Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series

by Terry Mancour

  “More wine, please?” Rondal asked the Tal servant who was acting as butler. The furry face looked at him sympathetically – most of the Tal understood Narasi perfectly – and filled his cup until it was just shy of the rim.

  It still wasn’t nearly enough.

  Part IV.

  Spies

  Tyndal

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Dragonfire

  It was good to be back in Vorone in the autumn, Tyndal thought as he and Rondal walked through its cobbled streets on their way to Spellmonger’s Hall. The many trees that custom had permitted within the city walls were turning brilliant shades of red and yellow as the season changed, and a rich, earthy smell blanketed the usual odor of wood smoke, urine, animals, sewers and outhouses. The Wilderlands just looked more wild in the autumn than any other time, he decided.

  If he was feeling cocky this evening, it was because he was indulging in a rare occasion in a knight’s career: the successful conclusion to a mission of errantry. Their successes against the Brotherhood – and the Censorate, and by extension, against the rebel Count Vichetral and his barons – had filled his purse and brought him glory, and Tyndal relished glory and fortune like he did magic and war.

  It was a good day to be a knight mage.

  Rondal was a little more thoughtful as they escorted their prisoner through the town. No one paid them much mind, especially this time of day. The sun was descending over the distant Mindens, and folk were hurrying home after a long day’s labor in anticipation of dinner. The smells of food and wood smoke filled Vorone’s air and mixed with the autumn scent of falling leaves.

  “I like being back here,” Tyndal remarked to his friend, aloud.

  “I do, too,” Rondal agreed, looking around at the distant ridges. “Almost reminds me of home.”

  “We should find some place to settle, in the Wilderlands,” Tyndal proposed. “Especially if you’re going to—”

  “Tyndal, I swear to Ishi that I’ll shave you bald and put a magemark on your pate if you continue that sentence,” Rondal said, with patient anger.

  “All right!” Tyndal chuckled. “Then consider the matter resolved.”

  “Nothing is resolved . . . yet,” his partner said, sullenly. “Just shut up about it, for now.”

  “I won’t say another word,” he promised. He didn’t need to.

  Since Gatina’s casual revelation of her intent to wed Rondal – and his lack of denial, when politely questioned by his former master and his gentlemen – there was little doubt in anyone’s mind what the likely outcome would be. Except, apparently, for Rondal, who suddenly seemed to be squirming with doubt.

  It was too delicious for Tyndal to resist, and in the days since they’d returned the shadowmagi to Falas and prepared for this evening, he had given his friend an unremitting stream of teasing to increase the squirm. He had alternatively proposed novel (and often extremely crude or obscene) methods of ending the supposed engagement, or had ribbed his friend about his incipient domestic duties.

  It was a kind of game for Tyndal. Rondal prided himself on his self-control and discipline, and for the most part the man was a rock. But long acquaintance and many adventures had shown Tyndal where Rondal’s vulnerabilities were, and in their private moments he felt it was his duty to helpfully point them out. When he succeeded in pushing Rondal outside of his self-imposed control, Tyndal won.

  It had been pointed out by more than one interested bystander that this was childish and juvenile behavior. Tyndal didn’t care. He prided himself on his childlike sense of whimsy.

  What made it all the more uncomfortable was that Gatina was actually a fair companion on a mission: smart, observant, fast, quick-thinking, and decisive. Though she was short, scrawny-looking, and her odd eyes and hair gave her a bizarre, almost non-human look, she wasn’t unattractive. And a girl who could make herself appear to be anything from a schoolgirl to an elderly matron almost at will had merit, to his mind. She was a competent mage, for an apprentice, and her skills as a thief were a fortune in fingertips.

  But . . . why in the name of Ishi’s sacred slit was he even considering marriage to the girl?

  To Tyndal’s mind, it was a waste. To even consider sacrificing the brilliant career they’d built together was unnerving. The gods had seen fit to throw them into one wild adventure after another, and yet had kept them alive and blessed them with fortune – and, at least in Tyndal’s case, good looks. With all of the world’s femininity from which to select, why would he consider settling for one mere girl, however intriguing?

