Shadowmage

by Max Keith

  Shadowmage

  Raxillene's Rogues: Book Four

  Max Keith

  Uruk Press

  Uruk Press

  Great Britain

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  © Max Keith 2017

  All rights reserved.

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Cover by Arthur Asa.

  Also from Max Keith

  Raxillene's Rogues

  "A Man Needs A Whore, So..." in Sex & Sorcery 3

  Everybody Loves A Bard

  The Valkyrie

  Too Many Bad Days

  Shadowmage

  From Biggest Blade Books

  Gym Wife

  Fool Me One

  Open Wide

  IOU

  Frenemies

  Also from Max Keith

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Introducing Uruk Press

  Uruk Novellas

  Uruk Press - Fantasy

  One

  The fortress was like an anthill from up here, boiling with people: the garrison, of course, neatly armored imperials striding manfully around like their cocks were eleven feet long, thrusting everyone else out of the way. The Emperor’s officials, the diplomats and inspectors and such, did not usually wait to be shoved: they were too oily, sliding around among the stone towers and the daub huts alike, dotting the fortress here and there with their heavy cloaks and their big disc-shaped pendants of office, glittering in the low sun like so many crossbow targets.

  No, most of the ants wore dark seedy cloaks and dull caps, the detritus of any army: drunks and opportunists of every stripe, selling whatever it was soldiers would buy. Wine, blankets, sandwiches, beer, horseshoes, blades, brandy, salvation, and cunt. Always cunt, even with the Royals laying a siege outside. Last time Poildrin had been inside the Starkhorn there had been no fewer than seven official whorehouses within the walls and probably another dozen unofficial ones, usually disguised as bakeries. Those particular bakeries always had long lines outside, and the baking girls never seemed to know how to make decent pastries.

  They were good at kneading, though. Very deft hands.

  Poildrin had spent weeks inside the great Starkhorn fortress over the years, when the Royals had held it. He’d been an advisor, an observer, a spy, and an inspector. He’d stood beneath its high walls, cut from the mountain itself and frowning down dark and stony like a man with a recalcitrant dog. He’d passed many times through the massive gate-tunnel with its barbican and its murder holes, and he’d always felt like a flea beneath their overpowering arched magnificence.

  Now he was outside, though, and looking down at an angle he’d never seen before. He was behind the Starkhorn, above it really, perched high on the mountain as though he’d been pinned there by a boy making a model. Their canvas shelter was hooked before a hollow carved out of the rock to make a shallow little cave, floored with grass sparse as an old man’s hair. From up here, he could see everything, the view really breathtaking if he’d been in any sort of mood to appreciate it.

  The mountains, brooding behind him thick and solid like a lead weight, finally ended here, right before him, where the fortress guarded the Road. From the right, somewhere among the tangled little peaks and hills out west, the River Gethell rolled out of the mountains with a sense of loud, eager purpose, still fast and bubbly up here before it calmed down in the plains. It gurgled across his view, disappearing before the walls, before it glittered on into the hazy southeast down near where the village of Shiffe squatted sullenly beneath its little mountain, now visible only by the smoky stains of the morning cookfires.

  The land down there disappeared into a haze, the villages and farms of the Isthmus hidden by the distance. But nearer at hand the Starkhorn dominated everything, its outer walls as sheer as the rest of the peak, the whole big, drafty complex dug and mined from the stone of the mountain itself. Breathtaking, with the sunlight fretting over the spearpoints of sentinels who paced the walls, trying tediously to keep warm.

  They’d been less bored two days before, though. Poildrin and his friends had arrived in the night, and through his little watch-glass he’d seen the Royal Army come, slogging through its own murky cloud of flinty brown dust. He’d not been the only one: that day, the walls had been jammed with every ant in the fortress, all staring out to watch the approach of their erstwhile doom.

