Iron and Blood

by Auston Habershaw

  Tyvian scowled, and Carlo cut in. “What is he talking about, Tyvian? Why is there an Artificer here? Where’s the money?”

  Fariq blinked. “Money? A million pardons, my good sir, but there was—­”

  Tyvian interrupted. “There is no money, Carlo—­that wasn’t the deal I made.”

  Carlo sprang to his feet faster than a man of his age and girth had a right to. “What? You said there would be money!”

  “No, I merely implied there would be money, Carlo. Not the same thing at all.”

  Carlo’s mouth popped open and he sputtered, ineffectually grasping at curses. Tyvian thought the performance was quite impressive, really.

  “See,” Tyvian said, “I told you your wits were failing.”

  Fariq looked over at the wheelbarrow that had been brought into the room. “Is that the mage?”

  Tyvian nodded. “It is.”

  “Just a moment!” Carlo barked. “I demand to speak to the Hanim!”

  Fariq bowed. “I regret to inform the gentleman that nobody may demand anything of the immovable Angharad tin’Theliara Hanim, may She live forever.”

  Carlo snorted. “As though I give a damn about your queenie pride, you dirty little sand-­gobbler! The Hanim assured me I would receive—­”

  “One hundred percent of the value of Master Reldamar’s deal,” Fariq interjected, his lips curling back into a cruel smile. “And that is what you shall receive.” He jerked his head in Tyvian’s direction, and two mark-­slaves immediately seized the smuggler by the elbows.

  Tyvian glared at Carlo—­his turn to perform. “You rat. I should have known.”

  “Don’t give me that, Tyvian.” Carlo’s face was red with artificial—­well, perhaps genuine—­anger. Tyvian reflected that he really had lied to Carlo about the money, and it’s possible the old Verisi was expecting some actual remuneration for this charade. “You planned to cheat me, too. The Hanim wasn’t just interested in the mage, you know.”

  “Enough!” Fariq clapped his hands, which caused the Artificer to evaporate.

  Tyvian shook his head, burying his mirth deep, deep inside. “A simulacrum. I’m an idiot.”

  Fariq pointed a finger at Carlo. “You! Pull back the laundry to show me the wizard you have brought.”

  Carlo folded his arms. “You pull it back yourself. I didn’t bleed the soil of Rhond red to take orders from some slave. Especially not one who just cheated me.”

  Fariq maintained his ugly leer. “You ought to be more polite, Carlo diCarlo. You pretend offense and yet the glorious Hanim knows very well that you are being paid by many parties to deliver Reldamar into their clutches. Did you really expect to be paid twice for the same job?”

  Carlo stiffened. “That’s exactly what I expected, actually.”

  Tyvian’s eyebrows shot up. “Multiple parties? How many ­people want me anyway? Hendrieux, obviously, and the Defenders, and the Hanim, but . . . who have I missed, Carlo? I should at least get to know who you’ve been working for!”

  Tyvian’s performance was convincing enough that all eyes were now on the rotund Verisi pirate. Carlo shifted from foot to foot, his face boiling with a volatile mixture of anger, frustration, and embarrassment. He then took a deep breath, forced his hands down to his sides, and said, “Very well, then. Since I haven’t any choice . . .” He walked over to the wheelbarrow and grabbed a fistful of laundry. “Here’s your bloody mage.”

  When Myreon was revealed, Fariq and his two marked bodyguards leaned forward to see. There was Myreon Alafarr, Mage Defender of the Balance, just where she was supposed to be. The only thing amiss was that Myreon was awake.

  Tyvian felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and shut his eyes just in time for Myreon to unleash a bolt of pure white energy that sizzled the air like bacon in a pan. Tyvian’s captors released him immediately to tend to their seared retinas, and he ducked away from them. Opening his eyes, he saw everyone but himself and Myreon clutching their hands to their faces. Fariq, who had been the focus of the sunblast, screamed and writhed on the ground, his turban, robe, and beard all burning.

  Two mark-­slaves rushed the mage, but Myreon held up her hand, her first and fourth fingers curled tightly alongside the erect second and third, her thumb flat against her palm—­the fifteenth position for minor enchantment, if Tyvian remembered correctly—­and spoke in a thunderous voice. “STOP!”

