the four mounted men.
The two mounts closest to the beast, Azoun’s and Aunadar’s, reared at the sight, turned about, and bolted. The king sprang deftly clear of his horse, drawing his sword while he was still in midleap. Aunadar Bleth was less successful, sprawling awkwardly to the ground but rolling hastily and managing to come up with his own blade bare. His free hand had tangled in his short cape, which partially covered his face in a confused tangle.
The golden beast was coming on too swiftly for much thought or plan for attack. As the fleeing horses rushed past, Thomdor and Bhereu fought to keep their own war-horses from bolting, snarling and hauling on the reins like madmen. Then, in unison, the royal cousins roared a challenge and spurred their mounts forward, hauling out their own blades. Neither had seen such a monster before, but there was no time for speculation as to what it was or how it had come to be here. Perhaps Vangerdahast or the sage Alaphondar could puzzle out its origins after they killed it.
The royal cousins met the golden creature in a flurry of slashing steel and golden horns. One man went to either side of the snorting beast, their blades gleaming in the dappled sunlight, and as one, they slashed at the glittering flanks of the golden bull.
Such an assault would normally take down a wild ox, but the blades bit into no flesh. They sparked as if they were smiting armor and squealed harmlessly along the creature, dragging along as if scoring metal.
The two brothers scarcely had time to curse before the golden creature bellowed, turned with lightning speed, and tossed its massive head. Wickedly sharp horns tore open the belly of Bhereu’s mount, spraying hot blood over the fray. The horse had time for one horrible scream before it collapsed in a rush of steaming innards, tumbling the duke out of his saddle.
Thomdor reined in his own mount in a pounding of hooves and threw his boar spear. It struck with a ringing sound, metal on metal, and sprang away, unable to sink home. “The luck of bloody Beshaba!” he snarled, rolling hastily out of his own saddle. The horses were little more than moving targets to the creature. The bull turned and rushed after Thomdor’s mount but gave up the pursuit when the horse plunged into the river.
Thomdor cast a look back at his fellows as the golden monster turned, crashing through shrubbery and saplings, and added a few more curses at the goddess of ill fortune. Most of the royal bodyguards were off in another part of the King’s Forest, with Thundersword’s hunting party. Everyone’s armor was minimal, and each bore weapons more suited to gutting boars than battling a magical juggernaut.
The golden ox must be an enchanted machine, it clanked and squeaked as it moved. To take it down, they’d have to aim for the thing’s clockwork joints. Thomdor cast a glance back at the ruined tower, but there was no activity in the dark doorway or beyond. There was no sign of other golden creatures, nor was there any sign of someone who might be guiding this one.
Bhereu was slow to rise, and Thomdor saw that the duke’s face was pale and already streaked with sweat. We’re both getting too old for this, Thomdor thought as he raised his heavy blade and charged.
Aunadar and Azoun had split up and taken their stances, His Majesty to the creature’s right and the Bleth lad, his face still partially covered with his cape, to the left. The youth was obviously trying to make himself as small a target as possible, crouched and wary, ready to spring, but the king stood upright, chest out and feet planted firmly, bellowing a challenge.
The beast had been lumbering straight at Thomdor, but at the king’s shout, it swerved to charge at Azoun, leaving the baron with a chance to strike it as it passed. He kept his eyes on the mirror-bright beast, danced carefully in to just the right spot, and swung-hard.
The impact shook Thomdor to his very teeth, but his stout blade sheared deep into the bull’s left leg just below the knee, digging into the joint with a satisfactory thunk.
As the man spun helplessly away, struggling to keep hold of his notched and bent blade with numbed hands, the glittering monster stumbled, breaking its charge. As the baron’s world stopped whirling and turning, he saw the bull regain its footing and turn his way. It had acquired a limp.
Thomdor’s satisfaction was short-lived, however, for the beast’s great, doleful eyes were settled on him, staring steadily into the baron’s own hot gaze. The steam from the bull’s maw wreathed its face, and Thomdor smelled a bitter, acrid odor, like burnt oranges.
