First of all, Zieran is resting comfortably in her accommodations in the Depths. As she is my former aide, I did of course plead with the Sovereign for some leniency on her behalf. I think you can imagine I didn’t plead very hard. In fact, I might have actually gotten her sentence increased, but who knows? Certainly not me; I wouldn’t care to speculate on how much influence I have over the Sovereign’s judgment, after all. I did see that the matter went to him rather than a simple court. After all, they might have misinterpreted your letter as mere correspondence between former friends rather than as the very plain act of sedition that it was.
I wanted to let you know this so that you can rest assured that in spite of the fact that I won over you, gaining the role of Guildmaster here at the Gathering, I haven’t forgotten you, my old rival. I could never forget you. Surpass you, obviously. Push you into exile … yes, that was a great moment, a coup, really. But forget you? Forget your smiling, insolent face every time you proved yourself my better in the action of conjuring? No, I couldn’t forget that.
Not ever. Not even after … well, I think we both know what I did. How I beat you. I certainly know I remember; on days when I’ve experienced more stress than I feel is my due, I think back on the memory of your face that day in the Sovereign’s throne room … and smile. Oh, how I smile.
I can only hope this letter reaches you in the greatest of spirits, and renders them in the way that fat melts under flame. I derive much joy from imagining you clenching this parchment in between your fingers, crushing it while wishing it were me. But it is not me. For I am far beyond your reach, nestled comfortably here while you languish out there. Does it still sting, knowing that you can never come home? I imagine it does. I imagine it quite a lot, actually, and it always gives me a warm feeling near my heart.
Of course, if you’d care to prove yourself something other than a coward, you could always return and argue for leniency for Zieran. I think we both know that you won’t, because I would be right there at the Sovereign’s side if you did, enjoying every moment of your sweet comeuppance and the resultant downfall. That, too, is a dream I hold close to my heart, though I doubt it will ever come true anywhere but my fondest fantasies. Still, if you feel up to it … stop by any time.
Wishing you nothing but the very worst,
Vracken Coeltes
Guildmaster
Gathering of Coercers, Saekaj
As his eyes fell over the last word, a taste like ash balanced on his tongue, J’anda crumpled the parchment in his shaking hand. He knew just what to say … He shook in seething rage, keeping the parchment in his palm, unable to even muster the strength to throw it as he would have in his youth. It merely danced there, in his grasp, in the light grip of his fingers, as eventually, the tears of purest fury seeped down his cheeks.
12.
Terian
“Where the hell are we?” Terian asked as his sword sliced up through the unprotected jawline of a human soldier, knocking the man’s helm asunder as he choked and fell to his knees, blood rushing out between grasping fingers.
“It’s called Sarienlass,” Grinnd Urnocht told him, bringing down a vicious sword on another human soldier. Grinnd sported two blades, relatively short but shaped strangely, their curving outlines formed something akin to a meat cleaver. Grinnd would be the largest butcher in Saekaj. Actually, he’d be the largest at almost anything. Urnocht was, in fact, wide as Vaste, and taller even than Cyrus Davidon. As the big dark elven warrior’s sword fell again and again, human soldiers retreated frantically before the big man’s swings. “It’s a key gateway into the Human Confederation’s Northlands.”
“Trust Grinnd to know the name of every small town he passes through,” Dahveed Thalless, their resident healer, said with a smile on his face. His white cloak’s cowl was up over his head, and the northern sun shone down on him to find his sleeves brought together as he stood with a look of peace and amusement on his face, about twenty paces back from where Grinnd and Terian fought their way through the ragged human lines.
A weak sword blow spent its energy on the shoulder spikes of Terian’s pauldrons, surprising him and causing him to spin his head to look at the human there, watching him with stunned eyes. Terian drove his sword through the man’s neck without a thought, though he cringed inwardly as he struck the head from the man’s shoulders. Better you go like this, he thought, than fall into the hands of what follows behind us.
