The castle gates opened briefly and discharged three riders. Two were marauders in gray cloaks, and Wolfram sensed Marissa stiffening beside him.
“We have archers, we have paladins,” he told her. “They’ll die instantly if they try anything.” He studied the figures. Neither was missing a hand. “There’s no Hamid, and there’s no Soultrup to fear.”
The third figure was a tall slim man in flowing robes. He wore a white turban with a ruby or other red stone gleaming at the forehead. Wolfram continued to study him as they approached. The man had some years behind him, perhaps fifty or more, but he was strong and lean and comfortable in the saddle. This was not a general who would lead from behind the lines, but a warrior. The trio pulled to a halt in front of Wolfram and his paladins, who had waited on foot.
The hillside was soggy from the rain and the rising water level, and the pasha’s boots squelched in the mud as he dismounted. After motioning for the marauders to stay put, he approached with a hard gaze. Wolfram was taller than average, and Eriscobans were taller, in general, than the Veyrians he’d encountered, but this one looked down on the Blackshield captain as he stepped forward.
“I am Pasha Kerem. Are you the one they call Wolf?”
“I’ve come to negotiate your surrender,” Wolfram said.
“What surrender? You can’t take the castle. I have enough soldiers to hold it, and enough supplies to keep them fed. The walls are too high to scale, and the towers too strong. How many men do you command, anyway?”
“I don’t need to scale the walls. I have engineers—”
Kerem smiled. “The fortifications will hold. Weeks, months, even. Long enough for my lord to send his army through the passes and break your siege.”
“I’m not planning to mine your walls,” Wolfram said. “Your hillside is half what it was—haven’t you noticed the rising water?”
Something flickered across the pasha’s face. Worry, perhaps? Then it was gone.
“Your engineers broke the dam,” Wolfram said. “Flooded Estmor and brought pestilence and famine. My engineers are rebuilding it, only downstream this time, below Castle Estmor. The water will continue to rise.”
Kerem glanced behind him at the castle with what looked like a forced smile. “We’re high enough. Your waters can’t reach the towers.”
“They don’t have to reach the towers. They’ll flood the lowest levels and seep into your cellars. Your food will rot, your waste will have nowhere to drain, and your men will breathe the miasmas of the swamp.”
“And you think I’ll surrender, become your prisoner?” Kerem scoffed. “You are deluded, Wolf.”
“Not surrender. In fact, I will allow you and your men to leave. With your arms, even. I only want prisoners freed and the castle returned.”
“I have no prisoners.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Any who fall into our hands join the work crews. That is the command of my lord and master.”
“I want the woman.”
“The wizard?” Kerem shook his head. “She is one of us now.”
“Hand her over, leave the castle, and you can live.”
“I don’t have her. The ravager captain and the high king’s acolyte carried her off in the night. Gave her a potion and compelled her to serve King Toth, and rode with her into the mountains. You’ll see her again, Wolf. She’ll be back when Toth arrives. A dark acolyte, her power increased tenfold in the service of the king.”
Wolfram studied the marauders who’d accompanied the pasha. For all the battles, this was the first time he’d faced them without coming to blows. Their faces seemed bent into permanent cruelty, but there was pain in their expressions, too, and he remembered that these were as much slaves of the necromancer as were the starved, whipped souls building his highway.
Could Kerem be telling the truth about Nathaliey? There was no sign of Hamid, and it seemed strange that the one-handed marauder captain wouldn’t have accompanied the pasha to size up his counterpart in the Blackshields. But even if the brute had carried Nathaliey into the mountains, Wolfram was sure that she would resist.
“I won’t be leaving the castle, Wolf,” Kerem said. “King Toth is gathering an army the likes of which the world has never seen. They will wipe your paladins from the land.”
“I have my own army now. We will fight you, and we will win.”
“This pitiful force? You have a few hundred, and you think you’re going to defeat the high king?”
