The Feel of Gold
“Well,” Nyndstir said, crouched in a copse of trees with the rough wooden walls of Thornhurst in the distance and a half dozen other swords-at-hire circled around him, “I wouldna want t’fight that bastard.” The bastard in question was standing atop the wall in glittering armor, screaming, as he ripped apart one of the sorcerer’s monstrosities by hand.
“What’s this? Our bold, bearded Islandman boaster a craven?” That from one of the southerners with his curved sword and fancy words.
The Islandman turned, spat, and clouted the southerner so hard with a balled-up fist that he wouldn’t have been surprised to see blood trickling out of the ear he’d struck. The man gave a cry and tumbled over.
Nyndstir spat again, on the man for good measure. “We may be brothers o’battle for the time being, southerner, but some words don’t get said to Nyndstir Obertsun, and craven is one o’them. Now pick yourself up. We’re t’report back.”
With that Nyndstir stood, wincing at the way his knees and back shot with pain as he moved. He leaned a little more heavily on his axe than he’d have liked as he walked, with no great relish, back to their little camp.
It was a good hundred span north and forty span or so off the road behind a tangle of trees, and it was damned hard to see even for a man who knew it was there.
In fact, as Nyndstir and the three other scouts he was detailed with drew near, he almost felt as if something was trying to twist his attention away from it. For just a moment, he stopped, staring at the bare-limbed trees and finding his vision sliding away from them, till he gave his head a shake and locked on the small clearing, the circle of ragged shelters, and the small fire burning.
He did, for just a moment, wonder how the smoke from the campfires didn’t clear the treeline and why he couldn’t smell it till he was stepping within the circle of warmth. But he knew the answer lay with the remaining wagon and the men within it and that was not something Nyndstir liked to ponder overlong.
Both sorcerers had brought their own crews, and met up just a few miles north of their current position, so there was still some sorting out among the hired men of just who was in charge. The men paying the links didn’t seem to care much; they issued orders to whomever was convenient.
Still, among those who made their living with weapon in hand, there was some sorting out to do. An order needed establishing. Nyndstir didn’t much care for the yoke of responsibility, but when he looked around the camp at the score and a half of men who were pointedly ignoring the angry sounds coming from inside the wagon, he snorted and spat again. He was doing a lot of spitting these days. Even the men he’d pulled for his party, including the one he’d clouted, drifted away to their tents, their bottles, or just into the woods.
“Well, I’m not gonna stand here watchin’ you lot holdin’ yer cocks like boys ain’t figured out what they’re for yet,” he growled, and marched up to the wagon, giving it a sharp rap with the back of his hand.
The sounds inside ceased, and the tongue he didn’t speak and didn’t like the sound of broke off with a whispered hiss.
“What?”
“Back from the job. The, ah, attack. Didn’t go well.” When delivering bad news, Nyndstir thought, understate.
The door flew open. The yellow-eyed one, Geth something, Nyndstir thought, glared at him from the dark interior.
“Do you think we don’t know that, you great fool?”
Nyndstir shrugged heavily. “Ya told me t’watch and report, so that’s what I’m doing.”
“Well then,” the man said, his voice faintly ghostly, focusing those awful pools of glowing yellow that filled his eye sockets on the Islandman. “What did you see?”
“I saw somebody in real pretty armor tearin’ your, ah, troops, t’pieces and tossin’ em over the wall like so much broken crockery. With his hands.”
“We felt them destroyed. But no man can contend with a Battle Wight for strength.”
“Well, I’m reportin’ what I saw, and I’m not one t’lie t’the man with the weight. He climbed up on the wall screaming his damned head off, picked one of them, and ripped it apart like fresh bread. Did a number on the rest of ‘em too.”
“’Pretty’ armor?”
Nyndstir shrugged again. “Bright silver. Could’ve seen it gleaming from twice as far away as we were, seemed like.”
“And what was he saying?”
“Ah, I believe he was askin’ for you to face him yourself. Had some comment on your willingness to do so.”
