"I might. My frozen feet don't. They'd much prefer to be next to a crackling fire, back in—"
"All of our feet'd rather be there. They will be, gods willing, soon enough. Swording outlaws'll warm ye, if ye're sharp-eyed enough to find any. Now belt up!"
"Perhaps," Elminster commented calmly, knowing the wind would sweep his words behind him, away from the armsmen, "the gods have other plans."
He could just hear an answering chuckle from off to his left: Sargeth. A moment more . . . Then he heard a sharp query, crunching snow, and the high whinny of a startled horse. The brothers had attacked. Arghel struck first, and then Baerold gave the call—from behind, if he could get there.
It came, a roar as much like the triumph-call of a wolf as Baerold could make it. Horses reared, cried out, and bucked in the deep snows on all sides. The patrol was on top of them.
Elminster rose up out of the snow like a vengeful ghost, sword drawn. To lie still could mean being ridden over and tram¬pled. He saw a flicker of light through the whirling whiteness, as the nearest armsman drew steel.
A moment later, Engarl's awkwardly bobbing lance took the armsman in the throat. He choked, sobbed wetly around blood as the horse under him plunged on, and then he fell, head flop¬ping, taking the lance with him. Elminster wasted no time on the dying man; another armsman off to the right in the swirling storm was trying to spur past him through the cleft.
El ran through the slithery snow as fast as he could, the way the outlaws had shown him, rocking comically from side to side to keep from slipping in the light drifts. All of the outlaws looked like drunken bears when they ran in deep snow. As slow as he was, the horse was even slower; its hooves were slipping in the potholes that marked the trail here, and it danced and stamped for footing, nearly tossing its rider.
The armsman saw Elminster and leaned forward to hack the outlaw. Elminster ducked back, let the blade sing past, and charged in at the man's leg, clawing with one hand as he blocked a return of the man's blade with the edge of his own.
The overbalanced man in armor howled in rising despair, waved his free arm wildly in a vain attempt to find a handhold in empty air—and crashed heavily from his saddle, bouncing in the snow at Elminster's feet. El drove his blade into the man's neck while the spray of snow still shielded the man's face, shud¬dered as the man spasmed under his steel, and then flopped back into the snow, limp. Four years ago he'd discovered he had no love of killing ... and it hadn't grown much easier since.
Yet it was slay or be slain out here in the outlaw-haunted hills; Elminster sprang away from the man, glancing about in the confusion of swirling snows and muffled tumult of churning hooves.
There was a grunt, a roar of pain, and the heavy thudding of body and armor striking snow-cloaked ground off to the left, fol¬lowed by a wail that ended abruptly. Elminster shuddered again, but kept his blade up warily. This was when outlaws who'd grown tired of their fellows sometimes decided to make a mis¬take, under the cloak of the storming snow, and bring down someone who was not an armsman of Athalantar.
El expected no such treachery from his companions .. . but only the gods knew the hearts of men. Like most in the Horn Hills—those who revered Helm Stoneblade and hated the mage-lords, at least—this band made no war on common folk. Not want¬ing to bring down the wrath of the wizards on farmers whose stable-straw sometimes served as warm beds and whose frozen and forgotten pot roots could be dug up by men near starvation, the outlaws avoided their neighbors out here in the hills. Even so, they had learned never to trust them. The armsmen of Athalantar paid fifty pieces of gold per head to folk who'd guide them to out¬laws. More than one outlaw had been taken by trusting overmuch.
The cold lesson was to trust nothing that lived, from birds and foxes whose alarmed flight could draw the eyes of patrols, to peddlers who might go after the gold and speak of fires or watch¬ing men they'd seen deep in the hills where outlaws were known to lurk.
Sargeth strode up through the endless fall of snow, which drifted straight down now as there came a sudden lull in the winds. He was grinning through the cloud of vapor that curled about his mouth. "All dead, El: a dozen armsmen . .. and one of them was carrying a full pack of food!"
Elminster, called Eladar among the outlaws, grunted. "No mages?"
Sargeth chuckled and laid a hand on El's arm. He left bloody marks—the gore of some armsman now lying still in the snows. "Patience," he said. "If it's wizards you want to kill, let us slay enough armsmen—and by all the gods, the mages will come."
Elminster nodded. "Anything else?" Around them, the wind screamed with fresh strength, and it was hard to see through the driven snow.
