Hawklady: A Spellmonger Cadet Novel

by Terry Mancour

She pulled herself out of the stack of parcels and supplies she’d been reclining on, and dug through her gear where she’d stashed it against a wall. It didn’t take long to find the bag with the long box in it. Dara hurriedly unwrapped the package and opened the lid, exposing the long, elegant, gleaming blade within.

  She picked it up in her arms and cradled it like a wounded animal, stumbling outside to the courtyard. Her brothers and father looked on curiously, having recently returned from a quick patrol, as she took the Thoughtful Knife over to the knee-high stone wall and set it down. She took the control stone out of the top and stepped back – then stopped. She hadn’t been ordered to fly the Knife yet, she realized.

  “Make sure no one steals that,” she told Kyre, as she headed back inside. She paused only long enough to hold out her fist to let Frightful land on it. She quickly fed the bird a pebble of dried meat and praised her, while she sent soothing thoughts into her scared little mind. Once she replaced the falcon’s hood, she settled down, feeling much more safe and secure. What the bird couldn’t see, it didn’t feel threatened by.

  Dara devoutly wished she had a hood.

  Instead, she deposited the falcon on the make-shift perch she’d made out of a broken chair, and reported to Pentandra. As soon as the wizard opened her eyes and saw her, Dara nodded.

  “The Thoughtful Knife is ready to fly,” she reported.

  “Good thinking,” Pentandra nodded. “Take it up and make ready. I have no idea what Minalan has planned, so best be prepared for most anything.” Then she closed her eyes again.

  Dara returned to her comfy spot, stretching a bit before she resumed her position. Only this time she held the round control stone of the Knife in her palms. Taking a deep breath, she allowed the stone to suck her mind inside it . . . and she was once again back within the deadly weapon.

  Taking flight with the Knife was easier and faster than convincing Frightful to climb. It didn’t feel tiredness, disrespect, or annoyance. In fact, it didn’t “feel” anything but a desire for speed and a hunger for blood. It was like riding a particularly large and dangerous horse, Dara decided, as the Knife soared toward the burning castle.

  She flew overhead and watched with horror as the huge beast began digging into the fortress like a bear looking for honey in a rotten tree. Huge piles of ruined wall tumbled down as the wooden interior blazed. Thankfully most of the besieged had escaped before the dragon arrived, but as it was there were still plenty of defenders who died, ablaze in dragonfire.

  She did what she could to help them, but there wasn’t much. She focused her attacks on the goblin archers who were scattered around the periphery of the castle, eliminating snipers who were eager to clear the burning battlements of the last defenders. After her hours of practice around Sevendor she was actually quite good at sending the Knife zooming around the place.

  Nor, she found, did she have any problem with slicing through goblins. The view from the Knife was frightening, objectively speaking – she was using the wide, sharp blade to slay the gurvani at a high rate of speed. But not only was her velocity too quick for her eyes to dwell on the damage she’d done, but she’d had plenty of experience gutting rabbits and rodents for Frightful. She was no stranger to blood, even if she didn’t like it.

  But the Thoughtful Knife did like it, she noticed, almost at once. From the first strike against the gurvani, the artifact seemed to come more alive and alert through their connection, as if it was waking up. Flying for practice, she realized, was different than flying in battle, at least to the Knife. She didn’t know how it knew the stakes were high, but it seemed delighted in the prospect of slaughtering as many goblins as it could.

  Once many of the snipers and pickets on the far side of the ruined castle had been destroyed, Dara felt the Knife pull away from her mind, seeking more violence. Dara did her best to reassert control, and directed the deadly flying blade back around the south side of the castle, where a full-pitched battle was going on during the dragon’s attack.

  The Knife sensed the massed gurvani below and leapt at them like a cat pouncing on a nest of mice. The densely-packed formation made choosing a target easy. The Knife pulled her to strike one portion of the gurvani horde in particular, as it dove to ground level. She allowed it to do so, though she was a bit embarrassed that a weapon was a better strategist than she was.

