Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [134]
“What’s right?” muttered Joram, trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable.
“Taking food … from these people.”
“So you’ve been talking to that pious old man again?” Joram asked, sneering.
“It’s not that,” Mosiah returned. Propping himself up on one elbow, he turned to face his friend, who was nothing more than a black shapeless form in the starless, moonless darkness. “I’ve been thinking about it myself. These people are like us, Joram. They’re like my father and mother and your mother.” He ignored a sudden angry, rustling sound. “You remember how hard winters were. What if bandits had stolen from us?”
“It would have been our tough luck, just like it’ll be theirs,” Joram said coldly. “It’s us or them. We have to have food.”
“We could trade for it …”
“What? Arrowtips? Daggers? Spearheads? The tools of the Ninth Mystery? Do you think those farmers would barter with Sorcerers who have sold their souls to the Powers of Darkness? Hah! They’d sooner die than feed us.”
The conversation ended, Joram rolling over and refusing to talk, Mosiah hearing those last, disturbing words echo in his head.
They’d sooner die ….
3
The Raid
A strong, chill wind blowing from the ocean swept apart the storm clouds, blowing them back southward into the Outland. The rain stopped and the sun appeared, its meager autumn warmth doing little, however, to counter the cutting cold of the wind through wet clothing. The men’s spirits did not rise. With the cessation of the rain, Blachloch pushed them forward rapidly, sometimes riding into the evening hours if the night was clear. The thick stands of oak and walnut trees of the Outland gave way to pines. The riders grew more cautious, for they were nearing the borders of civilized lands. Stopping at last on the banks of the river, they made camp and then spent three days cutting trees and lashing logs together to form crude flat boats.
The catalyst was kept busy giving Life to the men to enable them to complete the work swiftly. He did as he was told, though he watched the building of the boats with increasing despondency, In his mind, he could already see them loaded with booty, ready to be transported upriver, back to the settlement.
At last the boats were finished, and there came a night without a moon. The wind blew stronger and fiercer, buffeting Blachloch’s men as they mounted their horses. Riding swiftly, their black cloaks billowing in the gusts like the sails of a ghostly armada, the bandits swept down upon the village of Dunam, intending to strike them in the evening when, worn out from their long labors in the fields, the magi were settling down to rest.
On the outskirts of the village, Blachloch reined in his horse, calling a halt. Open land stretched out before them, fields already harvested, lying fallow. Stacked at the far end were the disks used by the Ariels to transport the fruits of the harvest to the landowner’s granaries. Seeing these, the men grinned at each other. They were in time.
The wind blew chill from the ocean waters to the north, carrying with it, even at that distance, a faint, salty tang. Facing into the biting wind, the horses shook their heads, setting the harnesses to jingling, and causing a few of the more skittish to shift nervously in place. Their riders, no more comfortable than their mounts, muffled up to the eyebrows in thick cloaks still damp from the soaking ride, sat stolidly in a line awaiting the orders that would send them into action.
Sitting apart from them, alone, hunched in his green cloak, Saryon shivered from fear and the cold, the credo of his upbringing ringing in his ears, its irony twisting in his bowels.
Obedire est vivere. Vivere est obedire.
“Catalyst, to my side.”
The words were not heard so much as they penetrated Saryon’s mind. Gripping the reins in his shaking hand, the catalyst rode forward.
“To obey is to live …”
Where was the Almin? Where was his God at this desperate time? Back in the Font, probably, attending Evening Prayers. Certainly He was not in this wild and windswept night, riding with bandits.