by Glenda Larke
The oak. They’d used the oak sap on the kris blade, but had not yet utilised the wood.
His frantic gaze located Barden’s staff. It showed no signs of life. Even if it had, none of them had the strength to wield it. No, wait. That didn’t matter. It had to be a combination of sakti and witchery.
He couldn’t move. Sorcerous power pinned him to the spot.
“Barden. The staff…” It took the last of his strength to whisper the words. “To the Avian!”
And Barden, the old man who had dreamed of having a Shenat witchery all his life, disregarded by Fox, heard and responded. He crept forward on his hands and knees, pushing the oaken staff along with his gnarled hand.
The Avian fought on, clawing and stabbing with its beak while Fox sent waves of corrosive darkness to eat away its insubstantial flesh. He could see it, blackness eating into the plumes, the skin of its legs… Feathers flew, blood streamed, the bird screeched its hate and Fox raged.
Saker saw Ardhi through a blur. The lascar was dragging himself upright, panting, groaning, inch by painful inch until he climbed to his feet, swaying.
Barden edged on. When he reached out with his staff, trying to touch Fox, he fell flat. Even then, he didn’t give up. He pushed it until it nudged at the bird’s foot. Golden light, the colour of a low afternoon sun, rippled across the Avian’s feet. It looked down, saw the staff and gave a ringing cry of challenge, that flawless liquid song they had all heard carolled across the Chenderawasi forest. The Avian bent and clasped the staff in the dewclaws of its right wing.
Fox stared, unable to believe what he was seeing as the bird tossed the staff at his chest. At the same time, in perfect unison, Ardhi flung his kris.
Staff and kris thudded home side by side, impaling Fox against the wall next to the window. For a moment he hung there, staring at them, his incredulity at what had happened registering on his face. For one stark moment they could feel him trying to snatch the breath and the heartbeats from them all – and failing.
The murkiness in the air vanished as the sorcerer turned all his power inwards in a last desperate attempt to save his own life. Saker staggered to his feet, propping himself up on the table. His legs felt boneless.
Fox was still alive. He looked from one to the other of them, incomprehension in his gaze. “Who are you?” he asked, puzzled.
Saker smiled. “Your death, and the end of sorcery.”
“No, not quite,” Fox whispered, and smiled. “There’s still Ruthgar. He knows.” He coughed then, and blood poured out of his throat into an ever-widening pool as his eyes closed.
The staff in his chest flared with burning light, so bright that they turned away. When they looked back, Barden’s oaken stave had turned into a heap of ash and Valerian Fox was a half-burned corpse with the kris still lodged in his breastbone. Ardhi leaned over and pulled it out.
“Ruthgar?” Saker asked. He was still gasping for air, as if he’d been running. “What’s so important about this Ruthgar?”
As Ardhi wiped the kris blade clean on one of the drapes, the gold streaks in it began to flicker back into life. “Just before you came in,” he said, “Fox told me Ruthgar was his chosen heir, and he’d given him the secret of how to extend his life and power.”
“Do you think he told the truth?”
Ardhi turned to look at him. “No reason to lie to me. He thought I was about to die.”
“Then we have another sorcerer with the same potential as Valerian.”
“I’m afraid so.”
37
The Price of Victory
Shaken, Saker looked around the room. Both Barden and Fritillary were lying flat to the floor. Sorrel scrambled to kneel at Barden’s side and take his liver-spotted hand in hers. Saker moved over to Fritillary.
“Are you all right?” he asked, lifting her up into a sitting position.
“He almost sucked the life out of me.” She gave a weak smile, and leaned against his chest like a child.
“I’ll see what’s happening outside,” Ardhi said and headed out the door, his kris in his hand. “Perie might need help.”
“You did it, Secretary Barden,” Sorrel said as the lascar left. “He’s dead, and it was your doing.”
The old man smiled and his fingers pressed hers, the tiniest of movements. “A fine witchery,” he whispered. “Worth this old life.”
“Barden!” Fritillary snapped. “Don’t you dare die on me. You have far too much to do!”
