The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [176]
“My thanks, brother of mine,” Salamander said. “This looks like a splendid spot for my final thrust. If I can hurl confusion, commotion, and stupefaction into their ranks, then I shall buy another day of safety for Cerr Cawnen.”
“You do all that,” Rori said, rumbling softly, “and I’ll stand ready to pick off a horse. I’m hungry.”
“Then if the gods allow, we shall gain at the same time both a victory and a meal.”
A cloud of dust approached from the north, the signal that the army was arriving. Salamander retrieved his leather bottle of water from his saddlebags, then lay down in the shade of the rocks and went into trance. He summoned the Alshandra image with the falcata, transferred his consciousness to it, then rose into the etheric. As he hovered above the twisted, throbbing mass of red-and-gold auras, he saw the priestesses clearly, their silver auras tinged with the blue of doubt and worry as they rode upon their white mules.
On the tide of Aethyr, Salamander drifted down toward the women below. They saw the image and halted, turning their mules out of line, then raised their chant. The main body of the army also came to a halt, but in a disorganized mob that spread across the entire area between the hills to the west and the river bordering them on the east. The front ranks traveled nearly a quarter of a mile onward before they realized what was happening behind them and turned back.
Salamander swung his falcata with a flourish and pointed north. He scowled, danced back and forth, then floated over the priestesses and let himself drift northward, still holding his saber high. The priestesses turned their mules and followed, while the swarm of servants and slaves tried to get out of their way. Some trailed after the priestesses, others merely ran to one side or another.
Salamander glanced back. His silver cord had stretched out as far as he dared take it. He sailed up higher and began to drift back toward his body just as a troop of horsemen broke away from the army and came charging down the valley, waving their falcatas and screaming at the priestesses to stop. The magnetic effluent from so much iron, both in their weapons and their armor, pulled at Salamander’s silver cord and made it twist. As it unfurled, it became dangerously thin, then swung back and forth as they rode under the image and past.
Close to snapping—Salamander rose up fast and barely in time. He soared back to the outcrop of rock and his body, lying in the shade. As he hovered over it, he saw Rori launching himself into the air, but he had no time to watch his brother from the etheric. The silver cord had weakened until it appeared as a trail of mist, no longer a cord. Salamander slid down and slammed into his body so fast that he shrieked aloud with pain.
Freed from his control, the Alshandra image drifted away toward the valley and the worshipers whose devotion would feed it. Salamander could do nothing to stop it. Sitting up took the last of his strength. He leaned against the rough rocks behind him and panted for breath while he listened to the distant screams and shrieks from the valley below. The water bottle lay to hand. He drank as much as he could get down, but the taste seemed wrong, somewhat sweet and meaty. When he wiped his hand across his mouth, his fingers came away bloody. His abrupt return to his body had burst a vein in his nose.
Salamander staggered to his feet. By clinging to a boulder he could stand and look down. The entire army was milling about in confusion. Horses reared and kicked. A few riders lay on the ground. Alshandra’s image had disappeared, but the priestesses and the supply train had both withdrawn some hundreds of yards back the way they’d come. The priestesses, still mounted on their white mules, had drawn themselves up like a wall between the servants and the main body, as if to protect them.
Wingbeats drummed in the sky. With a dead horse hanging from his