Arthur Daigle's Blog, page 5
January 3, 2020
Rescue part 2
This is the conclusion of the Dana Illwind and Sorcerer Lord Jayden story Rescue.
* * * * *
Brasten led Dana through the cave to a large chamber, easily a hundred feet across. At some point most of the cave’s ceiling had collapsed to reveal the sky far overhead. There was dirt on the ground and grass grew to knee high. Dana saw the moon and stars shining above as bats left the cave.
“You can see in the dark?” she asked. “I mean, I have a torch, but you were in the dark before I came.”
“I have lived here long enough to know every inch of this cave,” he replied. “Dark or light matters little. Girl, you came here to save me, a noble goal, and proof of the goodness in your heart. I am pleased I should meet someone so pure they would save a stranger’s life. It pains me to say what you seek is impossible.”
Dana folded her arms across her chest. “I’ve seen lots of impossible things. You tell me what the problem is and I’ll help you find a way out of it. If I can’t help, I know a man who might be able to break you out.”
“Your optimism is refreshing. Forgive me, but the years have left me jaded. Girl—”
“Dana.”
Brasten bowed. “Forgive me, Dana. There is a chest at the opposite end of this cave. Do not approach it, for it is guarded by an implacable defender.”
Dana saw the chest, a beauty two feet long, one foot wide, a foot tall, and made of sea green bronze and obsidian carved in intricate patterns. She didn’t see the defender he’d warned her of. The room was empty besides her, Brasten and the chest.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“Not it, but whom. I have the displeasure and dishonor of defending the chest, a role I have played to my eternal shame for three hundred years.”
“Wait, what?” Dana staggered back. “You can’t be, I, no, I have a brother your age!”
Brasten tilted his head to one side. “My appearance is deceptive. I was born three hundred years ago, give or take a few decades. Forgive me for not providing an exact date, but after a certain point the years flowed together.”
Dana frowned. “This is weird, but I can deal with it. Brasten, sit down and we’ll talk.”
“I would like that.”
Both of them sat down on the grassy cave floor. Brasten piled up old straw mats and gestured for Dana to ignite them with her torch to provide both light and heat. Dana pointed at him and said, “You can’t have lived this long naturally, so there’s magic involved. Who did this to you?”
“Three hundred years ago, a small group of men and women uncovered spell tablets of the ancient sorcerer lords. They translated them to learn that long forgotten school of magic. My master was a lesser nobleman and one such new sorcerer lord. He and his fellow practitioners sought to form a kingdom of sorcerers as in the days of old.”
“I’ve never heard this before.”
“It did not last long or end well. My master gathered together many students and trained them in magic, so many the king grew concerned. He need not have been. Rival sorcerer lords grew paranoid. They worried he would forge his students into an obedient army to conquer them.”
Puzzled, she asked, “Why would they do that?”
Brasten shrugged. “I don’t know. My master argued incessantly that he was spreading their message and magic so they could one day overthrow the king, nothing more. It didn’t help. The stronger he and his students grew, the greater others feared him. One day they gathered together and waged war upon him. Sorcerer lord fought sorcerer lord, a tragic repetition of ancient history. Few survived.”
“Are you a sorcerer lord?”
He smiled. “No. I was a farm boy with a strong back and a weak mind. My master owned the land I farmed, and by law he ruled me. He wanted to teach me his magic, but I could never fathom the strange words and bizarre meanings behind them. He abandoned the effort when his fellow sorcerers turned on him. If I could not serve him as a sorcerer, I could serve him as a soldier. I excelled as a swordsman, becoming my master’s best and most favored warrior. He gave me the magic sword you see at my side.”
Brasten looked sad as he continued. “Warriors serving rival sorcerer lords grew to respect me, then fear me, then run from me. It shames me to say I once took pleasure in seeing the terror in their eyes. Please do not judge me harshly, for I was young and foolish, and I listened to wicked men rather than good ones.”
“Why is a feared swordsman trapped in a cave?” Dana winced and said, “Sorry, that was rude.”
“I take no offense. Many have asked the same question. My master held off his enemies for years until they rallied together with aid from the king to defeat him. His estate was razed to the ground, his spell library looted or destroyed, his wealth carried off. He and I escaped only with the chest you see before you. My master cast a spell called Eternal Guardian on me. He ordered me to stay here until his return, to not touch the chest, and to slay any who did with my sword Oath Breaker.” Brasten nodded to the sword sheathed on his belt. “I’ve carried out these orders for centuries, victim of my master’s magic.”
“The spell is keeping you young?”
“Just so. I thought it was an honor at first. My master had lost all his followers save me, and in reward for my loyalty he’d made me ageless. I could still die in combat, but the years did not touch me. Nor did I hunger or thirst, although I can eat and drink. I can’t sleep or even grow tired.”
Brasten stared into the fire. “He left, never to return. Perhaps he meant to and died before he could, but his spell ensured my imprisonment when he did not, a risk he was willing to take. I once gloried in battle, taking so many lives I can’t count them. I thought myself an honored servant, and that this sword was proof of the faith he had in me. Now I see the truth, that I was a vain fool in the service of a greater fool. This sword was his way to make me a more efficient killer, nothing more. I have come to despise it. I was his property, to be used or expended as he saw fit. Being ageless made my imprisonment an even greater burden, but in truth it is a fair punishment for my actions.
“My master would overthrow the king, and a new leader would replace the old one, but nothing would change. Men like myself would still be ruled by others, serving their masters onto death before being replaced with more expendable men. My master and his rivals mistook intelligence for virtue, and in their arrogance destroyed one another until the king could defeat the few who survived.”
Dana hesitated before asking, “Do you think sorcerer lord magic makes people turn on one another? I mean, they fought each other long ago, and the same thing happened again to your master.”
Brasten chuckled. “No, child, magic does not make a man good or bad. Before my imprisonment, I met noblemen, rich merchants, judges and sheriffs equaling if nor surpassing my master in their arrogance. Power corrupts men regardless of its source. Too many hunger for it, striving to be better than their peers rather than helping them. In my experience, it is a rare man who can turn down power or willingly give it up. Such men are to be cherished and protected, for their lives are often cut short by the ambitious.”
Tears formed around Dana’s eyes. “That’s terrible. You’ve been alone down here for so long.”
“Not entirely alone,” Brasten replied. “On rare occasions I have visitors such as yourself. I once spent weeks talking to a sage from a distant land who wanted to know more about sorcerer lords. Later still a monk spent decades meditating with me. I credit his help to my becoming a better person.”
“And there’s Laura.”
Brasten paused. “There is Laura. She entered my cave ten years ago, fleeing criminals from a town called Weirdwood. I protected the poor child from them.”
Hesitantly, Dana asked, “When you say protected…”
Brasten pointed to three mounds of earth and rocks at the edge of the cave. “I take no pride in the title Unbeaten I held so long ago, but it is accurate. I thought that was the end of the matter once the child left, but she returned time and again. Sometimes she would speak to me, other times like tonight delivering meals. She grew with time while I remained the same. Now a woman, she has twice expressed an interest in me.”
“Interest?” Dana asked. She saw Brasten blush and hastily said, “Oh, that kind of interest. I take it you said no.”
“What other answer could I give? I could not provide for her or any children we had together, nor could I protect them from harm if they were attacked away from this cave. She is a good woman, beautiful in body and spirit, and deserves better than what little I can offer. I had hoped she would marry another, but she continues to come to me. She reminds me of the fiancée I had so long ago.”
Dana perked up. “You were going to be married?”
“My master had selected a young woman to be my bride. She was a beauty like no other. She was also the worst cook I’ve ever met, and nearly killed me with food poisoning. Bad yams nearly did what a hundred enemies could not.”
“What happened to her?”
“She fled when my master’s enemies came for him. I take no offense at her choice, for it saved her life.”
Dana stood up and helped Brasten to his feet. “I’m getting you out of here.”
“Others have tried and failed, some at the cost of their lives. The Eternal Guardian spell forces me to defend the chest yet will not let me touch it, which includes moving it out of the cave. If any attempt to touch or move it I instantly kill them. I am compelled by the spell and have no choice in the matter. If you touch the chest, even accidentally, I would kill you before I even knew what I was doing.”
“Then I’ll have to be careful.” Dana approached the chest like it was a bear trap. “What happens if the chest is destroyed?”
“The chest is reinforced with powerful magic to both strengthen it and make it hard to detect. Any attempt to destroy it would likely fail, and would count as touching it, forcing me to attack whoever tried.”
Dana circled the chest. “What if someone threw a rope around it and pulled it out. Technically they’re not touching it.”
“The spell does not care for technicalities. I would strike the rope and then the person pulling it, as a certain thief found out to his sorrow. Normally I regret my acts of violence, but he was a revolting man.”
“What if an animal touches the chest?”
“A number of birds have done so over the years. They were quite tasty.”
Dana tapped her fingers against her backpack. “What would happen if someone touched the chest but you couldn’t see them? I mean, it’s got to be pretty dark in here, and you said you can’t see in the dark.”
“That has happened twice in my time here. In both cases I could sense the chest being touched even when I could not see it. The Eternal Guardian spell drew me to the chest, and I ended the lives of the rats that were crawling on it. I have no idea how I knew they were there, but I did.”
“If I threw something on the chest, what would you do?”
Brasten looked uneasy. “If it was an inanimate object such as a rock, I would treat it as you touching the chest and attack. If, however, you placed a living animal on the chest, I would be forced to attack the animal instead. That happened once when a witch tried to steal the chest. She threw her cat at me, and it landed instead on the chest. The spell forced my hand.”
“That poor kitty!”
“It was one of many deeds I’m not proud of.”
Brasten certainly looked competent, but Dana had fought skilled warriors before. How dangerous was he? She retreated to the grassy area in the cave and went through it until she found a worm. She carried it back and tossed it onto the chest.
She didn’t see Brasten draw his sword or him charge. One second he was behind her, and the next he was in front of her, his sword making a glittering arc before he returned it to his sheath. The worm was cut in half lengthwise.
“You see the reason for my concern,” Brasten said. “Should you even let your dress brush up against the chest, I would kill you no matter how much I don’t want to. Nothing could save you.”
Dana looked at the dead worm. That could just as easily have been her. Jayden’s training had helped her be a better fighter, but nothing she knew could stop someone that fast or skilled. She wondered if Jayden knew a way to break this spell. But would Brasten let him? The poor man had good reasons not to trust sorcerer lords and might attack Jayden. Introducing these two would be a mistake one or both might not survive.
“That was impressive, and massive overkill for a worm,” she told him. “Why didn’t you just squish it with your finger, or pick it up and throw it away?”
“If I only could be so merciful,” Brasten said sadly. “The Eternal Guardian spell forces me to draw my sword. I can’t do otherwise, even when another choice would be superior.”
“What were your master’s exact orders?” she asked.
“Brasten, last of my followers, I give you this duty to carry out above all others. This chest contains my last treasures from which I might rebuild my holdings. Stay in this cave and do not touch the chest, and if anyone ese dares to so much as touch it, strike them dead at once with your mighty sword Oath Breaker.” Brasten spoke the words with obvious distain. “Those were his orders before he left, and that is what I have had to do for centuries.”
“I’ve got an idea.” Dana dug up several worms and brought them to within four feet of the chest. She handed her torch, now burning out, to Brasten. “There’s got to be ways around those orders. I’m going to throw another worm at the chest.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Trust me. You said your sword was magic. I wonder if it’s part of the curse you’re under. I want you to kill it with the torch instead of your sword. Can you do that?”
“I will make the attempt.”
Dana threw the worm, and it landed on top of the chest. She felt a breeze as Brasten charged past her and sliced the worm into four equal parts. He sheathed his sword and handed back the torch. “My apologies, but the moment it touched the chest I was overcome with the need to defend it. I could not resist the urge to draw my sword.”
“You apologize a lot.”
Brasten bowed his head. “I have done much worthy of regret. Forgive my saying so, but you seem surprisingly at ease meeting a man centuries old.”
“This isn’t the weirdest thing that’s happened to me.” Dana frowned as she considered this riddle. Brasten’s orders insisted he use his sword to defend the chest. What would happen if he didn’t? “Have you ever attacked a person or animal that touched the chest with your fists, a rock, anything except your sword?”
“Never.”
Dana pointed at his sword. “Can I look at it?”
Brasten handed over his weapon without a moment’s hesitation. That surprised Dana. Then again, he’d said he’d come to hate it. She took the sword from its sheath and studied it. The blade was longer than hers and had words stamped into it that resembled the letters from Jayden’s spell tables. It was razor sharp and as light as a feather, and the blade glimmered when she swung it, leaving a short-lived trail of stars behind.
Dana handed Brasten the torch back, and without another word threw another worm at the chest. He had the sword out of her hands so fast she barely saw him move, and the worm met the same end as the other two. He handed the blade back to her along with the torch.
“If it helps, I’ve tried doing that before,” he said. “For years I left the sword far away from me, but I always come back for it when the chest is touched.”
“There’s got to be a way out of this,” Dana said as she handed back the sword. No point to holding it when he could get it back so easily. “What if I took it out of the cave where you can’t reach it?”
“A man tried that eighty years ago. He went fifty feet before the curse compelled me to retrieve the sword. Fortunately, he had spells in place to protect him long enough to escape.”
This was a tough riddle, and one that kept a good man enslaved to the will of a long dead master. She had to help him, but how? There had to be a loophole in his orders. She was sure Brasten’s sword was the key. He had to use it, no choice, so removing it might cancel the Eternal Guardian spell. But how? She couldn’t take it from him when he could reclaim it so easily. He couldn’t throw it away. Maybe she could destroy it with Chain Cutter, but the spell might force him to defend himself if she tried, and she had no illusions how that fight would end. What did that leave?
Wait.
“You hate your sword, right?”
“With a passion.”
Dana set aside the torch, now completely burned out. “I want to make an offer. I’ll buy your sword for a gold coin.”
Brasten raised an eyebrow. “Buy it?”
“Buy it.” Dana went through her pockets until she came up with a single gold coin. “I’m asking you to sell me your sword, not give it to me or just hand it to me. I’m not stealing it, either. You get a gold coin and I get your sword for keeps. Deal?”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to do.”
“Work with me, Brasten. Am I buying your sword or not?”
“Very well, in return for a single gold coin I will sell you my sword.” He removed the blade, sheath and all, and handed it to her.
Dana handed him the coin. “No take backs. The fire’s getting low. Can you throw a few more straw mats on it?”
Brasten did as she asked, turning his back to do so. That was very trusting of him. An unscrupulous person might try to hit him from behind, which would fail. Dana had seen his speed and skill firsthand. She doubted a person could kill Brasten even when he was unarmed.
While he was looking away, Dana threw the rest of the worms she had onto the chest.
“Is that bright enough for you?” he asked.
“One more, please.”
“Done, but it is the last of them.” Brasten threw another straw mat onto the flame and turned around. “Why are you smiling?”
Dana waved for him to join her. “Look.”
Brasten walked back to her, and he gasped when he saw the worms wriggling on top of the chest. “That’s not possible. It can’t be!”
“One way to make sure,” Dana said. He pointed at the cave’s entrance and asked, “Would you like to go outside?”
Brasten ran off, laughing like a man who’d escaped the gallows. Dana heard him splash through the shallow water and then cry out in exaltation. Dana followed him and found him dancing across the trail leading to the cave.
“Free! Centuries of endless waiting, over! What joy it is to feel the wind on my skin, to breath fresh air, to see more than those cursed walls!” Brasten ran to her, dropped to his knees and kissed her hand. “Good woman, kindest of souls, what magic did you use to free me?”
“No magic,” she told him. “Your master’s orders were if anyone touched the chest you had to kill them with your sword, Oath Breaker. The sword’s not yours anymore. You sold it to me. The curse didn’t force you to fight with your fists or any weapon, only the sword. Selling the sword makes it impossible to carry out your orders.”
He stared at her. “Glorious child, you saved me.”
Dana looked down. “It may have come at a cost. If we broke the Eternal Guardian spell by letting you go, you may have lost the benefits you got from it, like not aging.”
Brasten stood up again. “You are right. I feel tired, sleepy, a sensation lost long ago. If that gift is gone then I must assume the others are, too. I can grow old and die as all men do. Do not pity me for the loss, for I have not known joy in the centuries I have lived.”
He took her hands in his and said, “You have done what no other could, even when I tried to discourage you. Name your reward, even if it is my life. I have little, but it is at your command.”
“Your master thought in those terms. I want you to be free to choose your own path. The only thing I want is for you to consider one thing.”
He sounded curious when he asked, “What is that?”
“You’ve outlived your friends, family, even your enemies. You’re going to have to start from scratch with nothing except one gold coin, but I can give you more.”
“Don’t. You have given me enough.”
Dana smiled at him. “Consider where you can go from here. The whole world is open to you, but I know of a woman who cares a lot about you.”
“So there is.” Brasten turned to leave. “You have my eternal gratitude. Keep the chest if you wish. After being trapped with it for three hundred years, I have no desire to see it again or its contents, whatever they may be. I pray that the good fortune you brought me may be returned to you a thousand times over.”
Before he left, Brasten looked thoughtfully at the night sky. “I was a farmer once. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but it was a good life. I wonder if I can be one again.”
Dana watched him leave, happy that she’d saved a man. For a second she wondered if Brasten would suddenly age three centuries now that the spell was broken, but he went on his way happy and healthy. The entire kingdom was still in a terrible mess, but one person’s life was immeasurably better. It was small wins like this that made life worth living. And she did it without any fighting. Most of her victories with Jayden were extremely violent.
Once Brasten was long gone, Dana went back into the cave and tried to pick up the chest. It was so heavy she could barely drag it across the floor. She eventually gave up trying to move it, opened the chest and took out the contents. There were pouches of gold, a silver necklace set with rubies, and two sorcerer lord spell tablets.
“Oh my.” Dana put on the necklace. “Jayden can have the spell tablets, but I’m keeping this.”
Dana returned to her camp under the pine trees, hid the necklace among her baggage and tried to go to sleep. She’d nearly nodded off when she saw a light. She got up and rubbed her eyes. There was a bright glow in the distance.
“Weirdwood is burning!” a man shouted in the nearby village.
More people ran out of their houses and pointed at the light. Many danced and cheered, and a woman cried out, “We’re finally free of those criminals!”
Dana put a hand over her face. “I just can’t leave you alone, Jayden.”
Jayden returned to the village hours later, looking tired and smelling of wood smoke. “Ah, Dana, I didn’t expect to see you still awake. Lovely night, isn’t it?”
“You torched the place, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“Oh, good, you accidentally burned a town of lowlifes and thugs.”
“A sadly accurate assessment of the situation,” he told her. Jayden sat down beside her and dusted ash off his shirt. “The evening started well enough. Clevner had the information he promised, but before he could say much a large number of cutthroats decided to take my head. Clevner escaped while I fought my way through them, which unfortunately attracted even more men after my life. I set a fire to cover my retreat. Do you recall a rather vulgar woman in Weirdwood offering dubious potions?”
“I remember wanting to slap her.”
“That’s her. It turned out her questionable brews were surprisingly combustible, and they detonated when the fire reached them, spreading the fire across several blocks. Weirdwood doesn’t, excuse me, didn’t have fire fighters, and the flames spread across the entire town.”
Jayden turned to her and said, “It was a partial win at best. I spent a lot of gold for a little information, but Weirdwood is gone. Its criminal occupants fled without time to gather their ill-gotten gains. With no base of operations, goods, even food, they are a spent force little able to aid the king and queen.”
“And here you thought you weren’t strong enough to destroy an entire town.”
“Normally it would be a questionable achievement, but it was necessary. I should have taken you with me. Your absence didn’t ease the transaction, and your presence would have done much to speed my exit. Worse, we’re going to have to spend days guarding these people in case Weirdwood’s now homeless citizens come to steal food or other goods.”
“I think they’ll be okay without us.” Brasten the Unbeaten no longer had his magic sword, but Dana figured the man would be incredibly dangerous with a pitchfork, hammer or even a shovel. “Don’t feel too bad. I had a pretty good night.”
“Really? How so?”
Just then a woman ran up to Dana and embraced her. Tears running down her face, she cried, “Thank you! Oh, thank you!”
“Jayden, this is Laura.”
Jayden looked amused. “A pleasure to meet you. I’m curious what prompted such an enthusiastic greeting.”
Laura pulled back and looked at Jayden. “Brasten told me about you, but he didn’t mention a man traveling with you when you saved him. Is this your husband?”
“Oh dear God no,” Dana said. Jayden laughed. Annoyed, Dana tossed the spell tablets onto his lap. His jaw dropped at the sight of them. “Those comes with a sword, too.”
* * * * *
Brasten led Dana through the cave to a large chamber, easily a hundred feet across. At some point most of the cave’s ceiling had collapsed to reveal the sky far overhead. There was dirt on the ground and grass grew to knee high. Dana saw the moon and stars shining above as bats left the cave.
“You can see in the dark?” she asked. “I mean, I have a torch, but you were in the dark before I came.”
“I have lived here long enough to know every inch of this cave,” he replied. “Dark or light matters little. Girl, you came here to save me, a noble goal, and proof of the goodness in your heart. I am pleased I should meet someone so pure they would save a stranger’s life. It pains me to say what you seek is impossible.”
Dana folded her arms across her chest. “I’ve seen lots of impossible things. You tell me what the problem is and I’ll help you find a way out of it. If I can’t help, I know a man who might be able to break you out.”
“Your optimism is refreshing. Forgive me, but the years have left me jaded. Girl—”
“Dana.”
Brasten bowed. “Forgive me, Dana. There is a chest at the opposite end of this cave. Do not approach it, for it is guarded by an implacable defender.”
Dana saw the chest, a beauty two feet long, one foot wide, a foot tall, and made of sea green bronze and obsidian carved in intricate patterns. She didn’t see the defender he’d warned her of. The room was empty besides her, Brasten and the chest.
“Where is it?” she asked.
“Not it, but whom. I have the displeasure and dishonor of defending the chest, a role I have played to my eternal shame for three hundred years.”
“Wait, what?” Dana staggered back. “You can’t be, I, no, I have a brother your age!”
Brasten tilted his head to one side. “My appearance is deceptive. I was born three hundred years ago, give or take a few decades. Forgive me for not providing an exact date, but after a certain point the years flowed together.”
Dana frowned. “This is weird, but I can deal with it. Brasten, sit down and we’ll talk.”
“I would like that.”
Both of them sat down on the grassy cave floor. Brasten piled up old straw mats and gestured for Dana to ignite them with her torch to provide both light and heat. Dana pointed at him and said, “You can’t have lived this long naturally, so there’s magic involved. Who did this to you?”
“Three hundred years ago, a small group of men and women uncovered spell tablets of the ancient sorcerer lords. They translated them to learn that long forgotten school of magic. My master was a lesser nobleman and one such new sorcerer lord. He and his fellow practitioners sought to form a kingdom of sorcerers as in the days of old.”
“I’ve never heard this before.”
“It did not last long or end well. My master gathered together many students and trained them in magic, so many the king grew concerned. He need not have been. Rival sorcerer lords grew paranoid. They worried he would forge his students into an obedient army to conquer them.”
Puzzled, she asked, “Why would they do that?”
Brasten shrugged. “I don’t know. My master argued incessantly that he was spreading their message and magic so they could one day overthrow the king, nothing more. It didn’t help. The stronger he and his students grew, the greater others feared him. One day they gathered together and waged war upon him. Sorcerer lord fought sorcerer lord, a tragic repetition of ancient history. Few survived.”
“Are you a sorcerer lord?”
He smiled. “No. I was a farm boy with a strong back and a weak mind. My master owned the land I farmed, and by law he ruled me. He wanted to teach me his magic, but I could never fathom the strange words and bizarre meanings behind them. He abandoned the effort when his fellow sorcerers turned on him. If I could not serve him as a sorcerer, I could serve him as a soldier. I excelled as a swordsman, becoming my master’s best and most favored warrior. He gave me the magic sword you see at my side.”
Brasten looked sad as he continued. “Warriors serving rival sorcerer lords grew to respect me, then fear me, then run from me. It shames me to say I once took pleasure in seeing the terror in their eyes. Please do not judge me harshly, for I was young and foolish, and I listened to wicked men rather than good ones.”
“Why is a feared swordsman trapped in a cave?” Dana winced and said, “Sorry, that was rude.”
“I take no offense. Many have asked the same question. My master held off his enemies for years until they rallied together with aid from the king to defeat him. His estate was razed to the ground, his spell library looted or destroyed, his wealth carried off. He and I escaped only with the chest you see before you. My master cast a spell called Eternal Guardian on me. He ordered me to stay here until his return, to not touch the chest, and to slay any who did with my sword Oath Breaker.” Brasten nodded to the sword sheathed on his belt. “I’ve carried out these orders for centuries, victim of my master’s magic.”
“The spell is keeping you young?”
“Just so. I thought it was an honor at first. My master had lost all his followers save me, and in reward for my loyalty he’d made me ageless. I could still die in combat, but the years did not touch me. Nor did I hunger or thirst, although I can eat and drink. I can’t sleep or even grow tired.”
Brasten stared into the fire. “He left, never to return. Perhaps he meant to and died before he could, but his spell ensured my imprisonment when he did not, a risk he was willing to take. I once gloried in battle, taking so many lives I can’t count them. I thought myself an honored servant, and that this sword was proof of the faith he had in me. Now I see the truth, that I was a vain fool in the service of a greater fool. This sword was his way to make me a more efficient killer, nothing more. I have come to despise it. I was his property, to be used or expended as he saw fit. Being ageless made my imprisonment an even greater burden, but in truth it is a fair punishment for my actions.
“My master would overthrow the king, and a new leader would replace the old one, but nothing would change. Men like myself would still be ruled by others, serving their masters onto death before being replaced with more expendable men. My master and his rivals mistook intelligence for virtue, and in their arrogance destroyed one another until the king could defeat the few who survived.”
Dana hesitated before asking, “Do you think sorcerer lord magic makes people turn on one another? I mean, they fought each other long ago, and the same thing happened again to your master.”
Brasten chuckled. “No, child, magic does not make a man good or bad. Before my imprisonment, I met noblemen, rich merchants, judges and sheriffs equaling if nor surpassing my master in their arrogance. Power corrupts men regardless of its source. Too many hunger for it, striving to be better than their peers rather than helping them. In my experience, it is a rare man who can turn down power or willingly give it up. Such men are to be cherished and protected, for their lives are often cut short by the ambitious.”
Tears formed around Dana’s eyes. “That’s terrible. You’ve been alone down here for so long.”
“Not entirely alone,” Brasten replied. “On rare occasions I have visitors such as yourself. I once spent weeks talking to a sage from a distant land who wanted to know more about sorcerer lords. Later still a monk spent decades meditating with me. I credit his help to my becoming a better person.”
“And there’s Laura.”
Brasten paused. “There is Laura. She entered my cave ten years ago, fleeing criminals from a town called Weirdwood. I protected the poor child from them.”
Hesitantly, Dana asked, “When you say protected…”
Brasten pointed to three mounds of earth and rocks at the edge of the cave. “I take no pride in the title Unbeaten I held so long ago, but it is accurate. I thought that was the end of the matter once the child left, but she returned time and again. Sometimes she would speak to me, other times like tonight delivering meals. She grew with time while I remained the same. Now a woman, she has twice expressed an interest in me.”
“Interest?” Dana asked. She saw Brasten blush and hastily said, “Oh, that kind of interest. I take it you said no.”
“What other answer could I give? I could not provide for her or any children we had together, nor could I protect them from harm if they were attacked away from this cave. She is a good woman, beautiful in body and spirit, and deserves better than what little I can offer. I had hoped she would marry another, but she continues to come to me. She reminds me of the fiancée I had so long ago.”
Dana perked up. “You were going to be married?”
“My master had selected a young woman to be my bride. She was a beauty like no other. She was also the worst cook I’ve ever met, and nearly killed me with food poisoning. Bad yams nearly did what a hundred enemies could not.”
“What happened to her?”
“She fled when my master’s enemies came for him. I take no offense at her choice, for it saved her life.”
Dana stood up and helped Brasten to his feet. “I’m getting you out of here.”
“Others have tried and failed, some at the cost of their lives. The Eternal Guardian spell forces me to defend the chest yet will not let me touch it, which includes moving it out of the cave. If any attempt to touch or move it I instantly kill them. I am compelled by the spell and have no choice in the matter. If you touch the chest, even accidentally, I would kill you before I even knew what I was doing.”
“Then I’ll have to be careful.” Dana approached the chest like it was a bear trap. “What happens if the chest is destroyed?”
“The chest is reinforced with powerful magic to both strengthen it and make it hard to detect. Any attempt to destroy it would likely fail, and would count as touching it, forcing me to attack whoever tried.”
Dana circled the chest. “What if someone threw a rope around it and pulled it out. Technically they’re not touching it.”
“The spell does not care for technicalities. I would strike the rope and then the person pulling it, as a certain thief found out to his sorrow. Normally I regret my acts of violence, but he was a revolting man.”
“What if an animal touches the chest?”
“A number of birds have done so over the years. They were quite tasty.”
Dana tapped her fingers against her backpack. “What would happen if someone touched the chest but you couldn’t see them? I mean, it’s got to be pretty dark in here, and you said you can’t see in the dark.”
“That has happened twice in my time here. In both cases I could sense the chest being touched even when I could not see it. The Eternal Guardian spell drew me to the chest, and I ended the lives of the rats that were crawling on it. I have no idea how I knew they were there, but I did.”
“If I threw something on the chest, what would you do?”
Brasten looked uneasy. “If it was an inanimate object such as a rock, I would treat it as you touching the chest and attack. If, however, you placed a living animal on the chest, I would be forced to attack the animal instead. That happened once when a witch tried to steal the chest. She threw her cat at me, and it landed instead on the chest. The spell forced my hand.”
“That poor kitty!”
“It was one of many deeds I’m not proud of.”
Brasten certainly looked competent, but Dana had fought skilled warriors before. How dangerous was he? She retreated to the grassy area in the cave and went through it until she found a worm. She carried it back and tossed it onto the chest.
She didn’t see Brasten draw his sword or him charge. One second he was behind her, and the next he was in front of her, his sword making a glittering arc before he returned it to his sheath. The worm was cut in half lengthwise.
“You see the reason for my concern,” Brasten said. “Should you even let your dress brush up against the chest, I would kill you no matter how much I don’t want to. Nothing could save you.”
Dana looked at the dead worm. That could just as easily have been her. Jayden’s training had helped her be a better fighter, but nothing she knew could stop someone that fast or skilled. She wondered if Jayden knew a way to break this spell. But would Brasten let him? The poor man had good reasons not to trust sorcerer lords and might attack Jayden. Introducing these two would be a mistake one or both might not survive.
“That was impressive, and massive overkill for a worm,” she told him. “Why didn’t you just squish it with your finger, or pick it up and throw it away?”
“If I only could be so merciful,” Brasten said sadly. “The Eternal Guardian spell forces me to draw my sword. I can’t do otherwise, even when another choice would be superior.”
“What were your master’s exact orders?” she asked.
“Brasten, last of my followers, I give you this duty to carry out above all others. This chest contains my last treasures from which I might rebuild my holdings. Stay in this cave and do not touch the chest, and if anyone ese dares to so much as touch it, strike them dead at once with your mighty sword Oath Breaker.” Brasten spoke the words with obvious distain. “Those were his orders before he left, and that is what I have had to do for centuries.”
“I’ve got an idea.” Dana dug up several worms and brought them to within four feet of the chest. She handed her torch, now burning out, to Brasten. “There’s got to be ways around those orders. I’m going to throw another worm at the chest.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Trust me. You said your sword was magic. I wonder if it’s part of the curse you’re under. I want you to kill it with the torch instead of your sword. Can you do that?”
“I will make the attempt.”
Dana threw the worm, and it landed on top of the chest. She felt a breeze as Brasten charged past her and sliced the worm into four equal parts. He sheathed his sword and handed back the torch. “My apologies, but the moment it touched the chest I was overcome with the need to defend it. I could not resist the urge to draw my sword.”
“You apologize a lot.”
Brasten bowed his head. “I have done much worthy of regret. Forgive my saying so, but you seem surprisingly at ease meeting a man centuries old.”
“This isn’t the weirdest thing that’s happened to me.” Dana frowned as she considered this riddle. Brasten’s orders insisted he use his sword to defend the chest. What would happen if he didn’t? “Have you ever attacked a person or animal that touched the chest with your fists, a rock, anything except your sword?”
“Never.”
Dana pointed at his sword. “Can I look at it?”
Brasten handed over his weapon without a moment’s hesitation. That surprised Dana. Then again, he’d said he’d come to hate it. She took the sword from its sheath and studied it. The blade was longer than hers and had words stamped into it that resembled the letters from Jayden’s spell tables. It was razor sharp and as light as a feather, and the blade glimmered when she swung it, leaving a short-lived trail of stars behind.
Dana handed Brasten the torch back, and without another word threw another worm at the chest. He had the sword out of her hands so fast she barely saw him move, and the worm met the same end as the other two. He handed the blade back to her along with the torch.
“If it helps, I’ve tried doing that before,” he said. “For years I left the sword far away from me, but I always come back for it when the chest is touched.”
“There’s got to be a way out of this,” Dana said as she handed back the sword. No point to holding it when he could get it back so easily. “What if I took it out of the cave where you can’t reach it?”
“A man tried that eighty years ago. He went fifty feet before the curse compelled me to retrieve the sword. Fortunately, he had spells in place to protect him long enough to escape.”
This was a tough riddle, and one that kept a good man enslaved to the will of a long dead master. She had to help him, but how? There had to be a loophole in his orders. She was sure Brasten’s sword was the key. He had to use it, no choice, so removing it might cancel the Eternal Guardian spell. But how? She couldn’t take it from him when he could reclaim it so easily. He couldn’t throw it away. Maybe she could destroy it with Chain Cutter, but the spell might force him to defend himself if she tried, and she had no illusions how that fight would end. What did that leave?
Wait.
“You hate your sword, right?”
“With a passion.”
Dana set aside the torch, now completely burned out. “I want to make an offer. I’ll buy your sword for a gold coin.”
Brasten raised an eyebrow. “Buy it?”
“Buy it.” Dana went through her pockets until she came up with a single gold coin. “I’m asking you to sell me your sword, not give it to me or just hand it to me. I’m not stealing it, either. You get a gold coin and I get your sword for keeps. Deal?”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to do.”
“Work with me, Brasten. Am I buying your sword or not?”
“Very well, in return for a single gold coin I will sell you my sword.” He removed the blade, sheath and all, and handed it to her.
Dana handed him the coin. “No take backs. The fire’s getting low. Can you throw a few more straw mats on it?”
Brasten did as she asked, turning his back to do so. That was very trusting of him. An unscrupulous person might try to hit him from behind, which would fail. Dana had seen his speed and skill firsthand. She doubted a person could kill Brasten even when he was unarmed.
While he was looking away, Dana threw the rest of the worms she had onto the chest.
“Is that bright enough for you?” he asked.
“One more, please.”
“Done, but it is the last of them.” Brasten threw another straw mat onto the flame and turned around. “Why are you smiling?”
Dana waved for him to join her. “Look.”
Brasten walked back to her, and he gasped when he saw the worms wriggling on top of the chest. “That’s not possible. It can’t be!”
“One way to make sure,” Dana said. He pointed at the cave’s entrance and asked, “Would you like to go outside?”
Brasten ran off, laughing like a man who’d escaped the gallows. Dana heard him splash through the shallow water and then cry out in exaltation. Dana followed him and found him dancing across the trail leading to the cave.
“Free! Centuries of endless waiting, over! What joy it is to feel the wind on my skin, to breath fresh air, to see more than those cursed walls!” Brasten ran to her, dropped to his knees and kissed her hand. “Good woman, kindest of souls, what magic did you use to free me?”
“No magic,” she told him. “Your master’s orders were if anyone touched the chest you had to kill them with your sword, Oath Breaker. The sword’s not yours anymore. You sold it to me. The curse didn’t force you to fight with your fists or any weapon, only the sword. Selling the sword makes it impossible to carry out your orders.”
He stared at her. “Glorious child, you saved me.”
Dana looked down. “It may have come at a cost. If we broke the Eternal Guardian spell by letting you go, you may have lost the benefits you got from it, like not aging.”
Brasten stood up again. “You are right. I feel tired, sleepy, a sensation lost long ago. If that gift is gone then I must assume the others are, too. I can grow old and die as all men do. Do not pity me for the loss, for I have not known joy in the centuries I have lived.”
He took her hands in his and said, “You have done what no other could, even when I tried to discourage you. Name your reward, even if it is my life. I have little, but it is at your command.”
“Your master thought in those terms. I want you to be free to choose your own path. The only thing I want is for you to consider one thing.”
He sounded curious when he asked, “What is that?”
“You’ve outlived your friends, family, even your enemies. You’re going to have to start from scratch with nothing except one gold coin, but I can give you more.”
“Don’t. You have given me enough.”
Dana smiled at him. “Consider where you can go from here. The whole world is open to you, but I know of a woman who cares a lot about you.”
“So there is.” Brasten turned to leave. “You have my eternal gratitude. Keep the chest if you wish. After being trapped with it for three hundred years, I have no desire to see it again or its contents, whatever they may be. I pray that the good fortune you brought me may be returned to you a thousand times over.”
Before he left, Brasten looked thoughtfully at the night sky. “I was a farmer once. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but it was a good life. I wonder if I can be one again.”
Dana watched him leave, happy that she’d saved a man. For a second she wondered if Brasten would suddenly age three centuries now that the spell was broken, but he went on his way happy and healthy. The entire kingdom was still in a terrible mess, but one person’s life was immeasurably better. It was small wins like this that made life worth living. And she did it without any fighting. Most of her victories with Jayden were extremely violent.
Once Brasten was long gone, Dana went back into the cave and tried to pick up the chest. It was so heavy she could barely drag it across the floor. She eventually gave up trying to move it, opened the chest and took out the contents. There were pouches of gold, a silver necklace set with rubies, and two sorcerer lord spell tablets.
“Oh my.” Dana put on the necklace. “Jayden can have the spell tablets, but I’m keeping this.”
Dana returned to her camp under the pine trees, hid the necklace among her baggage and tried to go to sleep. She’d nearly nodded off when she saw a light. She got up and rubbed her eyes. There was a bright glow in the distance.
“Weirdwood is burning!” a man shouted in the nearby village.
More people ran out of their houses and pointed at the light. Many danced and cheered, and a woman cried out, “We’re finally free of those criminals!”
Dana put a hand over her face. “I just can’t leave you alone, Jayden.”
Jayden returned to the village hours later, looking tired and smelling of wood smoke. “Ah, Dana, I didn’t expect to see you still awake. Lovely night, isn’t it?”
“You torched the place, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“Oh, good, you accidentally burned a town of lowlifes and thugs.”
“A sadly accurate assessment of the situation,” he told her. Jayden sat down beside her and dusted ash off his shirt. “The evening started well enough. Clevner had the information he promised, but before he could say much a large number of cutthroats decided to take my head. Clevner escaped while I fought my way through them, which unfortunately attracted even more men after my life. I set a fire to cover my retreat. Do you recall a rather vulgar woman in Weirdwood offering dubious potions?”
“I remember wanting to slap her.”
“That’s her. It turned out her questionable brews were surprisingly combustible, and they detonated when the fire reached them, spreading the fire across several blocks. Weirdwood doesn’t, excuse me, didn’t have fire fighters, and the flames spread across the entire town.”
Jayden turned to her and said, “It was a partial win at best. I spent a lot of gold for a little information, but Weirdwood is gone. Its criminal occupants fled without time to gather their ill-gotten gains. With no base of operations, goods, even food, they are a spent force little able to aid the king and queen.”
“And here you thought you weren’t strong enough to destroy an entire town.”
“Normally it would be a questionable achievement, but it was necessary. I should have taken you with me. Your absence didn’t ease the transaction, and your presence would have done much to speed my exit. Worse, we’re going to have to spend days guarding these people in case Weirdwood’s now homeless citizens come to steal food or other goods.”
“I think they’ll be okay without us.” Brasten the Unbeaten no longer had his magic sword, but Dana figured the man would be incredibly dangerous with a pitchfork, hammer or even a shovel. “Don’t feel too bad. I had a pretty good night.”
“Really? How so?”
Just then a woman ran up to Dana and embraced her. Tears running down her face, she cried, “Thank you! Oh, thank you!”
“Jayden, this is Laura.”
Jayden looked amused. “A pleasure to meet you. I’m curious what prompted such an enthusiastic greeting.”
Laura pulled back and looked at Jayden. “Brasten told me about you, but he didn’t mention a man traveling with you when you saved him. Is this your husband?”
“Oh dear God no,” Dana said. Jayden laughed. Annoyed, Dana tossed the spell tablets onto his lap. His jaw dropped at the sight of them. “Those comes with a sword, too.”
Rescue part 1
This is the first part of the Dana Illwind and Sorcerer Lord Jayden story Rescue.
* * * * *
“I thought there would be fighting in a war,” Dana said. Jayden glanced at her, and she added, “The kingdom is at war with three nations at once, except you’d never guess it by looking around. Everything is so…normal.”
“It’s not surprising,” he told her. “Moving thousands of men hundreds of miles takes weeks, especially when they have to carry most of what they need with them. Even when they reach the enemy, there’s only going to be a few major battles and a number of skirmishes and ambushes. When autumn arrives, the fighting will stop until the following spring.”
“Assuming neither side wins,” Dana said.
It was a warm spring day as Dana Illwind and Sorcerer Lord Jayden marched down a lonely road. There were few farms or ranches, mostly pastures with fresh green grass. In time herds of cattle would be driven here to feed, but for now there was nothing but wild animals and the occasional traveler.
Dana had been following Jayden ever since he’d saved her village from a monster. She’d joined him in large part to try to redirect his fury away from the king and queen and onto legitimate threats. She’d thought that a sorcerer could do great good for the common man, making up for the lack of support from the throne. Too late she’d learned how much suffering the king and queen were responsible for. For years Dana had been afraid for her homeland. After twelve months traveling the kingdom, she’d come to be afraid of her homeland.
“What’s upsetting you?” he asked.
“It’s that obvious?” Dana frowned. “It’s just, I used to think the kingdom had problems, but nothing we couldn’t deal with. It was a bunch of little things people could overcome if they worked together. Since we’ve been traveling together, I’ve seen most of our problems are from our own leaders and the men they’ve surrounded themselves with. What can you do when tens of thousands of soldiers and their leaders are behind what’s going wrong?”
“We face no small challenge, Dana. Ending the war is a massive undertaking, made worse by the overwhelming number of men who serve willingly and embrace the chance to visit war upon neighboring lands and their people. Dealing with this threat is going to take years, and we will take enormous risks throughout that time. Make no mistake, we are trying to stop if not entirely remake a nation gone mad.”
In the last year he and Dana had done what they could to prevent the king and queen from going to war with Brandish, Kaleoth and Zentrix, three small neighboring kingdoms. They’d stolen armor, killed monsters, rescued child slaves, even defeated skeletal armies made by a now dead necromancer. They’d enjoyed far more success than Dana had dared dream possible, yet had failed in their mission. The king and queen had declared war on Kaleoth the preceding winter, and on Brandish and Zentrix early in spring.
Jayden had fought tooth and nail for decades to prevent such wars. He’d waged a one-man campaign against the royal couple, hurting them at every opportunity across the entire kingdom. His friends were few, his enemies were legion, and hope as rare as gold. Dana was just a farmgirl until meeting him, and was staggered at the risks he ran, even more so because he was the king’s son, long thought dead. Who could do this without breaking?
So far Jayden was holding up, but the strain was showing. The world’s only sorcerer lord had a fierce temper, and it was getting worse. His black and silver clothes were fraying at the edges. His backpack was getting thin as he spent more and more of his limited money. Jayden’s perpetually messy blond hair was even worse than normal, and he’d refused her offers to cut it. He needed her help to stay focused, but just as importantly he needed some shred of hope, a sign that they weren’t on a fool’s errand.
If Jayden was looking worse, Dana was improving. She was in good health and had managed to replace her worn out clothes weeks ago with new summer wear, simple but comfortable cotton clothes. Her long brown hair was tied in a ponytail. She was even armed, a rarity among peasants, and with a magic sword called Chain Cutter.
Chain Cutter had been crafted using dwarf rune magic, Jayden’s shadow magic, a chimera horn and a sliver of magic metal called uram. The short sword was black edged with silver, serrated ridges on one side and mystic runes near the base with a black hardwood handle. Chain Cutter had proven devastating in combat, cutting through nearly anything. Jayden was still giving her sword fighting lessons, and she was learning fast.
“The war is heavily delayed, in part because of us,” Jayden explained. “We destroyed the only major bridge to Kaleoth, leaving them safe for the time being. Suzy Lockheart closed one of the mountain passes leading to Brandish. This will limit how much fighting can take place until the routes are clear.”
“What about Zentrix?” Dana asked. “We weren’t able to help them.”
“There are relatively few routes into Zentrix. Each one can be bottled up by small armies. Zentrix also has competent armies and generals. Barring disasters, they’ll hold.
“That is what gives us a chance, Dana. Maintaining three offensives requires huge numbers of men, leaving much of the country’s interior lightly defended. If we can find and destroy critical weak points such as supply depots, armories and bridges, we can slow or even paralyze the war effort. But we need to work fast. The late and unlamented necromancer Cimmox claimed the king and queen are flooding the kingdom with new followers, each one equal to him in depravity. Once they arrive in force, the war will be almost impossible to stop.”
“What are we going for first?”
Jayden paused. “I don’t know. Before defeating Cimmox, the heavy snowfall trapped us in a small village for two months. Much could have happened during that time I don’t know about. Even before that, we were focused for months on dealing with local threats. I don’t know what has been happening elsewhere in the kingdom. I need information before we can act.”
Dana reached into her backpack and pulled out a wanted poster with Jayden’s face on it. These posters were plastered across every village with more than a hundred residents, and the reward grew by the month. “Finding people you can talk to might be hard with this price on your head. It might be hard for me, too. These posters started mentioning me months ago, even if the descriptions are vague. Who can we talk to when we’re both wanted criminals?”
Jayden smiled, a rare and welcome sign. “Why Dana, I thought the answer to that would be obvious. Other wanted criminals.”
Dana stopped walking. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“If it’s any comfort, I won’t either. Years ago, I visited a small outlaw community called Weirdwood in the wilderness near the border with Zentrix. It is an indescribably foul place filled with the worst examples of humanity you could have the poor luck to meet. Such communities are sadly common in isolated places, sprouting like mushrooms after a rainstorm, only to be destroyed by the authorities or infighting until new ones arise. This one has stood for fifteen years and is considered almost stable.”
“If it’s full of criminals, they won’t have information you can use. They’d be chased out of nice parts of the kingdom.”
He looked at her curiously before saying, “I keep forgetting your peaceful upbringing. Dana, it’s a sad fact of life that the criminal element is welcome in society if it stays in the shadows. Smugglers, gamblers, thieves and poachers can find unscrupulous men eager for their wares. Communities like Weirdwood are frowned upon, but ignored so long as they are useful rather than damaging. The men I need to talk to will have traveled far and wide, tolerated if not welcomed.”
“You trust wanted criminals to be honest?” she asked skeptically.
“Honor among thieves is a rarity, but I have certain advantages in securing their cooperation. I have funds enough to buy their services, and such men appreciate hard currency. I also have enough power to inflict horrific retribution should they betray me, a point I made very clear on my last visit to Weirdwood.”
Dana put a hand over here face. “How much damage did you do?”
“It was severe but localized.”
As day transitioned into night, they passed scattered farmhouses on their way to Weirdwood, all of them built to resist attacks with brick walls, tile roofs and arrow slits. Men traveled armed and in groups, and they gave Dana and Jayden wary looks as they passed. Jayden nodded to a few of them and continued without incident.
“They don’t look happy to see us,” Dana said.
“Most of Weirdwood’s residents have the good sense to limit their crimes to distant lands, but there are always a few drunken idiots eager to cause trouble. Honest men living near Weirdwood are always ready for trouble.”
“Why don’t they tell the king and queen where to find this dump and let the army burn it down?”
“The king and queen don’t care about small farms like these any more than they did your friends and relatives back home when you first called upon my aid. If a few dozen or hundred people live in fear, or don’t live at all, it’s nothing to the crown compared to cities with hundreds of thousands of people.”
“You said this place has been around for fifteen years,” she pressed. “That’s a long time to ignore a problem.”
“They’ve ignored problems far greater for far longer.” He hesitated before saying, “It makes me wonder if a member of the royal court is protecting this pigsty. A rich man could make himself even richer here, if he was careful and heavily armed.”
Jayden pointed at lights in the distance. “That’s our destination. There are no friends where we’re going, Dana. We must take precautions before going further.”
Dana saw him take cloth wrappings from his bags. “Wait a minute.”
“This won’t take long.” Jayden covered her face with a cloth mask with narrow eyeholes. He handed her gloves that reached up to her elbows and leggings to cover what little skin her skirt and boots didn’t hide. “I am known and feared in Weirdwood. You, being an attractive young woman, will be seen as prey. You run a lower risk of being bothered if you look mysterious. You also don’t risk someone describing your features to the authorities.”
“Lots of soldiers have seen me with you,” Dana said as she pulled on the gloves.
“If you check your no doubt excellent memory, you’ll recall those meetings were almost exclusively at night where visibility was poor. The only exception that comes to mind was our attack on baron Scalamonger’s estate with Lootmore. In that instance, enemy forces had been drinking heavily before they saw you. I doubt they could describe your features after the hangovers they must have suffered. For your own safety and that of your family, please put these garments on.”
Dana finished putting on the clothes and checked her reflection in a nearby pool. She did look more intimidating. “I’m just glad you’re not trying to leave me behind. Sometimes you get too protective.”
“No place this close to Weirdwood is safe, and we won’t be safe inside the town. No matter what, eat nothing, drink nothing and stay close to me. If anyone looks dangerous, they are. Avoid speaking if you can help it.”
“Are we torching this place on the way out?”
“Don’t tempt me. I was weaker the last time I visited this cesspit, with fewer spells mastered. My progress has been considerable, but not enough to destroy a town.”
They approached Weirdwood slowly, keeping an eye out for danger. When they finally saw the town, it met Dana’s low expectations. The community was a collection of ramshackle buildings made of cheap lumber and scrap wood. None of the shops had signs advertising their services, nor were there street signs. Light from open doors illuminated much of the street to reveal a cast of miserable characters. Most were humans, although Dana saw an elf and some dwarfs. Like many places they’d visited, Weirdwood stunk of wood smoke, dung, livestock and body odor.
Then there was the noise. Dana heard shouting and laughing, more than she would have expected for a town this size. Animals brayed, neighed or in some cases growled. Music came from what she thought was an inn, but she didn’t recognize the tune or even the instruments.
A woman in a store called out, “What’s your pleasure? Stay awake, put you to sleep, open your eyes to other realms. I’ve got brews for whatever your fancy is.”
“Pass,” Jayden replied. The woman cursed at him before offering her vile concoctions to another man.
A man pointed at Dana and asked Jayden, “You selling or renting?”
Jayden cast a spell, and moments later a giant black hand with claws scooped up the man and hurled him onto a nearby rooftop. The hand dissolved back into the shadows, and after that no one on the street bothered them.
Jayden led her through the streets without hesitation. Their passing drew considerable attention, but no one tried to bar their way. They reached a dingy bar and went inside to find a collection of the dirtiest, loudest and most heavily armed people Dana had ever met gathered around a bar and cooking fire.
One of the men banged a ladle against an iron pot over a fire. “Boys, it’s our old friend, Jayden! It’s been years. What’s brought you back to Weirdwood? Still fencing stolen horses?”
Jayden strode fearlessly into the room. “Not this time, Clevner. I’m buying rather than selling.”
Clevner was a tall man, rail thin and filthy. His leather clothes looked like they should have been burned rather than washed, and his collection of knives and daggers were tarnished and rusty. He gave Jayden a lopsided grin and gestured for the other men in the room to make space.
“Now that depends on what you’re buying. We’re light on stock at the moment, which is why I was happy to see you.”
“I seek words rather than goods,” Jayden said. “I’ve been busy for the last few months and need up to date information on my favorite targets. You travel more than most and may have seen the opportunities I seek.”
A young man stepped away from the bar and pointed at Dana. “Hey, the sorcerer brought a pet. Ooh, all covered up like that, the pretty thing must be shy.”
“She’s none of your business,” Jayden said firmly.
The youth swaggered closer. “I’ll decide what’s my business or not.”
Jayden stepped up until he was within inches of the youth’s face. “You must be new to Weirdwood, or unbelievably stupid. Adults are talking, boy. Find someone else to amuse yourself with before I remove pieces of your anatomy.”
Clevner cleared his throat. “You’re right, he’s new to my little family. Go back to your drink, boy. I’d rather not clean your blood off the floor.”
The idiot looked at Clevner without fear, proof either of drunkenness or overconfidence. “He’s a tough one?”
“Last time Jayden paid Weirdwood a visit, a few blokes thought they could take horses he’d brought without paying for them. I buried them and bought the horses, for a fair price, I might add.”
Jayden turned his attention back to Clevner. “Armies are moving, threats and opportunities in equal measure to the man bold enough to act. I need to know where they are, how powerful they are, and if they’re leaving assets exposed. Words for gold, Clevner. You won’t get a better deal.”
“That might not the case.” Clevner casually took a sheet of paper from behind the bar and held it up. “See, we had a visitor just after the snow melted, and by we, I mean everyone in town. Tall fellow, fancy clothes, very nice diction. He made an offer on behalf of the king and queen. Anyone who swears loyalty and obeys orders gets a blanket amnesty for all past crimes. As of four weeks ago we became fine, upstanding citizens.”
“You must be joking,” Jayden said.
Clevner offered him the paper. “See for yourself.”
Jayden snatched it and read quickly. “What did you have to do to earn this amnesty?”
“Exactly what we were doing all along. Poachers hunt animals and rare monsters to sell the carcasses, smugglers bring in stolen goods, and slavers deal in human flesh. The only difference is, these days the king and queen pay us for our labors.”
Jayden’s face betrayed his disgust. “There weren’t slavers here on my last visit.”
“Weirdwood has been diversifying as of late, with new opportunities for the openminded. It’s not to my tastes, but I’m not in a position to throw stones. Back to our original topic. It’s too early to see if this will last, but for the time being we’re working for the throne, and the king and queen may not take kindly to us telling their secrets to an enemy, if that’s what you are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
“This part is a tad delicate, so curb your aggressive tendencies,” Clevner cautioned. “That same visitor who gave us this second chance thought you might drop by, your reputation being what it is, and he told us to pass along a message if we saw you.”
Jayden’s muscles tensed, and Dana grabbed the hilt of her sword. Clevner waved his hands downward and said, “Aggressive tendencies, Jayden. It’s an opportunity, not a threat. The king and queen are offering the same olive branch to you.”
“Do you take me for a fool?” he yelled. “I’ve harried the king and queen for my entire adult life! In the last year I’ve destroyed two noblemen’s estates, stolen a fortune in armor and killed their iron golem, Wall Wolf.”
