The soft dawn light had hardened into mid-morning brightness and the chirring of caracans filled the still air when Sabre scooped Tassin up and carried her out to the donkey cart. The day would be hot, he surmised.
She twined her arms around his neck. "I can walk, really."
Had she truly objected to being carried, he mused, she should have put up a far more convincing opposition. The way she clung to him still made him a little uncomfortable, although he seemed to be becoming used to it. Nevertheless, he was glad when he reached the cart and placed her in it. He led the donkeys from the ruined city, turning south towards the badlands and the Death Zone. Owing to the wide circle they had travelled, they headed back by a different route, skirting the jungle to the west.
Sabre avoided stones that might jar Tassin's half-healed wound, since the cart had no suspension. The scrubland grew harsher, the coarse grass dry and yellow, the stunted trees twisted.
The sun blazed overhead when Sabre stopped in the shade of a clump of trees and settled cross-legged on the ground, opened one of the packs and handed Tassin a cooked tuber left over from the previous night’s supper. Since she had fled her kingdom to escape a forced marriage to the rapist King Torrian, her life seemed to consist of nothing but endless travel and its accompanying miseries. Sabre’s tireless strength amazed her, and his strange powers had saved her from many perils on their journey, yet he remained something of a mystery.
When her father had died, leaving her at the mercy of the three kings who sought to wed her and claim her kingdom, the wizard Manutim had agreed to help her. His gift of a strange casket had at first excited her, but she had been disappointed when she had found only a man inside. He had proven to be far more than a mere man, however. He was a peerless warrior who possessed powers she still did not understand.
At first, he had been strange indeed. He had stared through her as if he was blind, and had spoken in a dead, toneless voice, yet he had obeyed her every wish without argument or complaint. She recalled the terrible day when one of the enchanted wolves Torrian's mage had sent after them had attacked him, and he had fallen from the cliff. The accident had broken the device on his forehead that had controlled him until then, and led to the amazing revelation of meeting the true man. He had explained his origins, and that before the accident he had somehow been under the geas of a machine, but much of it still confused her.
When he had stepped from the casket, his skin had been pale gold and his hair mere stubble. Months in the sun had darkened his complexion and his dark blond hair had grown. Sabre kept it short with his knife, which he also used to scrape the stubble off his chin.
A thin scar ran down the centre of his forehead to halfway down his nose, more ran along his cheekbones and the edge of his jaw, and continued in his hair as white lines. They also ran down his arms, dividing at his wrists to run along the top of each finger to its tip. Still more ran down the sides and centre of his chest and along the top of his legs. He had explained that they had been inflicted by the people who had somehow created him, who had cut him open to strengthen his bones with a metal called barrinium. He had been created as a weapon in a place beyond the stars, a supreme killing machine controlled by the band of golden metal that curved around his brow, about three centimetres wide and fifteen centimetres long, its rounded ends not quite reaching his hairline. The strip of black crystals embedded in it sparkled with tiny red, green and amber lights. His face, with its lean contours and noble features, fascinated her. In her experience, warriors possessed coarse, brutish countenances, often battle-scarred and battered, but apart from the scars his creators had inflicted, his face was unmarked and oddly sensitive.
Even the battles he had fought since she had known him had not marked him, and his skill as a warrior amazed her. His narrow, high-bridged nose gave him a noble air, although she had seen little of such fine features amongst the aristocracy of her land. His dark brows were almost level above his grey eyes, and he had a gentle smile. He tore a tough tuber with perfect white teeth, and even in repose, his lithe, whipcord torso possessed a hard, sharp-edged musculature. He still wore the strange dark grey clothes he had donned after stepping almost naked from the casket, somewhat worn and ragged now. The magical weapons he had brought with him were all gone, and now he carried only a sword and knife.
Sabre wondered why Tassin stared at him so intently sometimes, when she thought he would not notice. He always noticed, vigilance was second nature to him, and a person's attention was not something to be ignored, although in her case it was benign. She kept herself well groomed, considering their primitive living conditions, and her extreme youth allowed her to endure the hardships with little outward effects. Her long jet hair gleamed like polished satin, finger-combed and plaited to keep it out of the way. Her skin had darkened from its former creamy hue to a pale gold, and her face had become a little thinner, but remained the loveliest he had seen. Although, at less than one point eight metres, he was not a tall man, the diminutive Queen was a good fifteen centimetres shorter.
