The Fire In His Hands

The fallen Invincibles had been replaced. Haroun cursed. There was no way, now, that he could deliver the stroke he had been anticipating all day.

He would have to use the Power. He hadn’t wanted to do that. He wanted the Disciple to see death coming, wanted the man to look into his eyes and recognize the boy from Al Rhemish. Wanted him to know who as well as why.

The lilac killer would not do. It would take the nearest Invincible, not a man cowering inside a tent. It had to be something else. His arsenal of petty magicks contained little that was apt. Again he cursed the chain of circumstance that had prevented his achieving his full potential as a shaghun.

He selected a spell that would induce the symptoms of typhoid, ran through the chants softly, visualized the El Murid he recalled from Al Rhemish. He loosed the spell.

A cry of agony answered it.

Some Invincibles rushed to their master. And some rushed toward Haroun.

“What the hell is going on?” Haaken asked.

“I don’t know,” Bragi replied. “But he’s sure got them stirred up.”

“Maybe we ought to help. Maybe if they think they’re under attack he can get out in the confusion.”

Bragi doubted that. He had written Haroun off. The decision he faced was whether or not to rush back to el Aswad in hopes he hadn’t been missed. It had to be too late. Might as well do some good here.

Some of the enemy were fleeing the camp. Within, the fires were spreading. Horses were making panic noises.

“All right. Let’s go. Harass the ones running away. You guys with the bows. Shoot a few over the wall.”

Alarms awakened Megelin Radetic. Groggy, he staggered from his cubicle, his seldom used sword dragging. A night attack? He hadn’t anticipated that. It wasn’t to the Disciple’s advantage. The man merely needed to wear the defense down with hammerings like yesterday’s.

He paused, listened. Plenty of people running around yelling, but no thunder. No crash of lightning striking the fortress. Maybe it wasn’t an attack.

What, then?

He reached the north court to find it aboil with men rushing out the gate. He grabbed a soldier. “What’s happening?” The man pulled away. So did the next he caught. Nobody wanted to spare a moment. Radetic dragged his weary bones to the ramparts.

The Disciple’s camp was ablaze. Men were scurrying everywhere. Animals were stampeding with the men. There was fighting. The defenders of el Aswad were falling on their foes in a great disorderly rush. The anthill simile occurred to him. “Trite,” he murmured.

It took Megelin just seconds to guess how it had started. “Haroun! You fool!” He panicked. His own Haroun... He practically threw himself off the wall in his haste to get down there.

The observer within was amused. The boy isn’t your child, it said. He’s only on loan to you.

Even so, his heart was ripped by fear that the boy had destroyed himself in some romantic scheme for rescuing his father’s fortunes.

Bragi kept his men close together, unbroken by the human stampede. Two score bodies lay around them. The enemy was easy in this state.

A rabble from the fortress arrived, as disorganized as the foe, but with blood in their eyes. The area became a slaughter yard. Bragi urged his men toward the gateway.

Entering was easy. The enemy simply ran away or piled over the stockade. Guildsmen and the Wahlig’s warriors followed Bragi’s squad.

What now? Where to look? Haroun wanted the Disciple. El Murid’s quarters should be near the center of camp. “This way. On the double.” Haaken kept the men together while Bragi ran off to the right, skirting the fires. His squad left a trail of enemy injured. Wild-eyed horses proved a greater danger than enemy weapons.

Bragi found an aisle of encampment unthreatened by flames. He turned toward the camp’s heart.

Haroun stifled a cry when the Invincibles slammed him to the earth at El Murid’s feet. He spat at their chieftain. The man cuffed him.

“The Wahlig’s brat, Lord.”

“You’re sure, Mowaffak?”

“The very one who attacked you in Al Rhemish.”

“He was just a boy.”

“That was a long time ago, Lord. He’s learned more shaghun tricks, it seems.”

Haroun watched the Disciple’s face darken. He compared it with the face he recalled. The man had aged beyond his years. He looked old. “You’d damn me when you use a fouler sorcery yourself?”

The Invincible hit him again. Blood filled his mouth. He bit down on the pain, spat scarlet on the man’s robe. “Pig eater.”

“You delude yourself. I use no sorcery.” El Murid puffed up with offended dignity. “I call upon the might of the Lord, as vested in me by his angel.”

“Somebody is deluding himself.”

El Nadim arrived. “Lord, the camp is total chaos. The fires can’t be contained. Guild soldiers are inside the