“This is the vanguard. A full army is marching this way.”
“King Toth has gathered forces from across the khalifates and beyond. Kratian camel riders, mercenaries from the sultanates. By the time he arrives in these barbarian lands, his numbers will have swollen to tens of thousands against your”—a glance at the Eriscobans and a dismissive wave of the hand—“against your . . . whatever.”
“So this is your answer?” Wolfram asked. “You’ll fester and die in your swamp-fever prison?”
“I could have answered your summons with a hail of arrows. No, I’ve come to make an offer in return. Bow your knee before me. Kiss Toth’s ring when he appears. Swear your allegiance, and fight by our side.”
Wolfram’s only answer was a disbelieving shake of the head.
“Join us and you can put an end to this pointless war,” Kerem pressed. “Don’t you see what the king is going to do, what his highway will accomplish? Trade will flow from east to west, north to south. There will be no more petty wars between khalifates and kingdoms—there will be no need for them.”
Wolfram could no longer control his tongue. “At the cost of what? Bowing our heads to the whip hand of some eastern despot?”
“The lands will be unified whether you want them to be or not. But you, Wolf, can save lives. Convince the petty lords to lay down arms and submit, and the war will end.”
“Impossible.”
“Look to the khalifates for your example—surely these Aristonian wizards explained to you. Those lords who submit, who prove their loyalty, who join their armies to Toth’s, who keep the peace, who give tribute in gold and slaves, keep their crowns, keep their lands. Those who do not submit, die. Their people depart their homelands in chains.”
“That may be what has happened in your decadent eastern lands,” Wolfram said, “but now you find yourself in the free kingdoms, and we will never submit to your necromancer.”
Kerem had been speaking in a calm, reasonable tone, like a father explaining to his child why a favorite calf must be slaughtered, but now his tone hardened, and his lips turned upward into a cruel smile.
“You will submit, Barbarian. The day will come when you beg for mercy as they slowly, lovingly flay your skin from your body.”
Chapter Twelve
They were a mile from the gates of Syrmarria when the enemy attacked. One moment Markal was trudging along with his head bowed beneath a cowl, leading a weary cart horse, with Jethro pulling a handcart fifty or sixty paces behind, and Memnet somewhere behind that. The next, he felt a dark aura radiating from a low-slung pig shed by the road.
A dozen pigs erupted from the building with squeals and hurled themselves at the fence keeping them in their pen. One large boar dug furiously at the mud, trying to burrow out from beneath. Another overturned the trough and tried to get atop it and heave its bulk over the rails. And all the while they kept up a terrific, shrieking racket.
Markal raised a cone of light just as a shadowy coil unslung itself from the open door of the pig shed. The shadow hit the light and burst into a steam-like cloud. Jethro ran up from behind with a shout.
He grabbed Markal and dragged him back behind the cart as a rapid surge of shadow burst through his defenses with a shower of sparks. The shadow slammed into the side of the cart and splintered boards. The horse reared and tried to throw off its collar. More shadow attacks lashed at them, and they cringed behind the cart.
Movement caught Markal’s eye from the opposite side of the road as two armed men e
merged from a warehouse whose open doors revealed bales of cotton, bundles of cloth, and other trade goods. There had been a good deal of foot and animal traffic this close to the city—more than Markal could ever remember seeing, in fact—and these little warehouses had guards on hand at all times, but there was something different about these two. Gray cloaks, gray faces, dead eyes. Marauders.
“Use the spectral shield,” Jethro urged. “Do you know the words?”
“I do, but—”
He was about to explain that when he’d called up the shield in the past, it had been too thin, too brittle to halt a pair of charging marauders, when a figure materialized by their side. It was Memnet, and Markal glanced behind him in confusion, sure that the master had been several hundred feet back, and there was no way he could have closed the distance so quickly.
