“How are you all doing so far?” Azerick asked as Roger passed out more of the pastries.
“They all look to be managing well, milord, ‘cept this lil one here. She was wearin’ cloth sacks for shoes, and her feet are froze up pretty bad,” the man said.
Azerick saw that her feet must have pained her terribly as she ate the sweet bun with tears streaming down her face.
“Are these children with the two you?” Azerick asked the men.
Both men looked apprehensive. “No, milord. We overheard some other street kids telling these ones that the magus is offerin’ ta put them up through the winter. My friend and I was hopin’ you’d take pity on us too and put us somewhere out the cold. Be you the magus of the tower?” the man asked and continued when Azerick nodded. “Me and Zeke are both decent and hardworking men, Magus. We’ll earn our keep and act proper, my word on that, milord.”
“What is your name, sir?” Azerick asked the man.
“Evan, sir,” he replied as he shifted the girl’s weight about on his back.
“How long have you been carrying her, Evan?”
“Since just after we passed through the gates. Perhaps two miles by my count,” he answered.
“You must be getting tired by now.”
“Aye, she doesn’t weigh much more than my shadow at lunch time, but it adds up. I don’t dare put her down though. Her feet won’t take it, and the kids will be hard pressed to carry her themselves. Zeke was going take over, but his back is not as strong as it once was. He hurt it when he took a bad fall off a horse.”
“Let me take her. She can squeeze in behind Roger.”
“I would be much obliged, and I thank you for it.”
Evan swung the girl around to his front and lifted her up onto horse’s rump, perching her snugly behind Roger. She wrapped her sticky fingers around Roger’s small waist and held tight.
“Evan, you and Zeke make sure these kids get to the keep, and we’ll get you fed and talk about what you can do after that. It is only about two more miles, so keep your spirits up. There is hot food and a warm fire waiting for you.”
The trio, quartet if one counted Horse who thought himself at least equal to human company, met two more groups both larger than the previous two less than a mile from the keep. Roger and the young girl, whose name was Stephanie, handed out pastries to the weary travelers. They were all cold and extremely fatigued, but they pressed on determinately to reach what they prayed would be their salvation.
Azerick and his two passengers reached the keep where Peck was waiting to unsaddle and rub down Horse before he put him away. Azerick carried Stephanie into the keep and nearly dropped her in surprise. There were close to fifty children and a handful of adults, mostly men of various ages, but also three older women who looked to be tending to the children. The large main hall was comfortably warm, bordering on hot as both huge fireplaces blazed away with dancing orange flames.
Azerick took Roger and Stephanie into the dining hall and was shocked to find another score of shabbily dressed children standing and sitting around the long dining table. Azerick begged a seat from a boy that was finished eating and set the girl down. He threaded his way through the dining room and into the kitchen. He saw Agnes bustling about the kitchen as well as two other women, but they were not the cooks he had employed to feed the workers. From the threadbare and ragged appearance of their clothing, they were obviously more of the destitute.
“Agnes,” Azerick called out to the cook.
“Oh, Master Azerick, I’m so glad you are back. All these young people…I’m just overwhelmed!” she huffed wearily.
“Who are the two over there,” Azerick asked, pointing with his chin.
“A couple of the poor wretched souls who came in with the younguns. I didn’t know what you wanted me to do with the grown ones, and I didn’t have the heart to refuse em. Truth be told, I’m glad for their help. I hope I didn’t do wrong, Master Azerick.”
Azerick smiled and gave the older woman’s shoulder a squeeze. “No, you did fine, Agnes. There is about another score and a half still coming from what I saw on the road,” he informed the cook.
Agnes’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh dear, with these numbers, our stocks will run short in a week!”
“Don’t worry, Agnes, I have a large shipment of food coming,” Azerick reassured the woman. “One good thing about this cold, the meat will keep for a while.”
Azerick found Peck and Ellyssa in the main hall talking with some of the homeless children and motioned them to come over.