Jayden’s outburst didn’t bother Clevner in the slightest. “Which is why they want you. You’re right, Jayden, it’s war, and wizards are a prized commodity in any army. The thinking goes anyone who kills an iron golem is a man you want on your side. If they hire you, that’s one less threat and one more asset. We both know changing sides isn’t rare for a man with skills in demand.”
Clevner took a cup off the bar and sipped it. “I and my merry band are temporarily useful to the king and queen, but if they win their war, they won’t need us any longer. Maybe their offer goes away when they can get respectable men to do the work. If they lose, nobody’s going to honor the deal. But you, well, sorcerer lords are a tad rare at the moment, so whoever wins is going to want you.
“There’s more. Your wanted posters were undated. The cash offer is off the table. Instead the king and queen are offering a dukedom to anyone who brings you in, dead or alive. Seems a certain Duke Wiskver managed to upset the royal couple so badly they ordered his execution. He ran off a few minutes ahead of the sheriffs. I’m told his land is a bit of a mess and his followers fled. Still, it’s not every day a fellow can jump to nobility. Plenty of strong lads will take the chance.”
Jayden handed back the paper. “I’ve no interest in changing sides, now or ever. My goal remains the same, and I think you are bold enough to play both sides, especially when you admit your amnesty might not be honored. Allow me to make you richer in case the day comes when you need to leave with whatever you can carry.”
Clevner paused before nodding. “I’ve heard and seen a few things that might interest you, and there are men in Weirdwood who might know more. First thing’s first, we need to agree to a price before I say word one.”
Just then one of Clevner’s followers walked past Dana and ran his hand up her leg. She shrieked, and the men burst out laughing. Jayden raised his hands to cast a spell, no doubt flashy and massively destructive that would ruin any chance for a deal.
Moving fast, Dana kicked the man in the butt, knocking him over. The laugher doubled, and the man scowled as he tried to get up. Before he could rise, she drew her sword and swung it at the pot hanging over the fire. Chain Cutter spit out a cloud of sparks as it hacked through the iron pot top to bottom, spilling its contents on the fire and extinguishing it as both pieces of the pot landed with a bang.
The laughter stopped.
“Keep your hands to yourself, or she’ll take them off,” Jayden said.
“Outside, now,” Clevner ordered the man on the floor. When he tried to protest, Clevner said, “You’re ten seconds from getting killed, by the girl if you’re lucky and by the sorcerer if you’re not. I don’t much care if you die, but once Jayden starts killing men, he might not be in a mood to stop. Go.”
The man left, his face red and his fists clenched. Clevner turned his attention back to Jayden. “I need time to get the secrets you want. Come back tomorrow night with a hundred gold coins, no less. Don’t argue over the money. You’ll make it back ten times over with what I have to say.”
“Fair enough,” Jayden said. “My associate won’t be joining me, as you seem to have trouble controlling your followers.”
The insult didn’t seem to bother Clevner. “I think that’s for the best.”
Jayden and Dana left the bar without another word. A drunken man saw them and laughed, saying, “Thrown out that fast? Guess he didn’t offer enough for the girl.”
Jayden didn’t break stride as he punched the drunk in the gut and doubled him over. He grabbed the fool by the collar and swung him head first into the bar’s front wall, and followed up by stomping on the man after he hit the ground. Bystanders watched with casual interest before moving on. Jayden continued as if nothing had happened, stopping only once they were far outside Weirdwood.
“That was really disturbing,” Dana said as she took off her disguise.
“It was, and I apologize. Weirdwood has degenerated even faster than the rest of the kingdom, and it was no pleasure to begin with. If this sort of depravity is acceptable even in a small corner of the kingdom, how soon until it spreads?”
“It might not. If Clevner is right, he and his friends might get thrown out with the trash when they’re not needed anymore.”
“They can do incredible amounts of harm before being cast aside.” Jayden scowled and looked back at the disgusting town. “In years past I was never happy dealing with such revolting people. I rationalized it as a necessary evil. Today I see that choice for the mistake it is, for if it was acceptable for me to deal with such men, it is no less so for the king and queen.”
“Can we get this information anywhere else?” Dana asked.
“Not in time. The peace and quiet we now enjoy won’t last. Armies will march soon, and if we are to do anything to stop that we have to know what to hit and where. We also need allies for the coming battles, and while the men of Weirdwood don’t qualify, they might be able to point out others who do. I don’t trust them, but I need them.”
They spent the night camped far away from Weirdwood in case its unsavory residents were tempted to collect the price on Jayden’s head. They spent the following day practicing with wooden swords. Dana wasn’t Jayden’s equal, but she was getting to the point where she could hold her own.
As the day wore on Jayden noticed more men coming into and out of Weirdwood. He frowned and said, “I need to find a safe place for you while I’m gone. Given how far the town’s residents travel, it would be better for you to be farther away. There is a village deeper in the mountains and the road leading there is difficult, so Weirdwood’s loathsome residents should avoid it.”
Jayden led her to a small walled village perched next to a river. The river flowed slowly through the mountainous terrain and frequently branched off along narrow channels. People had set nets across the water to snare fish and watched them warily, but thankfully didn’t panic at the appearance of strangers.
“It’s rustic, but safe,” Jayden said. “Weirdwood’s noxious residents avoid this place ever since some of their men came here and never returned. Whatever is responsible ignores less revolting people, and I feel certain no one will bother you.”
Before he left, she said, “Promise me you’re not doing this to keep me safe while you run off and fight those jerks alone.”
Jayden smiled. “I respect your abilities and judgement too much to go without your help. I will return as soon as I have finished dealing with Clevner. From there our journey will be more dangerous. Rest, and enjoy what little these people have to offer.”
Dana felt nervous as she watched Jayden leave. Not because she feared for herself. She was worried for him. Weirdwood was easily the foulest town she’d ever set foot in. Jayden was worthy of respect from friends and fear from enemies, but those villains might think surprise and superior numbers could win the day. She was tempted to follow him.
In the end she didn’t. There would be too big a risk that she’d draw attention from evil men, ruining Jayden’s chances to finish this deal, and possibly forcing him to rescue her. She was honest enough to admit she wasn’t ready to fight her way into or out of a town like that, especially since she didn’t know what dangers lurked there. They could have tamed monsters, golems, witches, wizards or any number of other threats.
A woman walked by, and Dana said, “Hello there.”
The woman mumbled a response and kept her head down. Dana tried talking to another woman and got the same reaction. Villagers went about their business as if she wasn’t there, shying away when she approached. She couldn’t figure out why they were so scared of her, but maybe they were used to strangers being dangerous. After all, they weren’t far from Weirdwood.
Dana had been just like these people only a year ago. The small town she’d grown up in was quiet and did its best to avoid attention from royalty and monsters (both being dangerous). She would’ve been wary at the approach of a stranger, not hostile, but cautious in case the person was dangerous.
Their apprehension would make finding a place to stay difficult. These people wouldn’t want to open their home up to a stranger, even a paying one. There didn’t seem to be an inn, either, but that wasn’t surprising for such a small community. Few travelers would come this way, and many would be the kind of men they wouldn’t want around. It looked like she’d be roughing it tonight.
Dana searched the area for good camping sites. Options were limited. Much of the land was too rocky, and every inch of flat ground was planted with grains or vegetables. She ended up going far down the nearest trail before finding a patch of tall pine trees she could make camp under. Fallen needles offered bedding of a sort, while the trees would provide cover.
She’d just begun to lay out a blanket to sleep on when she saw a woman of about twenty creep down the trail. The woman was pretty but simply dressed. Curious, Dana watched the woman go to a small branch of the river and set a straw mat onto the water. With this strange task done, the woman went back toward the village, never seeing Dana hiding among the pine trees.
This was odd enough to worry Dana. Once she was sure the woman was gone, she went to the river and found the mat slowly flowing downstream. The mat was thick enough it could float even with a loaf of bread, two apples and a smoked fish sitting on top of it.
“Who’s that for?” Dana asked out loud.
The current carried the mat away, and Dana followed it. The branch of the river was wide but not very deep, and it flowed between large boulders before going into a cave. The mat leisurely floated into the cave and out of view.
“This doesn’t make sense,” she said. “That’s not the kind of food you would give to an animal or a monster. That means there’s a person in there the lady is providing for. Why doesn’t he stay in the village?”
Dana peered into the cave. Was someone trapped down there? That didn’t make sense, either. If someone was stuck inside, the woman would get her friends and family to rescue them. Maybe the stranger was hiding in the cave and the woman had merely agreed to provide meals. That didn’t make even less sense. If someone was so scared they’d hide in a cave, it would be smarter to run to a safer place, and there had to be safer places to hide than a village near Weirdwood.
“Laura?” a man’s voice called out from the cave.
“Um, no, sorry, I’m not Laura,” Dana said.
“That is a relief and a pity,” the man answered. Dana heard him eating the crunchy apples.
“Why are you in there?”
“That’s not a story I am eager to repeat. Young lady, I am told there is a village not far from here. Tell the people Brasten sent you, and they will open their doors that you may spend the night in safety.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Dana said. “Wait a minute, you were told there’s a village nearby? It’s so close I can see the light from their cooking fires. How could you not know where it is?”
“I came here before there was a village, and have never left.”
The statement was mysterious, but it was also unbearably sad. “Can you leave?”
“No.”
“The girl who floated the food to you, she’s Laura? She’s trying to be nice, but she can’t save you.”
“She has a beautiful soul and seeks to ease my confinement. I could survive without the meals she sends me, and without her company when she can spare the time, but it makes my stay more bearable. To hear tales of the world beyond is a pleasure and makes me feel like I am still a part of it, if only in a small way.”
Dana went through her baggage and brought out a torch. She lit it and held it in front of her as she stepped into the water. “I’m coming in.”
“I can’t guarantee your safety,” the man cautioned. “There is danger within this cave.”
“Then you need help,” she said as she waded through the cold water. It came up to her knees, but flowed so slowly she was in no danger of being washed away.
“Laura would like you.”
Dana only had to wade a short distance before coming onto a ledge. She found the straw mat in the water. Standing on the ledge was the man.
This man…oh my. He was the sort of that drew women’s attention, tall and lean with sculpted muscles. She guessed his age at twenty-five at the most, with dark hair and brooding eyes. His clothes were simple cotton, a tunic with short sleeves, pants that stopped just below his knees, and a sword strapped to his leather belt.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said formally. “I am Brasten the Unbeaten. Please forgive the lack of accommodations. I’m afraid the few creature comforts I could offer rotted away long ago.”
“Hi.” Dana was having trouble forming words at the moment. She held out her hand, and Brasten shook it with a firm grip. “I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t see what’s keeping you here.”
“It’s a long story and a sad one, but you have gone to some effort to meet me, so I feel I should reciprocate in some way. I fear my tale offers little hope. Come, and I will show you why I stay.”
* * * * *
“I thought there would be fighting in a war,” Dana said. Jayden glanced at her, and she added, “The kingdom is at war with three nations at once, except you’d never guess it by looking around. Everything is so…normal.”
“It’s not surprising,” he told her. “Moving thousands of men hundreds of miles takes weeks, especially when they have to carry most of what they need with them. Even when they reach the enemy, there’s only going to be a few major battles and a number of skirmishes and ambushes. When autumn arrives, the fighting will stop until the following spring.”
“Assuming neither side wins,” Dana said.
It was a warm spring day as Dana Illwind and Sorcerer Lord Jayden marched down a lonely road. There were few farms or ranches, mostly pastures with fresh green grass. In time herds of cattle would be driven here to feed, but for now there was nothing but wild animals and the occasional traveler.
Dana had been following Jayden ever since he’d saved her village from a monster. She’d joined him in large part to try to redirect his fury away from the king and queen and onto legitimate threats. She’d thought that a sorcerer could do great good for the common man, making up for the lack of support from the throne. Too late she’d learned how much suffering the king and queen were responsible for. For years Dana had been afraid for her homeland. After twelve months traveling the kingdom, she’d come to be afraid of her homeland.
“What’s upsetting you?” he asked.
“It’s that obvious?” Dana frowned. “It’s just, I used to think the kingdom had problems, but nothing we couldn’t deal with. It was a bunch of little things people could overcome if they worked together. Since we’ve been traveling together, I’ve seen most of our problems are from our own leaders and the men they’ve surrounded themselves with. What can you do when tens of thousands of soldiers and their leaders are behind what’s going wrong?”
“We face no small challenge, Dana. Ending the war is a massive undertaking, made worse by the overwhelming number of men who serve willingly and embrace the chance to visit war upon neighboring lands and their people. Dealing with this threat is going to take years, and we will take enormous risks throughout that time. Make no mistake, we are trying to stop if not entirely remake a nation gone mad.”
In the last year he and Dana had done what they could to prevent the king and queen from going to war with Brandish, Kaleoth and Zentrix, three small neighboring kingdoms. They’d stolen armor, killed monsters, rescued child slaves, even defeated skeletal armies made by a now dead necromancer. They’d enjoyed far more success than Dana had dared dream possible, yet had failed in their mission. The king and queen had declared war on Kaleoth the preceding winter, and on Brandish and Zentrix early in spring.
Jayden had fought tooth and nail for decades to prevent such wars. He’d waged a one-man campaign against the royal couple, hurting them at every opportunity across the entire kingdom. His friends were few, his enemies were legion, and hope as rare as gold. Dana was just a farmgirl until meeting him, and was staggered at the risks he ran, even more so because he was the king’s son, long thought dead. Who could do this without breaking?
So far Jayden was holding up, but the strain was showing. The world’s only sorcerer lord had a fierce temper, and it was getting worse. His black and silver clothes were fraying at the edges. His backpack was getting thin as he spent more and more of his limited money. Jayden’s perpetually messy blond hair was even worse than normal, and he’d refused her offers to cut it. He needed her help to stay focused, but just as importantly he needed some shred of hope, a sign that they weren’t on a fool’s errand.
If Jayden was looking worse, Dana was improving. She was in good health and had managed to replace her worn out clothes weeks ago with new summer wear, simple but comfortable cotton clothes. Her long brown hair was tied in a ponytail. She was even armed, a rarity among peasants, and with a magic sword called Chain Cutter.
Chain Cutter had been crafted using dwarf rune magic, Jayden’s shadow magic, a chimera horn and a sliver of magic metal called uram. The short sword was black edged with silver, serrated ridges on one side and mystic runes near the base with a black hardwood handle. Chain Cutter had proven devastating in combat, cutting through nearly anything. Jayden was still giving her sword fighting lessons, and she was learning fast.
“The war is heavily delayed, in part because of us,” Jayden explained. “We destroyed the only major bridge to Kaleoth, leaving them safe for the time being. Suzy Lockheart closed one of the mountain passes leading to Brandish. This will limit how much fighting can take place until the routes are clear.”
“What about Zentrix?” Dana asked. “We weren’t able to help them.”
“There are relatively few routes into Zentrix. Each one can be bottled up by small armies. Zentrix also has competent armies and generals. Barring disasters, they’ll hold.
“That is what gives us a chance, Dana. Maintaining three offensives requires huge numbers of men, leaving much of the country’s interior lightly defended. If we can find and destroy critical weak points such as supply depots, armories and bridges, we can slow or even paralyze the war effort. But we need to work fast. The late and unlamented necromancer Cimmox claimed the king and queen are flooding the kingdom with new followers, each one equal to him in depravity. Once they arrive in force, the war will be almost impossible to stop.”
“What are we going for first?”
Jayden paused. “I don’t know. Before defeating Cimmox, the heavy snowfall trapped us in a small village for two months. Much could have happened during that time I don’t know about. Even before that, we were focused for months on dealing with local threats. I don’t know what has been happening elsewhere in the kingdom. I need information before we can act.”
Dana reached into her backpack and pulled out a wanted poster with Jayden’s face on it. These posters were plastered across every village with more than a hundred residents, and the reward grew by the month. “Finding people you can talk to might be hard with this price on your head. It might be hard for me, too. These posters started mentioning me months ago, even if the descriptions are vague. Who can we talk to when we’re both wanted criminals?”
Jayden smiled, a rare and welcome sign. “Why Dana, I thought the answer to that would be obvious. Other wanted criminals.”
Dana stopped walking. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“If it’s any comfort, I won’t either. Years ago, I visited a small outlaw community called Weirdwood in the wilderness near the border with Zentrix. It is an indescribably foul place filled with the worst examples of humanity you could have the poor luck to meet. Such communities are sadly common in isolated places, sprouting like mushrooms after a rainstorm, only to be destroyed by the authorities or infighting until new ones arise. This one has stood for fifteen years and is considered almost stable.”
“If it’s full of criminals, they won’t have information you can use. They’d be chased out of nice parts of the kingdom.”
He looked at her curiously before saying, “I keep forgetting your peaceful upbringing. Dana, it’s a sad fact of life that the criminal element is welcome in society if it stays in the shadows. Smugglers, gamblers, thieves and poachers can find unscrupulous men eager for their wares. Communities like Weirdwood are frowned upon, but ignored so long as they are useful rather than damaging. The men I need to talk to will have traveled far and wide, tolerated if not welcomed.”
“You trust wanted criminals to be honest?” she asked skeptically.
“Honor among thieves is a rarity, but I have certain advantages in securing their cooperation. I have funds enough to buy their services, and such men appreciate hard currency. I also have enough power to inflict horrific retribution should they betray me, a point I made very clear on my last visit to Weirdwood.”
Dana put a hand over here face. “How much damage did you do?”
“It was severe but localized.”
As day transitioned into night, they passed scattered farmhouses on their way to Weirdwood, all of them built to resist attacks with brick walls, tile roofs and arrow slits. Men traveled armed and in groups, and they gave Dana and Jayden wary looks as they passed. Jayden nodded to a few of them and continued without incident.
“They don’t look happy to see us,” Dana said.
“Most of Weirdwood’s residents have the good sense to limit their crimes to distant lands, but there are always a few drunken idiots eager to cause trouble. Honest men living near Weirdwood are always ready for trouble.”
“Why don’t they tell the king and queen where to find this dump and let the army burn it down?”
“The king and queen don’t care about small farms like these any more than they did your friends and relatives back home when you first called upon my aid. If a few dozen or hundred people live in fear, or don’t live at all, it’s nothing to the crown compared to cities with hundreds of thousands of people.”
“You said this place has been around for fifteen years,” she pressed. “That’s a long time to ignore a problem.”
“They’ve ignored problems far greater for far longer.” He hesitated before saying, “It makes me wonder if a member of the royal court is protecting this pigsty. A rich man could make himself even richer here, if he was careful and heavily armed.”
Jayden pointed at lights in the distance. “That’s our destination. There are no friends where we’re going, Dana. We must take precautions before going further.”
Dana saw him take cloth wrappings from his bags. “Wait a minute.”
“This won’t take long.” Jayden covered her face with a cloth mask with narrow eyeholes. He handed her gloves that reached up to her elbows and leggings to cover what little skin her skirt and boots didn’t hide. “I am known and feared in Weirdwood. You, being an attractive young woman, will be seen as prey. You run a lower risk of being bothered if you look mysterious. You also don’t risk someone describing your features to the authorities.”
“Lots of soldiers have seen me with you,” Dana said as she pulled on the gloves.
“If you check your no doubt excellent memory, you’ll recall those meetings were almost exclusively at night where visibility was poor. The only exception that comes to mind was our attack on baron Scalamonger’s estate with Lootmore. In that instance, enemy forces had been drinking heavily before they saw you. I doubt they could describe your features after the hangovers they must have suffered. For your own safety and that of your family, please put these garments on.”
Dana finished putting on the clothes and checked her reflection in a nearby pool. She did look more intimidating. “I’m just glad you’re not trying to leave me behind. Sometimes you get too protective.”
“No place this close to Weirdwood is safe, and we won’t be safe inside the town. No matter what, eat nothing, drink nothing and stay close to me. If anyone looks dangerous, they are. Avoid speaking if you can help it.”
“Are we torching this place on the way out?”
“Don’t tempt me. I was weaker the last time I visited this cesspit, with fewer spells mastered. My progress has been considerable, but not enough to destroy a town.”
They approached Weirdwood slowly, keeping an eye out for danger. When they finally saw the town, it met Dana’s low expectations. The community was a collection of ramshackle buildings made of cheap lumber and scrap wood. None of the shops had signs advertising their services, nor were there street signs. Light from open doors illuminated much of the street to reveal a cast of miserable characters. Most were humans, although Dana saw an elf and some dwarfs. Like many places they’d visited, Weirdwood stunk of wood smoke, dung, livestock and body odor.
Then there was the noise. Dana heard shouting and laughing, more than she would have expected for a town this size. Animals brayed, neighed or in some cases growled. Music came from what she thought was an inn, but she didn’t recognize the tune or even the instruments.
A woman in a store called out, “What’s your pleasure? Stay awake, put you to sleep, open your eyes to other realms. I’ve got brews for whatever your fancy is.”
“Pass,” Jayden replied. The woman cursed at him before offering her vile concoctions to another man.
A man pointed at Dana and asked Jayden, “You selling or renting?”
Jayden cast a spell, and moments later a giant black hand with claws scooped up the man and hurled him onto a nearby rooftop. The hand dissolved back into the shadows, and after that no one on the street bothered them.
Jayden led her through the streets without hesitation. Their passing drew considerable attention, but no one tried to bar their way. They reached a dingy bar and went inside to find a collection of the dirtiest, loudest and most heavily armed people Dana had ever met gathered around a bar and cooking fire.
One of the men banged a ladle against an iron pot over a fire. “Boys, it’s our old friend, Jayden! It’s been years. What’s brought you back to Weirdwood? Still fencing stolen horses?”
Jayden strode fearlessly into the room. “Not this time, Clevner. I’m buying rather than selling.”
Clevner was a tall man, rail thin and filthy. His leather clothes looked like they should have been burned rather than washed, and his collection of knives and daggers were tarnished and rusty. He gave Jayden a lopsided grin and gestured for the other men in the room to make space.
“Now that depends on what you’re buying. We’re light on stock at the moment, which is why I was happy to see you.”
“I seek words rather than goods,” Jayden said. “I’ve been busy for the last few months and need up to date information on my favorite targets. You travel more than most and may have seen the opportunities I seek.”
A young man stepped away from the bar and pointed at Dana. “Hey, the sorcerer brought a pet. Ooh, all covered up like that, the pretty thing must be shy.”
“She’s none of your business,” Jayden said firmly.
The youth swaggered closer. “I’ll decide what’s my business or not.”
Jayden stepped up until he was within inches of the youth’s face. “You must be new to Weirdwood, or unbelievably stupid. Adults are talking, boy. Find someone else to amuse yourself with before I remove pieces of your anatomy.”
Clevner cleared his throat. “You’re right, he’s new to my little family. Go back to your drink, boy. I’d rather not clean your blood off the floor.”
The idiot looked at Clevner without fear, proof either of drunkenness or overconfidence. “He’s a tough one?”
“Last time Jayden paid Weirdwood a visit, a few blokes thought they could take horses he’d brought without paying for them. I buried them and bought the horses, for a fair price, I might add.”
Jayden turned his attention back to Clevner. “Armies are moving, threats and opportunities in equal measure to the man bold enough to act. I need to know where they are, how powerful they are, and if they’re leaving assets exposed. Words for gold, Clevner. You won’t get a better deal.”
“That might not the case.” Clevner casually took a sheet of paper from behind the bar and held it up. “See, we had a visitor just after the snow melted, and by we, I mean everyone in town. Tall fellow, fancy clothes, very nice diction. He made an offer on behalf of the king and queen. Anyone who swears loyalty and obeys orders gets a blanket amnesty for all past crimes. As of four weeks ago we became fine, upstanding citizens.”
“You must be joking,” Jayden said.
Clevner offered him the paper. “See for yourself.”
Jayden snatched it and read quickly. “What did you have to do to earn this amnesty?”
“Exactly what we were doing all along. Poachers hunt animals and rare monsters to sell the carcasses, smugglers bring in stolen goods, and slavers deal in human flesh. The only difference is, these days the king and queen pay us for our labors.”
Jayden’s face betrayed his disgust. “There weren’t slavers here on my last visit.”
“Weirdwood has been diversifying as of late, with new opportunities for the openminded. It’s not to my tastes, but I’m not in a position to throw stones. Back to our original topic. It’s too early to see if this will last, but for the time being we’re working for the throne, and the king and queen may not take kindly to us telling their secrets to an enemy, if that’s what you are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
“This part is a tad delicate, so curb your aggressive tendencies,” Clevner cautioned. “That same visitor who gave us this second chance thought you might drop by, your reputation being what it is, and he told us to pass along a message if we saw you.”
Jayden’s muscles tensed, and Dana grabbed the hilt of her sword. Clevner waved his hands downward and said, “Aggressive tendencies, Jayden. It’s an opportunity, not a threat. The king and queen are offering the same olive branch to you.”
“Do you take me for a fool?” he yelled. “I’ve harried the king and queen for my entire adult life! In the last year I’ve destroyed two noblemen’s estates, stolen a fortune in armor and killed their iron golem, Wall Wolf.”
Jayden’s outburst didn’t bother Clevner in the slightest. “Which is why they want you. You’re right, Jayden, it’s war, and wizards are a prized commodity in any army. The thinking goes anyone who kills an iron golem is a man you want on your side. If they hire you, that’s one less threat and one more asset. We both know changing sides isn’t rare for a man with skills in demand.”
Clevner took a cup off the bar and sipped it. “I and my merry band are temporarily useful to the king and queen, but if they win their war, they won’t need us any longer. Maybe their offer goes away when they can get respectable men to do the work. If they lose, nobody’s going to honor the deal. But you, well, sorcerer lords are a tad rare at the moment, so whoever wins is going to want you.
“There’s more. Your wanted posters were undated. The cash offer is off the table. Instead the king and queen are offering a dukedom to anyone who brings you in, dead or alive. Seems a certain Duke Wiskver managed to upset the royal couple so badly they ordered his execution. He ran off a few minutes ahead of the sheriffs. I’m told his land is a bit of a mess and his followers fled. Still, it’s not every day a fellow can jump to nobility. Plenty of strong lads will take the chance.”
Jayden handed back the paper. “I’ve no interest in changing sides, now or ever. My goal remains the same, and I think you are bold enough to play both sides, especially when you admit your amnesty might not be honored. Allow me to make you richer in case the day comes when you need to leave with whatever you can carry.”
Clevner paused before nodding. “I’ve heard and seen a few things that might interest you, and there are men in Weirdwood who might know more. First thing’s first, we need to agree to a price before I say word one.”
Just then one of Clevner’s followers walked past Dana and ran his hand up her leg. She shrieked, and the men burst out laughing. Jayden raised his hands to cast a spell, no doubt flashy and massively destructive that would ruin any chance for a deal.
Moving fast, Dana kicked the man in the butt, knocking him over. The laugher doubled, and the man scowled as he tried to get up. Before he could rise, she drew her sword and swung it at the pot hanging over the fire. Chain Cutter spit out a cloud of sparks as it hacked through the iron pot top to bottom, spilling its contents on the fire and extinguishing it as both pieces of the pot landed with a bang.
The laughter stopped.
“Keep your hands to yourself, or she’ll take them off,” Jayden said.
“Outside, now,” Clevner ordered the man on the floor. When he tried to protest, Clevner said, “You’re ten seconds from getting killed, by the girl if you’re lucky and by the sorcerer if you’re not. I don’t much care if you die, but once Jayden starts killing men, he might not be in a mood to stop. Go.”
The man left, his face red and his fists clenched. Clevner turned his attention back to Jayden. “I need time to get the secrets you want. Come back tomorrow night with a hundred gold coins, no less. Don’t argue over the money. You’ll make it back ten times over with what I have to say.”
“Fair enough,” Jayden said. “My associate won’t be joining me, as you seem to have trouble controlling your followers.”
The insult didn’t seem to bother Clevner. “I think that’s for the best.”
Jayden and Dana left the bar without another word. A drunken man saw them and laughed, saying, “Thrown out that fast? Guess he didn’t offer enough for the girl.”
Jayden didn’t break stride as he punched the drunk in the gut and doubled him over. He grabbed the fool by the collar and swung him head first into the bar’s front wall, and followed up by stomping on the man after he hit the ground. Bystanders watched with casual interest before moving on. Jayden continued as if nothing had happened, stopping only once they were far outside Weirdwood.
“That was really disturbing,” Dana said as she took off her disguise.
“It was, and I apologize. Weirdwood has degenerated even faster than the rest of the kingdom, and it was no pleasure to begin with. If this sort of depravity is acceptable even in a small corner of the kingdom, how soon until it spreads?”
“It might not. If Clevner is right, he and his friends might get thrown out with the trash when they’re not needed anymore.”
“They can do incredible amounts of harm before being cast aside.” Jayden scowled and looked back at the disgusting town. “In years past I was never happy dealing with such revolting people. I rationalized it as a necessary evil. Today I see that choice for the mistake it is, for if it was acceptable for me to deal with such men, it is no less so for the king and queen.”
“Can we get this information anywhere else?” Dana asked.
“Not in time. The peace and quiet we now enjoy won’t last. Armies will march soon, and if we are to do anything to stop that we have to know what to hit and where. We also need allies for the coming battles, and while the men of Weirdwood don’t qualify, they might be able to point out others who do. I don’t trust them, but I need them.”
They spent the night camped far away from Weirdwood in case its unsavory residents were tempted to collect the price on Jayden’s head. They spent the following day practicing with wooden swords. Dana wasn’t Jayden’s equal, but she was getting to the point where she could hold her own.
As the day wore on Jayden noticed more men coming into and out of Weirdwood. He frowned and said, “I need to find a safe place for you while I’m gone. Given how far the town’s residents travel, it would be better for you to be farther away. There is a village deeper in the mountains and the road leading there is difficult, so Weirdwood’s loathsome residents should avoid it.”
Jayden led her to a small walled village perched next to a river. The river flowed slowly through the mountainous terrain and frequently branched off along narrow channels. People had set nets across the water to snare fish and watched them warily, but thankfully didn’t panic at the appearance of strangers.
“It’s rustic, but safe,” Jayden said. “Weirdwood’s noxious residents avoid this place ever since some of their men came here and never returned. Whatever is responsible ignores less revolting people, and I feel certain no one will bother you.”
Before he left, she said, “Promise me you’re not doing this to keep me safe while you run off and fight those jerks alone.”
Jayden smiled. “I respect your abilities and judgement too much to go without your help. I will return as soon as I have finished dealing with Clevner. From there our journey will be more dangerous. Rest, and enjoy what little these people have to offer.”
Dana felt nervous as she watched Jayden leave. Not because she feared for herself. She was worried for him. Weirdwood was easily the foulest town she’d ever set foot in. Jayden was worthy of respect from friends and fear from enemies, but those villains might think surprise and superior numbers could win the day. She was tempted to follow him.
In the end she didn’t. There would be too big a risk that she’d draw attention from evil men, ruining Jayden’s chances to finish this deal, and possibly forcing him to rescue her. She was honest enough to admit she wasn’t ready to fight her way into or out of a town like that, especially since she didn’t know what dangers lurked there. They could have tamed monsters, golems, witches, wizards or any number of other threats.
A woman walked by, and Dana said, “Hello there.”
The woman mumbled a response and kept her head down. Dana tried talking to another woman and got the same reaction. Villagers went about their business as if she wasn’t there, shying away when she approached. She couldn’t figure out why they were so scared of her, but maybe they were used to strangers being dangerous. After all, they weren’t far from Weirdwood.
Dana had been just like these people only a year ago. The small town she’d grown up in was quiet and did its best to avoid attention from royalty and monsters (both being dangerous). She would’ve been wary at the approach of a stranger, not hostile, but cautious in case the person was dangerous.
Their apprehension would make finding a place to stay difficult. These people wouldn’t want to open their home up to a stranger, even a paying one. There didn’t seem to be an inn, either, but that wasn’t surprising for such a small community. Few travelers would come this way, and many would be the kind of men they wouldn’t want around. It looked like she’d be roughing it tonight.
Dana searched the area for good camping sites. Options were limited. Much of the land was too rocky, and every inch of flat ground was planted with grains or vegetables. She ended up going far down the nearest trail before finding a patch of tall pine trees she could make camp under. Fallen needles offered bedding of a sort, while the trees would provide cover.
She’d just begun to lay out a blanket to sleep on when she saw a woman of about twenty creep down the trail. The woman was pretty but simply dressed. Curious, Dana watched the woman go to a small branch of the river and set a straw mat onto the water. With this strange task done, the woman went back toward the village, never seeing Dana hiding among the pine trees.
This was odd enough to worry Dana. Once she was sure the woman was gone, she went to the river and found the mat slowly flowing downstream. The mat was thick enough it could float even with a loaf of bread, two apples and a smoked fish sitting on top of it.
“Who’s that for?” Dana asked out loud.
The current carried the mat away, and Dana followed it. The branch of the river was wide but not very deep, and it flowed between large boulders before going into a cave. The mat leisurely floated into the cave and out of view.
“This doesn’t make sense,” she said. “That’s not the kind of food you would give to an animal or a monster. That means there’s a person in there the lady is providing for. Why doesn’t he stay in the village?”
Dana peered into the cave. Was someone trapped down there? That didn’t make sense, either. If someone was stuck inside, the woman would get her friends and family to rescue them. Maybe the stranger was hiding in the cave and the woman had merely agreed to provide meals. That didn’t make even less sense. If someone was so scared they’d hide in a cave, it would be smarter to run to a safer place, and there had to be safer places to hide than a village near Weirdwood.
“Laura?” a man’s voice called out from the cave.
“Um, no, sorry, I’m not Laura,” Dana said.
“That is a relief and a pity,” the man answered. Dana heard him eating the crunchy apples.
“Why are you in there?”
“That’s not a story I am eager to repeat. Young lady, I am told there is a village not far from here. Tell the people Brasten sent you, and they will open their doors that you may spend the night in safety.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Dana said. “Wait a minute, you were told there’s a village nearby? It’s so close I can see the light from their cooking fires. How could you not know where it is?”
“I came here before there was a village, and have never left.”
The statement was mysterious, but it was also unbearably sad. “Can you leave?”
“No.”
“The girl who floated the food to you, she’s Laura? She’s trying to be nice, but she can’t save you.”
“She has a beautiful soul and seeks to ease my confinement. I could survive without the meals she sends me, and without her company when she can spare the time, but it makes my stay more bearable. To hear tales of the world beyond is a pleasure and makes me feel like I am still a part of it, if only in a small way.”
Dana went through her baggage and brought out a torch. She lit it and held it in front of her as she stepped into the water. “I’m coming in.”
“I can’t guarantee your safety,” the man cautioned. “There is danger within this cave.”
“Then you need help,” she said as she waded through the cold water. It came up to her knees, but flowed so slowly she was in no danger of being washed away.
“Laura would like you.”
Dana only had to wade a short distance before coming onto a ledge. She found the straw mat in the water. Standing on the ledge was the man.
This man…oh my. He was the sort of that drew women’s attention, tall and lean with sculpted muscles. She guessed his age at twenty-five at the most, with dark hair and brooding eyes. His clothes were simple cotton, a tunic with short sleeves, pants that stopped just below his knees, and a sword strapped to his leather belt.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said formally. “I am Brasten the Unbeaten. Please forgive the lack of accommodations. I’m afraid the few creature comforts I could offer rotted away long ago.”
“Hi.” Dana was having trouble forming words at the moment. She held out her hand, and Brasten shook it with a firm grip. “I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t see what’s keeping you here.”
“It’s a long story and a sad one, but you have gone to some effort to meet me, so I feel I should reciprocate in some way. I fear my tale offers little hope. Come, and I will show you why I stay.”
December 12, 2019
A Humble Request
Friends and readers, I come today not with tales of crazy goblins or cunning sorcerer lords, but with a request. It would be more accurate to call this shameless groveling, but I’m trying to retain some shreds of dignity.
One of the biggest problems for indie authors such as myself is getting the word out on their books. Many marketing websites require hefty fees while generating little results, and others only advertise free books. Offering free books gives away hundreds or thousands of copies in the hope that readers will go on to buy the author’s other books, but too often this generates only a few sales. A few advertising sites are notoriously picky about which books they will accept. I’m looking at you, Bookbub!
There is a way around this. Amazon is the largest and best-known book seller in the world. They also sell nearly everything else you could want short of live muskrats, and given time I’m sure they’ll enter that market, too. But I digress. Reviews on Amazon make a big difference in whether a book does well or poorly. Potential buyers are more likely to purchase books with lots of reviews. Amazon’s algorithm, a mysterious force that decides which books appear on customers’ suggestions list, also considers the number of reviews to determine which books it shows to customers. Verified reviews, which is when a customer reviews a book they bought from Amazon, count for even more.
Getting reviews for books can be a Catch 22. You need reviews to attract attention from both Amazon and its customers, but you need satisfied customers to get reviews. Many customers don’t leave reviews. Some readers leave reviews on Goodreads, a site Amazon owns lock, stock and barrel. Oddly enough, Goodreads reviews don’t appear on Amazon, nor do Amazon reviews appear on Goodreads, proof that big business is capable of boneheaded mistakes and oversights.
I come to you good people asking for a favor. If you have read and enjoyed my books, I would be eternally grateful if you would review those books on Amazon. This would help other Amazon customers know that you liked my books and give them some idea of what to expect if they buy a copy. These reviews can be as little as a few words and selecting a star rating. At most this will take a few minutes of your time per review. Nor does it cost you any money. If you have posted reviews on Goodreads, please post the same information to Amazon. If you have already posted reviews, I appreciate your assistance.
Thank you for your time and patience, and I promise my next post will be appropriately silly.
One of the biggest problems for indie authors such as myself is getting the word out on their books. Many marketing websites require hefty fees while generating little results, and others only advertise free books. Offering free books gives away hundreds or thousands of copies in the hope that readers will go on to buy the author’s other books, but too often this generates only a few sales. A few advertising sites are notoriously picky about which books they will accept. I’m looking at you, Bookbub!
There is a way around this. Amazon is the largest and best-known book seller in the world. They also sell nearly everything else you could want short of live muskrats, and given time I’m sure they’ll enter that market, too. But I digress. Reviews on Amazon make a big difference in whether a book does well or poorly. Potential buyers are more likely to purchase books with lots of reviews. Amazon’s algorithm, a mysterious force that decides which books appear on customers’ suggestions list, also considers the number of reviews to determine which books it shows to customers. Verified reviews, which is when a customer reviews a book they bought from Amazon, count for even more.
Getting reviews for books can be a Catch 22. You need reviews to attract attention from both Amazon and its customers, but you need satisfied customers to get reviews. Many customers don’t leave reviews. Some readers leave reviews on Goodreads, a site Amazon owns lock, stock and barrel. Oddly enough, Goodreads reviews don’t appear on Amazon, nor do Amazon reviews appear on Goodreads, proof that big business is capable of boneheaded mistakes and oversights.
I come to you good people asking for a favor. If you have read and enjoyed my books, I would be eternally grateful if you would review those books on Amazon. This would help other Amazon customers know that you liked my books and give them some idea of what to expect if they buy a copy. These reviews can be as little as a few words and selecting a star rating. At most this will take a few minutes of your time per review. Nor does it cost you any money. If you have posted reviews on Goodreads, please post the same information to Amazon. If you have already posted reviews, I appreciate your assistance.
Thank you for your time and patience, and I promise my next post will be appropriately silly.
November 27, 2019
Dead End part 2
This is the conclusion of Dead End with Dana Illwind and Sorcerer Lord Jayden.
*****
Jayden grumbled as he followed. Dana saw him smirk, and before she could stop him he asked, “How is your job hunt coming along?”
Green Peril stopped and glared at Jayden. Hoping to distract him, Dana ran alongside the elf and asked, “What did the tree say to you?”
“She said months ago a great host of undead marched through these woods, destination unknown,” the elf replied. “They had trouble passing through the dense stand of trees and thick underbrush, so a human created the path we walk on by blighting the land. Once the way was clear the undead marched on and the necromancer returned to where he’d come from. She asked me to find this wretch and rip him limb from limb.”
Puzzled, she said, “That’s kind of vicious.”
“Trees are bitter and vindictive,” the elf told her. “Most of the time they don’t get to strike back at their enemies. When she saw me she thought, rightly so, that I was willing to pay back this monster in full.”
Green Peril marched on. “She also said this land has been abandoned and neglected for decades. When I become court wizard, and I will, I shall oversee the restoration of this kingdom. Clearly humans aren’t up to the task.”
“Before we go any farther, Jayden knows a spell to shield you from the whole ‘kill everything’ feeling you get by being close to walking skeletons,” she told him. “I’m sure he won’t mind casting it on you.”
“I have my own shielding magic, child, far superior to anything this wretch could offer. I gather you are desperate to travel with this clod and depend on his outdated spells. It doesn’t speak well of this land that a child should need a criminal’s aid. Never fear, soon enough you’ll be able to go back to your mud hut and live in peace.”
Dana looked over to Jayden. “I tried. I really did.”
“Don’t expect better from him. That we’re not ripping one another to pieces is a testament to your kind nature, but this is all we can ask for.”
Their journey was tense from their grim surroundings and the constant tension between the two wizards. Dana stayed between them as a badly needed buffer, but she had little success in tamping down their hate. After two hours they reached what had to be their destination.
The trail ended in a wide valley flanked by steep hills. Trees had once grown here in abundance. In their place was blackened trunks tipped over at sharp angles. There were no animals, nor signs that anyone had ever lived in the valley. A huge earthen mound two hundred feet long and twenty feet wide dominated the valley’s center. Dana saw a long, deep gash running down the center of the mound.
“Welcome!” an echoing voice called out. Dana recognized the necromancer’s strange accent. She couldn’t pinpoint the voice’s source as it bounced between the high hills. “I see you brought another fool eager to die! You surprise me, sorcerer lord! I’d been told you only traveled with this brat!”
A lone man stepped out from the edge of the long mound. Dana had met several wizards in the last year, all of them flamboyant, like they wanted the world to see them. In contrast the necromancer was bland, with average height and weight, short brown hair, balding in the front and wearing simple leather clothes. He carried no staff or weapons, nor did he have jewelry. If she’d met him on a street rather than a mass grave, she wouldn’t have given him another thought.
“I’m awed you would face me,” the necromancer continued. He walked casually, watching his guests but taking no action against them. “You might as well have walked into a dragon’s lair. The results would have been faster and less painful.”
“Where are his creations?” Green Peril whispered.
“I don’t know,” Jayden answered softly. “He sent two barrow wights against me earlier, but that can’t be the extent of his servants. He’s out of range for my spells. Yours?”
“The same. He planned his entrance well.”
The necromancer stopped and pointed at Green Peril. “You? Ha! This day gets better with every second! I’d heard about the elf sent to kill the sorcerer lord. You thought you were going to be the king and queens official wizard, and you couldn’t kill one man.”
“There were no witnesses to that battle except these two and the Shrouded One,” Green Peril said. “How would you know of it?”
“People in Fish Bait City found a dead plant monster in the streets,” the necromancer told him. “They told their nobleman, he told the king and queen, and when they heard Jayden was still in the kingdom it was clear what had happened.” The necromancer grinned like an idiot. “In case you were wondering, the job offer has been revoked. The king and queen have no need of failures when a better choice is available.”
“What do you mean?” Jayden demanded.
“You are dull, boy.” The necromancer bowed and said, “Allow me to formally introduce myself. I am Cimmox Valgor, unofficial court wizard to the king and queen.”
Green Peril bellowed, “They wouldn’t be depraved enough to accept a necromancer into their service!”
“I don’t share your faith in them,” Jayden said softly.
“Accept me?” Cimmox asked slyly. “They sought me out! The king and queen plan a grand and glorious war. Losses promise to be staggering, but I can make the dead serve again regardless of which side they were on. Friends, enemies, civilians, whoever they were, they will fight in my name once they’re dead. The king and queen can lose an army, and I can give it back.”
“Good God,” Dana said.
Cimmox pointed at Jayden. “The king and queen told me much of you, secrets gleaned from those who saw you in battle. Let that be a lesson to you, boy, leave no witnesses. I hear you seek to overthrow the royal couple, maybe take their place. Ha! Do you want to know a secret?”
Jayden formed his black sword. “Do tell.”
“All your years fighting didn’t matter one bit. The king and queen have replaced everything you took from them. They sent word to the dangerous, the desperate and the depraved. Come, they said! Come and serve, your crimes forgotten, your sins ignored, and rich rewards for the taking.
“Come they did. Gladiators from Battle Island, beast tamers from Quoth, wizards of the Inspired and more gather in record numbers, promised gold and positions of power in return for shedding blood in the king and queen’s name. Every foe you bested has been replace two times over. You may as well have done nothing.”
Jayden was silent for a moment, staring at the necromancer in such disgust that even that twisted madman took a step back. When Jayden spoke, it was like the wrath of the underworld being unleashed.
“You heard of my victories against the king and queen’s soldiers. Gargoyles, a chimera, Wall Wolf the iron golem, all these and more fought me and died. I’ve faced your inexcusably foul creations and slew them, as any sane man would. All this you know, yet you’d face me. What madness made you think you’d win? What idiocy made you think you ever stood a chance against me?”
“Oh dear,” Dana said. She could feel an entire year’s work trying to temper Jayden’s rage slip away.
Jayden marched toward the necromancer. “You claim to be one of many degenerates called to arms by the king and queen. You freaks and nightmares came a long way to die. You should have stayed in whatever hole you’d been hiding in, because now you stand before me, and nothing under heaven can save you.”
Cimmox stared at Jayden before saying, “You would have made a fine necromancer. Instead you’ll make fine parts for my next creation. You’ve met some of my followers. Let me show you the rest.”
The great earthen mound heaved like a living thing before the gash in it opened wide to vomit out masses of the undead. Walking skeletons made up the bulk of the unspeakable horde, but Dana saw barrow wights loping like wolves among their lesser cousins. More and more abominations poured forth as if they would never stop coming. None carried weapons beyond their sharp teeth and claws. The crowd of nightmares howled like wild beasts.
“Let them come to us,” Green Peril said. He planted the tip of his staff into the ground and cast a spell. His red staff sprouted roots that sunk deep into the ground before growing forward as fast as a galloping horse. The vanguard of the skeletal army covered half the distance to them when a tree root as thick as a wine barrel and fifty feet long burst from the ground and swept over the undead. Thirty of the horrors were crushed to pieces. The root made another swing and battered apart still more, but the rest of the horde grappled the root and ripped it apart.
The time this bought them was well spent as Jayden finished chanting. Dana recognized the spell and braced for the coming explosion. When he finished a single spark drifted toward the oncoming horde.
Green Peril watched the spark float along. “You must be joking.”
“Wait for it,” Jayden told him.
BOOM! Jayden’s fireball burst among the front of the undead, swallowing them up like so much kindling. Dana had seen this spell before, but this time something was different. The fire grew with each skeleton and barrow wight it consumed, as if they were fueling it. The blast grew and grew until it was double its normal size before burning out.
Jayden’s spell had cost the undead army a quarter of its size, yet more came up from the grave to replenish their numbers. They spread out to avoid being caught by another fireball. Behind them Cimmox laughed like this was a grand joke. Dana didn’t know why he stayed out of the battle, but every second he did gave them a chance.
Green Peril took a jar from inside his robes and uncorked it. He poured out dozens of tiny green beetles and cast a spell on them. The beetles swelled up, doubling in size every second until they were as big as hounds. Green Peril pointed his staff at the oncoming undead, and the beetles charged into the horde, their sharp jaws cutting skeletons apart.
“You have an army of bugs?” Cimmox mocked him. “All things die, elf, even the undead. Let me show you.”
Cimmox finally cast a spell, and ten skeletons in the front of the army suddenly turned black. One said, “Hey, what’s going on?”
BOOM! The black skeletons exploded, destroying themselves, nearby skeletons and all of Green Peril’s beetles. Cimmox laughed again as his surviving monstrosities surged forward.
The horde was almost upon them when Jayden turned to face Dana. She saw the concern in his eyes. Dana held up her left hand and said, “Jayden, wait, I—”
Jayden cast one last spell before the nightmarish horde struck them. He spoke strange words that caused shadows to bend and twist until they formed a fierce suit of black armor with razor sharp edges. Pieces of the suit flew through the air before hitting Dana, locking in place over her until she was covered head to toe in black magic armor.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” she said. The armor was menacing, yet so light it felt like she was wearing only a summer dress. Somehow she could see through the helmet even though it had no eye slits. Her fingers on both hands ended in thick, sharp claws, barely flexible enough to hold her sword.
Then the horde hit them. Dana lost sight of Jayden and Green Peril as skeletons swarmed around them as thick as stalks of wheat in a farm field. She tried to stay close to the two wizards and failed utterly in the face of overwhelming numbers. Dana swung her sword with wild abandon and sliced apart the first two skeletons to reach her.
A hideous skeleton made of both human and bull bones pushed its way to the front of the crowd. “I want the little one!”
Dana charged the mismatched skeleton, hacking apart a smaller skeleton that tried to tackle her. She swung once and took off the large skeleton’s right arm before slicing through its right leg. The skeleton fell to its knees. Somehow looking surprised even without a face, it asked, “Can we talk this over?”
A barrow wight bounded onto the crippled skeleton, crushing it underfoot before leaping onto Dana. It hit her with enough force to knock her over. Once she was down the barrow wight bit her right arm. Its teeth scratched her shadowy armor without penetrating. Dana swung her left arm into the barrow wight’s head, and the wight howled in agony before staggering back. Its head was blackened and crumbling under her blow.
Dana got up and punched it again, watching her blow burn its chest. Jayden’s shadow magic was especially dangerous against necromancy, and that clearly included her armor. The wight tried to flee, but she was on it in a flash and impaled it. The wight howled even louder as its entire body blackened and fell apart.
“What was that?” Dana asked. In seconds she remembered that Chain Cutter had been made in part with Jayden’s shadow magic. It must share his magic’s destructive effect on the undead.
The horde of undead parted as a giant plant with a toothy maw grew up from nothing in their midst. Skeletons to Dana’s right screamed in panic as a giant plant monster leaned down and gobbled them up. It was like the plant Green Peril had used against Jayden in Fish Bait City. The huge plant leaned down to snap up another mouthful.
Fortune turned against them as a crackling black bolt shot through the air and hit the plant monster in the side. It toppled over under the assault, and Dana had to run to avoid it landing on her. Four skeletons weren’t as fast and were crushed beneath it. The plant hadn’t even hit the ground when it started rotting, and in seconds it was nothing more than festering slime.
“Did seeing your plant die hurt?” Cimmox taunted them. “I hope it hurt.”
Skeletons piled on Dana while she was distracted. She braced her feet against the ground and pushed into them, knocking them back. She punched and kicked the skeletons, taking them apart piece by piece. She grabbed one skeleton in a bear hug, and her armor burned it with shadow magic. One skeleton bit her shoulder and dented her armor, only for the monster to be burned away. She finished the last one with a swing of Chain Cutter.
Jayden ran past her with his shield of spinning black daggers in front of him, grinding up skeletons in his way. A single skeleton jumped him from behind and wrapped its arms around his throat. He staggered under the attack before a vine seized the skeleton, pulled it off and crushed it against the ground.
“Jayden!” she shouted.
“Keep away from Green Peril!” he shouted. “He’s using spells that cover a wide area.”
Just then a forest of wood spears shot up from the ground, impaling countless undead on their sharp tips. The spears quivered before launching into the air. They came down on more undead and destroyed scores of them.
That cleared enough space for Dana to see the elf. Vines wrapped around his body grappled skeletons and crushed them. A barrow wight leaped over the vines and tried to claw his face. Green Peril swung his staff and struck his foe in the chest. The opals on the staff flashed, and the barrow wight disappeared in a blast of light.
“The horde is thinning,” Jayden told Dana. “If we reach Cimmox, we can deal with the source of the problem.”
“What about Green Peril?” she asked.
Jayden and Dana turned at the sound of horrid screaming, and saw thick roots crushing two barrow wights and dragging them underground.
“I think he’ll manage,” Jayden said dryly. “Come on.”
Dana and Jayden charged through the scattered ranks of undead. A skeleton lunged at Dana and scratched her breastplate. She swung her sword and took off its arm, leaving Jayden to finish it with a sword strike to its chest. Jayden’s shield of daggers cut through three more skeletons before it gave out under the strain. Once it was down a dozen skeletons mobbed them and fought them to a standstill. Dana struck down two while Jayden cut four more apart. Seconds later a boulder flew through the air and flattened the last six. They turned to see Green Peril pull another boulder loose from the ground with the vines twined around him and hurl it into another skeletal mob.
“You don’t leave your leader behind!” Green Peril yelled at them. He frowned and added, “Admittedly I’ve done so, even robbed a few of them, but it was justified.”
Cimmox saw them coming and laughed. “That fight forced you to use your best spells while I used only two. It’s embarrassing. Doesn’t anyone conserve their magic these days? Let me show you what I saved just for you.”
The necromancer uttered strange, hateful words and made intricate gestures with his hands. Dead trees near him rotten away into a slimy goo from his foul spell. No sooner had he finished then bones littering the valley rose up and flew to him.
“Wait, I can still fight!” a skeleton pleaded before it was ripped to pieces and carried off into the air, as were all the skeletons still standing. Broken bones joined the cloud, as did those reduced to splinters in the fight. Still more bones shot up from the gash in the burial mound to form a dense cloud around the necromancer. The cloud tightened as bones linked together in a revolting mass twenty feet across with the necromancer standing on top of it.
“How do you like it?” Cimmox asked. The huge, barrel shaped skeletal creation stood up on six legs as thick as tree trunks and ending in wicked claws as long as a man’s arm. It had no head or eyes, but the many skulls in it had red light pouring from their eye sockets. “It won’t last long, but it doesn’t need to.”
Green Peril yelled, “You destroyed what was left of your own army!”
“I made them to expend them,” Cimmox replied casually. “I mourn them no more than an archer does for the arrows he fires. The king and queen are eager to have Jayden’s head. Yours means nothing to them. Let’s see if you’re smart enough to run.”
“Go left and I’ll go right,” Jayden said to Green Peril. The two wizards split up. Dana followed Jayden.
“Smart enough to master magic, yet dumb enough to stay in a losing fight,” Cimmox said. He picked a leg bone out of his creation and pointed it at Dana. “This is a battle of wizards. Children aren’t welcome.”
“Get down!” Jayden yelled.
Cimmox cast a spell, and the bone glowed before exploding into a stream of bone needles that flew through the air. Dana tried to get behind a dead tree, but she was too slow. The needles hit without puncturing her armor, instead cutting long grooves across the back and left side.
“Wretch!” Green Peril screamed. His next spell caused plants to grow around him and spray the necromancer’s foul creation with orange sap, gluing two of its legs together.
“Oh be quiet,” Cimmox said tiredly. He spoke vile, hateful words before vomiting up a stream of black liquid, far more than he could possibly hold in his stomach. The steaming liquid hit the vines wrapped around Green Peril and melted them away. The elf avoided the noxious stream only by diving into the mud. “Now then, where were we?”
Cimmox’s gloating expression turned into one of terror when a giant black hand missed him by inches. Instead the blow connected with his skeletal mount and staggered it. Jayden was running to Dana and made a swinging motion with his right hand. The black hand mirrored his movements and hit the huge skeletal monster again.
