow against his head shook Cabe so hard he had to struggle to keep in the saddle. His first thought was that someone with a sling had caught him unaware, but his spell should have protected him regardless. When he heard Darkhorse grunt in pain, though, the warlock knew that it was no mundane weapon that had hurt him.

Where was it? None of the raiders he had sensed carried any such weapon. In truth, the greatest danger he and Darkhorse faced was likely not the Aramites, who only had sheer numbers on their side, but rather the malevolent fog, which continued to sap his will and play havoc with his magical abilities.

He kicked out at a swordsman who had somehow gotten past Darkhorse, then shocked the man before he could close the gap again. The Aramites were giving him little time to think. Even as the soldier fell twitching to the earth, Cabe himself was stung. Every bone in his body seemed to quiver. This time, the addled warlock slipped almost halfway off of his companion. It was only quick shifting on the demon steed’s part that kept Cabe from falling.

“Cabe! You must hold tight! I cannot fight and maintain your balance!”

“I . . . can’t.” It was painful just to straighten. He was almost flung off again when Darkhorse spun about to defend his right flank.

“Very well . . .” The ebony stallion almost sounded disappointed with the turn of events. “Hold on as well as you can, Cabe! I will take us to safety!”

The warlock gripped the saddle tight and forced himself to look up. Darkhorse had abandoned the fight and was now clearing a path through the attackers. Several went down, but there always seemed to be more. Arrows struck both warlock and eternal, but Cabe’s spell still held and Darkhorse was Darkhorse.

In the midst of the fog and chaos, the weakened spellcaster caught sight of a truly peculiar figure squatting atop a rock formation. The Aramites, who streamed past his very location, took no note of him. The mist partly obscured the figure, but Cabe made out long, spindly legs and arms and an obscenely round torso. The head was mostly covered by a long, wide-rimmed hat that fell down over the face . . . if indeed the odd parody had one.

A spider, was his first impression. A human spider.

The entire scene wavered then, but not because of Cabe’s condition. Rather, a wave flowed over the area, shaking rider and mount and throwing the pursuing raiders into new turmoil.

Cabe recognized it although he had rarely experienced the sensation before and certainly not of the magnitude of this ripple. Wild magic. The term was not quite correct, but it was as close as any description could come to explaining what was happening.

One of the rock formations nearest to them melted. Flat ground began to rise. The warlock heard a scream and located the source just in time to see one of the raiders fold into himself and disappear. Several of the Aramites were struggling to free themselves from ground that had become liquefied. An empty suit of armor, half corroded, indicated that something else had happened, but Cabe was not in a hurry to