"One horse hurt. We'll butcher it and wrap it in their cloaks here. Haste, now; the wolves are as hungry as we. Engarl's found a dozen daggers or more—and at least one good helm. Baerold's collecting boots, as usual. Go you and help Nind with the cut¬ting."
Elminster sniffed. "Blood work, as always."
Sargeth laughed and clapped him on the back. "We all have to do it to live. Look upon it as preparing yerself several good feasts, and try not to gnaw on too much raw meat as you usually do ... unless you like icing yer backside in the snow and feeling kitten weak, that is."
Elminster grunted and headed through the snow where Sar¬geth pointed. A happy shout jerked his head around. It was Baerold, leading back a snorting horse by the reins. Good; it could drag their spoils some way before they would have to kill it to end the trail its hooves would leave.
Around them, the whistle of the wind began to die, and with it the snowfall faltered. Curses came from all around; the out¬laws knew they'd have to work fast indeed if it turned cold and clear—for even the weak wizards posted to the keeps out here had magic that could find them from afar when the weather was clear.
By the favor of the gods, another squall came in soon after they left the cleft; even someone already tracking them wouldn't be able to follow. The outlaws struggled on, following Sargeth and Baerold, who knew every slope of the hills here even in blinding snows. When they came to the deep spring that never froze, a place they knew the wizards watched by magic, from afar, Baerold spoke a few soothing words to the horse—and then swung his forester's axe with brutal strength, and leapt clear of its kicking hooves as it fell.
The outlaws left the steaming remnants of the carcass for the wolves to find. Then they rolled in deep drifts to clean off the worst of the gore and went on. North into the driving storm, up ravines narrow and dark, to Wind Cavern, where icy breezes moaned endlessly into a lightless cleft. Each man in turn bent and ducked through the narrow opening, by memory crossed the uneven cave beyond, and found the faint glowstone rock that marked the mouth of the next passage. They walked into the hollow dark until they saw the faint light ahead of another glow-stone. Sargeth tapped the wall of the passage slowly and delib¬erately six times, paused, and then tapped once more. There came an answering tap, and Sargeth took two steps and turned into an unseen side passage. The outlaws followed him into the narrow tunnel. It smelled of earth and damp stone, and de¬scended steeply beneath the Horn Hills.
Light grew somewhere ahead, ale-hued faint light from a cav¬ernful of luminous fungi. As they came out into it, Sargeth said his name calmly to the darkness beyond, and the men who stood there set down their crossbows and replied. "All back safe?"
"All safe—and with meat to roast," Sargeth said tri¬umphantly.
"Horse," a second voice asked sourly, "or chopped armsman?"
They exchanged chuckles before proceeding down another passage, through a cavern where daggers of rock jutted from floor and ceiling like the frozen jaws of some great monster, to a shaft in which vivid red light glowed. A stout ladder led down the hole into a large cavern always wreathed in steam. The light and the vapor came from rocky clefts at its far end, where folk sat huddled in blankets or lay snoring. With each step, the dank air grew warmer until the weary warriors stood beside the scald¬ing waters of the hot spring and welcoming hands reached up to pat or clasp theirs. They were home, in the place proudly called Lawless Castle.
It was a good place, furnished with heaped blankets and old cloaks. Dwarves had shown it to Helm Stoneblade long ago, and from time to time the outlaws still found firewood, prepared torches, or cases of quarrels left in the deeper side-passages, next to the privies the outlaws used. The wrinkled old outlaw woman Mauri had told El once that they'd never seen the dwarves, "But they want us here. The Stout Folk like anything that weakens the wizards, for they see their doom in men grow¬ing overstrong... . We already outbreed them like rabbits, an' if ever we o'ermatch elven magic, they'll be staring at their graves...."
Now she looked up through her warts and bristles at the ar¬riving band, grinned toothlessly at them, and said, "Food, valiant warriors?"
"Aye," Engarl joked, "and when we've feasted, we'll give ye some to replace it." He chuckled at his jest, but the dozen or so ragged outlaws awake around them only snorted sourly in reply; they'd no food left but four shriveled potatoes Mauri had kept safe in the filthy folds of her gargantuan bosom for the last two days, and had taken to chewing on the bitter glow-fungi to still aching stomachs while they waited for one of the bands to bring back meat.
