Students of the Order

by Edward W. Robertson

  He was already three flights up when he realized he'd forgotten to tell Shain that Wa'llach wasn't dead. Yet even if he came to his senses—and after what Joti had done to his mind, he wasn't at all sure that the dwarf ever would—he'd no longer be a slave to the Order's commands.

  Upstairs, the strings twitched again. Joti hefted his blade and ran onward.

  35

  Haniel had managed to keep her scheme to kill Chattiel secret from the Order long enough to execute it—mostly by not thinking about it herself. However, now that it was done, she doubted that she could keep her role in it secret, and she did not even try. Gondorf was taken away to a gaol, to await his Controversy, and Haniel was sent to the library, while the Order considered what to do with her.

  A guard was posted at the door of the library and Haniel was left alone: it was the one place where there were always enough wizards on hand that there could be no thought of her causing trouble. She found a chair and stared off into space.

  "Hanny, you're not doing anything. Find these for me?"

  She looked up to see Crina Nimm, an ancient wizard who mostly worked on assessing the dues that the different lords of the Alliance owed the Order, pointing a list of books at her.

  Crina was a favorite of the Adepts' even though she had little to do with them. She was small, wispy thin, and wore her long gray hair in a bun on her head. She eschewed the robes and tunics that most wizards preferred and dressed instead in fine black dresses with intricate colors, which Mantyger, after much research, learned had been in fashion in one of the southern courts sixty years ago.

  Haniel took the list. Crina had not seemed surprised to see her in the library in the middle of the night; but Haniel doubted that Crina knew what time it was. During the last invasion Crina had been a Battle Mage, commanding troops directly with the Gift during battles, staying in their minds when they died. The surviving Battle Mages were eccentric, even by wizard standards, and Crina seldom left the library at all. Haniel got up and found the books.

  Crina nodded impatiently when she got back and handed her another book and a list of passages to copy out. Haniel asked her for a pen and ink.

  "What are you doing running about without your writing things? All the gods." Crina shook her head sadly and gave her a pen, and Haniel set to work.

  She had copied out five pages when Mantyger came into the library. She spotted Haniel and stormed over to her. "What in all the hells is wrong with you, Hanny? What have you gone and done?"

  Haniel looked sheepishly at the ground. "You didn't bring any booze, did you?"

  "Booze? At a time like this? Hanny, this is deathly serious."

  "Yeah, I know it's serious. I'm done. They're gonna kill me over this, for sure. If you were really my friend, you might have brought me a drink."

  "Hanny! First you show up without anything to write with and now you are off talking and ignoring your work! I expect more of…" Crina now noticed that Mantyger was silently weeping, and her manner softened. "What's going on?"

  Mantyger sniffled and looked angrily at Haniel. "I killed one of the other Adepts, a little. I'm in here until the Grand Wizards wake up in the morning and decide what to do with me—I can't think what that will be, other than execution."

  "How did you 'kill him a little'?"

  "Well, I didn't kill him myself. I introduced him to someone who I thought would kill him, and did kill him."

  Crina blinked. "Why would you do something like that?"

  Haniel sighed. "I don't suppose I really thought much about it. He killed some people I was fond of, and not for any good reason. I didn't like him very much. I thought he would make a rotten wizard. I didn't think about it much."

  Crina gave a secretive sort of nod. "Well. I had no idea. I suppose it makes a little more sense, you being without a pen. You should still have one, though. You might as well get yourself some rest." She bustled away.

  "I'm sorry," Haniel said to Mantyger. "I think… it's what I needed. I'm sorry that it hurts you. I can't do what you do, you know."

  "What, magic? That's not—"

  "No. I mean, I can't do magic near as well as you, but that's not got much to do with anything. No, I can't…" She grasped for words. "I can't just be part of It, you know? Do things because I am told to and feel good about myself, or be content with just the fact that things could be worse. I'm not saying you're mean for being able to, I'm just saying that I can't do it."

