“Seneschal Connor.” A man in his middle years with graying reddish hair moved to greet him. “We were wondering when your duties would permit you to come our way.” The man spared him a tired smile. “I’m Berus,” he said, and swept an arm to indicate the rows of cells. “And this is as close as you’ll ever want to come to the Unseen Realm.
“Come with me,” Berus said, leading the way through the narrow corridor. The stone around them was dark with moisture and mold, and a smell lingered, the odor of wounds gone bad.
“The night that Westbain fell to our forces, Lord Penhallow ordered the healers to see to the prisoners in the dungeons.” Berus shook his head. “As you can imagine—or if you’re lucky, maybe you can’t—things were very bad down here.”
“I’m actually surprised that Reese’s men left anyone alive—or sane,” Connor said.
Berus nodded soberly. “Had talishte soldiers not intervened as quickly as they did, I’m certain Reese’s men had orders to kill all the prisoners. Even so, for some, it was too late.”
Connor looked at the scarred and bandaged men who lay on pallets in the cells. Most were missing an ear or several fingers, marks of the torturer’s craft. A few sat head in hands, rocking and moaning to themselves. “What about them?” Connor asked.
Berus sighed. “Our healers and mages will try everything within their power to heal them. If that is impossible, they will make sure that their passage to the Sea of Souls is painless.”
“Were you able to learn anything?” Connor asked.
Berus gave him a skeptical glance. “Are you serious? Any information these men might have had is buried beneath so much pain that it will be amazing if they remember their names. Reese broke them physically. Talishte read their blood and glamoured them into collaborating against their will. Then when magic was restored, Reese used it to strip out any remaining information and leave the husks behind.”
Connor knew what it was like to have a talishte read his blood. He did not want to imagine how it would be to have that process done by force. He stared at the prisoners with a mixture of pity and horror.
“Let me know if there’s anything you need,” Connor said, looking at the dying prisoners and the healers laboring to ease their pain. “If I can get it for you, I will.”
Connor trudged up the stone steps from the dungeon deep in thought. He was halfway up the steps when he heard a crash overhead and the manor felt as if it rocked on its foundation. Above and below him, he heard people cry out in shock and fear. A flurry of dust rained down on him. Connor began to take the steps two at a time, bursting from the entrance to the lower floors into a crowd of servants who were huddled toward the back of the manor’s first floor.
“What’s going on?” Connor demanded. Some of the younger maids were crying. Several of the men were bleeding from gashes on their faces and chests. Everyone was covered in dust. He saw a heap of rubble partially blocking the main entrance to the manor.
“Don’t know, m’lord,” Orwin, one of the kitchen boys replied. “We heard a loud noise, and the rock in the front of the manor came tumbling down. Nearly killed Ned over there,” he said, and nodded toward where another of the kitchen boys sat against the wall while the cook tried to bandage a cut on his scalp.
Penhallow would not be awake for several candlemarks, Connor thought. Aurick’s the only one who might know more—and he’s out there.
Another crash shook the manor, shattering glass and bringing down a chunk of ceiling plaster. Connor growled a stream of curses. He turned to Orwin. “Get everyone down belowground. Go!”
He spotted two of the men who hauled supplies for the kitchen staff. “You there. Help me move the wounded.”
Connor and the other two men began sifting through the heavy plaster, throwing the rubble off two women who had been caught beneath the collapse. One of them, a scullery maid, cradled a broken arm. The other woman was heaving for breath.
“Gentle!” he admonished his helpers as the maid cried out when one of the men tried to lift her. “There are healers in the dungeon. You’ll all be safer belowground.”
“The dungeon! I’m not going down there!” The maid’s eyes widened in terror. No doubt rumors of what became of Reese’s prisoners had been whispered among the servants.
“If you stay up here, I can’t promise more of the manor won’t fall on you,” Connor replied. “Everyone else has gone below.”
“You won’t make us stay down there, will you?” The maid began to wail and fight against the man trying to help her to the steps.