His lips twitched in the beginnings of a smile, but he closed his eyes. “Whisht, now, woman,” he said. “All things, the fine and the rough, come to a rightful end.” They watched while his chest rose and fell, and finally stopped.
“Whatever will I do without him?” Fritillary asked, ragged-voiced. A tear rolled down her cheek.
She sounded so lost and frail that Saker’s concern became an ache under his breastbone. Don’t you dare die on me too, you infuriating woman. “Your Reverence—”
“Saker, I can’t feel anything below my waist. His power burned me out inside. Or maybe I just used too much of my own.”
He struggled to find something to say, and finally blurted, “Well, you did say you’d done enough walking to last a lifetime.”
“You tactless muckle-top,” she said, but his words had brought the ghost of a smile to her lips. “Indeed, I will miss Barden more than my legs… Take me into the next room. I saw a sofa there.”
He picked her up in his arms, surprised at how light she was, and carried her there. “Now go see how Gerelda and the rest are doing,” she ordered as he settled her. “Look for this Ruthgar. If Perie can deal with him before he grows in power, that would be… a comfort. But I’m not hopeful. Sorrel will stay with me. If it’s all under control out there, you can send some of the clerics in. We need to claim back the Pontifect’s palace and the administration of Va-faith…”
“I’ll get a healer.”
“It won’t make any difference. It’s not that kind of wound, Saker. It doesn’t even hurt, you know. There’s nothing there to give pain. You need to check what’s happening downstairs. Now off you go!”
Sorrel, who had been listening, nodded to him, and he left them both.
After returning to the other room to pick up his sword and reload his pistol, he stepped out into the passage. There was no one around, but he heard shouting in the distance. Once on the terrace he had a view of the forecourt, and felt more at ease. No one was fighting. The only Grey Lancers he could see were dead ones. Seagulls, bloodied and belligerent, were feasting at the wounds in the dead flesh. Fighting his revulsion, he banished them to the river and swallowed back his bile.
By the time he found Gerelda, he knew the opposition inside the palace had been broken. Her eyes lit up when she saw him. “You really are alive! Ardhi said you were, but I so needed to see you with my own eyes. He said Valerian-fobbing-Fox met a nasty end.”
He nodded. “Barden’s dead, though. And I’m not sure Fritillary will walk again.”
“Oh. Oh, pox. That’s bad. Are you sure Valerian—?”
“Very, very dead.”
“Barden. I liked that old man.”
“So did I. At the moment, Fritillary doesn’t seem to care much that she can’t walk. You? Perie?”
“Everything under control. That sorcerer son what’s-his-name escaped though.”
“Ruthgar.” Fuck.
“Didn’t even try to fight! He just fled out the postern gate, apparently. He was gone by the time Perie and I came down the steps.” She looked puzzled. “Not interested in what happened to his dad, that’s for sure.”
“We think Valerian passed on to him the secret of how to prolong his life.”
“Oh, fobbing grubbery! No wonder he didn’t stay. No reason to remain loyal to a father who has a record of killing his sons!”
He looked around the forecourt. A crowd of servants lay face-down on the paving, encircled by a line of rats. He raised a querying eyebrow.
&
nbsp; “We didn’t quite know what to do with them,” she explained. “The servants, I mean. So we asked the vermin handler to guard them. This was her solution. Those rats are really vicious when she tells them to be. Fritillary can decide what to do with them later. And those witchery folk who came with us? They completely demoralised the guard! Do you know how many strong men go berserk when rats crawl up their trousers? Then there was one big bully of a man fainted when cockroaches got into his hair and down his collar.”
“Any reinforcements of theirs arrive?”
“Nary a one, thanks to what Fritillary and her woodworkers did to the barracks.”
“I want a healer to look at Fritillary. She doesn’t seem to think it’s urgent, but still… And where’s Ardhi?”
“Up on the roof. I sent him there to guard Perie while the lad checks to see if we got all the Grey Lancers. The healers are scattered, working on the wounded. I’ll send one to look at the Pontifect. Where is she?”