  The mark-­slaves stopped dead in their tracks, suddenly rigid and motionless like wooden practice dummies, their faces wild with confusion and fear. No doubt knowing such an enchantment had only bought her a handful of seconds, Myreon darted out the tent flap. Tyvian followed close on her heels.

  Once among the tents and stands of the Cloth Market, Myreon looked around, unsure where to go. Tyvian yanked her by the arm. “This way!”

  Myreon pulled her arm free. “Follow you? Are you mad?”

  “Who do you think cut your dose of that sleeping draught in half? Look, it’s me or them—­you choose.” Tyvian pointed—­three mark-­slaves barrelled out of the tent, their ensorcelled tattoos glowing in the cold winter daylight.

  Myreon planted her feet, spread her arms wide, and brought her hands together in a standard Gathering maneuver. A cold blue orb of light formed in her palms, and with the utterance of a word wholly lacking in vowels, Myreon released it at the mark-­slaves. It struck the first of them on his chest, exploding into a riot of white light and deep cold, freezing the nearby tents solid and sending sheets of icicles hurtling in all directions. Tyvian knew a lode-­bolt like that would ordinarily be enough to kill any three men dead, freezing them as solid as rocks, but when the spell faded the three mark-­slaves were still coming, only a glistening sheen of ice coating their rippling muscles.

  Tyvian shook his head. “They’re warded—­this way, come on!”

  Grimacing, Myreon followed. They ran like rabbits, skipping in and out of tents and ducking under clotheslines as they wound their way through the labyrinthine tangle of clothing displays and fabric salesmen. Behind them the mark-­slaves did a good job of playing the part of hounds, bellowing to each other in their foreign tongue and smashing their way through tents and ­people alike.

  “Can you cast something to slow them down?” Tyvian asked. Despite his best efforts, the mark-­slaves were still on their trail.

  Myreon shrugged, panting with exhaustion. “Like what?”

  “Conjure up a wall or something!”

  “I don’t know any conjurations,” Myreon countered.

  A mark-­slave tore through the back of a tent, ripping the canvas apart like paper. He saw the two of them and shouted for his friends. Tyvian grabbed Myreon by the collar and ducked inside another tent, then another, and another, until finally they dove underneath an untended wagon loaded with straw being sold for mattresses.

  “What if we call a watchman?” Myreon offered.

  “How much money have you got on you?” Tyvian asked.

  “Nothing, why would . . . oh . . .” Myreon frowned. “I hate this cursed city.”

  Tyvian fished in his pockets and brought out the two thunder-­orbs. “I’ve got these.”

  Myreon scowled. “It won’t work on them—­they’re warded!”

  “Then I won’t throw it at them. Gods, am I the only one who displays any ingenuity in these matters?”

  The bellows of the mark-­slaves got closer, and Myreon cursed. “They must have a seekwand.”

  “Kalsaaris lack the know-­how,” Tyvian corrected. “They’ve just got enhanced senses—­like bloodhounds. Let’s move.”

  They kept running, this time toward the edge of the market itself. “Where’s that gnoll of yours when you need her?” Myreon gasped. Her pace was slowing.

  Tyvian grabbed her by the collar and dragged her into an alley just outside the market, his sore shoulder groaning in pai
n. “You need to get out of the saddle more often, Myreon. You’re soft.”

  Myreon leaned back against the wall, hands on her knees as she struggled to catch her breath. “I’m . . . usually . . . the one doing the chasing. This . . . is a different experience altogether.”

  The mark-­slaves voices came echoing up the street—­they were closing in.

  Myreon turned and looked at the back of the alley—­a narrow passage between two brick buildings led through to a street on the other side. “Here—­this way!”

  “Not so fast!” Tyvian pulled Myreon back and threw the two thunder-­orbs at the gap. They exploded in spectacular fashion, causing the corners of the two buildings to collapse into a pile of impassible rubble.

  Myreon stared at their blocked escape, aghast. “What . . . why did you do that?”

  The mark-­slaves appeared at the entrance to the alley, their faces grim. Tyvian looked at them and sighed. “I’m sorry, Myreon, but my plan calls for us to be captured.”

