Iron and Blood

by Auston Habershaw

  “What, and miss my one chance to show the world what a captain’s post in the Delloran military gets you?” Tyvian grinned and pressed a little harder against Hendrieux’s chest.

  Hendrieux scrambled backward through the snow. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I . . . I’m an idiot! I didn’t mean what I said back there . . . about . . .”

  “You don’t need to tell me you’re a liar, Zaz. I’m the fellow you betrayed, remember?”

  Tears welled up in the Akrallian’s eyes. “I just wanted to make good for myself! I . . . I . . . I didn’t mean to betray you. It was the only way! You gotta understand! Please! I’m begging!”

  “I know exactly what you’re doing. It is quite amusing—­please continue.” Tyvian raised Chance’s tip to his throat. One flick of the wrist and Zazlar would end his days bleeding out in a dirty snowbank in some Freegate slum. Very fitting, Tyvian thought.

  Hendrieux began to weep then, shaking his head and mouthing the word “no” over and over, his hands held up in surrender.

  “Well,” Tyvian sighed, “this is just embarrassing. Good-­bye, Zaz.”

  Tyvian willed his hand to draw the tip of the lethal mageglass blade along Zazlar’s throat, but instead a white-­hot pain seared his whole sword arm. Screaming, he dropped Chance, clutching his arm to his chest. “NOOO! NOT NOW!”

  The ring had passed its verdict, and the punishment was severe.

  Hendrieux lay on his back for a brief moment, a stunned look on his face. He got up slowly as Tyvian writhed against the ring, expecting a trap. When none came, he laughed.

  Picking up Chance, he thrust it through Tyvian’s thigh, putting the smuggler on his back and in even more pain.

  Standing over Tyvian, Hendrieux spat in the smuggler’s face. “My lucky day, eh, Tyv?”

  Then he was gone, leaving Tyvian to scream in agony and anger both.

  Myreon was all alone. She didn’t know where the rest of the Defenders had gone, but she knew that most of them had been injured or killed. The warriors of Dellor were rightly feared—­their defense had been organized and fierce, even when caught by surprise. Were it not for her own talents with the High Arts, they likely wouldn’t have won. As it stood, she hadn’t seen another living Delloran for some minutes, but she was performing a room-­by-­room search, working her way from the roof down. Her body ached and her skull was throbbing from channeling so much energy that she doubted she had the concentration or stamina to invoke another lode-­bolt; she resolved to cross that bridge when she came to it.

  She had found her way into the basements and subbasements of the old ink-­den when she heard the sound—­a slow, keening wail, muffled somehow into a barely audible moan. Holding her staff in two hands, Myreon sought out the source of the noise. Was it a Delloran? Was it one of the slaves who hadn’t run away? She hoped, whatever it was, her basic grasp of staff fighting would be sufficient to defend herself, if necessary.

  She entered a storage cellar that had been ravaged by an intense brawl. Shelves were smashed, chests thrown about, and blood covered the floor, forming a thick red paste with the ever-­present dust. The sound was coming from what was probably a closet, barred from the outside. The wailing, Myreon could tell, was in no way from a human throat.

  Hool! She was injured and locked in a closet. Would it be safe to open it? The gnoll had never liked or trusted her. The feeling was certainly mutual, and she had no real desire to surprise an injured monster.

  Before she could decide, she heard a crash above her and the organized, heavy tread of what were either more Dellorans or . . .

  Myreon backed away from the stairs she had come down just before a trio of Defenders, looking grim and exhausted, tromped into the room. They were led by none other than Tyvian.

  “Magus! Come on!” His voice was strangely high-­pitched, and he wore an open, honest expression that didn’t suit him. Of course—­the Shrouding spell.

  “Artus?” Myreon made a snap decision and unlocked the closet door, then followed the boy down the stairs. “What are you doing here? You men, why are you following him?”

  “Well, Tyvian sent me to guard the back door. Thing is, though, there ain’t no back door—­just a dirty river—­so’s I figured that he was just trying to keep me outta trouble, right?” Artus explained as he ran, his adolescent lungs somehow able to breathe while chattering. “Then, I figured, I can help nab Hendrieux. Then I ran into these fellows, and well, once I convinced ’em that I’m not Reldamar—­”

  “That’s all very well, but why are you coming with us?”