“That is enough,” Cimmox snarled. “I met an old friend of yours while I was waiting for you to arrive. No introductions are needed for one of his status.”
Cimmox cast another spell and formed a large black sphere behind Dana and Jayden. It was much bigger than the one he’d used to send the barrow wights against them, and Dana could see why when it dissolved to show its horrible contents. It was the Living Graveyard, back from the dead yet again.
“It’s a pleasure to work with one created when necromancers and sorcerer lords fought for this land so long ago,” Cimmox said. “Let’s see which one of us kills you first.”
Dana and Jayden took cover in a grove of dead trees. She turned to him and said, “You and Green Peril fight the wizard. I’ll keep the Living Graveyard back.”
“You can’t fight him alone,” Jayden said.
“A year ago I couldn’t. I can now because of you. We beat him before I had Chain Cutter or you could make this armor. Trust me.”
The giant skeleton brought one of its huge legs down on the grove. It crushed three trees and toppled two more, forcing Dana and Jayden to fall back. Cimmox laughed and the Living Graveyard marched toward them.
Green Peril ran over to them, filthy, out of breath and bruised. He opened his mouth, but suddenly his eyes opened wide in surprised. He looked at them and said, “I can stop Cimmox, but I need time. Can you keep him busy for two minutes?”
Jayden looked at Dana and Green Peril, fear visible on his face. As a boy he’d lost everything, and this fight could cost him what little he’d clawed back. Fear gave way to resolve, and he stepped out from the shattered grove. “Two minutes, elf. Use them wisely.”
“Is this the best you can do?” Cimmox gloated as his monster lifted a leg to stomp on Jayden. “Soldiers spoke of you in terror. Knights trembled at the mention of your name. The king fears you even if he dares not show it. How could a stripling wizard like you, a fool using magic outdated a thousand years ago, earn such respect?”
“By thinking,” Jayden said. His next spell made shadows around the valley shimmered and solidified into pieces of frightening black armor identical to what Dana wore. Black armor pieces flew through the air and struck Cimmox hard, snapping over him and encasing him head to toe.
“What is this?” Cimmox yelled, his voice echoing inside his new helmet. He held up his hands and tried to move his fingers. “I can’t cast spells in these gauntlets!”
“No, you can’t,” Jayden said, his voice low and menacing. He still had his black sword, and the giant hand floated in the air. “Goodbye, Cimmox. You won’t be missed.”
Dana dearly wanted to stay and help him, but the Living Graveyard was almost on them. She needed to keep it away from Jayden for him to finish the necromancer. With damaged armor and a magic sword, she ran to fight a monster that had died and come back three times she knew of.
The Living Graveyard was as hideous as always, twelve feet tall, eight feet across and made of grave soil, human bones, broken headstones and splintered coffins. The nightmare monster had a cluster of human skulls embedded in its chest and two intact gravestones jutting from its shoulders, one reading No Rest and the other No Peace. Dana raised her sword to strike, and watched the Living Graveyard walk past her to Jayden.
It was ignoring her. Over the last year many people had done the same thing, focusing instead on Jayden. Normally she was happy to take advantage of this, but not today. She’d come so far, done so much, owned a named magic weapon, and this monster still walked right by her.
“Get back here!” she screamed. Dana charged the monster and swung Chain Cutter with all her strength. Her sword sliced into the Living Graveyard’s right hand and hacked it off. This brought the monster to a halt, and it tried to club her with its now handless arm. Dana ducked under the clumsy swing and sliced the arm open up to its elbow. She followed up with a strike on its right knee, chopping out a huge piece of dirt and bones.
The Living Graveyard’s next blow sent Dana flying backwards. Her armor was cut open across the stomach, but luckily the damage went no deeper. She struggled to her feet as the Living Graveyard marched after her. It lifted one foot and tried to step on her. Dana rolled aside and cut open its leg. The Living Graveyard howled at her with its grinning skulls, and for a moment she quavered under the awful screams.
Then she saw the edges of the wounds she’d scored on the Living Graveyard were black and crumbling away. Cimmox had said that this monster dated to when necromancers and sorcerer lords had fought to decide who would rule this land. That meant it was made with necromancy, not surprising given its appearance. Her sword was poison to it.
Dana charged the Living Graveyard and drove Chain Cutter deep into its body. The monster tried to claw her with its remaining hand. Instead of fighting it she let go of her sword and fell back. The Living Graveyard marched after her. She kept falling back and it kept after her as bits of it flaked away. More and more of it began to crumble and blacken.
As she retreated she came across Green Peril. The elf was kneeling with his staff pressed against the ground. He spoke, but not the strange words of magic. “All things die, but in dying they leave the seeds for new life. From death new life grows, sprouting, spreading, replacing what was lost.”
The Living Graveyard was going to trample Green Peril on its way to her. She didn’t know what the elf was doing (it sounded more like a prayer than a spell), but she couldn’t let the monster kill him. She charged it and drove her clawer gauntlets deep into its right side. Coffin wood burst into flames, bones cracked and headstones turned to gravel. The Living Graveyard seized her with its remaining hand, and she felt her armor buckling. Smoke rose up as her armor began to dissipate.
Crash! Dana kept clawing the Living Graveyard as she spared a glance at Jayden. The sound came from his giant hand slamming into the monstrous skeleton. He was tearing it apart, and as she watched he tore off one of its legs. The monster hobbled after him, trying to crush him underfoot, but with one leg gone and two glued together it didn’t move fast. Cimmox was still on top of his foul creation, struggling to pull off the magic armor that trapped him. The magic armor was toxic to the hideous creation he rode, and his feet burned into it.
“It won’t come off!” Cimmox screamed. With his accent it sounded like von’t.
“How can you cast spells with that atrocious accent?” Jayden demanded. He plunged his black sword into another of the skeletal monster’s legs. “You sound like your mouth is full of live fish!”
There was an ominous crack as the Living Graveyard broke Dana’s breastplate. Her shoulder guards went next. Broken bits dissolved into smoke, and then intact pieces began to boil away. Jayden’s spell was ending before the fight was over.
Devastating as this was to her, it hurt the Living Graveyard just as much. Her sword was destroying it from the inside out. Touching her armor was killing it as it tried to kill her. Its right arm fell off, then two of its skulls followed. Her armor was almost gone when the monster’s hand wrapped around her came apart. Dana grabbed her sword and pulled it out, then swung again and again. The Living Graveyard howled at her, a halfhearted moan rather than a scream. She answered with a scream of her own as she drove her sword deep into it. The Living Graveyard toppled and fell silent.
That’s when she heard a whisper, easy to hear even over the deafening sound of battle. 'It still lives. Strike again.'
Dana didn’t know what it was, but she did as told and swung Chain Cutter into the fallen monster. She cut off huge slabs of dirt and rotten wood, hitting it again and again. Her third swing tore deep into the monster, and that’s when she saw a human skull with horrible symbols carved into it. The skull had long legs like a crab, and now that it was visible it tried to run away.
“That’s how you keep coming back!” she cried out. “You’re like an estate guard. As long as that part of you gets away you can make a new body. Get over here!”
Dana chased the fleeing skull past Green Peril, the elf still speaking formally. Plants began to grow around him. His staff had white patches, and it sprouted leaves and vines that spread across the tainted landscape.
“From deserts dry to frozen tundra, life struggles and succeeds,” Green Peril said solemnly. “In oceans depths and mountains high, life struggles and succeeds. When molten rock pours forth to make new land, once red lava cools, here too life takes root.”
The fleeing skull ran by the elf and headed for Cimmox. The necromancer still struggled to remove his magic armor. His giant creation was trying to flee while Jayden chased it and hacked pieces off. Dana didn’t know what the skull could do if it reached Cimmox. Could it make another body fast enough to rejoin the battle?
Dana raced after the skull and caught up with it. It zigged and zagged, trying to avoid her. It ducked under a fallen tree and came out the other side, but Dana jumped over the dead tree and came down on top of it. The skull looked up as she plunged her sword into it. A shower of sparks shot up from Chain Cutter as the sword pierced the skull. The cursed thing screeched so loud that Jayden and Cimmox both turned to watch. Dana held her sword in the air, and the skull slid down the length of the blade before splitting in two.
“No,” Cimmox said. “It’s not possible!”
Cimmox threw back his head and issued such a horrible cry that Dana and Jayden fell backwards. Even Green Peril much farther back was rocked by the sound. The magic armor encasing Cimmox was ripped apart. Cimmox’s skeletal monster, already badly hurt, broke apart entirely. The necromancer fell to the ground and landed on his back.
The three of them staggered to their feet. Cimmox was missing what little hair he had. His face was gaunt and pale, his eyes sunken and yellowed. “Cry of the banshee is the only spell I know that needs no gestures. That took ten years off my life.”
With his hands free again, Cimmox cast another spell. Black liquid like tar spread across his hands, and the few drops of it that fell burned the ground. “I’ll get those years back by taking fifty years off your life.”
His next spell knit together shattered bones to form long spider legs that sprouted from Cimmox’s back. He ran fast as a horse with those revolting legs, his hand outstretched as he charged Jayden. Jayden raised his sword while Dana ran to his side.
Then Jayden looked like he was listening to something. Cimmox was almost upon them when Jayden said, “At least your wife isn’t here to see what you’ve become.”
Cimmox halted his charge. He looked confused before his face betrayed a great sadness. He backed away as Jayden continued speaking.
“She loved you. She tried to protect you. She deserved better than for you to ignore everything she said. So many times she tried to save you from threats, only for you to destroy yourself. You can still go back to her, but not like this.”
“I,” Cimmox began. Tears ran down his face. He scowled and raised his hands. “How dare you use her against me! I’ll kill you all!”
He didn’t get the chance. Grass spread across the valley floor as fast as a flying hummingbird. Trees sprouted and grew in seconds what should have taken years. Dana, Jayden and Cimmox turned to see Green Peril standing next to a tall white tree set with opals. The elf stood up and looked at Cimmox like a judge passing sentence.
“Life recovers from all losses. Fire, flood, frost, drought, through it all life survives, prospers and grows. Life conquers death!”
Dead trees sprouted new leaves and shoots. Vines twisted and wrapped around one another. The whole valley came alive in an unstoppable wave that reached for Cimmox. The necromancer blasted the plants with the same black bolts he’d killed Green Peril’s plant monster with. He cut huge gashes into the plants, yet the damage regrew in seconds. Cimmox turned and fled, running away on his spidery bone legs.
The tidal wave of greenery swept over him. For a few seconds he fought back, unleashing magic more horrible than any Dana could imagine. It was useless. The plants bound him and pulled him in, and with a sudden thunderous rush crushed him.
Dana leaned up against Jayden. “Wow.”
“That wasn’t nature magic,” Jayden said. “You cleansed this entire valley of the taint of necromancy, undoing Cimmox’s damage and the atrocities of the king and queen.”
“I had help,” Green Peril told them. He ran his hands over the lush plant life. “I imagine we all did.”
Hesitantly, Dana said, “I heard a whisper during the fight. Jayden, what you said about Cimmox’s wife, how did you know?”
“You weren’t the only one hearing whispers.” He looked at her and said, “Cimmox traveled a dark road. A man who sinks that far into perversion and depravity suffers a cost to his soul. I heard a voice telling me to give him one last chance, and what to say to reach him. He refused.”
She pointed up. “You mean we got help from…”
“Yes.”
“Huh. A bolt from the blue would have been nice.”
“A wise gardener removes weeds carefully, lest he damage his crops at the same time,” Green Peril replied. “We were given what we needed, no more, no less. Do not depend on such gifts, for they are given only in exceptional circumstances and against the most implacable of foes.”
“Where’s your staff?” she asked.
Green Peril glanced at the large white tree. “There. You can still see the opals. I needed a focus for the purification ceremony, and only my staff was strong enough.”
“So you can’t try to kill us?” she asked hopefully.
Green Peril gave her a sincere smile. “No. Nor do I wish to. If the king and queen would employ such a fiend then they don’t deserve my help.”
A thorough search of the area turned up no treasure. If the king and queen had paid Cimmox, he’d either spent it or hidden it. They did find a small camp with a stack of scrolls made of vellum. Jayden identified the as spell scrolls containing secrets of necromancy. He wasted no time in burning them. They tried to bury Cimmox, for even villains deserve burial, but they couldn’t find his body amid the plants.
“Our endeavor was successful, yet yielded little fruit besides defeating Cimmox,” Green Peril said. “I need time to replace what I’ve lost, no easy task when I will go home empty handed yet again. I will return in time.”
“Not as an enemy?” Jayden asked.
“No. You have earned my respect. Take comfort in knowing that no one else has.” Green Peril cast his last spell that day and transformed himself into a giant hawk. He spread his enormous wings and took to the sky, then flew south.
“That was exhausting,” Dana said.
“But necessary.” Jayden hesitated before asking, “Dana, before I gave you magic armor, why did you say wait?”
“I thought you were going to make one of those huge hands, scoop me up and make it carry me away.”
Jayden nodded his head slightly. “That was a much better plan than the one I came up with.”
* * * * *
With Cimmox and his foul army gone, Dana and Jayden headed to more populated parts of the kingdom. They needed days to reach the nearest town where they could buy food and maybe a good night’s sleep at an inn. Both of them still wore heavy winter clothes that helped mask their identities.
“Where do we go from here?” Dana asked as they entered the town.
“Cimmox made bold claims that may have been lies. He’d provided Duke Wiskver an undead army, so he was likely honest when he said he had royal patronage. The question is whether the rest of his tales were idle boasts. We could face threats more numerous and terrible than what we’ve seen to date.”
“The king and queen have money to hire more men, especially after years of high taxes. They may not even need the money.”
“What do you mean?”
“Last summer they promised to hire Green Peril if he killed you. They could make promises like that to other people, making them work before they get paid. If they die in battle, the king and queen aren’t out a single coin.” Dana grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt. “What’s going on up ahead?”
Over a thousand people were gathered in the town center, so many it seemed the entire town was present. People looked worried and spoke in hushed tones. As Dana and Jayden drew near, a lone man carrying a scroll came to the center of the crowd.
“Settle down, everyone,” the man called out.
“Mayor, what’s this about?” a farmer asked. “I’ve got planting to do.”
“I’ll get you back to your fields soon,” the mayor replied. He unrolled the scroll and held it up for them see. “A royal proclamation came last night by fast courtier, with orders to read it to the entire town.”
“You had to have the sheriff come get us for this?” another farmer asked.
The first farmer said, “The old mayor wouldn’t have done that.”
The mayor stared the farmer down. “That’s enough! The old mayor is gone. I’m here. The king and queen declared a state of war with Kaleoth, Brandish and Zentrix. Quiet that shouting! Mercy, it’s like herding sheep. The proclamation says Brandish and Zentrix are colluding with Kaleoth against our kingdom. We’re surrounded by enemies and have no choice but to fight our way out.”
“Against three kingdoms?” a frightened farmer asked.
“We’ve got no choice but to go forward.” The mayor checked the scroll before speaking. “There’s also been a rebellion by Skitherin mercenaries. One company went rogue and incited the others to rebel. Inform the authorities at once if you see them, because those men are dangerous.”
“This keeps getting worse,” a rancher said.
“Can’t you idiots stay quiet for five minutes?” the mayor asked. “Rumors have been going around about undead in the kingdom. Criminals and madmen have been claiming that walking skeletons were seen not far from here. We can’t have fear mongering during a time of war. Anyone caught spreading lies will be charged with sedition and sentenced to ten years hard labor, so mind your own business.”
The mayor walked up to a message board and tacked the scroll onto it. He stepped away and began, “I’m leaving this here for the rest of the—”
A giant black hand swung down and smashed the message board to splinters. Men yelled and women screamed as the hand grabbed the mayor and threw him into the crowd. Panicking people scattered in all directions until the town was empty. The huge hand didn’t follow them, in part because Dana was struggling to hold Jayden’s right arm. She held on until he let the hand dissolve into a cloud of black smoke. Jayden threw his head back and screamed. He pulled away from her, but she followed him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Jayden, don’t!”
He kicked pieces of the destroyed message board. “I’ve fought for decades to keep this from happening, Dana! You have no idea the hardships I’ve faced, the wounds I’ve suffered. Twenty years and every day of it a battle for time, for money, for some shred of hope, and it was for nothing.”
He stared at her. “I was supposed to stop this. It was my penanced for failing to stop my father descending into evil. My failure means countless multitudes will suffer the horrors of war.”
Those painful words showed how Jayden blamed himself for the king’s misdeeds, as if a child was responsible for the crimes of his father. In a way it proved his virtue, for he loved these people and would sacrifice himself if it meant saving them, but this self-loathing was destructive. He’d ruin himself, and he could do immeasurable damage to others if he didn’t get it under control.
“You didn’t fail,” she told him. “You haven’t succeeded yet. There’s a difference. You’ve saved lots of people, and you can save even more. Come on, Jayden. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
They left the town as residents slowly began to return. Dana wasn’t sure what they could do in the face of such a terrible threat. Three Kingdoms faced invasion, and people here were at the mercy of the king and queen, plus whatever monsters and madmen the royal couple had invited. What could two people do to stop that, even when one was a sorcerer lord?
Dana looked back the way they’d come, where a necromancer who’d created armies of the dead was gone forever. One threat was gone, yet so many remained.
*****
Jayden grumbled as he followed. Dana saw him smirk, and before she could stop him he asked, “How is your job hunt coming along?”
Green Peril stopped and glared at Jayden. Hoping to distract him, Dana ran alongside the elf and asked, “What did the tree say to you?”
“She said months ago a great host of undead marched through these woods, destination unknown,” the elf replied. “They had trouble passing through the dense stand of trees and thick underbrush, so a human created the path we walk on by blighting the land. Once the way was clear the undead marched on and the necromancer returned to where he’d come from. She asked me to find this wretch and rip him limb from limb.”
Puzzled, she said, “That’s kind of vicious.”
“Trees are bitter and vindictive,” the elf told her. “Most of the time they don’t get to strike back at their enemies. When she saw me she thought, rightly so, that I was willing to pay back this monster in full.”
Green Peril marched on. “She also said this land has been abandoned and neglected for decades. When I become court wizard, and I will, I shall oversee the restoration of this kingdom. Clearly humans aren’t up to the task.”
“Before we go any farther, Jayden knows a spell to shield you from the whole ‘kill everything’ feeling you get by being close to walking skeletons,” she told him. “I’m sure he won’t mind casting it on you.”
“I have my own shielding magic, child, far superior to anything this wretch could offer. I gather you are desperate to travel with this clod and depend on his outdated spells. It doesn’t speak well of this land that a child should need a criminal’s aid. Never fear, soon enough you’ll be able to go back to your mud hut and live in peace.”
Dana looked over to Jayden. “I tried. I really did.”
“Don’t expect better from him. That we’re not ripping one another to pieces is a testament to your kind nature, but this is all we can ask for.”
Their journey was tense from their grim surroundings and the constant tension between the two wizards. Dana stayed between them as a badly needed buffer, but she had little success in tamping down their hate. After two hours they reached what had to be their destination.
The trail ended in a wide valley flanked by steep hills. Trees had once grown here in abundance. In their place was blackened trunks tipped over at sharp angles. There were no animals, nor signs that anyone had ever lived in the valley. A huge earthen mound two hundred feet long and twenty feet wide dominated the valley’s center. Dana saw a long, deep gash running down the center of the mound.
“Welcome!” an echoing voice called out. Dana recognized the necromancer’s strange accent. She couldn’t pinpoint the voice’s source as it bounced between the high hills. “I see you brought another fool eager to die! You surprise me, sorcerer lord! I’d been told you only traveled with this brat!”
A lone man stepped out from the edge of the long mound. Dana had met several wizards in the last year, all of them flamboyant, like they wanted the world to see them. In contrast the necromancer was bland, with average height and weight, short brown hair, balding in the front and wearing simple leather clothes. He carried no staff or weapons, nor did he have jewelry. If she’d met him on a street rather than a mass grave, she wouldn’t have given him another thought.
“I’m awed you would face me,” the necromancer continued. He walked casually, watching his guests but taking no action against them. “You might as well have walked into a dragon’s lair. The results would have been faster and less painful.”
“Where are his creations?” Green Peril whispered.
“I don’t know,” Jayden answered softly. “He sent two barrow wights against me earlier, but that can’t be the extent of his servants. He’s out of range for my spells. Yours?”
“The same. He planned his entrance well.”
The necromancer stopped and pointed at Green Peril. “You? Ha! This day gets better with every second! I’d heard about the elf sent to kill the sorcerer lord. You thought you were going to be the king and queens official wizard, and you couldn’t kill one man.”
“There were no witnesses to that battle except these two and the Shrouded One,” Green Peril said. “How would you know of it?”
“People in Fish Bait City found a dead plant monster in the streets,” the necromancer told him. “They told their nobleman, he told the king and queen, and when they heard Jayden was still in the kingdom it was clear what had happened.” The necromancer grinned like an idiot. “In case you were wondering, the job offer has been revoked. The king and queen have no need of failures when a better choice is available.”
“What do you mean?” Jayden demanded.
“You are dull, boy.” The necromancer bowed and said, “Allow me to formally introduce myself. I am Cimmox Valgor, unofficial court wizard to the king and queen.”
Green Peril bellowed, “They wouldn’t be depraved enough to accept a necromancer into their service!”
“I don’t share your faith in them,” Jayden said softly.
“Accept me?” Cimmox asked slyly. “They sought me out! The king and queen plan a grand and glorious war. Losses promise to be staggering, but I can make the dead serve again regardless of which side they were on. Friends, enemies, civilians, whoever they were, they will fight in my name once they’re dead. The king and queen can lose an army, and I can give it back.”
“Good God,” Dana said.
Cimmox pointed at Jayden. “The king and queen told me much of you, secrets gleaned from those who saw you in battle. Let that be a lesson to you, boy, leave no witnesses. I hear you seek to overthrow the royal couple, maybe take their place. Ha! Do you want to know a secret?”
Jayden formed his black sword. “Do tell.”
“All your years fighting didn’t matter one bit. The king and queen have replaced everything you took from them. They sent word to the dangerous, the desperate and the depraved. Come, they said! Come and serve, your crimes forgotten, your sins ignored, and rich rewards for the taking.
“Come they did. Gladiators from Battle Island, beast tamers from Quoth, wizards of the Inspired and more gather in record numbers, promised gold and positions of power in return for shedding blood in the king and queen’s name. Every foe you bested has been replace two times over. You may as well have done nothing.”
Jayden was silent for a moment, staring at the necromancer in such disgust that even that twisted madman took a step back. When Jayden spoke, it was like the wrath of the underworld being unleashed.
“You heard of my victories against the king and queen’s soldiers. Gargoyles, a chimera, Wall Wolf the iron golem, all these and more fought me and died. I’ve faced your inexcusably foul creations and slew them, as any sane man would. All this you know, yet you’d face me. What madness made you think you’d win? What idiocy made you think you ever stood a chance against me?”
“Oh dear,” Dana said. She could feel an entire year’s work trying to temper Jayden’s rage slip away.
Jayden marched toward the necromancer. “You claim to be one of many degenerates called to arms by the king and queen. You freaks and nightmares came a long way to die. You should have stayed in whatever hole you’d been hiding in, because now you stand before me, and nothing under heaven can save you.”
Cimmox stared at Jayden before saying, “You would have made a fine necromancer. Instead you’ll make fine parts for my next creation. You’ve met some of my followers. Let me show you the rest.”
The great earthen mound heaved like a living thing before the gash in it opened wide to vomit out masses of the undead. Walking skeletons made up the bulk of the unspeakable horde, but Dana saw barrow wights loping like wolves among their lesser cousins. More and more abominations poured forth as if they would never stop coming. None carried weapons beyond their sharp teeth and claws. The crowd of nightmares howled like wild beasts.
“Let them come to us,” Green Peril said. He planted the tip of his staff into the ground and cast a spell. His red staff sprouted roots that sunk deep into the ground before growing forward as fast as a galloping horse. The vanguard of the skeletal army covered half the distance to them when a tree root as thick as a wine barrel and fifty feet long burst from the ground and swept over the undead. Thirty of the horrors were crushed to pieces. The root made another swing and battered apart still more, but the rest of the horde grappled the root and ripped it apart.
The time this bought them was well spent as Jayden finished chanting. Dana recognized the spell and braced for the coming explosion. When he finished a single spark drifted toward the oncoming horde.
Green Peril watched the spark float along. “You must be joking.”
“Wait for it,” Jayden told him.
BOOM! Jayden’s fireball burst among the front of the undead, swallowing them up like so much kindling. Dana had seen this spell before, but this time something was different. The fire grew with each skeleton and barrow wight it consumed, as if they were fueling it. The blast grew and grew until it was double its normal size before burning out.
Jayden’s spell had cost the undead army a quarter of its size, yet more came up from the grave to replenish their numbers. They spread out to avoid being caught by another fireball. Behind them Cimmox laughed like this was a grand joke. Dana didn’t know why he stayed out of the battle, but every second he did gave them a chance.
Green Peril took a jar from inside his robes and uncorked it. He poured out dozens of tiny green beetles and cast a spell on them. The beetles swelled up, doubling in size every second until they were as big as hounds. Green Peril pointed his staff at the oncoming undead, and the beetles charged into the horde, their sharp jaws cutting skeletons apart.
“You have an army of bugs?” Cimmox mocked him. “All things die, elf, even the undead. Let me show you.”
Cimmox finally cast a spell, and ten skeletons in the front of the army suddenly turned black. One said, “Hey, what’s going on?”
BOOM! The black skeletons exploded, destroying themselves, nearby skeletons and all of Green Peril’s beetles. Cimmox laughed again as his surviving monstrosities surged forward.
The horde was almost upon them when Jayden turned to face Dana. She saw the concern in his eyes. Dana held up her left hand and said, “Jayden, wait, I—”
Jayden cast one last spell before the nightmarish horde struck them. He spoke strange words that caused shadows to bend and twist until they formed a fierce suit of black armor with razor sharp edges. Pieces of the suit flew through the air before hitting Dana, locking in place over her until she was covered head to toe in black magic armor.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” she said. The armor was menacing, yet so light it felt like she was wearing only a summer dress. Somehow she could see through the helmet even though it had no eye slits. Her fingers on both hands ended in thick, sharp claws, barely flexible enough to hold her sword.
Then the horde hit them. Dana lost sight of Jayden and Green Peril as skeletons swarmed around them as thick as stalks of wheat in a farm field. She tried to stay close to the two wizards and failed utterly in the face of overwhelming numbers. Dana swung her sword with wild abandon and sliced apart the first two skeletons to reach her.
A hideous skeleton made of both human and bull bones pushed its way to the front of the crowd. “I want the little one!”
Dana charged the mismatched skeleton, hacking apart a smaller skeleton that tried to tackle her. She swung once and took off the large skeleton’s right arm before slicing through its right leg. The skeleton fell to its knees. Somehow looking surprised even without a face, it asked, “Can we talk this over?”
A barrow wight bounded onto the crippled skeleton, crushing it underfoot before leaping onto Dana. It hit her with enough force to knock her over. Once she was down the barrow wight bit her right arm. Its teeth scratched her shadowy armor without penetrating. Dana swung her left arm into the barrow wight’s head, and the wight howled in agony before staggering back. Its head was blackened and crumbling under her blow.
Dana got up and punched it again, watching her blow burn its chest. Jayden’s shadow magic was especially dangerous against necromancy, and that clearly included her armor. The wight tried to flee, but she was on it in a flash and impaled it. The wight howled even louder as its entire body blackened and fell apart.
“What was that?” Dana asked. In seconds she remembered that Chain Cutter had been made in part with Jayden’s shadow magic. It must share his magic’s destructive effect on the undead.
The horde of undead parted as a giant plant with a toothy maw grew up from nothing in their midst. Skeletons to Dana’s right screamed in panic as a giant plant monster leaned down and gobbled them up. It was like the plant Green Peril had used against Jayden in Fish Bait City. The huge plant leaned down to snap up another mouthful.
Fortune turned against them as a crackling black bolt shot through the air and hit the plant monster in the side. It toppled over under the assault, and Dana had to run to avoid it landing on her. Four skeletons weren’t as fast and were crushed beneath it. The plant hadn’t even hit the ground when it started rotting, and in seconds it was nothing more than festering slime.
“Did seeing your plant die hurt?” Cimmox taunted them. “I hope it hurt.”
Skeletons piled on Dana while she was distracted. She braced her feet against the ground and pushed into them, knocking them back. She punched and kicked the skeletons, taking them apart piece by piece. She grabbed one skeleton in a bear hug, and her armor burned it with shadow magic. One skeleton bit her shoulder and dented her armor, only for the monster to be burned away. She finished the last one with a swing of Chain Cutter.
Jayden ran past her with his shield of spinning black daggers in front of him, grinding up skeletons in his way. A single skeleton jumped him from behind and wrapped its arms around his throat. He staggered under the attack before a vine seized the skeleton, pulled it off and crushed it against the ground.
“Jayden!” she shouted.
“Keep away from Green Peril!” he shouted. “He’s using spells that cover a wide area.”
Just then a forest of wood spears shot up from the ground, impaling countless undead on their sharp tips. The spears quivered before launching into the air. They came down on more undead and destroyed scores of them.
That cleared enough space for Dana to see the elf. Vines wrapped around his body grappled skeletons and crushed them. A barrow wight leaped over the vines and tried to claw his face. Green Peril swung his staff and struck his foe in the chest. The opals on the staff flashed, and the barrow wight disappeared in a blast of light.
“The horde is thinning,” Jayden told Dana. “If we reach Cimmox, we can deal with the source of the problem.”
“What about Green Peril?” she asked.
Jayden and Dana turned at the sound of horrid screaming, and saw thick roots crushing two barrow wights and dragging them underground.
“I think he’ll manage,” Jayden said dryly. “Come on.”
Dana and Jayden charged through the scattered ranks of undead. A skeleton lunged at Dana and scratched her breastplate. She swung her sword and took off its arm, leaving Jayden to finish it with a sword strike to its chest. Jayden’s shield of daggers cut through three more skeletons before it gave out under the strain. Once it was down a dozen skeletons mobbed them and fought them to a standstill. Dana struck down two while Jayden cut four more apart. Seconds later a boulder flew through the air and flattened the last six. They turned to see Green Peril pull another boulder loose from the ground with the vines twined around him and hurl it into another skeletal mob.
“You don’t leave your leader behind!” Green Peril yelled at them. He frowned and added, “Admittedly I’ve done so, even robbed a few of them, but it was justified.”
Cimmox saw them coming and laughed. “That fight forced you to use your best spells while I used only two. It’s embarrassing. Doesn’t anyone conserve their magic these days? Let me show you what I saved just for you.”
The necromancer uttered strange, hateful words and made intricate gestures with his hands. Dead trees near him rotten away into a slimy goo from his foul spell. No sooner had he finished then bones littering the valley rose up and flew to him.
“Wait, I can still fight!” a skeleton pleaded before it was ripped to pieces and carried off into the air, as were all the skeletons still standing. Broken bones joined the cloud, as did those reduced to splinters in the fight. Still more bones shot up from the gash in the burial mound to form a dense cloud around the necromancer. The cloud tightened as bones linked together in a revolting mass twenty feet across with the necromancer standing on top of it.
“How do you like it?” Cimmox asked. The huge, barrel shaped skeletal creation stood up on six legs as thick as tree trunks and ending in wicked claws as long as a man’s arm. It had no head or eyes, but the many skulls in it had red light pouring from their eye sockets. “It won’t last long, but it doesn’t need to.”
Green Peril yelled, “You destroyed what was left of your own army!”
“I made them to expend them,” Cimmox replied casually. “I mourn them no more than an archer does for the arrows he fires. The king and queen are eager to have Jayden’s head. Yours means nothing to them. Let’s see if you’re smart enough to run.”
“Go left and I’ll go right,” Jayden said to Green Peril. The two wizards split up. Dana followed Jayden.
“Smart enough to master magic, yet dumb enough to stay in a losing fight,” Cimmox said. He picked a leg bone out of his creation and pointed it at Dana. “This is a battle of wizards. Children aren’t welcome.”
“Get down!” Jayden yelled.
Cimmox cast a spell, and the bone glowed before exploding into a stream of bone needles that flew through the air. Dana tried to get behind a dead tree, but she was too slow. The needles hit without puncturing her armor, instead cutting long grooves across the back and left side.
“Wretch!” Green Peril screamed. His next spell caused plants to grow around him and spray the necromancer’s foul creation with orange sap, gluing two of its legs together.
“Oh be quiet,” Cimmox said tiredly. He spoke vile, hateful words before vomiting up a stream of black liquid, far more than he could possibly hold in his stomach. The steaming liquid hit the vines wrapped around Green Peril and melted them away. The elf avoided the noxious stream only by diving into the mud. “Now then, where were we?”
Cimmox’s gloating expression turned into one of terror when a giant black hand missed him by inches. Instead the blow connected with his skeletal mount and staggered it. Jayden was running to Dana and made a swinging motion with his right hand. The black hand mirrored his movements and hit the huge skeletal monster again.
“That is enough,” Cimmox snarled. “I met an old friend of yours while I was waiting for you to arrive. No introductions are needed for one of his status.”
Cimmox cast another spell and formed a large black sphere behind Dana and Jayden. It was much bigger than the one he’d used to send the barrow wights against them, and Dana could see why when it dissolved to show its horrible contents. It was the Living Graveyard, back from the dead yet again.
“It’s a pleasure to work with one created when necromancers and sorcerer lords fought for this land so long ago,” Cimmox said. “Let’s see which one of us kills you first.”
Dana and Jayden took cover in a grove of dead trees. She turned to him and said, “You and Green Peril fight the wizard. I’ll keep the Living Graveyard back.”
“You can’t fight him alone,” Jayden said.
“A year ago I couldn’t. I can now because of you. We beat him before I had Chain Cutter or you could make this armor. Trust me.”
The giant skeleton brought one of its huge legs down on the grove. It crushed three trees and toppled two more, forcing Dana and Jayden to fall back. Cimmox laughed and the Living Graveyard marched toward them.
Green Peril ran over to them, filthy, out of breath and bruised. He opened his mouth, but suddenly his eyes opened wide in surprised. He looked at them and said, “I can stop Cimmox, but I need time. Can you keep him busy for two minutes?”
Jayden looked at Dana and Green Peril, fear visible on his face. As a boy he’d lost everything, and this fight could cost him what little he’d clawed back. Fear gave way to resolve, and he stepped out from the shattered grove. “Two minutes, elf. Use them wisely.”
“Is this the best you can do?” Cimmox gloated as his monster lifted a leg to stomp on Jayden. “Soldiers spoke of you in terror. Knights trembled at the mention of your name. The king fears you even if he dares not show it. How could a stripling wizard like you, a fool using magic outdated a thousand years ago, earn such respect?”
“By thinking,” Jayden said. His next spell made shadows around the valley shimmered and solidified into pieces of frightening black armor identical to what Dana wore. Black armor pieces flew through the air and struck Cimmox hard, snapping over him and encasing him head to toe.
“What is this?” Cimmox yelled, his voice echoing inside his new helmet. He held up his hands and tried to move his fingers. “I can’t cast spells in these gauntlets!”
“No, you can’t,” Jayden said, his voice low and menacing. He still had his black sword, and the giant hand floated in the air. “Goodbye, Cimmox. You won’t be missed.”
Dana dearly wanted to stay and help him, but the Living Graveyard was almost on them. She needed to keep it away from Jayden for him to finish the necromancer. With damaged armor and a magic sword, she ran to fight a monster that had died and come back three times she knew of.
The Living Graveyard was as hideous as always, twelve feet tall, eight feet across and made of grave soil, human bones, broken headstones and splintered coffins. The nightmare monster had a cluster of human skulls embedded in its chest and two intact gravestones jutting from its shoulders, one reading No Rest and the other No Peace. Dana raised her sword to strike, and watched the Living Graveyard walk past her to Jayden.
It was ignoring her. Over the last year many people had done the same thing, focusing instead on Jayden. Normally she was happy to take advantage of this, but not today. She’d come so far, done so much, owned a named magic weapon, and this monster still walked right by her.
“Get back here!” she screamed. Dana charged the monster and swung Chain Cutter with all her strength. Her sword sliced into the Living Graveyard’s right hand and hacked it off. This brought the monster to a halt, and it tried to club her with its now handless arm. Dana ducked under the clumsy swing and sliced the arm open up to its elbow. She followed up with a strike on its right knee, chopping out a huge piece of dirt and bones.
The Living Graveyard’s next blow sent Dana flying backwards. Her armor was cut open across the stomach, but luckily the damage went no deeper. She struggled to her feet as the Living Graveyard marched after her. It lifted one foot and tried to step on her. Dana rolled aside and cut open its leg. The Living Graveyard howled at her with its grinning skulls, and for a moment she quavered under the awful screams.
Then she saw the edges of the wounds she’d scored on the Living Graveyard were black and crumbling away. Cimmox had said that this monster dated to when necromancers and sorcerer lords had fought to decide who would rule this land. That meant it was made with necromancy, not surprising given its appearance. Her sword was poison to it.
Dana charged the Living Graveyard and drove Chain Cutter deep into its body. The monster tried to claw her with its remaining hand. Instead of fighting it she let go of her sword and fell back. The Living Graveyard marched after her. She kept falling back and it kept after her as bits of it flaked away. More and more of it began to crumble and blacken.
As she retreated she came across Green Peril. The elf was kneeling with his staff pressed against the ground. He spoke, but not the strange words of magic. “All things die, but in dying they leave the seeds for new life. From death new life grows, sprouting, spreading, replacing what was lost.”
The Living Graveyard was going to trample Green Peril on its way to her. She didn’t know what the elf was doing (it sounded more like a prayer than a spell), but she couldn’t let the monster kill him. She charged it and drove her clawer gauntlets deep into its right side. Coffin wood burst into flames, bones cracked and headstones turned to gravel. The Living Graveyard seized her with its remaining hand, and she felt her armor buckling. Smoke rose up as her armor began to dissipate.
Crash! Dana kept clawing the Living Graveyard as she spared a glance at Jayden. The sound came from his giant hand slamming into the monstrous skeleton. He was tearing it apart, and as she watched he tore off one of its legs. The monster hobbled after him, trying to crush him underfoot, but with one leg gone and two glued together it didn’t move fast. Cimmox was still on top of his foul creation, struggling to pull off the magic armor that trapped him. The magic armor was toxic to the hideous creation he rode, and his feet burned into it.
“It won’t come off!” Cimmox screamed. With his accent it sounded like von’t.
“How can you cast spells with that atrocious accent?” Jayden demanded. He plunged his black sword into another of the skeletal monster’s legs. “You sound like your mouth is full of live fish!”
There was an ominous crack as the Living Graveyard broke Dana’s breastplate. Her shoulder guards went next. Broken bits dissolved into smoke, and then intact pieces began to boil away. Jayden’s spell was ending before the fight was over.
Devastating as this was to her, it hurt the Living Graveyard just as much. Her sword was destroying it from the inside out. Touching her armor was killing it as it tried to kill her. Its right arm fell off, then two of its skulls followed. Her armor was almost gone when the monster’s hand wrapped around her came apart. Dana grabbed her sword and pulled it out, then swung again and again. The Living Graveyard howled at her, a halfhearted moan rather than a scream. She answered with a scream of her own as she drove her sword deep into it. The Living Graveyard toppled and fell silent.
That’s when she heard a whisper, easy to hear even over the deafening sound of battle. 'It still lives. Strike again.'
Dana didn’t know what it was, but she did as told and swung Chain Cutter into the fallen monster. She cut off huge slabs of dirt and rotten wood, hitting it again and again. Her third swing tore deep into the monster, and that’s when she saw a human skull with horrible symbols carved into it. The skull had long legs like a crab, and now that it was visible it tried to run away.
“That’s how you keep coming back!” she cried out. “You’re like an estate guard. As long as that part of you gets away you can make a new body. Get over here!”
Dana chased the fleeing skull past Green Peril, the elf still speaking formally. Plants began to grow around him. His staff had white patches, and it sprouted leaves and vines that spread across the tainted landscape.
“From deserts dry to frozen tundra, life struggles and succeeds,” Green Peril said solemnly. “In oceans depths and mountains high, life struggles and succeeds. When molten rock pours forth to make new land, once red lava cools, here too life takes root.”
The fleeing skull ran by the elf and headed for Cimmox. The necromancer still struggled to remove his magic armor. His giant creation was trying to flee while Jayden chased it and hacked pieces off. Dana didn’t know what the skull could do if it reached Cimmox. Could it make another body fast enough to rejoin the battle?
Dana raced after the skull and caught up with it. It zigged and zagged, trying to avoid her. It ducked under a fallen tree and came out the other side, but Dana jumped over the dead tree and came down on top of it. The skull looked up as she plunged her sword into it. A shower of sparks shot up from Chain Cutter as the sword pierced the skull. The cursed thing screeched so loud that Jayden and Cimmox both turned to watch. Dana held her sword in the air, and the skull slid down the length of the blade before splitting in two.
“No,” Cimmox said. “It’s not possible!”
Cimmox threw back his head and issued such a horrible cry that Dana and Jayden fell backwards. Even Green Peril much farther back was rocked by the sound. The magic armor encasing Cimmox was ripped apart. Cimmox’s skeletal monster, already badly hurt, broke apart entirely. The necromancer fell to the ground and landed on his back.
The three of them staggered to their feet. Cimmox was missing what little hair he had. His face was gaunt and pale, his eyes sunken and yellowed. “Cry of the banshee is the only spell I know that needs no gestures. That took ten years off my life.”
With his hands free again, Cimmox cast another spell. Black liquid like tar spread across his hands, and the few drops of it that fell burned the ground. “I’ll get those years back by taking fifty years off your life.”
His next spell knit together shattered bones to form long spider legs that sprouted from Cimmox’s back. He ran fast as a horse with those revolting legs, his hand outstretched as he charged Jayden. Jayden raised his sword while Dana ran to his side.
Then Jayden looked like he was listening to something. Cimmox was almost upon them when Jayden said, “At least your wife isn’t here to see what you’ve become.”
Cimmox halted his charge. He looked confused before his face betrayed a great sadness. He backed away as Jayden continued speaking.
“She loved you. She tried to protect you. She deserved better than for you to ignore everything she said. So many times she tried to save you from threats, only for you to destroy yourself. You can still go back to her, but not like this.”
“I,” Cimmox began. Tears ran down his face. He scowled and raised his hands. “How dare you use her against me! I’ll kill you all!”
He didn’t get the chance. Grass spread across the valley floor as fast as a flying hummingbird. Trees sprouted and grew in seconds what should have taken years. Dana, Jayden and Cimmox turned to see Green Peril standing next to a tall white tree set with opals. The elf stood up and looked at Cimmox like a judge passing sentence.
“Life recovers from all losses. Fire, flood, frost, drought, through it all life survives, prospers and grows. Life conquers death!”
Dead trees sprouted new leaves and shoots. Vines twisted and wrapped around one another. The whole valley came alive in an unstoppable wave that reached for Cimmox. The necromancer blasted the plants with the same black bolts he’d killed Green Peril’s plant monster with. He cut huge gashes into the plants, yet the damage regrew in seconds. Cimmox turned and fled, running away on his spidery bone legs.
The tidal wave of greenery swept over him. For a few seconds he fought back, unleashing magic more horrible than any Dana could imagine. It was useless. The plants bound him and pulled him in, and with a sudden thunderous rush crushed him.
Dana leaned up against Jayden. “Wow.”
“That wasn’t nature magic,” Jayden said. “You cleansed this entire valley of the taint of necromancy, undoing Cimmox’s damage and the atrocities of the king and queen.”
“I had help,” Green Peril told them. He ran his hands over the lush plant life. “I imagine we all did.”
Hesitantly, Dana said, “I heard a whisper during the fight. Jayden, what you said about Cimmox’s wife, how did you know?”
“You weren’t the only one hearing whispers.” He looked at her and said, “Cimmox traveled a dark road. A man who sinks that far into perversion and depravity suffers a cost to his soul. I heard a voice telling me to give him one last chance, and what to say to reach him. He refused.”
She pointed up. “You mean we got help from…”
“Yes.”
“Huh. A bolt from the blue would have been nice.”
“A wise gardener removes weeds carefully, lest he damage his crops at the same time,” Green Peril replied. “We were given what we needed, no more, no less. Do not depend on such gifts, for they are given only in exceptional circumstances and against the most implacable of foes.”
“Where’s your staff?” she asked.
Green Peril glanced at the large white tree. “There. You can still see the opals. I needed a focus for the purification ceremony, and only my staff was strong enough.”
“So you can’t try to kill us?” she asked hopefully.
Green Peril gave her a sincere smile. “No. Nor do I wish to. If the king and queen would employ such a fiend then they don’t deserve my help.”
A thorough search of the area turned up no treasure. If the king and queen had paid Cimmox, he’d either spent it or hidden it. They did find a small camp with a stack of scrolls made of vellum. Jayden identified the as spell scrolls containing secrets of necromancy. He wasted no time in burning them. They tried to bury Cimmox, for even villains deserve burial, but they couldn’t find his body amid the plants.
“Our endeavor was successful, yet yielded little fruit besides defeating Cimmox,” Green Peril said. “I need time to replace what I’ve lost, no easy task when I will go home empty handed yet again. I will return in time.”
“Not as an enemy?” Jayden asked.
“No. You have earned my respect. Take comfort in knowing that no one else has.” Green Peril cast his last spell that day and transformed himself into a giant hawk. He spread his enormous wings and took to the sky, then flew south.
“That was exhausting,” Dana said.
“But necessary.” Jayden hesitated before asking, “Dana, before I gave you magic armor, why did you say wait?”
“I thought you were going to make one of those huge hands, scoop me up and make it carry me away.”
Jayden nodded his head slightly. “That was a much better plan than the one I came up with.”
* * * * *
With Cimmox and his foul army gone, Dana and Jayden headed to more populated parts of the kingdom. They needed days to reach the nearest town where they could buy food and maybe a good night’s sleep at an inn. Both of them still wore heavy winter clothes that helped mask their identities.
“Where do we go from here?” Dana asked as they entered the town.
“Cimmox made bold claims that may have been lies. He’d provided Duke Wiskver an undead army, so he was likely honest when he said he had royal patronage. The question is whether the rest of his tales were idle boasts. We could face threats more numerous and terrible than what we’ve seen to date.”
“The king and queen have money to hire more men, especially after years of high taxes. They may not even need the money.”
“What do you mean?”
“Last summer they promised to hire Green Peril if he killed you. They could make promises like that to other people, making them work before they get paid. If they die in battle, the king and queen aren’t out a single coin.” Dana grabbed his arm and pulled him to a halt. “What’s going on up ahead?”
Over a thousand people were gathered in the town center, so many it seemed the entire town was present. People looked worried and spoke in hushed tones. As Dana and Jayden drew near, a lone man carrying a scroll came to the center of the crowd.
“Settle down, everyone,” the man called out.
“Mayor, what’s this about?” a farmer asked. “I’ve got planting to do.”
“I’ll get you back to your fields soon,” the mayor replied. He unrolled the scroll and held it up for them see. “A royal proclamation came last night by fast courtier, with orders to read it to the entire town.”
“You had to have the sheriff come get us for this?” another farmer asked.
The first farmer said, “The old mayor wouldn’t have done that.”
The mayor stared the farmer down. “That’s enough! The old mayor is gone. I’m here. The king and queen declared a state of war with Kaleoth, Brandish and Zentrix. Quiet that shouting! Mercy, it’s like herding sheep. The proclamation says Brandish and Zentrix are colluding with Kaleoth against our kingdom. We’re surrounded by enemies and have no choice but to fight our way out.”
“Against three kingdoms?” a frightened farmer asked.
“We’ve got no choice but to go forward.” The mayor checked the scroll before speaking. “There’s also been a rebellion by Skitherin mercenaries. One company went rogue and incited the others to rebel. Inform the authorities at once if you see them, because those men are dangerous.”
“This keeps getting worse,” a rancher said.
“Can’t you idiots stay quiet for five minutes?” the mayor asked. “Rumors have been going around about undead in the kingdom. Criminals and madmen have been claiming that walking skeletons were seen not far from here. We can’t have fear mongering during a time of war. Anyone caught spreading lies will be charged with sedition and sentenced to ten years hard labor, so mind your own business.”
The mayor walked up to a message board and tacked the scroll onto it. He stepped away and began, “I’m leaving this here for the rest of the—”
A giant black hand swung down and smashed the message board to splinters. Men yelled and women screamed as the hand grabbed the mayor and threw him into the crowd. Panicking people scattered in all directions until the town was empty. The huge hand didn’t follow them, in part because Dana was struggling to hold Jayden’s right arm. She held on until he let the hand dissolve into a cloud of black smoke. Jayden threw his head back and screamed. He pulled away from her, but she followed him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Jayden, don’t!”
He kicked pieces of the destroyed message board. “I’ve fought for decades to keep this from happening, Dana! You have no idea the hardships I’ve faced, the wounds I’ve suffered. Twenty years and every day of it a battle for time, for money, for some shred of hope, and it was for nothing.”
He stared at her. “I was supposed to stop this. It was my penanced for failing to stop my father descending into evil. My failure means countless multitudes will suffer the horrors of war.”
Those painful words showed how Jayden blamed himself for the king’s misdeeds, as if a child was responsible for the crimes of his father. In a way it proved his virtue, for he loved these people and would sacrifice himself if it meant saving them, but this self-loathing was destructive. He’d ruin himself, and he could do immeasurable damage to others if he didn’t get it under control.
“You didn’t fail,” she told him. “You haven’t succeeded yet. There’s a difference. You’ve saved lots of people, and you can save even more. Come on, Jayden. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
They left the town as residents slowly began to return. Dana wasn’t sure what they could do in the face of such a terrible threat. Three Kingdoms faced invasion, and people here were at the mercy of the king and queen, plus whatever monsters and madmen the royal couple had invited. What could two people do to stop that, even when one was a sorcerer lord?
Dana looked back the way they’d come, where a necromancer who’d created armies of the dead was gone forever. One threat was gone, yet so many remained.
Dead End part 1
This is the first part of Dead End, with Dana Illwind and Sorcerer Lord Jayden.
*****
“Dana, I do believe we can finally travel.”
Jayden’s cheerful voice made Dana sit up from where she was playing on the floor with a toddler boy. This was harder than it sounds, since the boy had no intention of losing his playmate and wrapped both arms around her. She staggered for a moment before grabbing him and carrying him to the window.
It wasn’t a cheerful sight. Dozens of fruit trees in straight lines were still bare of leaves. The ground was covered in wet snow as slippery as grease. Smoke rose from the chimneys of nearby houses even during the day.
“It wouldn’t be fast or dry,” she pointed out.
“A temporary situation. Look by those rocks. Green grass, proof that spring is upon us, and with it mobility.” Jayden rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation. “Muddy boots is a small price to pay for ending two months inactivity.”
“Ba,” the toddler said.
Dana rubbed his mop of messy yellow hair. “You’re not a sheep.”
“Ba, ba, ba. Da? Ba!”
The rest of the family they were staying with gathered around the lone window of their house. Grandfather Glen Stex, his two daughters, three daughters-in-law and fifteen grandchildren made for a large family. Dana and Jayden’s presence made their house even more crowded. Still, it was a cheerful place, and their hosts were always kind.
After destroying the undead horde hidden in Duke Wiskver’s estate, Jayden had been adamant on pursuing whoever had made the skeletal horrors. They’d marched to the nearest village, where Jayden introduced them as Stanly and his daughter May. He’d questioned the locals if there had been strangers or suspicious events in recent months. The residents had been happy to help, especially when Jayden started buying drinks.
Then the snow came. Winter storms were nothing to sneer at in the kingdom, and this one had been brutal. When the storm ended there was nearly two feet of dense snow, the kind that packed down easily and clung to boots. Walking a mile became a grueling challenge, and going to the next village was impossible.
Fortunately the villagers were only too happy to take them in until the weather improved. This didn’t surprise Dana. Merchants and travelers came to small villages like this only rarely, leaving residents starved for information on the outside world. So great was their isolation that they didn’t even have wanted posters for Jayden, surprising given how high the price on his head was. Jayden had insisted on paying for room and board, making Glen and his family even happier to have them. Their stay had been pleasant, but Jayden had chaffed at the delay as days stretched into weeks and then two months.
“I’d wait another two weeks if I were you,” Glen cautioned. “Roads are going to be thick mud where they’re not covered in ice.”
“Delightful as your company has been, I have work to do and limited time to complete it,” Jayden said. He shook Glen’s hand and smiled. “Your hospitality exceeded all expectations. I’m glad we met.”
“I’m not sure it counts as hospitality when you paid for everything you received,” Glen told him. “I’d have been happy with half what you offered.”
“Many men wouldn’t have opened their home up to strangers, a testament to your kindness and generosity,” Jayden replied. “Nevertheless, I fear our paths must separate.”
Glen opened the door for Jayden and Dana. “Let me at least walk you to the road.”
“It’s been wonderful spending time with you,” Dana told the women and children. She tried to hand off the little boy to his mother. Then she tried again. The boy’s grip tightened. “And, um, it was great getting to know you all. Come on, little guy.”
The toddler’s smile turned into a shockingly serious look. “No.”
“Some children’s first words are mama,” the boy’s mother said. The family laughed as Dana tried to pull the little boy off her.
“No! No, no no!”
A girl of eight years came up and put her hands on the little boy. “Sorry, he gets like this. You kind of have to pry him off. Mom, you get his left arm and I’ll get the right.”
The little boy’s face turned red as his sister and mother removed him from Dana. He made a humming sound that turned into a howl before screaming, “Dada!”
Dana looked away as the boy’s mother held him tight. He squalled and struggled to break free, his howls doubling in intensity when he saw Dana heading for the door.
“I told you not to play with him so much,” Jayden reminded her.
“I couldn’t help it. He’s cute.”
Glen picked up a wood ax by the door and went outside with them. “I’m sorry about that. He’s a good boy, strong willed and with a loving heart. He took it hard when his dad was conscripted. We all did.”
Dana and Jayden’s stay had provided fresh evidence of hardships in the kingdom. Glen was 57 years old, patriarch of his little clan and the only man left. Press gangs had come through the village in late autumn and forcibly enlisted Glen’s sons and son-in-laws. Each man was presented a spear, dagger, wood shield and uniform, and declared to be infantry in the king and queen’s army. Rumor was nearby villages had suffered similar losses, and farmers rich enough to own draft animals had lost those as well. Dana wondered how these people would run their farms.
She also wondered if men in her hometown were being conscripted. The king and queen had already called up the militia to serve, but many men weren’t in the militia. Life had been hard back home with so many farmers and ranchers gone, and could get even worse in press gangs came for the rest.
As they walked down the muddy, snowy road, Glen took a scrap of paper from his pocket and pressed it into Jayden’s hand. “These are my boys’ names and descriptions. Chances are you won’t meet them, but if you do, tell them we miss them, and we’re doing the best we can.”
Jayden studied the paper before slipping it into his backpack. “I’ll keep this with me, but I intend to avoid armies as much as possible.”