“You’re supposed to leave the corpses as intact as possible,” Amenon Lepos snapped at his son from somewhere to Terian’s right. “You know this, yet still I see you constantly cleaving heads from necks.”
“Old habit,” Terian lied, “and you’re not the boss of me, father.” He still acts as though he is, though. Doubt he’ll ever stop. He glanced over his shoulder at Amenon and saw his father tear his gaze away from Terian. Caught him looking at the sword again. Big surprise there; of course he wants it back.
The uneven ground sloped ahead of them, inevitably upward. They stood on a hard hill, ground above them reaching its gentle, rounded peak no more than a hundred feet up. Unfortunately, Terian thought, there’s a decent portion of an army between us and there. “Where’s this Sarien lass that you’re talking about, Grinnd?” Terian asked, trying to break the tension. “All I see are human men in old armor!”
“Your wit never ceases to amuse you, does it?” Amenon called at him. Terian spared a glance to see his father bury his sword, a fine steel blade of good craftsmanship, in the chest of a man wearing leather armor, possibly the sturdiest set they had seen all day. Amenon’s blade slipped easily through it, ripping into the chest of the human and drawing a bloody breath out of his lips as he stumbled. Amenon followed it up by pulling his blade free of the wound he’d just inflicted and running it across the man’s neck to finish the job.
“If I entertain no one else but myself, at least I’m entertained,” Terian said. “And really, what else matters?”
“Winning the battle?” Grinnd asked.
“That looks to happen anyway,” Terian said, driving his weapon into a clash against another human, this one a blond fellow with his helm already off. Not that their helms provide much in the way of protection; these Northmen are being cut apart like cowhide before a quartal blade.
“Don’t get overconfident,” Amenon said.
“I’m just the right amount of confident,” Terian said, knocking the blond man’s blade aside easily and then severing his head. “Oops. Again.”
“Damn you!” Amenon breathed.
“Oh, it’s one less corpse,” Terian said, throwing himself into the next knot of three human soldiers, crossing blades with each of them in turn as they tried to overwhelm him and failed. “We’re hardly lacking here, are we?”
“You have your orders,” Amenon said.
“Which do not come from you,” Terian said, “and which you can go back to minding on your own. I don’t report to you.” He saw Amenon’s hard gaze, the flare of anger in the man’s already cloudy eyes. They’re always cloudy these days; he hasn’t looked right since I got back. I suppose being dead for a good long while will leave its mark. Like his face—
A flash of hot fire burned past Terian’s nose and exploded into a cluster of five humans who were charging down the hill at him, feet away from where he was tangling with the three—he impaled one of the men on his sword—two men in his place on the hill. “Thanks, Bowe!” he called out, knowing that the gratitude would find its mark on the druid somewhere down below.
He caught only a glimpse of long-haired Bowe Sturrt before turning to deliver a spinning slash that cut one of his remaining foes in half. Bowe was levitating in a meditation position, legs crossed in front of him, about thirty paces back. Bowe looked at peace, eyes forward and unfocused, as though there weren’t a battle going on all around them.
“And now you,” Terian muttered as he faced the sole survivor of his assault. This one was barely more than a boy, and Terian hesitated as he stood
there, sword in hand, while the lad regarded him with frightened eyes and a dull sword that shook so hard that the tip swung several inches back and forth.
Terian hesitated, staring the boy down, pondering his course. This is one is but a child—
An arrow planted itself right in the lad’s forehead, knocking him over on his back. The boy dropped the sword and it clattered on a rock in the hillside. Terian looked down and saw dead eyes staring back at him, a shaft of wood planted just above the boy’s right eye. Terian kept the curse he wanted to mutter locked up deep within, replacing it with a name that was almost as bad.
Orion.
“They’re thinning,” Orion said, his helmeted head appearing at Terian’s shoulder. The helm was almost like a curved bucket, spheroid at the end atop his head and perfectly flat like a cylinder along the length of the ranger’s face. Two reasonable holes were slitted for the eyes, and Terian could see no hint of the scarring he knew was hidden beneath the metal mask, just eyes watching, hawklike, up the hill, for the motion of the army opposing them.