Connor grabbed her by her good shoulder. “Once the fighting’s over, you can all come up again. Now, get down there!”
Connor turned back toward the manor’s entrance. Another crash made him lose his footing, but he struggled to remain standing.
We’re getting pounded by a catapult, Connor thought. But whose forces want Westbain?
He chafed at not being able to find Aurick and learn what was going on, but Connor knew his first responsibility was to get the servants to safety and secure the manor from fire. The front hall was full of rubble from where part of the ceiling had fallen, and the large windows in the great room left a hail of shattered glass on the floor.
“Get to shelter!” Connor shouted as he ran down the hallway. “Go belowground. You’re not safe up here!” Dull thuds outside gave Connor to suspect that Aurick’s men were returning fire. Connor glimpsed servants emerging from their hiding places under tables and in wardrobes, clinging to each other in twos and threes, making their way toward the steps to the lower levels. He paused in the kitchen long enough to make sure that the fires were banked. The last thing we need is a house fire, he thought.
Connor paused at the bottom of the stairs to the second floor. He had intentionally headed for the servants’ stairs since they were in the back of the manor and had only a few small windows, making them less exposed than the sweeping staircase in the front entrance. Another loud crash made the floor shake beneath his feet. He heard glass break, and winced at the sound of something fragile smashing to the floor.
Connor’s heart was thudding as he sprinted up the steps. He reached the second floor and kept low, staying to the center of the corridor, hoping that if the manor took another hit, any debris would fall before they could break through the manor walls. A gust of cold wind blasted across the hall, and he knew that at least some of the rooms had lost the glass in their windows.
Connor dove into his room and grabbed his cuirass and helmet from a trunk at the bottom of his bed. He had not expected to need his armor once they reached Westbain, and had felt uncomfortable wearing his sword at all times. Now he was glad his armor was handy and that his sword already hung from a scabbard at his belt. Connor stayed low as he strapped on his cuirass. He pulled on his helmet, and crawled over to the window, daring to look out onto the front of the manor.
From this vantage point, Connor could see that a force of approximately a hundred soldiers had brought two catapults into position on the other side of Westbain’s wall, just beyond the partially constructed earthworks and dry moat. While the barriers worked to keep the invaders at a distance, they also made it more difficult for Aurick’s soldiers to get close to the opposing side.
The soldiers Traher Voss had left behind to guard and rebuild Westbain were seasoned veterans, both from the Meroven War and from skirmishes with brigands and rival warlords. Aurick’s men numbered about the same as the invaders, and Connor could see that they had taken up positions within what remained of the manor’s walls. It was obvious that Aurick had rebuilt with an eye toward defense. Catapults that Connor did not know existed had been rolled out to respond to the attack. Soldiers manned the barricades that filled in the broken places in the defensive walls.
“I need to get out there. I’m not doing any bloody good up here,” Connor muttered, keeping low as he ran for the corridor and down the steps.
He dodged down the second-floor corridor, wondering whether the mages ha
d gotten to safety or whether they were out with the troops. Inside the workroom, he found Alsibeth hunched over a scrying bowl while Caz helped Rolf prepare for a working with a length of rope to set a warded area and candles to mark the quarters.
“Bevin! What are you doing here?” Caz looked alarmed.
“I could ask the same. I’m trying to make sure everyone in the house gets to safety. And you’re not safe here,” Connor replied. He looked around. “Where are the rest of the mages?”
“The others volunteered to go out with Aurick’s men. We needed more tools than we could haul with us, so we stayed behind,” Rolf said.
“What can I do to help?” Connor asked.
Rolf shook his head. “You’re not a mage.”
“Maybe not, but I can still lend a hand.” He glanced out the window. “Can you tell who’s attacking us?” Connor asked. He had not been able to identify either uniforms or flags from the soldiers he had seen from the window, and he wondered if the force arrayed against them was organized enough to even have insignia.