  The Thoughtful Knife leveled off just before it struck the horde, and then it was among them. The wide wings of the blade caught one neck, or head, or shoulder after the other in its deadly embrace. Wooden shields held against it shattered, and it bored through bronze shields like dry wood. Everywhere the Knife passed, a gory, bloody path opened up in the gurvani ranks.

  Dara was a bit disgusted by the carnage. But the ancient Alka Alon weapon was in its element: this was what it had been designed to do. One furry warrior after another was sliced and chopped with the pass, and when the Knife emerged on the other side, it flipped over, reversed direction, and repeated the arc at a different angle. Another row of goblins fell, like wheat at the harvest. Another bloody explosion sowed panic and despair in their ranks.

  Dara was just completing her third gory pass when she realized that the Knife was not responding as sensitively to her commands as it had when she started. It behaved more as an excited hound, struggling against a leash.

  A panic settled over her mind when she realized that the Alka Alon artifact did not care if the bodies it hewed were goblin or human. It merely wanted to fly and kill, kill and fly. It took nearly every ounce of will to keep it from plunging back into the battle a fourth time, when it made it clear to Dara that it didn’t mind slicing through the heavy armor of Riverlands knights any more than it did goblins.

  But she managed, with an effort so great she could feel sweat on her brow even while she was in the Knife. Like pulling a straining dog to heel, the Knife slowly bent to her insistence, and soon was zooming back into the darkened sky.

  From that position, Dara could see the ruin the dragon had wrought in the short time it had visited Cambrian Castle. The keep was in flames, the towers shattered into the bailey, below. The beast kept digging into it, its head darting to snatch at those few unfortunates who were left within. The mighty tails swept the courtyard below, knocking over sheds and outbuildings, men and horses without even noticing.

  There was magic going off all around it, the Knife showed her helpfully, but none of it seemed to even get the dragon’s attention. Dara watched as Master Minalan and his warmagi assaulted the flaming castle and tried their best to attack the beast through the wreckage . . . some of which was still in the process of falling around them. Spells were being fired and powerful arcane forces blasted into the great beast’s back, just under the wing, as the best High Magi in the world contended with the beast. Concentrated all in one spot, the arcane emissions from the warmagi exploded against the dragon’s hide with a force she could feel through the Knife.

  But while the attack hurt the dragon enough to distract its attention, it did not seem more than annoyed at the assault. In fact, as it turned to see what irritated it, the massive tail jerked . . . and slapped soundly against Master Minalan and the other warmagi attacking it from behind.

  Dara watched in horror as her master’s horse came apart under the impact of the log-sized tail, sending Minalan’s body flying through the air . . . among others. The wide sweep of the dangerous tail was devastating.

  Her master. The Spellmonger had fallen!

  Dara didn’t realize that the Knife was moving for a moment. But she found herself in a dive, headed straight for the beast’s heart. With a bloodthirsty scream of vengeance, she let the terrible hunger of the artifact take over. If the Knife wanted to kill, there was plenty of dragon to sate its hunger.

  At the last moment, the dragon shifted its stance, and one of its massive, sail-like wings got in the way of the attack. The Knife continued downward, undeterred, increasing its speed. Dara prepared for the savage impact of the flying blade sl
icing through the wing . . . but when the moment came, the Knife failed her.

  As sharp as it was, as fast as it was, the Thoughtful Knife was inadequate to the task of cutting through even the thin membrane of the wing. Dara found herself flailing in the sky as the impact against the unyielding flesh deflected the blow. She was sure she’d felt the blade bit into the flesh – she was certain! – but it hadn’t been enough to penetrate. Only enough to give the dragon’s wing purchase and leverage – and throw her into the sky.

  It took several moments for her to regain control of the Knife. Unlike when she flew Frightful, there was no emotional feedback involved in the experience. The Knife was not afraid. It wasn’t confused. It was just temporarily disoriented, and not at all discouraged by the failed attack.

  There was one other advantage, she observed, as she finally righted the flying blade and held it stationary in the sky. The Knife didn’t have an olfactory sense. That was a blessing from the Flame. The stench she’d smelled through Frightful’s nose had been the worst thing she’d ever remembered smelling. After the morning’s battle at the cotyard, that was saying something.

