"Let's go!" one of Saffira's guards, Ha'Pim, ordered. He grabbed the reins to Saffira's mount, turning her horse, prepared to gallop south across the open fields.

At that moment, a reaver raced round the bend, huge and monstrous, bearing an enormous glory hammer.

"I'll get the girl, you take the woman!" Borenson shouted to Pashtuk.

Borenson slammed his heels into horseflesh, raised his weapon high. He held no illusions. He had no endowments left, no brawn or grace or metabolism, and he wasn't likely to ever get close enough to the reaver to even take a swing. Still, the reaver wouldn't know that. He hoped that the beast, upon sensing two warriors racing toward it, might at least pause long enough so that Borenson could grab the child and make a clean escape.

He shouted a war cry and Pashtuk's mount raced beside him.

"Wait! Leave them!" Ha'Pim shouted at Borenson's back. "We are here to guard our lady."

Pashtuk did not resist. The Invincible drew reins for half a second, and Borenson glanced back to see him racing to his Queen.

Borenson did not know if Pashtuk acted well or ill. He'd heard abject terror in Ha'Pim's voice.

Borenson ducked low, raised his warhammer. His mount had two endowments of brawn, and could easily carry him, the wylde, and the child. But it would be a clumsy ride, and he doubted he'd have time to save them both. Indeed, the wylde was running in the rear, running too slowly, glancing back from moment to moment as if eager to turn and embrace the monster.

Borenson raced for the child, slowed his mount just enough to reach down and grab for her, try to yank her up.

But he no longer had endowments of brawn, and Borenson misjudged the effort it would take. The child leapt up, as if to help him pull her onto the horse.

Borenson had meant to swing her onto the saddle in front of him. Instead, he caught her arm off balance. He tore a muscle in his shoulder, and for half a second the burning pain was so great that he feared he might cripple himself.

Yet he managed to swing the child onto the horse behind him, then race toward the green woman.

But as he glanced toward the wylde, three more reavers raced round the bend. Borenson could not reach her in time. The reaver raised its glory hammer, sprinted toward her, its great crystalline teeth flashing like quartz in the sunlight.

Borenson tried to wheel his mount, leaving the wylde to die.

The girl riding behind Borenson shouted, "Foul Deliverer, Fair Destroyer: blood, yes!"

The green woman stopped in her tracks, spun to face the reaver, and leapt at the beast as she, aimed a punch at its giant maw.

Her deed seemed to catch the reaver by surprise. It had been racing for her at full speed. Now it swung its glory hammer.

The blow fell long and wide. It pounded the road with a loud thwack, like the sound of a tree crashing in the woods.

What happened next, Borenson could not quite believe.

The reaver's head was as large as a wain. Its maw could have swallowed Borenson and his horse whole. Had the monster landed on him, its fifteen tons of bulk would have ground him into the dirt like a miller's wheel pulverizing barley.

Yet the green woman twisted her hand as she punched, some weird sort of little dance that baffled the eye, as if she were a mage drawing a rune in the air.

And when her blow landed, it was as if she wielded a glory hammer herself.

Crystalline teeth shattered and flew out like droplets of water, catching the sun. The huge gray reaver's flesh ripped from its face, exposing the skeleton just beneath. Foul blue blood as dark as ink sprayed everywhere.

The reaver collided with the green woman's blow as if it had hit a stone wall. Its entire body lifted into the air six or eight feet, and its four huge legs convulsed in exactly the same way that a spider's would when it tries to protect its belly.

When it landed with a thud, the thing was dead.

Borenson wheeled toward the green woman, but he need not have bothered Pashtuk acted the part of a man even though Saffira had taken his pearls, and now he galloped toward the green woman at full speed But the green woman was not satisfied to have killed the monster. Though three of its fellows raced toward her, she leapt atop the dead reaver's head, slammed her fist into its skull, and brought out a piece of brain, black with blood, to shove into her mouth.

Borenson gaped in surprise and reined in his horse. Pashtuk reached the green woman, grabbed her from behind.

Borenson spun his mount and raced north toward Saffira and her guards. He glanced over his back to make sure that Pashtuk got clear before the other reavers arrived.

Pashtuk did not take time, for niceties. He grabbed the wylde around the waist as if she were a bag of oats. She did not struggle as she feasted on a handful of reaver's brain.

"This way," Pashtuk shouted, wheeling southeast as he pa.s.sed Borenson. Borenson glanced back. More blade-bearers thundered round the hill. A reaver mage charged in their midst, but the monsters would never catch force horses such as these. A reaver's top speed was forty miles per, hour, and then only in short bursts.

"You saved me!" the girl at Borenson's back shouted in glee. "I knew you'd come for me!" She hugged him hard.

Borenson had never seen the child before, felt surprised by her tone.

"Well, you seem to know more than I," Borenson said sarcastically. He had no patience for fakirs who pretended to prescience, even if they were only children.