  “Plan?”

  “Well, yes—­I always have a plan.” Tyvian nodded. “You’ll be delighted to know that your regaining the ability to cast spells will be most useful to its successful execution.”

  Myreon shook her head, backing away from the tattooed brutes as they came ever closer. “You purposely led us to this alley. I can’t believe it!”

  “I know this sounds ridiculous, but you’re going to have to trust me,” Tyvian said, getting down on his knees. “Oh, and I’d curl into a ball if I were you—­I’m pretty sure we’re in for some savage kicking.”

  Nobody noticed the column of mageglass-­clad soldiers marching through the Stair Market. The fact that it was snowing rather harder now, the flakes drifting down in heavy clumps that hit the cobblestones with an audible thwick and gradually building, was part of the reason. Another reason was that most of the merchants, knowing a heavy snowstorm when they saw one, were packing up shop and heading indoors, so there were fewer eyes on the street anyway. But the main reason that the column of twenty armored men went unnoticed was because they were, all of them, concealed with sorceries so powerful that few wizards outside of Saldor could have even dared attempt them.

  The Aura of the Ordinary was a personal favorite of Master Defender Ultan Tarlyth—­something of a specialty of his, actually. The spell was a mixture of the orderly power of the Dweomer and the calming, soothing power of the Lumen, making those who were under its protection appear essentially, totally unremarkable and disinteresting. Back in the war, Tarlyth, as a young mage, had used this same spell to ambush a whole supply train of Sahand’s army before the battle of Calassa. In his most arrogant moments he liked to tell himself that he was at least partially responsible for the Mad Prince’s final defeat.

  The spell was difficult to maintain, though, particularly in a place as full of suspicious eyes as Freegate. At the front of the column, a heavy gray cloak thrown over his mirrored armor, Tarlyth held his staff aloft, focusing as much of his attention as he could on maintaining the Aura as his Defenders marched in orderly fashion toward Top Street. To those they passed, they all appeared to be nothing more than a disorganized crowd of cloaked men moving in the same general direction—­nothing to arouse more than a brief flicker of interest from even the most suspicious. The price of that, however, was Tarlyth’s hands nearly freezing with the icy power of the Dweomer and huge yawns battling their way up through his chest from the soothing Lumenal energy filling his body. A nap before a warm fire sounded like the absolute most wonderful thing in the world to his old bones at that very moment. Dammit, he thought, were I only a younger man.

  Tarlyth kept it up, however, and for several reasons. The primary need for the Aura was political—­Freegate didn’t want the Defenders in, and the Arcanostrum didn’t want to aggravate Freegate. The city was sitting on one of the Western Alliance’s most important trade routes, and the governments of Galaspin, Eretheria, and even Saldor would throw an apoplectic fit if a rash action by the Defenders caused Freegate to impose punitive tariffs. Though Tarlyth himself didn’t find tariffs all that upsetting, he did enjoy his job and position within the Defender organization, and he didn’t want to jeopardize it lightly. In all honesty, he shouldn’t even be here.

  That, of course, brought up the second reason: Tarlyth was and had been a member of the Sorcerous League for over a decade now. He initially joined with the exclusive intent of spying on them for Saldor and the Defenders, but as the years had taken their toll on his once-­robust body and he found himself ever more restricted from field operations, his attitude toward the organization had changed. With the Arcanostrum of Saldor, even in this modern, progressive age, sorcerous research and expanding the uses of the High Arts was consistently met with skepticism, wariness, and reluctance. Tests had to be performed; there had to be approval from committees of the various colleges; funding had to be secured. The process could take years unless you had the political connections that Tarlyth lacked. He wasn’t a research mage, anyway—­he was a Defender, a practical user of the Art, not some skinny-­wrist bookworm holed up in a laboratory.

  The odds of Saldor finding a way to restore his youth while he was still alive were slim to none. There was always cherille, but the stuff could cost more per bottle than half a year’s stipend. He was the son of a blacksmith, not some wealthy noble-­born mage with his family’s estate to help support him. No, Tarlyth knew that if he intended to become the young, virile ox of a man he had been in his youth, the Sorcerous League was the only way to do it.