  That army was drawn up now, a thin but solid line of men and tents and horses, fouling the Gethell more and more with each day they shat in it. Long ago the Royal Army had learned that siege towers and undermining were useless here; the Starkhorn had only ever been taken by stealth, or by puncturing that front gate. Even now, the King’s commander was picking the second option: a massive wheeled ram was rising above the largest tent, and of course the ants would be more than ready by the time it was all built.

  Poildrin and his little band of smelly, bad-tempered brigands needed to get to that army. So they’d be walking right through that teeming Imperial anthill.

  * * *

  It had started, this whole fucking misbegotten adventure, with a crabby Imperial agent and a bad, bad headache.

  It really was killing him, maintaining the charm all day. Aimee, of course, noticed the wincing twist of his mouth and narrowed her squinty eyes even further, the pair of them looking like nothing more than slits. “I’ll dig out more feverfew,” she said indifferently. Then, she frowned. “Plus some peppermint this time.”

  Poildrin Franx disliked being waited on, and positively hated being taken care of. “No need. I’m fine.”

  “Cowshit.” Aimee spat down from her horse. “You haven’t said a sarcastic thing all morning. And that’s how I know you’re really suffering, Franx.”

  He scowled. “Fuck off, then.”

  Aimee grinned joylessly. “See? That’s the mage I know.” She burrowed through the saddlebag in front of her legs, her mind rolling over the difficult question of whether she should wait until their next halt and brew a tea, or simply shove the medicinals into his mouth and sew his lips together until he’d swallowed. “Here,” she said eventually, holding out a citrus-smelling sachet. “You do what you want with this.”

  “Thanks,” he scowled, but she was only trying to help. They’d been twisting their way between slaty peaks for three days, raveling their way into the Black Mountains the way a tapeworm bores into its host.

  “If it’ll stop you from glancing around like a man with a shriveled cock, it’ll be worth it,” she shot back, thoroughly sick of him. Poildrin Franx shrugged; Aimee had no clue, of course, the effort it took to disguise a person as ugly as Traxtell. Gods, the woman weighed twenty-five stone! Poildrin had spent days focusing his charm so that she’d look like a petite dancer-for-hire as they passed along the twisting paths north of the Starkhorn. Such a joy it would be to get rid of her scabby, unpleasant presence! His charm had shifted her appearance well enough, but it did nothing to relieve their party of either her sour disposition or her excessive flatulence. “We’ve got hours to go until dark,” she reminded him, pressing the sachet against his chest.

  “Shit.” Nighttime meant he could relax and let the fucking woman slide back into her normal shape. He sniffed at the little bag and sighed. “You’ll get me addicted to this,” he complained.

  “If it’ll shut you up, I’m not sure that’s so bad.” The healer’s smile was acrid as she nudged her horse aside. “You’re no good to any of us if you can’t concentrate,” she threw over her shoulder, and of course that was the problem: far too much of
this job rested squarely on the mage’s narrow shoulders, and he was starting to be sick of it.

  Sick of more than just this job, if he was being honest. The truth, as he’d known for years, was that the disguise charm he’d cast over Traxtell was nothing compared to the deeper, less magical disguise he’d been wearing himself for many years now. He’d spent weeks in difficult places and dire situations, letting everyone think he knew all the answers, all the time.

  Bunk. It was a lie, an act he’d put on ever since the Mage College, an air of unflappable aloofness they trained into a man just as a rider trains his horse. It was the stamp of a proper education, they said, and a valuable form of job security. If the whole world knew that mages always had all the answers, they’d gladly keep hiring them.

  If the commoners knew how mages behaved among themselves… Poildrin shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about. So he kept up the act and played the game, but lately it was all starting to get a bit stale.

  And, of course, the fucking storm clouds were gathering again in the east, a bitter little wind sheeting between the peaks and teasing at his robes. Too much. His advisor at the Mage College, Torsel Peewin, had always remarked how odd it was, that physical discomfort so often went together with mental. It was almost as if one of them caused the other, though Poildrin knew that couldn’t be true. Surely no headache of his, however severe, was strong enough to summon a storm from the distant Sea. No way.