“It appears to be Karstan Lysander,” Alsibeth replied without looking up from the shallow bowl filled with water that held her attention. “I’m trying to see whether there are reinforcements coming, but I can’t see clearly.”
“Lysander?” Connor echoed. “I thought he was staying unaligned.”
“Apparently not,” Rolf replied. “If you’re going to stay, come over here. We need a third person to triangulate the power.”
Connor went to the place Rolf pointed. He had watched enough of Blaine’s preparation at Valshoa to recognize that Rolf had set a warded area with rope and salt around their work space. “What are we doing?” Connor asked.
Rolf spared a look from his preparations. “There’s a mob out there—but we don’t think it’s a true army. All of Alsibeth’s scryings point to Lysander, and he may be recruiting and provisioning these people, but either he’s not much of a warlord, or they’re not his real forces. Take a look.”
Connor moved to the window and tried to get a better view without putting himself at risk. Before, he had only focused on the size of the force. Now, bearing Rolf’s comments in mind, Connor could see that the enemy ‘soldiers’ looked more like a riot than any kind of disciplined military force. The crowd shouted curses and jabbed their swords and torches into the air with fervor, but the longer Connor watched, the less organized the mob appeared.
“Someone’s provided them with weapons, and those catapults aren’t something angry villagers put together,” Connor said. “They’re military equipment.”
“As I said, Lysander could well be provisioning them and whipping them into a frenzy,” Rolf replied.
“Soldiers or not, those catapults are doing some real damage to the manor,” Connor noted. “We’ve got several servants with injuries.”
“But that’s all they’re doing—loading the catapult,” Rolf pointed out. “There’s no move to scale the earthworks, no split force to attack the flank—nothing I’d expect from a real military commander.”
“Then why the attack?”
“Lysander could be using mobs to find his rivals’ weaknesses,” Alsibeth said, raising her gaze from the pool of water. “It’s a cynical—and rather brilliant—move, assuming you don’t mind sacrificing large numbers of peasants in the process.”
Connor stared back at her. “You think he’s deliberately whipping up the people to riot, knowing that many of them will die, to soften up his enemies, and then his troops can sweep in behind and take the fortress with fewer casualties?”
“Exactly,” Alsibeth replied.
“The Tingur,” Connor said, remembering the rabble who had confronted Aurick. He looked to Alsibeth and Rolf. “What if Lysander has convinced the Tingur to fight for him as some kind of holy war, in Torven’s name? Penhallow and Blaine have the support of the Knights of Esthrane. That would make them the Tingur’s enemies, if they serve Torven.” In all of Donderath’s stories of their gods, Torven and Esthrane were rivals for Charrot’s attention. And while Esthrane was willing to curtail her power, Torven was prone to chaos and self-interest.
Rolf nodded soberly. “That would be a clever way to get someone else to do his dirty work. Lysander wouldn’t be the first to use a mob for his own purposes.”
Outside, Connor heard the answering thuds of Aurick’s catapults. The Great Fire and Penhallow’s previous bombardment had left the troops with no small amount of rubble to be used as ammunition. Each time the catapults would send a deadly hail of rock, wood, and debris flying toward the mob, a few people would fall, the crowd would scatter and then regroup, angrier than before.
“I hope we’re right,” Rolf said, “because if they’re not trained soldiers, that opens up some opportunities.”
“Like what?” Connor asked.
Rolf grinned. “Real soldiers will hold their positions. Let’s see how disciplined the mob really is.”
Another crash shook the manor. “If you think there’s something we can do to help, we’d better start while the manor is still standing,” Connor said.
Rolf nodded. “Very well. Step over the cord and salt—mind not to disturb them. We’re going to try some battle-mage tricks, and see if our new artifacts will help.”
Connor and Caz got into position, and Rolf closed the circle. He held up a glass pyramid. “We’ve been working with this piece for a while, and it’s been fairly stable.”
“Fairly?” Connor challenged.
Rolf ignored him. “I’m going to start with something irritating but harmless—fleas.” He grinned. “Let’s see how well the Tingur hold their places.” He looked to Connor and Caz. “The sending part of this is a little tricky—that’s why I need the two of you for me to draw energy from.”