Thick black lashes framed her dark blue eyes, which often sparkled with anger and defiance beneath her arched brows, and her stubborn chin reflected her character well. He looked away, berating himself for allowing his eyes to linger. He had been in her company since the tiny supercomputer housed in the brow band had been broken, releasing him from its control.
Although he recalled the time he had spent with her before that, it did not really count, since he had not been himself. The part of him that still dwelt in the shadowy recess where he had once been imprisoned mocked his growing attachment to this young girl, jeering the hated name he had tried so hard to forget. Cyborg! He could not escape it, though, no matter how hard he tried. He was a cyber-bio combat unit, grade A, a peerless fighting machine. His job was to protect her, and the bargain struck with the damaged micro-supercomputer allowed him his freedom.
The strange feelings he had for her were confusing, but he knew better than to act on them. He looked down at his hands, recalling the agony the surgeons had inflicted upon him during the operation to strengthen his bones. He was capable of crushing a man's skull with one blow. He could smash through fifteen centimetres of concrete and survive numerous methods of killing, should they be practised upon him. He loathed himself.
Gearn stopped and stared at the track, torn between disbelief and triumph. For days he had walked around the city, hoping to find a sign that the Queen and her companion had survived its curse and journeyed on. He crouched beside the wheel marks and studied the hoof prints of two donkeys. The warrior mage's faint track was unmistakeable from the zigzag pattern on the soles of his boots.
The Queen, he was sure, rode in the cart. He glanced along the trail, frowning. The warrior mage had turned back towards the Badlands. Gearn shrugged it off. It did not matter now where they went; he would overtake them and set the trap he had planned. He followed the tracks, glad they were easy to discern. The fact that the warrior mage made no effort to hide his trail told Gearn that either his foe thought he was dead, or was confident of his ability to defeat him.
The months of living in the outdoors had left no mark upon Gearn. His spells protected him from hardship, although the frequent castings drained him. It drew more from his surroundings, however, and each place where he used sorcery was left withered and dead. In areas where life was abundant, it merely sickened the plants and beggared the soil, but in this poor land it turned the vegetation a crisp brown and reduced the sandy soil to lifeless dust. It also affected a far larger area, and his campsites were now dead spots.
The quest to capture the Queen had become an obsession. He refused to entertain the notion that the warrior mage was more powerful than him. It was just not possible, and he intended to prove it. The chase had become a test of his abilities, and he was determined to succeed, not only in capturing the Queen, but in killing the warrior mage too.
Murdor's death and the warrior mage's subsequent immunity to Gearn's illusions had shaken him. Since then, his traps' failure had taught him much about his foe's considerable abilities. Now, however, he was prepared, and the next trap would succeed. He gestured and murmured a short incantation for strength, and the grass around him withered.
Sabre glanced back at Tassin, who sat on the donkey cart behind him and squinted across the scrubland, shading her eyes. Although he often trotted for most of the day, now he led the donkeys at a walk, to let them rest a bit. A week had passed, and they were deep in the blighted area, approaching the desert again. They had not encountered any monsters, and he hoped their luck held out as they neared the source. The scanners had picked up traces of radiation drifting on the wind, and he deduced that they were heading into a region close to a bomb site. The radiation level was not dangerous for the short time Tassin would be exposed to it, but the creatures that lived in the area were mutated. After killing a six-legged rabbit for supper, Sabre had wondered if the water was contaminated.
As they travelled south the strange animals had become more plentiful, and they had come across an eagle that had obviously not flown since it had plunged from its nest as a juvenile. The bird had had shrunken, twisted wings, yet it had survived on the ground, indicating that others were even less able to fend for themselves. They had encountered half bald birds, blind rabbits, a two-headed deer and a fox with three tails. Sabre had been reluctant to eat the mutated creatures, and Tassin refused, so they had switched to roots, nuts and fruit, although some of them were deformed too. He had found a few healthy chickens and rabbits, and these they had eaten.
Her injury was almost healed, and she was able to walk for spells, riding in the cart when she grew tired. Sabre changed the dressing every night, and she appeared to enjoy his gentle, if impersonal, ministrations. He was glad it was healing well; he found tending the injury unsettling. She always watched him so intently, and he wondered what she found so interesting. Was it the bit of metal welded to his head or the ugly scars that fascinated her? He could not berate her for it though; it was not her fault he was a freak.
