Warcaster (Mage Song Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  “A personal slight,” Mathal suggested.

  The man to Darion’s right, whom the innkeep had said was Tirus the dockmaster, laughed. He scratched his gray-flecked beard and inverted his empty tankard. “What sort of slight would that be? Do you suppose Olyvard King wrote Rudgar an insulting letter? Dathrond and Korengad have borne a mutual hatred for centuries. Yet they’ve had naught to do with one another since before you and I were born.”

  “Not on land, perhaps,” said Mathal. “Dathrond trades by sea through the Strait of Thraihm, and Korengad has kept that stretch of ocean well in-hand for centuries now. And well-taxed, to be sure. I’ll wager that’s the rub here.”

  “Taxes? Absurd though it may sound, perhaps you have the right of it. Surely it’s more than sheer hatred that’s driven Rudgar King to invade.”

  “That makes no sense either,” said Tirus. “Why would Korengad invade another kingdom over its own taxes? More likely Dathrond would wage a war at sea, were that the trouble. I think not. This is an age-old grudge between rivals. A simple show of power. Nothing more.”

  Kestrel and the others approached the table, drinks in hand. “My, this is the liveliest discussion about boats I’ve ever witnessed. What are you all talking about?”

  “The invasion. What else?”

  “Ah, yes. The invasion,” Triolyn said. “That most dire of circumstances from which we stand to make a killing, but because of which your little town is all but doomed.”

  The men said nothing, only glowered at him.

  “What my friend here would’ve been more polite to say is that if there’s a Korengadi eye without an arrow in it, he means to put one there,” said Kestrel, ever the diplomat.

  “You intend to fight in the war, then,” said Tirus. “All of you?”

  “My lady wife might have a curse or two to yell at them,” said Darion. “The rest of us, aye.” The men laughed. When Darion saw the hurt in Lady Alynor’s eyes, he realized the jest was ill-conceived. There you go blundering about again, following a favorable deed with a tactless one, he berated himself.

  “I’m sure milady has more than a few choice words to contribute,” Kestrel said. “Especially if her good husband were more inclined to provide her with the tools she’s asked for.”

  An uneasy silence followed the remark. Darion closed a fist, ready to rise from his chair and knock the singer flat, ale and all. It was Alynor’s touch alone that stopped him.

  “My husband is a generous man,” she said, sliding a hand under his arm. “With both his time and his coin. He was generous with his blade, too, when he gave thousands of ogres their deaths at the mouth of Palemoon Bay. His generosity will not have waned by the time he arrives at Castle Maergath to drive the invading Korengadi back to their homeland. I’m sure any man here who is willing to carry a legendary Warcaster like Sir Darion Ulther downriver—as far as, say, the Mountains of Driftwater—would be rewarded handsomely for his efforts.”

  A sudden clangor arose, as if every man in the room had been listening. Ferrymen and sailors crowded round the table, each calling out for his chance to be heard. When Darion glanced over at his wife, she wore a faint, self-satisfied smile.

  ***

  The next morning, three small vessels bore Sir Darion and his companions, along with their mounts and assorted trappings, eastward along the lazy rapids of the Dathiri River. A raft, a sailing barge, and a flat-bottomed ferry, each too small to house the whole group on its own, had been selected for the task. Darion had paid the fares for the whole fleet, offering silver upfront and promising each vessel’s captain gold upon their successful landing beyond the mountains. He had also refused offerings of coin from Kestrel, Triolyn, and Jeebo, though he had considered taking Kestrel’s for the sole purpose of tossing it into the river.

  He had been cross with Lady Alynor at first. But he’d had plenty of time to calm down—and plenty of ale to drink, once the arrangements had been made—before they retired for the night. She knew by now how strongly Darion preferred to maintain his anonymity in his travels. But her ploy had worked. Mathal and two others, with their small crews of rivermen along for the ride, were taking them down the final stretch of their journey toward the hot sands of the Dathiri desert.