“What do we need to do?” Connor asked.
“Relax—if you can. Be willing to open your minds to me,” Rolf instructed. “Chant with me—it will bring your energy into alignment with mine. I’ll use the pyramid to concentrate the magic and redirect it, and if everything goes as it should, every flea in the area should feel compelled to descend on our visitors.”
Connor took a deep breath as Rolf began to chant. Caz joined in a moment later, and Connor did his best to follow their lead. Outside, the pounding of the catapults continued, although the attackers seemed to need longer to regroup from the last round of bombardment from Aurick’s men.
Everyone seems to want to drain something from me, Connor thought. The mages want energy. Penhallow wants blood, and the Wraith Lord wants my body. He forced the sour thoughts away, focusing instead on taking deep, regular breaths until he felt his body relax a bit and his attention was diverted from the sounds of fighting outside.
“Keep chanting,” Rolf instructed. “I’m going to make the working now.” Connor focused on repeating the same words and cadence as Caz, trying to block out what Rolf was saying so as not to get distracted. Rolf’s chant was a counterpoint, and within the wardings, Connor could feel power building.
Connor wasn’t a mage, but he had been in the presence of strong magic many times. He knew its signature. The hair on his arms and on the back of his neck seemed to be standing on end. His skin prickled as it did when lightning was about to strike nearby. Connor felt the blood rush in his ears. As Rolf spoke the words of power, it seemed as if the air suddenly rushed out of the warded space, leaving it still and drained.
A sudden tiredness washed over Connor. Caz staggered, and Connor reached out to steady him. “I’m fine,” Caz assured him, but Connor thought the young mage looked pale.
“Your magic worked,” Alsibeth said, a hint of pride in her voice. “Let’s see how many folks stick around for the fight when they’re scratching themselves raw.”
Rolf released the warding. Caz found a chair while Connor edged up to the window. Even at a distance, he could hear cries going up from the rival force, and although he could not see exactly what was going on, the people on the other side seemed to be milling arou
nd more than before. He chuckled. “If we can run them off, it’s a damn sight better than killing them, especially if they’re not real soldiers,” he said.
“That’s my thought, but if they come back, we’ll have to step things up a notch,” Rolf replied.
They waited. As Connor watched, some of the crowd trickled away down the side streets and alleys, perhaps hoping to get away from the fleas. “It’s working,” Connor reported. “There are fewer people out there than there were a couple of minutes ago.”
“And it’s taking them longer to fire back,” Caz pointed out. “That’s a good thing.”
Aurick had taken advantage of the lull. He stepped up his bombardment, lobbing whatever he could find toward the mob, hoping, Connor was certain, to break their resolve.
“Uh-oh,” Connor said. “They’re reloading.”
From what Connor could see, about a third of the mob had disbanded, but the ones who stayed had returned to their post, regardless of the discomfort. “What in Raka are they loading up?” Connor wondered as he watched the catapult crews struggle to lift two squirming sacks of burlap into the mechanisms.
“We’ve got to stop those launches,” Alsibeth said suddenly. She looked down, intently focused on her scrying bowl. “I don’t know what’s in them, but it’s deadly. Rolf—what can you do?”
Rolf deliberated for only a moment before he snatched down what looked to Connor to be a metal-and-glass lantern from a shelf filled with a hodgepodge of artifacts and magical objects. “Get back into the circle,” Rolf commanded, his tone grim. “I’m going to see if I can channel fire and burn those bags out of the sky.”
“We haven’t vetted that piece yet,” Caz pointed out worriedly.
“No time like the present,” Rolf replied. With Connor and Caz in place, Rolf hurriedly raised the warding.
“You don’t know it will work the way it should,” Caz protested.
Rolf fixed him with a pointed glare. “Then it’ll be on my head if it doesn’t. All you two need to do is chant.”
War of Shadows: Book Three of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga Page 20