Sabre kept an eye on the scanners, alert for radiation hot spots. The region puzzled him. There was no sign of a bomb site. Instead, there were bright spots of radiation spread all over the sickly land. When they came across a spring, he found the water uncontaminated and filled the water skins, then left Tassin to bathe.
Sabre investigated a hot spot three hundred metres from the spring, and discovered a black, shiny stone. Squatting, he picked it up and examined it. It was a piece of black glass from the desert, where the bombs had melted the sand. Deadly radiation filled those sites, and the chunk he held was highly radioactive. Although harmless to him, it would make Tassin sick, maybe even kill her. The only way it could have ended up so far from the desert was if someone had brought it, and whoever had been foolish enough to venture into the black glass in the desert was surely dead.
Digging a hole, he buried it in the dry, sandy soil, which would mask some of its emissions. He walked four hundred metres to another spot of radioactivity, and found second fragment of black glass. One, he could understand, dropped by a wandering, dying man, but two? Perhaps the same man, yet they were a fair distance apart. He buried it and walked on, heading for yet another bright spot. By the time he decided it was safe to return to the camp, he had buried five pieces of black glass, and arrived at the unsettling conclusion that all the bright spots on his scanners were bits of radioactive glass.
Tassin roasted roots over the fire when he returned, and the donkeys tore at the scrubby trees nearby. Her smile faded at his dour expression.
"What's wrong?"
He sat on the other side of the fire. "I don't like this place. It's strange. I've found radioactive glass from the desert scattered around here. That's what's making everything so sick, and I don't know how it got here."
"Some now-dead fool brought it from the desert?"
"That's what I thought at first, but there's too much of it, and it's all over the place. I buried what I found, but there's bound to be more."
"You touched it?"
He smiled. "Don't worry, I was treated for it."
"So what should we do, turn back and find another way through?"
"No, I think we should push on, but as quickly as possible."
Tassin stared into the fire. "Okay. I want to go home."
For the next three days, Sabre led the reluctant donkeys at a trot, and Tassin rode in the cart. More and more spots of radiation showed up on the scanners, and he gave them a wide berth while she was with him. On the fourth night, he left her by the camp fire and went to investigate one of the radioactive spots, which seemed larger than before.
Instead of a single shard of black glass, he found a pile of it, and the implications sent a shiver through him. He did not wish to alarm Tassin, so he decided not to tell her, but whoever had made the pile had contaminated the entire area with radioactivity. People could become immune to radiation, and certain treatments could make them invulnerable to the electromagnetic waves, as he was, but why contaminate the land?
Gearn's gleeful chuckle echoed around the cave. The tip of a stalagmite in the centre of the cavern glowed, throwing cold blue light on the jagged walls and weird, sculpted formations. It had taken him a while to enchant the stone, and he was well pleased with the result. Now all he had to do was wait for his victim to wander into his trap. He sat on a ledge and contemplated his plan with growing satisfaction. The spell-casting had drained all life for miles around, and ended the lives of several wild beasts. It had tired him, too, but it had been worth it.
Stalactites stabbed down like giant stone teeth, throwing pointed shadows onto the walls. From deep within the caverns, the slow drip of water marked time, like a clock. The cold, damp air smelt musky, as if stagnant from ages of disuse. Glistening trails down the walls ended in glinting black pools, and strange, worm-like animals made strings of pearly globes that hung from the roof.
Gearn rose and walked around the cave again, threading his way through the stalagmites. His plan was perfect. The warrior mage had moved in a straight line for some time now, and Gearn was certain he would pass near here. Then the Queen would vanish, and the warrior mage would never find her. He would exhaust himself in useless searching long after Gearn had returned to Arlin with his prize. Perhaps the warrior mage would die in his quest, although he might survive. Either way, Gearn would win. He laughed again, the echoes of his mirth ringing around the caverns beyond the one in which he waited, as patient as a coiled snake.
Sweat trickled down Sabre’s chest as he led the donkeys at a trot in the noon sun's sweltering heat. He carried a laser and two extra power packs in his harness in case they encountered a Death Zone monster, for he calculated that they were not far from the desert now. His sensitive ears picked up a faint cry, and he stopped to listen. Tassin watched him with a puzzled frown, clearly unable to hear it, although her ears must have recovered from the sonlar blast by now. He tugged the donkeys forward. Whatever it was, he wanted no part of it.