  Each night, about an hour before sundown, the bargemen would run their boats aground along the riverbank and make camp. “These wide banks are a luxury,” Mathal told them once. “Soon as we reach the mountains, the river becomes a trench; the banks, canyon walls. We’ll be three or four days and nights on the water without a berth before the river turns south for the desert.”

  It was during these long evenings that Darion began to teach Lady Alynor her first spell. With a stick in hand, he would find a patch of firm, dry mud along the riverbank and draw out the symbols for a spell of movement, one by one. The spell would be easier for her to learn than the first spell Sir Jalleth had taught him.

  The first few nights, Alynor shied away from singing her tones, embarrassed with the rivermen so near. When Darion explained that the tones were just as important for waking the mage-song as the symbols and their names, she began to acclimate herself to the idea.

  She had a good voice, Darion was surprised to learn. One night, when they were only a day or two out from the mountains, Darion brought out his panpipes and handed them to her. “Each of the seven notes that make up the mage-song are represented on this instrument,” he explained.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “My master gave it to me many years ago,” he said. “Now I want you to have it.”

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly, my dearest.”

  “I’ll have none of that. I’m giving it to you, Alynor. It’s yours.”

  Tentatively, she spread her fingers and let him place it on her open palm. “How do I use it?”

  “Hold it against your bottom lip and blow across the top.” He chuckled when she tried blowing straight through. “No, like this.” He guided her hands, turning them to show her the right position.

  When she blew correctly, the panpipes produced a clear, sharp note.

  “The longer the pipe, the lower the tone,” he told her. “The first tone is the lowest; the seventh, the highest.”

  “I understand that much,” she said with a laugh.

  “As soon as you memorize the sigils for this spell, I’ll teach you the tones. You’ll be ready to try your first casting in a few weeks.”

  “Weeks?”

  “My first spell took me nearly a year to learn well enough to cast on demand,” he reminded her. “It was six months before I cast it from memory on the first try. Granted, I was much younger than you are now. This spell is also easier than that one.”

  “Show me what it does,” she said. “I want to see you cast it.”

  “Very well.” Darion plucked a wildflower from a stand at the edge of the woods and tossed it to the ground by the riverbank. He intoned the sigils and woke the mage-song. It was getting dark, but not too dark for Lady Alynor to see when he waved his hand. The flower drifted into the air and settled on the water a few feet away.

  She gave him a skeptical look. “That was the wind.”

  He shook his head. “That was the spell, my lady.”

  “That’s it? That’s what I’m learning to do? What I’ll be spending months of study and repetition to achieve? A puff of wind?”

  Darion’s first instinct was to remind her of his warnings about magic’s challenges; how reluctant he’d been to teach her for this very reason. Perhaps Sir Jalleth’s methods had rubbed off on him, because instead he said, “Yes, Alynor. The spell I am teaching you is a movement spell. That is what you’ll be able to do when you’re done learning it. If at any time you do not wish to go on, all you need do is tell me.”

  “And what about your first spell?” she asked. “Show me the first one you ever learned.”

  Darion knew this one better than his own name. He sang. He pointed. A crackling blue bolt shot from his fingertip and turn
ed the floating wildflower to ash.

  “It’s no wonder that took you longer to learn,” she said hotly. “Yours is actually useful.”

  “Movement spells have many uses,” he tried.

  “For a woman… who needs to move flowers from one vase to another.”

  Darion had to smile. “Do you wish to learn the spell or no, my lady? We can start over with another, or stop altogether. But I assure you… when you master this spell, you will be able to move more than flowers.”

  Chapter 15

  Magic was hard. So too became the voyage downriver when they crossed beneath the shadows of the Mountains of Driftwater. Yet Lady Alynor Mirrowell refused to give up on her journey or her magic.

  After the banks became sheer rock walls and the lazy current quickened to a rush, the river’s meandering curves tightened into a string of narrow bends which threatened to tear the three vessels apart at every turn. There were no shores on which to stop and rest anymore, which left the rivermen working in shifts through all hours of the day and night, sometimes with only lantern light to guide them through mist and darkness.