  "It's not like we have any choice…"

  "We have a choice. I made it. I'm sorry that it's not what you wanted from me. I'm sorry."

  "All the gods, Hanny…" She walked away, with tears in her eyes.

  Haniel found herself an armchair in a corner and made herself as comfortable as she could. She doubted that she would get any sleep, but her eyes closed almost instantly.

  She was in her cell in the Adepts' quarters studying a book that she had to have committed to memory in a few hours' time. The book was about the life of a wizard and Haniel was reading about his death. He had died in a fight, killed by an orc.

  She shook her head. The dreams of wizards were often more than dreams. They occasionally offered magical revelations, opportunities to change the waking world, or communicate with other wizards. Adepts were taught to be on the lookout for magic, whenever they found themselves reading in a dream.

  None of which would help her much if she didn't figure out her passage about the wizard. She knew why he was important; she had read that earlier—it didn't matter that she couldn't recall that at the moment, she needed to get to the end. The wizard had been in a duel, with another wizard, when someone had snuck up on him…

  A loud banging sounded from the living room, and Haniel lost her place and looked up in annoyance. What kind of an orc could sneak up on a wizard anyway? That seemed like something she would be questioned about, and she turned back to the text, trying to get herself to focus. What if the orc had the Gift? No, wizards were very good at telling when people were trying to kill them—wizards could seldom sneak up on other wizards with murder in their hearts. Had the wizard been distracted?

  Thumps and crashes continued to come from the living room. Haniel closed her book in disgust, left her cell, and stomped down the corridor. "All the gods! Keep it down! Some of us have work to do!"

  As she turned to go back to her room, she saw that Wit and another wizard, an older man with a narrow face and a beard, had been the source of the racket.

  "Who the hell are you, anyway?" she asked the wizard.

  "I am Vechtin, Master Wizard of Youngkent."

  "Oh. That makes sense." Strands—her memories, what she read in the book—were coming together. "You're the guy whose pupil I just killed."

  "What?"

  "Yeah, Chattiel—I killed him. And then I read about you in a book. And I needed to tell you that the little shit was dead before…" She paused, struggling to hold the memory together. "Before the orc stabs you in the back."

  ~

  Wit was on his hands and knees with blood pouring out of his nose. Vechtin was standing twenty feet away, still by the door onto the roof. And Joti was standing just behind Vechtin, and the point of his sword was sticking out of the wizard's chest.

  Wit pulled himself to his feet, wiped some blood off of his face, and tried to remember something, to make sure his brain worked—he came up with an argument he had gotten into with Bronzino about Contract remedies—and, hoping for the best, began to stagger towards Joti and Vechtin.

  "Thank you," said Wit. "How are you doing? What's going on?"

  Joti nodded at the courtyard below them, where the sounds of battle could be heard. "Are you okay, wizard?"

  "Mostly?" Wit reached down to pick up Vechtin's staff and fell down in the process. Using the dead wizard's staff for support, he slowly regained his feet.

  Footsteps sounded from the stairway and they both turned as three dragar rushed onto the roof: one of them was Enexiyo and he was being more or less dragged by the
other two.

  Joti cut one of them down by surprise. The other turned to face him, but turned away again as Enexiyo bolted for cover, allowing Joti to clear his sword from the first dragar and stab the second.

  "What's all this?" Wit asked Enexiyo.

  Enexiyo pointed to the far edge of the castle, which was built into the mountain. Squinting, he could see a small stairway cut into the cliff face, going all the way to the top of the cliff. At the top of the stairway, he thought he could faintly make out moving lights.

  "Wa'llach told LinLaugh that the castle was under attack, and that there was nothing for it but to use the dragon. The two of them are up there now—they wanted me brought up to see if I could be of any assistance before it was launched."

  "The dragon? Has LinLaugh perfected it?"

  Enexiyo nodded gravely. "I have not had a chance to see it myself, but when I talked to the engineers, I was very impressed with all the improvements they described to me. I think it will fly."