  It confounded Tyndal. Perhaps when they were old men, in their twenties, their days of glorious errantry behind them, then they could take pretty wives and begin spewing children across the Wilderlands. But that day was long off, and they had the corpses of many foes to step over before they arrived there. Until the Necromancer and Shereul were defeated, fiddling with the idea of domestic life was just . . . mad.

  “Have you noticed how clean the place is, now?” Tyndal asked, as a way of making conversation.

  “Yes, and did you see the new construction around the barracks? The town is growing,” he declared.

  “I like Vorone,” Rondal agreed, quietly. “We’re Wilderlords. It’s our town. And it’s pretty.”

  “Yes, it is beautiful,” Tyndal said, as a pair of prostitutes ambled by, smiling invitingly. “Especially this time of year.”

  They arrived at the hall just as Taren approached, though Tyndal nearly didn’t recognize the man.

  Taren was one of Tyndal’s favorite warmagi. A brilliant thaumaturge who was also an excellent combat mage, he had brought some incredible insight to enchantment and thaumaturgy in the last few years. He was ordinarily a cheerful, enthusiastic-looking man, one who personified the warrior wizard as more than a fancy mercenary.

  Yet the Taren who stood before him now was a bare shadow of the knight he remembered. While he wore a warmage’s tight-fitting plated leather hauberk, his eyes were dark and deeply sunken, and his skin had a deathly pallor to it.

  “Welcome, fellows,” he called, without much of his native enthusiasm.

  “Good gods!” Tyndal exclaimed. “What happened to you, Taren?”

  “Too long at Salaisus,” he said with a bitter sigh. “I thought it was an outstanding opportunity to study the Otherworld.”

  “It wasn’t?” Rondal asked.

  “Oh, it was. Too good, as it turns out. Extended exposure to the field is . . . debilitating. It drains you like twisting out a wet cloth, after a while.”

  “You should petition for another post,” suggested Tyndal.

  “You really don’t look well,” agreed Rondal.

  “I’ve considered it,” he nodded, gravely. “But I am doing important work, there. And I have gained much insight on necromancy. Information that will be useful against the Necromancer.” His expression looked so bleak that Tyndal wanted to go fetch the two whores he’d passed, just to make the knight smile.

  “We’ve been working in Enultramar,” Rondal volunteered. “But we’ll discuss all of that, upstairs. I’m going to sit the Spider just inside, where he’s going to be good. We put him under a spell that removes his sensory input, but still lets us push him around.”

  “Why the hood?” Taren asked, curious.

  “Well, we’re in Vorone, a place with low tolerance for Rats. The ones that remain are desperate, and would see sending this fellow home as an opportunity for rapid advancement. So we didn’t want him to be recognized.”

  As he sat the former Rat down on a stool with more muffled curses, a Kasari ranger sat watchfully by. Tyndal and Rondal both saluted him, in the Kasari fashion, and continued upstairs after he’d returned the unexpected courtesy.

  Upstairs there was a growing collection of wizards, including many old friends it was good to see again. Azar, Astyral, Terleman, and Carmella had taken seats already, and Master Minalan was helping himself to a big silver flagon of wine. He looked tired and worn and no
t a little melancholy. Taren took a seat near to Master Cormoran, the famed magical swordsmith of Tudry, who had accompanied the other Tudrymen to the council.

  Things didn’t get started until Lady Pentandra and her new pipsqueak of an apprentice showed up from the palace, making excuses about seeing Arborn and his men off on a journey.

  To his annoyance, Rondal began the meeting, as if calling it was his idea. True, they likely had the most momentous news to share, but it irked Tyndal that his partner was so quick to take the spotlight. Tyndal jumped in after Rondal sketched out what they’d pieced together about the Brotherhood, the rebels, and the gurvani presence in the region’s underworld. Shereul had an eye, ear, voice, and hand in the Alshari rebellion.