  The largest of the boats, the sailing barge, was only big enough to house Alynor and her four companions in addition to its crew. The horses had to ride behind them on the flat-bottomed ferry, which looked to Alynor to be the hardest of the boats to maneuver. Whether that was due to the weight of the animals or the boat’s shape, she could not say. At the back of the convoy was the raft, a plain square of logs and rope, on which the extra supplies and provisions were kept. She tried not to think about the possibility of losing one of the vessels to rapids or a collision with the canyon walls, though she knew the loss of any one of the three would be devastating.

  By sunset on the first day without landfall, Alynor could not wait to feel dry land beneath her feet again. She was used to being on the water, having sailed the Greenshore countless times growing up. But this ship was cramped and smelly, the rations uncooked and stale. And the child growing in her belly was beginning to assert itself in ways which were unpleasant for her to deal with on a boat full of men.

  They were still days away from the south bend, where the riverbanks opened onto the sandy shores of Dathrond, and the others were enjoying the voyage every bit as little as Alynor was. Kestrel had been his usual talkative self at first, but even his enthusiasm began to flag after a time. With no one new to criticize, Triolyn bided his time in brooding silence. Jeebo’s falcon was surprisingly well-behaved throughout those dark days, though Alynor suspected the bird would’ve flown free of the narrow river gorge had he not been leashed.

  Darion ceased his stories for the time being. He also suspended his magic lessons, but that was mostly for lack of a good place to spread out and practice. Alynor continued to recite the sigils he had taught her, though she judged the spell utterly useless. She often fiddled with the panpipes he’d given her, turning them over in her hands to study their every inch and intricacy. Never once did she blow a note, however, afraid of waking the off-duty rivermen asleep in their bunks, resting up for their next shift. If there was a collision, she was determined not to be the one at fault.

  Days passed. The five travelers spent hours in languor, swaying in their bunks and hammocks on tides of nausea and boredom and half-wakefulness. The sheer rock walls mellowed to steep bluffs, then dissolved into hills of loose scree. Finally, the shores leveled out into wide expanses of rocky ground, still too treacherous to land on, but nevertheless a heartening indication of their journey’s end.

  One night, a sharp cry woke Alynor from her sleep. She heard the lookout calling from abovedecks, saw Darion and the others stumble out of bed and grab their weapons before piling up the stairs. She followed.

  What awaited them outside was no threat of danger, but a stretch of dunes spreading far into the distance beneath the first hints of a blazing sunrise. The desert of Dathrond. They had arrived, and for the first time since leaving home, Alynor could sense both how far they’d come and how close they were to finishing.

  Celebrations broke out across each of the three boats as the sun rose upon this new landscape. The Dathiri River snaked southward, and the boats came aground at the first sandy bend. When Mathal and the rivermen brought the horses and provisions ashore a few hours later, Darion counted out a fistful of gold and silver coins from his purse and divided them among the owners and their crew.

  “My thanks,” said Mathal. “We much appreciate your coin and commerce ahead of what is bound to be a paltry harvest this year. Now we must be off, for our hardest work lies ahead of us. The journey upriver is slow going, and tedious work.”

  “Best of good fortune in your travels,” said Darion.

  “And to you as well. Will you find your way to Castle Maergath without a guide?”

  “It won’t be hard from here. One must only keep the mountains to his left.”

  “As you say, milord.”

  The rivermen turned upstream and began to navigate the slow-moving eddies along the river’s edge. Where the sand turned to stone, men went ashore to haul the boats upstream on thick hempen ropes. It took half as many men to pull the raft as the flat-bottomed ferry; the barge’s sail snatched up the east wind and carried it without so much resistance.

  The five companions packed their provisions and let the horses drink their fill from the river before heading westward through the sandy foothills beneath the mountains. They trudged along this way until noontide, when they stopped for a meal in the shade.

  “Another four days of this should bring us to Castle Maergath,” Darion estimated.

  “With no certainty we’ll find a castle left standing by the time we get there,” said Triolyn.