  "Wa'llach brought the news? When?" said Joti quickly.

  "Just now, from what the guards said, hardly fifteen minutes ago."

  "Why? What about Wa'llach?" asked Wit.

  "He shot Shain. He was under the control of the other wizard. He was about to kill me…I think I severed his Binding."

  "You did WHAT?"

  "I did…something with the Warp. I might have set him free."

  "All the gods, I'll be damned…now that's something."

  "What do we do?" asked Joti.

  Wit pointed to the stairway. "I suppose we go and see if there's a way to stop them. Killed by a mechanical dragon, of all the ridiculous things. And Wa'llach not Bound by the Order…ha ha…the hell of it is, things are looking up."

  Joti and Enexiyo ran for the stairway, and Wit limped after them. They were a quarter of the way up by the time Wit reached the foot of the stairs. He dragged himself up seemingly endless steps, while the sound of their feet grew faint in the distance.

  He was not sure how far up the stairs he had gotten when he heard another noise, the distant sound of scraping metal. He looked up in time to see a black shape dart across the sky, and then dive towards the ground. He thought he could hear a reptilian scream coming from the shape.

  For a second, the wind caught the dark object, and it paused, for only a moment, in its rapid descent to glide away from the castle and the mountain, before continuing its fall. It struck the wall closing off the pass a few feet away from the castle with a crash and a jet of flame. For a moment, the night was silent, and then a familiar laugh sounded from the stairs, just feet above Wit.

  Wit froze. Moments later the dwarf's feet sounded, and they were face to face.

  "Wrath of gods!" exclaimed Wa'llach, pointing where the dragon had just crashed. Wit turned to look in the direction of his finger, and Wa'llach struck him in the chest, leaped over his body, and continued his descent. When a length of stairs separated them, Wa'llach turned and looked at him. "That looks like a pretty bad burn you got on your hand there."

  Wit nodded.

  "There's a salve in a red stone bottle with my things, it should do you a world of good. And tell those other magicians that you're all the sons of pimps and monsters. You'll never catch me again and you can all go straight to hell! Haha!" With one last laugh the dwarf was gone. Unsure whether to go up or down, Wit simply sat where he was.

  36

  Joti dashed up the staircase into the night, the wind tugging at his cloak. Slicks of ice threatened to spill him over the side and down the long fall from the cliffs. He felt for the strings of the Warp, trying to find a path upward that wouldn't leave him in a bleeding heap three hundred feet below, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  Far above, lanterns burned on a platform near the top of the cliffs. Tiny figures scurried about. Now and then, the light of their lanterns gleamed from a towering and menacing black shape. One that Joti had once faced down while playing games with the other trainees on the cold slopes of the Peak of Tears.

  "If that thing gets off the ground," Joti said, "what else can it do?"

  Next to him, Enexiyo was breathing heavily. "It has been designed to be able to do that which most makes a dragon a dragon: breathe fire."

  "How do we take it down?"

  "That would be most difficult. I suppose that we could build another dragon."

  Joti ran harder yet. Wit was falling behind, hampered by the mystical injuries he'd suffered battling Vechtin. Should they slow down? Assault the platform together?

  Rough and hale orcish voices boomed across the courtyard, causing Joti to slip. He caught his hand against the frigid stone and glanced into the bailey. There, bulky figures charged a line of men. The humans shouted out in anger, but there was alarm in there, too. The same tone you heard when a plant-eater trumpeted a warning to its herd.

  The two sides clashed. Two humans dropped at once, but the others held the line. Up on the platform, an officer bellowed an order. A great mass of steel creaked through the night.

  Joti cursed. "If we don't get up there before they get that dragon in the air, it'll slaughter half my clan!"

  Wit was further behind than ever, but if Joti slowed for him, none of them would make it in time. He took the stairs at a full sprint, heart lurching every time his boots slipped before finding purchase. Air rushed coldly in and out from his lungs. Time entered a hazy state where each second was short and long at the same time. In the bailey, the No-Clan broke the defenders, sending them scattering, and ran alongside the keep.