  Dara was about to try a second run at the dragon when she felt a hand on her disembodied shoulder, and heard a whisper in her ear.

  “Dara, is there any way you can persuade that thing to get its head up?” Pentandra asked, quietly.

  Dara nodded, and focused her attention back on the Knife. She didn’t know what it might take to get the dragon to look up. Right now it was rooting around in the courtyard for stray warmagi and knights, its head level with the ground. She dove again, only instead of trying to stab the thing she tried flying by its head to get its attention.

  After the third pass, she came to the unfortunate conclusion that the beast simply wasn’t interested in something the comparative size of a horsefly. Not when there were so many tasty horses lying around.

  “It’s ignoring me!” she said, aloud, as she tried to fly close enough to slice at the thing’s eyeball – surely its eyes must be vulnerable, Dara reasoned. Only the moment the Knife was near, the eyelid of the titanic worm snapped shut. The Thoughtful Knife rebounded harmlessly away from it, forcing Dara to re-assert her control yet again. “I got it to blink, but that’s about it!” she wailed in frustration.

  “Bide, then,” Pentandra’s voice said in her ear. “We’re working on a plan. Head up over the castle and wait,” she commanded. Dara nodded and complied . . . difficult to do, when her weapon wanted to return to the attack.

  A moment later, she heard Gareth’s voice in her other ear.

  “The Magical Corps has a plan,” he informed her. “Lady Pentandra is organizing it now. They’re going to try to energize the rainclouds into a thunderhead,” he said, ambitiously. “It’s complicated, but if Minalan can get it to raise its head . . .”

  “Master Minalan is alive?” she asked, with a gasp, as she brought the Knife to a halt, and began circling over the castle.

  “For the moment,” Gareth answered. “But he’s trying to push its head up into the clouds. Where the storm will be.”

  Dara wasn’t certain what exactly that would accomplish, so she concentrated on her part. She kept the Knife circling placidly overhead, slowly surveying the battle below. Though it continued ferociously, the presence of the massive worm in the burning castle lent a certain panicked quality to the scene, she decided. In fact, the flaming stones of Castle Cambrian illuminated the battle with sinister flickering that seemed to grow brighter as the clouds above grew even darker.

  The feedback she got from the Knife was by no means close to the sensations she received from Frightful, but it dutifully informed her of the gathering storm. Magic was flying all around the Knife as it circled. Dara shifted to magesight to appreciate the complex series of arcane constructions that was shaping and molding the very air around her.

  Whatever Minalan and the warmagi did on the ground must have worked, she decided a moment later, when the dragon suddenly reared on its hind legs and stuck its head straight up in the air, emitting a mighty – and mightily irritated – bellow. While she circled around its back she watched as a powerful shaft shot up from the ground, its flight augmented by magic, and buried itself under the dragon’s chin.

  It didn’t do anything, Dara realized with disappointment. It didn’t do a damned thing! The dragon merely shook its head and continued to bellow in annoyance.

  Then in an instant, the powerful storm spell overhead coalesced into a magically focused point. Dara felt the shift in the atmosphere as the air around the knife suddenly ionized, flooded with magical power. A second later, the point spat forth a powerful bolt of lightning that connected it with the dragon, below.

  Dara was amazed at the effect. The dragon spasmed and contorted, it’s angry eyes wide and crazed – but then they closed. And the dragon fell, dead or stunned from the impressive bolt of electricity from the sky. The magi struck it with lightning! Not even that thing could withstand that!

  She was about to cheer, when she realized with horror that while the dragon was collapsing before her eyes, the giant hulk of its body was tumbling inconveniently through the south curtain of the wall, out of the castle, proper . . . and onto the field below.

  Where a battle continued to rage.

  Goblin and Riverlord alike abandoned their fights and fled for their lives as the stinking body fell upon the muddy, bloody battlefield, settling in a spot that had recently been occupied by the center of the goblin army.