  Artus shot her an incredulous look. “I wanna see how this turns out, don’t you?”

  They charged deeper and deeper into the winding, dark dungeon, their every step moving them closer to their goal. Artus began to lose them, the Defenders and Myreon too exhausted to match the boy’s boundless energy. Still, Myreon and her men could follow his footprints in the dust, which eventually brought them to the anygate.

  The first thing Myreon noticed was a giant, horrifying monster of a man who could be none other than Sahand’s infamous agent, Gallo, easily recognized because of the various warrants the Defenders had issued for him. He was facing the anygate, prodding the runes around the edges in a complex code pattern. Behind him was the comparatively diminutive figure of Zazlar Hendrieux, his face a ruin of bruises and blood. Between the two men she saw a chest of gold coins, half open.

  Gallo reacted to the arrival of the Defenders as though he had expected their appearance all along. A quick flick of his wrist saw a tiny, glasslike sphere of antispell strike the first man on the chest. Even as his mageglass armor disappeared, Gallo kicked the chest of gold across the floor so it hit the man in the knees, toppling him.

  Gallo was stopped by a blazing firepike blast to the chest by one of the other Defenders. The hit rendered his breastplate concave and smashed him against the far wall of the chamber but, impossibly, Gallo seemed otherwise unfazed by the attack. His ruined voice could be heard over the roar of churning air kicked up by the magic blast. “Hendrieux, get through!”

  Hendrieux, though, found himself flanked by the two other Defenders. He immediately dropped the mageglass rapier in his hand and raised his arms over his head. “I surrender! Mercy! Mercy!”

  Gallo was not so docile. Recovered from the blow he received, he darted for the anygate, snagging Hendrieux by the arm as he ran past.

  “Stop!” Artus put himself in Gallo’s path, a sword in his hand, but the Delloran let the boy’s blade clatter harmlessly off his armor and straight-­armed him into the ground without breaking stride. Before Artus could recover, Gallo had dragged Hendrieux and himself through the anygate and vanished from sight.

  “Dammit!” Artus said, wiping the blood from his nose and standing up. “They’re getting away, Myreon! Come on!”

  She held up her hands, “Not so fast, boy! You don’t know where that goes!”

  “But they’re escaping!” Artus countered, and leapt through the half-­open door.

  “Artus!” But he was gone. Myreon stared at the gate, face grim. If the boy was walking into a trap and if they thought he was Tyvian . . .

  “Ma’am,” one of the Defenders said, grabbing her arm. “Let him go.”

  Myreon shook her head. “If Sahand gets his hands on him . . . he’s just a boy.”

  “No ma’am,” the Defender countered. “He’s a criminal.”

  Myreon gave the man a long, hard look. Then, holding her breath, she stepped through the anygate before any of the other Defenders could move to stop her.

  Body aching, blood running down his legs, Tyvian crawled back to the door in the woodcutters yard and opened it. Within was a simple storage room, filled with icicles formed from a leaky roof. “What? Dammit!”

  He closed the door and opened it again—­nothing. He opened it a third time—­still the damned storage room.
Somebody had reset the gate. Tyvian lay back in the snow, staring at the sky, and had to laugh. He held up his ring hand. “You’ve really done it now. See what your moralistic nonsense has earned us? We’re bleeding to death in a snowbank. Congratulations, ring.”

  Tyvian knew he was as good as dead. Though his free hand pressed feebly against the deep leg wound, he could feel the blood spurting out too quickly to be stopped entirely. “Kroth. Kroth’s bloody teeth.”

  He imagined Eddereon was there, standing over him in the snow, that odd, warm expression on his face, like a father watching his son learn to ride. The big Northron pressed his broad hand to Tyvian’s leg, and it was filled with the most incredible warmth. Tyvian felt suddenly stronger, better. He managed to sit up.

  Eddereon was there. Eddereon was wearing that ridiculous expression. Tyvian scowled at him. “So, you can bring ­people back to life?”

  Eddereon nodded. “So could you, if you felt something strong enough.”