“Peck, take a horse or two and walk the road to make sure no one fell out of their group or became too weary to press on. Ride the youngest ones or those who look to be in the worst shape up to the keep. Ellyssa, watch for new arrivals, make sure they get fed, and put them closest to one of the fireplaces so they can dry out,” Azerick instructed his two charges.
Peck grabbed his jacket and darted out of the door. He chose two of the horses that he had worked with and deemed to be the least intractable, saddled them both, and plowed through the snow at a quick trot.
Azerick went to his laboratory down in the lower levels of the keep and tucked several vials of healing potions into one of his cloak pockets. He found Roger and Stephanie right where he had left them a few minutes later.
“Here, Roger, drink this,” he told the boy as he handed him one of the vials. “It tastes terrible, but it should help.”
“Is it magic?”
“I guess you could say it is magic.”
Roger tipped the small tube to his lips and drank the contents. “Oh, it’s making my foot tingle!”
“Good, that means it is working. Stephanie, let me take a look at your feet,” the sorcerer directed.
The young girl slipped of her wet, homemade shoes. Azerick looked at her feet and found that they were red and swollen with dots of white speckling the bright pink skin. Azerick was confident it was only chilblain and was not in immediate danger now that she was out of the cold.
“You should be all right, Stephanie, now that we can get you warm and dry. I am going to throw these out and get you a nice pair of dry stockings ok?”
Azerick sent Ellyssa to go get a pair of her warm, knitted stockings for the girl as he waited to welcome any newcomers. Within minutes, the next group of children arrived, and Azerick promptly cleared a space for them by one of the blazing fireplaces. He picked two of the adults to go to the kitchen and bring them some food. Peck arrived next with three younger children on the backs of the horses and helped them into the keep before riding back down the road.
Just past noon, a young man and woman showed up pulling an open wagon carrying several bundles of clothing. Azerick once again put the adults who had come seeking refuge to work sorting the clothes by size and issuing them out to the masses while he settled the bill. Many children had to put up with clothes that were a couple of sizes too big, but there was not a single complaint. Every one of them, including the adults, had such joyous expressions on their faces that you would think they had been given clothes worthy of a palace ball.
A large young man with hair so light it was almost white and the petite young apprentice from the bakery pulled up to the keep with a wagon loaded with baked goods. The young man was tall and broad and had a friendly face that constantly bore a large smile. Azerick had them pull the goods to the kitchen door where they both helped Agnes and her assistants unload them.
“I understand you two are getting married soon,” Azerick said to the obviously happy couple.
“Aye, milord, just as soon as I can earn enough coin to build us a house and a plot of land to farm. I had hoped to have the house finished before winter set in, but I couldn’t find enough work this summer until you started putting the tower to rights,” the young man replied with his ever-present smile.
“Well maybe this will help you get your marriage started a little sooner.” Azerick handed the young man a small pouch of coins.
; “Oh, milord, you just paid double for the order. Ya don’t need to go and do that,” Jess insisted.
“Consider it an early wedding present.”
Jess’s fiancé smiled so wide Azerick was afraid it would swallow his whole head. “Thank you, milord, you are most generous!”
“Thank you, Magus, thank you so much!” Jess almost wept in joy and hugged Azerick tightly. “We can get married now, Ronald!”
“We can get married at the winter festival!” Ron declared. “Master Azerick, you must come to the wedding!”
“I will see what I can do. I have my hands full at the moment.”
Azerick had to bid the couple farewell as the miller’s wagon approached the keep. Azerick, Zeke, Evan, and the other men that had come helped unload the wagon. Several sacks of the delivery they stored in the large pantry, but most went into one of the smaller stone buildings next to the keep.
