“Therefore, we emphasize that the true value of the Estasi Order of Errants lies not in the strength of our arms or the courage in our hearts, nor is it the powers at our command,” he said, more boldly. “The strength of the Estasi Knight Mage is the ability to combine strength and wit, courage and intellect, in the crucible of our chivalric honor to bring hope, assistance, and aide unlooked for to the unfortunate, dispossessed, and desperate folk of the Kingdom.
“Seek out those at need, in your errantry, and serve the Order by serving them,” he instructed them. “Let injustice and villainy always be your foe; let reason and valor in the defense of the defenseless be your principle. And let honor ever guide your lance,” he concluded. Much to his surprise he got a rousing cheer from them all, though he had not been at Olum Seheri or had gained much of a reputation as a knight, among them.
Yet Sir Festaran demonstrated the courage which he invoked, to my eyes, just making the speech. When he and the lads started this order, it had been an inspired afterthought to an impulsive action – conquering this very castle – and I doubt Festaran had ambitions for it far beyond covering their collective arse over that miscalculation.
But faced with the unexpected success of his institution, he did his best to rise to the occasion and act with the grace chivalry idolizes. It didn’t hurt that Sire Cei was present – my castellan’s devotion to knighthood was contagious, and others aspire to perfect their behavior to avoid his displeasure – even me. He nodded approvingly as Festaran sat down to cheers.
Then it was my turn. I’d selected a dozen shards of irionite from my depleting treasury of witchstones and awarded them to the twelve knights who most deserved the honor. I took their oaths in front of all, explaining their meaning and purpose. Each one insisted on making a short, drunken speech on the spot expressing his feeling and emotion. Well, mostly short. A few of them fancied themselves orators, but did not have Festaran’s relationship to brevity . . . or coherence.
I relaxed at the High Table, as the dozen new High Magi ran off to begin acclimatizing themselves to their stones, under the guidance of Wenek and Astyral, and the rest of the assembled attempted to drink every drop provided.
“That was lovely,” I sighed. “They deserve that kind of celebration, after what they went through.”
“And we needed to replenish our ranks,” Rondal agreed, thoughtfully. “We lost good men on that raid. Among the best. Raising these noble gentleman not only rewards them for their good service, it provides us with a wider base of support for our future endeavors.”
“It also gave me a chance to quietly put a dozen more witchstones in the hands of our allies,” I noted. “Since the War College stopped sending me candidates, the number of new High Magi has slowed to a crawl. Distributing them in such quiet circumstances allows me to spread our influence without attracting undue attention.”
“Who would object to more High Magi in the world?” Sir Festaran asked, confused.
“A great many people,” Rondal countered. “Particularly in the high nobility. After Greenflower, they are wary of the power that they bring.”
“And the money,” Tyndal agreed. “A witchstone allows a mage to make more in an afternoon than a regular spellmonger can make in a year. You recall Master Minalan’s friend from school, Dix? He’s fabulously wealthy, now, more so than the lord mayor of his town. That’s caused some problems.”
“This order was designed to help solve problems,” Sire Cei said, disturbed.
“And it shall,” agreed Rondal, enthusiastically. “Indeed, it has already solved a few. I have every confidence that the Estasi will become a force for stability and order in the Kingdom. More importantly, we will be independent of political considerations. That should free up our hand, more.”
“Rondal and I will be starting the Wilderlands chapterhouse of the Order when we return,” Tyndal continued. “Anguin gave us a small estate near Vorone for a . . . favor we did him,” he said, cryptically. “It’s piss-poor for farming, but it’s got a decent hall and yard. We’re going to give it to the Order.”
“And live there, at the Order’s expense?” Sire Cei asked, wryly.
“Sire Cei, it has been an age since I spent more than three consecutive nights in the same bed,” Tyndal chided. “I’m certain the Order can bear the expense of me sprawling in the corner of a hall I gifted to them for a few nights,” he said, proudly.