  “Aren’t you even the least bit disappointed in my recent attempted murder of a former friend?”

  Eddereon nodded, snowflakes shaking loose from his beard. “Yes, I am. I understand, though. Accepting the ring takes a long time.”

  Tyvian frowned. “Did you heal me entirely?”

  “Your nose is still broken, your leg will bleed a bit, and your shoulder is . . . well, how does it feel?”

  “Like hell.”

  Eddereon nodded. “There you are. I could heal you all the way, but some pain will do you good for what is to come.”

  “Are you an augur now? You can tell the future?”

  “The boy, Artus, is in danger. As is the mage, Myreon Alafarr.”

  Tyvian snorted, pulling himself unsteadily to his feet. “Hang the mage. She wants to make me into public art.”

  Eddereon sat on the woodpile. “She is a good woman doing what she thinks is right. You can’t fault her for that.”

  “I can, have, and will.”

  “Hool needs you, too.” Eddereon added. “She is in a great deal of pain.”

  “Well, can you call me a coach, too? Because I don’t see myself limping through a snowy night to find them.”

  Eddereon pointed at the anygate. “The Defenders and their Master will be coming through there soon enough. Don’t trust him, Tyvian. He isn’t who he says he is.”

  Tyvian watched as the Northron stood up to leave. “Do you know who he’s working for?”

  “He is a member of the Sorcerous League. They want you for the ring on your finger, just as they wanted me in the past. Don’t let them have you. The ring’s secrets are not for them to know.” With that, Eddereon hopped the fence of the woodcutter’s yard and was gone.

  Tyvian scowled after him, fiddling with the immovable ring, when he heard a soft whump behind him—­the anygate had connected. He limped to it and threw it open before the Defenders on the other side could come through.

  He emerged into the same room he had been before, deep below Arble Keep. Master Tarlyth with a quartet of Defenders stood there, their firepikes pointed at his face. The Master Defender’s tone was dry. “I take it your revenge didn’t go as planned?”

  Tyvian looked down at his wet, bloodstained body. He was careful not to touch his ring. “Did the bastard get away, then?”

  Tarlyth nodded. “Yes. Yes he did. Magus Alafarr and your . . . associate went after him.”

  Tyvian noted Chance where it lay on the floor and was thinking about how to grab it before the facts hit him. “What . . . Artus? Artus went after them?”

  “I somehow doubt you will ever see them again, Master Reldamar,” Tarlyth remarked, and snapping his fingers, called Chance into his open hand. “You are hereby under arrest.”

  Tyvian’s shoulders slumped—­that was it. There was no way out of this one. He extended his hands to be shackled. The Defenders weren’t gentle.

  As they led him up and out of the cellar, limping and exhausted, he heard Hool howling. The long, mournful sound slid down the stairs and through the winding corridors of the cellar, and Tyvian felt a chill leak through his bones like something greasy and foul. This was not a howl of pain . . . at least, not of physical pain.

  They found her lying in the middle of the courtyard, facedown, a small, fuzzy creature nestled next to her, which whimpered in a staccato rhythm to mirror its mother’s long, grief-­stoked wails. Tyvian, seeing the weeping wounds and foul injuries inflicted on the tiny pup, felt his heart fill with something unfamiliar—­something painful and hard, as though fluid were pumped inside until the pressure couldn’t bear it. He looked for a word for the feeling and he found it—­sorrow.

  Tarlyth regarded her and grunted. “She’s found one of her pups,” he said.

  Tyvian’s voice was hollow. “Not just one.”

  Hool arched her back, head pointed to the sky, and howled for all her worth. They could now all see what was in her lap.

  It was a fur pelt.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE WAGES OF GALLANTRY

  Myreon stepped out of the anygate and into ankle-­deep snow and air so frigid it made her gasp. This chill, however, was nothing compared to the one that ran up her spine a split second after she looked around and saw where she was: an armed Delloran camp pitched beneath the soaring domes and cracked arches of ancient ruins. She could see out past the pickets and over the whole of the narrow valley in which Freegate sprawled—­they had to be thousands of feet up, well beyond the notice of anybody in the city. The Dellorans could have been here for years and nobody would know.

