Salvation (Scars of the Sundering Book 3)

by Hans Cummings

Because of their shared struggle to survive, Kale felt a bond stronger than blood provided and decided long ago he would never abandon his sister. He appreciated that his mate seemed to understand.

  As the outline of Muncifer appeared on the horizon, Kale steered the conversation toward more important subjects. “I doubt they’re going to let us just walk into the city carrying a dragon egg.”

  Katka clicked her fingers. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

  They set down the egg while the human outlined her plan. “They’ll be looking for trouble at the Iron Gate, so we should go around the city and enter from the opposite side at night.”

  Kali cocked her head. “Don’t they close those gates at night?”

  The human sorceress drew her wand and grinned. “Sure, but a little charm here and a little enchantment there, and they won’t notice us at all. Those who do won’t remember in the morning.”

  “That seems illegal.” Kale rubbed the back of his neck. He and his sister were no strangers to pulling pranks, but messing with minds went a step too far, in his opinion.

  Katka pursed her lips and stared at the ground. “It is, but it’s the only way to get the dragon egg in unseen. You three are small enough, and the streets will be deserted enough that you should be able to make it to the undercity unseen once we’re inside the gates.” She put her hand on the egg. “It’s not like we’re smuggling in anything dangerous. It’s a baby!”

  “Don’t get us wrong, Katka.” Delilah touched her friend on the arm. “We’re no strangers to bending the rules; we just want all to be aware of what we’re getting into.”

  “If we’re all in agreement, let’s get going.” Kale helped his sister pick up the egg, and they resumed their trek toward Muncifer. Skirting the city added almost a day to their trip. The sun hung low in the sky by the time they reached the hill overlooking the gate. Though it was the same gate by which the three draks entered the city with Pancras just a few months earlier, it seemed like a lifetime ago to Kale.

  ***

  “What’s taking so long?” Delilah tapped her foot as she stood over Katka. The young woman sat on the ground and dug through her pack. Earlier, they had moved off the road into the meadows surrounding the city. The grasses served to conceal their activities from the watchtowers surrounding the city gates.

  “This is great”—Katka waved her wand in the air, while continuing her search with one hand—“but I can give us a little insurance if I can find my grinder. I don’t suppose one of you has a small crystal or a gemstone or something like that? Damn, I wish I’d taken some from that dragon’s cave.”

  Kale produced a light-colored gemstone he retrieved from his pouch. “Will this work? What are you going to do with it?”

  “Perfect!” She withdrew a small metal box from her pack. Its hinged lid featured a crank handle. Katka opened it, dropped the gem inside, and cranked the handle. Delilah winced at the sound of the gem cracking and pulverizing in the mechanism.

  “Hey! I didn’t know you were going to crush it.” Kale gnashed his teeth.

  “Crushed gemstones help with charms of this type. Something about the glittering dust catches the eye and makes people more susceptible.” Katka poured the contents of the grinder into her hand and returned the machine to her pack. “It’s not needed, per se, but every bit helps when we’re trying to avoid the guards, right?”

  Delilah patted her brother on the shoulder. “Consider it an investment in the egg.”

  Kale huffed. “Warn me next time. That was an expensive one. Tourmaline, I think.”

  “All the better.” Katka kept the hand in which she held the gem dust tightly closed and hoisted her pack. “Let’s go.”

  They returned to the road, with Katka and Delilah leading the way. Kale and Kali carried the egg suspended in a cloak between them. Two guards stood on either side of the closed city gates, four in all. Stifling yawns, they crossed their spears as the three draks and young human approached them.

  “Hold there! No visitors after dark.”

  Delilah held up a clawed hand. “We’re students of the Arcane University. We were away on business for the archduke and the archmage.”

  Katka chuckled. “Believe us, we don’t want to be wandering around after dark.” She flung the gemstone dust into the air in front of her as she drew her wand. “Goe’tia prosopo eimaste kalyteroi filoi. We’d be daft to be out here like this. Let us in, won’t you?”