Memnet’s orb pulsed purple and then a deep emerald green. It flashed, brighter than the sun, and left Markal blinking and stunned, unable to see. The marauders screamed. When Markal’s vision returned, the two marauders glowed with green light. It poured from their mouths, nostrils, and ears. Wreathes of emerald fire encircled their heads. Suddenly, the flames turned to curling roots, leaves, pine boughs, flowering vines: all manner of green and growing things sprouting directly from their bodies. The men sank to the ground, and their bodies disappeared beneath a mass of green.
“That is a gift from the Sacred Forest,” Memnet said grimly. “For those who violated its sanctity.”
He turned to the pig shed on the opposite side and lifted the orb. Twin flashes of light burst from his fist, accompanied by painfully loud thumps. The pigs let out a collective shriek as the balls of light raced toward them.
Markal braced himself for the mass slaughter of the terrified animals, but the first flash blasted a hole in the fence, opening a passage for pigs to flee into the street. As they poured out of the pen, the second flash of light struck the shed behind them. The entire building seemed to gather its breath, and it exploded upward with a giant thumping boom. Markal, Memnet, and Jethro cowered as beams and shards of wood showered down around them.
A woman’s torso landed on the road nearby, separated from her legs. Where the rest of the dark acolyte’s body had landed, Markal could not say. Pigs ran squealing past, and he marveled that Memnet had had enough presence of mind to save their lives before demolishing the shed hiding the dark acolyte.
“Master!” Jethro warned.
A dozen or more Veyrian soldiers approached at a run from the direction of the tax collector’s office they’d passed minutes before the attack. The men spotted the cart and the struggling horse in the road, together with the three figures standing near the dead marauders, and one of them shouted a challenge.
Markal was still working through his offensive spells when Memnet cast another spell. The soldiers threw down their spears and jumped and danced furiously, trying to keep their feet off the ground, as if they’d found themselves barefoot on a bed of hot coals. Their cries turned to screams, and they joined the pigs in mindlessly fleeing the scene.
This close to the city there would be plenty of soldiers about, not to mention more marauders and dark acolytes waiting in ambush, and Markal was anxious to renew their concealing spells and get out of this vulnerable open spot, but Memnet seemed in no hurry. The orb disappeared into his sleeve, and he took in their surroundings with a thoughtful expression.
“This was my fault,” he said. “I missed it when I came through not an hour ago. It took Chantmer’s warning to send me back.”
“I don’t understand,” Markal said. “An hour ago? And how did Chantmer tell you? You were behind us on the road.”
Memnet gave him a look. “Is that what you thought? No, I went ahead to clear the way to the city, and came right past here without noticing. Chantmer was waiting for me at the city gates, and warned me they’d set up an ambush. I hurried back and arrived just in time.” He glanced between Markal and Jethro. “Although the two of you might have managed perfectly well without me. We’ll never know for sure.”
Markal very much doubted that, and he was chagrined with himself for not noticing that the master had moved ahead of them on the road. He thought he’d been clearing the road.
“We should be safe now,” Memnet said. “I’m leaving you again.”
“Why not stay with us until we’re through?” Markal asked.
The master’s face took on a serious expression. “Now that you’ve cleared the danger, I’m returning to do some damage. We passed within a mile of the Tothian Way a few hours ago. There are a pair of half-built watchtowers begging to be overturned. The sorcerer is about—I can sense his power—but he’s not here. And we don’t want him to be. The Brothers willing, my attack on the Tothian Way will draw him to the highway and ease our return to the gardens once we have the books.”
Memnet waved his hand and spoke a few words, and the daylight dimmed momentarily, as if dusk had arrived. As he walked away, the air shimmered around him, and it took concentration not to lose sight of him entirely. To the villagers and merchants who’d been materializing since the end of the battle to stare at its aftermath, it must have seemed as though the man had vanished.
Markal stared after him, imagining the master alone and attacking a pair of enemy encampments. He wanted to be there, to witness Memnet the Great in his full power—even the glimpse of it in this skirmish had been a glory to behold—but at the same time it cast his own feeble abilities into stark relief.