The smell was strong and pungent, seeming somehow oily in his mouth, and the baron stumbled back a few paces, wondering if this could be some transformed, renegade mage with a grudge against the crown.
Aunadar took advantage of the bull’s menacing advance on the baron to launch his own attack. Charging forward, he repeated the mistake the royal cousins had made earlier, trying to drive his sword into the beast’s flank. The tip of the blade skittered across the bright scales, leaving only a thin scratch. The bull thrashed its head, and young Bleth sprang back, lost his footing, and sprawled backward into the trampled ferns.
Bhereu and the king were both closing in on the beast now. Thomdor inwardly cursed Azoun for risking himself, but the king had always been like that, even as a lad. To ask him to stay out of a battle while others fought was unthinkable. The baron set his jaw, strode forward, and took another hack at a leg joint. His aim was true, but the blade dug less deeply than before.
Something was terribly wrong. The air around Thomdor felt stifling, the thick oiliness was curling and moving in his throat, and the forest seemed to close in on all sides.
The baron snarled a curse and staggered backward. His vision was collapsing into a small tunnel around the massive, steaming golden beast. Once more the creature’s doleful eyes stared tirelessly into his, and Thomdor could feel sweat pouring out of his body. He was starting to tremble and feel numb all over. This was more than the ravages of too many years spent gorging at the board, this was magic… deadly magic.
Thomdor looked at Bhereu. His brother’s face looked like a death mask and wore a look of grim realization that must mirror his own. The duke nodded in unspoken answer to Thomdor’s look as he came around the bull, hacking at its legs as vigorously as Azoun was doing on the beast’s other flank, then opened his mouth to speak.
What came out was a weak cough, and Bhereu’s eyes turned an odd green color. Then the beast lunged in their direction, and the world became a place of stabbing horns, hacking blades, and desperate dives for safety clear of plunging hooves. Both royal cousins fell and roiled, then rose to topple backward again. Thomdor struck the ground hard more than once, but the pain felt distant, as if the world were slipping away into numbing mists.
The tunnel that the world had become heaved and rolled, and Thomdor knew he was rising very slowly, pushing at the stubborn ground with his hands. Beside him, Bhereu rolled over, but did not try to rise. Somewhere the bull roared again as the Warden of the Eastern Marches staggered over to his brother, using his sword to support himself.
The duke was laboring to breathe, his face taut with pain, his eyes bright and wide.
“Poison!” Bhereu gasped. He was shaking under Thomdor’s hands, his burly body streaming with sweat. He tried to rise once, scrambling to gather himself in the baron’s firm grasp, and then collapsed, head lolling and limbs jouncing loosely.
Thomdor laid him back down. Poison, not magic. Yes, that would make sense, particularly with a clockwork creation. To have any hope of surviving, he and Bhereu would both have to get back to the Royal Chirurgeons in Suzail as soon as the battle was over.
Aye, the battle. Where was that bull, anyway?
Head buzzing from the effects of the poison, Thomdor looked around, the tunnel shifting and flowing crazily until he spotted a golden flash.
Aunadar was up and hacking ineffectually again, but the beast seemed intent on slaying Azoun, trying to smash the ever-dodging king down with its golden hooves. As Thomdor watched, Azoun danced away from a lashing hoof and struck out backhanded with his blade, sweeping his sword’s tip neatly into the beast’s right eye. There was a flash of spraying sparks, and the eyeball-a faceted gemstone!-bounced to the ground.
The bull stiffened and let out a tremendous roar. Internal bellows whined, and the burnt-orange smoke billowed from the monster’s maw and empty eye socket with renewed vigor.
Poison, Thomdor reminded himself grimly as he lumbered forward on rubbery legs. Horns slashed, but he drove them aside with his battered blade and then lifted it and drove it weakly into the gaping eye socket amid the flowing smoke.
The bull shook its head, and Thomdor’s blade was wrenched from his grasp. He stumbled again, the tunnel before him becoming smaller, the beast receding in the distance.
Azoun struck at the monster’s other eye, and the clockwork golden head swung around again. The bull