  The guards’ weapons drooped as their eyes followed the gem dust sparkling in the amber light cast by their lanterns. As it took on an emerald hue, their eyes widened.

  “You’d be daft to be out here in the dark.” The guard’s voice was a monotone. “Here, you’d best come inside.” He reached behind him to knock on the gate, but was too far. One of his comrades shuffled to the oaken doors and pounded on them. Gemstone dust glittered as it drifted about the guards’ heads.

  “Oy! Your shift ain’t up,” a muffled reply came from the other side of the gate.

  “Let them through, they—”

  “We’re on an urgent task from the archduke.” Delilah nudged the man at the gate.

  “These ones have urgent business with the archduke. Let ’em pass.”

  The gate cracked open, and a bearded man stuck his head out. “Here now…”

  Katka puffed, blowing some of the dust in his direction. “It’s all right. We don’t want to be out here. Let us in and we won’t be. There will be no problems at all.”

  He shook his head and blinked as the glittering dust danced around his head. “Right. No problem. Hey, you shouldn’t be out here after dark. Best come in now.”

  The guard pulled open the gate just wide enough for them to pass, ushering them in. “Hurry now, come on. Get home, young ’uns. I imagine your parents are worried sick.”

  Kali bowed her head as they passed. “Oh, they are. We’ll have a right stern talking to, no doubt. Thank you, sir.”

  The four shuffled through and picked up their pace as they heard the gate close behind them. Delilah risked a glance backward. When she was sure the guards no longer scrutinized them, she directed her companions into a shadowed alley.

  Under cover of darkness, Delilah led Kale, Kali, and Katka through the streets of Muncifer. Dashing from shadow to shadow while carrying a dragon egg nearly as big as an adult drak was no small feat. Sneaking past the guards at the city gates required judicious use of Katka's enchantment magic, a regrettable but necessary choice. Thus far, Delilah and her friends remained undetected by folk wandering the streets, and she intended to ensure it remained that way.

  Delilah feared what the archmage would do if he discovered she smuggled a dragon egg from the giants’ valley. Despite concerns over her brother’s sense of responsibility, she left the egg in the care of him and Kali. Kale promised to keep it safe and under lock and key. The desire to linger and examine the runed circle in the cavern below her brother’s house tempted her. Had Katka not already returned to the university, the drak sorceress would have remained behind.

  That can wait. It’s been there for gods-know how long; it will still be there next week. She chuckled in amusement at her unusual patience, then nodded a greeting to the sleepy guards at the gates of the Arcane University. You must be getting old, Deli-girl.

  Delilah crept past sleeping students in the barracks. When she reached her bunk, she noticed Katka already fast asleep. As she crawled into bed, she hoped the archmage, or someone, would see fit to move her out of the initiates’ barracks in the morning. An apprentice now, and having returned from her first assignment, she felt it fitting she be given a bit more privacy. Where initiates shared what amounted to a glorified bunkhouse, apprentices shared quarters with only one other apprentice. Delilah planned to ask the archmage about it during her meeting in the morning. Worry over the dragon egg, the implications of Pyraclannaseous’s death, and what the archmage was up to kept Delilah awake.

  The morning arrived far too early for the drak’s liking
. She felt as though she had barely fallen asleep by the time the wake-up bell rang. She rolled out of bed, and were it not for Katka catching her, would have fallen flat on her face. Delilah balled her fists into her eyes and yawned. The drak sorceress rushed to grab a bite to eat before presenting herself to the Council of Wizardry.

  Apart from the requisite guards, only the Red and Blue Wizards attended Archmage Vilkan. They conversed in low voices as Delilah approached, their words drowned out by the clicking of her clawed feet on the stone floor.

  “Hmm… my apprentice returns.”

  The archmage’s slow and deliberate pronunciation gave Delilah the impression that he hid his surprise.

  “What news have you from the giants?”

  “Nothing good, I’m afraid.” The drak sorceress considered her words. She didn’t want to give the archmage the impression she withheld information from him, but neither was she ready to reveal exactly what transpired when they visited the giant king. “The giants were unwilling negotiate. They were mourning the passing of their king, and no successor had yet been chosen.”