  He was tired of it all, anyway. Tired of rain and of headaches both, and he didn't much care today what happened to either of them in the end. So he sighed, pulled his hood up against the rain and crammed the sachet into his mouth against the splitting between his ears. Sensing his mood, his horse bowed its head and barely got its hooves off the stony trail as they pushed deeper into the mountains. Fuck, even the riding was poor: no broad, fat galloping across lovely soft green turf, this. The mountain paths were dodgy in the extreme, the horses slipping in a sickening way out over rocky brush-choked cliffs, the trickle of water chiming far below. It was a world of grey skies, grey rock, and grey moods.

  In front of him, leading the line, rode Alorin the Free Fighter, tall in the saddle with her usual spare, silent manner, her head swiveling evenly and her shortsword loose at her hip. More grey there, too, her smoke-colored eyes roving the rocks. He looked idly at her ass, shifting easily with the swaying gait of her horse, but unusually the sight did nothing to ease Franx’ restless mind; intruding, as it had for days, was the thin high whine of Traxtell, grating up from behind him. “How much farther, mage?”

  Ahead, those grey Lammorel eyes flitted into view over the fighter’s shoulder, unreadable to the whiny Traxell but speaking volumes to Poildrin. They disappeared just as swiftly. “To where?” Three days past, Poildrin had still been treating the traitor with courtesy, if not warmth; by now the massive Imperial had worn out that welcome.

  “Mind your tone.” That’s how the trouble had started, of course, her treating them as though they were servants rather than escorts. “I’ll not stand impertinence.” And then she came, heaving up on the sturdiest horse Poildrin had ever seen. He felt for the beast.

  “You’ll not stand anywhere, then,” the mage replied shortly, and he heard Aimee laugh behind Traxtell’s bulk. “There’s a waterfall up ahead, by the sound; we’ll halt there, rest the horses, and figure out where we are.”

  “I thought you knew.” He heard venom in that voice, then an unpleasant gurgle as the traitor hawked and spat; he didn’t care to see where the spittle had landed. “Some guide you are.”

  “Some guide I am not. We’re paid to escort you, not to guide you.” He paused precisely. “Your excellency.”

  “Noted,” she snapped dryly; he’d heard she was capable of sarcasm severe enough to leave senior diplomats in tears. “It’s just that it would be a shame to run into one of my dear cousin’s patrols, out here in the wild with no help.”

  “We’re our own help,” Poildrin said shortly. “And believe me, Excellency, the charm is working. You look nothing like yourself. A patrol would find nothing but a filthy band transporting wool to the market at Berridge.” He smiled. “With a dancer in tow.”

  “With a guard.” Traxtell stared at Alorin’s sword, and at the helm dangling ready at her saddle horn. “A formidable-looking guard, for a load of wool.”

  The mage turned in the saddle and squinted back at where Firkis brought up the rear with his big, broad-bladed axe. He considered a moment, then decided she was right. “These are dangerous times.”

  Traxtell paused delicately. “Filthy, though. You're right about that.” She looked pointedly at the mage’s smudged grey cloak. Poildrin issued another thin, painful smile as he turned back around.

  “Be glad, your Excellency,” he half-muttered, “that you can’t see yourself.” He’d worked hard on this charm, thinking long about what he should make her look like, deciding how he could insult her without seeming to. He’d settled on the pleasure-dancer after an evening in the bars over at the coast, where they’d picked her up. The girls there had been superb, and it amused the mage to turn the gross and ugly Traxtell into a sylph. Already she’d been propositioned twice on the road, both times by coarse flint knappers, and she’d been completely astonished each time; it was clear that there had never been a moment in her life that she’d ever been desired, and she had no idea how to handle it. Aimee and Poildrin had shared a snicker both times.

  He’d told Traxtell she looked like a simple farmwife.

