Lord of Stormweather

CHAPTER 22

"Here they come!" shouted Muenda.

Cale watched the southern horizon. A dark wedge of clouds swept toward them like a vanguard. Lightning flashed deep within its roiling mass.

He looked to either side, where the other skwalos soared beside their own. Their line stretched from east to west in a graceful arc, each within range of the next one's archers for mutual defense.

In the days since they'd joined the elves, more of the gargantuan creatures had joined their southward trek. Cale noticed the first at dawn after their first night upon the skwalos. Throughout that morning, one or two more appeared each hour. By noon, they began combining with larger groups until they formed an armada over one hundred strong.

Before long, Cale realized that the skwalos they'd "boarded"-he couldn't avoid sailing terms when describing the creatures-was a small specimen. Whole villages, and even thorny fortifications hung from the trees, sprawled on the backs of the greater skwalos. From aeries in the immense dorsal ridges of the largest skwalos flew elves on the backs of fantastic creatures that might have seemed gigantic if seen apart from their enormous hosts. Some were winged reptiles with great horns upon their skulls. Others looked more like bats the size of a mainsail, except for their many eyes and their three beaked mouths. One that glided down to perch upon a distant skwalos could only be a blue dragon.

"Do you see anything?" asked Shamur.

The willowy Lady Uskevren had tied her ash-blond hair in a tail that whipped behind her head like a war banner. The shreds of her skirts flew back as well, revealing strong legs that would have made a woman half her age envious. She gripped an elven bow with an arrow already nocked, and she wore a quiver of long arrows on her hip.

The elves had trusted them with weapons in return for their oath that they would defend the skwalos so long as they remained aboard. Cale had accepted a bow and arrows as well as a long, sharp spear. He would have preferred a sword, in case the attackers managed to board the skwalos.

"There," said Cale, pointing to a spot above the storm front. A line of nine flyers in wedge formation emerged from the obscuring clouds. Aquiline heads, talons, and wings merged with muscular leonine bodies: griffons. Had they not been arrayed in an attacking force, Cale might have been glad to see a creature more familiar to the lands he knew.

The griffons were uniformly huge, even larger than the pair Cale had glimpsed at the Talendar stables a year before. Each bore two riders clad in bright armor and scarlet cloaks. One of each pair held the reins in one hand and a long needle of a lance under the other arm. The second perched atop a higher seat in the saddle and wielded a recurved bow.

The elves sang to each other from the backs of their skwalos. Their ululating calls passed from east to west, then back again. Cale translated the salient portions for Shamur.

"The Vermilion Guard," he said. "Elite soldiers."

Even as he spoke, four more groups emerged from the nearby clouds. Shamur's gaze never left the approaching griffons.

"I have an idea," she said.

When she relayed it to Cale, he could only groan.

"Even if we can gull them," he said, "what makes you think we could control one?"

"Trust me," she said.

"My Lady…"

"Call me Shamur," she said, turning a confident grin on him. It didn't assuage his concern, but its determined beauty had a stifling charm on his protest. "At least until we return to Stormweather."

Cale sighed and said, "Yes, my lady Shamur."

"Come on," she said. "We might not have chosen this adventure, but we can at least enjoy it."

"We should wait to see what the elders do," said Cale.

He strongly suspected that Rukiya, Kamaria, and Akil were powerful wizards. The old elves had spent the morning preparing harnesses of mystic tokens and materials for their spells. A few of the younger elves had done the same, but they'd intoned songs of flight and flown to the other skwalos hours earlier, leaving the defense of their home to Muenda and the other scouts.

Cale realized that Shamur might not be the only one who intended to lure the Vermilion Guard into assaulting their skwalos. The gambit was already working, for the first squad began diving toward them.

A flight of arrows heralded their arrival. None of the missiles found an elf target, and if they pricked the skwalos to irritation, the great beast displayed no ire. As the bowmen reached for their second volley, the griffons swooped low across the surface of the skwalos. The lancers raked the elders' tent, which immediately blossomed into a fountain of flame.

The lead rider and his first two wingmen escaped the explosion, and the two in the rear veered away in time, but the four griffons between them screamed as they emerged from the sudden fire. Their wings trailed smoke as they bore their scorched riders up and away from the skwalos.