  A cry of pain ripped Myreon out of her shock and brought her back into the present. She saw a group of six men, armored and wearing heavy wool and fur cloaks, standing in a circle around the prone form of a man who looked, for all the world, like a bruised and battered Tyvian Reldamar, except it wasn’t. It was Artus, and the Dellorans were beating him to death.

  The boy’s voice, incongruous in Tyvian’s lips, was frayed and hoarse, “No, please . . . I surrend—­” A Delloran boot hit him in the throat, causing him to gag.

  The owner of the boot was a man twice Reldamar’s weight wielding a wicked dagger with a serrated blade. He knelt down as the other men kept kicking Artus and pressed its blade to the boy’s face. “Payback time.”

  Myreon’s heart was pounding—­six men, many more nearby. As she stood there, the wind fluttering the strips of her tattered, patched cloak like streamers behind her, her golden hair wild, her staff glowing with power, she knew time was of the essence. Slamming her staff into the snowy ground, she released as much anger as she could into the Shattering. The big Delloran’s dagger disintegrated with a fiery pop, sending blazing shrapnel in every direction. It scorched Artus’s face, but that was better than having his throat cut, and it got the soldiers’ attention. All of them.

  Tents opened, men rushed for their weapons, orders were issued. Myreon heard them saying, “Staff at the gate!” and “Activate your wards!”

  Myreon spread her arms, thrust out her chest, and hoped her voice wouldn’t crack. She channeled the tiny amount of Lumenal energy given off by all the living bodies nearby into a blazing flare of light that burst from the end of her staff. The shadowy camp was bathed in a harsh white glow, causing many men to shield their eyes. “By authority of the Defenders of the Balance, I hereby order you to drop your weapons and release your prisoner or face the full weight of my Art.”

  The Dellorans wasted no time in parley. Four of them advanced on her at a near sprint, weapons drawn. They planned to take her simultaneously from either side, and the plan was a good one. Myreon only had an instant to react, and she did by capitalizing on the Lumenal ley her staff flare had established to release a sunblast at one group of men. The blazing white bolt again lit the camp as bright as noon, and the two men struck recoiled in horror, their cloaks aflame and their faces seared.

  T
he second pair lost a man as well, who fell to his knees clutching his eyes and screaming. The second man, though temporarily blinded by the flash, had the discipline to follow through with a lunge, his short blade barely missing Myreon as she retreated out of reach. He retracted into a defensive stance, but she could see that his eyes were still unfocused and blind, making him vulnerable. She quickly swept the man’s forward foot with her staff, knocking him off balance, and then followed the attack with a hard, overhand chop with the full length of the magestaff. The man put his arms up reflexively to guard his head, and Myreon’s strike shattered his forearm just below his sword guard. The man screamed, but not before the butt of her staff hit him in the groin, felling him.

  Adrenaline surging through her veins, Myreon strode toward the two remaining Dellorans standing over the whimpering body of Artus. She channeled the Lumen again into a simple glow-­glamour, causing white light to pour from her eyes and an unearthly Aura to surround her like a shield. She shouted at the two men and the platoons of armed allies behind them, trying to hide the weakness in her knees and the tremor in her arms. “Cease and desist—­this is your final warning!”

  The assembled Delloran host paused. Crossbows were shouldered, spears were leveled, but nobody advanced and nobody shot her. They hadn’t called her bluff. A tense silence, broken only by the moan of the wind cutting through the broken tunnels and empty galleries of the ancient ruins, fell over the camp.

  A booming voice rose from the assembled guards. “My congratulations to your trainers, girl. In my experience, courage is the hardest thing to teach.” A broad-­shouldered man in a hood moved through the cordon of spears surrounding Myreon.

  Myreon pointed her staff at him. “Stand back!”

  The man barked a harsh laugh and pulled back the hood, revealing a slablike face, pinched and cracked with a mixture of anger and disgust. Myreon didn’t need to see the iron circlet on his brow to recognize him—­Banric Sahand, Mad Prince of Dellor. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, girl? I’ve bested much better magi than you.” Myreon backed away from Artus as the Mad Prince came to face her from a few dozen paces away. “Is Reldamar worth that much to you?”