  Then he spilled the soup: their conclusions about the more immediate and insidious place they’d learned was now called Olum Seheri. The ruined Alkan city of Anthatiel, rebuilt by the minions of Korbal, from whence the Necromancer’s reach exceeded the Dead God’s. That was far more dangerous than a few goblins running about, playing courtier. The prospect of both forces targeting the richest and most populated region of the duchy was just too dire to ignore, and Minalan, Pentandra, Terleman and the others needed to hear it.

  At the proper moment, with just the proper amount of dramatic embellishment, they produced their prisoner: Master Merimange the Spider. A few days in Brestal Tower under close guard, and a few interrogation sessions, had thus far yielded plenty of juicy gossip – not merely on the Brotherhood, but on every member of the rebel council. The spider seemed to have webs everywhere, and he was desperate to trade that information for security.

  Turning him over to Pentandra, and therefore to Anguin, was the best use of that resource, they’d decided. Anguin’s court would be far better positioned to make use of the information than they would. The fact that they were both witness to him arranging the sale of Princess Rardine to Priviken the Goblin and his entourage made Merimange extremely cooperative, when he was in a jail in Castal. But he wasn’t much happier about being in Alshar, Tyndal knew.

  Word had swiftly come from Atopol, using his new witchstone, about the repercussions of that fateful night in Brisomar. The gossip was all over the shadowy streets of Enultramar: the Iris was threatening to take control of the organization, when the Brotherhood’s council defaulted on its payment. Indeed, when the fleet returned at the end of the season, the whispered secrets in a thousand taverns said that none other than Merimange the Spider, one of the inner council, and absconded with the entire treasury and left Jenerard and the others responsible to the Iris for the debt.

  Atopol was angry enough that the Spider was taking credit for what was the work of the Cats of Enultramar, but then he was used to anonymity, even in professional circles, and he kept his focus on the loyalist effort. Tyndal was growing to like the shadowmage more and more. He was as dedicated to his Art and his vocation as Tyndal was to his own.

  The boys greeted old friends before taking their seats, and when it was their turn they were eager to share news of their successes in the south. Of course the revelation of the huge bounty of treasure from the heist was what everyone got excited about – and Tyndal couldn’t blame them. That was a lot of gold by anyone’s estimation. He thought Lady Pentandra was going to faint at the news.

  But then Master Minalan started talking about a mission to Olum Seheri. To rescue that hateful, murderous bitch Rardine. That dampened his sense of victory.

  You know who he’s going to send there, don’t you? Tyndal asked Rondal.

  I’m hoping it’s the blind girl, Rondal joked. But I think we’re going back to the Land of Scars.

  That is not how I planned on celebrating our new-found fortune. There are dragons, there. And they want to send us.

  Be honest, Rondal challenged, unexpectedly. You’re aching in anticipation of the chance.

  It would be a delicious bit of errantry, he admitted. And we didn’t really get much chance to sight-see, the last time we were there. But I’m getting a sinking feeling that, before this is done, we’re going to have to fight a dragon.

  Don’t worry, Rondal soothed. We’ll have plenty of time to concoct some sort of effective weapon.

  Tyndal accepted that, but he still hoped he didn’t have to face one. Ever since Cambrian Castle he’d had a powerful fear of dragons. Seeing the beast tear through a well-built masonry fortress like a dog shredding a rabbit had given him nightmares for months. As much glory as Sire Cei had won as the Dragonslayer, Tyndal was no eager to match his feat. Indeed, he had a dread of death from a dragon that no other foe he’d faced could match in his heart.

  But he cheerfully volunteered to go, anyway. That’s what knights magi did.

  When the official council took a break to have dinner, Tyndal was surprised by just how hungry he was. He realized it had been hours since he’d thought to eat. He was carving a thick slice of turkey from the bone when he heard a sound his body reacted to long before his mind could place it.

  It was the war cry of a dragon. Just like the sound at Cambrian that had embedded itself so insidiously into his dreams.

  Rondal was the first to ask him, mind-to-mind. Tyn, did you hear that?

  I was hoping it was my imagination, he admitted. But if you heard it too . . .