  The best lies contained a kernel of the truth, and while what Delilah told Archmage Vilkan omitted critical information, it did not contain any outright falsehoods. She suspected many of the giants in the village would mourn their king. Whatever madness held sway over him surely made the lives of the hard-working mountain folk difficult.

  The Blue Wizard turned to face the Red Wizard. “Ragnok, King Under the Mountain, is dead.”

  “King of the Iron Giants no more.”

  Archmage Vilkan raised his hand and called for silence. “Yes, yes. Good riddance. Tell me of his castle. The one across the lake?”

  Delilah swallowed. “We were not permitted entry.”

  “The dragon.” The human clenched his fist. “Tell me of the dragon. Did you see it?”

  What was left of it… and a broken wand. Her eyes flicked to the wand tucked into the archmage’s belt before returning to meet his gaze. “We saw no signs of a dragon. The mountains were still. If there’s one living in the caves near that village, it’s either sleeping or dead.”

  Archmage Vilkan furrowed his brow. “Who accompanied you?”

  The human clasped his hands behind his back and stared at her. His eyes bored into hers as though he sought to wrench the knowledge from her thoughts. Delilah tightened her grip on her staff and peered up at him. The longer she waited to answer, the deeper his frown became.

  “Novice Katka accompanied me.”

  His eyes grew wide as his fists clenched and unclenched. He crossed the distance between them in two great strides.

  “You said I could take what resources I needed. There’s safety in numbers.”

  The archmage reached forward, as though he intended to grab her collar, but as Delilah wore only a cloak, he clenched his fist before retracting his hand. He lowered his hands to his sides and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before opening them again.

  “What does she know of your mission?”

  Delilah cocked her head. “I told her that I was to deliver a message of truce and invitation to peace talks. That’s all.”

  As Archmage Vilkan contemplated her words, Delilah studied the wand tucked into his belt. The archmage’s proximity to her provided an excellent vantage with which to memorize its details, her head nearly eye-level to his waist. There was no guarantee, of course, that the archmage replaced his wand with one exactly like the broken one, if that was what transpired, but she noticed similarities between the wand he now wielded and the one her brother recovered from the campsite near the dragon’s lair.

  You never went there and you found nothing, Deli-girl. You have to believe it while you’re on university grounds.

  “Very well, Apprentice.” The archmage clasped his hands behind his back and returned to his chair. He sat, smoothing the front of his robes as he did so. “Tell me of the giants. How did they behave?”

  The drak sorceress scratched her chin. “I wouldn’t say they were friendly, but they weren’t hostile. I got the sense they didn’t want us to be there, but tradition or something demanded they be courteous. You know, like when you’re at a clan gathering and you see that cousin you hate, but can’t get into a fight with her because it’ll cause more trouble than it’s worth?”

  Delilah wagered Vilkan understood tension that sometimes occurred at family celebrations, and indeed might actually be the object of avoidance, given how he treated anyone he judged to be beneath him. However, she was not familiar enough with human relationships to know how they handled family politics. His nod indicated his understanding. He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair before leaning forward with a sigh.

  “Return to your duties. I shall call on you again tomorrow.” He reclined. “Or I won’t. I must contemplate this.”

  Content to leave Archmage Vilkan to his ruminations, she exited the Court of Wizardry. As an apprentice, most of her studies were self-guided, and since she had no other impending responsibilities, she took the opportunity to leave the university grounds and head into the city. She needed to inform her brother about her plan for dealing with the archmage.

  ***

  Kale awoke to the sound of the front door slamming shut. A meek “sorry” followed the clatter. Kali glared at him, bleary eyed and shoved him out of their bed to deal with the disturbance. He pulled the fur blankets with him, dumping them in a pile at his side as he grinned at his cursing mate.

  He shuffled down the hallway and into the front room that served as a storefront for Ori, their limner tenant. The dark-blue drak, sat behind the counter, hunched over an open codex. He dipped his quill into a vial of ink and glanced up as Kale turned the corner.