“In truth, we’ve been far too busy on deployment to consider more than a few days of goldbricking,” Rondal chuckled. “Tyndal’s right: we’ve been on the move, in Anguin’s service. We just returned from the southern refugee camp, around Anguin’s Tower. From here we return to Vorone, to be redeployed again to his new Gilmoran possessions. We completed a mission in that territory, a few years ago,” he reminded me. “He wants us to make the initial assessment for security and provision before he sends a caravan to take control of the place.”
“Is he putting you in charge of them?” Festaran asked, curious.
“Oh, gods no!” Tyndal guffawed. “Do we look like administrators? We’re going to clean out goblins and bandits, see who’s actually left lingering in the place, and spread the news about the change in administration.”
“Most of our work will be surveying and inspection,” Rondal nodded. “Northern Gilmora was pretty bad two years ago,” he recalled, making a face at the memory. “I doubt it’s gotten better with age. It’s going to take a lot of work to put it to rights, again. We’re just taking a look around on Anguin’s behalf, helping him establish his authority over whomever is still around. Then we’ll likely return to Vorone.”
“Who will Anguin install there?” Sire Cei asked, curiously.
“We don’t know, yet,” Rondal answered with a shrug. “He has many worthy lords in his court who lost their lands, or saw them diminished. I would see Count Marcadine installed in one of them – he is an adept lord, used to overseeing a much larger area. But there are many excellent candidates,” he considered.
“I would see a magelord installed,” Tyndal said, shaking his head. “Count Marcadine is a fine gentleman, but he is needed in the Wilderlands. He is the last of the great Wilderlord houses still in his seat, however challenged. The Umbra lies practically on his doorstep, now,” he said, darkly. “He has taken in folk from all over the Penumbra who would fight under his banner, and he leads the politics of the southern and easternmost Wilderlords.”
“I like Marcadine,” I conceded. “And while no one has sought my counsel, I think he is best in his home country, despite Anguin’s urge to reward him for his service.”
“The good count has many vassals who would be good barons,” Sire Cei opined, as he lit his pipe. He hadn’t had a third of the drink the rest of us had. “I would rather see the position of the man who is willing to stand and fight strengthened, not replace him with another. He guards his patrimony, and he does so jealously.”
“Master, what about . . . Astyral?” Rondal asked, quietly, looking around to ensure he wasn’t being overheard. “He has served as the warden of Tudry since before Timberwatch,” he pointed out, “and kept that miserable town alive despite all that has happened. That’s taken more than magic, that’s taken real administrative talent.”
“He certainly deserves such a reward,” I conceded. “And he’s Gilmoran, as well as loyal to Anguin. But what of Tudry?”
Rondal and Tyndal exchanged glances, and perhaps telepathy.
“Tudry is . . . untenable, Master,” Tyndal sighed. “As valiant as the effort to spare it, and as important as it has become to our efforts, that very success has attracted the ire of the surrounding goblin lords to see it gone. As soon as hostilities resume in earnest, I expect it to be besieged.”
“Which puts us in a difficult position,” Rondal pointed out. “Do we invest the resources to rescue a poorly-positioned, poorly-built walled town with little advanced defense? Or do we find another solution?”
“What solution?” Sire Cei asked, ske
ptically.
“We move Tudry,” Tyndal announced, dramatically. “Not the town itself, of course, but the people. We bow to the inevitable conquest of the place, and have the foresight to relocate the civic population behind the protection of the rivers . . . and someplace with less gurvani,” he added.
“You’re going to evacuate an entire town . . . before there’s a reason to?”
“Not evacuate, Master, relocate,” Rondal soothed. “Indeed, we’ve already begun. Most of the ironworks there have been packed up and shipped northeast to Vanador already,” he reported. “It’s closer to richer veins of hematite than Tudry, anyway, and with Master Cormoran and his staff already establishing a workshop there, to work with the Dradrien, it seems natural to follow with Tudry’s iron and lead industries.”