“No surprise when they’d impress you the second they got the chance.” Glen walked on in silence for a few more steps. “I can’t imagine why the king and queen need so many soldiers. I heard talk of trouble at the border with Kaleoth, but that’s a small kingdom. If war breaks out it would be a short one.”
“You’re following us farther than I’d expected,” Dana said.
Glen’s brow furrowed. “I don’t talk much about it, but there’s a frozen one hereabouts called Jenny Glass Eyes. Long ago a woman died in the cold and evil spirits moved into her body. She’s haunted these parts for decades, coming out on winter nights, scratching at doors trying to get inside, ambushing travelers when she can. I figure it’s too warm for her to come out if the snow is melting, but I want to be sure you two are safe.”
Dana smiled at him. “That’s very kind of you.”
“I got worried when you went out for a walk last month,” Glen told Jayden. “I wouldn’t have allowed it if I’d known you were going, but you left when I was in the barn. You seem like a clever sort, plenty strong, too, but Jenny Glass Eyes is tougher than she looks. I was plenty glad to see you come back that night.”
“I apologize for troubling you,” Jayden said.
“I understand staying indoors for weeks can be trying,” Glen said as they walked. He pointed at depressions in the snow. “Those must be your footprints. You went pretty far. Wait, what’s that?”
Ahead of them was a patch of bare ground covered in a layer of wet ashes. Glen approached it carefully with his ax held high in case there was danger. Up close they saw what looked like blackened bones mixed in the ashes. Most of the remains were unidentifiable, but there was a charred skeletal arm wearing a melted gold ring. Glen’s eyes opened wide, and he pointed his ax at it.
“That’s Jenny Glass Eyes!”
Dana went for her sword Chain Cutter hidden deep in her backpack. “You’re sure?”
“I saw that ring on her hand when she attacked me twenty years ago. Look, she’s missing her little finger. Back then I had to cut it off to get away.” Glen pointed at footprints in the snow, wider now that the snow was melting around them. “You can see where the fight happened. Those are her prints right there, and those ones are… yours.”
Glen’s face turned white as he looked at Jayden. Jayden’s earlier cheerfulness was replaced with a studious look. “I see a rose sprouting from the remains. Legends say when a frozen one dies a blue rose grows where it was destroyed. Check what color the flowers are in summer.”
“What kind of man are you?” Glen whispered.
“The kind who doesn’t tolerate abominations.” Jayden turned to face Glen. “It angers me such a threat was allowed to exist for so long, and pleased me greatly to end it. Good day, Glen. May the future be more merciful than the past.”
Dana and Jayden left without another word, leaving Glen dumbfounded behind them. Once they were far away, Dana said, “You should have taken me with to fight Jenny.”
“Doing so would have alerted our hosts. And I needed the exercise. When I heard it scratching at the door, I suspected it was a frozen one and went to deal with it. Frozen ones are legitimate threats to farmers, not sorcerer lords. I’m surprised its remains melted out before we left.”
“Do you think it had anything to do with the necromancer we’re after?”
Jayden frowned. “I thought so at first, but our generous host’s tale proves my concern baseless. This was a local threat that should have been slain long ago, further proof that the king and queen are delinquent in their duties. We were in the right place at the right time to remove the threat.”
“One of these days you’re going to get yourself killed,” she scolded him.
“Likely so, but I plan on taking a great many monsters like Jenny Glass Eyes with me before I go.”
This was typical of Jayden. He didn’t seek death, but he didn’t fear or respect it the way he should. Such a cavalier attitude was going to get him in trouble. They walked on in silence for a time before Dana spoke again.
“I’m sure you still want this necromancer. How do we find him?”
“The first way involves making inquiries among the locals in the hope that one of them saw or heard something ominous. This is risky because it might draw royal attention. It’s also time consuming, and futile if the necromancer resides in an isolated location where few would notice him.”
“Let me guess, the second way involves magic.”
“It does, and is even riskier. Sorcerer lords in ancient times developed a spell to detect other sorcerer lords. Generally they used it to find and kill one another, as they were a paranoid and vengeful lot, but it can be used to find any form of magic. I need a body of water to cast the spell on, and with winter over we should find one shortly.”
Dana frowned. “Exactly why is this risky?”
“Wizards from every school of magic crave privacy. You know of my mind cloud spell, which makes it hard for other wizards to find me. Rival schools of magic have their own ways to deter spying, some of which retaliate against the spy.”
“The necromancer made lots of skeletons once,” Dana said. “If he figures out he’s being watched, he could come looking for us with an army behind him.”
“We could be in serious danger, but I fear there is no choice. We lost two months in our hunt for the necromancer, giving him time to produce horrors similar or even greater to what we already saw. The longer he remains at large the more damage he can do. That means doing this the hard way.”
It took the better part of a day, but they found a narrow pond clear of ice. Jayden stood at one end and began chanting. The water turned choppy like someone was splashing in it. Waves grew until they were as tall as Dana and incredibly noisy. Jayden’s chanting grew louder until he clapped his hands together. The waves fell silent, and the water became as still and reflective as a mirror.
A tiny ripple formed in the water, then another. More ripples formed as if someone was dropping pebbles into the water. Dana tried counting them and stopped when she reached fifty. She waved her hand at the scattered ripples. “There can’t be this many wizards in the kingdom!”
“The spell detects any form of magic, including wizards, magic items and certain monsters.” Jayden pointed at a wide, shallow ripple near the middle of the pond. “That, for instance, is me. My mind cloud spell dissipates traces of magic left behind when I cast spells. A wizard hunting me wouldn’t be able to pinpoint my location, nor how powerful I am.”
“What about that big ripple at the edge?”
“It’s too strong to be a spell caster. I suspect a dragon or other powerful monster. There’s a dragon living in Kaleoth who’s been hibernating for three years. We used to have two living in the kingdom before the king and queen thought they could give them orders. Both dragons left for greener pastures, or at least more peaceful ones.”
Dana couldn’t see a pattern to the ripples or way to tell them apart. “How do you know which one is the necromancer?”
“I don’t. Our foe is powerful enough that his magic will be easier to detect if he casts a spell. If he is silent for a few days then the traces of magic I’m trying to detect will fade away. He may use spells to conceal his position the same way I do. But if he uses powerful magic no spell can hide him, and making a horde of undead like we saw at Wiskver’s estate qualifies. He did it once. I’m counting on him being rash enough to do so again.”
“If that happens we have a big fight on our hands.”
Jayden studied several of the larger ripples. “True. Some of these are much too close together. They’re likely magic items owned by nobles.”
“Do you use this spell to find old sorcerer lord treasuries?”
“If only I was so lucky. Magic items only show up when they’re used, making magic treasures buried a thousand years ago impossible to detect. In truth I’ve found this spell to be of questionable value. I can detect only some magic with it, and at such a great distance that it’s often long gone before I reach it. My hope is the necromancer doesn’t live far from Wiskver’s estate, or that he’s…that’s bad.”
Water in the middle of the pond suddenly spiked up three feet in the air before dropping back down. It did so again, and then a third time that didn’t fall back down.
“My, my, my, what an inquisitive little boy you are. Not many hunt me. Smart wizards don’t try.” The taunting voice came from the pond. It spoke with an accent that made the letter w sound like v.
“Smart wizards don’t degenerate into necromancy,” Jayden retorted.
“Cowards turn down power because they fear where it leads. I fear nothing. I see you, a brat and an impetuous fop. I saw through the eyes of my creations when you two idiots destroyed them.”
Jayden began chanting again. The pond began to ripple around the spike of water.
“Oh this is rich, like frosting on a cake. You think you can focus your spell to learn where I am? I’d forgotten how foolish apprentice wizards are. It’s embarrassing.”
The pond grew choppier until water shot into the air like a waterfall flowing in reverse. Only the part of the pond with the spike of water representing the necromancer’s magic remained unchanged. Dana pulled back and drew her sword. Jayden continued chanting.
“Do you want to know what’s funny? I’m not trying to hide from you. I could have broken this spell in seconds if I desired. I don’t care. Come to me. Fight me. Die. You wouldn’t be the first to follow those well-worn steps, nor will you be the last.”
Water in the pond shot thirty feet into the air. Suddenly the huge waves turned inward and hit the spike of water. Dana heard the necromancer’s taunting words change into frightened cries as the entire pond seemed to turn against itself.
“What did you do?” Dana demanded.
“He was foolish enough to allow me to determine his precise position. I used my detection spell to send a pulse of magic at him, nearly everything I had. I imagine it hurt.”
“You pile of maggot-infested dung! Two can play that game!”
The sky darkened around them and grew cold. Plants died and the few animals present fled. A globe of utter darkness formed over the pond. The globe hummed and shimmered before vanishing to reveal a hideous mockery of a man, with greasy white skin, tangled black hair, long nails and longer teeth. The monster wore only tattered bits of filthy clothing and stank like rotting meat. It was hunched over to fit in the globe, but now that it was free it bounded toward them on all fours. As it neared them, Dana felt a stab of pain followed by rage, like she had when the undead appeared at Wiskver’s estate.
Jayden cast a spell to form his black sword and met the monster head on. He swung at its legs, but the monster leaped over him and landed next to Dana. It howled and lunged at her face, its toothy maw opened wider than her head. She screamed and swung her sword. Sword met teeth, and Chain Cutter hacked through the monster’s yellowed fangs. Pain should have driven it back, but the monster rammed into her and knocked her onto her back.
The monster leaped at her with outstretched hands, claws reaching for her throat, when Jayden drove his sword through its back with a powerful overhand swing. He speared the beast, pinning it to the ground. The monster shrieked and tried to reach Dana. She got to her feet and swung Chain Cutter, hacking off the monster’s right arm. Another swing took off the left one. Anything else should have died, yet the monster howled and struggled to reach her.
“Enough!” Jayden roared. He pressed his left foot against the monster’s back and pulled his black sword up, cutting the beast in two. Once his sword was free he brought it down again, removing the monster’s head. The air chilled again, and Jayden turned to see another black globe forming. He charged it, and as the globe dissolved to release another monster as wretched as the first, he plunged his sword into it. The monster’s howls died stillborn as his sword went through its heart.
“Send another barrow wight!” Jayden yelled. “Send three, a dozen, a hundred! There’s nothing your foul magic can produce that I can’t kill!”
“We shall see, little mage,” the taunting voice said with its strange accent. It grew softer as it spoke for the last time. “All that lives must one day die.”
Dana ran over to Jayden. The monster he’d impaled was blackening and crumbling away until there was nothing left of it. Once it was entirely gone, he marched back to the first one and drove his black sword into each piece, destroying those as well.
“He’s stronger than I’d feared,” Jayden said as his sword destroyed the final piece of the monster. “Barrow wights are as hideous as they are uncontrollable. Bending two of them to his will is difficult, and sending them over such a great distance staggeringly hard.”
Dana stared at the ashes at her feet, the only sign that there had been a fight. “I never saw your sword do that.”
“In times long past this land was infested with necromancers, some working alone and others in cabals dozens strong. They damaged both the people and the land itself. Shadow magic was developed in direct response to the threat of necromancy and is especially potent against it. Early sorcerer lords hunted down those necromancers and slew them.”
“Then why is he willing to fight you?”
Jayden let his magic sword dissipate. “Sorcerer lords died out long ago. I daresay my spells will come as a surprise to him. But that is a small advantage, and he has large ones. The necromancer has power to spare, time to use it, and royal support. Most necromancers live in fear of the law, constantly moving, never able to build laboratories or spell libraries. Our foe has no such concern, and my spell tracked him to where he has no shortage of human remains.”
Worried, Dana asked, “A graveyard?”
“The biggest and most isolated in the kingdom. Heaven help us, it’s not far away.”
Spring days were short, and they had to make camp not long after Jayden confirmed the necromancer’s location. There were no villages here, just wilderness encroaching onto old fields. Jayden said these lands once had farms, but they’d been destroyed in the civil war and were never resettled. Eventually they found the ruins of an old church and took shelter there.
“We’re fortunate to find this church in more ways than one,” Jayden said as he piled up loose boards and dry brush over the doorway. “The ceiling is intact, no animals or monsters have occupied the building, and I feel lingering holy influences. The necromancer’s creations may be unable to force their way in.”
“I feel it, too,” Dana said. She unrolled a blanket and used her backpack as a pillow. “It’s sort of a calm feeling, like the church is waiting for people to come back.”
“We have a long walk tomorrow, and possibly a battle with the necromancer. Sleep well, Dana, for the future will be taxing.”
Before she went to bed, Dana asked, “What if he runs away?”
“He has little reason to flee with the power and resources at his command. He can comfortably wait until we come to him and face him at his strongest.”
Dana was tired and wanted to sleep, but she forced herself to stay awake. That was difficult under a warm blanket on a cold night. She stayed quiet and motionless, waiting for what she knew was going to happen. She could only guess what time it was when she heard Jayden get up and collect his belongings. She let him go a few steps before speaking.
“Go back to sleep, Jayden.”
He stopped but didn’t turn to face her. “I’m trying to be gallant. Pick a direction other than the one I’m taking and you’ll be safe.”
“You’re not trying to be gallant. You are gallant. You’d go into a fight alone that you might lose if that means I live. The necromancer knows there are two of us. I get the feeling he’d kill me, even use his magic on me after I’m dead and send me after you. The only way I’m getting out alive is with you, and I’m sorry if this upsets you, but I don’t think you’re getting through this alive without me.”
“Your prediction is possibly, even likely given how morally degenerate our enemy is.” He set his belongings down and wrapped himself in his blanket. “It’s strange. I’m grateful we met, yet terrified and ashamed at the same time. I’ve been alone for so long partly because I never wanted to be in this position. I have few friends, Dana. I can’t lose one.”
* * * * *
Morning came, and Dana was relieved to see that Jayden hadn’t left in the night. She recognized how brave he was to try facing this madman alone, but she’d seen him hurt in fights and nearly killed by Wall Wolf. Jayden needed her just as much as the kingdom needed him.
“Our destination has no name by design,” Jayden explained as they headed out after breakfast. “The king and queen wanted its location unknown, as well as its occupants, for the graveyard contains rebels who died in the civil war.”
“My parents never told me much about the war,” Dana admitted.
“They likely knew very little. The king and queen worked hard to erase less savory aspects of our kingdom’s history.” Jayden grimaced as he spoke. “Rebels in the civil war were needlessly brutal, causing considerable damage to infrastructure like bridges, dams, canals, granaries, even schools. If they couldn’t hold territory, they made sure the victors would gain no benefit from it. Nor were they merciful to prisoners or civilians.
“The king and queen were equally brutal. They ordered fallen rebels buried in mass graves without headstones or memorials. These mass graves were placed deep in the wilderness and in utter secrecy. In theory this meant the gravesites couldn’t become rallying points for rebels eager to avenge their losses.”
Dana thought back to the graveyard outside her hometown. It wasn’t visited often since people had so much work to do, but the entire town went there on the first day of the year, drinking toasts to their ancestors and sharing stories of loved ones who had passed on. It was a time of celebration and remembrance. Originally Brotherhood of the Righteous priests led the event, but her father did the honors after the priests were expelled from the kingdom.
“That’s terrible, and stupid,” she said.
“It didn’t stop there. The king and queen declared that rebels lost their property. Farms, livestock, coins, legal rights, it was all forfeit.”
“What happens to their things?”
There was fierceness in Jayden’s voice when he answered. “It went to the crown. Loyalist forces were clamoring for rewards for their services, and they accepted rebel property in lieu of cash. Widows and orphans who had already lost so much were evicted and made beggars. Many of them had no involvement with the civil war. Their men went to war because treacherous noblemen ordered them to fight or forced them to, and their families suffered for it.”
“How do you force someone to fight for you?” Dana asked. “Give a guy a sword and he could use it on you instead of your enemies.”
“The first way is to seize his loved ones and hold them hostage. The second way is to put unwilling soldiers in the front of your army and dependable troops behind them. They can’t run without being cut down by their enemies or their allies.” He saw Dana’s terrified expression and added, “I did say the rebels were brutal.”
“It doesn’t sound like there was a good side in the fight,” she said reluctantly.
“There could have been. The king and queen refused to let Brotherhood of the Righteous priests bless the bodies or hold funerals for defeated rebels. Priests argued these blessings made sure bodies couldn’t be inhabited by foul spirits or used by necromancers. The king and queen didn’t care. Denying rebels even such a basic right was another way to take revenge. Our enemy is camped on one of those mass graves. We are paying the price for the king and queen’s act of spite.”
“That’s how the necromancer made his army!” Dana exclaimed. “I couldn’t figure out where he got the bones for all those walking skeletons at Duke Wisker’s estate, but he’s got an entire cemetery to dig up.”
“The bones were from men who died fighting, so many were badly damaged. I believe the necromancer experimented with replacing destroyed or missing limbs with bones taken from animals.”
Fearing the answer, Dana asked, “How many men were buried there?”
“I don’t know. The necromancer may have looted other mass graves. Worse still, you saw the barrow wights he sent after us yesterday. He may have other undead more dangerous than animated skeletons.” Jayden stopped walking and turned to face her. “I don’t exaggerate when I say this battle may be more than I can handle. Your life is in mortal peril if you come with me.”
“What happens if we don’t stop him?” she asked.
“The necromancer will continue amassing undead followers for uses too horrifying to contemplate. The king and queen will try to use these abominations in their war. Perhaps the necromancer will humor them and send his minions to fight their battles, but it’s equally possible he’ll unleash his nightmare army against the two of them. Innocent people will die by the thousands or tens of thousands before he’s stopped.”
“Who can we call on for help who could get here in time?”
Jayden paused. “Reginald Lootmore and Suzy Lockheart are too far away to reach us in time. I don’t know where Ian McShootersun is. Other men I know lack the power or skill to make a significant impact. They would be targets rather than assets. I might be able to convince nobles or army officers of the danger and get their aid, but they have little reason to believe me when I’m a wanted man.”
“Then you need me.” Before he could argue, she said, “He’s got to be stopped. If you fight him alone he’ll swarm you with skeletons and wights. I’m not a sorcerer lord, or lady, I guess, but I can help. You need friends, Jayden, and right now I’m it.”
He smiled at her. “It’s ironic. The harder I try to keep you safe by excluding you, the harder you insist on remaining.”
“You could have more help, you know. There are people who like you and could fight. And let’s face it, you’re going to run into more big battles, not fewer.”
“More fights like this,” he said ruefully. “Dana, you have no idea how many battles I’ve fought, how many enemies I’ve defeated—”
“How many people you’ve saved?”
“There is that. I’ve done much, yet there is so much more to do. This battle will be terrible, and you’re right that coming battles will be as bad or worse. Would you stand with me through that, knowing it will never end?”
“We saved hundreds of children and young girls sold as property. I’ll stand with you through anything to save even one more.”
They spent much of the day heading deeper into the wilderness. Abandoned farmhouses gave way to scrub forests thick with briars and weeds. The roads had already been muddy and narrow, but as they went on the few roads shrank into narrow game trails. Wildlife was rare so early in spring, yet they saw not one bird or rodent.
“Hey, it’s our anniversary,” she said playfully.
Jayden stared at her. “Our what?”
“We first met on this day one year ago.”
“I’m surprised you keep track of the date,” he said. “You know, it’s embarrassing, but outside family members or servants, this is the longest I’ve known a woman.”
Dana laughed. “What about those two girls you told me about?”
“The first young lady and I were together for eight months. The second lasted only eight weeks. I have difficulties with relationships. I’m told I rub people the wrong way when I don’t offend them intentionally.”
Feeling mischievous, Dana asked, “And how long were you with Suzy Lockheart?”
“She and I weren’t together in any sense of the word. We were in the general vicinity of one another for less than a month total, although it felt like years spent in purgatory.”
“You were a little rough around the edges when we first met, but you’re doing better these days.” Jayden gave her a questioning glance, and she went on. “You don’t lose your temper as often, and insults and snide remarks are way down.”
“Judging by that left handed compliment, you’ve taken it upon yourself to compensate for my good behavior.”
“It’s good you’re getting better around people. You deserve to have healthy relationships like you did when you were a boy. Maybe you could fall in love. No, seriously, there’s a woman my hometown who…oh.” Dana stopped marching. “Oh dear.”
“Not a cheerful sight,” Jayden agreed.
Ahead of them was a wide path beaten through the undergrowth. Seven men could have walked down it side by side, and the thick growth of plant life had been trampled into the muddy ground. Strange as this path already was, trees growing alongside it were dead, their blackened bark peeling off in strips. Normally hardy weeds sprouted this time of year, but here they were stunted and brown. Dana touched a dead tree, only for it to topple onto the path.
“One way leads to our foe, the other to Duke Wiskver’s estate,” Jayden declared.
“How did the necromancer get so many walking skeletons into Wiskver’s estate without anyone noticing?”
“I imagine Wiskver brought them to his property inside armored wagons, the same way he did the slaves.” Jayden ran his fingers along a dead tree branch. “The necromancer may have used magic to temporarily mask the natural aversion all life has to the undead.”
The branch crumbled apart under Jayden’s gentle touch and fell to the ground. He scowled and drew back his hand. “I have to wonder how Wiskver thought he could profit from such monsters. They don’t require food, drink or rest, but how could he have used them as laborers without others noticing? How could he think such bloodthirsty monstrosities would consent to cutting timber or tending crops?”
“How close are we to the graveyard?” Dana asked.
“Close enough I should take precautions. Hold still.”
“What are you,” she began, but stopped when Jayden placed the palms of both hands on her forehead. He began to chant and his fingers grew warm. Dana waited for him to finish before she asked, “What did you do?”
“I placed a mind shield on you. It will last long enough for our purposes. As you don’t cast spells it won’t hide you from magical detection, but it protects you from the fury you felt when near the undead.” He smirked and added, “Blinding rage has its uses, but your best feature has always been your mind, and I need it to be as keen as your sword.”
Dana held up Chain Cutter. “Can wizards sense my sword?”
“You saw how unfocused my detection spell was. Your sword will register as one of hundreds of magic sources with no way to determine what it is or who wields it.”
“That’s helpful, I guess.” Dana paused when she saw green among the dead plants. “Jayden, look, that plant is growing. I didn’t think anything would—”
The tiny weed grew so fast it shot across the ground, spreading new leaves and sinking deep roots before lashing out at Dana. She screamed and swung her sword, hacking the plant in half, only for it to sprout four new ends that wrapped around her and pinned her to the ground.
More vines grew outrageously fast and headed for Jayden. He barely had time to cast a spell that formed a shield of spinning black blades in front of him. Vines grappled the shield, were shredded, regrew and were shredded again when they hit the shield. He cast another spell to form his black sword and cut off the vines holding Dana. For a moment the floral assault paused.
“Why does this not surprise me?” a familiar voice called out.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dana said as she got up.
“Green Peril?” Jayden asked in disbelief.
It was the elven wizard, wreathed in living vines as he emerged from the ruined forest. He wore the same white and green robes as when they’d last seen him in Fish Bait City. His face was as handsome and sneering as ever, but there was one big difference in his appearance. Jayden had destroyed the elf’s staff in their previous battle. Green Peril held a new one, dark red like blood made solid, and with a cluster of opals near the tip. Dana didn’t know much about magic even after a year traveling with Jayden, but this staff looked impressive.
“Birds in the sky told me they’d found you but dared not approach. Land soaked in death and suffering, unhallowed and unwelcome to all life, this would scare anyone with wits and working eyes. Yet this is where I find you.”
“Don’t you know when to quit?” Jayden demanded as he stepped between Dana and the elf. “The last time we fought you ran for your life! You didn’t bring allies for this battle, proof you learned nothing from our encounter.”
“The last time we fought you had help! No ghost is here to save you, but that would explain your destination. Do you seek to recruit another tortured soul?”
“Shadow magic doesn’t work that way, you pampered twit! You’d know that if you’d done even the most rudimentary research into the man you’re trying to kill.”
“Why are you even here?” Dana asked. “The king and queen must have hired a court wizard by now.”
“I’d have heard about it if your idiot king and shrewish queen had accepted another wizard into their service,” Green Peril retorted. “Even if they don’t honor their promise made months ago or pay the ever growing bounty on your head, I have reason enough to hunt you down after you humiliated me! I suffered endless insults for losing to a human! Your death will cleanse the stain upon my honor.”
Green Peril held his staff in front of him. “I learned new spells, and spent a fortune in gold and promises to lesser elves to produce my staff. Blood wood harvested from a willing tree, carved with the finest tools, imbued with nature magic, it is the ultimate weapon.”
Dana’s brow furrowed. “Lesser elves?”
“Each elf thinks himself superior to all other elves,” Jayden told her.
“I had to grovel to get the blood wood!” Green Peril yelled. He drew a step closer to them, and to Dana’s surprise green grass sprouted and seeds burst into life. That hadn’t happened the last time they’d seen the elf. It made her think his replacement staff was as powerful as he claimed.
“That’s just peachy,” Dana interrupted. “You got your stick finished in time to use against an actual enemy instead of someone who saves lives.”
“What’s your pet babbling about?” Green Peril asked.
Before Jayden could issue an angry reply, Dana said, “We’re chasing a necromancer who made an army of walking skeletons and hid them in a duke’s estate. We killed them, and we’re after the necromancer before he makes more.”
Green Peril laughed. “Do you seriously expect me to believe that?”
“Look, these plants died a long time before we got here. Jayden’s magic didn’t kill plants the last time you two fought, or he would have won even quicker than he did.”
Before the elf could answer, Jayden said, “I’m facing what could be the biggest battle of my life against a man who will do unspeakable acts if left alive. I can’t afford to exhaust myself beating you hours before doing battle with the necromancer.”
Green Peril hesitated, given Dana hope that this meeting could end peacefully. The elf wizard retreated a few steps and pointed his staff at a tree left half dead by the necromancer’s magic. He cast a spell, and to Dana’s amazement the tree’s branches bent like they were made of loose cloth.
“Brother tree, friend to elves since ancient times, speak to me,” Green Peril said to the tree. Normally Dana considered talking to trees to be a bad sign, but it made a rustling, whispering noise as it moved. It waved branches along the trail of devastation, and it trembled as if in fear. Green Peril’s face turned pale, and he placed a hand against its trunk.
“You have suffered much, brother,” Green Peril said solemnly. He cast another spell, and fresh growth burst from the trunk to replace what it had lost. The tree stopped moving as Green Peril turned to face Dana and Jayden. “You speak the truth, a shocking a turn of events.”
“Then can we call off this senseless vendetta?” Jayden asked.
Green Peril bared his teeth in a snarl, only gradually regaining self-control. “Vulgar and brutal as you are, there is a greater foe I must deal with. I declare a truce until this perversion of a man is destroyed. After that, no promises.”
“Fair enough,” Jayden replied. “We haven’t far to go to reach him.”
“I said truce, not partnership,” Green Peril snapped. “I’d sooner fight alongside an drunken ogre with lice than trust you not to put a dagger in my back. The only concession I’ll make is to care for your pet girl after you’re dead. What’s her name again?”
Dana slapped a hand over her face. “I can’t believe this.”
Jayden spat in disgust. “This necromancer is a threat like none I’ve faced, and we are mere miles from the graveyard he plunders for bodies. He knows I’m coming and is not intimidated. Battling him together stands the best chance of success. Claim you lead us if it sooths your bloated ego, but if you go alone don’t expect to do anything except die.”
The two wizards stared at one another in mutual loathing. Jayden had often told Dana how ancient sorcerer lords fought one another. Watching these two, she had no trouble believing the tales.
“We’ll let you have any treasure or magic he has,” Dana offered. A shocked look from Jayden made her hastily add, “Minus sorcerer lord spell tablets.”
Green Peril hesitated. “And I get to claim leadership of the expedition?”
“If that’s what it takes to keep you two from butchering each other before we even reach the necromancer.”
“We have a deal. I won’t insult either of us by offering to ‘shake on it’, as you clearly don’t want to and I don’t know what diseases the two of you carry.” Green Peril headed down the trail of devastation. “Come along.”
*****
“Dana, I do believe we can finally travel.”
Jayden’s cheerful voice made Dana sit up from where she was playing on the floor with a toddler boy. This was harder than it sounds, since the boy had no intention of losing his playmate and wrapped both arms around her. She staggered for a moment before grabbing him and carrying him to the window.
It wasn’t a cheerful sight. Dozens of fruit trees in straight lines were still bare of leaves. The ground was covered in wet snow as slippery as grease. Smoke rose from the chimneys of nearby houses even during the day.
“It wouldn’t be fast or dry,” she pointed out.
“A temporary situation. Look by those rocks. Green grass, proof that spring is upon us, and with it mobility.” Jayden rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation. “Muddy boots is a small price to pay for ending two months inactivity.”
“Ba,” the toddler said.
Dana rubbed his mop of messy yellow hair. “You’re not a sheep.”
“Ba, ba, ba. Da? Ba!”
The rest of the family they were staying with gathered around the lone window of their house. Grandfather Glen Stex, his two daughters, three daughters-in-law and fifteen grandchildren made for a large family. Dana and Jayden’s presence made their house even more crowded. Still, it was a cheerful place, and their hosts were always kind.
After destroying the undead horde hidden in Duke Wiskver’s estate, Jayden had been adamant on pursuing whoever had made the skeletal horrors. They’d marched to the nearest village, where Jayden introduced them as Stanly and his daughter May. He’d questioned the locals if there had been strangers or suspicious events in recent months. The residents had been happy to help, especially when Jayden started buying drinks.
Then the snow came. Winter storms were nothing to sneer at in the kingdom, and this one had been brutal. When the storm ended there was nearly two feet of dense snow, the kind that packed down easily and clung to boots. Walking a mile became a grueling challenge, and going to the next village was impossible.
Fortunately the villagers were only too happy to take them in until the weather improved. This didn’t surprise Dana. Merchants and travelers came to small villages like this only rarely, leaving residents starved for information on the outside world. So great was their isolation that they didn’t even have wanted posters for Jayden, surprising given how high the price on his head was. Jayden had insisted on paying for room and board, making Glen and his family even happier to have them. Their stay had been pleasant, but Jayden had chaffed at the delay as days stretched into weeks and then two months.
“I’d wait another two weeks if I were you,” Glen cautioned. “Roads are going to be thick mud where they’re not covered in ice.”
“Delightful as your company has been, I have work to do and limited time to complete it,” Jayden said. He shook Glen’s hand and smiled. “Your hospitality exceeded all expectations. I’m glad we met.”
“I’m not sure it counts as hospitality when you paid for everything you received,” Glen told him. “I’d have been happy with half what you offered.”
“Many men wouldn’t have opened their home up to strangers, a testament to your kindness and generosity,” Jayden replied. “Nevertheless, I fear our paths must separate.”
Glen opened the door for Jayden and Dana. “Let me at least walk you to the road.”
“It’s been wonderful spending time with you,” Dana told the women and children. She tried to hand off the little boy to his mother. Then she tried again. The boy’s grip tightened. “And, um, it was great getting to know you all. Come on, little guy.”
The toddler’s smile turned into a shockingly serious look. “No.”
“Some children’s first words are mama,” the boy’s mother said. The family laughed as Dana tried to pull the little boy off her.
“No! No, no no!”
A girl of eight years came up and put her hands on the little boy. “Sorry, he gets like this. You kind of have to pry him off. Mom, you get his left arm and I’ll get the right.”
The little boy’s face turned red as his sister and mother removed him from Dana. He made a humming sound that turned into a howl before screaming, “Dada!”
Dana looked away as the boy’s mother held him tight. He squalled and struggled to break free, his howls doubling in intensity when he saw Dana heading for the door.
“I told you not to play with him so much,” Jayden reminded her.
“I couldn’t help it. He’s cute.”
Glen picked up a wood ax by the door and went outside with them. “I’m sorry about that. He’s a good boy, strong willed and with a loving heart. He took it hard when his dad was conscripted. We all did.”
Dana and Jayden’s stay had provided fresh evidence of hardships in the kingdom. Glen was 57 years old, patriarch of his little clan and the only man left. Press gangs had come through the village in late autumn and forcibly enlisted Glen’s sons and son-in-laws. Each man was presented a spear, dagger, wood shield and uniform, and declared to be infantry in the king and queen’s army. Rumor was nearby villages had suffered similar losses, and farmers rich enough to own draft animals had lost those as well. Dana wondered how these people would run their farms.
She also wondered if men in her hometown were being conscripted. The king and queen had already called up the militia to serve, but many men weren’t in the militia. Life had been hard back home with so many farmers and ranchers gone, and could get even worse in press gangs came for the rest.
As they walked down the muddy, snowy road, Glen took a scrap of paper from his pocket and pressed it into Jayden’s hand. “These are my boys’ names and descriptions. Chances are you won’t meet them, but if you do, tell them we miss them, and we’re doing the best we can.”
Jayden studied the paper before slipping it into his backpack. “I’ll keep this with me, but I intend to avoid armies as much as possible.”
“No surprise when they’d impress you the second they got the chance.” Glen walked on in silence for a few more steps. “I can’t imagine why the king and queen need so many soldiers. I heard talk of trouble at the border with Kaleoth, but that’s a small kingdom. If war breaks out it would be a short one.”
“You’re following us farther than I’d expected,” Dana said.
Glen’s brow furrowed. “I don’t talk much about it, but there’s a frozen one hereabouts called Jenny Glass Eyes. Long ago a woman died in the cold and evil spirits moved into her body. She’s haunted these parts for decades, coming out on winter nights, scratching at doors trying to get inside, ambushing travelers when she can. I figure it’s too warm for her to come out if the snow is melting, but I want to be sure you two are safe.”
Dana smiled at him. “That’s very kind of you.”
“I got worried when you went out for a walk last month,” Glen told Jayden. “I wouldn’t have allowed it if I’d known you were going, but you left when I was in the barn. You seem like a clever sort, plenty strong, too, but Jenny Glass Eyes is tougher than she looks. I was plenty glad to see you come back that night.”
“I apologize for troubling you,” Jayden said.
“I understand staying indoors for weeks can be trying,” Glen said as they walked. He pointed at depressions in the snow. “Those must be your footprints. You went pretty far. Wait, what’s that?”
Ahead of them was a patch of bare ground covered in a layer of wet ashes. Glen approached it carefully with his ax held high in case there was danger. Up close they saw what looked like blackened bones mixed in the ashes. Most of the remains were unidentifiable, but there was a charred skeletal arm wearing a melted gold ring. Glen’s eyes opened wide, and he pointed his ax at it.
“That’s Jenny Glass Eyes!”
Dana went for her sword Chain Cutter hidden deep in her backpack. “You’re sure?”
“I saw that ring on her hand when she attacked me twenty years ago. Look, she’s missing her little finger. Back then I had to cut it off to get away.” Glen pointed at footprints in the snow, wider now that the snow was melting around them. “You can see where the fight happened. Those are her prints right there, and those ones are… yours.”
Glen’s face turned white as he looked at Jayden. Jayden’s earlier cheerfulness was replaced with a studious look. “I see a rose sprouting from the remains. Legends say when a frozen one dies a blue rose grows where it was destroyed. Check what color the flowers are in summer.”
“What kind of man are you?” Glen whispered.
“The kind who doesn’t tolerate abominations.” Jayden turned to face Glen. “It angers me such a threat was allowed to exist for so long, and pleased me greatly to end it. Good day, Glen. May the future be more merciful than the past.”
Dana and Jayden left without another word, leaving Glen dumbfounded behind them. Once they were far away, Dana said, “You should have taken me with to fight Jenny.”
“Doing so would have alerted our hosts. And I needed the exercise. When I heard it scratching at the door, I suspected it was a frozen one and went to deal with it. Frozen ones are legitimate threats to farmers, not sorcerer lords. I’m surprised its remains melted out before we left.”
“Do you think it had anything to do with the necromancer we’re after?”
Jayden frowned. “I thought so at first, but our generous host’s tale proves my concern baseless. This was a local threat that should have been slain long ago, further proof that the king and queen are delinquent in their duties. We were in the right place at the right time to remove the threat.”
“One of these days you’re going to get yourself killed,” she scolded him.
“Likely so, but I plan on taking a great many monsters like Jenny Glass Eyes with me before I go.”
This was typical of Jayden. He didn’t seek death, but he didn’t fear or respect it the way he should. Such a cavalier attitude was going to get him in trouble. They walked on in silence for a time before Dana spoke again.
“I’m sure you still want this necromancer. How do we find him?”
“The first way involves making inquiries among the locals in the hope that one of them saw or heard something ominous. This is risky because it might draw royal attention. It’s also time consuming, and futile if the necromancer resides in an isolated location where few would notice him.”
“Let me guess, the second way involves magic.”
“It does, and is even riskier. Sorcerer lords in ancient times developed a spell to detect other sorcerer lords. Generally they used it to find and kill one another, as they were a paranoid and vengeful lot, but it can be used to find any form of magic. I need a body of water to cast the spell on, and with winter over we should find one shortly.”
Dana frowned. “Exactly why is this risky?”
“Wizards from every school of magic crave privacy. You know of my mind cloud spell, which makes it hard for other wizards to find me. Rival schools of magic have their own ways to deter spying, some of which retaliate against the spy.”
“The necromancer made lots of skeletons once,” Dana said. “If he figures out he’s being watched, he could come looking for us with an army behind him.”
“We could be in serious danger, but I fear there is no choice. We lost two months in our hunt for the necromancer, giving him time to produce horrors similar or even greater to what we already saw. The longer he remains at large the more damage he can do. That means doing this the hard way.”
It took the better part of a day, but they found a narrow pond clear of ice. Jayden stood at one end and began chanting. The water turned choppy like someone was splashing in it. Waves grew until they were as tall as Dana and incredibly noisy. Jayden’s chanting grew louder until he clapped his hands together. The waves fell silent, and the water became as still and reflective as a mirror.
A tiny ripple formed in the water, then another. More ripples formed as if someone was dropping pebbles into the water. Dana tried counting them and stopped when she reached fifty. She waved her hand at the scattered ripples. “There can’t be this many wizards in the kingdom!”
“The spell detects any form of magic, including wizards, magic items and certain monsters.” Jayden pointed at a wide, shallow ripple near the middle of the pond. “That, for instance, is me. My mind cloud spell dissipates traces of magic left behind when I cast spells. A wizard hunting me wouldn’t be able to pinpoint my location, nor how powerful I am.”
“What about that big ripple at the edge?”
“It’s too strong to be a spell caster. I suspect a dragon or other powerful monster. There’s a dragon living in Kaleoth who’s been hibernating for three years. We used to have two living in the kingdom before the king and queen thought they could give them orders. Both dragons left for greener pastures, or at least more peaceful ones.”
Dana couldn’t see a pattern to the ripples or way to tell them apart. “How do you know which one is the necromancer?”
“I don’t. Our foe is powerful enough that his magic will be easier to detect if he casts a spell. If he is silent for a few days then the traces of magic I’m trying to detect will fade away. He may use spells to conceal his position the same way I do. But if he uses powerful magic no spell can hide him, and making a horde of undead like we saw at Wiskver’s estate qualifies. He did it once. I’m counting on him being rash enough to do so again.”
“If that happens we have a big fight on our hands.”
Jayden studied several of the larger ripples. “True. Some of these are much too close together. They’re likely magic items owned by nobles.”
“Do you use this spell to find old sorcerer lord treasuries?”
“If only I was so lucky. Magic items only show up when they’re used, making magic treasures buried a thousand years ago impossible to detect. In truth I’ve found this spell to be of questionable value. I can detect only some magic with it, and at such a great distance that it’s often long gone before I reach it. My hope is the necromancer doesn’t live far from Wiskver’s estate, or that he’s…that’s bad.”
Water in the middle of the pond suddenly spiked up three feet in the air before dropping back down. It did so again, and then a third time that didn’t fall back down.
“My, my, my, what an inquisitive little boy you are. Not many hunt me. Smart wizards don’t try.” The taunting voice came from the pond. It spoke with an accent that made the letter w sound like v.
“Smart wizards don’t degenerate into necromancy,” Jayden retorted.
“Cowards turn down power because they fear where it leads. I fear nothing. I see you, a brat and an impetuous fop. I saw through the eyes of my creations when you two idiots destroyed them.”
Jayden began chanting again. The pond began to ripple around the spike of water.
“Oh this is rich, like frosting on a cake. You think you can focus your spell to learn where I am? I’d forgotten how foolish apprentice wizards are. It’s embarrassing.”
The pond grew choppier until water shot into the air like a waterfall flowing in reverse. Only the part of the pond with the spike of water representing the necromancer’s magic remained unchanged. Dana pulled back and drew her sword. Jayden continued chanting.
“Do you want to know what’s funny? I’m not trying to hide from you. I could have broken this spell in seconds if I desired. I don’t care. Come to me. Fight me. Die. You wouldn’t be the first to follow those well-worn steps, nor will you be the last.”
Water in the pond shot thirty feet into the air. Suddenly the huge waves turned inward and hit the spike of water. Dana heard the necromancer’s taunting words change into frightened cries as the entire pond seemed to turn against itself.
“What did you do?” Dana demanded.
“He was foolish enough to allow me to determine his precise position. I used my detection spell to send a pulse of magic at him, nearly everything I had. I imagine it hurt.”
“You pile of maggot-infested dung! Two can play that game!”
The sky darkened around them and grew cold. Plants died and the few animals present fled. A globe of utter darkness formed over the pond. The globe hummed and shimmered before vanishing to reveal a hideous mockery of a man, with greasy white skin, tangled black hair, long nails and longer teeth. The monster wore only tattered bits of filthy clothing and stank like rotting meat. It was hunched over to fit in the globe, but now that it was free it bounded toward them on all fours. As it neared them, Dana felt a stab of pain followed by rage, like she had when the undead appeared at Wiskver’s estate.
Jayden cast a spell to form his black sword and met the monster head on. He swung at its legs, but the monster leaped over him and landed next to Dana. It howled and lunged at her face, its toothy maw opened wider than her head. She screamed and swung her sword. Sword met teeth, and Chain Cutter hacked through the monster’s yellowed fangs. Pain should have driven it back, but the monster rammed into her and knocked her onto her back.
The monster leaped at her with outstretched hands, claws reaching for her throat, when Jayden drove his sword through its back with a powerful overhand swing. He speared the beast, pinning it to the ground. The monster shrieked and tried to reach Dana. She got to her feet and swung Chain Cutter, hacking off the monster’s right arm. Another swing took off the left one. Anything else should have died, yet the monster howled and struggled to reach her.
“Enough!” Jayden roared. He pressed his left foot against the monster’s back and pulled his black sword up, cutting the beast in two. Once his sword was free he brought it down again, removing the monster’s head. The air chilled again, and Jayden turned to see another black globe forming. He charged it, and as the globe dissolved to release another monster as wretched as the first, he plunged his sword into it. The monster’s howls died stillborn as his sword went through its heart.
“Send another barrow wight!” Jayden yelled. “Send three, a dozen, a hundred! There’s nothing your foul magic can produce that I can’t kill!”
“We shall see, little mage,” the taunting voice said with its strange accent. It grew softer as it spoke for the last time. “All that lives must one day die.”
Dana ran over to Jayden. The monster he’d impaled was blackening and crumbling away until there was nothing left of it. Once it was entirely gone, he marched back to the first one and drove his black sword into each piece, destroying those as well.
“He’s stronger than I’d feared,” Jayden said as his sword destroyed the final piece of the monster. “Barrow wights are as hideous as they are uncontrollable. Bending two of them to his will is difficult, and sending them over such a great distance staggeringly hard.”
Dana stared at the ashes at her feet, the only sign that there had been a fight. “I never saw your sword do that.”
“In times long past this land was infested with necromancers, some working alone and others in cabals dozens strong. They damaged both the people and the land itself. Shadow magic was developed in direct response to the threat of necromancy and is especially potent against it. Early sorcerer lords hunted down those necromancers and slew them.”
“Then why is he willing to fight you?”
Jayden let his magic sword dissipate. “Sorcerer lords died out long ago. I daresay my spells will come as a surprise to him. But that is a small advantage, and he has large ones. The necromancer has power to spare, time to use it, and royal support. Most necromancers live in fear of the law, constantly moving, never able to build laboratories or spell libraries. Our foe has no such concern, and my spell tracked him to where he has no shortage of human remains.”
Worried, Dana asked, “A graveyard?”
“The biggest and most isolated in the kingdom. Heaven help us, it’s not far away.”
Spring days were short, and they had to make camp not long after Jayden confirmed the necromancer’s location. There were no villages here, just wilderness encroaching onto old fields. Jayden said these lands once had farms, but they’d been destroyed in the civil war and were never resettled. Eventually they found the ruins of an old church and took shelter there.
“We’re fortunate to find this church in more ways than one,” Jayden said as he piled up loose boards and dry brush over the doorway. “The ceiling is intact, no animals or monsters have occupied the building, and I feel lingering holy influences. The necromancer’s creations may be unable to force their way in.”
“I feel it, too,” Dana said. She unrolled a blanket and used her backpack as a pillow. “It’s sort of a calm feeling, like the church is waiting for people to come back.”
“We have a long walk tomorrow, and possibly a battle with the necromancer. Sleep well, Dana, for the future will be taxing.”
Before she went to bed, Dana asked, “What if he runs away?”
“He has little reason to flee with the power and resources at his command. He can comfortably wait until we come to him and face him at his strongest.”
Dana was tired and wanted to sleep, but she forced herself to stay awake. That was difficult under a warm blanket on a cold night. She stayed quiet and motionless, waiting for what she knew was going to happen. She could only guess what time it was when she heard Jayden get up and collect his belongings. She let him go a few steps before speaking.
“Go back to sleep, Jayden.”
He stopped but didn’t turn to face her. “I’m trying to be gallant. Pick a direction other than the one I’m taking and you’ll be safe.”
“You’re not trying to be gallant. You are gallant. You’d go into a fight alone that you might lose if that means I live. The necromancer knows there are two of us. I get the feeling he’d kill me, even use his magic on me after I’m dead and send me after you. The only way I’m getting out alive is with you, and I’m sorry if this upsets you, but I don’t think you’re getting through this alive without me.”
“Your prediction is possibly, even likely given how morally degenerate our enemy is.” He set his belongings down and wrapped himself in his blanket. “It’s strange. I’m grateful we met, yet terrified and ashamed at the same time. I’ve been alone for so long partly because I never wanted to be in this position. I have few friends, Dana. I can’t lose one.”
* * * * *
Morning came, and Dana was relieved to see that Jayden hadn’t left in the night. She recognized how brave he was to try facing this madman alone, but she’d seen him hurt in fights and nearly killed by Wall Wolf. Jayden needed her just as much as the kingdom needed him.
“Our destination has no name by design,” Jayden explained as they headed out after breakfast. “The king and queen wanted its location unknown, as well as its occupants, for the graveyard contains rebels who died in the civil war.”
“My parents never told me much about the war,” Dana admitted.
“They likely knew very little. The king and queen worked hard to erase less savory aspects of our kingdom’s history.” Jayden grimaced as he spoke. “Rebels in the civil war were needlessly brutal, causing considerable damage to infrastructure like bridges, dams, canals, granaries, even schools. If they couldn’t hold territory, they made sure the victors would gain no benefit from it. Nor were they merciful to prisoners or civilians.
“The king and queen were equally brutal. They ordered fallen rebels buried in mass graves without headstones or memorials. These mass graves were placed deep in the wilderness and in utter secrecy. In theory this meant the gravesites couldn’t become rallying points for rebels eager to avenge their losses.”
Dana thought back to the graveyard outside her hometown. It wasn’t visited often since people had so much work to do, but the entire town went there on the first day of the year, drinking toasts to their ancestors and sharing stories of loved ones who had passed on. It was a time of celebration and remembrance. Originally Brotherhood of the Righteous priests led the event, but her father did the honors after the priests were expelled from the kingdom.
“That’s terrible, and stupid,” she said.
“It didn’t stop there. The king and queen declared that rebels lost their property. Farms, livestock, coins, legal rights, it was all forfeit.”
“What happens to their things?”
There was fierceness in Jayden’s voice when he answered. “It went to the crown. Loyalist forces were clamoring for rewards for their services, and they accepted rebel property in lieu of cash. Widows and orphans who had already lost so much were evicted and made beggars. Many of them had no involvement with the civil war. Their men went to war because treacherous noblemen ordered them to fight or forced them to, and their families suffered for it.”
“How do you force someone to fight for you?” Dana asked. “Give a guy a sword and he could use it on you instead of your enemies.”
“The first way is to seize his loved ones and hold them hostage. The second way is to put unwilling soldiers in the front of your army and dependable troops behind them. They can’t run without being cut down by their enemies or their allies.” He saw Dana’s terrified expression and added, “I did say the rebels were brutal.”
“It doesn’t sound like there was a good side in the fight,” she said reluctantly.
“There could have been. The king and queen refused to let Brotherhood of the Righteous priests bless the bodies or hold funerals for defeated rebels. Priests argued these blessings made sure bodies couldn’t be inhabited by foul spirits or used by necromancers. The king and queen didn’t care. Denying rebels even such a basic right was another way to take revenge. Our enemy is camped on one of those mass graves. We are paying the price for the king and queen’s act of spite.”
“That’s how the necromancer made his army!” Dana exclaimed. “I couldn’t figure out where he got the bones for all those walking skeletons at Duke Wisker’s estate, but he’s got an entire cemetery to dig up.”
“The bones were from men who died fighting, so many were badly damaged. I believe the necromancer experimented with replacing destroyed or missing limbs with bones taken from animals.”
Fearing the answer, Dana asked, “How many men were buried there?”
“I don’t know. The necromancer may have looted other mass graves. Worse still, you saw the barrow wights he sent after us yesterday. He may have other undead more dangerous than animated skeletons.” Jayden stopped walking and turned to face her. “I don’t exaggerate when I say this battle may be more than I can handle. Your life is in mortal peril if you come with me.”
“What happens if we don’t stop him?” she asked.
“The necromancer will continue amassing undead followers for uses too horrifying to contemplate. The king and queen will try to use these abominations in their war. Perhaps the necromancer will humor them and send his minions to fight their battles, but it’s equally possible he’ll unleash his nightmare army against the two of them. Innocent people will die by the thousands or tens of thousands before he’s stopped.”
“Who can we call on for help who could get here in time?”
Jayden paused. “Reginald Lootmore and Suzy Lockheart are too far away to reach us in time. I don’t know where Ian McShootersun is. Other men I know lack the power or skill to make a significant impact. They would be targets rather than assets. I might be able to convince nobles or army officers of the danger and get their aid, but they have little reason to believe me when I’m a wanted man.”
“Then you need me.” Before he could argue, she said, “He’s got to be stopped. If you fight him alone he’ll swarm you with skeletons and wights. I’m not a sorcerer lord, or lady, I guess, but I can help. You need friends, Jayden, and right now I’m it.”
He smiled at her. “It’s ironic. The harder I try to keep you safe by excluding you, the harder you insist on remaining.”
“You could have more help, you know. There are people who like you and could fight. And let’s face it, you’re going to run into more big battles, not fewer.”
“More fights like this,” he said ruefully. “Dana, you have no idea how many battles I’ve fought, how many enemies I’ve defeated—”
“How many people you’ve saved?”
“There is that. I’ve done much, yet there is so much more to do. This battle will be terrible, and you’re right that coming battles will be as bad or worse. Would you stand with me through that, knowing it will never end?”
“We saved hundreds of children and young girls sold as property. I’ll stand with you through anything to save even one more.”
They spent much of the day heading deeper into the wilderness. Abandoned farmhouses gave way to scrub forests thick with briars and weeds. The roads had already been muddy and narrow, but as they went on the few roads shrank into narrow game trails. Wildlife was rare so early in spring, yet they saw not one bird or rodent.
“Hey, it’s our anniversary,” she said playfully.
Jayden stared at her. “Our what?”
“We first met on this day one year ago.”
“I’m surprised you keep track of the date,” he said. “You know, it’s embarrassing, but outside family members or servants, this is the longest I’ve known a woman.”
Dana laughed. “What about those two girls you told me about?”
“The first young lady and I were together for eight months. The second lasted only eight weeks. I have difficulties with relationships. I’m told I rub people the wrong way when I don’t offend them intentionally.”
Feeling mischievous, Dana asked, “And how long were you with Suzy Lockheart?”
“She and I weren’t together in any sense of the word. We were in the general vicinity of one another for less than a month total, although it felt like years spent in purgatory.”
“You were a little rough around the edges when we first met, but you’re doing better these days.” Jayden gave her a questioning glance, and she went on. “You don’t lose your temper as often, and insults and snide remarks are way down.”
“Judging by that left handed compliment, you’ve taken it upon yourself to compensate for my good behavior.”
“It’s good you’re getting better around people. You deserve to have healthy relationships like you did when you were a boy. Maybe you could fall in love. No, seriously, there’s a woman my hometown who…oh.” Dana stopped marching. “Oh dear.”
“Not a cheerful sight,” Jayden agreed.
Ahead of them was a wide path beaten through the undergrowth. Seven men could have walked down it side by side, and the thick growth of plant life had been trampled into the muddy ground. Strange as this path already was, trees growing alongside it were dead, their blackened bark peeling off in strips. Normally hardy weeds sprouted this time of year, but here they were stunted and brown. Dana touched a dead tree, only for it to topple onto the path.
“One way leads to our foe, the other to Duke Wiskver’s estate,” Jayden declared.
“How did the necromancer get so many walking skeletons into Wiskver’s estate without anyone noticing?”
“I imagine Wiskver brought them to his property inside armored wagons, the same way he did the slaves.” Jayden ran his fingers along a dead tree branch. “The necromancer may have used magic to temporarily mask the natural aversion all life has to the undead.”
The branch crumbled apart under Jayden’s gentle touch and fell to the ground. He scowled and drew back his hand. “I have to wonder how Wiskver thought he could profit from such monsters. They don’t require food, drink or rest, but how could he have used them as laborers without others noticing? How could he think such bloodthirsty monstrosities would consent to cutting timber or tending crops?”
“How close are we to the graveyard?” Dana asked.
“Close enough I should take precautions. Hold still.”
“What are you,” she began, but stopped when Jayden placed the palms of both hands on her forehead. He began to chant and his fingers grew warm. Dana waited for him to finish before she asked, “What did you do?”
“I placed a mind shield on you. It will last long enough for our purposes. As you don’t cast spells it won’t hide you from magical detection, but it protects you from the fury you felt when near the undead.” He smirked and added, “Blinding rage has its uses, but your best feature has always been your mind, and I need it to be as keen as your sword.”
Dana held up Chain Cutter. “Can wizards sense my sword?”
“You saw how unfocused my detection spell was. Your sword will register as one of hundreds of magic sources with no way to determine what it is or who wields it.”
“That’s helpful, I guess.” Dana paused when she saw green among the dead plants. “Jayden, look, that plant is growing. I didn’t think anything would—”
The tiny weed grew so fast it shot across the ground, spreading new leaves and sinking deep roots before lashing out at Dana. She screamed and swung her sword, hacking the plant in half, only for it to sprout four new ends that wrapped around her and pinned her to the ground.
More vines grew outrageously fast and headed for Jayden. He barely had time to cast a spell that formed a shield of spinning black blades in front of him. Vines grappled the shield, were shredded, regrew and were shredded again when they hit the shield. He cast another spell to form his black sword and cut off the vines holding Dana. For a moment the floral assault paused.