The sorcerer opened his mouth as if to scream, and Nyndstir didn’t like, at all, the way that sickly yellow glow started to emanate from the man’s throat. But then it was cut off, as another voice—a voice that felt to Nyndstir’s ears like getting scraped over barnacles had once felt to his back—came from inside the wagon.
“Gethmasanar,” it said, thrumming slightly. “Do not lose yourself in petty anger. All is not lost.” A string of links, gold and silver, flew with unerring accuracy from the darkness of the wagon and landed at Nyndstir’s foot. “You have done good service, Nyndstir Obertsun. You will continue to do so. Wait for darkness. Organize some men. Move forward and retrieve the pieces of the Battle-Wights the man in the pretty armor threw over the wall. Can you do this?”
Nyndstir eyed the links, but didn’t bend to pick them up. “I can.”
With that, the wagon door was shut as the sorcerer withdrew, and Nyndstir found himself glad to miss the rest of the conversation.
Finally he bent and picked up the links, but for perhaps the first time in his life, he found that he didn’t much like the feel of gold in his hands.
* * *
Inside the now darkened wagon, Gethmasanar seethed, the yellow energy that leaked from him growing darker, pulsing visibly.
The other presence in the enclosed interior spoke calmly, though the words were slightly distant, distorted.
“He has left us our raw materials, and we should never run short at the place of a battle anyway. That is the entire point of the procedure. Eventually we will have enough and we will overwhelm them. Now to the matter of Bhimanzir’s lost apprentice.”
Gethmasnar let out a quiet harumph. “On that point at least we may claim victory. I felt him come into contact with one and spring our trap. I am quite sure he is accounted for.”
“Do not be sure till we have the body, and may study it.”
“He is done for, I tell you. I felt his will flee his body.”
Multiple points of blue light moved in the air as the other sorcerer stood. “Yes, but did you feel him die? Know you for certain that his flesh is quiet?”
“There was nothing of him left.”
“On this point, Gethmasanar, we must leave no room for doubt.”
“We’ll sift the rubble after our Wights have done their work, then.”
“That will not be sufficient. When their collapse nears, you shall have to move close enough to make sure of the boy yourself.”
“Iriphet,” Gethmasnar began haughtily, “surely we need not be so cautious over a barely trained boy.”
“Silence.” Iriphet’s voice was barely loud enough to be heard, the echo of it fainter still, yet it hung in the air as Gethmasanar instantly obeyed. Trails of blue streaked across the small interior till the elder sorcerer stood directly before the younger, whose eyes lowered to the ground.
“It was at your insistence, Gethmasanar, that the boy was given to one of the Knowing. Though he was the least among us, Bhimanzir’s power should have been sufficient to clear this land of its threats. Had he been here by himself, certainly he would have succeeded. Instead, we allowed you your fancy and planted with Bhimanzir the seed of his own destruction. You have come perilously close to loosing the Negation upon us by handing it to the very power Bhimanzir was dispatched to counter. That has not gone unnoticed by me, nor by the Eldest.”
Gethmasanar remained silent, eyes upon the floor, letting the power that danced unsubtly behind the words wash over and through him.
“Certainly, Bhimanzir shares some of the blame,” Iriphet went on. “For not realizing and unlocking the boy’s true potential. For his failure, he paid, but do you realize the enormity of what happened? Do you realize that a primate with a hammer killed one of the Knowing? Death does not come for such as us in this way, Gethmasanar. Never.”
Iriphet turned away and Gethmasanar lifted his head, eyes narrowed. The other sorcerer’s retreat granted him new leave to speak. “There are those who have fallen in battle.”
“To infighting, yes,” Iriphet allowed. “To a lucky Thaumaturgist, as those dabblers style themselves. To cursed Dwarfish Stonesingers, though we long ago won that war. And perhaps, under great duress, to a stray arrow or a freak chance of a greater battle. The man was a prisoner, bound to Bhimanzir’s rack, the secrets of his power ours to know, according to his final message to us. And then he is dead. That, Gethmasanar, is unique to the history of the Knowing. And it will remain unique. Go and bend your hand to some useful work now. Likely by now the Baron will have gotten some of his men killed and wounded. Material and fuel. Send some of the men to gather it.”