“We’ve also begun moving some of the more impressive fixtures from Tudry,” Tyndal nodded. “Astyral has quietly counselled the temples to unship their bells, gather their treasures, and make plans to establish new sites at Vanador or Vorone, or at Lorvay, if they wish to remain in the area. The carpenters and builders of Tudry were already conscripted for the quarry site. If we pay them, we can have several shops and homes ready to receive the Tudrymen.”
“This seems a little drastic,” I said, my brow wrinkling. “We’ve spent a lot to preserve Tudry. Losing it seems . . . defeatist.”
“It’s not defeat, it’s strategic withdrawal,” Rondal assured. “That place was originally built for the settlement, then became an industrial town to serve the northlands. But it’s a piss-poor installation, it’s unsuitable for the defensive needs of the Wilderlands, and if conquered, it would give the scrugs a defendable advanced base far too close to Vorone.
“Vanador is going to be an industrial town by default,” he pointed out. “Why compete against each other, particularly with the premium Tudry must pay for defense, when we can consolidate? There are few enough folk left in the Wilderlands, now. We can protect them better if they are more concentrated.”
“Will that not be expensive?” Sir Festaran asked, finally speaking. “From what I estimate, the costs of relocation would be . . . dramatic.”
“Indeed,” Rondal agreed. “Yet the costs for Tudry’s current defense is already dramatic. Without the support of the Crown to pay the garrison, the town would have been abandoned to the gurvani long ago due to bankruptcy alone. Should the town be attacked again, the cost for its rescue and repair would dwarf the normal security costs.
“So as expensive as it is, on parchment, when one looks at the long-term viability of the place it’s actually less expensive to quietly relocate the burghers and artisans while we can, resettle them at Vanador in a much better commercial environment, and reduce our costs that way.”
“A lot of the reorganization Anguin and Rardine have been working on is designed to shift most of the civilians from the Penumbra back east, behind the rivers,” Tyndal agreed. “It’s the best way to ensure we can protect them. The scrugs still don’t like getting their fur wet. And while it means giving up productive lands proven in the west, it also gives a beleaguered people a fresh opportunity to raise their families without the worry of sudden goblin attacks.”
I sighed. “It’s Anguin’s town,” I conceded. “If you Alshari gentlemen think it is best, I will not argue. No doubt Pentandra will be pleased with the influx of skilled artisans and townsmen to her Wilderlands experiment. And Tudry is hardly a city of great historical or cultural importance . . .”
“It’s a dump,” Tyndal pronounced. “And that was before the invasion. Now it’s part dump, part refugee camp. I’d rather give it up and start afresh than try to rebuild it.”
“Then please let Duke Anguin know that I do not oppose the policy,” I said. “In fact, I—”
I had to stop, because someone was trying to reach me mind-to-mind. Urgently, I realized. I held up a finger and closed my eyes, trying to focus my wine-sotted thoughts enough to enact the spell.
Min, we have problems, Terleman's “serious” voice said. It was at odds with the warm, pleasant, jovial feeling I was enjoying. The other boot we’ve been waiting to drop? It just banged on the floor. I just got word. Dragon attack, this morning.
Where? I asked, blearily.
Mianach, he said, after a pause. That was in the far-west of Castal, the sparsely-populated, poorly settled land on the far-side of Gilmora. Castle Mianach, and the town. Seven thousand people there, he reported, grimly.
That seems out-of-the-way, I pointed out, concerned.
That depends on your perspective, he countered. Mianach is a tiny provincial barony, from our perspective. From Korbal’s, it’s the first major human settlement along the Old Western Road. The next one is . . . Stain Lomaire. Another tiny place. That leads to another tiny place, and another, and another. Fermisival and Tur Suir are next. Old mining towns, and dusty old castles with little modern strategic value. Until you get to Tur Eregrin, he continued, calmly. Then you’re just a hundred and twenty miles away . . . from Darkfaller.
And from there, I finished, he can control Gilmora, the Westlands, and Castabriel, I realized. The entire lower Riverlands. I swallowed, and sighed.
I’m headed back to Sevendor, now, I decided. Let’s start putting together a plan to defend. We’re at war, again.