The alien sound sharpened his awareness, which the monotonous trotting had dulled, and he noticed that the bushes around them were withered. He checked the scanners, but the radiation level was no higher than usual. Perhaps a dearth of water had caused it. The cry came again, louder, and he slowed to a walk, glancing inwards at the scanners. Whatever it was, they were drawing closer to it, and he wondered if he should detour. He stopped, undecided. Tassin looked up as another faint, far off wail reached them.
"It's a child," she said. "It must be lost."
"The scanners detect nothing."
She snorted. "You and your scanners. It's a lost child, I tell you."
"Then it must be very far off."
Tassin climbed down, shading her eyes as she gazed across the scrubland. "The poor thing, lost out here in this dreadful wilderness." She set off in the direction of the cry.
Sabre called, "Leave it, Tassin. I'm sure its parents will find it."
"What if they don't?" she shouted over her shoulder. "What if they're dead?"
Sabre tied the donkeys to a tree, shaking his head in exasperation and muttering, "What if it's a Death Zone monster? What if you mind your own bloody business? What if you do what I say for once in your life?" When he looked up, she was a fair distance away. "Hey! Wait for me!"
"Hurry up!"
The despairing wail came again, and she hurried behind a shrivelled bush. Sabre cursed and broke into a run. Rounding the bush, he stopped in surprise when all he found beyond it was empty sand and dry undergrowth. He turned in circles, searched the scrubby landscape and wondered if she was playing some stupid game.
"Tassin!" he bellowed. "Tassin, this isn't funny! Where the hell are you?"
Sabre frowned, recalling a soft grating when she had disappeared behind the bush, which now it seemed ominously significant.
"Tassin!"
Only an eagle's distant cry answered him, and dry leaves rustled in the hot breeze. All the vegetation in the area was dead, and he wondered why. The problem of finding Tassin was far more important than a few desiccated bushes, however. The scanners showed only the donkeys and a few wild animals, increasing his alarm.
Tassin sat up. Something brittle and scratchy supported her, which crackled and gave under her weight. She struggled in its clutches, realising that it was a pile of brush that had cushioned her fall. Spitting out dust, she crawled to the edge, wincing as sharp sticks scratched her. She had fallen into a cave, it seemed, and she wondered why she had not seen it. A soft giggle escaped her when she thought about how furious Sabre would be with her this time. She was always stumbling into something. Looking up, she was surprised to find darkness above her, yet she had fallen straight down, so where was the entrance? Sabre must be close by now, for he had not been that far behind her.
"Sabre!"
She climbed off the pile of branches, brushing leaves and twigs from her skirt and hair, then looked up again.
"Sabre!"
"He can't hear you," a voice said from the shadows, and Tassin whipped around. A thin, black-robed man emerged into the faint blue glow she now realised was the only light source, emanating from further inside the cave.
"Welcome to my parlour, Majesty." He chuckled, the echoes redoubling his mirth.
"You!"
"Yes, me. Did you think I'd given up? That's what you were meant to think, of course." He stepped closer. "I've been very patient, and bided my time, devising this trap. It worked rather well, don't you think? I was annoyed that the warrior mage was so good at avoiding my previous traps, but this one is too good for him. He won't find you now."
Tassin backed away. "He will. He can see through your illusions."
"I thought as much, but this is not an illusion. The hole through which you fell is blocked by a slab of rock. He'll never know where you went." He gestured, his loose sleeves flapping. "Eventually he'll leave to search further afield, or give up. Then you and I will return to Arlin, where you'll wed King Torrian as you should have long ago, and saved me a lot of trouble."
Tassin glared at his gaunt features. "Sabre will find a way to free me. You don't know what he's capable of."
Gearn sniggered. "If he manages to free you now, he must be superhuman."
"That's exactly what he is."
He frowned, moving towards her again. "Come, Your Majesty, let's go to a more comfortable spot to wait for your superman to give up and go away."
Tassin strived to avoid his thin hand, but the cave wall brought her up short and his bony fingers gripped her arm. She aimed kicks at his shins, but his robe hid his legs.
"Take your hands off me!"
He clicked his tongue, and a strange weakness made her sag as her knees almost buckled.
"Come now, Majesty. You've had a nasty fall. Let's find somewhere for you to sit and relax."