“Why does this not surprise me?” a familiar voice called out.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dana said as she got up.
“Green Peril?” Jayden asked in disbelief.
It was the elven wizard, wreathed in living vines as he emerged from the ruined forest. He wore the same white and green robes as when they’d last seen him in Fish Bait City. His face was as handsome and sneering as ever, but there was one big difference in his appearance. Jayden had destroyed the elf’s staff in their previous battle. Green Peril held a new one, dark red like blood made solid, and with a cluster of opals near the tip. Dana didn’t know much about magic even after a year traveling with Jayden, but this staff looked impressive.
“Birds in the sky told me they’d found you but dared not approach. Land soaked in death and suffering, unhallowed and unwelcome to all life, this would scare anyone with wits and working eyes. Yet this is where I find you.”
“Don’t you know when to quit?” Jayden demanded as he stepped between Dana and the elf. “The last time we fought you ran for your life! You didn’t bring allies for this battle, proof you learned nothing from our encounter.”
“The last time we fought you had help! No ghost is here to save you, but that would explain your destination. Do you seek to recruit another tortured soul?”
“Shadow magic doesn’t work that way, you pampered twit! You’d know that if you’d done even the most rudimentary research into the man you’re trying to kill.”
“Why are you even here?” Dana asked. “The king and queen must have hired a court wizard by now.”
“I’d have heard about it if your idiot king and shrewish queen had accepted another wizard into their service,” Green Peril retorted. “Even if they don’t honor their promise made months ago or pay the ever growing bounty on your head, I have reason enough to hunt you down after you humiliated me! I suffered endless insults for losing to a human! Your death will cleanse the stain upon my honor.”
Green Peril held his staff in front of him. “I learned new spells, and spent a fortune in gold and promises to lesser elves to produce my staff. Blood wood harvested from a willing tree, carved with the finest tools, imbued with nature magic, it is the ultimate weapon.”
Dana’s brow furrowed. “Lesser elves?”
“Each elf thinks himself superior to all other elves,” Jayden told her.
“I had to grovel to get the blood wood!” Green Peril yelled. He drew a step closer to them, and to Dana’s surprise green grass sprouted and seeds burst into life. That hadn’t happened the last time they’d seen the elf. It made her think his replacement staff was as powerful as he claimed.
“That’s just peachy,” Dana interrupted. “You got your stick finished in time to use against an actual enemy instead of someone who saves lives.”
“What’s your pet babbling about?” Green Peril asked.
Before Jayden could issue an angry reply, Dana said, “We’re chasing a necromancer who made an army of walking skeletons and hid them in a duke’s estate. We killed them, and we’re after the necromancer before he makes more.”
Green Peril laughed. “Do you seriously expect me to believe that?”
“Look, these plants died a long time before we got here. Jayden’s magic didn’t kill plants the last time you two fought, or he would have won even quicker than he did.”
Before the elf could answer, Jayden said, “I’m facing what could be the biggest battle of my life against a man who will do unspeakable acts if left alive. I can’t afford to exhaust myself beating you hours before doing battle with the necromancer.”
Green Peril hesitated, given Dana hope that this meeting could end peacefully. The elf wizard retreated a few steps and pointed his staff at a tree left half dead by the necromancer’s magic. He cast a spell, and to Dana’s amazement the tree’s branches bent like they were made of loose cloth.
“Brother tree, friend to elves since ancient times, speak to me,” Green Peril said to the tree. Normally Dana considered talking to trees to be a bad sign, but it made a rustling, whispering noise as it moved. It waved branches along the trail of devastation, and it trembled as if in fear. Green Peril’s face turned pale, and he placed a hand against its trunk.
“You have suffered much, brother,” Green Peril said solemnly. He cast another spell, and fresh growth burst from the trunk to replace what it had lost. The tree stopped moving as Green Peril turned to face Dana and Jayden. “You speak the truth, a shocking a turn of events.”
“Then can we call off this senseless vendetta?” Jayden asked.
Green Peril bared his teeth in a snarl, only gradually regaining self-control. “Vulgar and brutal as you are, there is a greater foe I must deal with. I declare a truce until this perversion of a man is destroyed. After that, no promises.”
“Fair enough,” Jayden replied. “We haven’t far to go to reach him.”
“I said truce, not partnership,” Green Peril snapped. “I’d sooner fight alongside an drunken ogre with lice than trust you not to put a dagger in my back. The only concession I’ll make is to care for your pet girl after you’re dead. What’s her name again?”
Dana slapped a hand over her face. “I can’t believe this.”
Jayden spat in disgust. “This necromancer is a threat like none I’ve faced, and we are mere miles from the graveyard he plunders for bodies. He knows I’m coming and is not intimidated. Battling him together stands the best chance of success. Claim you lead us if it sooths your bloated ego, but if you go alone don’t expect to do anything except die.”
The two wizards stared at one another in mutual loathing. Jayden had often told Dana how ancient sorcerer lords fought one another. Watching these two, she had no trouble believing the tales.
“We’ll let you have any treasure or magic he has,” Dana offered. A shocked look from Jayden made her hastily add, “Minus sorcerer lord spell tablets.”
Green Peril hesitated. “And I get to claim leadership of the expedition?”
“If that’s what it takes to keep you two from butchering each other before we even reach the necromancer.”
“We have a deal. I won’t insult either of us by offering to ‘shake on it’, as you clearly don’t want to and I don’t know what diseases the two of you carry.” Green Peril headed down the trail of devastation. “Come along.”
October 3, 2019
Rented Swords part 2
This is the conclusion of Rented Swords
* * * * *
Dana stared at the mercenaries. “Duke Wiskver hired that many men?”
Jayden shook his head. “More likely these mercenaries were hired by the king and queen. Come spring they will earn their keep in the royal couple’s wars. I imagine Duke Wiskver has the unenviable duty of feeding them during the winter. He’s making the best of a bad situation by using them as guards for whatever those wagons contain.”
Suzy tapped her fingers on the side of her wagon. “Sneaking in there is going to be hard. Getting out with whatever’s in those wagons is impossible. We’re going to have to burn it all, Jayden. I’ve got firebombs to do the job.”
“If the contents of those wagons are flammable, we could repeat the disaster you caused in Armorston,” he said. “We’ll see what’s there and act accordingly.”
“By burning it,” Suzy said sweetly.
“Why does he have two barns?” Dana asked before Jayden could shout at Suzy.
Jayden paused. “I was here before the civil war, and there was only one barn then. Where the second barn stands used to be a far smaller building leading to a large natural cavern. The duke who once lived here used the cave to store beer barrels while the beer fermented. Wiskver didn’t follow his example.”
“That’s stupid,” Dana said. “Brewers make good money. Why wouldn’t he have men do the work?”
“Because he’s a snob,” Jayden said. “Beer is poor men’s drink, and he has aspirations to greatness.”
“We can sneak inside,” Suzy said. “I don’t see guards on patrol, and there aren’t dogs sniffing out intruders. Wiskver is either real confident or real stupid.”
“He expects little trouble with so many men at his command.” Jayden cautioned, “Ground around the manor lacks cover. We’d be seen coming at a distance, and by now both of us have bounties on our heads and wanted posters with our portraits.”
“But not mine,” Dana said.
Jayden grabbed her by the arm. “No.”
Dana pulled free. “There has to be farmers and ranchers living nearby. They’ll think I’m one of them looking for work. I can get in, find out what’s going on and get back.”
“Even if they don’t know who you are, sending a young woman among soldiers and mercenaries is too dangerous,” he said. “You have no ideas the risk you’re taking or the cost you’ll pay if even one man among that thousand seeks to do you harm.”
“What choice is there?” she demanded. “You said those mercenaries are going to be here until spring. We can’t wait that long. And what if they’re carrying weapons in those wagons, maybe more bombs like the one Suzy set off? Whatever is in there is so valuable they’re spending lots of money on it, and you don’t do that without a good reason.”
Suzy smiled at Dana. “McShootersun would love you.”
Jayden stared hard at Dana before marching back to Suzy’s wagon. “You need a disguise that will make them want to let you in, and Lockheart generously provided it.”
“I did what?” Suzy asked.
“Soldiers and mercenaries eat like horses,” Jayden said. He gathered up food that Suzy had cooked and wrapped it in an old blanket. “A peasant girl with food to sell, especially good food, is going to be a welcome sight they will want to return as often as possible. You’ll have to leave your sword here or risk arousing their suspicion.”
Jayden handed her the bundle, but didn’t let go when she tried to pull it from his grasp. His eyes locked onto hers with a fierceness she knew all too well. “If we see or hear signs of danger, if we even suspect a threat to your wellbeing, Lockheart and I will come down on them like the wrath of God.”
With Jayden that was no idle threat. Dana was less certain of what Suzy was capable of, but Jayden made it sound like the woman was a serious threat, possibly his equal.
Dana met his gaze. “You trusted me before. Trust me now.”
She left them and hurried toward the manor and its army of soldiers and mercenaries. It surprised her how far she got before the first man noticed her. Two spearmen wearing chain armor and dressed in blue and black stepped toward her and gave her curious looks when she stopped in front of them and curtsied.
“Good sirs, my name is Candice Latchkey. My family needs money to cover next year’s taxes. Forgive me if I ask too much, but I brought home cooked meals I thought you might like to buy. I know you’ll love it, and I don’t charge much.”
One spearman looked through the bundle of food while the second kept an eye on her. The first one pinched off a piece of Suzy’s bread and tasted it. He nodded and looked to the other spearman. “It’s good. We’ll have to clear this with the captain first. Sven, take her to the command tent.”
A spearman barely older than Dana led her to a large brightly lit tent. Inside stood three older men wearing plate armor and arguing over plates of cold chicken. They paused when the young spearman entered and saluted. Dana opened her mouth, but one of the men spoke first.
“Peasant,” he said. The man had ugly scars along the left side of his jaw, like he’d been badly burned in the past. His hair was black going to gray and cut very short. He walked up to her and saw the bundle she was carrying. “Trying to curry favor or do business?”
Dana curtsied again. “Business. I’m selling home cooked—”
The man jammed a finger into one of Suzy’s pies and stuck it in his mouth. “Sweet bark. I haven’t tasted that in a long time. Where does a peasant girl get sweet bark?”
Thinking fast, she said, “A man came to my village with spices for sale. We didn’t know why he sold it so cheaply.”
The scarred man laughed. “He’s a clever thief to sell to peasants. You’d eat the evidence fast enough. Fine, sell your food and be on your way, but if one of my men eats it and falls sick, you’ll pay.”
Dana did her best to look offended. “Sir! I’ve never disappointed a customer, much less harmed one.”
“Off with you,” the scarred man said.
Dana left the tent and went among the armed men around the manor. She gradually made her way closer to the armored wagons, careful to take a roundabout path so it didn’t look like that was her objective. As she walked she offered food to nearby men. Most refused her, but men came in ones and twos to buy what she had. This earned a fair number of copper coins, far less than the spices in the food were worth, and kept up the appearance that she was a peddler.
Bit by bit she got closer to the armored wagons. She stopped when she was twenty feet away and tried to look inside the nearest one. The back of the wagon had been lowered, and even in the poor light of the camp she could see it was empty. The contents had been unloaded.
So many wagons could carry tons of cargo. That meant it had to be transferred to a building with lots of space. Dana studied the two barns and decided to check the one built over the cavern. If Duke Wiskver was feeling particularly paranoid he might hide the goods underground.
Dana earned another handful of coins as she worked he way closer to the barn. Neither barn had soldiers or mercenaries camped close to it, which meant approaching them might make her stand out. Dana risked it and went closer. She got within fifty feet and stopped, but not willingly.
Her feet didn’t want to move. She pressed on, lifting a foot and trying to fall forward, but even this got her only a step closer. The closer she got the worse this strange compulsion was until she couldn’t move her arms, legs, even her fingers closer to the building. Panicking, she took a step backwards, and to her relief she moved away at full speed.
What to do? There was still another barn to check. Would the same mysterious force defend that one? She tried to look casual as she approached the barn. This time there was no trouble, and she reached a side door without incident. The door was barred from the outside. Dana had no trouble lifting the bar and setting it quietly on the ground.
She opened the door to find the enormous barn was filled front to back with people. Most of them were girls her age or younger, while about a third were boys no older than twelve. They wore simple cotton clothes and huddled around small brick lined fire pits. The girls and boys were chained together in long lines like prisoners.
Worse than this, if such a thing was possible, were their anguished faces. They looked at Dana in fear and self-loathing. Many turned away at the sight of her. Those who did meet gaze had writing tattooed onto their right cheeks just below the eye. Dana took a step forward and read the words on the nearest girl. It said, “Property of,” with a line below those repulsive words. They were slaves.
“Who are you?” Dana whispered.
“The man said we don’t have names anymore,” a girl responded.
“What man?”
Another girl told the first one, “Don’t talk. You’ll get us in trouble.”
“It can’t get worse than this,” the first one said. “The tall man, Wiskver, bought us in Skitherin. He brought us to a city, and today he brought us here. He’s going to sell us in springtime.”
These girls and boys were the cargo of the armored wagons. Jayden had said Duke Wiskver was still earning his riches through trade. They’d met slaves in Baron Scalamonger’s estate, and later a boy owned by an army officer Imuran Tellet. Scalamonger had said many noblemen used slave labor, but even in Dana’s worst nightmares she hadn’t believed the trade in human lives was this extensive. Duke Wiskver must be supplying the demand, and no doubt earning a handsome profit.
Dana took the girl’s hands in hers. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
“How? We can’t go home. Our own families sold us. We have no money, no land, no one to turn to.” The girl looked down. “Run. Leave before they sell you, too.”
There wasn’t much of Suzy’s cooking left. Dana handed it to the girl and said, “It won’t go far, but pass it around. Please believe me, help is coming.”
Dana left the barn and closed the door behind her. She felt an empty feeling in her heart. She had to help these poor people, but what could she do when the duke had a thousand men? Dana hurried away from the barn and headed for the edge of the camp.
“Hey, girl, you have anything left?” Dana spun around and saw the young spearman from before approach her.
“Uh, Sven, isn’t it? Sorry, no, all out. I’ll bring more tomorrow.”
Sven laughed and caught up with her. “You sold out that fast? I thought you’d be here all night. This duke is an idiot, but he feeds us enough that we don’t have to poach game or buy food. You’re good.”
Dana kept walking toward the edge of the camp. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have a man yet, do you?”
That made her stop in mid step. “I have a boyfriend.”
“But does he have money? You’re a good cook, and you’re good at peddling. Most women are too shy for that. You should see girls run when we come into town! Sheep are braver. A man would do well to have you for a wife.”
“I’ll be sure to tell my boyfriend.”
Sven cheerfully said, “My captain shares loot and pay from our employer, not like some captains. I have enough to settle down and buy a farm. I just need a wife. Your man doesn’t have money or he wouldn’t let you come here alone. I’m a better choice than he is.”
“Wait, you’d asked a stranger to marry you?”
“Why not? Back in Skitherin Kingdom, grandparents arrange marriages. Here we have to find wives by ourselves. A woman who can cook and is pretty, that’s a good catch. Love can come later.”
Dana knew parents who meddled in their children’s love lives, forbidding certain boys and encouraging others. It wasn’t strange for parents to pick a wife or husband for their children. “Take your money home and let your family pick a girl for you.”
Sven waved his hand like he was shooing away a fly. “Why go back? You know what would happen if I tried? The nobles, the magistrates, the Ministry of Obedience, they’d take every coin from me. I risked my life to earn that money. I can spend it, I can give it away, but no one takes it from me.”
Sven stopped her and pulled a coin pouch from his belt. He opened it and held it up to show her. “See, gold. That’s enough to buy good land, livestock, tools—”
“And buy a wife, too,” Dana interrupted.
“No, it’s not like that!”
Skitherin Kingdom must be a miserable place if men like Sven would risk their lives by becoming mercenaries. It must be doubly miserable if families sell their daughters and even sons. Sven hated his homeland, natural enough given what he’d said. The other mercenaries probably felt the same. But how did they feel about the common people from back home?
Dana put her hands on her hips. “It is so! You think you can buy me like those poor Skitherin girls in the barn.”
Sven’s expression went from panic to confusion. “What girls?”
“The ones in the barn. Duke Wiskver bought them from your homeland, and he’s selling them here. I won’t be bought for pocket change.”
Confusion gave way to anger, and then grim determination as Sven grabbed Dana’s hand. “Come with me.”
Dana barely had to feign indignation as Sven dragged her to the command tent. “Hey, wait a minute!”
Soldiers and mercenaries watched with concern as Sven pulled her along. They reached the command tent to find little had changed, except the cold chicken dinners were now only bones picked clean. The scarred man leading the mercenaries raised an eyebrow when he saw Dana again.
“What did she do?” he demanded.
Sven pushed Dana toward the ugly man. “Tell the captain what you told me.”
Dana pointed at Sven. “He wants to settle down and asked me to marry him.”
The captain burst out laughing. Sven blushed and shouted, “Not that part!”
“He showed me what you paid him and said he could support me. I said I wouldn’t be bought like those Skitherin girls in the barn.”
The captain stopped laughing. “Girls? What’s this about? How would you know what’s in those barns?”
Oops. Dana prayed she was a convincing liar. “I heard voices in the barn and thought some of your men were staying there. I opened a side door and saw girls and young boys chained up. They said they were from Skitherin Kingdom, and that the duke had bought them.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed. “The wagons that came in this morning, they went straight into the barn before unloading so we wouldn’t see.”
“Is this how they’re able to pay us?” Sven demanded. “Our daughters and sisters are being sold like oxen, and to do what? Mop floors if they’re lucky! Captain, are we going to take money from a man who hires us to fight his battles while treating our women like animals?”
Sven’s yelling brought mercenaries running to the command tent until there was a crowd gathered around the entrance. The captain glared at Sven and Dana. He looked angry and conflicted. Finally he said, “I don’t take a peasant’s word for anything. She says there are slaves in that barn, I look before I believe her.”
The captain marched out of the tent with his men following. Sven took the lead with Dana still in his grip. They marched up to the second, older barn, and the captain tried to open the large front door. He glowered at Dana when it didn’t budge.
“I used the side door,” she said, and pointed to it.
Grumbling under his breath, the captain marched to the side door, pulled off the bar and threw it aside. He opened the door and peered inside. Seconds later he came back out. “Sven, let the girl go.”
“Then it’s true.” Sven released Dana and ran to the door. He came back swearing and stomping his feet. More mercenaries came over and looked inside. Some looked outraged, while others were merely curious.
“Karl, open the door,” the captain ordered. A man big as an ogre lumbered up to the barn’s main door, lifted a sledgehammer and struck the lock. Wham! Wham! A third blow took the lock off, and the enormous man pulled the door open to reveal hundreds of cowering girls and boys.
The commotion brought soldiers, archers and knights running over. Steps behind them came a man wearing a sable coat. He was older with silver hair, and would have looked handsome except for the look of utter contempt on his face.
“What is the meaning of this?” the older man demanded.
“I believe that is my question, Duke Wiskver,” the mercenary captain replied. He gestured to the slaves. “Women and children of Skitherin in chains, goods to be sold no different than sheep or goats, and you thought we wouldn’t care?”
“My property is none of your business,” Wiskver said haughtily. “You have been paid well to fight for the king and queen. Nothing else that goes on in this kingdom is your concern.”
“King and queen,” the captain repeated. “Strange how often I hear that. Most kings speak for themselves, yet your king’s proclamations always come with his wife’s name attached to them, like she is his equal.”
“You dog!” Wiskver spat on the ground. “You’re hired help, nothing more, yet you dare to speak so contemptibly of my king!”
Dana watched the mercenaries and soldiers. The two sides were the same size, but the mercenaries were better armed and armored, and they looked more confident. Jayden had said mercenary captains didn’t owe their positions to royal commands or grants. The captain had earned his position through courage, quick wits and constant victories. His men followed because he paid them, and they could leave if they were dissatisfied. Many of them looked furious. If he backed down he risked them deserting or replacing him.
A fight could break out any second. Dana raced away, slipping twice on snow trampled down to mush by foot traffic. She heard shouting and insults behind her as she reached the tents, and barely got past them when she ran into Jayden, Suzy and Yub. She slid across the wet ground and landed at Jayden’s feet.
Jayden looked worried as he helped her up. “Are you hurt?”
“No, but it’s about to get really messy.” Dana looked back at the growing crowd of soldiers and mercenaries. She wasn’t sure which side would win if they fought. Jayden and Suzy could tip the fight in the mercenaries’ favor, but she hesitated to explain what she’d seen. Jayden had gone berserk when he’d seen the slaves at Scalamonger’s estate, and he might do so again. “Promise me you’re not going to go feral.”
Suzy looked confused. “What?”
“She’s worried I’ll lose my temper,” Jayden explained. “Dana, I won’t get angry. Tell me what you saw.”
“The new barn is protected by some kind of magic that kept me back, and I learned what was in the armored wagons. They were carrying people, Jayden, hundreds of girls and boys from Skitherin Kingdom. They’re chained up in the other barn. Wiskver is going to sell them this spring. I told the mercenaries, and they’re confronting the duke.” Dana saw Jayden’s eye’s narrow and his face turn red. “No, you promised!”
Suzy went through her coat and brought out a small bomb. “He promised, I didn’t. Back home I saw too many people treated like dirt, but they were still free people. This stops if I have to blow up every building here to do it.”
“Ms. Lockheart, I believe we’ve finally found a matter where we’re of the same opinion,” Jayden declared.
Dana grabbed them both by the arm. “The mercenaries are minutes away from rebelling. If you attack they’ll join forces with the soldiers to defend themselves. Just sit still and let them fight each other.”
Jayden looked dubious as he studied the growing conflict. “They’re too busy to pay attention to us. We can get closer and take action if needed. Lockheart, I assume your wagon is well supplied with explosives?”
“Like you have to ask.”
“Bring it with us and hide it behind a tent.”
They snuck into the tent camp and found the mercenaries and soldiers in a war of words. Men shouted back and forth, with Wiskver and the scarred mercenary captain the loudest and angriest.
“You came highly recommended as skilled warriors, yet I find disobedient curs before me!” Wiskver bellowed.
“You want blind obedience, buy a golem,” the scarred captain retorted. “You want battles won, hire men who think and treat them well. Is that what you thought we were, slaves for rent?”
A lone mercenary approached the barn’s entrance. Wiskver shouted, “Get away from there!”
The mercenary ignored him. “Tanya?”
One of the slave girls sat up straight, her eyes snapping open and her jaw dropping in shock. Just as fast she crouched down and covered her face with her hands. The mercenary ran to her and wrapped his arms around her. “Tanya!”
The scarred captain went to the man and put a hand on his shoulder. The mercenary had doubtlessly fought many battles, seen horrors beyond description, yet tears ran down his face like rivers. “S-sir, this is Tanya, from my village. She grew up three doors down from me. She’s a good girl. I, sir, I can’t leave her like this.”
The scarred captain looked at his followers, now universally angry. His eyes fell on Wiskver. “They’re coming with us. Take whatever they cost you out of our pay.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Wiskver thundered. He pulled a jeweled rod from inside his coat and pointed it at them. “Men, attack!”
Dana had to give the soldiers credit for bravery if not brains as they charged headlong into the mercenaries. The mercenaries battered them aside with contemptible ease, fighting with a unity and ferocity Dana had rarely seen. Soldiers were surrounded and knocked to the ground, their weapons broken, and a few were even robbed.
Suzy ran headlong into the fight with Yub at her side. “I want in on this!”
Jayden handed Dana her sword back and followed Suzy. Suzy threw bombs and sent knights screaming from their horses. Jayden formed his giant magic hand and bowled over archers taking aim at the mercenaries. Yub tripped soldiers and took their wallets.
Dana ignored the fight and ran into the barn. Slaves cowered when she approached, and they screamed when she drew her magic sword. She swung down as hard as she could. A shower of sparks shot up as it hacked through a chain holding twenty slaves together. Screams turned into shouts of joy, and slaves held up their chains for her to cut.
Wiskver ran into the barn and saw her chop through another chain. “No, stop!”
Dana pointed her sword at his heart. “I’m coming for you next!”
Wiskver ran screaming from the barn. Dana hacked chains apart one after another until everyone was free. She led them out to find the soldiers falling back. Wiskver wasn’t with them. Instead he headed for the second barn. He held up his jeweled rod and went right through the barrier that had kept Dana back.
“Oh no.” Dana saw Jayden pursuing fleeing soldiers and waved to him. “Jayden, stop Wiskver!”
The warning came too late. Wiskver pressed his rod against the barn’s door, and it swung open as if strong men were pushing it. He stepped aside and pointed his rod at the mercenaries.
“Idiots!” Wiskver screamed into the barn. “Worthless retches the lot of you! I paid good money for you failures! Not one of you would do a day’s work! If work is too good for you, then fight in my name! Kill! Kill!”
Seconds passed with no response, making Dana think Wiskver was out of his mind, before a lone voice called back, “You only had to say it once.”
The barn’s interior lit up with a sea of red lights. There was a strange clacking sound, like sticks hitting sticks, followed by a hateful, braying laughter, and the stuff of nightmares poured out. Animated skeletons ran screaming from the barn like a river in flood, each one with red light pouring from empty eye sockets, and unarmed except for their sharp teeth and nails. Horrible as even one of these abominations was, they emerged by the hundreds, laughing, screaming and throwing their heads back as they howled.
Dana would have screamed in horror or fear, but the cry died in her throat as a wave of pain washed over her. She grabbed her head and pinched her eyes shut as she doubled over. The slaves suffered the same agony and cried out. Seconds later pain turned to rage, an unquenchable hatred that made her entire body shake.
The skeletal horde crashed into the mercenaries with overwhelming numbers. The scarred captain rallied his men into a rough square that slowly fell back. Skeletons surrounded the formation and pounded on it from all sides. Mercenaries battered skeletons to pieces, only for more to take their place.
Skeletons also went after the soldiers. Wiskver shouted at them to stop and waved his rod at them to no avail. Soldiers fought with fierceness equaling the mercenaries, falling back only far enough to have walls at their backs. Skeletons attacked the buildings as well and tried to force their way through doors and windows. Wiskver pulled at his hair, helpless to stop the battle.
Then they came to the barn.
“Ooh, look at all the pretty pretties to kill,” a horrifying skeleton said as it stepped in front of the barn door. This one was missing a foot and had a horse’s hoof in its place, and there was an extra arm on its left side. “I must have been a good boy!”
Dana screamed in pain and revulsion as she charged the monster. It tried to grab her with its three arms. She slid under its clumsy swings and lashed out with her sword, hacking off two of its arms. The skeleton looked puzzled and held up the stumps in front of its glowing eyes. She swung again and lopped off both legs at the knees. The skeleton fell to the ground, and she plunged her sword through its ribs and spine, destroying it.
“Hey, save some for me,” a skeleton with a wolf’s skull said as it swaggered into the barn. It stared at the shattered bones and its jaw dropped. “Huh?”
Dana charged the skeleton and swung across its chest, slicing through rib bones before cutting off the front of its skull. The skeleton fell backwards into a third skeleton, knocking it over. She leapt onto the fallen skeleton and cut it to pieces.
Dana heard a faint noise of a girl screaming. In her fury it took seconds to realize the screams were hers. Pain and rage made it hard to think. She saw skeletons running to join the attack on the mercenaries. She growled under her breath and ran after them, catching up with one and stabbing it in the back until it fell.
Mercenaries and soldiers were pushed together by the rush of skeletons until they stood side by side. The men fought with the same fury Dana did, snarling and screaming as they battered and hacked their enemies to pieces. Skeletons mobbed men and dragged them down, but men ran to the rescue and pulled their victims to safety. It would have been impressive, except the stream of skeletons from the barn never slackened.
Jayden fought his way to the embattled men, his black sword slashing apart skeletons like they were wheat before a scythe. He seemed to be the only person not totally consumed by rage. Suzy Lockheart was steps behind him and hurling explosives at anything within range. Yub followed suit with more explosives. When he ran out he threw himself at the nearest skeleton and bit it, chewing the skeleton’s leg and eating it.
Dana destroyed ten skeletons getting to Jayden. She was hit twice and knocked back, but she went on heedless of the blows until she reached him. Jayden embraced her with his left arm when she came close.
“Jayden, make it stop!” Dana clutched her head and gritted her teeth. “I want…I need to kill them! I hate them all!”
“Your body is reacting to the presence of undead,” he said. “The pain will stop when they’re gone. My mind cloud spell protects me, but it takes too long to cast it on you.”
Skeletons tried to swarm the two of them. Suzy spotted the attack and hurled a bomb into the mob, blasting it apart. She tried to charge the next group of skeletons until Jayden pulled her to a stop.
“Why don’t they stop coming?” Dana asked. “The barn’s not that big.”
“Wiskver must have put them into the cavern below as well as in the barn,” Jayden said. “It’s large enough to house thousands of skeletons. We’ll be overrun if we stay and chased down if we flee.”
More skeletons attacked. These ones were pieced together nightmares with bones from men and animals fused together. Jayden destroyed the first two with his black sword, while Dana charged a third one and cut it apart. Suzy hurled firebombs into the skeletons and burned them to ashes.
“More!” Suzy yelled. “Keep them coming! I’ve got bombs for weeks!”
“Cave,” Dana gasped. “If most of them are underground, can we bring the cave down on them? Like we did in Armorton when we blew up the sewers?”
“We’d need an enormous amount of explosives,” Jayden told her.
“Suzy, we need all the bombs you have!” Dana yelled.
Suzy had trouble focusing enough to answer. “Bombs. More bombs in my wagon.”
“Enough to blow up the barn?” Dana asked.
“Yes.” Suzy ran to her wagon just as her horses broke free of their yokes. Dana assumed the animals would run off. Instead they raced to the nearest skeletons and stomped them to pieces. Suzy climbed onto her wagon and said, “I can set the bombs to go off, but I can’t move them closer.”
Jayden hacked apart another skeleton and impaled a second one that Dana finished off. He let his black sword fade out and formed one of his giant magic hands. The hand grabbed the back of the wagon and pushed it toward the barn. Suzy pulled a test tube out of her coat, shook it hard and threw it into the back of her wagon. She jumped off as the wagon rolled by Jayden and Dana.
The wagon rolled fast and struck the stream of undead coming from the barn, crushing a dozen of them before going through the barn’s door. Skeletons kept pouring out, and some climbed onto the wagon.
Dana grabbed Suzy by the arm. “When is it going to g—”
BOOM! The explosion leveled the barn, throwing huge pieces of burning timber through the air to crash into skeletons. Dense clouds of smoke and dust billowed into the air. The ground shook and began to sink, slowly at first but picking up speed quickly. What little remained of the barn vanished into the ground, and more land around it disappeared. Soldiers, mercenaries and slaves fled when the manor house crumbled into the earth.
Mercenaries and soldiers surrounded a hundred skeletons still standing and finished them off. Three skeletons tried to flee. They only got a few steps before Jayden caught up with them and swung his black lash, wrapping it around them and burning through them. With the last skeletons gone the pain lifted, and people across the battlefield collapsed in exhaustion.
Suzy stared at the gaping hole where the barn and manor house had been. “That was good.”
Jayden let his magic whip fade away. “Incredibly satisfying.”
* * * * *
Dana woke the following morning to see soldiers and mercenaries, who’d only the night before had tried to kill one another, were side by side picking through the remains of Duke Wiskver’s property. They looted anything worth taking, loading up with food, drink and warm clothing. One soldier kept apologizing, telling anyone who’d listen that he hadn’t known of the duke’s crimes. Dana looked around and found Jayden talking to the scarred mercenary captain.
Jayden asked, “What will you do now?”
“There are other companies of Skitherin mercenaries in this kingdom,” the captain said. “I need to tell them what we’ve learned, both about our womenfolk and that a duke was involved in necromancy. We’ll take the women and children with us and leave the kingdom. No amount of gold is worth this.”
“It’s a pleasure to hear that.”
The captain slapped Jayden on the back. “I’ve heard about you. You’re got quite a price on your head. You’re also quite a wizard. I don’t have a wizard working for me. You could come with us.”
“Tempting as that is, I have work to do here.”
The captain saw Dana as she walked up to them. He looked at Sven the spearman and shouted, “That the one you wanted?”
Sven blushed. “Uh, yes.”
“I saw her fight last night. Good eye, boy.”
The captain walked away, leaving Dana and Jayden alone. Dana looked at the gaping hole in the ground left by Suzy’s explosives. “Jayden, there was an army of skeletons down there. How hard would it have been to make so many?”
“Only the strongest necromancers would have the power.” He frowned and added, “Animated skeletons are typically made from the bones of only one animal or person. The ones we faced had been cobbled together from many sources, sometimes with extra limbs. If a necromancer that powerful is allowed to continue experimenting, there’s no telling what horrors he could produce.”
“They were stored on Wiskver’s land. He thought he could control them. He was in on it, Jayden, he had to be.”
“He was indeed. The duke fled during the battle, a wise move given that his own men would tear him apart if they got the chance. Wiskver’s dealing with a necromancer opens the possibility that the king and queen might be behind it. Would Wiskver take such a risk without their support? Did they order him to do this?”
Jayden looked off into the distance. “Father, what have you done?”
Dana heard horses whinny and armor plates clink. She turned to see Suzy and Yub driving an armored wagon and stop next to them.
“There wasn’t as much loot as I’d like, but Wiskver had agricultural supplies I can use,” she said. “Sulfur, charcoal, and a soldier told me I can find saltpeter in the next town. It’s enough to make the bomb I need. We’ve got time to reach Brandish and close off the pass. Let’s go.”
“I can’t,” Jayden told her.
“What do you mean you can’t?” Suzy demanded. She waved an arm at the liberated slaves. “You saw that! Girls were turned into property! It makes the garbage I put up with growing up look like a cakewalk. We can’t let this spread to other kingdoms!”
“Which is why you have to close the pass to Brandish as soon as possible. You have the tools to do the job without us. Dana and I have to find the necromancer responsible for this outrage before he causes further suffering.”
“You think you can stop the monster who did this without me?” Suzy asked.
“There’s no choice. If I come with you the necromancer will produce further atrocities. If you come with me Brandish is left open to attack. Neither of us can fail.” Jayden walked up to her and took her hand. “You have to do this.”
She stared at him. “This is why you’re like this, isn’t it? You saw this nightmare coming and focused your whole life to stopping it.”
“I suspected it, but last night proved I underestimated the threat. I’ve failed to end this horror. I need you, Ms. Lockheart. Help me stop this madness before it spreads. Hundreds of thousands of lives depend on you.”
Suzy stared hard at him and rode off. “We’ll meet again.”
“Feeling relieved?” Dana asked him as he watched Suzy leave.
“Yes, but not for the reason you think. Suzy understands me better than she did before, perhaps enough that what she’s doing in Brandish is no longer just a job. If so, the people of that kingdom have a worthy ally for the battles to come. Dana, we need to go. Finding the necromancer will be no easy feat.”
They left Duke Wiskver’s ruined estate and headed into the snowy wilderness. Dana looked back briefly at the soldiers who’d once served the duke. What would they do now? If nothing else they could spread the word of the duke’s crimes. That alone could do immeasurable good.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about a name for my sword,” she began.
Jayden smiled. “Again?”
She drew the blade and studied it. “You said the name should mention important battles or famous deed. I know it sounds silly, but destroying Wall Wolf didn’t seem like it was important enough. The golem wasn’t a monster, just a mindless tool. It could have been used for good if better people were controlling it.”
“That is a very good point.”
“Duke Wiskver is different. He decided to be a slaver. He decided to use the undead.” She thought back to the night before and shuddered. “How could anyone think he could control those things? Stopping him, freeing those children, I’m proud of that. My parents would be proud. I used the sword to do it. So I’m calling it Chain Cutter.”
No sooner has she said the words then the sword shook so hard she had to hold it with both hands. Sparks poured off it like a shower, and it made a crackling sound like distant thunder. The noise, sparks and shaking stopped almost as fast as it started, leaving Dana worried and confused. She looked at the blade. The words Chain Cutter were written across one side of the sword in flowing letters that faintly glowed like stars at night.
Hesitantly, she asked Jayden, “Is that normal?”
Jayden didn’t look bothered. “Normal is a relative term with magic.”
* * * * *
Dana stared at the mercenaries. “Duke Wiskver hired that many men?”
Jayden shook his head. “More likely these mercenaries were hired by the king and queen. Come spring they will earn their keep in the royal couple’s wars. I imagine Duke Wiskver has the unenviable duty of feeding them during the winter. He’s making the best of a bad situation by using them as guards for whatever those wagons contain.”
Suzy tapped her fingers on the side of her wagon. “Sneaking in there is going to be hard. Getting out with whatever’s in those wagons is impossible. We’re going to have to burn it all, Jayden. I’ve got firebombs to do the job.”
“If the contents of those wagons are flammable, we could repeat the disaster you caused in Armorston,” he said. “We’ll see what’s there and act accordingly.”
“By burning it,” Suzy said sweetly.
“Why does he have two barns?” Dana asked before Jayden could shout at Suzy.
Jayden paused. “I was here before the civil war, and there was only one barn then. Where the second barn stands used to be a far smaller building leading to a large natural cavern. The duke who once lived here used the cave to store beer barrels while the beer fermented. Wiskver didn’t follow his example.”
“That’s stupid,” Dana said. “Brewers make good money. Why wouldn’t he have men do the work?”
“Because he’s a snob,” Jayden said. “Beer is poor men’s drink, and he has aspirations to greatness.”
“We can sneak inside,” Suzy said. “I don’t see guards on patrol, and there aren’t dogs sniffing out intruders. Wiskver is either real confident or real stupid.”
“He expects little trouble with so many men at his command.” Jayden cautioned, “Ground around the manor lacks cover. We’d be seen coming at a distance, and by now both of us have bounties on our heads and wanted posters with our portraits.”
“But not mine,” Dana said.
Jayden grabbed her by the arm. “No.”
Dana pulled free. “There has to be farmers and ranchers living nearby. They’ll think I’m one of them looking for work. I can get in, find out what’s going on and get back.”
“Even if they don’t know who you are, sending a young woman among soldiers and mercenaries is too dangerous,” he said. “You have no ideas the risk you’re taking or the cost you’ll pay if even one man among that thousand seeks to do you harm.”
“What choice is there?” she demanded. “You said those mercenaries are going to be here until spring. We can’t wait that long. And what if they’re carrying weapons in those wagons, maybe more bombs like the one Suzy set off? Whatever is in there is so valuable they’re spending lots of money on it, and you don’t do that without a good reason.”
Suzy smiled at Dana. “McShootersun would love you.”
Jayden stared hard at Dana before marching back to Suzy’s wagon. “You need a disguise that will make them want to let you in, and Lockheart generously provided it.”
“I did what?” Suzy asked.
“Soldiers and mercenaries eat like horses,” Jayden said. He gathered up food that Suzy had cooked and wrapped it in an old blanket. “A peasant girl with food to sell, especially good food, is going to be a welcome sight they will want to return as often as possible. You’ll have to leave your sword here or risk arousing their suspicion.”
Jayden handed her the bundle, but didn’t let go when she tried to pull it from his grasp. His eyes locked onto hers with a fierceness she knew all too well. “If we see or hear signs of danger, if we even suspect a threat to your wellbeing, Lockheart and I will come down on them like the wrath of God.”
With Jayden that was no idle threat. Dana was less certain of what Suzy was capable of, but Jayden made it sound like the woman was a serious threat, possibly his equal.
Dana met his gaze. “You trusted me before. Trust me now.”
She left them and hurried toward the manor and its army of soldiers and mercenaries. It surprised her how far she got before the first man noticed her. Two spearmen wearing chain armor and dressed in blue and black stepped toward her and gave her curious looks when she stopped in front of them and curtsied.
“Good sirs, my name is Candice Latchkey. My family needs money to cover next year’s taxes. Forgive me if I ask too much, but I brought home cooked meals I thought you might like to buy. I know you’ll love it, and I don’t charge much.”
One spearman looked through the bundle of food while the second kept an eye on her. The first one pinched off a piece of Suzy’s bread and tasted it. He nodded and looked to the other spearman. “It’s good. We’ll have to clear this with the captain first. Sven, take her to the command tent.”
A spearman barely older than Dana led her to a large brightly lit tent. Inside stood three older men wearing plate armor and arguing over plates of cold chicken. They paused when the young spearman entered and saluted. Dana opened her mouth, but one of the men spoke first.
“Peasant,” he said. The man had ugly scars along the left side of his jaw, like he’d been badly burned in the past. His hair was black going to gray and cut very short. He walked up to her and saw the bundle she was carrying. “Trying to curry favor or do business?”
Dana curtsied again. “Business. I’m selling home cooked—”
The man jammed a finger into one of Suzy’s pies and stuck it in his mouth. “Sweet bark. I haven’t tasted that in a long time. Where does a peasant girl get sweet bark?”
Thinking fast, she said, “A man came to my village with spices for sale. We didn’t know why he sold it so cheaply.”
The scarred man laughed. “He’s a clever thief to sell to peasants. You’d eat the evidence fast enough. Fine, sell your food and be on your way, but if one of my men eats it and falls sick, you’ll pay.”
Dana did her best to look offended. “Sir! I’ve never disappointed a customer, much less harmed one.”
“Off with you,” the scarred man said.
Dana left the tent and went among the armed men around the manor. She gradually made her way closer to the armored wagons, careful to take a roundabout path so it didn’t look like that was her objective. As she walked she offered food to nearby men. Most refused her, but men came in ones and twos to buy what she had. This earned a fair number of copper coins, far less than the spices in the food were worth, and kept up the appearance that she was a peddler.
Bit by bit she got closer to the armored wagons. She stopped when she was twenty feet away and tried to look inside the nearest one. The back of the wagon had been lowered, and even in the poor light of the camp she could see it was empty. The contents had been unloaded.
So many wagons could carry tons of cargo. That meant it had to be transferred to a building with lots of space. Dana studied the two barns and decided to check the one built over the cavern. If Duke Wiskver was feeling particularly paranoid he might hide the goods underground.
Dana earned another handful of coins as she worked he way closer to the barn. Neither barn had soldiers or mercenaries camped close to it, which meant approaching them might make her stand out. Dana risked it and went closer. She got within fifty feet and stopped, but not willingly.
Her feet didn’t want to move. She pressed on, lifting a foot and trying to fall forward, but even this got her only a step closer. The closer she got the worse this strange compulsion was until she couldn’t move her arms, legs, even her fingers closer to the building. Panicking, she took a step backwards, and to her relief she moved away at full speed.
What to do? There was still another barn to check. Would the same mysterious force defend that one? She tried to look casual as she approached the barn. This time there was no trouble, and she reached a side door without incident. The door was barred from the outside. Dana had no trouble lifting the bar and setting it quietly on the ground.
She opened the door to find the enormous barn was filled front to back with people. Most of them were girls her age or younger, while about a third were boys no older than twelve. They wore simple cotton clothes and huddled around small brick lined fire pits. The girls and boys were chained together in long lines like prisoners.
Worse than this, if such a thing was possible, were their anguished faces. They looked at Dana in fear and self-loathing. Many turned away at the sight of her. Those who did meet gaze had writing tattooed onto their right cheeks just below the eye. Dana took a step forward and read the words on the nearest girl. It said, “Property of,” with a line below those repulsive words. They were slaves.
“Who are you?” Dana whispered.
“The man said we don’t have names anymore,” a girl responded.
“What man?”
Another girl told the first one, “Don’t talk. You’ll get us in trouble.”
“It can’t get worse than this,” the first one said. “The tall man, Wiskver, bought us in Skitherin. He brought us to a city, and today he brought us here. He’s going to sell us in springtime.”
These girls and boys were the cargo of the armored wagons. Jayden had said Duke Wiskver was still earning his riches through trade. They’d met slaves in Baron Scalamonger’s estate, and later a boy owned by an army officer Imuran Tellet. Scalamonger had said many noblemen used slave labor, but even in Dana’s worst nightmares she hadn’t believed the trade in human lives was this extensive. Duke Wiskver must be supplying the demand, and no doubt earning a handsome profit.
Dana took the girl’s hands in hers. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
“How? We can’t go home. Our own families sold us. We have no money, no land, no one to turn to.” The girl looked down. “Run. Leave before they sell you, too.”
There wasn’t much of Suzy’s cooking left. Dana handed it to the girl and said, “It won’t go far, but pass it around. Please believe me, help is coming.”
Dana left the barn and closed the door behind her. She felt an empty feeling in her heart. She had to help these poor people, but what could she do when the duke had a thousand men? Dana hurried away from the barn and headed for the edge of the camp.
“Hey, girl, you have anything left?” Dana spun around and saw the young spearman from before approach her.
“Uh, Sven, isn’t it? Sorry, no, all out. I’ll bring more tomorrow.”
Sven laughed and caught up with her. “You sold out that fast? I thought you’d be here all night. This duke is an idiot, but he feeds us enough that we don’t have to poach game or buy food. You’re good.”
Dana kept walking toward the edge of the camp. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have a man yet, do you?”
That made her stop in mid step. “I have a boyfriend.”
“But does he have money? You’re a good cook, and you’re good at peddling. Most women are too shy for that. You should see girls run when we come into town! Sheep are braver. A man would do well to have you for a wife.”
“I’ll be sure to tell my boyfriend.”
Sven cheerfully said, “My captain shares loot and pay from our employer, not like some captains. I have enough to settle down and buy a farm. I just need a wife. Your man doesn’t have money or he wouldn’t let you come here alone. I’m a better choice than he is.”
“Wait, you’d asked a stranger to marry you?”
“Why not? Back in Skitherin Kingdom, grandparents arrange marriages. Here we have to find wives by ourselves. A woman who can cook and is pretty, that’s a good catch. Love can come later.”
Dana knew parents who meddled in their children’s love lives, forbidding certain boys and encouraging others. It wasn’t strange for parents to pick a wife or husband for their children. “Take your money home and let your family pick a girl for you.”
Sven waved his hand like he was shooing away a fly. “Why go back? You know what would happen if I tried? The nobles, the magistrates, the Ministry of Obedience, they’d take every coin from me. I risked my life to earn that money. I can spend it, I can give it away, but no one takes it from me.”
Sven stopped her and pulled a coin pouch from his belt. He opened it and held it up to show her. “See, gold. That’s enough to buy good land, livestock, tools—”
“And buy a wife, too,” Dana interrupted.
“No, it’s not like that!”
Skitherin Kingdom must be a miserable place if men like Sven would risk their lives by becoming mercenaries. It must be doubly miserable if families sell their daughters and even sons. Sven hated his homeland, natural enough given what he’d said. The other mercenaries probably felt the same. But how did they feel about the common people from back home?
Dana put her hands on her hips. “It is so! You think you can buy me like those poor Skitherin girls in the barn.”
Sven’s expression went from panic to confusion. “What girls?”
“The ones in the barn. Duke Wiskver bought them from your homeland, and he’s selling them here. I won’t be bought for pocket change.”
Confusion gave way to anger, and then grim determination as Sven grabbed Dana’s hand. “Come with me.”
Dana barely had to feign indignation as Sven dragged her to the command tent. “Hey, wait a minute!”
Soldiers and mercenaries watched with concern as Sven pulled her along. They reached the command tent to find little had changed, except the cold chicken dinners were now only bones picked clean. The scarred man leading the mercenaries raised an eyebrow when he saw Dana again.
“What did she do?” he demanded.
Sven pushed Dana toward the ugly man. “Tell the captain what you told me.”
Dana pointed at Sven. “He wants to settle down and asked me to marry him.”
The captain burst out laughing. Sven blushed and shouted, “Not that part!”
“He showed me what you paid him and said he could support me. I said I wouldn’t be bought like those Skitherin girls in the barn.”
The captain stopped laughing. “Girls? What’s this about? How would you know what’s in those barns?”
Oops. Dana prayed she was a convincing liar. “I heard voices in the barn and thought some of your men were staying there. I opened a side door and saw girls and young boys chained up. They said they were from Skitherin Kingdom, and that the duke had bought them.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed. “The wagons that came in this morning, they went straight into the barn before unloading so we wouldn’t see.”
“Is this how they’re able to pay us?” Sven demanded. “Our daughters and sisters are being sold like oxen, and to do what? Mop floors if they’re lucky! Captain, are we going to take money from a man who hires us to fight his battles while treating our women like animals?”
Sven’s yelling brought mercenaries running to the command tent until there was a crowd gathered around the entrance. The captain glared at Sven and Dana. He looked angry and conflicted. Finally he said, “I don’t take a peasant’s word for anything. She says there are slaves in that barn, I look before I believe her.”
The captain marched out of the tent with his men following. Sven took the lead with Dana still in his grip. They marched up to the second, older barn, and the captain tried to open the large front door. He glowered at Dana when it didn’t budge.
“I used the side door,” she said, and pointed to it.
Grumbling under his breath, the captain marched to the side door, pulled off the bar and threw it aside. He opened the door and peered inside. Seconds later he came back out. “Sven, let the girl go.”
“Then it’s true.” Sven released Dana and ran to the door. He came back swearing and stomping his feet. More mercenaries came over and looked inside. Some looked outraged, while others were merely curious.
“Karl, open the door,” the captain ordered. A man big as an ogre lumbered up to the barn’s main door, lifted a sledgehammer and struck the lock. Wham! Wham! A third blow took the lock off, and the enormous man pulled the door open to reveal hundreds of cowering girls and boys.
The commotion brought soldiers, archers and knights running over. Steps behind them came a man wearing a sable coat. He was older with silver hair, and would have looked handsome except for the look of utter contempt on his face.
“What is the meaning of this?” the older man demanded.
“I believe that is my question, Duke Wiskver,” the mercenary captain replied. He gestured to the slaves. “Women and children of Skitherin in chains, goods to be sold no different than sheep or goats, and you thought we wouldn’t care?”
“My property is none of your business,” Wiskver said haughtily. “You have been paid well to fight for the king and queen. Nothing else that goes on in this kingdom is your concern.”
“King and queen,” the captain repeated. “Strange how often I hear that. Most kings speak for themselves, yet your king’s proclamations always come with his wife’s name attached to them, like she is his equal.”
“You dog!” Wiskver spat on the ground. “You’re hired help, nothing more, yet you dare to speak so contemptibly of my king!”
Dana watched the mercenaries and soldiers. The two sides were the same size, but the mercenaries were better armed and armored, and they looked more confident. Jayden had said mercenary captains didn’t owe their positions to royal commands or grants. The captain had earned his position through courage, quick wits and constant victories. His men followed because he paid them, and they could leave if they were dissatisfied. Many of them looked furious. If he backed down he risked them deserting or replacing him.
A fight could break out any second. Dana raced away, slipping twice on snow trampled down to mush by foot traffic. She heard shouting and insults behind her as she reached the tents, and barely got past them when she ran into Jayden, Suzy and Yub. She slid across the wet ground and landed at Jayden’s feet.
Jayden looked worried as he helped her up. “Are you hurt?”
“No, but it’s about to get really messy.” Dana looked back at the growing crowd of soldiers and mercenaries. She wasn’t sure which side would win if they fought. Jayden and Suzy could tip the fight in the mercenaries’ favor, but she hesitated to explain what she’d seen. Jayden had gone berserk when he’d seen the slaves at Scalamonger’s estate, and he might do so again. “Promise me you’re not going to go feral.”
Suzy looked confused. “What?”
“She’s worried I’ll lose my temper,” Jayden explained. “Dana, I won’t get angry. Tell me what you saw.”
“The new barn is protected by some kind of magic that kept me back, and I learned what was in the armored wagons. They were carrying people, Jayden, hundreds of girls and boys from Skitherin Kingdom. They’re chained up in the other barn. Wiskver is going to sell them this spring. I told the mercenaries, and they’re confronting the duke.” Dana saw Jayden’s eye’s narrow and his face turn red. “No, you promised!”
Suzy went through her coat and brought out a small bomb. “He promised, I didn’t. Back home I saw too many people treated like dirt, but they were still free people. This stops if I have to blow up every building here to do it.”
“Ms. Lockheart, I believe we’ve finally found a matter where we’re of the same opinion,” Jayden declared.
Dana grabbed them both by the arm. “The mercenaries are minutes away from rebelling. If you attack they’ll join forces with the soldiers to defend themselves. Just sit still and let them fight each other.”
Jayden looked dubious as he studied the growing conflict. “They’re too busy to pay attention to us. We can get closer and take action if needed. Lockheart, I assume your wagon is well supplied with explosives?”
“Like you have to ask.”
“Bring it with us and hide it behind a tent.”
They snuck into the tent camp and found the mercenaries and soldiers in a war of words. Men shouted back and forth, with Wiskver and the scarred mercenary captain the loudest and angriest.
“You came highly recommended as skilled warriors, yet I find disobedient curs before me!” Wiskver bellowed.
“You want blind obedience, buy a golem,” the scarred captain retorted. “You want battles won, hire men who think and treat them well. Is that what you thought we were, slaves for rent?”
A lone mercenary approached the barn’s entrance. Wiskver shouted, “Get away from there!”
The mercenary ignored him. “Tanya?”
One of the slave girls sat up straight, her eyes snapping open and her jaw dropping in shock. Just as fast she crouched down and covered her face with her hands. The mercenary ran to her and wrapped his arms around her. “Tanya!”
The scarred captain went to the man and put a hand on his shoulder. The mercenary had doubtlessly fought many battles, seen horrors beyond description, yet tears ran down his face like rivers. “S-sir, this is Tanya, from my village. She grew up three doors down from me. She’s a good girl. I, sir, I can’t leave her like this.”
The scarred captain looked at his followers, now universally angry. His eyes fell on Wiskver. “They’re coming with us. Take whatever they cost you out of our pay.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Wiskver thundered. He pulled a jeweled rod from inside his coat and pointed it at them. “Men, attack!”
Dana had to give the soldiers credit for bravery if not brains as they charged headlong into the mercenaries. The mercenaries battered them aside with contemptible ease, fighting with a unity and ferocity Dana had rarely seen. Soldiers were surrounded and knocked to the ground, their weapons broken, and a few were even robbed.
Suzy ran headlong into the fight with Yub at her side. “I want in on this!”
Jayden handed Dana her sword back and followed Suzy. Suzy threw bombs and sent knights screaming from their horses. Jayden formed his giant magic hand and bowled over archers taking aim at the mercenaries. Yub tripped soldiers and took their wallets.
Dana ignored the fight and ran into the barn. Slaves cowered when she approached, and they screamed when she drew her magic sword. She swung down as hard as she could. A shower of sparks shot up as it hacked through a chain holding twenty slaves together. Screams turned into shouts of joy, and slaves held up their chains for her to cut.
Wiskver ran into the barn and saw her chop through another chain. “No, stop!”
Dana pointed her sword at his heart. “I’m coming for you next!”
Wiskver ran screaming from the barn. Dana hacked chains apart one after another until everyone was free. She led them out to find the soldiers falling back. Wiskver wasn’t with them. Instead he headed for the second barn. He held up his jeweled rod and went right through the barrier that had kept Dana back.
“Oh no.” Dana saw Jayden pursuing fleeing soldiers and waved to him. “Jayden, stop Wiskver!”