  “Is that . . . ?” asked Carmella, the plain-looking mistress of the Hesian Order.

  “Oh, Trygg’s twat!” moaned Terleman. He nearly launched himself to the window at the far end of the hall and threw the shutters open. “The gods must be having a fucking great laugh over this!” He said, manifesting his big warstaff in his hand. It erupted in a display of energy and activity the moment his fingers curled around it.

  Maybe it’s a trick, suggested Rondal, a note of panic in his mental voice. Anyone could have made a spell that—

  He was interrupted by another trumpeting of pure saurian fury. The peal of an angry dragon rang out over the town of Vorone . . . but much louder, now. Which meant much closer. One by one, each of the magi in the room came to the same conclusion at roughly the same time.

  “Dear gods,” Carmella moaned.

  “What were you saying about Shereul not retaliating, again, Terl?” Azar said, with dry humor.

  “Oh, shut up, Azar!” Terleman dismissed, as his staff began accumulating power. Master Minalan was the first to speak the name of the horror they all feared, in a low whisper none of them had difficulty hearing.

  “A dragon,” he pronounced, when he turned away from the window. To emphasize his observation, the tiny shape in the distance illuminated itself with a gout of flame. The rooftops of Vorone seemed to dance in the flickering shadows of the approaching doom.

  But then the dragon’s second burst of flame proved it was close enough to strike, as the distant scaffolding surrounding the barracks behind the palace caught fire under the relentless flame.

  “Oh, shit!” Tyndal declared, as he felt his bowels turn to water. Goblins, trolls, rats, siege worms, undead – none of it scared him like a dragon.

  And of course Rondal just stood and stare, while the blind girl pushed past him trying to find out what the fuss was about.

  The third burst of flame erupted while they all just stood there and watched in a stunned stupor. But that was the one that ignited the ornate rooftop of the palace, itself. The dragonfire didn’t just set the roof ablaze; as the dragon got closer, the blast of the spout of flame tore off the ornate designs atop the palace like hot piss through a snowbank.

  Just to be more destructive, the dragon slapped one of the watchtowers with its mighty tail and sent it flying over the palace wall.

  “Mistress,” the new apprentice asked Pentandra, “Did you know you are having triplets?”

  “What?” Pentandra asked, confused. “Triplets?”

  “Pretty sure,” the blind girl whispered. “Is that a problem?”

  “Minalan,” she said, “Drink the mead.” Then she fainted.

  “Pentandra is pregnant?” guffawed Astyral.
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  “What mead?” Tyndal asked, confused. Had Pentandra prepared some sort of magical mead? And why hadn’t she offered him some? The news of her pregnancy took longer to percolate through to him, but both lines of thought had the same purpose: to distract him from the winged horror outside.

  Thankfully, someone decided to be in charge.

  “ALL RIGHT!” bellowed Terleman, whirling around to face the crowd of magi. “We have a dragon attacking the town. We also have the most powerful warmagi in the Five Duchies. So here’s what we’re going to do:

  “Alurra, put a pillow under Pentandra’s head, make her comfortable, maintain our base here,” he ordered. “Whatever else happens, survivors and wounded can return here. Cormoran, Astyral, Carmella: evacuate civilians from the palace and try to cover as much as you can in anti-incendiary spells as quickly as possible. Fire will be our biggest challenge. Rescue whomever you can and get them away from the fight.

  “The rest of you . . . with me. Let’s go fight a dragon!” he said, flicking his staff and sending a surge of power through the room. “Out of curiosity does anyone actually know how to kill it?” Behind him, the beast had landed on the far west wing of the palace and was making a mess of it.

  Taren summoned his own weapon, an arbalest of exquisite manufacture and his own design. “I do,” the haunted-looking thaumaturge said, resolutely. “But it’s dangerous. Potentially catastrophic. And it will probably kill me,” he admitted.

  “How?” Minalan demanded, as he manifested his warstaff, Blizzard.

  “I’ve been talking to the dead, remember? Horka wounded a dragon at Timberwatch, though it took his life. I was curious how that was done so . . . I asked him.”