Tassin panted with fear and outrage, unable to struggle as he led her into a larger cavern where a stalagmite emitted cold blue light. She knew sorcerers were able to draw energy from living things, but had not heard of one doing it to a person before. Perhaps because their victims did not survive. He helped her to a shelf of rock and let her sink down on it. She glared up at him, her heart cold with loathing.
"When Sabre comes, I shall insist that he kills you."
Gearn chuckled. "He's not coming, my dear."
Sabre squatted beside the bush and forced himself to put aside his concern and think logically. If someone had taken her, they could not have moved out of scanner range so fast, so she had not been taken into the bushes, which only left two directions, up or down. He ruled out up on a primitive planet like this one, and studied Tassin's footprints in the sand at his feet. Finding the last one, he scrutinised the ground in front it, where the sand sifted into a shallow depression.
Testing it with his hand, he found a hard surface under the layer of dust, and consulted the cyber's information. A structural analysis formed in his mind, the image growing in layers as the structural scanners penetrated the rock lid next to which he crouched. It showed a three-metre vertical shaft with a cavern at the bottom and a hint of a possible side tunnel, but the rock was too thick for the scanners to penetrate any further. A trap. He stepped into the depression, hoping to spring the trap again and follow Tassin down, but nothing happened no matter how hard he stamped.
The structural information showed that the lid was only about ten centimetres thick. He could have lifted it easily, but there was nothing to grip. The plug seemed to have risen from below, and fitted seamlessly into the surrounding stone. He considered the weapons on the cart, none of which were suitable for this job. The lasers would take ages to melt through ten centimetres of rock, and explosives would be too dangerous.
The ground-penetrating scanners could not detect life signs, so he had no way of knowing where Tassin was. If she was lying below the plug, an explosion could kill her, and, even if he smashed it some other way, the falling rock might still hit her. At least he had to warn her, and try to wake her up if she was comatose. Picking up a stone, he pounded on the lid several times.
There were many ways to break rock, but perhaps the best way, in this case, was not to smash it. Rising to his feet, he trotted to the cart, where the donkeys browsed on the withered tree he had tethered them to, rapidly reducing it to a skeleton. He chose one of the laser cannons and loaded it, taking two more power packs and a water skin, then returned to the rock plug. Using a bush to support the unwieldy weapon, he set the beam to broad and aimed it at the depression. A beam of hot blue light shot from its blunt muzzle with a faint jolt and crackle, and he held the trigger while the rock heated, the layer of sand fusing to glass.
Gearn's head jerked around when a dull booming echoed through the cavern, staring in patent disbelief at the shaft whence the ominous sounds came. Tassin laughed, and he scowled at her.
"He will not get in, My Queen, so don't start celebrating. He may have found the door, but he can't open it."
She smiled. "Don't be so sure, mage. His powers are greater than yours."
"We shall see." He rose and approached her, took hold of her arm before she could spring away and pulled her to her feet. "Let's go for a little walk."
Gearn gestured, and the back of the cavern vanished, revealing a low tunnel toothed with limestone pillars. Another gesture brought the blue light that inhabited the stalagmite leaping into his palm, where it nestled in a shimmering sphere. Holding it aloft, Gearn strode into the tunnel, towing Tassin. She tried to wrench free, but he ignored her struggles, and she was forced to follow him on a winding course between the pillars, stumbling on the rough ground. The tunnel opened out into a larger cavern, and unseen denizens scuttled from the light, taking refuge in dark corners.
A pool of mysterious black water occupied one quarter of the cave, fed by a trickle down the far wall. Stalactites and stalagmites grew from ceiling and floor, carved into majestic shapes by water and time, as if a mad sculptor had been loosed into this subterranean darkness and forced to work by touch alone. Fragile shapes hung from the roof, lacy filigrees of rock formed from minerals and Mother Nature's infinite patience. Glowing colours revealed themselves in the alien light, bright streaks of scarlet, yellow and white, minerals that the seep of moisture had leached from the soil.
Tassin had no time to feast her eyes upon these wonders as Gearn hauled her through the cave and into another narrow tunnel, where he paused to wave a hand and mutter a few arcane words before hurrying on. She stumbled down a steep incline into a chamber filled with thin, sharp stalagmites, like sharpened stakes at the bottom of a grim trap. Gearn threaded his way through them, uncaring of the damage he did. On the far side, he stopped and made her sit on a step in the cave wall, next to yet another tunnel. He infected one of the stalagmites with his blue light, then rested against the wall, his cadaverous features corpse-like in the harsh illumination.