Now they hustled to get a fire going and drag out the cooking frame of rusting sword blades woven together in a rough square. The band stamped the last snows from their boots and un¬wrapped their bloody bundles. Mauri leaned forward, slapping outlaw hands away to see what had been brought to her table.
Sargeth's band was the best; all of them knew that. El, the worst blade in it but the fastest on his feet, was glad to be a part of it and kept silent when his fellows fought or blustered. They were too cold and exhausted most of the winters to afford dis¬pute among themselves. Once a wizard had found Wind Cavern and died in a hail of crossbow quarrels—but otherwise, Elmin¬ster had seen the hated mages of Athalantar little in the passing years; the outlaws struck at patrols of armsmen so often that the magelings had stopped riding with them.
A smiling, red-bearded rogue they all knew as Javal blew to make the fire catch and said with satisfaction, "We caught an¬other two coming from Daera's earlier this night."
"That'd best be enough for a time," Sargeth grunted in reply as he and his companions shed gauntlets, headgear, and the heaviest of the furs and scraps of scavenged leather they wore, "or they'll think her night-comfort lasses are working with us an' burn them out, or lie ready with a mage to work our own trap on us."
Javal's smile went away. He made a face and nodded slowly. "Ye see the right road as usual, Sar."
Sargeth merely grunted and held his hands to the growing warmth of the kindling fire. Armsmen from Heldreth's Horn, the outermost fortress of Athalantar, had gone out to buy the favors of village lasses for as long as the keep had stood. A dozen sum¬mers back, some maids had converted an old farm into a house of pleasure and sold their guests wildflower wine besides; the outlaws had slain more than a few armsmen riding home from there drunken and alone. "Aye, 'tis best we leave the lustlorn alone for a time, an' catch 'em again in spring."
*****
"What, and leave them to slay and pillage until spring? How many more warriors can you afford to lose?"
The wizard's voice was cold—colder than the chill battle¬ments where they stood, looking out over the ice-cloaked waters of the Unicorn Run. The swordmaster of Sarn Torel spread strong, hairy hands and said helplessly, "None, Lord Mage. That's why I dare send no more—every man who rides west out of here's going to his death and knows it. They're that close to open defiance now . . . and I've the law to keep in the streets here, too. If caravan-merchants and peddlers are fool enough to go from realm to realm in the deep snows, let 'em look to their own hides, I say—and leave the bandits to freeze in the Hills without our swords to entertain 'em."
The wizard's gaze then was even colder than his voice had been.
The swordmaster quailed inwardly and firmly took hold of the stone merlon in front of him to keep from stepping back a pace or two and showing his fear. He dropped his own gaze to the frozen moss clinging to cracks and chips in the stone and wished he were somewhere else. Somewhere warmer, where they'd never heard of wizards.
"I do not recall the king asking for your view of your duties— though I've no doubt he'll be most interested to find how ... cre¬atively . . . they cleave from his own," came the mage's voice, silken-soft now.
The swordmaster forced himself to turn and stare into dark eyes that glittered with malice. " 'Tis your wish then, Lord Mage," he asked, stressing the word just enough that the wizard would know that the swordmaster thought the king a wiser war¬rior than all his strutting magelords, and would have no such view of his swordmaster's prudence, "that I send more armsmen to patrol from the Horn?"
The wizard hesitated, then as softly as before, asked, "Let me know your wish, Swordmaster. Perhaps we can come to some agreement."
The swordmaster took a deep breath and held those dark, deadly eyes with his own. "Send to the Horn a cutter full of mages, apprentices even, providing that one mage of experience commands them. Twenty armsmen—all I dare spare—ride with them to the Horn, and from there act as necessary to hunt these outlaws with magic and destroy them."
They stared at each other for a long, chill moment, and then, slowly, Magelord Kadeln Olothstar smiled—thinly, but the swordmaster had wondered if the man knew how. "A stout plan, indeed, Swordmaster. I knew we could agree on something this day." He looked north over the snow-clad farms across the river for a moment, then added, "I hope a suitable sledge can be speedily found rather than one that comes not or must be built and finds us still preparing come spring."
The swordmaster pointed down over the battlements with one gauntleted hand. "See the logs there by the mill? One of those cutters beneath 'em can be free by tonight, and a pair of the huts we use to cover the wells lashed atop it before morn."