Cale noted with a little disappointment that none of the men had fallen from their mounts. Either they were bound to their saddles, or they were very elite indeed.

The leader and his first two wingmen kept low, the bowmen picking out targets of opportunity while the lancers sought out elf archers. Arrows struck at them from every shelter among the brush, and a pair sprouted from the flank of one of the griffons, one to either side of the lancer's thigh. The creature screamed its anger, but it remained in formation.

Shamur shot at the lead lancer, a captain judging by the long orange plume on his helmet. The arrow missed him by feet, but his bowman spotted the attack and pointed to Shamur. The captain shouted a command and steered his griffon toward the strange humans among their elf foes. His wingmen followed in tight formation.

"Ready," called Shamur.

Cale disliked her plan, but to abandon it would only endanger her further. He raised his long spear as if to throw it, while she crouched beside him and aimed another arrow at the rider to the captain's left.

The lance came speeding toward Cale's heart. Just before it reached him, he thrust the butt of the spear against the "deck" and braced it with his foot. The griffon-rider pulled back on the reins but kept the point of his lance steady. Cale deflected it to the left and ducked low to avoid the griffon's talons. At his right, Shamur dropped her bow and leaped at the griffon. She grabbed its harness and clung tight to the creature's feline body as the attackers swept past.

"Shamur!" cried Cale.

This was not the plan she had described.

Cale raised his spear to hurl it at the back of one of the other riders, but before he could throw it a powerful blow sent him tumbling to the deck. A griffon screamed triumphantly as its shadow passed over him, and a bright ringing filled his head as he turned the fall into a roll.

Back on his feet, Cale cupped the back of his head to feel the deep talon wound. His hand came back smothered in blood. A wave of vertigo rose in his skull, and he fended it off by sheer force of will.

He crouched and looked high for the griffon on which Shamur had pounced. The attackers' once-regular chevron formation had scattered in disarray, but it still wasn't hard to spot the flyer with Shamur attached. That one tumbled in its own exceptional sphere of chaos.

The bowman had already fallen from his high saddle. Tymora smiled on him, for he landed upon the surface of the skwalos and rose stunned but alive. Beshaba took her turn with him next, though, and a cloud of elven arrows descended on the dazed man. He fell again, and this time he did not rise.

Up on the griffon, Shamur and the captain struggled for control of the reins. The man was almost twice Shamur's size, but she had thrust his helmet forward and held it there with her left hand, covering his eyes as she unbuckled his sword belt and slung it over her shoulder in a motion worthy of a prestidigitator. Rather than draw the blade, however, she unfastened leather straps that secured him to the saddle. She released her grip on the captain's helm and grabbed the reins in both hands as she rose up to stand on the griffon's back. The man pushed back his helmet just in time to see her leap up and kick him with both feet. Shamur fell to the side, holding desperately to the reins as her weight pulled the griffon's head down. The captain plummeted from his seat.

He did not land on the skwalos.

Cale ran back to his bow and nocked an arrow, looking for any target that threatened Shamur as she struggled to regain the saddle. He wasn't well practiced with the weapon, but he could at least serve as a distraction. If he could get his hands on a blade, and the attackers landed on the skwalos…

Cale sprinted to where the bowman had fallen, for the man had been wearing a short sword at his hip. Cale's vision faltered, and his legs wobbled beneath him. He'd lost more blood than he'd realized, and he knew he must tend the wound on his scalp. He found shelter beside a thicket. Kneeling there, he glanced up to see whether or not he had attracted the attention of the remaining griffon-riders.

The surviving bowmen concentrated their fire on the elf archers aboard the skwalos, while their lieutenant rallied them back into formation. Before they'd regrouped, two of the burned griffons had already turned back, and a third fell to elf fire.

A flash of blue light overcame even the bright sunlight. Cale blinked away the temporary blindness and saw Akil levitating above the smoldering ruins of his tent. The old elf cackled with glee as he flicked his fingers for a second time and sang out a staccato phrase, scoring a black line across one of the attackers and sending his helmet flying. The man lolled insensate in his saddle as his bowman reached forward in a panic, trying to catch the reins.

"Stop wasting your strength, old fool," called Rukiya. Cale could hear her with perfect clarity, even though she hadn't raised her voice. "You tell them too much! This is only a probe of our defenses."