Jethro tugged on his sleeve. “The road may be cleared of marauders and dark acolytes, but there are still soldiers about. Let’s get moving.”
#
Chantmer met them just inside the city gates, appearing from a crowd of merchants hauling in wagons of salted cod from the east. He loomed, tall and severe, and wore a look of such agitation that Markal could only guess that something had gone wrong in the short period since the master had met him earlier that afternoon.
“Is everything all right?” Jethro asked. “Where is Karla, is she guarding the library?”
Chantmer ignored him and focused his scowl on Markal. “How could you? By what right would you do such a thing?”
Markal blinked. “How many months since we’ve seen each other? Aren’t you supposed to great me with a hearty ‘well met’?”
“There is no ‘well met,’ Markal. I heard what you did—the master told me!—and I demand answers.”
They were attracting attention, and Markal was annoyed. He tugged on the horse’s halter to get it moving, and pulled away from the fish merchants, the soldiers at the gate, the wine and bread sellers, and others who were always eager to separate the traveler from his coin. The empty wagon clattered briskly across the cobbled street. One of the city towers cast a shadow from the left, and a stretch of ramshackle wooden tenement buildings were on the right.
“Do you think I just handed Soultrup away?” Markal asked. “That when the marauders came, I gave them the sword with my blessing? We were attacked, repeatedly, from the sky and ground. Griffins, giants, marauders. We’re lucky we kept our heads, and yes, they took Soultrup. I’ll imagine it’s in the hand of that one-armed bastard now.” He glanced at Jethro, with his withered hand from the fight with the dark acolyte. “Apologies, Friend.”
“No worries,” the archivist said with a smile. “It’s not the hands or lack thereof that makes one a bastard.”
Chantmer stalked beside Markal and the cart horse with long strides. “I don’t care about the bloody sword, and you know it. Let the barbarians and the marauders fight over it—what does it matter to me?”
“In that case, I have no idea what you’re babbling about.” Markal knew his tone sounded as snooty as Chantmer’s, but he was tired and irritated and no longer cared.
“It’s an injustice is what it is. I have more power than Narud, more command than you, and more knowledge than Nathaliey.”
“Oh, so that’s it.”
“Yes, that damn well is it.”
“And I’ll tell you what really chafes, what is so preposterous that I can barely stand to say it aloud. Why did you get to make the pronouncement? You’d been declared a wizard all of what? A month? And suddenly you could elevate Nathaliey on your whim? How is that remotely just?”
“How about if I do the same for you? Right here, right now. Then there will be nothing to fight about. You’ll be a wizard, too. How wonderful!”
Chantmer wheeled on him, his eyes flashing. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. As if a pronouncement from you would carry any weight.”
“Seems to be having some effect at the moment.”
“You can’t simply declare me a wizard and have it mean something.”
“Everyone says that. Yet once it happens, it seems to take hold. So Memnet told you Nathaliey is a wizard, and that I made it so. And that he’s not planning to countermand my proclamation.”
“I protested, believe me. Quite vigorously. Memnet said that you were under great pressure, that it was a promotion on the field of battle, or some such rubbish. And that once it had happened, he wasn’t going to contradict you.”
“We’re more or less under battle conditions here and now. Here, how about if I just say it? Chantmer the Tall, you are hereby—”
“No! Don’t you dare.”
Jethro stifled a grin—none too effectively—and cleared his throat. “As someone who was assigned to the role of archivist—in spite of my desires to the contrary—I won’t claim that this argument is pointless. But wouldn’t the both of you agree that we have more pressing concerns at hand?”
Markal had been on the verge of goading Chantmer again, but now thought better of it. His companion in this ridiculous argument looked suddenly uncomfortable and stared straight ahead. Jethro glanced back and forth between them and sighed.
The Emerald Crown (The Red Sword Trilogy Book 3) Page 11