“Third door on the left upstairs. Did we lose anyone?”
She nodded. “Some. We haven’t done a count of the dead yet. Too busy with the wounded. Most of them will recover, I think.”
“Fox left us with far too many to mourn.” And tomorrow they would have to set off to find Ruthgar. Not to mention helping that leery Sir Herelt Deremer and his army defeat other sorcerer sons and Grey Lancers.
More deaths to come.
She echoed his thoughts, asking, “When does all this end? I’ve had enough.”
He put his arms around her, cradling her head on his shoulder. “Not much longer.”
She relaxed into him, as if she belonged there. “You know what? I’ll be glad to settle down to some nicely dull legal work. I’m tired, Saker. I’ve seen enough killing. I’ve had enough of watching a lad slide his spiker between a man’s ribs, as if it’s the most normal way to spend a day. I want to be bored for a change.”
“Are you in pain?” Sorrel asked.
Fritillary lay back against the cushions with a sigh. “I wish it did hurt. I can’t feel a thing.”
“That sounds serious.”
“Well, permanent anyway.”
“But still, a healer—”
“Oh, don’t look so upset, woman. We triumphed! I expected to die – and I didn’t. I even wrote a farewell letter and left it with Keeper Akorna. Tell me, that… that bird. Was it real?”
“Does it matter? What matters is that it was a combination of sakti and witchery. What matters is that we did it together – Ardhi, you, Saker, Barden, me. Using the magic of both hemispheres. What matters is that we were able to kill a powerful sorcerer because the Chenderawasi helped us. Without that, we’d all be dead right now.”
Fritillary regarded her with a thoughtful look. “You want to go to Piper, don’t you?”
“Saker says we can’t. Not until the last sorcerer is dead. I suppose he’s right. Ruthgar comes first, then the other sorcerers.” Emotion wrenched her at the thought of Piper and she had to clear her throat. “Your Reverence, we – we don’t have any spare feathers for this Ruthgar. We are saving the last two for the twins. We can’t kill Ruthgar the same way we killed Valerian.”
“Valerian took over forty years to get as powerful as he was. Ruthgar may be easier to vanquish.”
“I hope so. We miscalculated. We thought Valerian would never risk telling a son the secret of prolonging life…”
“It wasn’t a mistake. It’s just… unfortunate. The secret is to pick yourself up off the floor and continue. You must solve the problem of the twins.”
“Yes. And you must make sure that people like the Lowmian merchant, Uthen Kesleer, don’t treat those of the Summer Seas as slaves or enemies, because if they do, the next time we need help it won’t be there for us.”
“People are greedy for spices. They’ll do anything to get them.”
“You have to control that. We need a strong Chenderawasi. In fact all the islands of the Summer Seas need protecting from our merchant fleets.”
“And what do you think I can do about it?”
“You’re the Pontifect. If you can’t do anything, who can?”
Fritillary gave the ghost of a smile. “Well, kings, princes and Regals, for a start. However, I understand what you are saying.”
“I can tell one thing you can do right now: ban the expression ‘Va-forsaken’. They aren’t forsaken. Their underlying faith is like ours in many ways.”
“What an experience that must have been! To see the other side of the world, and such wonders.” There was a wistful note in her voice. “Ah, here are some of my clerics. Thank you, Sorrel. For everything. Now go and find that young man of yours.” She patted her hand. “He is very good-looking. But then, I always did enjoy looking at men stripped to the waist.”
With that, Fritillary Reedling sat up straighter, raised her chin and squared her shoulders. She was the Pontifect again, a woman of substance, who tolerated no nonsense from anyone, and Sorrel decided she rather liked her after all.
38
Uneasy Allies
“So we meet again, witan.”
Saker stared at the speaker standing under the canvas cover strung between two trees. There were other armed men there, talking to one another, and a field table strewn with maps of the area, but Saker had eyes only for the man who’d spoken to him.