  Not all of them were successful, she saw. But the sudden interruption effectively ended the battle, as it had been fought. The goblins were no longer even remotely organized to fight. As the dragon’s spasms caused wing, feet, and tail to jerk uncontrollably it did yet more damage to the combined armies.

  That is one nasty mess! Dara remarked to herself as she surveyed the scene. It looked like what happened when a child smashed an anthill with a stone.

  At first she was elated at the feat, and relieved she’d not been called upon to face the beast, and fail at the task. But then she realized that the mighty worm was not slain. Its massive chest still rose and fell, though it was not otherwise acting alive. There was still work to be done, she knew.

  “It’s just stunned,” Gareth helpfully confirmed in her ear, a moment later. “Trygg’s grace! Not even a lightning bolt can kill that thing?” he asked in disbelief.

  “It’s tough,” Dara agreed, absently. She was concentrating on watching over the remaining warmagi who were now leaping through the hole the dragon had made in the wall and descending upon its lifeless body. There were still plenty of goblins about, in small clumps or wandering around, dazed, at the sudden turn in the battle. She didn’t want Tyndal or Rondal or Master Minalan to get stabbed in the back by one on their way to the dragon. “I hit it a couple of times. As hard as I could. Even the wings are too thick for the Thoughtful Knife.”

  “Really?” Gareth asked, nervously. “We were counting on that as our secret weapon!”

  “Better find another one,” Dara sighed, resigned. “The Knife isn’t going to work on the dragon.”

  “But it will work on goblins,” Gareth countered. “We just got word that Sir Roncil’s squadron of horse is pinned down on the left by a company of gurvani infantry – the big ones,” he added, unnecessarily. “The hobgoblins. He’s cut off from the rest of his unit . . . can you help?”

  “On my way,” Dara agreed, turning the Knife around in orientation.

  There it was, she saw. A small cluster of armored knights valiantly defending themselves from ten times their number of goblin infantry. Dara wanted to see the foe more closely, and was about to make the Knife descend, when it helpfully magnified the scene of the battle below.

  “Hey!” she shouted in surprise.

  “What? Gareth asked, alarmed.

  “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “It just did something I didn’t know it could do. Bide,” she ordered.

  The view she perceived now
showed a much closer picture of the fight. Gareth was correct: the gurvani who were angrily battling the horsemen were not like the ugly little beast who’d jumped on her back that morning. These were far larger, better armored, and their fur was a more uniform shade of black. They wielded heavy iron maces or swords, and they fought with far more organization than the goblins who’d assaulted the cottage earlier in the day.

  As she pulled back her perspective, to check the status of Sir Roncil’s desperate unit, she caught her breath: there, among the other knights fighting from horseback, was the familiar surcoat of Sir Festaran.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she watched him valiantly attack a vicious-looking gurvan who tried to pull him from his horse, first kicking him in the face with his boot, and then slicing through his shoulder with his cavalry sword.

  He fought so well, she observed for a moment as she assessed the scene. He never hesitated to strike, and his blows connected with elegant efficiency. No doubt his talent for magical estimation was at play, she considered, as the young mage knight’s mind calculated and estimated the best possible place for his sword to strike the abundant enemy. There was a look of grim determination on his face as he pushed forward through the foe to rescue one of his fellows from a trio of goblins.

  “All right,” Dara declared, “I’m going in!”

  Before Gareth could answer, the Knife was plunging with the speed of her thought. She felt the liveliness of the weapon rise, as it sensed her deadly intent. Bloodlust, she recognized. Not the common hunger of a falcon, but the single-minded purpose of a weapon built to slay.

  This time, Dara didn’t try to restrain the Knife’s desires. She allowed it to line up the targets she selected as she dove, only using her will to keep it from harming her allies on the field. When she let the rabid dog free of its leash, the Thoughtful Knife reveled in the opportunity to slay.

  The Knife went slicing through the black-furred foe at the bottom of its descent, obliterating a dozen or more with the shock of its speed alone. Dara felt the Knife twist in mid-flight and present the broad side of its blade as it blasted into the next throng of gurvani. The momentum and the angle of the attack was devastating. Yet the Knife was not done.