"Now we wait," he said. "Your superman will never find you here, I promise."
Tassin leant against the wall and watched a sparkling water droplet form on the tip of one of the stalactites overhead. It swelled with incredible slowness, mesmerising her with its timeless beauty. Trying to fight the magician was a futile endeavour. He would only use his magic to drain her strength, or worse, bind her with a geas. All she could do was wait for Sabre.
Sabre studied the granite lid, deciding that it was hot enough for his purpose. Releasing the spent laser, he picked up the water skin and poured water over the lid. Clouds of steam engulfed him, and there was a dull report as the rock gave up the uneven struggle with hot and cold. He emptied the skin and waited for the steam to clear, then squatted to examine his handiwork. Cracks dissected the lid into three segments, and he picked up the stone he had used to bang on it earlier and smashed it with a blow. The rock fragments rattled down the shaft and crashed onto something crunchy far below, and he leant over the edge to peer into the darkness.
"Tassin?"
The scanners remained devoid of life signs, and his concern redoubled. Lowering himself over the side, he climbed down the shaft's craggy walls, but found only a pile of brush at the bottom. Glancing around, he spotted a tunnel and followed it into a stalactite-filled cavern. It seemed to be a dead end, and he used the cyber's infrared vision to search for footprints, but the floor was rock. When he checked the cave's structural analysis, it showed a tunnel right in front of him, yet it looked like a solid wall.
Sabre frowned, his suspicions as to the identity of Tassin's abductor confirmed, and passed his hand through the stone. With a growl, he walked through the illusion and banged his head resoundingly on the tunnel's low roof, staggering back with a curse. Clutching his pounding head, he bent and entered a low, pillar-filled tunnel that soon opened out into a larger cavern with a pool and beautiful rock formations. Hurrying on, he reached a steep incline, and a faint scuffling came from ahead.
"Tassin!"
A muffled cry answered him, and he raced down the slope, dancing through the forest of stalagmites at its base. Again he faced a dead end, but the ground-penetrating scanners showed him that the tunnel continued. He ran through it, bouncing off smooth, damp walls, and a faint blue light appeared ahead, bobbing and flitting through yet another forest of pillars in the next cave. It vanished into a tunnel at the far end of the cavern, and he pursued it, slipping on the wet floor as he dodged the pillars.
Entering an upward-sloping tunnel, Sabre sprinted up it with a speed no normal man could hope to match. Rocky protrusions and a slippery floor made it treacherous. Bursting into sunlight, he shaded his eyes, squinting. A black-robed figure raced away across the sand, a flapping robe exposing thin legs. Tassin stumbled behind, held by a powerful grip on her wrist that she clearly could not break. Sabre sprinted after them, kicking up puffs of sand.
"Mage!" he bellowed.
The figure stopped and turned to face him, gripping the Queen's arm. She looked pale and furious.
"No closer, or she suffers!" Gearn shouted.
Sabre took a few more steps, and the mage jerked Tassin's arm, making her bite her lip. He thrust her in front of him as Sabre reached for his laser.
"Leave now, or I'll make her suffer until you do."
"Release her, and I might let you live."
Tassin cried, "Kill him, Sabre! He doesn't dare harm me!"
The mage twisted her arm, making her yelp, and snarled in her ear, "Think again, Queen Tassin. Without you I'm dead anyway, so I don't mind taking you with me, if it comes to that."
Sabre held up his hands. "It doesn't have to come to that. If you release her, I'll let you go. You can make a life for yourself here and never have to answer to Torrian."
"Why should I make a deal with you when I have the upper hand?" the wizard sneered. "I will not live in this barbaric land. You're beaten; go now before I hurt her."
Sabre glanced around, seeking something he could use to defeat the mage. If Sabre attacked, he might be able to free Tassin before Gearn could harm her, but it was a risk he was unwilling to take unless there was no other way. He did not doubt the magician would kill her if pushed too far. The man's eyes glittered with madness. Sabre's wandering gaze found an eagle perched high in a dead tree behind the sorcerer, and he consulted the scanners.