This was the primary field post of the Dire Sweepers now that they had crossed the River Ard, and the man facing him was Sir Herelt Deremer, their general. He’d probably been good-looking once, but now his face was lined and drooping with fatigue. This was the man he’d known as Dyer, who had ordered his death, for no apparent reason, in a tiny Lowmian fishing village. His first taste of the Dire Sweepers. A hellish week of being confronted with the Horned Death and not being able to help its victims, then being attacked by Deremer’s men: it wasn’t a pleasant memory.
“Sir Herelt,” he said, with only the slightest inclination of his head. “It was dark last time we met. I would not have recognised you.”
“I have changed.”
“So I would hope, considering what happened last time. I can’t say I’m all that pleased to meet you again, even though we are now on the same side.” This, he thought, is a daft conversation…
“There is a discussion we must have, but it can wait. Right now, I’m glad to see you alive and well. Fritillary sent word of Valerian’s death. You did what I never could!”
“There were five of us in that room, confronting him. We were all needed.”
“She told me Barden died.”
“Did she also tell you she can’t walk now?”
He looked stricken. “No. She didn’t!”
“I doubt she’ll ever walk again.”
“She’s not dying, is she?”
“No. But she paid a high price for our victory.”
Deremer took a deep breath, then exhaled. “She says your people can help us locate the remaining sorcerers. And that there’s a particularly dangerous one abroad, a fellow called Ruthgar Fox. But I am remiss. Do you have tents and supplies with you? How many are you?”
“Two hundred and twenty-eight. We’re the last batch of the Pontifect’s witchery folk. Some of your men are already helping us to set up our own camp about a mile to the south. We have everything we need.”
“Good. Let me guess your witchery – something to do with birds, I imagine?”
“Indeed.”
“One of my men lost his life that night in Dortgren,” Deremer said. “Had his throat ripped out by an owl. Another was blinded by a bird’s claws. They were formidable weapons.”
“You may recall that I almost lost my life too.”
“Let’s hope our cooperation is more beneficial than our enmity.”
He shrugged. “It was your actions which were those of an enemy, not mine.”
“Enough of the past! Tell me the details of what you’ve got, so I know how best to deploy you all.” Deremer signalled to several of his officers to come
and listen.
For the next hour, the conversation was impersonal as Saker outlined their plans to use witcheries and learned more about the fighting that had already taken place. When he’d finished, Sir Herelt conducted him personally to a vantage point to view the disposition of the Grey Lancers’ army.
From the spur of a ridge overlooking the floodplain, they could see the swift, cold snow-melt of the Ard churning its way to the sea. Between the ridge and the river, the Grey Lancers’ army sprawled for a mile or two in each direction, the full extent of it indicated only by the smoke of campfires curling up through the scrubby line of trees.
“Even without Valerian,” Sir Herelt said, “victory should be easy for them. They have the larger army by far, and most of their soldiers are ruthless, hardened killers used to travelling in small companies led by the most brutal among them. With sorcerers who can coerce the enemy to turn their swords on themselves, or persuade an enemy officer to give the wrong orders, how can they lose?”
“I suspect you think they can be beaten nonetheless.”
“Of course. As you can see, we have them pinned down along the riverbank. We hold the ridge above them. To break out, they have to run uphill under a shower of arrows and gunfire, or retreat across the river – which would be costly to them in men, weaponry and supplies.” He smiled. “We spent days manoeuvring them into this position.”
“You tricked them by crossing the Ard in a place where it should have been impossible.”
“How did you know that?”
“An eagle told me. You said they’ve charged you, up this slope, twice?”
“And we had sufficient guns to repulse them. We’re now low on ammunition, though. One of those Fox sons infiltrated our lines after dark. He coerced our own sentries into killing our men. It was a mess until we managed to kill him. A lucky shot in the dark, quite literally.”
“We can put Peregrine Clary on watch at night.”
“That’s a good idea,” Deremer said, turning to look at him. “But he’s only one lad. We all have wax to block our ears, but the men are reluctant to use it. They hate being deaf.”