  “I’m filthy too?” She saw through him, of course, but that was just one more thing he couldn’t have cared less about. “I doubt that, mage.” She’d seen the way the flint knappers had looked at her. “Your friend the Princess fucking Raxillene will hear about your conduct, of that you can be certain.”

  “As you say,” Poildrin shrugged, and ahead he noticed Alorin’s shoulders shaking with laughter. At Traxtell or at himself, he did not know. Nor care, really. “Will you be leaving us as soon as we arrive at Berridge, madam?” he asked, not bothering to conceal his eagerness. The horse slipped, sending a chunk of rock spinning into oblivion; it was only with difficulty that Poildrin kept from showing so much as a widening of the eyes, and he was still congratulating himself when Firkis’ voice came booming from behind.

  “Rider!” It was all anyone needed to hear, Aimee and Firkis casting a cool glance at the pack mule between them to make sure the heaped wools still looked like heaped wools; the various pointy objects hidden within were better off hidden. Everyone composed themselves, and the mage gave a critical glance to see how his charm was holding up.

  “He can pass us at the waterfall,” he mused, and ahead of them Alorin picked up her pace.

  Riders here were not uncommon, exactly; they got passed three, perhaps four times a day. But this was still a remote and lawless part of the Empire, every bit as lawless as the worst of the Realm, and the Princess had sent them to make it even more lawless.

  The job this time was complex and painful, and Poildrin did not expect it to succeed. The Princess usually had success back home in the Realm, but when she sent her people into the Empire it never went well. One of her many mysterious correspondents had tipped her off that Lady Traxtell, a cousin of the Emperor himself, was interested in betraying the Empire’s hold on the Starkhorn fortress, key to the southern passes and perpetual thorn in whichever side did not hold it.

  Which seemed to depend on the season: the Starkhorn had been captured, recaptured, surrendered, abandoned, and besieged more times than even the Chroniclers could remember. Even now the King’s forces marched to surround the place, the Imperials within furiously storing grain in its fabled caverns, sending foragers out untouchably northward to requisition the meager bounty of the villages there.

  What Lady Algar of Traxtell had proposed to the Princess was nothing less than the abandonment of the fortress itself, to be accomplished by a little grey lie she would tell to the garrison commander. The lie would concern certain c
onsiderations he was to offer to his Royal besiegers, after which he and his Imperials would shrug and march away into the Southern Rump, back to whatever homes they had, while the Royal commander moved his men happily into the Starkhorn. The King’s banner would rise, his son the Regent would congratulate himself on possession of the fortress, and his daughter Raxillene would control the place behind the scenes, for her own ends.

  Naturally, Traxtell’s cousin the Emperor would not be pleased by any of that, so she planned to be gone from there before he ever found out.

  Poildrin was responsible for getting her to Berridge, at the foot of the road leading to the fortress, where they would drop the disguise (thank God) and turn her loose to do her bit at the Starkhorn. After that, the Princess’ instructions were explicit: wait until the surrender while inciting the villagers around the Starkhorn to make life difficult for the garrison, then pay off those same villagers to stop making life difficult once the King’s boys took over. Then grab Traxtell and take her into the Borderlands, where she’d been told a nice keep had been purchased for her.

  In reality, the odious traitor would meet one of Alorin’s knives at some handy point along the mountain trails. So, in a way, Traxtell’s plans were destined, in a way, to be fulfilled: she’d be gone before the Emperor heard about anything.

  Poildrin forced himself not to look back at the rider aiming to pass them; people assumed mages knew odd and unusual things, such as the identity of strangers on the road, and every mage felt the need to preserve assumptions like that. They taught a class on that at the College, but not until the senior year. Besides, Firkis was capable of dealing with any trouble; they hadn't brought the burly smith for his sparkling personality, which he lacked utterly. Even now, Poildrin could hear short, stumplike answers as the newcomer tried to engage the smith in conversation. The roar of the waterfall swelled.