A mage stood up and flung a handful of fire. It flew, straight as an arrow, at the foremost attacker. Clinging to his chest, it ate through mail and leather, devouring the man’s clothing, his skin, his hair. The corpse collapsed in a shower of sparks, the metal of his useless armor glowing white hot. The sparks glowed against the dark earth and then began moving of their own volition, spreading and searching out another victim. One man looked down with horror as his boots ignited and the all-consuming flames seized him.
“Innat ar rial, nar fedrian rek!” Eresken concentrated on the balding mage with every fiber of his being. Satisfaction warmed his malice as he felt that mind, so focused, so disciplined, but so pitifully undefended. Working swiftly, Eresken wrapped it around with myriad images of the Forest, spiking the illusion with a terror of being lost in trackless woods that was inadequately concealed in the back of the mage’s mind. Eresken felt how order and learning were so highly valued, and sowed seeds of whimpering fear in a distrust of the unknown. Rising panic at feeling abandoned and alone blurred the wizard’s concentration and the ground beneath Teiriol’s feet stabilized.
Howling wind came up from nowhere, from all directions and none, dust and leaves swirling around the attackers, the heavy gusts restraining them bodily as they sought to advance. The traitors were unaffected though, Eresken saw with anger, seizing their chance to take a stance either side of the big man, backs to the dubious protection of the fallen tree.
Eresken snatched at the second mage’s mind. This was harder than the first, thoughts flicking rapidly from one notion to another. The Soluran’s terror at the prospect of a violent death sparked frantic desire to do as much damage as possible. This impulse warred with fear of the consequences, constraints of law and an inborn reluctance to kill. Eresken thrust his own will deep into the man’s mind, stirring up a maelstrom of long-forgotten events, unsought remembrance, distorting anything where uncertainty of recall offered his malice a fingerhold. As the man’s recollection spiraled into chaos, Eresken started picking at the reason he could sense frantically groping for control.
A sharp pain at the back of his neck startled Eresken into an oath. He slapped a hand to his collar, as if at a biting insect, bemused to see a smear of blood on his palm. A second sharp pain caught him just below the jawbone and a dart fell to the ground with a cold gleam of steel. As he spun around, Eresken’s arcane senses, so long honed by harsh discipline, easily pierced the tangle of undergrowth.
There she was, the redheaded whore, believing herself safe as she crouched motionless, white-faced, lips bloodless. Eresken glanced back to the road where the three swordsmen were now hard pressed, Teiriol and his followers now free from assault by the stricken wizards. Rage threatened to curdle Eresken’s concentration; the woman he saw there was an image woven of false magic to cover the bitch’s folly as she tried to take him with her petty pinpricks. He lashed out to rip into the vulnerabilities he had sensed in the wizards but now found those minds barred against him. He battered harder, but could find no way in through desperate focus on some archaic ward.
No matter. He would have his vengeance on the woman and then deal with the rest. Eresken took a pace toward the slut’s hiding place but the ground seemed to shift beneath him. This was no treachery of earth or water but his own body was betraying him, he realized, as confusion between eyes and ears threatened to make him nauseous. Eresken felt his control slipping away like water running out between his frantically grasping fingers. A mad euphoria soared within him; what did it matter? Freedom beckoned, tempting, sensual, release from all care, duty and fear. He had been drugged, Eresken realized dimly.
Scalding anger clearing his head just long enough for him to seize on the first principle of mind over body, fundamental lore beaten into his memory. He drew breaths of deepest trance, focusing within himself for the taint of poison and bending his will to burning it out. The confusion still swirling around his consciousness began to recede and Eresken reached for the nearest source of power to bolster his own, drawing pitilessly on the frail resources of the Mountain Men. They were only here to serve him, after all.
A single blow to the pit of his stomach sent him crashing backward into the thicket. The breath was knocked out of him and, before he could gasp for more, knees crushed his ribs, hands gripping his throat sought to squeeze the very life out of him. Blood thundered in his temples. Eresken opened his eyes to see the woman above him, hatred burning in her green eyes. She knew him, he realized and, in that instant, he was glad of it. She would know who killed her. He dug nails into her hands, tearing at her skin, twisting to bite at her wrists. She would know that he had finally repaid her for the humiliation of being captured by her and her fellow spies. With a convulsive heave, he threw the bitch off, her fury no match for his greater weight. She would die at his hands as her lover had died at his father’s. Eresken sprang to his feet, reaching for his sword.
Hot agony rippled through his gut. Wetness oozed down his belly and into his groin, warm slickness turning cold. Eresken groped beneath the heavy links of his hauberk to feel the hilt of a dagger driven up into his belly in the harlot’s first assault. He fell to his knees as sickening pain flooded him, every pulse of his heart striking fresh torment from the wound.
“Save me!” Eresken poured every scrap of heart and will into a despairing appeal, reaching up and out and beyond the woods, past the gray crags of the stony heights, beyond the windswept expanse of the plains and out across the vast, trackless ocean. With a suddenness that made him gasp more than any shock of pain, another mind seized his. As he was lifted bodily away, consciousness crushed beneath a pitiless grip, Eresken welcomed oblivion rather than face his father’s wrath.
He came to himself in a leafy hollow, so similar to the one he had left that he jumped to his feet, looking in all directions for the murderous trollop with her assassin’s daggers. The knife that had stabbed him rattled to the ground.
“Calm yourself.” The voice within his head rang with contempt, a stinging slap behind his eyes an added rebuke.
Eresken clutched at his belly. His trews and shirt were torn and damp with blood but the skin beneath was whole. His fingers traced the cicatrices of a new scar with dismay.
“You can carry those marks as a reminder of your folly,” the voice told him curtly. “Be grateful I was minded to let you off so lightly.”
“You are indeed merciful,” replied Eresken wordlessly with a sinking dread. “Where am I?” He snatched up the dagger.
“Just far enough away to keep you from being gutted like a seal pup.” There was amusement in the voice now. Eresken breathed more easily; better to be the target of mockery than rage. “Get down to the road and head east,” ordered the voice.
“Yes, Father.” Eresken obeyed hastily, slipping and adding fresh scratches to hands and face. Reaching the road, he ran, armor heavy on his shoulders and rattling with every step. Sweating freely, his pace did not falter until he rounded a bend to see bodies strewn across the bloodstained track.
He skidded to a halt, clutching at his head with clumsy hands. Dark brown eyes looked out at the carnage and grim satisfaction curved Eresken’s mouth in a smile not his own.
“Not what we hoped for but something can be made of it.” The lips shaped words echoing and far distant. “Use this and if you impress me your earlier failure may be overlooked.” The voice turned cold. “Disappoint and it will go hard with you.”