"She is right, my husband," called Kamaria, Her voice was similarly enchanted. "Save your strength for the Sorcerer. Look, the enemy is repelled."

Cale donned his black cloth mask and said the prayer of healing. He'd performed the ritual often enough that he found the cool trickles of divine power a familiar sensation as they surged through his arms to his fingers. He pressed them against his injured head and felt the tingling sensation of healing flow into his skin, through his veins, and down to the bone. In moments, he felt only a faint line where the open wound had been.

Cale shook his head to dispel his dizziness. Evoking divine power was at once draining and exhilarating, not unlike a vigorous fight. He liked the feeling.

Cale put away his ceremonial mask and located the fallen bowman, or what was left of him. It appeared that every elf on the skwalos had put an arrow through his body. Cale took his sword belt and secured it to his own waist.

He looked up to see the last five griffons retreating, while one flew back toward the skwalos. Shamur sat confidently in the front saddle, grinning like a child on her first horseback ride. She guided the griffon toward a spot near Cale. The creature landed with feline grace, apparently undisturbed by the exchange of its rider.

"Let's go before our hosts decide to stop us," said Shamur.

Cale glanced back at the three old elves hovering above their sparsely defended home. None of them looked in his direction, and Cale knew they were purposefully ignoring their guests. They were giving them their chance to leave, thus sealing their agreement.

Cale hesitated before mounting the griffon. The thing was the size of a grand carriage, and he couldn't see how to climb onto its back.

"The other side," said Shamur.

Cale walked around the enormous beast to find a sort of leather ladder built into the griffon's harness. It trailed down from the saddle, between the creature's wing and flank. At Cale's touch, the griffon raised its wing in a well-trained gesture allowing him access.

Cale passed his bow up to Shamur and clambered into the seat behind her. Even before he could secure the straps to his waist and thighs, she slapped the reins and clucked. The griffon responded like an old, familiar mount. It leaped into the sky once more, its beating wings deafening both its passengers as it rose up from the skwalos. When it flew above the clouds, the griffon spread its great wings and glided southward.

"We're free!" shouted Shamur.

"Which way are we headed?" yelled Cale over the sound of the griffon's wings.

"Where else?" Shamur shouted back.

"But how will you find it?"

"I'm hoping Ripper Junior here will know the way back home."

"Ripper Junior?"

"Remind me to tell you the story some time," Shamur said.

Her laughter rang out even over the wind. Cale had never heard her sound so full of glee. Even in the face of peril both to her and to Thamalon, she couldn't resist the thrill of danger. After hiding so long beneath her own mask as a society matron, at last she could return to the adventures of her youth.

Cale had no wish to dispel her cheer. Thus, he didn't tell Shamur of Rukiya's demand, the condition by which Cale had sealed their alliance with the elves. He didn't know how the ancient elves spoke to the Lord of Shadows nor why Mask would tell them of his servant, Cale. All he knew was that the elves had foreseen the arrival of one who could help end their war with the Sorcerer. While their airborne armies assaulted Stormweather Castle, they wished to send an assassin past the Sorcerer's defenses. No elf could pierce the veil of suspicion and fear that separated them from the Sorcerer's people. Only a human assassin would do.

When Shamur learned the Sorcerer's youthful name was Tam Lin, she dismissed the similarity to her own son's name, despite the added coincidence of Castle Stormweather. Even if the place was a reflection of her world, it was nothing more. She couldn't accept the possibility that any part of her own son could be a hated tyrant.

Or so she'd said to Cale. For years she had pretended to be something other than she was, wearing the visage of a severe and stately society matron over her true self. Cale wondered whether her brave and mischievous laughter was yet another mask.

Either way, he couldn't stop thinking how much her wildness reminded him of her daughter, the woman he loved. The thought made him dread their final destination all the more. If he had to choose between saving Thamalon's life and sparing the Sorcerer's, he knew already where his loyalties lay. Even if this Tam Lin was some dark reflection of the scion of the Uskevren.

Yet what would Tazi think of Cale if he fulfilled his promise to the elves? If the Sorcerer was, somehow, her elder brother, Cale couldn't imagine that Tazi could ever forgive his murderer.