Chapter Sixty-Three
A Message From Korbal
Mianach. Stain Lomaire. Fermisival. Doleang. Borfeyd.
One by one the reports came in, over the next few days, as the dragons took flight from Olum Seheri. The towns of the Westlands and western Gilmora were being systematically reduced to ash, at the rate of one a day. It was a painful, awful return to the Day of the Dragons two years ago in northern Gilmora.
None of them were great cities or castles by any means. Borfeyd, the largest to fall in the first days, was home to a mere ten thousand people. Sitting at an elevation over the more fertile southern and eastern portions of Gilmora, Borfeyd had a modest reputation as an industrial center, its craftsmen adept at building the gins and looms the cotton lords of Gilmora required. It had a modest feud with nearby Vengly for the trade, and twice the competition had led to modest wars between the baronies.
In fifteen minutes, a single dragon slew seven people in ten in Borfeyd, and burned their elaborate workshops to ash. The attack came at dusk. By the time the stars appeared on the eastern horizon, the town and castle were both ablaze and seven thousand people had been incinerated.
Borfeyd was interesting. It, like the other western towns that fell that week, had no warning and no conception of the attack that doomed them. But when Terleman’s agents made their way to the devastated town, arriving within hours of news of the attack, they learned something disturbing.
The witness was a young monk who had rung the temple bell in warning during the entire attack. From his vantage point in the belfry he’d witnessed the attack and saw the mighty beast swoop in from the sunset and begin its destructive passes over the tidy little town. His descriptions in the dispatch were concise and to the point, down to the color of the dragon’s wing and the chains bearing snowstone around his neck.
But his most telling observation was reporting that the dragons were not, strictly speaking, alone. They had riders, now. Riders swathed in black mantles, who had yellow eyes beaming from under their cowls.
Korbal was sending dragons to war piloted by Nemovorti, now. He’d solved the issue of control. He included a magically-potent rider on the back of each one to direct its destructive power and guide it with precision. That was incredibly bad news.
The Borfeyd monk was very detailed in his account of the foe, including the deliberate manner in which some buildings in the town were put to the flame – but not all. Some were spared, as if by purpose. Instead of the random chaos and uncontrolled mayhem we were used to from dragon attacks, we were seeing deliberate, well-chosen chaos and very well-controlled mayhem.
For three days tales of the attacks rolled in. As Terleman and I went over the rep
orts that were coming into his temporary headquarters in Vorone, it became clear that at least three separate dragons were being used in the attacks, each with its grim rider.
Then they stopped.
There was no follow-up, no marching hordes of undead, no screaming legions of hobgoblins pouring out of the Land of Scars, where they were gathering. They destroyed five towns and castles in the westernmost portions of Castal, but then just stopped.
“Maybe they got bored,” Sandoval considered, as he sat back in his chair after reading over the dispatches and reports. “I’m sure the novelty of destroying small towns wears off after the first few.” He and Mavone were both working with Terleman, now, out of one of Count Salgo’s estates in Vorone, where he was coordinating the growing war effort. Many of the warmagi who’d fought at Olum Seheri were lingering in the area, anticipating reprisals.
“Terror raids?” proposed Mavone. He surveyed the old-fashioned map spread out on the table. “They weren’t completely devastated,” he pointed out. “Those attacks are going to fill the eastern domains with refugees, now. They’ll spread the tale of undead riding dragons and panic the population.”
“I think there’s more to it than that,” Terleman said through pursed lips. “Korbal isn’t looking to just scare people. He’s lit the western lands afire. He’s demonstrating his power, and our powerlessness. See what he hit in Doleang? The dragon roasted the castle and garrison, the stables, and the poorer sections of town. It left the guild streets and market district intact. It torched the millworks, but spared the granaries. What does that tell you?”
“This wasn’t a terror raid,” I realized. “This was preparation.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Terleman said, leaning back and resting both hands on his head – a sure sign of deep thought. “I’ve gone over every report and dispatch. I’ve sent my men to investigate.”
“Men?” I asked, surprised. “You have men?”
Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series Page 95
