Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [53]
“I’ll probably find out what is going on soon enough,” he said to himself grimly, noting that they were drawing nearer the thickest columns of smoke. Suddenly Garald could hear—above the giant’s babblings—a low humming sound, combined with explosions like those created by Illusionists to startle children on holidays. Once again, he experienced the cramps in his stomach, the dryness of his throat, and the weakness in his knees. But this time his fear was laced by a strange excitement, a curiosity, a strong desire to know what lay ahead of them.
At that moment, the Duuk-tsarith, flying in front of the giant, topped a steep hill. Suddenly, their forward motion slowed Garald, watching them closely, saw the hooded heads turn to look at each other. Though he could not catch a glimpse of the warlocks’ faces, he could sense a shared incredulity and awe, emotions foreign to this well-disciplined sect.
Frantic to see what they saw, Garald half-rose to a crouching stance on the giants shoulder as it clamored up the hill. Staring ahead, Garald and the giant both saw the enemy at the same time. Bellowing in rage, the giant came to a sudden halt, and Garald lost his footing. Slipping, he fell backward off the shoulders. His magic was enough to sustain him, however. Using his Life force, he kept himself afloat in the air, hovering just above trees at the hill’s crest.
Looking down, he saw the enemy.
Creatures of iron.
14
Legions Of The Dead
They crawled over the face of the earth, seemingly blind as moles, leaving death and desolation to mark their passing. They spared no living thing. Garald watched, stunned and aghast, as the heads of the creatures of iron swiveled this way and that, and wherever the heads looked, death followed, swifter than the blink of an eye.
Their movements were coordinated, purposeful. Twenty or more of the monsters were converging, coming from various positions to the north. Once they met up, they traveled in a straight line, separated from each other by about a distance of thirty feet. Walking behind the creatures were humans, hundreds of them. At least Garald assumed they were human. They had legs and arms and heads, they walked upright. But their skin was metallic. He could see them gleam in the sun and he recalled the body he had seen among the trees.
At least they can be killed, was his first thought. His second, and more terrifying, was that the enemy—the creatures and these strange humans—was heading in one direction—south. Tearing his gaze from them, Garald looked ahead, to the south. He could see the storm clouds of the Sif-Hanar that marked his lines. In his minds eye, he could see his War Masters, the warlocks and witches, standing unknowing, waiting for death to rumble over them. He remembered the carriage, now shattered on the ground, and he thought of the hundreds of spectators, with their wicker baskets of fruit and wine. Certainly the storm would have prompted some of them to leave, but they had probably just moved off to the borders of the Field of Glory, where it was dry. Some, perhaps, might even be traveling in this direction where they could undoubtedly see the sun shining….
“Milord!” One of the Duuk-tsarith touched his arm, something that Garald could not ever remember occurring, and a certain sign that these trained and disciplined warlocks were shaken. Garald looked back down and ahead several miles distant, to where the warlock indicated.
A natural formation of rock had been hurriedly shaped into a crude fortress of stone. Within that fortress, the Prince could see figures moving, their red robes and black marking them as warlocks and witches. The varying shades of red denoted the side of the war they had been on before the new threat made all things equal. As Garald watched, he saw a figure dressed in crimson stride across the compound of the hastily conjured fortress, waving his arm, obviously giving orders, though he could not be heard from this distance.
“Xavier,” Garald murmured.
“Milord, they are directly in the path of those things!” the