No sooner had they finished unloading the dry foods, the butcher’s wagon pulled up. The men unloaded the packs of cut meat and sausages and hung the sides of beef and pork in the cool room. The cool room was in one of the underground chambers and had a thick door that sealed tightly in the frame. Huge blocks of ice were stacked along nearly every wall clear to the ceiling. Azerick was glad the butcher had the foresight to bring a few iron hooks with him, because Azerick was several hooks too short to hang up all the meat.
Azerick settled his bill immediately and went back into the main hall to check on his company. The women and several of the older children were busily stuffing mattresses with the of wheat, barley, and oat chaff that the miller had also brought in tight bundles. Most of his guests had fallen asleep right on the bare floor due to their full stomachs, warm room, and the exhaustion of trekking five miles through deep snow.
Azerick flopped down onto his own bed, weary from the day’s events but filled with pride, purpose, and a sense of satisfaction he had been missing in his life that his tutelage of Ellyssa had only begun to satisfy.
CHAPTER 9
Duke Ulric sat in his study drinking brandy with a man that he would normally never associate with, but as the old adage said, politics makes for strange bedfellows. The other man in the room also enjoyed the fine liquor, but his very presence eliminated any ability to describe him as merely sitting in the plush, red velvet-upholstered chair. He occupied, he dominated the chair and the very room with his presence.
His name was Kayne. No surname, no military rank, nor title of nobility; he was simply Kayne. Such a man needed nothing so pretentious as rank or titles to give him the airs of command. His presence reeked of authority, and power oozed from every pore of his body, dominating the air and everything around him. Even Duke Ulric, whose ego knew no limits, was not immune to the power of the man’s aura.
Kayne wore the only thing anyone had ever seen him in no matter the time of day or night. His black scale armor rippled like the glossy hide of a dragon. A blood red belt comprised of smaller scales encircled his trim waist from which hung a fierce blade that had taken more lives than the population of a medium-sized town. His cloak was of a slightly darker red than his belt, the hood thrown back to reveal his clean-shaven head.
A gruesome scar put a deep cleft through his left eyebrow and ran in a straight line to the corner of his mouth in an angry pink ridge broken in half by a nearly perfect white eyeball. The eye seemed almost completely devoid of any color, its surface unmarred by an iris or pupil. It was as if his natural eye had been replaced by a glossy white hen’s egg. Only by looking very closely could you make out the faint hint of a pupil, but no one ever dared stare long enough to notice.
The other eye was a rich mahogany filled with specks of red. It was said that in moments of great fury, the eye would burn with a brighter red than the massive scar that cleaved his eyebrow in twain. A small inverted triangle of closely cropped black beard bobbed up and down slightly as he spoke in a surprisingly rich tone.
“So Ulric, you wish to unleash Hell’s Legion on your own people,” Kayne stated with an air of familiarity.
Kayne was likely the only man alive, save the king, that the Duke would tolerate using of his name without the honorific preceding it. Even the other dukes and duchesses of the realm did not dare do so for want of avoiding his scorn.
Kayne treated no mortal as his superior and only treated those he respected by way of character or strength of arms as an equal. Or, perhaps, a prospective employer and that purely for courtesy’s sake. He was nothing if not a good businessman.
“On the contrary, my good Kayne,” Duke Ulric countered. “I wish to keep them on quite a short leash and use them to herd the bastard king’s people. Once all is in place, then I will unleash them on my enemies.”
“Very interesting; most men, and occasionally women, hire my legion to simply roll through their enemies, inflicting wanton slaughter and ruthless destruction. You have the mind of a tactician. I respect that, Your Grace. How precisely would you use my men to affect your strategies?”
Ulric stood up from the plush chair and leaned over the newly constructed table occupying the center of the library. Kayne surrendered his own chair after a moment’s hesitation, swallowed the remainder of the aged brandy in his glass, and helped himself to a refill.