The warning came too late. Wiskver pressed his rod against the barn’s door, and it swung open as if strong men were pushing it. He stepped aside and pointed his rod at the mercenaries.
“Idiots!” Wiskver screamed into the barn. “Worthless retches the lot of you! I paid good money for you failures! Not one of you would do a day’s work! If work is too good for you, then fight in my name! Kill! Kill!”
Seconds passed with no response, making Dana think Wiskver was out of his mind, before a lone voice called back, “You only had to say it once.”
The barn’s interior lit up with a sea of red lights. There was a strange clacking sound, like sticks hitting sticks, followed by a hateful, braying laughter, and the stuff of nightmares poured out. Animated skeletons ran screaming from the barn like a river in flood, each one with red light pouring from empty eye sockets, and unarmed except for their sharp teeth and nails. Horrible as even one of these abominations was, they emerged by the hundreds, laughing, screaming and throwing their heads back as they howled.
Dana would have screamed in horror or fear, but the cry died in her throat as a wave of pain washed over her. She grabbed her head and pinched her eyes shut as she doubled over. The slaves suffered the same agony and cried out. Seconds later pain turned to rage, an unquenchable hatred that made her entire body shake.
The skeletal horde crashed into the mercenaries with overwhelming numbers. The scarred captain rallied his men into a rough square that slowly fell back. Skeletons surrounded the formation and pounded on it from all sides. Mercenaries battered skeletons to pieces, only for more to take their place.
Skeletons also went after the soldiers. Wiskver shouted at them to stop and waved his rod at them to no avail. Soldiers fought with fierceness equaling the mercenaries, falling back only far enough to have walls at their backs. Skeletons attacked the buildings as well and tried to force their way through doors and windows. Wiskver pulled at his hair, helpless to stop the battle.
Then they came to the barn.
“Ooh, look at all the pretty pretties to kill,” a horrifying skeleton said as it stepped in front of the barn door. This one was missing a foot and had a horse’s hoof in its place, and there was an extra arm on its left side. “I must have been a good boy!”
Dana screamed in pain and revulsion as she charged the monster. It tried to grab her with its three arms. She slid under its clumsy swings and lashed out with her sword, hacking off two of its arms. The skeleton looked puzzled and held up the stumps in front of its glowing eyes. She swung again and lopped off both legs at the knees. The skeleton fell to the ground, and she plunged her sword through its ribs and spine, destroying it.
“Hey, save some for me,” a skeleton with a wolf’s skull said as it swaggered into the barn. It stared at the shattered bones and its jaw dropped. “Huh?”
Dana charged the skeleton and swung across its chest, slicing through rib bones before cutting off the front of its skull. The skeleton fell backwards into a third skeleton, knocking it over. She leapt onto the fallen skeleton and cut it to pieces.
Dana heard a faint noise of a girl screaming. In her fury it took seconds to realize the screams were hers. Pain and rage made it hard to think. She saw skeletons running to join the attack on the mercenaries. She growled under her breath and ran after them, catching up with one and stabbing it in the back until it fell.
Mercenaries and soldiers were pushed together by the rush of skeletons until they stood side by side. The men fought with the same fury Dana did, snarling and screaming as they battered and hacked their enemies to pieces. Skeletons mobbed men and dragged them down, but men ran to the rescue and pulled their victims to safety. It would have been impressive, except the stream of skeletons from the barn never slackened.
Jayden fought his way to the embattled men, his black sword slashing apart skeletons like they were wheat before a scythe. He seemed to be the only person not totally consumed by rage. Suzy Lockheart was steps behind him and hurling explosives at anything within range. Yub followed suit with more explosives. When he ran out he threw himself at the nearest skeleton and bit it, chewing the skeleton’s leg and eating it.
Dana destroyed ten skeletons getting to Jayden. She was hit twice and knocked back, but she went on heedless of the blows until she reached him. Jayden embraced her with his left arm when she came close.
“Jayden, make it stop!” Dana clutched her head and gritted her teeth. “I want…I need to kill them! I hate them all!”
“Your body is reacting to the presence of undead,” he said. “The pain will stop when they’re gone. My mind cloud spell protects me, but it takes too long to cast it on you.”
Skeletons tried to swarm the two of them. Suzy spotted the attack and hurled a bomb into the mob, blasting it apart. She tried to charge the next group of skeletons until Jayden pulled her to a stop.
“Why don’t they stop coming?” Dana asked. “The barn’s not that big.”
“Wiskver must have put them into the cavern below as well as in the barn,” Jayden said. “It’s large enough to house thousands of skeletons. We’ll be overrun if we stay and chased down if we flee.”
More skeletons attacked. These ones were pieced together nightmares with bones from men and animals fused together. Jayden destroyed the first two with his black sword, while Dana charged a third one and cut it apart. Suzy hurled firebombs into the skeletons and burned them to ashes.
“More!” Suzy yelled. “Keep them coming! I’ve got bombs for weeks!”
“Cave,” Dana gasped. “If most of them are underground, can we bring the cave down on them? Like we did in Armorton when we blew up the sewers?”
“We’d need an enormous amount of explosives,” Jayden told her.
“Suzy, we need all the bombs you have!” Dana yelled.
Suzy had trouble focusing enough to answer. “Bombs. More bombs in my wagon.”
“Enough to blow up the barn?” Dana asked.
“Yes.” Suzy ran to her wagon just as her horses broke free of their yokes. Dana assumed the animals would run off. Instead they raced to the nearest skeletons and stomped them to pieces. Suzy climbed onto her wagon and said, “I can set the bombs to go off, but I can’t move them closer.”
Jayden hacked apart another skeleton and impaled a second one that Dana finished off. He let his black sword fade out and formed one of his giant magic hands. The hand grabbed the back of the wagon and pushed it toward the barn. Suzy pulled a test tube out of her coat, shook it hard and threw it into the back of her wagon. She jumped off as the wagon rolled by Jayden and Dana.
The wagon rolled fast and struck the stream of undead coming from the barn, crushing a dozen of them before going through the barn’s door. Skeletons kept pouring out, and some climbed onto the wagon.
Dana grabbed Suzy by the arm. “When is it going to g—”
BOOM! The explosion leveled the barn, throwing huge pieces of burning timber through the air to crash into skeletons. Dense clouds of smoke and dust billowed into the air. The ground shook and began to sink, slowly at first but picking up speed quickly. What little remained of the barn vanished into the ground, and more land around it disappeared. Soldiers, mercenaries and slaves fled when the manor house crumbled into the earth.
Mercenaries and soldiers surrounded a hundred skeletons still standing and finished them off. Three skeletons tried to flee. They only got a few steps before Jayden caught up with them and swung his black lash, wrapping it around them and burning through them. With the last skeletons gone the pain lifted, and people across the battlefield collapsed in exhaustion.
Suzy stared at the gaping hole where the barn and manor house had been. “That was good.”
Jayden let his magic whip fade away. “Incredibly satisfying.”
* * * * *
Dana woke the following morning to see soldiers and mercenaries, who’d only the night before had tried to kill one another, were side by side picking through the remains of Duke Wiskver’s property. They looted anything worth taking, loading up with food, drink and warm clothing. One soldier kept apologizing, telling anyone who’d listen that he hadn’t known of the duke’s crimes. Dana looked around and found Jayden talking to the scarred mercenary captain.
Jayden asked, “What will you do now?”
“There are other companies of Skitherin mercenaries in this kingdom,” the captain said. “I need to tell them what we’ve learned, both about our womenfolk and that a duke was involved in necromancy. We’ll take the women and children with us and leave the kingdom. No amount of gold is worth this.”
“It’s a pleasure to hear that.”
The captain slapped Jayden on the back. “I’ve heard about you. You’re got quite a price on your head. You’re also quite a wizard. I don’t have a wizard working for me. You could come with us.”
“Tempting as that is, I have work to do here.”
The captain saw Dana as she walked up to them. He looked at Sven the spearman and shouted, “That the one you wanted?”
Sven blushed. “Uh, yes.”
“I saw her fight last night. Good eye, boy.”
The captain walked away, leaving Dana and Jayden alone. Dana looked at the gaping hole in the ground left by Suzy’s explosives. “Jayden, there was an army of skeletons down there. How hard would it have been to make so many?”
“Only the strongest necromancers would have the power.” He frowned and added, “Animated skeletons are typically made from the bones of only one animal or person. The ones we faced had been cobbled together from many sources, sometimes with extra limbs. If a necromancer that powerful is allowed to continue experimenting, there’s no telling what horrors he could produce.”
“They were stored on Wiskver’s land. He thought he could control them. He was in on it, Jayden, he had to be.”
“He was indeed. The duke fled during the battle, a wise move given that his own men would tear him apart if they got the chance. Wiskver’s dealing with a necromancer opens the possibility that the king and queen might be behind it. Would Wiskver take such a risk without their support? Did they order him to do this?”
Jayden looked off into the distance. “Father, what have you done?”
Dana heard horses whinny and armor plates clink. She turned to see Suzy and Yub driving an armored wagon and stop next to them.
“There wasn’t as much loot as I’d like, but Wiskver had agricultural supplies I can use,” she said. “Sulfur, charcoal, and a soldier told me I can find saltpeter in the next town. It’s enough to make the bomb I need. We’ve got time to reach Brandish and close off the pass. Let’s go.”
“I can’t,” Jayden told her.
“What do you mean you can’t?” Suzy demanded. She waved an arm at the liberated slaves. “You saw that! Girls were turned into property! It makes the garbage I put up with growing up look like a cakewalk. We can’t let this spread to other kingdoms!”
“Which is why you have to close the pass to Brandish as soon as possible. You have the tools to do the job without us. Dana and I have to find the necromancer responsible for this outrage before he causes further suffering.”
“You think you can stop the monster who did this without me?” Suzy asked.
“There’s no choice. If I come with you the necromancer will produce further atrocities. If you come with me Brandish is left open to attack. Neither of us can fail.” Jayden walked up to her and took her hand. “You have to do this.”
She stared at him. “This is why you’re like this, isn’t it? You saw this nightmare coming and focused your whole life to stopping it.”
“I suspected it, but last night proved I underestimated the threat. I’ve failed to end this horror. I need you, Ms. Lockheart. Help me stop this madness before it spreads. Hundreds of thousands of lives depend on you.”
Suzy stared hard at him and rode off. “We’ll meet again.”
“Feeling relieved?” Dana asked him as he watched Suzy leave.
“Yes, but not for the reason you think. Suzy understands me better than she did before, perhaps enough that what she’s doing in Brandish is no longer just a job. If so, the people of that kingdom have a worthy ally for the battles to come. Dana, we need to go. Finding the necromancer will be no easy feat.”
They left Duke Wiskver’s ruined estate and headed into the snowy wilderness. Dana looked back briefly at the soldiers who’d once served the duke. What would they do now? If nothing else they could spread the word of the duke’s crimes. That alone could do immeasurable good.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about a name for my sword,” she began.
Jayden smiled. “Again?”
She drew the blade and studied it. “You said the name should mention important battles or famous deed. I know it sounds silly, but destroying Wall Wolf didn’t seem like it was important enough. The golem wasn’t a monster, just a mindless tool. It could have been used for good if better people were controlling it.”
“That is a very good point.”
“Duke Wiskver is different. He decided to be a slaver. He decided to use the undead.” She thought back to the night before and shuddered. “How could anyone think he could control those things? Stopping him, freeing those children, I’m proud of that. My parents would be proud. I used the sword to do it. So I’m calling it Chain Cutter.”
No sooner has she said the words then the sword shook so hard she had to hold it with both hands. Sparks poured off it like a shower, and it made a crackling sound like distant thunder. The noise, sparks and shaking stopped almost as fast as it started, leaving Dana worried and confused. She looked at the blade. The words Chain Cutter were written across one side of the sword in flowing letters that faintly glowed like stars at night.
Hesitantly, she asked Jayden, “Is that normal?”
Jayden didn’t look bothered. “Normal is a relative term with magic.”
Rented Swords part 1
This is the first part of Renter Swords.
* * * * *
Dana woke to the smell of frying bacon, biscuits, eggs and a blend of spices she couldn’t identify. That last one wasn’t surprising since she’d grown up in an isolated town at the edge of the kingdom. Merchants came rarely and didn’t bring exotic spices, so her mother cooked only with what could be grown locally.
“What did you put in there?” Dana asked as she got out from under a pile of blankets.
“Garlic, sweet bark and dragon pepper,” Suzy Lockheart told her. “A little dragon pepper goes a long way, and that’s a good thing. The last shop I saw offering it wanted three silver pieces a pound. Do any of Jayden’s underworld connections offer it cheaper?”
Dana rubbed her eyes and stared at the feast being prepared. Suzy had four pots sitting over the fire or cooling next to it. “The only smuggler friend of his I met left the kingdom months ago. Suzy, I don’t think we can eat that much.”
“Don’t be silly, I’m cooking for the entire day. We don’t have much alchemic fire for food preparation. That’s stuff is expensive, you know, so I do all the cooking before it goes out. These pots are breakfast, that one over there is trail cake for lunch, and that one is…something or other, I forget, but we’re having it cold for supper.”
Dana, Jayden, Suzy and Yub the goblin were staying in an abandoned barn miles from Armorston. They’d made the ruined building their base after fleeing the city two weeks ago. Knights had patrolled the roads vigorously for days after the four of them destroyed much of the city’s sewer network. Staying in place had avoided these patrols.
The barn had seen better decades, with holes in the roof and one wall missing, but it was large enough to fit the four of them plus Suzy’s wagon and horses. It was also far from the nearest house, so there was little risk of them being discovered. Still, Suzy only cooked meals over alchemic fire that produced no smoke.
Dana looked around their meager dwelling and only saw Suzy and Yub. “Where’s Jayden?”
Suzy handed her a plate of food. “He was muttering about wanting to get away from me, made some vague threats and went outside to practice his magic. Brooding isn’t attractive in men.”
Dana ate quickly, partly because she didn’t want the food to get cold and partly because it was so good. “This is incredible. Where did you learn to cook?”
“Cooking is no different than alchemy. Mix the right ingredients, stir as needed and don’t let it burn. Of course soufflés don’t explode and take out nearby buildings when you get them wrong. The analogy isn’t perfect.”
Once she finished eating, Dana handed back her plate and went to look in on Jayden. The last two weeks had been hard on him. He was still angry he hadn’t learned what had been inside the armored wagons in Armorston. Whatever it was, it had taken a lot of time, money and manpower to bring it to the city, and he wanted to know what warranted such a high cost. He was also chaffing at the extended time spent with Suzy Lockheart, a woman he barely tolerated.
Dana found Jayden standing in the snow behind the barn. There had been large snowdrifts around the barn, but Jayden’s experiments had long since blasted them apart. The handsome sorcerer lord was reading one of his spell tablets, muttering under his breath and occasionally swearing in frustration.
“You’ll catch cold,” she warned.
“Cold doesn’t bother me.” Jayden’s messy blond hair whipped in the steady breeze, as did the gray cloak he wore over his black and silver clothes. He tapped the spell tablet and announced, “Failure does, and this blasted spell has vexed me for months.”
“You learned your first spell in hours.”
Jayden held up the tablet for her to see. “There is one word here I never came across in my studies of the ancient sorcerer lords. I’ve been guessing at its meaning, and guesses aren’t enough when it comes to magic. You must have a precise understanding. Reginald Lootmore paid for my help with this spell tablet, a potentially valuable addition to my magical arsenal, and I can’t tap that power because of one word!”
Just then Suzy walked by and handed Jayden his breakfast. Once her hands were free and Jayden’s weren’t, she smiled and ran her fingers through his hair before walking away. “Morning, tiger.”
After she was out of earshot, Dana asked, “Why does she keep implying that you two are…you know?”
“I’d thought she’d finally abandoned her interest in me, and then we destroyed a large portion of a major city. Some women appreciate flowers, others poetry. Lockheart finds massive destruction romantic. As for why she insinuates we have been involved, I can only guess she hopes to inspire me to share her feelings.”
“That’s, um, okay, wow.”
Jayden smiled. “At a loss for words?”
Dana blushed. “Eat before your breakfast freezes.”
“Lockheart’s skill as a cook is one of her saving graces,” he said as he ate. “I marveled at her meals the first time we met, as did Lootmore and McShootersun. It was a tad disconcerting watching her butcher game animals we’d caught. I understand the necessity of the task, but her giggling was unnerving.”
“Lootmore told a funny joke!” Suzy shouted from inside the barn. “You know, the one about the bishop, the gnome and the landslide. Let’s see, how does it go?”
“The joke was long, boring, and inappropriate for young girls!” Jayden shouted back. He turned to Dana and said, “Cover your ears if she repeats it.”
Dana looked out over the cold, snowy wilderness around them. “I’m really glad no one lives here who could hear you two shouting. They might wonder what’s going on in an abandoned building that makes so much noise, and ask soldiers to investigate.”
Jayden gulped down his food. “Don’t expect me to be civil to the woman. She’s nearly killed me twice, and she might try again.”
Once his mouth was full, Dana asked, “How long are we going to stay here?”
He swallowed before answering, “I still want to know what was transported into Armorston at such a high expense. Until we learn what it is, get a lead on a better target or are forced to leave by superior forces, we wait and observe.”
Isolated and ruined as it was, the barn overlooked a road called King’s Way that led to Armorston. This wasn’t the only way into the city, but it was the largest and most traveled road. From here they could see every wagon, horse or pedestrian while still being in cover, except there had been no travelers on the road since they’d come.
“An imperfect observation post, I admit, but Gaston and men in his pay are watching the other roads leaving Armorston,” Jayden said. “We’ll know if the armored wagons leave and can pursue them. If more armored wagons try to enter the city, we can attack them before help arrives.”
Dana folded her arms across her chest. “How much do you trust him?”
“Gaston likes gold and we have it. He also likes breathing, a fact that can end quite suddenly if he betrays us. He can’t turn us over to the authorities for the reward money without revealing his involvement with us. Make no mistake, he’s not an ideal ally, but I’ve learned to take help from wherever I can get it.” Jayden raised an eyebrow and asked, “Can your friends provide aid?”
“If you mean the goblins, they said Armorston has archers on every street corner, and they’re shooting at anything that moves. I won’t have them die because of me.”
Jayden finished eating and set the plate on a nearby tree stump. “Admirably said. We have to be careful with the lives of those who favor us, especially when they are so few. Which brings up another topic.”
“What?”
“I need Lockheart to complete her contract with Brandish. Closing off a pass into that kingdom may be enough to save them from invasion. For that to happen she needs to make her bomb. I know a little of alchemy, and I believe she can use cheaper ingredients than phoenix blossoms and etherium to produce a cruder and less effective bomb. See if she can come up with alternative materials.”
Dana raised an eyebrow. “You could talk to her too, you know.”
“I need time alone with this spell tablet. Besides, you have a better rapport with her than I do. My conversations with Lockheart start with her flirting, and end with us screaming and trying not to be crushed by falling rocks.”
“Those rocks didn’t land anywhere near you!” Suzy yelled.
Dana picked up Jayden’s plate and went inside the ruined barn. She found Yub giggling and Suzy fuming as she went through her belongings. Suzy didn’t look up when Dana came close, merely saying, “I don’t know why I bother.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s trying to discourage you.”
Suzy pointed a finger at her. “It’s not working. I miss my adventures with Jayden, Lootmore and McShootersun. We worked well together, no matter what Mr. Picky out there says. The three of us is close to that team. We just need one more person who can put up with Jayden.”
“Doesn’t Yub count?” Dana asked. Yub heard the suggestion and spit out chicken feathers he was eating.
“He’s not looking for the spotlight or being in the line of fire,” Suzy explained. “We need someone who’s ready to go out there and do incredibly stupid things for poorly developed reasons, just like the rest of us.”
Dana was shocked that Jayden and Suzy had spent this much time together without someone getting killed. A long-term partnership between them was impossible. Rather than point that out, she asked, “How did you hear us out there?”
“You two talk too loud. Tell Jayden I need charcoal, saltpeter and sulfur, lots of it. And he’s right, it would be a big, crude bomb compared to what I wanted to build.”
“Would it do the job?”
“Oh please, I’ve been blowing things up before you were…that shadow looks an awful lot like a helmet.”
Dana peered over Suzy’s shoulder. Sure enough, shadows in the barn were twisting and bending until they looked like pieces of armor. Seconds later the armor launched into the air and shot out of the barn. They heard banging and clanking, followed by a yell from Jayden. Both women raced outside with Yub right behind them.
“So that’s what that spell does,” Dana said.
Suzy rolled her eyes. “Oh, look, he’s even harder to reach. I didn’t think it was possible.”
“Your concern for me is touching,” Jayden said sarcastically, his voice echoing inside the shadowy helmet. Jayden was flat on his back in the snow and encased in overlapping plates of ebony material that shifted and quivered until it solidified into an intimidating suit of plate armor. Long spikes jutted from the shoulder guards, wickedly barbed blades sprouted from the gauntlets, and in place of fingers the armor had long, thick claws like a bear. Jayden sat up and brushed snow off his chest.
“Magic armor,” Dana said. She wanted to help him up, but there wasn’t a part of the armor lacking blades, spikes or sharp edges. “This looks like a keeper.”
Jayden stood up and stretched his arms, first at the shoulders, then the elbows, and finally his fingers. “I’m less certain of that. I can move easily enough, and I think I can grip weapons, but there’s no way to cast spells with my fingers inside these claws. Impressive as this armor is, it’s worthless if I can’t use magic while wearing it.”
“Maybe the sorcerer lords used this spell to protect their bodyguards,” Dana suggested.
Suzy took a rock off the ground and tapped Jayden’s right arm. “Did you feel that?”
“No.”
She hit him far harder. “How about that?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t painful. Suzy, put that down this instant.”
Suzy dropped the far larger rock she was lifting. “It was an experiment.”
The armor boiled away, leaving Jayden disheveled and annoyed. “No spell is useful in all situations. This one is no exception. Still, it is a puzzle solved that had been vexing me, and a new tool to use.” He glanced at the distant road and added, “We have a visitor, possibly even a helpful one.”
Dana looked over and saw Gaston coming up the road toward them. The dirty little man wore layers of clothes to keep warm and hide his identity. Gaston was the only man who knew they were staying here, and he made regular visits to provide information and overpriced supplies. Jayden, Dana, Suzy and Yub waited patiently until Gaston stopped feet in front of them.
Gaston held out one hand. “Fifty gold pieces.”
“That’s a stiff charge,” Dana said.
“And one I have no intention of paying without good reason,” Jayden added.
“What I know is worth the gold,” Gaston said.
Jayden frowned. “You wouldn’t risk your own life to save ours, so you didn’t come to warn us of danger. You wouldn’t share riches, so you’re not offering an opportunity for treasure, unless it’s too dangerous for you to take advantage of. You’ve learned about the armored wagons in Armorston!”
Gaston told them, “The whole lot of them left this morning, guarded by swordsmen, archers and knights. The streets were cleared for them, every citizen kept indoors until they’d left the city. You want them, and I know which road they took. Find that out on your own and you’ll waste so much time you’ll never catch them. Fifty gold pieces buys the name of the road they’re on.”
The goblin Dana had met outside Gaston’s inn ran up to her. She’d been so focused on Gaston that she hadn’t noticed the far smaller goblin, especially since we was wearing a white cape that helped him blend in with the snow. “They’re on Inverness Road, going so slow a turtle could outrun them.”
“That was worth good money!” Gaston yelled at the goblin.
“I’m still peeved about that joke you made about my king,” the goblin retorted. “Nobody insults King Will the War Winner and walks away happy.”
“Thank you,” Dana said, and she kissed the goblin on the forehead.
“Not in front of witnesses!” the goblin sputtered. He saw Yub giggling and shouted, “Don’t you dare tell anyone about this!”
Jayden stepped in front of Gaston and counted out ten gold coins. “You were helpful, so some payment is justified.”
“Twenty gold coins worth of helpful?” Gaston asked hopefully.
“No. Dana, Suzy, collect our belongings and prepare to leave. If the wagons are on Inverness Road I have a good idea what their destination is. We’ll need a day or more to catch up, and then we can plan our attack.”
Dana approached the goblin to shake his hand, but the goblin backed away from her. “No more random acts of affection.”
“There’s nothing random about rewarding a person who’s helped you. Let me get you some cheese.”
It didn’t take long for them to load up Suzy’s wagon and head out. They saw Gaston trundling off into the distance, while the goblin was nowhere to be seen. That was no surprise given how good goblins were at hiding. Suzy handled the reins while Dana, Jayden and Yub rode on the back of the wagon.
Most people stayed indoors during winter, and not just to keep warm. Roads in the kingdom were few and poorly maintained, and even an average storm could cover them in snow that lasted until springtime. Severe storms, and there were plenty of those, could drop a foot of snow. Had there been ice on the roads all hope of catching the armored wagons would be lost.
Today they had to travel regardless of the weather, no easy task even for a wagon pulled by two strong horses. The animals made slow progress and left a trail an idiot could follow. Fortunately they were short of idiots at the moment, or any witnesses whatsoever, courtesy of the same cold weather that slowed them down. By nightfall they’d only gone twenty miles and made camp in a forest clearing.
Suzy heaved a dramatic sigh and fixed Jayden with a stern look. “Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it: why couldn’t you just magic us where we need to be?”
Jayden got off her wagon and stretched his legs. “Most sorcerer lord spells focus on inflicting damage rather than improving mobility. It’s actually interesting you should bring up that topic, because it’s one of the reasons why elves of old defeated the sorcerer lords. Elven magic has a number of spells allowing them to quickly travel great distances. Time and again they used those spells to outmaneuver the sorcerer lords, going deep behind enemy lines to do massive damage, then fleeing to safety.”
“Not the answer I was hoping for,” Suzy told him.
“Please, regale me with tales of how alchemy lets you travel a hundred miles a day.”
Suzy stuck her tongue out at him. “Spoilsport. I need to see to the horses. Yub, start a fire and get my pots out.”
“Dana and I will make sure we don’t have company,” Jayden said. He walked further down the trail from the wagon. Once they were a hundred feet away, he said, “We’re traveling slower than I’d like. I’m not sure we can catch up with the armored wagons at this rate, but walking through this snow would be no faster and more tiring.”
With Suzy and Yub far enough away that they couldn’t listen, Dana felt confident to broach a subject that had been on her mind for weeks. “Since we’ve got some privacy, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Your tone suggests this conversation is going to be painful.”
She smiled at him. “Doesn’t have to be. When we first met Suzy Lockheart, she said she knew you liked girls because she’d heard stories about you.”
“I was right, incredibly painful, and completely unwarranted. Dana, in our time together I never inquired about your love life, because it would be boorish to do so and it’s none of my business. It’s not unreasonable for you to show equal respect for my privacy.”
“We kind of crossed the privacy barrier when Witch Way showed me parts of your life,” she pointed out. “It was like I lived them.”
“Thankfully my time spent with women wasn’t one of those shared experiences.” He glanced at her and frowned. “A number of stories circulate concerning my life, most total fabrications and the rest only partially accurate. Whatever Suzy thinks she knows should be considered hearsay or products of her deranged mind.”
“So the topic is closed?”
“Closed, dead, buried on unhallowed ground and never to be touched again.”
“I understand,” she told him. “You feel strongly about this, and I won’t bring it up again. Suzy can tell me what she’s heard, and I’ll correct anything I know is wrong.”
Dana took two steps back when she heard Jayden say, “You didn’t used to be this manipulative.”
“I learned from the best.”
He waved for her to return, and she ran back. He frowned again before beginning. “I’d like to know what brought up this topic.”
“We’ve been spending weeks with Suzy drooling over you, and Maya fell for you, but you never return their interest. I want to know why.”
Jayden hesitated before answering. “I suppose it does no damage given how many of my secrets you already know. I want to make it clear, though, that this is for your ears and no one else’s.”
Dana jogged in front of him. “So, is there a girl you’ve got your heart set on?”
“No.” Jayden looked off into the distance. “My life since leaving The Isle of Tears has been largely one of isolation. I took refuge in wild places, tracking rumors of sorcerer lord ruins to loot for gold and magic. I met few people, many of them criminals seeking the same riches I did. There were only three women I traveled with. Two ended disastrously.”
Dana’s blood ran cold. “What happened?”
“I met the first girl when I was seventeen. She was young, pretty, kind, and desperate to escape the small town she grew up in. We crossed paths at a shop where I was selling weapons I’d stolen from bandits. She’d heard rumors of me and followed me to a camp I’d made in a nearby forest. When I saw her, I feared she would report me to the authorities. Instead she begged to join me. She wanted excitement and adventure her hometown couldn’t offer, and freedom from gossiping neighbors.”
“A strange woman showed up at your camp and you thought, ‘Hey, this could work?’” Dana asked.
“Yes,” he said crossly, making her blush. “I was young, lonely, uncertain of myself, and having an attractive girl my own age express an interest in me was flattering. Her courage and competence nearly matched your own, and she was a great help many times. Our relationship developed from friendship to romance.
“Any hope it could lead to marriage nearly ended in tragedy. A manticore was terrorizing small villages in the northwest of the kingdom, and I made the mistake of hunting it with her. I found the beast and wounded it twice. It thought better of attacking me and decided she was easier prey. She ran for her life with a bloodthirsty monster in hot pursuit, barely reaching the cover of woods too thick for it to follow. I caught up with the beast and hacked it to pieces in my fury.
“As much as she cared for me, she’d come within inches of dying, a risk she couldn’t bring herself to take again. She begged me to leave the kingdom with her and start new lives far away. Peace, happiness, companionship, it was an offer any man should have accepted, and I refused. I couldn’t abandon my quest against the king and queen. I found her a new village to settle in and gave her a hundred gold coins. The last I’d heard, she had a husband and children she adored.”
Dana had started this discussion from curiosity and a desire to help Jayden open up to her. Instead she’d opened an old wound. Tears formed around her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but they kept flowing.
“My second experience with a woman was shorter and less pleasant,” he continued. “We met in Pearl Bay after I’d looted a tomb of a sorcerer king. She’d heard I was spending money freely. She was pretty and poor, and my newfound wealth attracted her attention. I should have had the good sense to say no, but after nearly being killed for what seemed like the hundredth time I was tired of being alone. She knew much of the region and helped me locate more tombs. She also used me to get back at her enemies, which didn’t bother me when they were so repugnant.”
“This one ended badly, too, didn’t it?” Dana asked.
“Oh yes. We visited the Kingdom of Brandish, where I’d heard a collector had a spell tablet for the shadow hand spells you’ve seen me use. The man was pleasant enough, but unfortunately he knew the full value of his possessions. I had to pay a thousand gold coins in currency and jewels for the tablet, everything I had. When the woman found out she was furious. She hated being poor. She said that money was hers as much as mine, not an unreasonable point of view when she’d helped me find some of it. I told her I wouldn’t hesitate to make similar deals in the future.”
There was anger in his voice when he continued. “She demanded to know why I hadn’t killed the collector and taken the tablet and the rest of his property. I hadn’t thought her so vicious, or that she thought I was a casual killer who would cut down an innocent man. Her question ended our relationship.”
“I, I didn’t know,” Dana said as she fought back tears.
“You can see why I don’t share this.”
Waving her hands in the air, she cried out, “I just, when I asked, I couldn’t figure out why you didn’t already have a girl! I thought you turned Maya and Suzy down because there’s a princess waiting for you to come back to her, or a nymph.”
“Why would a princess wait for a dead prince or a wanted criminal? As for nymphs, I haven’t met any, and I’m told on good authority they’re far more conservative than you’d expect. It would be nice to find out in person, though.”
Jayden put his hands on her shoulders. “Those failed relationships made me cautious. People I care for can be placed in incredible danger by being near me. Some women would use me if they could, while many don’t share my goals. When I first met Suzy Lockheart I felt no attraction, for I had experience with disasters of the heart. I had no trouble seeing how badly it would end between us if I’d accepted her invitations. I didn’t pursue a relationship with Maya because I didn’t want to hurt her, physically or emotionally.”
“Wait, you said there were three girls you traveled with,” she pressed.
“Ah, yes, the last one.” Jayden smiled as he walked away from Dana. “She wasn’t looking for romance. She needed my help and decided to ‘fix’ me, as women often do. She saw qualities in me I’d thought long dead, and worked hard to unearth them. Clever, brave, loyal, it’s amazing a suitor hadn’t married her before we’d met.”
Curious, Dana asked, “What happened to her?”
Jayden laughed, a welcome sound after such a horrible tale. Without looking back, he asked, “Happened? You’re still here.”
* * * * *
The next day brought more agonizingly slow travel. Suzy’s horses had difficulty with the snow and needed frequent breaks to rest and feed. Halfway through the day they went through the wagon’s contents and threw out anything not essential to lighten the load, and Jayden and Dana walked alongside. This only helped a little.
When they stopped to make camp again, Jayden declared, “Our path will overlook Inverness Road in another mile. I’m going to scout ahead and see if I can find our targets.”
“I’ll have a fire and hot food ready when you get back,” Suzy said. Judging by the number of pots she was taking off her wagon, she was planning on cooking several meals at the same time again. She threw an arm around Dana and added, “And we can swap secrets once you’re gone.”
Dana froze. “What?”
“Oh come on, I saw the way you looked when you came back last night. You two had deep, emotional, heart to heart conversation. I want details!”
Dana slipped out of Suzy’s grip and ran after Jayden. “Wait up!”
“I did warn you about her,” Jayden reminded Dana once she caught up with him.
“I’m sorry for not taking you more seriously, and for joking about you two. Suzy doesn’t have boundaries, I mean any of them.” She hesitated before saying, “You seem worried. Is there a threat on this road?”
“Duke Wiskver has a large estate not far ahead. He is one of the king and queen’s staunchest supporters from the days of the civil war. Wiskver was originally a merchant who imported food and clothes during the conflict, saving many lives and freeing up farmers to be trained as soldiers. After the war ended his reward was to be made a nobleman and given the estate of a disloyal duke.”
“How tough is he?”
Jayden waved his hand. “Personally, not very, but the man is obscenely wealthy. He has trading rights with other kingdoms and earns a fortune every year. Wiskver can afford the best of everything, including guards, and he is fanatically loyal to the throne. That’s in large part because other nobles despise him for being a jumped up pretender while they have been nobles for generations. If the king and queen fall he is sure to follow, for his peers will never support him.”
“I bet that’s where the wagons are headed,” Dana said. “Armored wagons have to cost a bundle, plus whatever they’re carrying, and this guy sounds like he’s got the cash.”
“It’s a likely destination. Our disastrous visit to Armorston may have convinced the duke to relocate the wagons to a safer location, like his manor house.”
They reached the overlook and saw a wide road to the south. Dana and Jayden worked their way down the slope and inspected the road. There were plentiful footprints in the snow, a fair number of hoof prints and deep wagon ruts. Dana followed the ruts until she came across a pile of horse droppings.
“It’s cold but not frozen. We’re hours behind them.” She spread the droppings with the tip of her boot. “No bits of hay in the manure. I think they’re feeding the animals oats.”
Jayden raised an eyebrow. “You can tell that from droppings?”
Dana folded her arms across her chest. “You grew up in a castle. I grew up on a farm.”
“Fair point. I see lights on the horizon, likely our quarry. It’s far enough ahead that we can’t reach it quickly, and a long march in this cold is dangerous. We’ll return to Suzy and tell her the good news. With luck we can catch up with them tomorrow.”
* * * * *
The following morning there wasn’t any luck to be had. A storm rolled in and dropped two more inches of snow, enough to slow them down even further and reduce visibility. The only saving grace was that the armored wagons they were chasing would suffer equally under these harsh conditions. Hours went by while they inched forward. It was dark when they stopped again, this time close enough to see the armored wagons and the manor house.
The manor was three stories high in the center of a cluster of equally large buildings. Dana saw two large barns, an enormous stable, two granaries, a blacksmith shop and more. The wagons were parked next to one of the warehouses while the oxen were led to the stable. Surrounding these buildings and wagons were tents and cheery fires, and around those fires were hordes of armed men.
“This is a level of screwed I’ve never experienced before,” Suzy said as she peered into the darkness. “There’s got to be a thousand soldiers camped around the manor.”
“Not all of them are soldiers,” Jayden told her. “Half wear blue and black uniforms of Skitherin mercenaries, which is ironically worse than if they’d been soldiers.”
“They’re evil?” Dana asked.
“They’re competent,” he corrected her. “Soldiers fight when ordered to, often time going months or years between battles. Mercenaries are paid only when they fight, so they fight constantly. Frequent battles make them skilled warriors. Their leaders’ only loyalty is to their next payday, and unlike army officers who receive their positions from royal decrees, their positions come from success in battle. We can expect neither mistakes nor mercy from them.”
“You take me to the nicest places,” Suzy said.
* * * * *
Dana woke to the smell of frying bacon, biscuits, eggs and a blend of spices she couldn’t identify. That last one wasn’t surprising since she’d grown up in an isolated town at the edge of the kingdom. Merchants came rarely and didn’t bring exotic spices, so her mother cooked only with what could be grown locally.
“What did you put in there?” Dana asked as she got out from under a pile of blankets.
“Garlic, sweet bark and dragon pepper,” Suzy Lockheart told her. “A little dragon pepper goes a long way, and that’s a good thing. The last shop I saw offering it wanted three silver pieces a pound. Do any of Jayden’s underworld connections offer it cheaper?”
Dana rubbed her eyes and stared at the feast being prepared. Suzy had four pots sitting over the fire or cooling next to it. “The only smuggler friend of his I met left the kingdom months ago. Suzy, I don’t think we can eat that much.”
“Don’t be silly, I’m cooking for the entire day. We don’t have much alchemic fire for food preparation. That’s stuff is expensive, you know, so I do all the cooking before it goes out. These pots are breakfast, that one over there is trail cake for lunch, and that one is…something or other, I forget, but we’re having it cold for supper.”
Dana, Jayden, Suzy and Yub the goblin were staying in an abandoned barn miles from Armorston. They’d made the ruined building their base after fleeing the city two weeks ago. Knights had patrolled the roads vigorously for days after the four of them destroyed much of the city’s sewer network. Staying in place had avoided these patrols.
The barn had seen better decades, with holes in the roof and one wall missing, but it was large enough to fit the four of them plus Suzy’s wagon and horses. It was also far from the nearest house, so there was little risk of them being discovered. Still, Suzy only cooked meals over alchemic fire that produced no smoke.
Dana looked around their meager dwelling and only saw Suzy and Yub. “Where’s Jayden?”
Suzy handed her a plate of food. “He was muttering about wanting to get away from me, made some vague threats and went outside to practice his magic. Brooding isn’t attractive in men.”
Dana ate quickly, partly because she didn’t want the food to get cold and partly because it was so good. “This is incredible. Where did you learn to cook?”
“Cooking is no different than alchemy. Mix the right ingredients, stir as needed and don’t let it burn. Of course soufflés don’t explode and take out nearby buildings when you get them wrong. The analogy isn’t perfect.”
Once she finished eating, Dana handed back her plate and went to look in on Jayden. The last two weeks had been hard on him. He was still angry he hadn’t learned what had been inside the armored wagons in Armorston. Whatever it was, it had taken a lot of time, money and manpower to bring it to the city, and he wanted to know what warranted such a high cost. He was also chaffing at the extended time spent with Suzy Lockheart, a woman he barely tolerated.
Dana found Jayden standing in the snow behind the barn. There had been large snowdrifts around the barn, but Jayden’s experiments had long since blasted them apart. The handsome sorcerer lord was reading one of his spell tablets, muttering under his breath and occasionally swearing in frustration.
“You’ll catch cold,” she warned.
“Cold doesn’t bother me.” Jayden’s messy blond hair whipped in the steady breeze, as did the gray cloak he wore over his black and silver clothes. He tapped the spell tablet and announced, “Failure does, and this blasted spell has vexed me for months.”
“You learned your first spell in hours.”
Jayden held up the tablet for her to see. “There is one word here I never came across in my studies of the ancient sorcerer lords. I’ve been guessing at its meaning, and guesses aren’t enough when it comes to magic. You must have a precise understanding. Reginald Lootmore paid for my help with this spell tablet, a potentially valuable addition to my magical arsenal, and I can’t tap that power because of one word!”
Just then Suzy walked by and handed Jayden his breakfast. Once her hands were free and Jayden’s weren’t, she smiled and ran her fingers through his hair before walking away. “Morning, tiger.”
After she was out of earshot, Dana asked, “Why does she keep implying that you two are…you know?”
“I’d thought she’d finally abandoned her interest in me, and then we destroyed a large portion of a major city. Some women appreciate flowers, others poetry. Lockheart finds massive destruction romantic. As for why she insinuates we have been involved, I can only guess she hopes to inspire me to share her feelings.”
“That’s, um, okay, wow.”
Jayden smiled. “At a loss for words?”
Dana blushed. “Eat before your breakfast freezes.”
“Lockheart’s skill as a cook is one of her saving graces,” he said as he ate. “I marveled at her meals the first time we met, as did Lootmore and McShootersun. It was a tad disconcerting watching her butcher game animals we’d caught. I understand the necessity of the task, but her giggling was unnerving.”
“Lootmore told a funny joke!” Suzy shouted from inside the barn. “You know, the one about the bishop, the gnome and the landslide. Let’s see, how does it go?”
“The joke was long, boring, and inappropriate for young girls!” Jayden shouted back. He turned to Dana and said, “Cover your ears if she repeats it.”
Dana looked out over the cold, snowy wilderness around them. “I’m really glad no one lives here who could hear you two shouting. They might wonder what’s going on in an abandoned building that makes so much noise, and ask soldiers to investigate.”
Jayden gulped down his food. “Don’t expect me to be civil to the woman. She’s nearly killed me twice, and she might try again.”
Once his mouth was full, Dana asked, “How long are we going to stay here?”
He swallowed before answering, “I still want to know what was transported into Armorston at such a high expense. Until we learn what it is, get a lead on a better target or are forced to leave by superior forces, we wait and observe.”
Isolated and ruined as it was, the barn overlooked a road called King’s Way that led to Armorston. This wasn’t the only way into the city, but it was the largest and most traveled road. From here they could see every wagon, horse or pedestrian while still being in cover, except there had been no travelers on the road since they’d come.
“An imperfect observation post, I admit, but Gaston and men in his pay are watching the other roads leaving Armorston,” Jayden said. “We’ll know if the armored wagons leave and can pursue them. If more armored wagons try to enter the city, we can attack them before help arrives.”
Dana folded her arms across her chest. “How much do you trust him?”
“Gaston likes gold and we have it. He also likes breathing, a fact that can end quite suddenly if he betrays us. He can’t turn us over to the authorities for the reward money without revealing his involvement with us. Make no mistake, he’s not an ideal ally, but I’ve learned to take help from wherever I can get it.” Jayden raised an eyebrow and asked, “Can your friends provide aid?”
“If you mean the goblins, they said Armorston has archers on every street corner, and they’re shooting at anything that moves. I won’t have them die because of me.”
Jayden finished eating and set the plate on a nearby tree stump. “Admirably said. We have to be careful with the lives of those who favor us, especially when they are so few. Which brings up another topic.”
“What?”
“I need Lockheart to complete her contract with Brandish. Closing off a pass into that kingdom may be enough to save them from invasion. For that to happen she needs to make her bomb. I know a little of alchemy, and I believe she can use cheaper ingredients than phoenix blossoms and etherium to produce a cruder and less effective bomb. See if she can come up with alternative materials.”
Dana raised an eyebrow. “You could talk to her too, you know.”
“I need time alone with this spell tablet. Besides, you have a better rapport with her than I do. My conversations with Lockheart start with her flirting, and end with us screaming and trying not to be crushed by falling rocks.”
“Those rocks didn’t land anywhere near you!” Suzy yelled.
Dana picked up Jayden’s plate and went inside the ruined barn. She found Yub giggling and Suzy fuming as she went through her belongings. Suzy didn’t look up when Dana came close, merely saying, “I don’t know why I bother.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s trying to discourage you.”
Suzy pointed a finger at her. “It’s not working. I miss my adventures with Jayden, Lootmore and McShootersun. We worked well together, no matter what Mr. Picky out there says. The three of us is close to that team. We just need one more person who can put up with Jayden.”
“Doesn’t Yub count?” Dana asked. Yub heard the suggestion and spit out chicken feathers he was eating.
“He’s not looking for the spotlight or being in the line of fire,” Suzy explained. “We need someone who’s ready to go out there and do incredibly stupid things for poorly developed reasons, just like the rest of us.”
Dana was shocked that Jayden and Suzy had spent this much time together without someone getting killed. A long-term partnership between them was impossible. Rather than point that out, she asked, “How did you hear us out there?”
“You two talk too loud. Tell Jayden I need charcoal, saltpeter and sulfur, lots of it. And he’s right, it would be a big, crude bomb compared to what I wanted to build.”
“Would it do the job?”
“Oh please, I’ve been blowing things up before you were…that shadow looks an awful lot like a helmet.”
Dana peered over Suzy’s shoulder. Sure enough, shadows in the barn were twisting and bending until they looked like pieces of armor. Seconds later the armor launched into the air and shot out of the barn. They heard banging and clanking, followed by a yell from Jayden. Both women raced outside with Yub right behind them.
“So that’s what that spell does,” Dana said.
Suzy rolled her eyes. “Oh, look, he’s even harder to reach. I didn’t think it was possible.”
“Your concern for me is touching,” Jayden said sarcastically, his voice echoing inside the shadowy helmet. Jayden was flat on his back in the snow and encased in overlapping plates of ebony material that shifted and quivered until it solidified into an intimidating suit of plate armor. Long spikes jutted from the shoulder guards, wickedly barbed blades sprouted from the gauntlets, and in place of fingers the armor had long, thick claws like a bear. Jayden sat up and brushed snow off his chest.
“Magic armor,” Dana said. She wanted to help him up, but there wasn’t a part of the armor lacking blades, spikes or sharp edges. “This looks like a keeper.”
Jayden stood up and stretched his arms, first at the shoulders, then the elbows, and finally his fingers. “I’m less certain of that. I can move easily enough, and I think I can grip weapons, but there’s no way to cast spells with my fingers inside these claws. Impressive as this armor is, it’s worthless if I can’t use magic while wearing it.”
“Maybe the sorcerer lords used this spell to protect their bodyguards,” Dana suggested.
Suzy took a rock off the ground and tapped Jayden’s right arm. “Did you feel that?”
“No.”
She hit him far harder. “How about that?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t painful. Suzy, put that down this instant.”
Suzy dropped the far larger rock she was lifting. “It was an experiment.”
The armor boiled away, leaving Jayden disheveled and annoyed. “No spell is useful in all situations. This one is no exception. Still, it is a puzzle solved that had been vexing me, and a new tool to use.” He glanced at the distant road and added, “We have a visitor, possibly even a helpful one.”
Dana looked over and saw Gaston coming up the road toward them. The dirty little man wore layers of clothes to keep warm and hide his identity. Gaston was the only man who knew they were staying here, and he made regular visits to provide information and overpriced supplies. Jayden, Dana, Suzy and Yub waited patiently until Gaston stopped feet in front of them.
Gaston held out one hand. “Fifty gold pieces.”
“That’s a stiff charge,” Dana said.
“And one I have no intention of paying without good reason,” Jayden added.
“What I know is worth the gold,” Gaston said.
Jayden frowned. “You wouldn’t risk your own life to save ours, so you didn’t come to warn us of danger. You wouldn’t share riches, so you’re not offering an opportunity for treasure, unless it’s too dangerous for you to take advantage of. You’ve learned about the armored wagons in Armorston!”
Gaston told them, “The whole lot of them left this morning, guarded by swordsmen, archers and knights. The streets were cleared for them, every citizen kept indoors until they’d left the city. You want them, and I know which road they took. Find that out on your own and you’ll waste so much time you’ll never catch them. Fifty gold pieces buys the name of the road they’re on.”
The goblin Dana had met outside Gaston’s inn ran up to her. She’d been so focused on Gaston that she hadn’t noticed the far smaller goblin, especially since we was wearing a white cape that helped him blend in with the snow. “They’re on Inverness Road, going so slow a turtle could outrun them.”
“That was worth good money!” Gaston yelled at the goblin.
“I’m still peeved about that joke you made about my king,” the goblin retorted. “Nobody insults King Will the War Winner and walks away happy.”
“Thank you,” Dana said, and she kissed the goblin on the forehead.
“Not in front of witnesses!” the goblin sputtered. He saw Yub giggling and shouted, “Don’t you dare tell anyone about this!”
Jayden stepped in front of Gaston and counted out ten gold coins. “You were helpful, so some payment is justified.”
“Twenty gold coins worth of helpful?” Gaston asked hopefully.
“No. Dana, Suzy, collect our belongings and prepare to leave. If the wagons are on Inverness Road I have a good idea what their destination is. We’ll need a day or more to catch up, and then we can plan our attack.”
Dana approached the goblin to shake his hand, but the goblin backed away from her. “No more random acts of affection.”
“There’s nothing random about rewarding a person who’s helped you. Let me get you some cheese.”
It didn’t take long for them to load up Suzy’s wagon and head out. They saw Gaston trundling off into the distance, while the goblin was nowhere to be seen. That was no surprise given how good goblins were at hiding. Suzy handled the reins while Dana, Jayden and Yub rode on the back of the wagon.
Most people stayed indoors during winter, and not just to keep warm. Roads in the kingdom were few and poorly maintained, and even an average storm could cover them in snow that lasted until springtime. Severe storms, and there were plenty of those, could drop a foot of snow. Had there been ice on the roads all hope of catching the armored wagons would be lost.
Today they had to travel regardless of the weather, no easy task even for a wagon pulled by two strong horses. The animals made slow progress and left a trail an idiot could follow. Fortunately they were short of idiots at the moment, or any witnesses whatsoever, courtesy of the same cold weather that slowed them down. By nightfall they’d only gone twenty miles and made camp in a forest clearing.
Suzy heaved a dramatic sigh and fixed Jayden with a stern look. “Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it: why couldn’t you just magic us where we need to be?”
Jayden got off her wagon and stretched his legs. “Most sorcerer lord spells focus on inflicting damage rather than improving mobility. It’s actually interesting you should bring up that topic, because it’s one of the reasons why elves of old defeated the sorcerer lords. Elven magic has a number of spells allowing them to quickly travel great distances. Time and again they used those spells to outmaneuver the sorcerer lords, going deep behind enemy lines to do massive damage, then fleeing to safety.”
“Not the answer I was hoping for,” Suzy told him.
“Please, regale me with tales of how alchemy lets you travel a hundred miles a day.”
Suzy stuck her tongue out at him. “Spoilsport. I need to see to the horses. Yub, start a fire and get my pots out.”
“Dana and I will make sure we don’t have company,” Jayden said. He walked further down the trail from the wagon. Once they were a hundred feet away, he said, “We’re traveling slower than I’d like. I’m not sure we can catch up with the armored wagons at this rate, but walking through this snow would be no faster and more tiring.”
With Suzy and Yub far enough away that they couldn’t listen, Dana felt confident to broach a subject that had been on her mind for weeks. “Since we’ve got some privacy, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Your tone suggests this conversation is going to be painful.”
She smiled at him. “Doesn’t have to be. When we first met Suzy Lockheart, she said she knew you liked girls because she’d heard stories about you.”
“I was right, incredibly painful, and completely unwarranted. Dana, in our time together I never inquired about your love life, because it would be boorish to do so and it’s none of my business. It’s not unreasonable for you to show equal respect for my privacy.”
“We kind of crossed the privacy barrier when Witch Way showed me parts of your life,” she pointed out. “It was like I lived them.”
“Thankfully my time spent with women wasn’t one of those shared experiences.” He glanced at her and frowned. “A number of stories circulate concerning my life, most total fabrications and the rest only partially accurate. Whatever Suzy thinks she knows should be considered hearsay or products of her deranged mind.”
“So the topic is closed?”
“Closed, dead, buried on unhallowed ground and never to be touched again.”
“I understand,” she told him. “You feel strongly about this, and I won’t bring it up again. Suzy can tell me what she’s heard, and I’ll correct anything I know is wrong.”
Dana took two steps back when she heard Jayden say, “You didn’t used to be this manipulative.”
“I learned from the best.”
He waved for her to return, and she ran back. He frowned again before beginning. “I’d like to know what brought up this topic.”
“We’ve been spending weeks with Suzy drooling over you, and Maya fell for you, but you never return their interest. I want to know why.”
Jayden hesitated before answering. “I suppose it does no damage given how many of my secrets you already know. I want to make it clear, though, that this is for your ears and no one else’s.”
Dana jogged in front of him. “So, is there a girl you’ve got your heart set on?”
“No.” Jayden looked off into the distance. “My life since leaving The Isle of Tears has been largely one of isolation. I took refuge in wild places, tracking rumors of sorcerer lord ruins to loot for gold and magic. I met few people, many of them criminals seeking the same riches I did. There were only three women I traveled with. Two ended disastrously.”
Dana’s blood ran cold. “What happened?”
“I met the first girl when I was seventeen. She was young, pretty, kind, and desperate to escape the small town she grew up in. We crossed paths at a shop where I was selling weapons I’d stolen from bandits. She’d heard rumors of me and followed me to a camp I’d made in a nearby forest. When I saw her, I feared she would report me to the authorities. Instead she begged to join me. She wanted excitement and adventure her hometown couldn’t offer, and freedom from gossiping neighbors.”
“A strange woman showed up at your camp and you thought, ‘Hey, this could work?’” Dana asked.
“Yes,” he said crossly, making her blush. “I was young, lonely, uncertain of myself, and having an attractive girl my own age express an interest in me was flattering. Her courage and competence nearly matched your own, and she was a great help many times. Our relationship developed from friendship to romance.
“Any hope it could lead to marriage nearly ended in tragedy. A manticore was terrorizing small villages in the northwest of the kingdom, and I made the mistake of hunting it with her. I found the beast and wounded it twice. It thought better of attacking me and decided she was easier prey. She ran for her life with a bloodthirsty monster in hot pursuit, barely reaching the cover of woods too thick for it to follow. I caught up with the beast and hacked it to pieces in my fury.
“As much as she cared for me, she’d come within inches of dying, a risk she couldn’t bring herself to take again. She begged me to leave the kingdom with her and start new lives far away. Peace, happiness, companionship, it was an offer any man should have accepted, and I refused. I couldn’t abandon my quest against the king and queen. I found her a new village to settle in and gave her a hundred gold coins. The last I’d heard, she had a husband and children she adored.”
Dana had started this discussion from curiosity and a desire to help Jayden open up to her. Instead she’d opened an old wound. Tears formed around her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but they kept flowing.
“My second experience with a woman was shorter and less pleasant,” he continued. “We met in Pearl Bay after I’d looted a tomb of a sorcerer king. She’d heard I was spending money freely. She was pretty and poor, and my newfound wealth attracted her attention. I should have had the good sense to say no, but after nearly being killed for what seemed like the hundredth time I was tired of being alone. She knew much of the region and helped me locate more tombs. She also used me to get back at her enemies, which didn’t bother me when they were so repugnant.”
“This one ended badly, too, didn’t it?” Dana asked.
