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.Bomanz began building a killing sending.His glance crossed the doorway, spied a frightened Snoopy watching from the dark landing.“Oh, child.Child, get out of here.”“I’m scared.They’re killing each other outside.”We’re killing each other in here, too, he thought.Please go away.“Go find Jasmine.”A horrendous crash came from the shop.Men cursed.Steel met steel.Bomanz heard the voice of one of Tokar’s teamsters.The man was deploying a defense of the house.The Guard had made a comeback.Snoopy whimpered.“Stay out of here, child.Stay out.Go down with Jasmine.”“I’m scared.”“So am I.And I won’t be able to help if you get in my way.Please go downstairs.”She ground her teeth and rattled away.Bomanz sighed.That was close.If she had seen Stance and Glory.The uproar redoubled.Men screamed.Bomanz heard Corporal Husky bellowing orders.He turned to the bowl.Tokar had disappeared.He could not relocate the man.In passing he surveyed the land between the town and the Barrowland.A few Resurrectionists were rushing toward the fighting, apparently to help.Others were in headlong flight.Remnants of the Guard were in pursuit.Boots pounded upstairs.Again Bomanz interrupted the preparation of his sending.Husky appeared in the doorway.Bomanz started to order him out.He was in no mood to argue.He swung a great bloody sword.Bomanz used the word of power.Again a man’s bones turned to jelly.Then again and again as Husky’s troopers tried to avenge him.Bomanz dropped four before the rush ended.He tried to get back to his sending.This time the interruption was nothing physical.It was a reverberation along the pathway he had opened into the Lady’s crypt.Tokar was on the Great Barrow and in contact with the creature it contained.“Too late,” he murmured.“Too damned late.” But he made the sending anyway.Maybe Tokar would die before he could release those monsters.Jasmine cursed.Snoopy screamed.Bomanz piled over the fallen Guardsmen and charged downstairs.Snoopy screamed again.Bo entered his bedroom.One of Tokar’s men held a knife across Jasmine’s throat.A pair of Guardsmen sought an opening.Bomanz had no patience left.He killed all three.The house rattled.Teacups clinked in the kitchen.It was a gentle tremor, but a harbinger strong enough to warn Bomanz.His sending had not arrived in time.Resigned, he said, “Get out of the house.There’s going to be a quake.”Jasmine looked at him askance.She held the hysterical girl.“I’ll explain later.If we survive.Just get out of the house.” He whirled and dashed into the street, charged toward the Barrowland.Imagining himself tall and lean and fleet did no good now.He was Bomanz in the flesh, a short, fat old man easily winded.He fell twice as tremors shook the town.Each was stronger than the last.The fires still burned, but the fighting had died away.The survivors on both sides knew it was too late for a decision of the sword.They stared toward the Barrowland, awaiting the unfolding of events.Bomanz joined the watchers.The comet burned so brightly the Barrowland was clearly illuminated.A tremendous shock rattled the earth.Bomanz staggered.Out on the Barrowland the mound containing Soulcatcher exploded.A painful glow burned from within.A figure rose from the rubble, stood limned against the glow.People prayed or cursed according to predilection.The tremors continued.Barrow after barrow opened.One by one, the Ten Who Were Taken appeared against the night.“Tokar,” Bomanz murmured, “I hope you rot in Hell.”There was only one chance left.One impossible chance.It rode on the time-bowed shoulders of a pudgy little man whose powers were not at their sharpest.He marshaled his most potent spells, his greatest magicks, all the mystical tricks he had worked out during thirty-seven years worth of lonely nights.And he started walking toward the Barrowland.Hands reached out to detain him.They found no purchase.From the crowd an old woman called, “Bo, no! Please!”He kept walking.The Barrowland seethed.Ghosts howled among the ruins.The Great Barrow shook its hump.Earth exploded upward, flaming.A great winged serpent rose against the night.A great scream poured from its mouth.Torrents of dragonfire inundated the Barrowland.Wise green eyes watched Bomanz’s progress.The fat little man walked into the holocaust, unleashing his arsenal of spells.Fire enveloped him.* * ** * *Chapter Thirty-Five:THE BARROWLAND, FROM BAD TO WORSEReturning Raven’s letter to the oilskin, I lay back on my bough bed, let my mind go blank.So dramatic, the way Raven told it.I wondered about his sources, though.The wife? Someone had to note the tale’s ending and had to hide what was found later.What had become of the wife, anyway? She has no place in legend.Neither does the son, for that matter.The popular stories mention only Bomanz himself.Something there, though.Something I missed? Ah.Yes.A congruence with personal experience.The name Bomanz had relied upon.The one that, evidently, proved insufficiently powerful.I’d heard it before.In equally furious circumstances.In Juniper, as the contest between the Lady and the Dominator neared its climax, with her ensconced in a castle on one side of the city and the Dominator trying to escape through another on the far side, we discovered the Taken meant to do the Company evil once the crisis subsided.Under orders from the Captain we deserted.We seized a ship [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]