“We’ve been killing them for hours,” Terian said. “Sooner or later this garrison would have to run out of men.”
“I expected it sooner,” Orion said, bow in his hand and an arrow ready to fly with but a draw. “These soldiers are unblooded wretches, either too young or too old to be doing this.”
“I’d imagine the bulk of the human armies are defending Reikonos,” Terian said, “what with us throwing considerable force against it at present.”
He couldn’t see Orion’s face, but he heard the smile in the human’s voice. “They’ll fall soon enough.”
“I can see you’re still holding a grudge against them for that exile business,” Terian said, turning aside the sword attack of a man who limped down the hill at him. He swiped idly and severed the man’s head from his shoulders with no more difficulty than if he’d been slaughtering some animal in a pen. He ignored the pang of discontent in his belly, just as he had done for months.
“I’ll be perfectly happy to forgive them when that city is ashes and all their lands are under the boot,” Orion said, and let fly another arrow.
“I doubt there will be much left to forgive by then.”
“That’s the point,” Orion said. A nearby tree just below the crest of the hill rustled in the breeze.
Terian cast his eyes to the hilltop and counted only a half dozen more men. Three were making their way down, slowly, lamely, their legs unable to bear much weight. Three were running at full speed up, looking none the worse for the wear. “And so we reach the end of the noble battle of …” He frowned, searching. “What was it called again, Grinnd?”
“Sarienlass,” Grinnd said, easing up next to him with his dual swords. One of the last assailants came at him with a battle cry, and Grinnd cleaved him in two with a hard strike. When he caught Terian’s eye, he looked vaguely ashamed. So, he feels the same as I do about preserving the bodies of our enemies for … that. “The village itself is over the hill.”
“I’d imagine they’re not going to be getting much sleep tonight,” Terian said as Orion let fly an arrow that landed in the back of one of the runners. It sent the man sprawling to the ground, and the ranger followed it up by bringing down one of the others. Terian watched the third crest the hill before Orion could get a shot off, and silently bid the man good luck. He’d certainly need it.
“If they’re smart, they’ve already left,” Dahveed said, easing up the hill along with them. The top was only twenty feet distant now.
Amenon was engaged with the last of the surviving human soldiers. Terian stood back, seeing the wild, aged eyes of the man his father fought. Like a cornered rat, biting at everything he can. Amenon parried a strike with surprising grace, his eyes narrowed at the maneuver. He held out a hand, his lips frozen and unmoving, and a dark light flashed around the human, who cried out in pain.
The man dropped dead, as sure as if Terian had struck his head from his shoulders. The body fell limply and rolled ten feet down the hill. Open eyes stared off into the sky beyond, his limbs askew. The human’s skin was like melted wax, rippled with sudden age, as though he had melted some in the attack. Unnatural. Terian shuddered and turned his eyes swiftly away. “Feel better?” Terian asked, regarding his father with a careful look.
“Indeed I do,” Amenon said, advancing up the hill with a little more energy in his gait. I suppose it’s better he does it this way. After all, the soul drain spell is as much a part of our arsenal as the force blast is to a paladin.
Still … death has changed him, Terian thought. Or perhaps it’s just been his descent, and having his fortunes reversed by the no-good, misbegotten son he’d written off years ago.
They reached the crest of the hill and Terian slowed to a halt, his legs protesting the rough treatment at the hands of the hard slope, his arms straining at all the fighting. He looked right and saw Amenon looking jealously at his sword once more, this time not bothering to hide it. “How does it feel?” his father asked.
“A lot better than my old axe,” Terian said tightly. The mythical quality of the blade gave him just a hair’s breadth of advantage in speed and considerable help in the realm of durability; he’d broken lesser swords against its blade. “Still, sword play is not quite my forte; if I can find a good axe with similar qualities,” or perhaps convince the Sovereign to gift me one, he did not say, “I’ll be glad to give it back to you.”