  “Oh! I thought you might be back but wasn’t sure. Did I wake you?”

  Rubbing his eyes, Kale yawned and nodded. “We returned late last night.”

  “Oh. How did you get in the city? Don’t they lock the gates at night?”

  “It wasn’t easy.” He peered at the book Ori illuminated. Verses written in flowing script covered the page.

  “Oh, just a book of poetry. Some noble wants it embellished to give as a gift for a lady he’s courting.” He set down his quill and spun the book to give Kale a better look. “He must be desperate; he didn’t even haggle over the price I quoted. I always start at double my normal rate.”

  Ori flipped through the book, showing Kale the work he’d completed so far. The striped drak admitted he knew little about art, but Ori’s work appeared intricately ornate, fluid, even to his untrained eyes.

  “Good? All right, I’m going back to sleep, Ori. If anyone comes looking for us, we’re not back yet. Not until Kali and I get up.” He didn’t wait for Ori’s response or acknowledgement before he shuffled off to bed.

  Kali had pulled the pile of furs onto her side, leaving Kale a bare spot on the pelts that covered their bed. The drak flopped alongside her, resting his head on a thick area near his mate’s face. Since growing wings and gaining the ability to breathe fire, he found he didn’t need the furs wrapped around him to stay warm.

  When he awoke again, ambient light streaming from the storefront told him it was mid-morning. Kali’s soft, steady breathing indicated she was still asleep. After rolling away from her, he padded down the hallway to the door that led to the cavern below. He unlocked it and entered the staircase, closing and locking the door behind him. Certain the egg was safe—the traps and alarms he and his sister set would wake the dead—he sought only the peace of mind that came with visual confirmation, and he felt he owed it to Terrakaptis to give the egg as much attention as possible.

  Chapter 3

  Delilah ran through the undercity toward her brother’s home, dodging pedestrians, ignoring vendors hawking their wares, and ignoring calls from the guards to slow her pace. She narrowly missed running into a potato cart, and the tawny-furred minotaur pushing it cursed and shook his fist at her as he stopped to pick up potatoes dislodged by his sudden stop.r />
  When she arrived at her brother’s home, she stopped short when, through the window, she spied the blue drak, Ori, already at work. She groaned and peered through the dusty glass searching for her brother. He was nowhere to be seen, so she steeled herself, breathed, and pushed the door open.

  “Oh, Delilah!” Ori set down his quill, hopped off his stool, and sped around the counter to bow to her. “I’m so pleased you have returned.”

  Her patience with the overeager drak waned. “Where’s my brother?”

  “He’s”—Ori looked over his shoulder—“he’s not back yet.”

  Delilah’s impatience turned to concern. He should be back… Where in the name of Maris’s bloody spear could he be? Her eyes narrowed as she regarded Ori. “What do you mean? Where is he? We returned together. He should be here.”

  She pushed past the limner, intending to search every corner of the house before initiating a city-wide search.

  He grasped her arm. “No, you can’t! Please, he’s not back yet. He should be soon, but not yet.”

  Delilah spun on him, yanking her arm from his hold. She drove her staff into his chest, pushing up his head with the skull. Azure tendrils formed in the air and swirled around the top of her staff.

  “What’s your game? Where’s my brother?”

  Ori whimpered and backpedaled, stopping with his back against the counter. At times like this, Delilah wished for a pointier focus on the end of her staff, rather than that old lizard skull. Any destructive forces she channeled through it into the blue drak would certainly kill him, and until she located her brother, that was not an option.

  “Where. Is. My. Brother?” She punctuated her words by jabbing the skull into Ori’s chin. His eyes widened with fear; the blue drak sputtered and stammered, unable to string together enough words to form a coherent sentence.

  The drak sorceress’s patience with the fool expired. There were spells that would coerce Ori into talking, but it frustrated her that she knew none of them. As she prepared to bash him under the chin with her staff, she heard the creak of the cellar door and spun to confront this new threat.