“Oh yes. We visited the Kingdom of Brandish, where I’d heard a collector had a spell tablet for the shadow hand spells you’ve seen me use. The man was pleasant enough, but unfortunately he knew the full value of his possessions. I had to pay a thousand gold coins in currency and jewels for the tablet, everything I had. When the woman found out she was furious. She hated being poor. She said that money was hers as much as mine, not an unreasonable point of view when she’d helped me find some of it. I told her I wouldn’t hesitate to make similar deals in the future.”
There was anger in his voice when he continued. “She demanded to know why I hadn’t killed the collector and taken the tablet and the rest of his property. I hadn’t thought her so vicious, or that she thought I was a casual killer who would cut down an innocent man. Her question ended our relationship.”
“I, I didn’t know,” Dana said as she fought back tears.
“You can see why I don’t share this.”
Waving her hands in the air, she cried out, “I just, when I asked, I couldn’t figure out why you didn’t already have a girl! I thought you turned Maya and Suzy down because there’s a princess waiting for you to come back to her, or a nymph.”
“Why would a princess wait for a dead prince or a wanted criminal? As for nymphs, I haven’t met any, and I’m told on good authority they’re far more conservative than you’d expect. It would be nice to find out in person, though.”
Jayden put his hands on her shoulders. “Those failed relationships made me cautious. People I care for can be placed in incredible danger by being near me. Some women would use me if they could, while many don’t share my goals. When I first met Suzy Lockheart I felt no attraction, for I had experience with disasters of the heart. I had no trouble seeing how badly it would end between us if I’d accepted her invitations. I didn’t pursue a relationship with Maya because I didn’t want to hurt her, physically or emotionally.”
“Wait, you said there were three girls you traveled with,” she pressed.
“Ah, yes, the last one.” Jayden smiled as he walked away from Dana. “She wasn’t looking for romance. She needed my help and decided to ‘fix’ me, as women often do. She saw qualities in me I’d thought long dead, and worked hard to unearth them. Clever, brave, loyal, it’s amazing a suitor hadn’t married her before we’d met.”
Curious, Dana asked, “What happened to her?”
Jayden laughed, a welcome sound after such a horrible tale. Without looking back, he asked, “Happened? You’re still here.”
* * * * *
The next day brought more agonizingly slow travel. Suzy’s horses had difficulty with the snow and needed frequent breaks to rest and feed. Halfway through the day they went through the wagon’s contents and threw out anything not essential to lighten the load, and Jayden and Dana walked alongside. This only helped a little.
When they stopped to make camp again, Jayden declared, “Our path will overlook Inverness Road in another mile. I’m going to scout ahead and see if I can find our targets.”
“I’ll have a fire and hot food ready when you get back,” Suzy said. Judging by the number of pots she was taking off her wagon, she was planning on cooking several meals at the same time again. She threw an arm around Dana and added, “And we can swap secrets once you’re gone.”
Dana froze. “What?”
“Oh come on, I saw the way you looked when you came back last night. You two had deep, emotional, heart to heart conversation. I want details!”
Dana slipped out of Suzy’s grip and ran after Jayden. “Wait up!”
“I did warn you about her,” Jayden reminded Dana once she caught up with him.
“I’m sorry for not taking you more seriously, and for joking about you two. Suzy doesn’t have boundaries, I mean any of them.” She hesitated before saying, “You seem worried. Is there a threat on this road?”
“Duke Wiskver has a large estate not far ahead. He is one of the king and queen’s staunchest supporters from the days of the civil war. Wiskver was originally a merchant who imported food and clothes during the conflict, saving many lives and freeing up farmers to be trained as soldiers. After the war ended his reward was to be made a nobleman and given the estate of a disloyal duke.”
“How tough is he?”
Jayden waved his hand. “Personally, not very, but the man is obscenely wealthy. He has trading rights with other kingdoms and earns a fortune every year. Wiskver can afford the best of everything, including guards, and he is fanatically loyal to the throne. That’s in large part because other nobles despise him for being a jumped up pretender while they have been nobles for generations. If the king and queen fall he is sure to follow, for his peers will never support him.”
“I bet that’s where the wagons are headed,” Dana said. “Armored wagons have to cost a bundle, plus whatever they’re carrying, and this guy sounds like he’s got the cash.”
“It’s a likely destination. Our disastrous visit to Armorston may have convinced the duke to relocate the wagons to a safer location, like his manor house.”
They reached the overlook and saw a wide road to the south. Dana and Jayden worked their way down the slope and inspected the road. There were plentiful footprints in the snow, a fair number of hoof prints and deep wagon ruts. Dana followed the ruts until she came across a pile of horse droppings.
“It’s cold but not frozen. We’re hours behind them.” She spread the droppings with the tip of her boot. “No bits of hay in the manure. I think they’re feeding the animals oats.”
Jayden raised an eyebrow. “You can tell that from droppings?”
Dana folded her arms across her chest. “You grew up in a castle. I grew up on a farm.”
“Fair point. I see lights on the horizon, likely our quarry. It’s far enough ahead that we can’t reach it quickly, and a long march in this cold is dangerous. We’ll return to Suzy and tell her the good news. With luck we can catch up with them tomorrow.”
* * * * *
The following morning there wasn’t any luck to be had. A storm rolled in and dropped two more inches of snow, enough to slow them down even further and reduce visibility. The only saving grace was that the armored wagons they were chasing would suffer equally under these harsh conditions. Hours went by while they inched forward. It was dark when they stopped again, this time close enough to see the armored wagons and the manor house.
The manor was three stories high in the center of a cluster of equally large buildings. Dana saw two large barns, an enormous stable, two granaries, a blacksmith shop and more. The wagons were parked next to one of the warehouses while the oxen were led to the stable. Surrounding these buildings and wagons were tents and cheery fires, and around those fires were hordes of armed men.
“This is a level of screwed I’ve never experienced before,” Suzy said as she peered into the darkness. “There’s got to be a thousand soldiers camped around the manor.”
“Not all of them are soldiers,” Jayden told her. “Half wear blue and black uniforms of Skitherin mercenaries, which is ironically worse than if they’d been soldiers.”
“They’re evil?” Dana asked.
“They’re competent,” he corrected her. “Soldiers fight when ordered to, often time going months or years between battles. Mercenaries are paid only when they fight, so they fight constantly. Frequent battles make them skilled warriors. Their leaders’ only loyalty is to their next payday, and unlike army officers who receive their positions from royal decrees, their positions come from success in battle. We can expect neither mistakes nor mercy from them.”
“You take me to the nicest places,” Suzy said.
September 1, 2019
New Goblin Stories 22
“I’m just going to come out and say it, this feels weird,” Brody told the others. “I love swimming, so I didn’t mind taking a bath this morning.”
“I did,” Habbly said miserably.
“And hiding in the rafters of a hotel isn’t too unnatural,” Brody continued. “Other goblins have done it way more than me, but I can deal with it. It’s putting on perfume that crossed the line.”
Ibwibble shifted his weight as he balanced on a rafter. “We need to blend in perfectly, looking, sounding, even smelling like we belong.”
The three goblins were perched in the rafters of a large and spacious hotel in the rich quarter of Nolod. Nolod’s air was so foul that given time it could corrode steel, but there were ways to hold off the stench among those rich and influential enough to afford it. The hotel was furnished and decorated with the best of the best, and the owners had gone to great lengths to make it smell like paradise. Incense burners hung from the ceiling, potted plants with gorgeous flowers filled the air with their heady aroma, and every room included bowls of perfume.
Goblins were known for many things, including stupidity, craziness, no interest in wealth, and lastly foul odors. Living in caves, slums, wastelands and ruins was part of the reason for their stench. A diet heavy in refuse and what other races consider inedible didn’t help. And goblins seldom see a reason for proper hygiene, a trifecta of foulness that made them smell terrible. Tonight would be a rare exception, as the three goblins smelled of lavender instead of body odor and dung.
It had been easy enough to break into the hotel, evading guards, bloodhounds, locked doors and magic wards, but getting in was only half the battle. They had to stay here until midnight when Quaid the blind fortuneteller had foreseen their mysterious enemy would appear. That meant hours and hours of waiting, and in a ritzy place like this a smelly goblin would be noticed.
“I’ll never live it down if other goblins learn about this,” Habbly said.
“Don’t worry,” Ibwibble assured him. “We’ll be back to normal soon enough.”
Brody pulled at the strange brown uniform Ibwibble had insisted they all wear. It itched, but Brody had to admit it was the exact same shade of brown as the wood in the room. They blended in like black cats at night. “How did you afford this stuff?”
Ibwibble chuckled. “I bagged lots of tax collectors before this gig, and not one of them was poor. I beat up the first few and painted them blue, but I learned they only get really mad when you swipe their stuff.”
“You were stupid enough to keep their money?” Habbly asked.
“Some of it. Quiet, somebody’s coming.”
They heard footsteps approach the room and a click as someone unlocked the door. A serving girl came inside and swept the hardwood floor clean before unrolling a red carpet. She replaced the linens on the bed, dusted the desk, chair and dresser, and watered two pots of purple flowers. The girl left, never suspecting that she’d had company.
“How soon until the nymph shows up?” Brody asked.
“Any time between now and midnight,” Ibwibble told him. “She’s supposed to be older than she looks and way tougher.”
Habbly fingered a mop he’d brought for this mission. It was an odd choice for a weapon, but a survivor of Battle Island was dangerous armed with anything. “How much do we know about her?”
“I hear she spends all night looking at the stars,” Brody told him.
“Please tell me there won’t be poetry and singing involved,” Habbly begged.
Ibwibble shook is head. “The way I hear it there’s no singing and lots of math. Once she’s here, no talking, no moving. If one bad guy shows up we mob him. If there’s more than one we figure out who’s giving orders and go for him. We’ve got the advantage of surprise and traps set up in advance. This jerk won’t know what hit him.”
Brody grumbled. “We should have brought Julius with us.”
Ibwibble grabbed him by the arm. “People notice Julius wherever he goes, including bounty hunters trying to collect the price on his head. And there’s going to be a lot of those when Nolod has a kill on sight order for anyone with the Guild of Heroes. If the guy we’re after learns Julius is around then he won’t come near this place. If the jerk does show up, stabby will carve him up before we can turn him in for the kudos.”
“He would not,” Brody said hotly. “Julius gives his enemies a chance to surrender.”
Ibwibble wasn’t impressed. “Which this jerk won’t take, because he thinks Julius is the enemy, and he’s dumb enough to be a martyr for his idiot cause.”
“Incoming,” Habbly said. The argument ended, and moments later the door opened. A middle aged man in simple clothes walked in and set a bundle of papers and books on the desk. For a moment it looked like the nymph wasn’t coming, but then she made her appearance.
And what an appearance she made! Goblins seldom noticed beauty, but the nymph was in a category all her own. She was gorgeous and moved with superhuman grace. Tall, slender, perfectly proportioned, she looked to be in her twenties yet had silver hair braided and curled. Callista was a site to make men’s hearts race. Even the goblins felt drawn to her and relaxed in her presence.
Callista’s garments, though, downplayed her astounding beauty. She wore a cotton dress, jacket, boots and leggings dyed red, fashionable without being cutting edge. Stranger still was how her clothes left nearly no exposed skin besides her face. Even her fingers were covered with red gloves that reached up to her elbows. She also carried a suitcase in each hand and wore a large backpack.
“You couldn’t find anything cheaper, Mr. Rolomer?” she asked in a melodious voice.
“Any room less expensive would require the owner to pay you, madam,” the man said formally. She gave him a questioning look, and he explained, “The owner isn’t charging you for the room. He claims your presence will attract sufficient customers to cover the expense.”
“I think he is being exceedingly optimistic.”
“A bellboy told me there isn’t a room to spare tonight, an event as rare as it is profitable. The class of the clientele may make them more adventurous in seeking an audience with you, as they are of considerable wealth, but ideally they will be more polite in accepting your refusals.”
Callista set her suitcases down and unpacked them. “I’ve found men to be adventurous regardless of their social class, and the rich no less boorish. If other guests tender invitations to visit with me, accept only those made by dwarfs, gnomes, minotaurs or trolls. I’ve found them to be less inclined to make inappropriate advances.”
The man sorted through the papers he brought until he found a stack of letters. “There was that one time—”
“Which we are not going to discuss, Mr. Rolomer.” Callista took off her backpack but didn’t unpack it.
“A number of letters were forwarded here that you might wish to see. The artist Roska Lavolt is asking if you would pose for a painting. He says it would only take a few days, and is offering fifty guilders.”
That made the nymph pause. “I could use the money. Write back and ask what the nature of the painting is. Make it quite clear I will only accept if it’s tasteful. I want no repeats of what happened with that dreadful sculptor. Why, I’d barely walking into his studio and he told me to undress!”
“And you kicked him in his unmentionables,” Rolomor added.
“It was an understandable reaction.”
The man selected another letter. “The widow Kivas Gess expresses her gratitude for your generosity. She seems to be doing well given the circumstances.”
Callista took a nightgown from her suitcase. The goblins had little experience with eveningwear except that it generally covered less than daytime clothes. This was not the case, as her nightgown was nearly as concealing what she wore now. “The poor woman and her daughters have been through too much. Hmm. Mr. Rolomer, perhaps her children and your own could spend time together. It would do them good to play with someone their own age.”
“That might not be socially acceptable when she is a baroness and I am a manservant.”
“Etiquette can take a flying leap off a cliff. They’re small children, alone and frightened, who wouldn’t care what social class their friends are. And your children are exemplary in every respect. Why, take your son Roger.”
Rolomer suddenly tensed. “Madam?”
“He’s tall for his age, well-mannered and very friendly. I haven’t seen him in some time. How is he?”
“I, ah, Roger has begun school again, madam.”
Callista smiled. “Good. He shows a remarkable talent with paints and drawing.”
“My wife and I are trying to redirect his attention to more practical matters.”
She turned away and missed Rolomer’s face turning red when she added, “You should encourage his creativity, Mr. Rolomer. He’s very good with his hands.”
Brody, Habbly and Ibwibble looked to one another and shrugged. They wondered what the boy had drawn or painted that embarrassed his father so much. It seemed related to the nymph.
Rolomer quickly held up another letter. “The ship captains you came here to meet wrote to say they will be late. It appears there has been considerable disruption in Nolod due to one William Bradshaw. He and his goblins did lasting damage when they removed the merchant Quentin Peck.”
“Good riddance to bad rubbish. I met Peck ten years ago, and he was an absolute boor. The man asked how much it would cost to retain my services, and he made it quite clear he wasn’t referring to purchasing my navigational star charts. I’d never been so embarrassed in my life.”
“And you kicked him in—”
“Must you bring that up, Mr. Rolomer? Peck was bad luck as well as bad company. My house burned down two weeks after I’d met the cretin. How late will the captains be in arriving and paying for the star charts they commissioned?”
Rolomer consulted the letter. “They are making arrangements with city officials that could take two days. They offer their apologies and to compensate you for any housing costs that arise up due to this delay, a moot point.”
This was so boring that Brody was falling asleep. He’d nearly nodded off when the manservant’s face turned pale. “The last letter is from your solicitor at the law firm of Goforda Throat. It, ah, it seems Lord Bryce made lengthy lewd remarks regarding your history and character while he was attending a wedding held by Count Durthan. The number of witnesses involved is high, as is their social standing.”
Callista fell silent. Her hands clenched tightly at her nightgown. When she said nothing, Rolomer continued.
“Your solicitor feels given the vulgar and very public nature of these statements, and the fact there is considerable evidence to refute them, that he is able to pursue legal action against Lord Bryce if you so choose. He says, and this is a quote, ‘Say the word and I’ll go after him like a rabid dragon’, unquote.”
“I’m tired, Mr. Rolomer,” she said softly. “Over the centuries I’ve buried two husbands and more friends than I care to count. That should be enough suffering for a lifetime. I’ve been professor of astronomy at Imperial University for eighty years. I’ve written three books on Astronomy and more papers than I can recall, yet I keep having to defending my good name. I’ve lived three hundred years and may live another thousand. Must every day of it be a battle?”
Rolomer set the letter down. “You do not fight alone. Many people recognize you for the amazing person you are. They will stand by your side against Lord Bryce and those like him.”
She smiled at him. “Thank you. Please write a letter to my solicitor. It is to include the message, ‘The Word’, nothing more.”
“The letter will go out tonight, madam. I’ll place the rest of your baggage in my room. Do you wish me to leave you with your weapons?”
“No, Mr. Rolomer. In my current mood I’d be too tempted to use them on someone.”
The rest of the night was dull. Rolomer brought a number of invitations to drinks, games and discussions, but Callista declined them all. She seemed exhausted after dealing with the insult against her and went to sleep early. Rolomer went to sleep in a room next to his employer. Rooms in the hotel weren’t entirely dark, for the wealthy portions of Nolod lit up lanterns and magic lights when night fell. Hours went by in silence. The goblins kept close watch on the doors and windows, waiting so long they wondered if the tip was bad.
Click.
The goblins tensed at the tiny sound coming from the door. It was different from when the serving girl had unlocked the door earlier that day. Another click followed. It took them a moment to realize someone was trying to pick the lock and doing a remarkably poor job. Brody, Habbly or Ibwibble could have done it in seconds.
Clumsy as the attempt was, it succeeded after three minutes. The door opened slowly, and four men dressed in black entered the room. Brody studied them and saw a faint red light around their eyes. He looked at the others, and Ibwibble’s lips formed the word ‘magic’.
The intruders spread out across the room and went through the desk and Callista’s suitcases. At first Brody worried that they had vile intentions toward the nymph, but they stayed clear of the bed. One of the intruders grabbed a handful of letters and stuffed them inside his shirt. They continued their silent search for several minutes, ignoring cash in favor of papers.
Ibwibble took a small rock from his rucksack and threw it at one of the potted plants. His aim was good, and the rock knocked the pot to the floor. Crash! Callista leapt from bed and faced the intruders. For two seconds nothing happened. Brody wondered if this was due to the invaders being shocked or if they were awed by the nymph’s legendary beauty.
“Wow,” an intruder said, answering Brody’s question.
“You’re not the first to break into my chambers at night,” Callista said in a surprisingly business-like tone of voice. “After I’m done with you, you might be the last.”
Lighting fast, Callista drove her hand into her backpack and pulled out a brass tube. Her enemies drew daggers from concealed sheaths. Callista swung her arm and the brass tube snapped out to triple its length. Now open, they could see lenses on both ends.
“That’s just a telescope,” an intruder said. “What are you going to—”
Callista lunged at the nearest intruder and struck him across the face with her telescope. He screamed in pain, a cry silenced when Callista drove the palm of her left hand into the base of his ribcage. The blow forced the air out of his lungs and dropped him to his knees. Two intruders tried to tackle her. The nymph kicked one below the belt and sent him down, then broke her telescope against the knee of the second.
The last intruder standing wove his hands in the air and spoke incomprehensible words. The room grew cold as a knife made of ice formed in his right hand. He threw it at Callista’s feet, but she jumped over the knife. It hit the floor and formed a thick layer of ice beneath the nymph. Most people would have slipped if they landed on an icy patch, but most people lacked the superhuman grace of nymphs. Callista not only kept her footing when she came down, but also grabbed a chair and threw it at the man, hitting him in the chest hard enough to force him out of the room.
Ibwibble pointed at the spell caster. “That one.”
The three goblins leaped from the rafters, landing on the intruders still in the room. The men had been struggling to their feet when the goblins knocked them down again. Callista went for her large backpack and hurled it into the chaotic melee, missing Habbly by inches and hitting the man he was standing on. The goblins fled the room and piled onto the lone intruder who’d cast a spell, kicking him in the shins and pushing him over.
“Run!” the spell caster shouted. The other three enemies scrambled out of the room seconds ahead of an enraged nymph. Callista saw the goblins hit her attackers again and again. After that she reserved her attacks for the men and left the goblins alone. The battle was complicated when doors across the hotel opened and confused guests came out. Bystanders got in everyone’s way.
The spell caster created another icy knife and threw at the floor, icing over the hallway. Men and women slipped and cried out in panic. Only the four intruders, three goblins and nymph were able to keep their footing, often by stepping on fallen guests.
“Keep going!” the spell caster urged the others. The four men in black ran out of the hallway into the hotel’s common room and then out the door onto the street. Nolod’s streets were packed even at night as the rich and powerful continued doing business, and the men might escape into the crowds.
Ibwibble reached the street and grabbed a lasso hidden near the edge of the hotel. He threw it over the spell caster’s chest and then pulled a wood peg he’d set in the wall. The rope went taunt and yanked the man off his feet, dragging him back to the goblins.
“I can’t get free!” the spell caster yelled. His friends grabbed him and pulled him to a stop before cutting the lasso with a dagger. The four tried to escape again when Ibwibble threw another lasso. He missed the spell caster and caught one of his accomplices. Brody pulled another peg loose, and the man was dragged screaming across the cobblestone street. The other three men tried to rescue him, a move that ended when Callista caught up with them.
“Madam, your blade!” It was Rolomer. He’d caught up with his employer and threw her a sheathed sword. Callista snatched it out of the air and drew a sword that was as much a work of art as it was a weapon.
“Thank you, Mr. Rolomer,” she said politely. Turning her attention back to the men, she said, “Gentlemen, die.”
“Help!” the lassoed man cried out as he was dragged away. The goblins piled on him and bound him tightly with more ropes. Callista kept after the other three men and missed the spell caster’s head by the barest of margins. The spell caster pulled a vial from inside his black clothes and threw it at the ground. A dense cloud poured out and Callista coughed and staggered out of it while the men escaped.
Callista gasped for fresh air, a rare commodity in Nolod, and looked around. The three men had made their escape in the crowded streets. She looked behind her and saw bales of cotton next to the apartment building. There were ropes around the bales that led to pulleys attached to the building’s roof. It didn’t take her long to figure out that those bales were the counterweight that had dragged the lassoed attackers. She didn’t see the three goblins or the man they’d seized.
* * * * *
“I’ll tell you nothing!” the man yelled as Brody, Habbly and Ibwibble dragged him through the back alleys of Nolod. He struggled uselessly against the ropes holding him. He tried to kick the goblins and couldn’t with his feet tied to his hands.
“That’s just grand, because I don’t want to ask you anything,” Ibwibble said. “Frankly, you guys are boring. If you were a tax collector, that would be entertaining. Fanatics don’t do anything for me.”
“I’m not a fanatic!” their prisoner screamed. “I’m part of a movement to lift the veil of ignorance from the eyes of the people!”
“I thought you weren’t going to tell us anything,” Brody said.
The prisoner struggled again. “I’m allowed to say that much.”
“Do me a favor, and for the time being say less,” Ibwibble said. “Man is this guy heavy. What do they feed you idiots?”
“What did you mean when you said for the time being?” the prisoner asked.
“The nymph is quite a fighter,” Habbly said. “Gamblers at Battle Island would have paid good money to see her, well, for several reasons.”
Ibwibble shrugged. “The dame has been around for three hundred years. You don’t last that long by being a damsel in distress.”
“You may have caught me, but you missed the others,” the prisoner said. “There are more like me, and more will join the cause when they see the truth.”
Ibwibble laughed. “Your friends aren’t going to get as far as you think. We planned for guys getting away.”
The goblins pulled their prisoner past an adolescent troll walking down the street. Brody nodded to the troll and said, “Evening.”
“Do something!” their prisoner shouted at the scaly troll.
The troll shrugged. “I don’t want to know what this is about.”
The goblins walked for hours, stopping only when they reached Nolod’s city limits. Once they were out of the grimy city they let go of the ropes. A lone man stepped out of the darkness in front of them. “You should have brought me with you.”
“If you’d been there we’d have four bodies, more if bounty hunters came after you,” Ibwibble countered. “I’ll admit this isn’t the guy I wanted to bring, but one prisoner to interrogate beats identifying dead guys. I’ll get you better ones next time.”
Their prisoner struggled to sit up. “Who is that?”
The lone man knelled down until he was looking the prisoner in the eyes. “Hello, my name is Julius Craton. I was almost killed because of you and your friends.”
Ibwibble grinned like a maniac. “Now you want to start talking.”
“I did,” Habbly said miserably.
“And hiding in the rafters of a hotel isn’t too unnatural,” Brody continued. “Other goblins have done it way more than me, but I can deal with it. It’s putting on perfume that crossed the line.”
Ibwibble shifted his weight as he balanced on a rafter. “We need to blend in perfectly, looking, sounding, even smelling like we belong.”
The three goblins were perched in the rafters of a large and spacious hotel in the rich quarter of Nolod. Nolod’s air was so foul that given time it could corrode steel, but there were ways to hold off the stench among those rich and influential enough to afford it. The hotel was furnished and decorated with the best of the best, and the owners had gone to great lengths to make it smell like paradise. Incense burners hung from the ceiling, potted plants with gorgeous flowers filled the air with their heady aroma, and every room included bowls of perfume.
Goblins were known for many things, including stupidity, craziness, no interest in wealth, and lastly foul odors. Living in caves, slums, wastelands and ruins was part of the reason for their stench. A diet heavy in refuse and what other races consider inedible didn’t help. And goblins seldom see a reason for proper hygiene, a trifecta of foulness that made them smell terrible. Tonight would be a rare exception, as the three goblins smelled of lavender instead of body odor and dung.
It had been easy enough to break into the hotel, evading guards, bloodhounds, locked doors and magic wards, but getting in was only half the battle. They had to stay here until midnight when Quaid the blind fortuneteller had foreseen their mysterious enemy would appear. That meant hours and hours of waiting, and in a ritzy place like this a smelly goblin would be noticed.
“I’ll never live it down if other goblins learn about this,” Habbly said.
“Don’t worry,” Ibwibble assured him. “We’ll be back to normal soon enough.”
Brody pulled at the strange brown uniform Ibwibble had insisted they all wear. It itched, but Brody had to admit it was the exact same shade of brown as the wood in the room. They blended in like black cats at night. “How did you afford this stuff?”
Ibwibble chuckled. “I bagged lots of tax collectors before this gig, and not one of them was poor. I beat up the first few and painted them blue, but I learned they only get really mad when you swipe their stuff.”
“You were stupid enough to keep their money?” Habbly asked.
“Some of it. Quiet, somebody’s coming.”
They heard footsteps approach the room and a click as someone unlocked the door. A serving girl came inside and swept the hardwood floor clean before unrolling a red carpet. She replaced the linens on the bed, dusted the desk, chair and dresser, and watered two pots of purple flowers. The girl left, never suspecting that she’d had company.
“How soon until the nymph shows up?” Brody asked.
“Any time between now and midnight,” Ibwibble told him. “She’s supposed to be older than she looks and way tougher.”
Habbly fingered a mop he’d brought for this mission. It was an odd choice for a weapon, but a survivor of Battle Island was dangerous armed with anything. “How much do we know about her?”
“I hear she spends all night looking at the stars,” Brody told him.
“Please tell me there won’t be poetry and singing involved,” Habbly begged.
Ibwibble shook is head. “The way I hear it there’s no singing and lots of math. Once she’s here, no talking, no moving. If one bad guy shows up we mob him. If there’s more than one we figure out who’s giving orders and go for him. We’ve got the advantage of surprise and traps set up in advance. This jerk won’t know what hit him.”
Brody grumbled. “We should have brought Julius with us.”
Ibwibble grabbed him by the arm. “People notice Julius wherever he goes, including bounty hunters trying to collect the price on his head. And there’s going to be a lot of those when Nolod has a kill on sight order for anyone with the Guild of Heroes. If the guy we’re after learns Julius is around then he won’t come near this place. If the jerk does show up, stabby will carve him up before we can turn him in for the kudos.”
“He would not,” Brody said hotly. “Julius gives his enemies a chance to surrender.”
Ibwibble wasn’t impressed. “Which this jerk won’t take, because he thinks Julius is the enemy, and he’s dumb enough to be a martyr for his idiot cause.”
“Incoming,” Habbly said. The argument ended, and moments later the door opened. A middle aged man in simple clothes walked in and set a bundle of papers and books on the desk. For a moment it looked like the nymph wasn’t coming, but then she made her appearance.
And what an appearance she made! Goblins seldom noticed beauty, but the nymph was in a category all her own. She was gorgeous and moved with superhuman grace. Tall, slender, perfectly proportioned, she looked to be in her twenties yet had silver hair braided and curled. Callista was a site to make men’s hearts race. Even the goblins felt drawn to her and relaxed in her presence.
Callista’s garments, though, downplayed her astounding beauty. She wore a cotton dress, jacket, boots and leggings dyed red, fashionable without being cutting edge. Stranger still was how her clothes left nearly no exposed skin besides her face. Even her fingers were covered with red gloves that reached up to her elbows. She also carried a suitcase in each hand and wore a large backpack.
“You couldn’t find anything cheaper, Mr. Rolomer?” she asked in a melodious voice.
“Any room less expensive would require the owner to pay you, madam,” the man said formally. She gave him a questioning look, and he explained, “The owner isn’t charging you for the room. He claims your presence will attract sufficient customers to cover the expense.”
“I think he is being exceedingly optimistic.”
“A bellboy told me there isn’t a room to spare tonight, an event as rare as it is profitable. The class of the clientele may make them more adventurous in seeking an audience with you, as they are of considerable wealth, but ideally they will be more polite in accepting your refusals.”
Callista set her suitcases down and unpacked them. “I’ve found men to be adventurous regardless of their social class, and the rich no less boorish. If other guests tender invitations to visit with me, accept only those made by dwarfs, gnomes, minotaurs or trolls. I’ve found them to be less inclined to make inappropriate advances.”
The man sorted through the papers he brought until he found a stack of letters. “There was that one time—”
“Which we are not going to discuss, Mr. Rolomer.” Callista took off her backpack but didn’t unpack it.
“A number of letters were forwarded here that you might wish to see. The artist Roska Lavolt is asking if you would pose for a painting. He says it would only take a few days, and is offering fifty guilders.”
That made the nymph pause. “I could use the money. Write back and ask what the nature of the painting is. Make it quite clear I will only accept if it’s tasteful. I want no repeats of what happened with that dreadful sculptor. Why, I’d barely walking into his studio and he told me to undress!”
“And you kicked him in his unmentionables,” Rolomor added.
“It was an understandable reaction.”
The man selected another letter. “The widow Kivas Gess expresses her gratitude for your generosity. She seems to be doing well given the circumstances.”
Callista took a nightgown from her suitcase. The goblins had little experience with eveningwear except that it generally covered less than daytime clothes. This was not the case, as her nightgown was nearly as concealing what she wore now. “The poor woman and her daughters have been through too much. Hmm. Mr. Rolomer, perhaps her children and your own could spend time together. It would do them good to play with someone their own age.”
“That might not be socially acceptable when she is a baroness and I am a manservant.”
“Etiquette can take a flying leap off a cliff. They’re small children, alone and frightened, who wouldn’t care what social class their friends are. And your children are exemplary in every respect. Why, take your son Roger.”
Rolomer suddenly tensed. “Madam?”
“He’s tall for his age, well-mannered and very friendly. I haven’t seen him in some time. How is he?”
“I, ah, Roger has begun school again, madam.”
Callista smiled. “Good. He shows a remarkable talent with paints and drawing.”
“My wife and I are trying to redirect his attention to more practical matters.”
She turned away and missed Rolomer’s face turning red when she added, “You should encourage his creativity, Mr. Rolomer. He’s very good with his hands.”
Brody, Habbly and Ibwibble looked to one another and shrugged. They wondered what the boy had drawn or painted that embarrassed his father so much. It seemed related to the nymph.
Rolomer quickly held up another letter. “The ship captains you came here to meet wrote to say they will be late. It appears there has been considerable disruption in Nolod due to one William Bradshaw. He and his goblins did lasting damage when they removed the merchant Quentin Peck.”
“Good riddance to bad rubbish. I met Peck ten years ago, and he was an absolute boor. The man asked how much it would cost to retain my services, and he made it quite clear he wasn’t referring to purchasing my navigational star charts. I’d never been so embarrassed in my life.”
“And you kicked him in—”
“Must you bring that up, Mr. Rolomer? Peck was bad luck as well as bad company. My house burned down two weeks after I’d met the cretin. How late will the captains be in arriving and paying for the star charts they commissioned?”
Rolomer consulted the letter. “They are making arrangements with city officials that could take two days. They offer their apologies and to compensate you for any housing costs that arise up due to this delay, a moot point.”
This was so boring that Brody was falling asleep. He’d nearly nodded off when the manservant’s face turned pale. “The last letter is from your solicitor at the law firm of Goforda Throat. It, ah, it seems Lord Bryce made lengthy lewd remarks regarding your history and character while he was attending a wedding held by Count Durthan. The number of witnesses involved is high, as is their social standing.”
Callista fell silent. Her hands clenched tightly at her nightgown. When she said nothing, Rolomer continued.
“Your solicitor feels given the vulgar and very public nature of these statements, and the fact there is considerable evidence to refute them, that he is able to pursue legal action against Lord Bryce if you so choose. He says, and this is a quote, ‘Say the word and I’ll go after him like a rabid dragon’, unquote.”
“I’m tired, Mr. Rolomer,” she said softly. “Over the centuries I’ve buried two husbands and more friends than I care to count. That should be enough suffering for a lifetime. I’ve been professor of astronomy at Imperial University for eighty years. I’ve written three books on Astronomy and more papers than I can recall, yet I keep having to defending my good name. I’ve lived three hundred years and may live another thousand. Must every day of it be a battle?”
Rolomer set the letter down. “You do not fight alone. Many people recognize you for the amazing person you are. They will stand by your side against Lord Bryce and those like him.”
She smiled at him. “Thank you. Please write a letter to my solicitor. It is to include the message, ‘The Word’, nothing more.”
“The letter will go out tonight, madam. I’ll place the rest of your baggage in my room. Do you wish me to leave you with your weapons?”
“No, Mr. Rolomer. In my current mood I’d be too tempted to use them on someone.”
The rest of the night was dull. Rolomer brought a number of invitations to drinks, games and discussions, but Callista declined them all. She seemed exhausted after dealing with the insult against her and went to sleep early. Rolomer went to sleep in a room next to his employer. Rooms in the hotel weren’t entirely dark, for the wealthy portions of Nolod lit up lanterns and magic lights when night fell. Hours went by in silence. The goblins kept close watch on the doors and windows, waiting so long they wondered if the tip was bad.
Click.
The goblins tensed at the tiny sound coming from the door. It was different from when the serving girl had unlocked the door earlier that day. Another click followed. It took them a moment to realize someone was trying to pick the lock and doing a remarkably poor job. Brody, Habbly or Ibwibble could have done it in seconds.
Clumsy as the attempt was, it succeeded after three minutes. The door opened slowly, and four men dressed in black entered the room. Brody studied them and saw a faint red light around their eyes. He looked at the others, and Ibwibble’s lips formed the word ‘magic’.
The intruders spread out across the room and went through the desk and Callista’s suitcases. At first Brody worried that they had vile intentions toward the nymph, but they stayed clear of the bed. One of the intruders grabbed a handful of letters and stuffed them inside his shirt. They continued their silent search for several minutes, ignoring cash in favor of papers.
Ibwibble took a small rock from his rucksack and threw it at one of the potted plants. His aim was good, and the rock knocked the pot to the floor. Crash! Callista leapt from bed and faced the intruders. For two seconds nothing happened. Brody wondered if this was due to the invaders being shocked or if they were awed by the nymph’s legendary beauty.
“Wow,” an intruder said, answering Brody’s question.
“You’re not the first to break into my chambers at night,” Callista said in a surprisingly business-like tone of voice. “After I’m done with you, you might be the last.”
Lighting fast, Callista drove her hand into her backpack and pulled out a brass tube. Her enemies drew daggers from concealed sheaths. Callista swung her arm and the brass tube snapped out to triple its length. Now open, they could see lenses on both ends.
“That’s just a telescope,” an intruder said. “What are you going to—”
Callista lunged at the nearest intruder and struck him across the face with her telescope. He screamed in pain, a cry silenced when Callista drove the palm of her left hand into the base of his ribcage. The blow forced the air out of his lungs and dropped him to his knees. Two intruders tried to tackle her. The nymph kicked one below the belt and sent him down, then broke her telescope against the knee of the second.
The last intruder standing wove his hands in the air and spoke incomprehensible words. The room grew cold as a knife made of ice formed in his right hand. He threw it at Callista’s feet, but she jumped over the knife. It hit the floor and formed a thick layer of ice beneath the nymph. Most people would have slipped if they landed on an icy patch, but most people lacked the superhuman grace of nymphs. Callista not only kept her footing when she came down, but also grabbed a chair and threw it at the man, hitting him in the chest hard enough to force him out of the room.
Ibwibble pointed at the spell caster. “That one.”
The three goblins leaped from the rafters, landing on the intruders still in the room. The men had been struggling to their feet when the goblins knocked them down again. Callista went for her large backpack and hurled it into the chaotic melee, missing Habbly by inches and hitting the man he was standing on. The goblins fled the room and piled onto the lone intruder who’d cast a spell, kicking him in the shins and pushing him over.
“Run!” the spell caster shouted. The other three enemies scrambled out of the room seconds ahead of an enraged nymph. Callista saw the goblins hit her attackers again and again. After that she reserved her attacks for the men and left the goblins alone. The battle was complicated when doors across the hotel opened and confused guests came out. Bystanders got in everyone’s way.
The spell caster created another icy knife and threw at the floor, icing over the hallway. Men and women slipped and cried out in panic. Only the four intruders, three goblins and nymph were able to keep their footing, often by stepping on fallen guests.
“Keep going!” the spell caster urged the others. The four men in black ran out of the hallway into the hotel’s common room and then out the door onto the street. Nolod’s streets were packed even at night as the rich and powerful continued doing business, and the men might escape into the crowds.
Ibwibble reached the street and grabbed a lasso hidden near the edge of the hotel. He threw it over the spell caster’s chest and then pulled a wood peg he’d set in the wall. The rope went taunt and yanked the man off his feet, dragging him back to the goblins.
“I can’t get free!” the spell caster yelled. His friends grabbed him and pulled him to a stop before cutting the lasso with a dagger. The four tried to escape again when Ibwibble threw another lasso. He missed the spell caster and caught one of his accomplices. Brody pulled another peg loose, and the man was dragged screaming across the cobblestone street. The other three men tried to rescue him, a move that ended when Callista caught up with them.
“Madam, your blade!” It was Rolomer. He’d caught up with his employer and threw her a sheathed sword. Callista snatched it out of the air and drew a sword that was as much a work of art as it was a weapon.
“Thank you, Mr. Rolomer,” she said politely. Turning her attention back to the men, she said, “Gentlemen, die.”
“Help!” the lassoed man cried out as he was dragged away. The goblins piled on him and bound him tightly with more ropes. Callista kept after the other three men and missed the spell caster’s head by the barest of margins. The spell caster pulled a vial from inside his black clothes and threw it at the ground. A dense cloud poured out and Callista coughed and staggered out of it while the men escaped.
Callista gasped for fresh air, a rare commodity in Nolod, and looked around. The three men had made their escape in the crowded streets. She looked behind her and saw bales of cotton next to the apartment building. There were ropes around the bales that led to pulleys attached to the building’s roof. It didn’t take her long to figure out that those bales were the counterweight that had dragged the lassoed attackers. She didn’t see the three goblins or the man they’d seized.
* * * * *
“I’ll tell you nothing!” the man yelled as Brody, Habbly and Ibwibble dragged him through the back alleys of Nolod. He struggled uselessly against the ropes holding him. He tried to kick the goblins and couldn’t with his feet tied to his hands.
“That’s just grand, because I don’t want to ask you anything,” Ibwibble said. “Frankly, you guys are boring. If you were a tax collector, that would be entertaining. Fanatics don’t do anything for me.”
“I’m not a fanatic!” their prisoner screamed. “I’m part of a movement to lift the veil of ignorance from the eyes of the people!”
“I thought you weren’t going to tell us anything,” Brody said.
The prisoner struggled again. “I’m allowed to say that much.”
“Do me a favor, and for the time being say less,” Ibwibble said. “Man is this guy heavy. What do they feed you idiots?”
“What did you mean when you said for the time being?” the prisoner asked.
“The nymph is quite a fighter,” Habbly said. “Gamblers at Battle Island would have paid good money to see her, well, for several reasons.”
Ibwibble shrugged. “The dame has been around for three hundred years. You don’t last that long by being a damsel in distress.”
“You may have caught me, but you missed the others,” the prisoner said. “There are more like me, and more will join the cause when they see the truth.”
Ibwibble laughed. “Your friends aren’t going to get as far as you think. We planned for guys getting away.”
The goblins pulled their prisoner past an adolescent troll walking down the street. Brody nodded to the troll and said, “Evening.”
“Do something!” their prisoner shouted at the scaly troll.
The troll shrugged. “I don’t want to know what this is about.”
The goblins walked for hours, stopping only when they reached Nolod’s city limits. Once they were out of the grimy city they let go of the ropes. A lone man stepped out of the darkness in front of them. “You should have brought me with you.”
“If you’d been there we’d have four bodies, more if bounty hunters came after you,” Ibwibble countered. “I’ll admit this isn’t the guy I wanted to bring, but one prisoner to interrogate beats identifying dead guys. I’ll get you better ones next time.”
Their prisoner struggled to sit up. “Who is that?”
The lone man knelled down until he was looking the prisoner in the eyes. “Hello, my name is Julius Craton. I was almost killed because of you and your friends.”
Ibwibble grinned like a maniac. “Now you want to start talking.”
August 27, 2019
New Goblin Stories 21
Brody and Habbly stopped outside the door of what had to be the most disreputably bar in existence. The smell alone was enough to earn that dubious honor, a mix of stale beer, unwashed patrons, spoiled food and an indescribable foulness coming from the corners of the building, source unknown. Vermin of all stripes and colors scurried about, snapping up bits of food that had fallen or been thrown on the floor, and in some cases preying upon one another. Patrons of this vile establishment were a mixed bunch, some poor, others criminal, all so desperate that they tolerated the dim lighting, sticky floors and questionable company.
“Only Cronsword could have a place this disgusting and not get it shut down or burned down,” Brody said.
“Nolod is almost this bad,” Habbly said when a centipede crawled over his foot.
“You’re sure he’s in here?” Brody asked. The filth and smell didn’t bother him, especially when the rest of Cronsword was as messy as a pigsty, but this could be dangerous.
“Five goblins saw him go in yesterday and not come out,” Habbly replied.
“They might have been lying to get rid of us. That’s happened more than once this week.”
“We’ve run out of leads to check,” Habbly countered. “If he’s not here then I don’t know where else to look. Be honest, this is his kind of place.”
Brody peeked his head in the bar and saw a man get thrown across the room. “It’s got an ‘anarchy bordering on civil war’ feel to it he would appreciate, even add to. We’ll look, but if he’s not here I vote we torch the place on our way out.”
Habbly led the way as they went inside. “You’ve been spending too much time around Craton.”
Normally goblins visit bars like this to cause trouble, as the drunken and often angry men found in bars make for good victims of goblin pranks. Sometimes goblins visit bars to give gifts to men drinking away their sorrows, slipping coins and even jewelry into their pockets. Such gifts are inevitably stolen from rich men who have annoyed those goblins, but the sources are unimportant.
This time was different, for Brody and Habbly had come in search of help. For two weeks they’d searched high and low, mostly low, for the one person they were sure could help them. Julius, Officer Dalton and Kadid Lan were searching for the authors of strange papers causing so much trouble. Impressive as they were, there were places such men couldn’t go, people who wouldn’t talk to them. Goblins had their own limitations and weren’t welcome in polite company, but among the dregs of society a goblin could do much.
“What’s this?” a patron asked when Brody and Habbly walked by him. The man staggered to his feet and stepped in front of them. “More goblins. Is there a plague of goblins? A migration? An invasion?”
“A convention,” Habbly told him.
Brody glanced at the filthy man staggering under the effects of drink. “You’ve got goblins here?”
“Just one. One’s too many.” The man fell back into his chair.
“Where is he?” Habbly asked.
“Little guy is over, over there.” The man pointed near the bar. There was a small table and one chair in a poorly lit corner. Brody and Habbly couldn’t see who was sitting there, but the bartender walked up to the table and set down a plate of cheese.
Brody and Habbly slipped between tables and drunken customers, nearly slipping on a puddle of spilled beer until they reached the bar. The bartender nodded to them, a rare greeting from a human, and asked, “You’re friends of his?”
Brody peered into the shadows and recognized the table’s sole occupant. “We know him. I’m surprised you’re letting him stay here.”
“He did me a favor. There’s a lady artist living in the apartment next to mine. Three straight weeks of her complaining that I was disrupting her creative energies, whatever that means, and I was at wit’s end. The little guy drove her and her cats off in twelve hours. I figure that’s worth some cheese.” When Brody headed for the table, the bartender said, “You be careful. He’s been hitting the Gouda hard all day.”
Brody and Habbly took two spare chairs and approached the table. They sat down while the lone goblin wolfed down every speck of cheese on the plate. Brody wasn’t sure how to start and simply said, “Ibwibble.”
“Ibwibble the Terrifying,” Ibwibble corrected him. The green goblin sat with his back against the wall and his rucksack by his feet. Ibwibble wasn’t armed, but was dangerous all the same. “Wait a minute, I’ve seen you two before. You were at that mess with the Fallen King.”
“We helped defeat him,” Habbly said.
Ibwibble licked the plate clean and set it on the table. “That goon cost me my audience. Thousands and thousands of people knew and feared my name, until they were chased off. I’ve been trying to rebuild my reputation, get new fans, but it’s not working. I can’t find a tax collector to fight. People don’t like tax collectors, you know.”
“We’ve heard,” Brody said. “Ibwibble, we need—”
“I came here looking for tax collectors,” Ibwibble continued morosely. “I figured, hey, a city has to have zillions of tax collectors to milk the citizens dry. But not Cronsword, no, they have gangs to do that. Not one proper tax collector in the entire city.”
Brody drove off a small furry animals trying to climb up his leg. “It doesn’t look like they’re better off for the loss.”
“I don’t even have my friend Dawn Lantern anymore,” Ibwibble went on. “I didn’t lose him like losing a sock or a comb. I mean, it’s not like I could find him by checking under the couch cushions. We were walking down a road, checking rumors of a tax collector sighting, when all of a sudden men come running at us and drop to their knees. They need my friend’s help or terrible, dire, not at all good things are going to happen. They begged and pleaded and whined. It went on for minutes!”
“That’s tragic,” Habbly said in a deadpan voice.
“Me and Dawn Lantern were getting along really good.” Ibwibble pointed at Brody and said, “Sure, he could help those slobs, and I guess that’s important, but I miss him. I liked talking with him.”
“Do you have any idea what he’s going on about?” Habbly asked Brody.
“Not a clue.”
Ibwibble’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute, how did you two find me?”
“It wasn’t hard when you left a fifty mile long trail of booby-trapped outhouses,” Habbly replied. “Thanks to you, hundreds of people have a crippling fear of toilets.”
Ibwibble chuckled. “Yeah, that was fun, but it was work, too. I need to stay in practice for the day I find where the tax collectors are hiding from me.”
Brody took a deep breath before saying, “Ibwibble, as crazy as this sounds, good people need you. Their lives are in danger because of some idiots telling everybody’s secrets, and that includes secrets that could get you killed. We’re trying to find who’s responsible and put a stop to it, but nobody we know has seen them, much less know who they are or where to find them. We need help. We need you.”
A drunk stumbled by and fell at their feet. No one paid attention when he didn’t get up, and when he started snoring the bartender said, “I’m adding a night’s stay to his tab.”
“Need me?” Ibwibble perked up.
“You were trained by Little Old Dude,” Brody said. “That name carries a lot of weight. You set a trap that drove off a lot of the Fallen King’s men, and you helped take out a hag in that battle. An impossible mission has come up, to find unfindable people, and that means we need the best.”
Brody nodded to Habbly, who took a wad of papers from inside his shirt and spread them out across the table. Some were the papers with blue ink telling secrets, while others were covered in names, tables and charts.
“We need to find who’s spreading this stuff,” Brody said. He pointed at the other papers and said, “We’ve got a marketing plan to make sure the world knows who you are and that you’re on the case. That’s the job, and that’s the reward.”
“I’m not a detective,” Ibwibble said, but his protest was halfhearted.
“You’re a hunter,” Habbly replied. “You hunt tax collectors, canny beasts supported by soldiers and kings. We need you to hunt the people who wrote this trash.”
Ibwibble picked up a paper and turned it over in his hands. He said nothing, but his eyes narrowed as he studied the writing. “Flowery handwriting, good quality paper, blue ink, this smells like money. Parents with cash to spare raised the guy who wrote this, educated him in a fancy school where they teach long words nobody says, like haberdashery. He’s still got money to afford nice paper and so much of it, but he’s scared, hiding in shadows because he knows his victims will come after him. Scared means nobody is protecting him, not kings, not churches, not guilds or noble houses.”
“That fits with what we think,” Habbly said.
Ibwibble read the other papers. “The victims are all over the place. Most of them are humans, but I see names of elves, dwarfs and a few ogres. Mayors, merchants, nobles, gang leaders, wizards, heroes, priests, he’s going after anyone with money or authority. This guy has no friends in society. The victims are spread out over a couple kingdoms. How is he getting dirt on so many people so far from each other? How much of this is true?”
“Every word,” Brody told him.
That made Ibwibble drop the papers. “He hasn’t lied once? Why not? Look at this stuff, gambling debts, mistresses, undercover missions, diplomatic exchanges and smugglers selling goods. He can’t prove any of it and he doesn’t show evidence. If he can’t prove his truths, why doesn’t he tell lies people might believe?”
“That’s why we nee—” Brody began. His voice trailed off when foul liquid dripped off the ceiling onto their table. “What is that?”
“It’s just Gus,” Ibwibble told them. “Don’t worry, he’ll move on in a few minutes.”
Habbly wiped the table clean with his shirtsleeve. “Did goblins build this place? I can’t imagine anyone else being crazy enough to do it.”
Ibwibble pounded on the table. “That’s it! The guy behind this is a nutcase! He thinks he’s smart and trying to prove a point, but he’s a moron who hates everyone and thinks there’s no difference between his victims. Good, bad, that doesn’t matter to him. He’s after the truth like it’s a goal to reach, an absolute, and these people have secrets that hide the truth. Truth matters and consequences don’t, not to him.”
“Are you following this?” Habbly asked Brody.
“Sort of,” Brody admitted.
“Clue me in later.”
Ibwibble jabbed at the papers with his finger. “The guy won’t stop. He thinks he’s on a mission to tell all truths. The secrets he’s telling are pretty small, but it won’t last. He’ll want bigger ones, like treaties between kingdoms, the kind of secrets that might start wars if they get out.”
“A small secret getting out nearly got me and Julius Craton killed,” Brody said.
Habbly looked curious when he told Brody, “This is more than I expected from him.”
“He’s got to be good to cause trouble for decades without getting killed,” Brody explained. “It just doesn’t show most of the time.”
Ibwibble jammed the papers into his rucksack. “If I find this guy, I want the credit, all of it. No garbage about ‘unidentified sources’ or ‘anonymous heroes’. People say I did it, and no take backs.”
“Deal,” Habbly said. “But you’re on a time limit. Julius Craton and Officer Dalton are looking for witness who saw whoever put up these papers. Kadid Lan is trying to find out where the paper and ink is made, since you don’t find pricy stuff like this everywhere. If they find the guy then the credit goes to them.”
“There’s got to be a thousand angry people looking for the jerk behind this,” Ibwibble said. He thumped his chest and jumped off his chair. “I’m going to find him first, because I’ve got drive, I’ve got gumption, and I’m really, really desperate.”
Ibwibble led the trio to the door, stopping only when a garishly dressed man stepped into their way and drew a knife. “I don’t fancy having my favorite bar sullied with goblins.”
Brody grabbed a stool and swung it like a club into the man’s knees, sending him screaming to the ground. Two more hits to the arms forced the garish stranger to drop his knife, which Brody kicked into the nearest corner. The stranger was reaching for a second knife when Brody tipped a table onto him, spilling hot food and cold drinks onto the man.
Habbly spun around, looking for anyone coming to join the fight. To his surprise, no one seemed to notice or care about it except for a lone man who took the dropped knife. Habbly looked at Brody and said, “Julius is a bad influence on you.”
Ibwibble didn’t waste any time once they left the bar, leading them through the crowded streets and back alleys of Cronsword. The city was abuzz with activity as refugees came on foot and by boat. They were not alone, though, for a dizzying array of armed men, dwarfs, ogres, harpies, gnomes and still stranger things flooded into the city. In most cities such an influx of possibly criminal and definitely dangerous beings would be cause for alarm, but instead gangsters directed the crowd into lines leading to large tables covered with paperwork.
“Wizards, alchemists and mad scientists, please go to the line on the left,” a man with a brass gauntlet called out. “Thieves, bandits and blackguards, go to the center line. Fighters, warriors and toughs, go to the right line. Monsters, mystical beings and curse victims, go to the back line. Please have your credentials ready before reaching the sign up tables.”
A gnome riding what looked like a chest with spidery wooden legs approached the man. “What if you’re in more than one category?”
“Pick whichever category is most dangerous,” the man replied. He pointed at a monster and shouted, “No eating other people in line!”
“This is unusual,” Brody said as he followed Ibwibble.
Ibwibble waved his hand like he was fanning away a bad smell. “Some yahoo called Hatchwich is planning on taking over the world. Not my cup of tea, but I say more power to him. Maybe one day he’ll have tax collectors for me to hunt.”
Surprised, Habbly asked, “You’re not joining him?”
“Ha! I’m going to be the ringmaster of my own circus, not a clown in his.”
It took some time, but they eventually left the growing army of malcontents and entered a busy street filled with clothing shops. There they came upon an old blind man sitting on a corner. The man wore raggedy clothes and a blindfold, and he waved a tin cup at men walking down the street.
“Spare a copper coin for a blind man,” the old man said when a merchant walked by. It was not a request, and when the merchant didn’t drop a coin the blind man said, “Be a shame if your wife learned about the bachelor party you went to last week. Crying shame.”
The merchant grumbled and tossed in the required payment before leaving. The blind man chuckled and slipped the coin into a pouch. Ibwibble walked up to the man and stopped. The blind man frowned and set down his cup. “You’re going to drive off my customers, Ibwibble.”
“You have victims, Quaid, not customers.” Ibwibble waved for the other goblins to join him. “This is Quaid, blind fortune teller and a reliable source of information nobody wants to get out. I’ve hired him in the past to help me find tax collectors.”
“If he can learn secrets, how do we know he’s not behind this?” Brody asked.
Ibwibble laughed. “If he had done this, he would have charged big and told nastier secrets. Quaid, there’s a nutcase spreading ugly truths. I’m after him. You play ball and I’ll pay seventeen copper coins, half a silver piece, a shiny rock and a small green frog.”
The offer relaxed Quaid, and he tapped the street beside him. Once the goblins had sat down, Quaid said, “The money is appreciated. You can keep the frog.”
“The frog is part of the deal,” Ibwibble insisted.
Quaid shrugged. “Fine, I’ll take the frog. I know of the messages you refer to. I’ve looked into who posted them myself in case there was reward money for catching who’s doing it. I’ll tell you what I already know, that the ones responsible use masking spells to cover their identity from my blind eyes, an army of wizards, and countless rich men using crystal balls and magic mirrors to ask the same question you are. I don’t know who is responsible or where to find them. Pay up.”