The bird was four hundred and ninety-three metres away, almost at the limit of the cyber's range, but it might work. His thoughts communicated his need to the control unit, and it responded with a series of flashing statistics that calculated the chances of success, which were fair to middling, apparently. Gearn twisted Tassin's arm when the brow band lighted, making her grimace.
"I warn you, if you try anything I will kill her! Walk away, now!" the wizard shouted.
Sabre made a soothing gesture. "I'm just trying to think of a solution that will benefit us all. It always does that when I think."
"The only solution is for you to leave!"
Sabre shrugged, watching the eagle. Its head turned, and its fierce golden eyes locked onto the brow band. "Maybe you're right, but I wish there was another way. Perhaps if you came back to Arlin as Tassin's mage? I've found a way for her to stop Torrian. She'll be invincible."
"How can you make her invincible? Torrian has a far larger army now. Hers was almost wiped out by the war."
The eagle stared at the cyber band. Sabre smiled. "Old weapons, mage. I have a whole pile of them in that donkey cart. Once they're installed at the Queen's castle, she'll be able to send Torrian running with his pants on fire."
Gearn chuckled. "An interesting picture you paint. I'm sure Torrian will reward me well for that information."
The eagle spread its wings and launched itself into the air, its eyes fixed on the unsuspecting mage.
"Without the Queen, there would be no point in installing them, would there?"
The eagle sailed towards the mage on silent, predatory wings.
"Still, Torrian will be interested -"
Gearn whipped around just in time to receive the eagle's attack in his face. He and the bird screamed together, a mingled shriek of pain and rage, and he released the Queen to beat at the raptor. Tassin stumbled away, turning to stare as the eagle's claws ripped into Gearn's face. Sabre reached her in two strides and pulled her aside, then took hold of the mage's robe. Gearn reeled, howling and beating at the bird whose talons gripped his face.
The cyber's hum changed pitch, and the eagle released the wizard and rose into the air with powerful strokes of its long-pinioned wings. Sabre jerked the mage towards him and crushed his skull with a punch. The thin corpse collapsed in the dust, twitching. With a grimace of disgust, Sabre turned to Tassin. Her hands were clamped over her mouth, her eyes wide. When he approached her, she flung herself into his arms and buried her face in his chest.
"You killed him."
"Did I have a choice? That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"It was horrible."
He patted her back. "Violent death always is, but that guy was nuts. He would have hounded us all the way back to Arlin, maybe even tried to kill you. Even if we had evaded him, Torrian would probably have killed him a lot more painfully than that. It was a better end for him; he would never have given up."
"He didn't even use any magic."
"He didn't have time. Magic seems to involve a lot of chanting and arm waving, but the eagle took him by surprise and I didn't give him time to recover."
She glanced at the corpse with a shudder, and Sabre disentangled himself and took her hand, leading her back towards the cart.
She looked up at him. "Shouldn't we bury him?"
"What's the point? It would take ages to dig a grave in this ground; it's mostly rock. And what difference does it make whether the worms eat him, or the vultures?"
She shuddered again. "It seems wrong."
"Do you think he'd have buried you? Some cultures leave their dead for the vultures on purpose; they believe the birds carry the spirit to the next world."
Tassin looked up at the eagle, which rode the thermals above them. "He was a good ally."
"Yeah. She, actually. The males are smaller."
"I knew you would find me. How did you do it?"
"One of the cyber's less useful functions, being able to see through rock. Although it can't detect life signs through it, it can map it for a limited distance."
They approached the tree to which the donkeys were tethered, and Sabre stared at it in amazement. The tree had been denuded, save for some withered leaves at the top, which the donkeys could not reach. After they had finished the leaves, they had stripped the bark, and the tree looked as if it had been the main course for a swarm of locusts. The culprits stamped and swished at flies, looking bored.
Tassin burst out laughing, her eyes shimmering with tears.
He grinned. "Makes you want to laugh and cry, doesn't it?" She nodded, wiping her eyes, and he addressed the donkeys sternly. "I can't leave you two alone for five minutes!"
She doubled over with mirth, clutching her stomach.
He shook his head at the tree. "That poor thing will never be the same again."
"Stop it, Sabre!" she said. "You'll make me bust a gut!"
Sabre chuckled, glad she had this opportunity to vent the pent-up emotions accumulated over months of adversity. The colour had returned to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled once more. He untied the donkeys and helped her, still giggling, into the cart.