  Joti's legs were trembling, but the last section of stairs stood before them. On the platform, a great blast of steam mushroomed into the air, occluding the dragon. Metal scraped and groaned.

  He reached the top of the platform. Enexiyo had fallen behind, doggedly making his way up the stairs. Wit was too far back to be seen. On the well-swept stone platform, a score of soldiers and workers stood far back from the steaming dragon. Joti dropped to one knee, drew his bow, and fit it with an arrow. He sighted in on the dragon, searching for the roundness of human flesh atop or within its metal planes.

  "Intruder!" The man was nearly screaming to get his voice above the whoosh and crank of the dragon. "Intruder on the steps!"

  Joti homed in on a lump near the base of the dragon's neck that might have been the humped back of a rider. He let the arrow loose. Before it had time to strike home, he popped to his feet, nocked another arrow, and sent it hissing toward the chest of a human man rushing at him with a sword so big he had to hold it in both hands.

  His first arrow hit the dragon with a steely spang that announced he'd done no damage to anyone. His second shot hit the swordsman square on, dropping him with a grunt and a rattle of his oversized sword. He launched a third arrow and knocked down a dragar that was charging him with a pike braced in its scaly hands. Then the others were too close, and he dropped his bow and drew his sword.

  Two humans and a dragar fanned out before him, thrusting at him with their straight blades. Joti let the years of his training take over, parrying one strike after another, his dragon-forged blade as light in his hand as the reeds he used to play-fight with when he'd been a small child.

  Hemmed in, he fell back a step, then another. Enexiyo appeared beside him, eyes bulged in perplexity. The dragar glanced at Joti, as if seeking advice, then picked up a fallen pike and and jabbed it at the nearest enemy. Joti surged forward, knocking a man's sword from his hand and then his head from his shoulders.

  Enexiyo's pike-work was uncoordinated at best, but it was enough for Joti to make a move. He shuffled toward the low cliff that ran along the back end of the platform, meaning to put his back toward it, choose his moment, then make a rush for the dragon. A short man charged from the scrum and bolted right past Enexiyo, drawing a startled hiss from the dragar.

  As Joti reached the northern-facing cliffs and edged east, another battle broke out in the courtyards; the No-Clan had been engaged again. Something at the dragon's rear was glowing with
heat, the steam roiling into the frozen air in enormous gusts. Something rumbled; a massive gear clicked. The dragon rolled forward.

  The men-at-arms backed away from Joti, keeping their weapons extended before them as they turned their heads to watch the machine of war swing loose from the cliffs. Lanterns flashed from the dragon's eyes. It cleared the cliff and plunged downward, as black as a shadow. Ready to reduce Shain and Nod and all the others to sooty stains on the cobblestones.

  And he could only watch as it happened.

  The dragon swept through the night, lifted by a gust of wind that made Joti's eyes water. A touch of flame licked from its mouth. It tipped its wings, banking toward the scrum in the bailey below it.

  The dragar began to cheer, shaking their fists above their heads. At least one of them seemed to be crying with joy. The dragon passed over the fighting and banked about. As it did so, it wobbled, nose tilting downward.

  The dragar lowered their fists, going silent. The dragon hurtled toward the ground like a stone. It smashed into the wall with a jet of flame.

  "LinLaugh!" A dragar padded toward the cliff's edge, dropping his pike. He clutched his hands to his head. "LinLaugh is dead!"

  "That is a spot of fortune," Enexiyo said. "As LinLaugh has completed our task for us, should we run?"

  "If you slip," Joti said, "try to fall away from the cliffs."

  Enexiyo bolted for the stairs, his hips waggling in the strange way that dragar ran. Joti followed a step and a half behind him, stooping to grab his bow from where he'd dropped it. A pair of humans took off after them, but the others were either too confused or demoralized to join the chase, and the pair of soldiers stopped at the head of the stairs, content to hold their position against any other attacks.