“It is a symbol of our house,” Amenon said stiffly, “and if not for your retrieval of it, we would not have it at present. You should keep it until such time as you find better.”
“Thanks,” Terian said. Well, it’s progress. Before, he wouldn’t have even mentioned it, just continued to stare.
The whinny of a horse behind Terian stirred him loose of his daydream, and he turned his head to see Malpravus threading his way up the hill, managing his path so as to keep the grade from affecting his mount. “Here comes the General,” Dahveed said, a glint of amusement in his eyes. The healer stood at Terian’s shoulder. “I suppose this is no great change for you from Sanctuary.” The gleam in his eyes told Terian that the man was being ironic, but he had no time to answer it before Malpravus was upon them.
“Excellent work,” Malpravus said as he reached the summit. Terian looked out with him across hills and valleys, green lands stretching out to mountains in the far distance. Dwarf country. He looked back and saw Lake Magnus gleaming in the late light of day, and in front of them, a few men rushed down the hill to a village on the northern slope. Bells were ringing, and already horses and carts were moving out of the town gates onto the road heading north. “Look at them rush away, as though they could escape their fates.”
“I imagine they’re of a mind to at least try,” Terian said stiffly as Malpravus pulled a bag off his belt as big as Grinnd’s massive head. Terian watched as the necromancer breathed soft, barely spoken words into the twilight air and red energy glowed from his fingers.
The crackle of the magics rippled over the top of the hill in lines, waving like the illusions of a desert dune in the midday heat. They threaded down the hill in swirls, following unnatural paths, racing like water caught in a drain until each line of power reached its terminus in a felled body. Terian had seen the process up close, the red light infusing a corpse as it was absorbed through the armor into the skin. He could see the dead eyes come aglow for a moment, red as a Sovarian harlot’s craving gaze, as the bodies sat up in one swift, sudden motion. He wondered if his father had been jarred back to life as abruptly …
“Our army grows,” Malpravus said, the crimson aura around his fingers fading as the spell energy subsided. The necromancer’s delight was evident in his grin. “Our assault into the tender underbelly of the Confederation has been most unexpected.”
“How could it have been expected?” Terian asked, keeping his bitterness well in check. “We’ve been attacking their capital with everything they thought we have left, drawing all t
heir defense to that place.” This is like being in a fight with a one-armed man. Or carrying a mystical sword against a farmer, he thought, looking down at the red glow of his father’s blade. It looked awfully like the spell that Malpravus had just cast, but less bright.
“And that is why we shall win,” Malpravus said, still grinning. “Four days' march and we will attack the keep of Livlosdald. It is the last major fortress before the north turns flat and easier to navigate. Four days, and we shall have free ranging of these reaches of the human lands. From there, we shall eddy about in their breadbasket, sop up their harvests and send them south to Saekaj, then move to join our other armies in the pitched battles of the Riverlands.” He took a breath in through his nose, savoring it. “How long do you suppose it will be before the humans’ will breaks?”
“Not soon enough,” Orion said with undisguised glee. Terian resisted the urge to cleave into the ranger’s helm, but only barely.
“You have done well,” Malpravus said, looking down upon the retreating humans in the village below. “All of you.” His eyes found Terian’s, though, and he nodded a special sort of approbation. “But especially you, Lord Lepos.”
Terian nodded to Malpravus in acknowledgement of the praise even as he caught a nearly imperceptible look from his father. Father is not pleased; as though that should surprise me. Following here at my command must be torturous to his ego.
“I suspect you’ll move House Lepos into the last manor for this victory,” Malpravus went on. Terian kept his eyes on his father and watched the flash of resentment spark there. He still hasn’t forgiven me for the betrayal of going to my current accommodation with Kahlee.
“We have a long march still ahead of us before we finish,” Terian said, standing upon the heights of the hill, hoping he could merely stand here and delay. Just a few more minutes. Give those people time to run, a chance to escape …
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