They raced in silence for a few minutes, and Pashtuk managed to plant the wylde in the saddle in front of him. Behind Borenson, the girl kept leaning forward, trying to see Saffira, as if unable to stop staring.

Finally the child asked, "Where's Baron Gobble Gut? Didn't he come with you?"

"Who?" Borenson asked.

"Baron Poll," the child said.

"Hah! I hope not," Borenson said. "If I ever see him again, I'll spill his guts all over the road!"

The child pulled on Borenson's cloak, tried to peer up into his face. "Are you mad at him?"

"No, I merely hate the man as I hate evil itself," Borenson said.

The girl gazed up at him questioningly, but remained silent.

The sky above filled with a snarling sound that reverberated like a distant hiss. It sounded as if all the heavens drew in a breath at once. Far away, the red of firelight glowed from columns of rising smoke.

"Quickly!" Pashtuk shouted, racing ahead over the dead landscape as fast as his mount would carry him. "My lord battles at Carris!"

CHAPTER 52.

IN THE THICK OF BATTLE.

Less than an hour from the time Raj Ahten had emerged from the castle gates, Carris stood on the brink of ruin.

In the first moments of battle, reavers drove Raj Ahten's knights back along the causeway, then exploded against the west wall of Castle Carris before men could raise the drawbridges.

They beat the stone arches above the gates with glory hammers, pounding into dust the runes of earth-binding engraved there.

With the walls of Carris thus weakened, the reavers began to batter through the walls as easily as if they were made of twigs.

In less than five minutes they demolished the gate towers and opened a chasm into the bailey.

Raj Ahten could only respond by throwing men into the breach, hoping to drive the reavers back. A wall of corpses--both human and reaver--piled up at the breach some eighty feet, until the reavers were able to leap from their dead onto the castle walls.

Many reavers scuttled over the piled corpses, came sliding down on the dead, their enormous carapaces rumbling as they slid through slick gore. They hurled themselves into battle in such a fashion that the flesh and bones of any man who dared stand before them were ground into mangled ruin.

Might alone could not stop the reavers.

In minutes they butchered a thousand Invincibles before the breach.

Meanwhile, reavers raced up on the south wall of Carris from their stone ships. They decorated that wall with blood and gore. At least twenty thousand commoners died before Raj Ahten's Invincibles managed to slay the intruders.

In desperation, Raj Ahten brought his exhausted flameweavers into the fray and lit several inns and towers afire so that the burning buildings might lend the sorcerers energy to do battle.

For ten minutes his flameweavers had stood on towers to the north and south of the gates, hurling fireb.a.l.l.s as best they could into the ranks of reavers that lumbered down the causeway. The flameweavers drove the reavers back, but only for a few moments.

The reavers soon rushed forward over the causeway bearing enormous slabs of dark shale in their great paws, as if they were shields, then set them on each side of the causeway, forming a ragged wall that baffled the flames.

Then some reavers scuttled forward under cover while others lobbed huge boulders against the castle walls in a crude artillery barrage. One tower collapsed so that a flameweaver plunged to his death in the lake.

Fifteen minutes into the battle, Raj Ahten could see that he would lose Carris, for he fought not just the blade-bearers alone, but also the fell mage that drove them.

Six times she cast spells against the men who defended Carris. Her curses were commands, simple in nature, astonishing in effect.

"Be thou deaf and blind," had been her first refrain. Three times a black wind had issued from her. But after three sweeps, she commanded, "Cower in fear."

Six curses, at odd intervals. Raj Ahten was horrified by their effect. Even now, some brave men huddled in mindless terror a full ten minutes after the last curse had blown from the east.

Raj Ahten felt mystified by the spells. No chronicle ever told of reaver mages that uttered such curses.

Now, as Raj Ahten fought in the midst of battle, out on Bone Hill the reavers' fell mage raised her citrine staff to the sky and hissed, uttering a seventh curse. Her hiss was a violent sound that seemed to crawl away in all directions as it echoed along the cloud ceiling between earth and sky. Men on the castle walls cringed or cried in terror.

Raj Ahten listened, but knew that the curse that issued from her could not be understood until he smelled the dark wind that roiled away from her. He could almost count the number of milliseconds it would take for the command to reach him, down here in the castle's bailey.

He led a charge into the reavers' front rank, blurring in his speed, bearing a battle-axe in each hand. With six endowments of metabolism to his credit, he could work fast, but needed to make every heartbeat count.

A reaver slid down toward Raj Ahten on the backs of the dead, glory hammer high overhead. It came with a rumbling roar, for its carapace ground over the dead with a sound like a huge log rolling down a hill.

As it slid to a halt, a frowth giant behind Raj Ahten roared and slammed its huge staff at the reaver's maw, thrusting upward, forcing the reaver to stop and fall back a pace.