  They got things done. Irresponsibly sometimes, ineffectively often, but they went out and did it. They took risks. They invested in their members. They encouraged innovation and, what’s more, shared results. Sahand aside, he had come to think of it as less a secret cabal of evil wizards and more of an exclusive club of like-­minded, forward-­thinking men and women devoted to the advancement of the Art. The fact that the Arcanostrum disavowed its existence merely reinforced for Tarlyth where his loyalties ought to lie. Saldor sought to control, while the League sought to liberate.

  By the time the Defenders reached Top Street, the snow was coming down in sheets. Tarlyth let the Aura drop and planted his staff on the cobblestones as his men fanned out up and down the rows of expensive homes and elaborate hotels. Closing his eyes, he hummed to himself a slow, building tune—­wordless and slightly off-­key. The music brought Lumenal energies seeping from the houses’ cheery decorations and caused the slumbering seeds of nearby flower beds to coalesce into an Augury of Distress. Tarlyth could feel tugging on his soul from a hundred different directions—­manifestations of ­people’s needs and wants, their troubles and secret calls for aid. He could feel babies crying like gentle tickles across his stomach; he could feel the sickening pangs of a drunk or ink-­thrall in need of their next drink or dip; he could feel the thrumming beat of someone seeking something lost. Tarlyth blotted them out—­what he needed to find was someone in need of rescue.

  It only took him a moment to isolate it—­like a screeching, painful abrasion across the chest and back, the feel of someone trapped against their will, hoping to be free. It had to be Myreon. “Sergeant!”

  The Sergeant Defender stepped to the Master’s side. “Sir!”

  Tarlyth nodded down the street. “The seventh house on the left, penthouse flat; go with speed, but be careful. Reldamar is to be taken alive.”

  The sergeant saluted and called his men to him. They lit their firepikes, activated their wards and guards, and moved at a quick, efficient double-­time to the base of the tastefully appointed grounds of a three-­story apartment complex. When they had the place surrounded, Tarlyth scanned the building for traps or hexes—­it was clean. Just some warding on one of the rooms in the penthouse; that was, presumably, where they’d find Myreon. He gave the sergeant the go-­ahead.

  The assault was quick and disciplined. Four blew open the front door with thunder-
­orbs and stormed the front stairs, supported by another five who began a floor-­by-­floor search. Another group of five activated their lightfoot charms and scaled the side of the building as though it were a ladder, making it to the roof and in through the skylights at about the same time as the front-­door party were storming the penthouse. The remaining men secured the exits, making sure no one could get out without going through them. Tarlyth keyed his helmet to hear what his men heard—­a simple enchantment placed on the mageglass helms of all staff-­bearing Defenders.

  “First floor—­clear!”

  “Second floor—­clear!”

  “Third floor—­ Oof! Contact, contact! Isolate!” Tarlyth heard a few explosions and the flash of a firepike or two—­sounds of struggle. The voices came thrumming through the helmet in a jumble. “Man down! One hostile, heading downstairs!”

  “We got him!”

  More flashes from firepikes, a few more thumps and groans, then, “Got him! Grab his arms! Watch it!”

  “Third floor—­clear!”

  The Sergeant Defender appeared at the front door. He had a bloody nose. “Sir, you can come up now.”

  Tarlyth smiled—­so much for Tyvian Reldamar. Myreon’s rescue operation was providing the perfect opportunity to apprehend him for the League; if he could have, he would award the girl a medal for her contribution. The secrets the Iron Ring possessed could be a major breakthrough in the ultimate goal of every League member—­Rhadnost’s Elixir.

  Tarlyth found Reldamar on a landing between the third and second floor, flat on his face, a fur cape pulled over his head. Two Defenders were sitting on him—­one on his back, one on his legs. His hands were being cuffed behind him. Tarlyth leaned down, looking at Reldamar’s hands.

  There was no ring.

  Tarlyth felt his spine tingle. With a rapid flick of his hand, he ripped the cape off the downed man with a simple spell. Looking up at him he saw the bearded, bloodied, filthy face of not Reldamar, but of Hacklar Jaevis. “What the . . . Jaevis?”