  “The river was slow, but not that slow. The Korengadi may have reached the Dathiri Ford by now, but only just. The gates there will not fall easily; not with the might of the Dathiri army behind them.”

  “Indeed, milord,” said Kestrel. “We press ever onward toward our goal.”

  Alynor had to giggle to herself. Being back on solid ground appeared to have reinvigorated the singer instantly. As for the other two, it seemed their recovery would take a little longer. Where Triolyn might’ve remarked on the plodding pace of desert travel were he in better spirits, he only mopped his brow with a kerchief and suffered in silence. After making sure Triolyn did not intend to use his bow anytime soon, Jeebo flew Ristocule to give the gyrfalcon some much-needed exercise.

  Alynor had never seen Jeebo hunt the bird before, and she found herself impressed with the animal’s training and discipline. She watched Ristocule climb high into the open skies until she lost sight of him in the sun. When next she caught a glimpse, the bird was swooping toward a larger, brighter shape in the sky. He cut a tight zigzag and struck in an explosion of feathers. The two shapes parted, and Ristocule twisted round for another climb.

  He dove across his prey and struck again. There was a third slash, and a fourth. Then it was over, and Ristocule was flying back to them, carrying something big and heavy in his talons. It was a northern white goose; scrawny at its summer weight, but sufficient to make a meal of.

  “There’s a good lad,” said Jeebo, hooding the falcon and stroking his puffed breast feathers.

  That night they were huddled around a small fire built from what sparse foliage they could scrounge up amid the foothills when Kestrel said, “This roast goose is the freshest I’ve ever eaten. How did you come by that falcon of yours, Jeebo?”

  “Falconry’s in my blood. I come from a long line of falconers. My da, my grandda, and his before him. All my aunts and uncles are falconers. My family raises most of our birds from hatchlings. Ristocule was different, though. He came to me one day out of a clear blue sky and has been with me ever since. I’ve had birds before him, but none so regal, nor as good at hunting. He is truly a majestic creature, and my closest friend. I praise Faranion every day for sending me such a stalwart companion.”

  “He thinks the gods sent him the bird,” said Trio
lyn amusedly. “What’s more, he thinks it’s a person.”

  “Ristocule is as much a person as you or I,” Jeebo said. “He’s better company than many people I know, and kinder too.”

  “Kindness doesn’t make an animal into any higher a creature,” Triolyn insisted. “A bird can’t think for itself, or speak. It can’t make choices except by instinct.”

  Ristocule hopped off Jeebo’s shoulder and landed on Triolyn’s pack, where he pecked at a string of beads hanging from the flap. A second later, there was a wet white splash. The bird’s droppings dribbled down the leather amid a gale of laughter.

  Triolyn went red in the face and scrambled over to chase the bird off. “Away, you. Be gone.”

  Ristocule fluttered out of reach before Triolyn could get a hand on him.

  “It looks to me as though his instincts are rather sound,” Alynor said, still laughing.

  Jeebo stood to block Triolyn’s path. “Sit down, you big oaf. You’re scaring him.”

  “I’m scaring him? That miserable creature just messed on my effects. Out of the way. I’ll fletch my arrows with his feathers, I swear it.”

  Jeebo shoved Triolyn with one hand. With the other, he drew the falchion between his shoulder blades and held the point to the archer’s face. “Try,” he said. The word came out as half a growl.

  Kestrel shot to his feet. “Let’s not kill each other, now, or there will be no one left to fight for Maergath when we get there.”

  Darion was off giving the horses feed, so Alynor felt inclined to step in on her husband’s behalf. “Yes, please, let’s—”

  “Threaten an unarmed man, would you?” said Triolyn. “You’re as big a coward as that bird.”

  “And Ristocule is as unarmed as you are,” Jeebo said. “Stay away from him and I’ll have no reason to hurt you.”

  “That damnable bird is too stupid to bear the weight of its own existence,” Triolyn said, fingering his longbow. “Let’s have done with the thing.”

  “You’re fed tonight because of that bird,” Kestrel pointed out. “Surely you cannot be this angry over a little accident.”