The reaver had little time to choose its mode of attack. It raised its hammer overhead. Raj Ahten hesitated an eighth of a second while the frowth held the reaver back, then he lunged to strike. His first blow was a vicious uppercut that took the reaver behind the spur of its raised left arm. Raj Ahten's axe bit deep into the flesh, pried between the monster's joints, weakening the limb without severing it.

More importantly, the ganglia there in the elbow sent a numbing jolt that left the reaver hissing in fury, briefly stunned.

In that infinitesimal portion of a second, Raj Ahten's work began. He had to find a second target. If the monster roared, it would open its mouth wide enough so that he might leap in between its deadly teeth, strike up through the soft palate into the reaver's brain.

On the other hand, if the reaver backed away in panic, he'd get a blow between the thoracic plates at its soft underbelly, where he might disembowel the beast.

The monster did neither. The reaver lowered its head and struck blindly through its pain. It swung the glory hammer down viciously, lurching, trying to win past Raj Ahten.

Raj Ahten ducked aside as fifteen tons of monster surged overhead. Even with thousands of endowments of brawn, he could not afford to take a hit from a reaver, for though his endowments of brawn strengthened his muscle, they did nothing to strengthen bones. Even the most casual blow from a reaver would shatter his bones like kindling.

The reaver slammed down its glory hammer, cutting a vicious arc, putting all the power of its good right foreclaws into the blow. The frowth giant shoved harder on its great staff, trying to press the reaver back, and the frowth turned its head and blinked.

In that moment, Raj Ahten glanced up at his giant. The thing was spattered with the red blood of men and the inky blue-black blood of reavers, fouling its fur. It had taken a hit from a reaver's blade earlier, so that a rent showed in its chain mail, and the frowth's own blood added to the mix, matted and fly-covered in its golden fur.

Perhaps blood loss had weakened the frowth, for though the giants were normally tireless, this one saw the blow coming and did little to avoid it, merely shoving meekly with its staff and blinking its great silver eyes as it turned aside.

The glory hammer swiped down, smashing into the frowth's snout, shattering bones and teeth. Blood and gore rained upon Raj Ahten.

Enraged, Raj Ahten struck down with his battle-axe, taking off the two front toes of the reaver's left foreleg. As the reaver's head spun to snap at him, Raj Ahten leapt past its jaws into its mouth, rolled once over its raspy tongue, and aimed a savage blow up into the monster's soft palate.

His axe blade met flesh, scored deeply as it ran between two plates of bone, slicing a cut as long as a man's arm deep into the cleft above the jaw. As the blade cleared, Raj Ahten pulled it back up and in. The long spike on the reverse side of his axe scored deep into the monster's brain.

Raj Ahten was already diving from the reaver's mouth before the blood and brains began gushing from the wound. The monster would die, but so would Raj Ahten's giant.

The frowth reeled back from the battle, staggered into some warriors behind, and fell upon half a dozen men, crushing them.

Raj Ahten glanced about to see if his men needed help. Most of his men fought in teams--four or five men to a reaver. Dressed as they were in yellow surcoats, they looked to Raj Ahten like wasps trying to bring down larger prey with their mult.i.tude of stingers.

Now, on Bone Hill, the fell mage's snarling curse ended, and her dark command rolled toward the city. Raj Ahten wondered briefly if the fell mage merely toyed with him.

If she can force us to cower in fear, or strike us blind, why does she not kill us outright? It could not be harder to make a wind that would poison men than to utter these commands.

Raj Ahten could only wonder. It had been sixteen centuries since her kind last attacked. He imagined that she was enamored of her new spells, sought to learn which was most effective.

The fell mage's dark wind struck. Atop the walls, men cried out and covered their noses, and Raj Ahten could not immediately see any effect.

It was not until the scent hit him that he understood. His mouth went dry, and as one, every pore in his skin began to exude sweat. Tears streamed from his eyes. He fought an overwhelming urge to urinate, and around him he saw weaker men lose control of their bladders.

He felt her command, even as he fought it: "Be thou dry as dust."

A hundred yards behind Raj Ahten, Feykaald stood behind the battle lines on the steps of an inn and croaked, "0 Great One, a word!"

Raj Ahten called to his Invincibles to close ranks and raced out of the battle, across the green, to the steps of the inn.

He glanced back. Reavers had crawled atop the mound of their dead, and now one prepared to slide into battle. Raj Ahten glanced at the walls, estimated that three quarters of his Invincibles had already died in this slaughter. He had fewer than four hundred left.

Atop the walls, reavers were battling men. Raj Ahten pulled out a file and began to sharpen his axe blade. He needed no oil for his file. Reaver's blood worked well enough.

"Speak," Raj Ahten said to Feykaald.

The old counselor worked his mouth, as if fighting back a choking dust. A sheen of sweat dripped from him as he spoke furtively in Raj Ahten's ear. "Boat arrived. East sh.o.r.e...secure. Our men found reavers, but slew them."