“I plan to have perhaps four or five hundred of your men, all mounted, make strategic strikes against the towns around Brightridge and then Brelland as well as a few other outlying regions,” Duke Ulric began as Kayne strolled over to the table and looked down at the large map. “After your men have pillaged a town or three, cries of outrage and pleas for protection will be made to the dukes to whom the towns pay taxes in exchange for their protection and leadership. When the dukes and mayors find that they are unable to effect the necessary protection, they will plead to the king for help.
“As King Jarvin attempts to rally his forces, your men and mine will stage a series of mock battles. It will look vicious and bloody, and I believe it can appear convincing to a handful of witnessing peasants with few real casualties. Your men will flee before my superior forces. The common people will soon realize that the King is unable to stop your men and that I am the only person who has had any success in protecting them. They will begin to declare for me to ascend the throne or, at the very least, not fight me when I take it.”
“What of the Duke and Duchess of Brightridge and North Haven. It is my understanding that they have no great love for you.” Kayne smiled, showing two rows of small, perfect, white teeth.
“I have a plan to deal with them when the time comes, I assure you.”
Kayne swirled the brandy in his glass. “The only thing now is to formulate my fee. I can field five hundred Hell Riders, but they do not come cheaply,” he said and took a deep swallow of the fiery liquid.
“My plan is more complicated than that,” Ulric conceded. “The final piece of my plan will require at least two thousand men. I can add nearly a thousand of my own to augment yours while dressed to blend in, however.”
“And how long will you require the use of my entire legion?” Kayne asked, already calculating the numbers in his sharp mind.
“If the people call for the king to relinquish his throne and raise me to his place, then no more than a month at the most. If I must pull Jarvin from his throne, then I will be forced to put Brelland to siege.”
“A siege can be rather time consuming, not to mention expensive.”
“Not so long as you might think, especially if the doors are opened for us,” Ulric replied cryptically.
Kayne gave the duke another feral grin. “You have men on the inside.”
“I have allies,” the Duke allowed.
The two powerful men spent the rest of the evening hashing out the cost and the allowances for cost overruns. Duke Ulric was forced to concede an extra allowance for plunder but, even with that concession, it would considerably drain his coffers. It would take time, but that came as no surprise. Ulric knew that Kayne would not move his men until spring, and c
rossing the badlands added its own degree of difficulty, but he had patiently invested seven years for the crown, so he could wait one more. Then he would make that traitorous bastard Baneford pay!
***
Azerick woke one morning at the start of the second week of hosting the homeless children, well, mostly children. He now had just over a dozen adults as well. He finally admitted to himself that he was in way over his head, and he badly needed help. Few of the children were literate, but four of the women and one man’s academic abilities ranged from reasonably able to read and write to nearly scholarly.
He invited Simon to live at the keep, which he thankfully accepted, and since he was a lifelong bachelor, it posed no real problem for him. Azerick put him up on the second floor with Teresa, the tutor he had hired who was a spinster of fifty-two years. Teresa came highly recommended. She was exceptionally stern but not in a cruel manner like Azerick’s old etiquette tutor and Magus Bauer, his first instructor at The Academy.
She was extremely knowledgeable over a wide variety of subjects. She wore her mass of grey-streaked, black hair piled up on top of her head in a huge beehive that towered over Azerick by at least half a head even though she was shorter than he was by several inches.
Azerick had decided to put the time he had with the children to good use by teaching them to read and building upon their education. However, even with the help of the other educated adults, his problems continued to mount. Wolf ceased speaking to him the day after all the vagrants arrived, claiming they were eating all of his food and that he was on the verge of starvation.
Azerick had been assaulted by flying dinner rolls striking him in the back of the head, but he never actually saw the ambusher. He knew it must have been the peeved half-elf, or else the ghost had returned and was now trying to drive him out using a softer tactic. An animal had also marked its territory on his favorite cloak. He assumed it was the work of Ghost, although he would not be surprised if Wolf had added his own stream into the act of vandalism.
The Sorcerer's Path Box Set: Book 1-4 Page 83