Ibwibble didn’t hand over the cash. “I’m getting more for my money than I don’t know! This masking magic, how hard is it to cast?”
“Easy for someone with the proper training. Many merchants and nobles hire wizards to cast such spells on their property to keep out prying eyes. There must be a hundred wizards alive today who could do this, and more are trained every year.”
Brody watched Quaid ‘look’ left when a pretty lady went by, his head following her as she left. Quaid chuckled and turned his head to face Brody. “Surprised, little one?”
“Kind of. What happened to your eyes?”
Quaid shrugged. “My eyes worked fine before I learned how to be a seer. It was exciting, profitable, but I discovered too late that there are places it’s not safe to look. It’s a price most seers pay in their ignorance and arrogance. Still, I see after a fashion, better than before in some ways, worse in others.”
“Why haven’t the authorities come to you?” Habbly asked Quaid. “I figure your help must be useful to them and valuable to you.”
“Inside Cronsword there are no authorities, and outside this city I’ve made enough trouble for men in power that I’m not their favorite person.”
Ibwibble snapped his fingers to get Quaid’s attention. “You don’t know where they are now, but can you see where they’re going to be?”
“That’s a tricky one,” Quaid said. He sat in silence and then began to mumble before shaking his head. “The trail is clouded going forwards and backwards.”
Habbly frowned. “We need answers. People are getting hurt because of this.”
Quaid snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute, that might do it. The masking spells keep me from seeing who is responsible, but it covers only those using them. I might be able to follow the culprits by looking for the victims they will leave in their wake. Mind you, that’s complicated, possibly risky, and definitely costs more.”
The goblins went through their meager belongings, coming up with eight more copper coins, a brass candlestick holder and a life-sized wood carving of a muskrat. Quaid took the offered payment and began to mumble again. This went on for some time until he snapped his fingers.
“Got you!” he said triumphantly. “In eight days at the stroke of midnight, their paths will cross with Calista the nymph at her rented apartment in Nolod. The masking spell obscures who will be there besides her and if there will be danger, but that’s the where and when you need to find them.”
Ibwibble handed Quaid the rest of the promised payment, including the frog. “You’re as good as gold. Do me a favor and hold off selling this information to anyone else for one day. Come on, guys, let’s move. We have to hurry to reach Nolod in time.”
“I may be able to sell this information to many interested people, who will no doubt pay more than you did.” Quaid chuckled as the goblins left. “Ah, this is a profitable day indeed. Now then, frog, what am I to do with you?”
“Ribbit.”
Shocked, Quaid shouted, “Oh come now! Where am I supposed to find a princess?”
“Only Cronsword could have a place this disgusting and not get it shut down or burned down,” Brody said.
“Nolod is almost this bad,” Habbly said when a centipede crawled over his foot.
“You’re sure he’s in here?” Brody asked. The filth and smell didn’t bother him, especially when the rest of Cronsword was as messy as a pigsty, but this could be dangerous.
“Five goblins saw him go in yesterday and not come out,” Habbly replied.
“They might have been lying to get rid of us. That’s happened more than once this week.”
“We’ve run out of leads to check,” Habbly countered. “If he’s not here then I don’t know where else to look. Be honest, this is his kind of place.”
Brody peeked his head in the bar and saw a man get thrown across the room. “It’s got an ‘anarchy bordering on civil war’ feel to it he would appreciate, even add to. We’ll look, but if he’s not here I vote we torch the place on our way out.”
Habbly led the way as they went inside. “You’ve been spending too much time around Craton.”
Normally goblins visit bars like this to cause trouble, as the drunken and often angry men found in bars make for good victims of goblin pranks. Sometimes goblins visit bars to give gifts to men drinking away their sorrows, slipping coins and even jewelry into their pockets. Such gifts are inevitably stolen from rich men who have annoyed those goblins, but the sources are unimportant.
This time was different, for Brody and Habbly had come in search of help. For two weeks they’d searched high and low, mostly low, for the one person they were sure could help them. Julius, Officer Dalton and Kadid Lan were searching for the authors of strange papers causing so much trouble. Impressive as they were, there were places such men couldn’t go, people who wouldn’t talk to them. Goblins had their own limitations and weren’t welcome in polite company, but among the dregs of society a goblin could do much.
“What’s this?” a patron asked when Brody and Habbly walked by him. The man staggered to his feet and stepped in front of them. “More goblins. Is there a plague of goblins? A migration? An invasion?”
“A convention,” Habbly told him.
Brody glanced at the filthy man staggering under the effects of drink. “You’ve got goblins here?”
“Just one. One’s too many.” The man fell back into his chair.
“Where is he?” Habbly asked.
“Little guy is over, over there.” The man pointed near the bar. There was a small table and one chair in a poorly lit corner. Brody and Habbly couldn’t see who was sitting there, but the bartender walked up to the table and set down a plate of cheese.
Brody and Habbly slipped between tables and drunken customers, nearly slipping on a puddle of spilled beer until they reached the bar. The bartender nodded to them, a rare greeting from a human, and asked, “You’re friends of his?”
Brody peered into the shadows and recognized the table’s sole occupant. “We know him. I’m surprised you’re letting him stay here.”
“He did me a favor. There’s a lady artist living in the apartment next to mine. Three straight weeks of her complaining that I was disrupting her creative energies, whatever that means, and I was at wit’s end. The little guy drove her and her cats off in twelve hours. I figure that’s worth some cheese.” When Brody headed for the table, the bartender said, “You be careful. He’s been hitting the Gouda hard all day.”
Brody and Habbly took two spare chairs and approached the table. They sat down while the lone goblin wolfed down every speck of cheese on the plate. Brody wasn’t sure how to start and simply said, “Ibwibble.”
“Ibwibble the Terrifying,” Ibwibble corrected him. The green goblin sat with his back against the wall and his rucksack by his feet. Ibwibble wasn’t armed, but was dangerous all the same. “Wait a minute, I’ve seen you two before. You were at that mess with the Fallen King.”
“We helped defeat him,” Habbly said.
Ibwibble licked the plate clean and set it on the table. “That goon cost me my audience. Thousands and thousands of people knew and feared my name, until they were chased off. I’ve been trying to rebuild my reputation, get new fans, but it’s not working. I can’t find a tax collector to fight. People don’t like tax collectors, you know.”
“We’ve heard,” Brody said. “Ibwibble, we need—”
“I came here looking for tax collectors,” Ibwibble continued morosely. “I figured, hey, a city has to have zillions of tax collectors to milk the citizens dry. But not Cronsword, no, they have gangs to do that. Not one proper tax collector in the entire city.”
Brody drove off a small furry animals trying to climb up his leg. “It doesn’t look like they’re better off for the loss.”
“I don’t even have my friend Dawn Lantern anymore,” Ibwibble went on. “I didn’t lose him like losing a sock or a comb. I mean, it’s not like I could find him by checking under the couch cushions. We were walking down a road, checking rumors of a tax collector sighting, when all of a sudden men come running at us and drop to their knees. They need my friend’s help or terrible, dire, not at all good things are going to happen. They begged and pleaded and whined. It went on for minutes!”
“That’s tragic,” Habbly said in a deadpan voice.
“Me and Dawn Lantern were getting along really good.” Ibwibble pointed at Brody and said, “Sure, he could help those slobs, and I guess that’s important, but I miss him. I liked talking with him.”
“Do you have any idea what he’s going on about?” Habbly asked Brody.
“Not a clue.”
Ibwibble’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute, how did you two find me?”
“It wasn’t hard when you left a fifty mile long trail of booby-trapped outhouses,” Habbly replied. “Thanks to you, hundreds of people have a crippling fear of toilets.”
Ibwibble chuckled. “Yeah, that was fun, but it was work, too. I need to stay in practice for the day I find where the tax collectors are hiding from me.”
Brody took a deep breath before saying, “Ibwibble, as crazy as this sounds, good people need you. Their lives are in danger because of some idiots telling everybody’s secrets, and that includes secrets that could get you killed. We’re trying to find who’s responsible and put a stop to it, but nobody we know has seen them, much less know who they are or where to find them. We need help. We need you.”
A drunk stumbled by and fell at their feet. No one paid attention when he didn’t get up, and when he started snoring the bartender said, “I’m adding a night’s stay to his tab.”
“Need me?” Ibwibble perked up.
“You were trained by Little Old Dude,” Brody said. “That name carries a lot of weight. You set a trap that drove off a lot of the Fallen King’s men, and you helped take out a hag in that battle. An impossible mission has come up, to find unfindable people, and that means we need the best.”
Brody nodded to Habbly, who took a wad of papers from inside his shirt and spread them out across the table. Some were the papers with blue ink telling secrets, while others were covered in names, tables and charts.
“We need to find who’s spreading this stuff,” Brody said. He pointed at the other papers and said, “We’ve got a marketing plan to make sure the world knows who you are and that you’re on the case. That’s the job, and that’s the reward.”
“I’m not a detective,” Ibwibble said, but his protest was halfhearted.
“You’re a hunter,” Habbly replied. “You hunt tax collectors, canny beasts supported by soldiers and kings. We need you to hunt the people who wrote this trash.”
Ibwibble picked up a paper and turned it over in his hands. He said nothing, but his eyes narrowed as he studied the writing. “Flowery handwriting, good quality paper, blue ink, this smells like money. Parents with cash to spare raised the guy who wrote this, educated him in a fancy school where they teach long words nobody says, like haberdashery. He’s still got money to afford nice paper and so much of it, but he’s scared, hiding in shadows because he knows his victims will come after him. Scared means nobody is protecting him, not kings, not churches, not guilds or noble houses.”
“That fits with what we think,” Habbly said.
Ibwibble read the other papers. “The victims are all over the place. Most of them are humans, but I see names of elves, dwarfs and a few ogres. Mayors, merchants, nobles, gang leaders, wizards, heroes, priests, he’s going after anyone with money or authority. This guy has no friends in society. The victims are spread out over a couple kingdoms. How is he getting dirt on so many people so far from each other? How much of this is true?”
“Every word,” Brody told him.
That made Ibwibble drop the papers. “He hasn’t lied once? Why not? Look at this stuff, gambling debts, mistresses, undercover missions, diplomatic exchanges and smugglers selling goods. He can’t prove any of it and he doesn’t show evidence. If he can’t prove his truths, why doesn’t he tell lies people might believe?”
“That’s why we nee—” Brody began. His voice trailed off when foul liquid dripped off the ceiling onto their table. “What is that?”
“It’s just Gus,” Ibwibble told them. “Don’t worry, he’ll move on in a few minutes.”
Habbly wiped the table clean with his shirtsleeve. “Did goblins build this place? I can’t imagine anyone else being crazy enough to do it.”
Ibwibble pounded on the table. “That’s it! The guy behind this is a nutcase! He thinks he’s smart and trying to prove a point, but he’s a moron who hates everyone and thinks there’s no difference between his victims. Good, bad, that doesn’t matter to him. He’s after the truth like it’s a goal to reach, an absolute, and these people have secrets that hide the truth. Truth matters and consequences don’t, not to him.”
“Are you following this?” Habbly asked Brody.
“Sort of,” Brody admitted.
“Clue me in later.”
Ibwibble jabbed at the papers with his finger. “The guy won’t stop. He thinks he’s on a mission to tell all truths. The secrets he’s telling are pretty small, but it won’t last. He’ll want bigger ones, like treaties between kingdoms, the kind of secrets that might start wars if they get out.”
“A small secret getting out nearly got me and Julius Craton killed,” Brody said.
Habbly looked curious when he told Brody, “This is more than I expected from him.”
“He’s got to be good to cause trouble for decades without getting killed,” Brody explained. “It just doesn’t show most of the time.”
Ibwibble jammed the papers into his rucksack. “If I find this guy, I want the credit, all of it. No garbage about ‘unidentified sources’ or ‘anonymous heroes’. People say I did it, and no take backs.”
“Deal,” Habbly said. “But you’re on a time limit. Julius Craton and Officer Dalton are looking for witness who saw whoever put up these papers. Kadid Lan is trying to find out where the paper and ink is made, since you don’t find pricy stuff like this everywhere. If they find the guy then the credit goes to them.”
“There’s got to be a thousand angry people looking for the jerk behind this,” Ibwibble said. He thumped his chest and jumped off his chair. “I’m going to find him first, because I’ve got drive, I’ve got gumption, and I’m really, really desperate.”
Ibwibble led the trio to the door, stopping only when a garishly dressed man stepped into their way and drew a knife. “I don’t fancy having my favorite bar sullied with goblins.”
Brody grabbed a stool and swung it like a club into the man’s knees, sending him screaming to the ground. Two more hits to the arms forced the garish stranger to drop his knife, which Brody kicked into the nearest corner. The stranger was reaching for a second knife when Brody tipped a table onto him, spilling hot food and cold drinks onto the man.
Habbly spun around, looking for anyone coming to join the fight. To his surprise, no one seemed to notice or care about it except for a lone man who took the dropped knife. Habbly looked at Brody and said, “Julius is a bad influence on you.”
Ibwibble didn’t waste any time once they left the bar, leading them through the crowded streets and back alleys of Cronsword. The city was abuzz with activity as refugees came on foot and by boat. They were not alone, though, for a dizzying array of armed men, dwarfs, ogres, harpies, gnomes and still stranger things flooded into the city. In most cities such an influx of possibly criminal and definitely dangerous beings would be cause for alarm, but instead gangsters directed the crowd into lines leading to large tables covered with paperwork.
“Wizards, alchemists and mad scientists, please go to the line on the left,” a man with a brass gauntlet called out. “Thieves, bandits and blackguards, go to the center line. Fighters, warriors and toughs, go to the right line. Monsters, mystical beings and curse victims, go to the back line. Please have your credentials ready before reaching the sign up tables.”
A gnome riding what looked like a chest with spidery wooden legs approached the man. “What if you’re in more than one category?”
“Pick whichever category is most dangerous,” the man replied. He pointed at a monster and shouted, “No eating other people in line!”
“This is unusual,” Brody said as he followed Ibwibble.
Ibwibble waved his hand like he was fanning away a bad smell. “Some yahoo called Hatchwich is planning on taking over the world. Not my cup of tea, but I say more power to him. Maybe one day he’ll have tax collectors for me to hunt.”
Surprised, Habbly asked, “You’re not joining him?”
“Ha! I’m going to be the ringmaster of my own circus, not a clown in his.”
It took some time, but they eventually left the growing army of malcontents and entered a busy street filled with clothing shops. There they came upon an old blind man sitting on a corner. The man wore raggedy clothes and a blindfold, and he waved a tin cup at men walking down the street.
“Spare a copper coin for a blind man,” the old man said when a merchant walked by. It was not a request, and when the merchant didn’t drop a coin the blind man said, “Be a shame if your wife learned about the bachelor party you went to last week. Crying shame.”
The merchant grumbled and tossed in the required payment before leaving. The blind man chuckled and slipped the coin into a pouch. Ibwibble walked up to the man and stopped. The blind man frowned and set down his cup. “You’re going to drive off my customers, Ibwibble.”
“You have victims, Quaid, not customers.” Ibwibble waved for the other goblins to join him. “This is Quaid, blind fortune teller and a reliable source of information nobody wants to get out. I’ve hired him in the past to help me find tax collectors.”
“If he can learn secrets, how do we know he’s not behind this?” Brody asked.
Ibwibble laughed. “If he had done this, he would have charged big and told nastier secrets. Quaid, there’s a nutcase spreading ugly truths. I’m after him. You play ball and I’ll pay seventeen copper coins, half a silver piece, a shiny rock and a small green frog.”
The offer relaxed Quaid, and he tapped the street beside him. Once the goblins had sat down, Quaid said, “The money is appreciated. You can keep the frog.”
“The frog is part of the deal,” Ibwibble insisted.
Quaid shrugged. “Fine, I’ll take the frog. I know of the messages you refer to. I’ve looked into who posted them myself in case there was reward money for catching who’s doing it. I’ll tell you what I already know, that the ones responsible use masking spells to cover their identity from my blind eyes, an army of wizards, and countless rich men using crystal balls and magic mirrors to ask the same question you are. I don’t know who is responsible or where to find them. Pay up.”
Ibwibble didn’t hand over the cash. “I’m getting more for my money than I don’t know! This masking magic, how hard is it to cast?”
“Easy for someone with the proper training. Many merchants and nobles hire wizards to cast such spells on their property to keep out prying eyes. There must be a hundred wizards alive today who could do this, and more are trained every year.”
Brody watched Quaid ‘look’ left when a pretty lady went by, his head following her as she left. Quaid chuckled and turned his head to face Brody. “Surprised, little one?”
“Kind of. What happened to your eyes?”
Quaid shrugged. “My eyes worked fine before I learned how to be a seer. It was exciting, profitable, but I discovered too late that there are places it’s not safe to look. It’s a price most seers pay in their ignorance and arrogance. Still, I see after a fashion, better than before in some ways, worse in others.”
“Why haven’t the authorities come to you?” Habbly asked Quaid. “I figure your help must be useful to them and valuable to you.”
“Inside Cronsword there are no authorities, and outside this city I’ve made enough trouble for men in power that I’m not their favorite person.”
Ibwibble snapped his fingers to get Quaid’s attention. “You don’t know where they are now, but can you see where they’re going to be?”
“That’s a tricky one,” Quaid said. He sat in silence and then began to mumble before shaking his head. “The trail is clouded going forwards and backwards.”
Habbly frowned. “We need answers. People are getting hurt because of this.”
Quaid snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute, that might do it. The masking spells keep me from seeing who is responsible, but it covers only those using them. I might be able to follow the culprits by looking for the victims they will leave in their wake. Mind you, that’s complicated, possibly risky, and definitely costs more.”
The goblins went through their meager belongings, coming up with eight more copper coins, a brass candlestick holder and a life-sized wood carving of a muskrat. Quaid took the offered payment and began to mumble again. This went on for some time until he snapped his fingers.
“Got you!” he said triumphantly. “In eight days at the stroke of midnight, their paths will cross with Calista the nymph at her rented apartment in Nolod. The masking spell obscures who will be there besides her and if there will be danger, but that’s the where and when you need to find them.”
Ibwibble handed Quaid the rest of the promised payment, including the frog. “You’re as good as gold. Do me a favor and hold off selling this information to anyone else for one day. Come on, guys, let’s move. We have to hurry to reach Nolod in time.”
“I may be able to sell this information to many interested people, who will no doubt pay more than you did.” Quaid chuckled as the goblins left. “Ah, this is a profitable day indeed. Now then, frog, what am I to do with you?”
“Ribbit.”
Shocked, Quaid shouted, “Oh come now! Where am I supposed to find a princess?”
August 14, 2019
Doubtful Allies part 2
This is the conclusion to Doubtful Allies:
Jayden’s reunion with Suzy Lockheart clearly wasn’t a success, but at least it had happened without bloodshed, so Dana considered it a win. She headed for her own room, wondering if this meeting might be good for Jayden. He might not like Suzy, but he made it sound like the woman was dangerous. Maybe she might join them. Many of Dana and Jayden’s fights would have gone better with a powerful friend at their side.
Dana was settling for the night when the door opened and Suzy came in. Dana stared at the woman and said, “You could have knocked first.”
“I didn’t leave home, lose my dowry and get disowned so I could be polite.” Suzy sat on the edge of Dana’s bed and waved her hand north. “Zentrix society is all about not making waves. Be polite, follow the rules, bow and grovel to your betters, and once they’re gone let the verbal venom flow. Hypocrisy, thy name is Zentrix.”
Curious, Dana said, “I went there once. Everyone was nice.”
“You didn’t stay long enough. Grow up there and you see people at their worst. I got out before my parents could marry me off to a raging bigot with excellent breeding. Two years apprenticed to an alchemist against my parent’s wishes got me where I am today, not mindless obedience.”
Suzy edged closer. “Enough about me, let’s talk about you. I’ve had this burning question ever since I heard Jayden was traveling with a girl.”
“What is it?”
“I liked Jayden when we had our earlier adventure together. Really liked him. The weird part is he didn’t feel the same. I did everything except tie him up, and I considered it. Then I hear he’s got a girl who’s been with him for months.”
Suzy took Dana’s hands. “I’m not trying to steal him from you. He’s your chew toy, but I need to know what you did that I didn’t. What worked in the end?”
Dana’s heart raced. She felt herself blush. “I, um, you must have heard wrong. We don’t have that kind of relationship. I mean, I like him, but nothing happened.”
Suzy stared at Dana for a moment. The woman’s eye twitched. She stood up and said, “Would you excuse me for a moment.”
Suzy marched to Jayden’s room and kicked the door in. Jayden looked up from his bed where he’d been studying his spell tablets. “Nothing happened? You’ve been with the girl for months and nothing happened! What the crilviz, Jayden!”
“Crilviz?” Dana asked.
“A gnome word, very vulgar,” Jayden explained. “Ms. Lockheart, my love life, or lack thereof, is no business of yours.”
“Don’t give me that!” Suzy yelled. “I know you like girls. I’ve heard the stories.”
Dana got up from her bed. “What stories?”
“Fine, you think I nearly killed you, even if I didn’t, but what about her?” Suzy demanded. “What crime did she commit to spend the rest of her life in the friend zone?”
“Do you mind?” Gaston yelled from the inn’s common room. “If I had customers you’d be driving them off!”
“Shut it!” Suzy yelled back. She turned her attention back to Jayden. “Well?”
Jayden set his spell tablet aside. “Dana is my friend. I have few others, and none I trust like her. She cares for my wellbeing more than I do. I don’t wish to lose her friendship. To try to turn our relationship into something it isn’t, and shouldn’t be, would be wrong. Think ill of me if you will, but I cherish what Dana and I have too much to risk losing it.
“What you seek from me is something I can’t give when there is no depth to the feelings you have for me. When we first met you were rebelling against your strict upbringing, and you’re still doing so today. You seek constant excitement and new experiences, not a bad desire, but I’m nothing more than a diversion from your boredom. I seek more than that, and if you examine your feelings you’ll agree it’s more than you’re willing to give. If I’ve misjudged you, say so.”
When Suzy didn’t reply, he added, “And you don’t care about the people of this kingdom.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked in bewilderment.
“It must sound odd given my actions, but I love the people of this land. I want to end this madness and return them to the peace and prosperity they once enjoyed. They don’t matter to you, nor do the people of your homeland, or the residents of Brandish that you’re in the process of saving from invasion. You prize your independence and care for a select few who have earned your respect. This is a job to you, nothing more, and to me it’s far more important than gold.”
Jayden got up and walked over to Suzy. He put his hands on her shoulders. “You must feel insulted by what I’ve said, but you did ask. You deserved an honest answer, no hypocrisy, no hidden feelings. I harbor no ill will if you wish to cancel our arrangement. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m tired from a long day, so get out of my room and let me get some sleep.”
Jayden led her from his room, shut the door and locked it. Suzy stood in the hallway for a moment before she turned to Dana and asked, “What just happened?”
* * * * *
Dana met Jayden the following morning in the inn’s common room. Gaston served them what might have been food if he’d cooked it right. Dana managed to keep it down with difficulty.
“Last night you gave Suzy a good reason to turn us over to the authorities for the bounty money, or just blow us both up while we slept,” she told him.
Jayden ate his food despite its poor quality. “Any other answer would have made the situation worse. If I had promised her what I had no intention of giving, she would have been even angrier. If I had returned her affections it would have made her believe we had a future together, and with such differing goals it wouldn’t work.”
Gaston walked up to their table and set down a bottle of wine. “The food will go down better with this.”
“And you wonder why you don’t have more customers,” Dana said.
“You try cooking good meals when you can’t get spices,” Gaston said as he left them. “I used to get good supplies from Fish Bait City.”
Jayden poured himself a cup of wine and tasted it. “Passable. In regards to Suzy informing on us, she despises authority figures of any kind. The price on my head is staggering, but claiming it would require her working for men she sees as no different from the ones in her homeland. Her dislike of royalty is so great that I’m surprised she accepted a job from the king of Brandish.”
“He wined me, dined me, and didn’t tax me,” Suzy said as she came into the common room. “I put up with a lot when people are nice to me.”
“I doubt I’ve ever been nice,” Jayden replied as he handed her the bottle.
“You have,” she told him, and took a swig of wine before starting her meal. “Jayden, I won’t pretend I understood half of what you said last night, but making you like someone you don’t is something my parents would do. We’re working together and that’s that. And I’ve never seen you lie to anyone or treat rich people better than poor ones, so you’re owed respect.”
Suzy sat down across from him at the table and fixed him with a stern look. “But tell me this, what happens if you win and the king and queen get killed, imprisoned, exiled, eaten by aardvarks or whatever? Someone’s got to be in charge when they’re gone.”
“I have no desire for the throne,” he told her.
She raised the bottle in a toast. “I’ll drink to that. Being in charge is no different than being in jail. You’re at the mercy of the job, day and night doing what has to be done and never what you want to do. But if you don’t take it someone else will. Men will kill to get the crown, and do worse to anyone they rule. We’re talking a repeat of the civil war your people had. If you get what you want you’ll make things a whole lot worse for everyone living here.”
Dana frowned. “You think people would accept a sorcerer lord as their king?”
“Of course not, that’s my point,” Suzy replied. “Turn down the job and it’s anarchy. Take the job and you’ve got rebels, coups by the army, and assassinations attempts on the hour every hour.”
Jayden sipped his drink before answering. “I never imagined my life would end happily ever after. What you predict may well come to pass. Your worst-case scenario has one advantage over doing nothing, namely only one kingdom would suffer, not four. It is a questionable improvement, I admit, but it limits the damage.”
“You’re smart enough to want more than that,” she told him.
“What I want, for now, is to see the contents of those armored wagons,” he replied. “How soon can to make that happen?”
Suzy set down the bottle. “Tonight. We need to get inside Armorston before the city gates close at sunset. It’s better if we go just before noon. There’s more traffic to cover our entrance, and the guard changes at noon so those men will be tired and hungry after a long shift. They’ll be more likely to let us pass without looking too closely.”
“I want see this hiding place,” Dana told her.
“Easy to do.” Suzy led them outside to where she’d stabled her horses and left her wagon. She opened the back to show countless bags and terracotta jars, some as big as a man. Suzy went to the back of the wagon and pressed a hidden switch, causing two of the larger jars to open and reveal compartments four feet tall and two feet deep.
“Nifty, huh? The tops of the jars have false bottoms and are filled with cooking oil, so if someone reaches down there they won’t get suspicious. You’ve even got hidden eyeholes to look through.”
Dana climbed into the wagon and sat in one of compartments. “Can we open these from the inside if we have to?”
Suzy pointed at a spot near Dana’s foot. “A switch by your left foot opens the door.”
“It will do the job,” Jayden said. “How soon do we leave?”
“Now-ish. I hope you don’t mind sharing that space with Yub. He’s a dear, but people overreact when goblins show up a their door, especially ones with bombs.”
Dana took the grinning goblin onto her lap before Suzy swung the door closed. She heard Suzy say, “Watch your hair,” moments before there was the bang of the other door closing. Dana found the eyeholes Suzy had mentioned and was able to watch the wagon leave the inn behind and go onto the road.
The trip there was more interesting than Dana had expected. She saw many other wagons on the road, plus carriages and men riding horses. Most people going into Armorston brought produce, hay, livestock and other simple goods. Men riding carriages were better dressed, and traffic stopped to let them go through. Dana was surprised by what she didn’t see, for there were no trolls, dwarfs, elves or other races, only humans.
Traffic slowed when they neared the city gate. Bored soldiers went through the motions of searching vehicles and people, but they seldom did more than open a few bags or barrels. When Suzy brought her wagon to the gate the soldiers perked up.
“Morning, boys,” Dana heard Suzy say. She couldn’t see the alchemist through the eyeholes.
“Hey, it’s Lockheart,” a soldier said cheerfully. “Got anything to perk a man up, besides seeing you again?”
Dana rolled her eyes at the cheesy pickup line, but Suzy laughed. “I’ve got a bottle of what an innkeeper called wine. It’s half done, but if you don’t mind leftovers it’s yours.”
“I don’t turn down alcohol.” A soldier reached up past the eyeholes and came back into view with a bottle. More guards checked the back of the wagon, but they didn’t search it long. Dana saw soldiers pass around the bottle until it was empty and toss it into the snow. “Go on, ma’am, but you’ll need a permanent residency pass soon.”
“No need for that when I’ll be leaving soon,” Suzy told him.
“That’s a crying shame,” the soldier said before waving her on. “The kingdom needs more pretty girls.”
They went into the more protected areas of the city, and what little Dana could see through the eyeholes proved that Jayden hadn’t exaggerated about Armorston’s weapons manufacturing. The wagon rolled by five large blacksmith shops with many men working at each of them. Firewood and charcoal were stacked up to fuel the forges. Large wagons with reinforced axels brought in iron ore, and armed men carried out swords, spears, axes, arrowheads and maces. The air stunk from so many fires, and it hurt Dana’s eyes and made her nose itch. Yub stayed quiet on her lap and read papers covered in strange formulas.
The wagon rolled through the streets for hours. Suzy received friendly greetings in some quarters and was barely tolerated in others. Soldiers urged her to leave whenever she neared a military post or government building like a jail or courthouse. Dana saw the same agitator from yesterday spinning his lies for a new audience. Eventually night fell and traffic dwindled as the streets emptied of foot traffic, carts and animals. Once they were alone, Suzy turned the wagon down an alley to a street filled with artisans such as surgeons and barbers who advertised their shops with colorful signs.
Suzy stopped her wagon next to a large stone building with its door shut and windows shuttered. “This is the place.”
“Halt!” Dana tensed at the shout. She saw two spearmen wearing winter coats over their chain armor approach the front of the wagon. “Traffic is prohibited on this road.”
“Hey, boys,” Suzy greeted them. “I’ve got a pass for this part of town. I’m supposed to bring your alchemist fresh supplies.”
Suzy showed them her papers, which they took one look at before glaring at her. “Your permits aren’t valid after dark.”
“I’ve come here at night plenty of times,” she protested.
A spearman shoved her papers into a coat pocket. “New regulations took effect yesterday. No travel after dark for citizens or visitors without military permission and armed escorts.”
“No one said anything about new rules when I came here today!”
“It’s your responsibility to keep up with regulations, not ours to inform you. Step off the wagon.”
Dana heard Suzy grumble and the sound of coins jingling. “I’m sure we can work this out.”
Both spearmen approached the wagon with their weapons raised. “You may have bribed soldiers in other cities, but not here. Step off the wagon now, ma’am, and keep your hands where we can see them.”
Suzy gave them a dramatic sigh, and then giggled. “Jayden, be a dear.”
The soldiers looked puzzled by her sudden change of mood. Their confusion ended abruptly when a black clawed hand as big as a man punched one man and then slapped the other to the ground. One spearman maintained consciousness and opened his mouth to scream. Another punch from the giant hand came before he could cry out a warning.
“Ooh, that’s a new one,” Suzy said as the giant hand dissolved. “I love watching you work.”
Jayden and Dana opened the secret compartments and got off the wagon. Suzy brought out rope from inside the wagon, and they tied up the soldiers before stuffing them into the secret compartments. Once that was done they studied the door. Jayden frowned and said, “Oak boards bound in iron, locked and likely barred. The owner values his privacy. Are there more defenses inside?”
Suzy took a small bottle from her coat and pulled her arm back to throw it. “Not that I saw.”
Jayden saw what she was doing and grabbed her arm. “A bomb? Are you trying to draw attention to us?”
“That happened when we beat up those guards. Their officers will notice when they don’t come back. After that we’re looking at an armed response by hundreds of soldiers. So, new plan, smash and grab.”
Dana drew her sword and walked up to the door. “I can do this fast and quiet.”
Suzy put her bomb away and watched Dana cut off the lock on the door with her sword. There were some sparks as the sword sliced through the iron bands on the door, but the light seemed to go unnoticed. She had to cut through an iron bar on the other side of the door. Once she had it open they went inside.
Suzy took the lead as they went through the alchemist’s shop. She took a glass tube from her belongings and shook it, making it produce a bright green light that lit up the building interior. There was a large counter running across the room, and behind it a dizzying array of bottles, vials, pots and jars filled with the most bizarre things Dana had ever seen. Dana winced when she saw a glass jar filled with pickled lizards.
“Ignore that,” Suzy said as she jumped behind the counter. “Those are props to make him look mysterious. He keeps legitimate ingredients back here…or he used to.”
“What?” Jayden asked. He and Dana went around the counter to find row after row of drawers. Suzy pulled them out one after and other and dropped them on the floor, each one empty. Only three drawers had pouches of ingredients, which Suzy took. “Where are the materials you need?”
“Kind of wondering that myself,” she said. Two doors were behind the counter. Suzy opened one and went inside. “This might take a bit. Yub, watch the door for trouble. Dana, be a dear and check the other room.”
Jayden went to the door and stood guard. “Could the alchemist have become suspicious of you and moved his stock?”
Suzy threw papers and clothes out of the room she was in and left them in a pile on the floor. “Last time I saw him, he invited me back and said he hoped we could have a long and productive relationship, the old lecher.”
Dana tried the second door and found it locked. It took her seconds to cut the lock off the door. She opened it and peered inside. Suzy had taken the light with her, so it was hard to see inside the room, but she could make out some things.
“Suzy, what would your bomb look like when it’s done?” Dana asked.
There were thuds and cursing as Suzy continued her search. “About three feet long, a foot thick, iron casing, knobs and a plunger to set the explosion.”
Dana backed out of the room. “That sounds about right, but this one is a bit thicker.”
Jayden and Suzy ran to her side. Suzy lifted her strange light producing tube to illuminate the room. There was a large table covered in empty bottles, dirty spoons, a mortar and pestle, stacks of paperwork and one enormous bomb. The black iron casing was rough and pebbly. The controls were made of wood and recessed into the casing. It looked unworldly, and somehow menacing.
Suzy pushed past the others and stuck the end of her light producing tube into her mouth so she could go through the paperwork with both hands. Jayden followed her and marveled at the bomb.
“This would explain where the alchemist’s stock went,” he said. “Producing this monstrosity must have exhausted his supplies.”
“Why would he make this?” Dana demanded.
“Mmm hmm hmm hmm,” Suzy said. Dana took the tube out of her mouth and held it overhead. “Thank you. The paperwork says this is a Class X Incendiary Device, made on orders from, Jayden, say it with me.”
“The king and queen,” Jayden growled.
“Clever boy.” Suzy held up a contract with a royal seal on the bottom. “He was hired to make his bomb a month ago. It looks like it took weeks to get the materials brought in. Once that was done he only needed days to throw it together.”
“How dangerous is it?” Dana asked.
Suzy went through the papers until she came up with a diagram. “My bomb would have gone off with one big boom. This one has fifty little bombs filled with powdered phoenix blossoms and drops of etherium. A small charge inside would blow open the outer casing, another charge would scatter the smaller bombs, and those would go off like fireballs twenty feet across.”
Dana’s jaw dropped. “You could burn down half a city!”
“Why stop at half?” Jayden asked. “Buildings in most cities are built one against the other, the wood dry and easily ignited. A fire could spread quickly from one building to the next until an entire city burned. It would be equally effective against an army with tightly packed ranks of soldiers.”
Suzy tapped a finger on a paper filled with strange symbols. “Phoenix blossoms are high in phosphorous. Liquefy it, purify it, and it turns white and burns really hot and makes lots of smoke, toxic if breathed in. Putting it out with water would be hard unless you totally submerged it. This bomb uses a lot of phoenix blossoms and can throw it far. The fires would be impossible to stop.”
“So he had all the stuff you needed for a bomb because he was going to build a bomb,” Dana said.
Jayden ran a hand over the bomb. “And he indeed built it. I can only imagine how the king and queen could use this weapon. Suzy, can you disable it and retrieve the materials you need?”
“That’s a hard no.” Suzy dropped the papers on the floor and took back her light tube from Dana. “The phoenix blossoms chemically reacted with the etherium to make it even more dangerous. It’s basically looking for an excuse to go off. I can’t reverse the reaction. It would explode if I even tried.”
“And this guy built it inside a city,” Dan said. She was in awe of the man’s stupidity. “What do we do with it?”
They saw Yub scamper in and point behind him, where a crowd of spearmen ran to the building’s door. An older man with thinning hair and dressed in a bathrobe and slippers led the group. The old man gasped and pointed at Suzy.
“You! You thieving wench! I should have known you were up to no good!”
Suzy smiled at him. “You really should have.”
Jayden stepped in front of her and cast a spell to form his black sword. “Gentlemen, and I use that term loosely, you can only attack us one at a time through that doorway, at least until it fills up with bodies. Allow us to leave in peace and you avoid needless casualties.”
One of the spearmen stepped to the front of the group. “You can’t stop us all! Come on, men, this man is a threat to the entire kingdom!”
The brave soldier took two steps forward and stopped when he realized the other spearmen weren’t following him. The soldier slapped a hand over his face and announced, “Whoever kills him gets the bounty money, tax free.”
“That’s more like it!” another spearman shouted. He ran forward with a dozen more men behind him.
“No one listens to reason,” Jayden said as the men charged him. He hacked two spears in half and dodged two more. That was enough to open the doorway for spearmen to pile into the room, a mistake when their long weapons were poorly suited to such tight quarters. Soldiers pushed up against each other, trying to bring their weapons to bear as Jayden cut spears to pieces.
Suzy giggled as she climbed onto the counter and pulled bombs from inside her coat pockets. She threw them with wild abandon into the packed soldiers, and was rewarded with screams of fear and pain as the bombs went off. Spearmen were thrown about, and many who weren’t hurt fell back to avoid her next attack. Yub joined her and threw more bombs into the fray, adding to the chaos and confusion.
Dana screamed when soldiers burst through the store’s windows. These men handed off their spears to other soldiers and drew swords before climbing inside. With Jayden and Suzy busy, Dana drew her sword and ran over to hold them off. One soldier swung his sword at her head, and she raised her sword to block the attack. There was a shower of sparks as her sword sliced through the soldier’s blade.
The soldier stared at her in horror, finally saying, “I’m still making payment on that!”
Dana put her left hand over her mouth. “Sorry!”
“Don’t apologize to the man trying to kill you!” Jayden shouted.
“Get help!” a soldier shouted. Soldiers outside blew whistles to attract reinforcements. Dana heard people running down the street toward them. She hadn’t seen other exits in the alchemist’s shop besides the front door, now choked with soldiers. Jayden and Suzy couldn’t keep them back forever. Dana wondered if there were wizards or more alchemists in a city this large who could back up the soldiers.
Suzy put a hand on Dana’s shoulder. “I’ve got an idea. Come with me.”
Dana, Jayden, Suzy and Yub fell back to the room with the completed bomb, fighting off soldiers the entire way. Jayden and Dana held back the horde of soldiers while Suzy climbed onto the table holding the bomb. Dana was fighting for her life, cutting apart swords and spears jabbed at her. She didn’t see what happened next until it was too late.
“Gentlemen!” Suzy shouted. The soldiers kept pushing forward regardless of her shout. Suzy threw bombs into the packed soldiers, injuring several and forcing the rest back. It ended the fight briefly, long enough for Suzy to yelled, “May I have your attention, please! This shop contains a firebomb large enough to at a bare minimum destroy the entire block. Anyone standing near it will die horribly when that happens. Is the alchemist nearby? Come on, don’t be shy.”
The older man in his bathrobe slipped between the packed soldiers. Suzy pointed at the bomb and asked, “Would you tell these nice people what I’ve done?”
The man’s face turned white. He trembled and his jaw dropped. “Y-you, you fool, you’ve armed it!”
Suzy smiled, a deranged grin that suggested a total lack of self-preservation. “That’s right, it’s going to go off. If we don’t get away, nobody gets away. So make your peace with God, because we’re all going to meet Him.”
The alchemist asked, “What time did you set it to explode?”
The room was silent. Soldiers stared in terror at the bomb. Suzy looked curious at best before saying, “Hmm, now-ish?”
Soldiers screamed and ran away. Dana threw herself to the floor. She knew it wouldn’t save her, but there was no way she could escape before the bomb went off. For long seconds she stayed down, her arms covering her head. Then Jayden tapped her on the shoulder and helped her up.
“What, why aren’t we dead?” Dana asked.
“I set the bomb to go off in five minutes,” Suzy said. She burst out giggling like it was a grand joke.
Dana yelled, “I thought I was going to die!”
“That was the point, dear,” Suzy told her.
Dana looked at Jayden. “You didn’t take cover. How did you know she was lying?”
“I don’t believe anything she says,” Jayden said. “Come on, the soldiers will return when nothing explodes.”
Suzy bent down over the bomb and began tinkering with it. “Give me just a minute to shut it off. Hmm. Jayden, grab the metal tab here, yes, that’s the one, and pull hard. Harder. Oh dearie.”
“Oh dearie what?” Jayden demanded.
“A metal panel slid over the controls after I set the bomb,” Suzy explained. “It’s not coming off. I think it’s a safeguard to make sure no one disarms the bomb after it’s been set. We’ve got five minutes until it goes off like an angry dragon.”
“You set a bomb you can’t defuse?” Jayden demanded.
Suzy shrugged. “It was this or fight our way out through a hundred men. We aren’t that good.”
Dana ran to the bomb. “I can cut off the metal panel.”
Jayden grabbed her arm before she got close to it. “Your sword produces sparks when it cuts through metal and would set it off.”
Suzy took Yub by the hand and headed for the door. “Five minutes is enough time to get out of here.”
Jayden didn’t budge. “Us, but no one else. Armorston would be destroyed, and countless lives lost with it.”
Suzy told him. “The best we can do is help some residents evacuate.”
“As angry as I am with these people, I won’t condemn them to death.”
Dana’s mind raced as she tried to come up with a solution. The bomb was massively destructive, and Armorston was so large they’d never get it outside the city walls before it went off. Even if they did, there were many houses and shops outside the walls that would be destroyed. There wasn’t a river or chasm to throw the bomb in, either. What was left?
“Sewers!” Dana shouted. That earned her confused looks from the others. “Jayden, we saw sewers flowing out of the city. That means water, maybe enough to smother the fire. Pick the bomb up with your magic hand spell and dump it down a sewer entrance.”
“The nearest entrance big enough to use is three blocks away,” Suzy said.
“Take us there on your wagon.”
Jayden recast the spell to form his magic hand and picked up the bomb. He carried it outside and mounted the wagon. Dana helped Yub into the back while Suzy snapped the reins and sent the horses racing down the street.
The streets weren’t empty at this late hour. A crowd of soldiers was running from the alchemist’s shop, and their panic doubled when they saw the bomb coming towards them. Fresh screams erupted from the soldiers as they fled in all directions.
“There they are!” a man cried out behind the wagon. “Get them!”
Dana saw a crowd of over a hundred soldiers and five knights on horseback coming from behind them. For a second she wondered why they weren’t running for their lives, but then she remembered soldiers had blown whistles at the alchemist’s shop. These men must have come in response and decided to chase the most obvious target, a wagon racing through the streets at night.
“Trouble behind us!” Dana yelled.
“Busy,” Jayden replied. He was focused on keeping his magic hand moving ahead of them and couldn’t help.
“Sweetie, there’s a big red bag next to you,” Suzy said as she drove the horses on. “Throw everything in there.”
Dana reached into the bag and pulled out two terracotta bottles sealed with wax. She threw them at the soldiers and was rewarded with twin explosions that sent men flying. Yub handed her more bombs to throw. She lobbed one after another, thinning the ranks of pursuing soldiers.
“Don’t be stingy,” Suzy called out. “They’re meant to be used.”
A knight rode up alongside the wagon and swung his sword at Dana. She parried the blade with her sword, cutting off the last five inches of the knight’s blade. Another knight tried to attack her. She grabbed a bomb with her left hand and threw it in front of the knight. The explosion spooked the knight’s horse so badly that it reared up and threw the knight off its back.
The wagon took a sharp turn and came to a stop next to an iron door set into the street. Suzy pointed at it and said, “That’s an access to the sewers for workers. Good news is it’s big enough to fit the bomb. Bad news is it’s locked.”
“Got it!” Dana yelled. She jumped off the wagon and hacked at the iron door with her sword. Sparks flew high into the air as she cut through the door until severed pieces splashed down into the sewer water below.
She stepped back as Jayden’s magic hand slipped the bomb into the hole. They heard a reassuring splash and saw water shoot up like a geyser. Soldiers and knights caught up and surrounded them, drawn sword around them like a circle of steel. No one moved. For five seconds the stalemate held, ending when the bomb went off.
The explosion sounded weird to Dana. Water muffled the blast, but the sewer walls made the sound echo. Bright light poured up from the hole, followed by foul smelling white gas. Narrow sewer grates along the street lit up as fire spread through the sewer. The heat was so great that Dana could feel it radiating up through the street and the soles of her boots. Soldiers cried out in confusion and fled. Then the street began to sag.
“You said water would smother the fire,” Dana said.
“If there’s enough to submerge it, yes,” Suzy replied. The street trembled and sunk further. “Construction standards are really low around here.”
“Run for your lives!” Jayden yelled, a warning the soldiers were happy to take. He helped Dana onto the wagon as Suzy snapped the reins. The wagon shot down the street with men fleeing alongside it. Dana looked behind them to see a huge section of the street sink into the ground. Fires burned brightly in the newly formed chasm, and smoke rose in billowing clouds. The chasm grew as more of the street collapsed from the intense heat.
“Ride faster!” Jayden shouted. He used his magic hand to batter aside a carriage parked across the street and then a stack of crates piled up in their way.
The wagon shot down the street at breakneck speeds. Dana saw fire consume more of the sewers and streets above them, but the blaze stayed contained in the chasms it made. She looked ahead to see a closed city gate in front of them. Suzy slowed the wagon, giving Jayden enough time to batter the gate with his magic hand again and again until it came off its hinges. The wagon rode on through the outer sections of the city until it came to a stop miles from Armorston.
Dana, Jayden, Suzy and Yub climbed off the wagon and looked at the devastation behind them. Barred sewer outlets poured out flames floating on the surface of the water. Fires inside Armorston were limited to the sewer network and spared the rest of the city. Panicked crowds fled the disaster but weren’t in immediate danger.
“Oh, oh wow,” Dana said.
“I knew it,” Jayden said. “I knew something would happen. I worked with Lockheart once and it went disastrously wrong. I was a fool to think it could end otherwise! This mission failed in every possible way. I didn’t get close enough to see what those wagons had brought into Armorston, and we didn’t get the bomb ingredients to save Brandish.”
Dana took him by the arm. “Jayden, this isn’t her fault. She didn’t make a huge bomb inside a city.”
Jayden broke free of her grip. “She set the blasted thing off! I can’t imagine who else I’d blame for this. No, I take that back. I blame myself. I should have had the common sense to look for another way in without Suzy ‘the walking disaster’ Lockheart!”
“At least the king and queen don’t have that huge bomb anymore,” Dana told him. “They must be out a lot of money, too.”
“For once in my life they’re not who I’m angry at!”
Dana went to Suzy. The alchemist stared at the city and the screaming crowds of people. She seemed stunned by the damage they’d done. Desperate to console her, Dana said, “Suzy, he doesn’t mean that.”
Suzy turned to face Jayden, not Dana. For a second Suzy’s expression was unreadable. Then she screamed, “Best date ever!” before lunging into Jayden’s arms and passionately kissing him.
Jayden’s reunion with Suzy Lockheart clearly wasn’t a success, but at least it had happened without bloodshed, so Dana considered it a win. She headed for her own room, wondering if this meeting might be good for Jayden. He might not like Suzy, but he made it sound like the woman was dangerous. Maybe she might join them. Many of Dana and Jayden’s fights would have gone better with a powerful friend at their side.
Dana was settling for the night when the door opened and Suzy came in. Dana stared at the woman and said, “You could have knocked first.”
“I didn’t leave home, lose my dowry and get disowned so I could be polite.” Suzy sat on the edge of Dana’s bed and waved her hand north. “Zentrix society is all about not making waves. Be polite, follow the rules, bow and grovel to your betters, and once they’re gone let the verbal venom flow. Hypocrisy, thy name is Zentrix.”
Curious, Dana said, “I went there once. Everyone was nice.”
“You didn’t stay long enough. Grow up there and you see people at their worst. I got out before my parents could marry me off to a raging bigot with excellent breeding. Two years apprenticed to an alchemist against my parent’s wishes got me where I am today, not mindless obedience.”
Suzy edged closer. “Enough about me, let’s talk about you. I’ve had this burning question ever since I heard Jayden was traveling with a girl.”
“What is it?”
“I liked Jayden when we had our earlier adventure together. Really liked him. The weird part is he didn’t feel the same. I did everything except tie him up, and I considered it. Then I hear he’s got a girl who’s been with him for months.”
Suzy took Dana’s hands. “I’m not trying to steal him from you. He’s your chew toy, but I need to know what you did that I didn’t. What worked in the end?”
Dana’s heart raced. She felt herself blush. “I, um, you must have heard wrong. We don’t have that kind of relationship. I mean, I like him, but nothing happened.”
Suzy stared at Dana for a moment. The woman’s eye twitched. She stood up and said, “Would you excuse me for a moment.”
Suzy marched to Jayden’s room and kicked the door in. Jayden looked up from his bed where he’d been studying his spell tablets. “Nothing happened? You’ve been with the girl for months and nothing happened! What the crilviz, Jayden!”
“Crilviz?” Dana asked.
“A gnome word, very vulgar,” Jayden explained. “Ms. Lockheart, my love life, or lack thereof, is no business of yours.”
“Don’t give me that!” Suzy yelled. “I know you like girls. I’ve heard the stories.”
Dana got up from her bed. “What stories?”
“Fine, you think I nearly killed you, even if I didn’t, but what about her?” Suzy demanded. “What crime did she commit to spend the rest of her life in the friend zone?”
“Do you mind?” Gaston yelled from the inn’s common room. “If I had customers you’d be driving them off!”
“Shut it!” Suzy yelled back. She turned her attention back to Jayden. “Well?”
Jayden set his spell tablet aside. “Dana is my friend. I have few others, and none I trust like her. She cares for my wellbeing more than I do. I don’t wish to lose her friendship. To try to turn our relationship into something it isn’t, and shouldn’t be, would be wrong. Think ill of me if you will, but I cherish what Dana and I have too much to risk losing it.
“What you seek from me is something I can’t give when there is no depth to the feelings you have for me. When we first met you were rebelling against your strict upbringing, and you’re still doing so today. You seek constant excitement and new experiences, not a bad desire, but I’m nothing more than a diversion from your boredom. I seek more than that, and if you examine your feelings you’ll agree it’s more than you’re willing to give. If I’ve misjudged you, say so.”
When Suzy didn’t reply, he added, “And you don’t care about the people of this kingdom.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked in bewilderment.
“It must sound odd given my actions, but I love the people of this land. I want to end this madness and return them to the peace and prosperity they once enjoyed. They don’t matter to you, nor do the people of your homeland, or the residents of Brandish that you’re in the process of saving from invasion. You prize your independence and care for a select few who have earned your respect. This is a job to you, nothing more, and to me it’s far more important than gold.”
Jayden got up and walked over to Suzy. He put his hands on her shoulders. “You must feel insulted by what I’ve said, but you did ask. You deserved an honest answer, no hypocrisy, no hidden feelings. I harbor no ill will if you wish to cancel our arrangement. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m tired from a long day, so get out of my room and let me get some sleep.”
Jayden led her from his room, shut the door and locked it. Suzy stood in the hallway for a moment before she turned to Dana and asked, “What just happened?”
* * * * *
Dana met Jayden the following morning in the inn’s common room. Gaston served them what might have been food if he’d cooked it right. Dana managed to keep it down with difficulty.
“Last night you gave Suzy a good reason to turn us over to the authorities for the bounty money, or just blow us both up while we slept,” she told him.
Jayden ate his food despite its poor quality. “Any other answer would have made the situation worse. If I had promised her what I had no intention of giving, she would have been even angrier. If I had returned her affections it would have made her believe we had a future together, and with such differing goals it wouldn’t work.”
Gaston walked up to their table and set down a bottle of wine. “The food will go down better with this.”
“And you wonder why you don’t have more customers,” Dana said.
“You try cooking good meals when you can’t get spices,” Gaston said as he left them. “I used to get good supplies from Fish Bait City.”
Jayden poured himself a cup of wine and tasted it. “Passable. In regards to Suzy informing on us, she despises authority figures of any kind. The price on my head is staggering, but claiming it would require her working for men she sees as no different from the ones in her homeland. Her dislike of royalty is so great that I’m surprised she accepted a job from the king of Brandish.”
“He wined me, dined me, and didn’t tax me,” Suzy said as she came into the common room. “I put up with a lot when people are nice to me.”
“I doubt I’ve ever been nice,” Jayden replied as he handed her the bottle.
“You have,” she told him, and took a swig of wine before starting her meal. “Jayden, I won’t pretend I understood half of what you said last night, but making you like someone you don’t is something my parents would do. We’re working together and that’s that. And I’ve never seen you lie to anyone or treat rich people better than poor ones, so you’re owed respect.”
Suzy sat down across from him at the table and fixed him with a stern look. “But tell me this, what happens if you win and the king and queen get killed, imprisoned, exiled, eaten by aardvarks or whatever? Someone’s got to be in charge when they’re gone.”
“I have no desire for the throne,” he told her.
She raised the bottle in a toast. “I’ll drink to that. Being in charge is no different than being in jail. You’re at the mercy of the job, day and night doing what has to be done and never what you want to do. But if you don’t take it someone else will. Men will kill to get the crown, and do worse to anyone they rule. We’re talking a repeat of the civil war your people had. If you get what you want you’ll make things a whole lot worse for everyone living here.”
Dana frowned. “You think people would accept a sorcerer lord as their king?”
“Of course not, that’s my point,” Suzy replied. “Turn down the job and it’s anarchy. Take the job and you’ve got rebels, coups by the army, and assassinations attempts on the hour every hour.”
Jayden sipped his drink before answering. “I never imagined my life would end happily ever after. What you predict may well come to pass. Your worst-case scenario has one advantage over doing nothing, namely only one kingdom would suffer, not four. It is a questionable improvement, I admit, but it limits the damage.”
“You’re smart enough to want more than that,” she told him.
“What I want, for now, is to see the contents of those armored wagons,” he replied. “How soon can to make that happen?”
Suzy set down the bottle. “Tonight. We need to get inside Armorston before the city gates close at sunset. It’s better if we go just before noon. There’s more traffic to cover our entrance, and the guard changes at noon so those men will be tired and hungry after a long shift. They’ll be more likely to let us pass without looking too closely.”
“I want see this hiding place,” Dana told her.
“Easy to do.” Suzy led them outside to where she’d stabled her horses and left her wagon. She opened the back to show countless bags and terracotta jars, some as big as a man. Suzy went to the back of the wagon and pressed a hidden switch, causing two of the larger jars to open and reveal compartments four feet tall and two feet deep.
“Nifty, huh? The tops of the jars have false bottoms and are filled with cooking oil, so if someone reaches down there they won’t get suspicious. You’ve even got hidden eyeholes to look through.”
Dana climbed into the wagon and sat in one of compartments. “Can we open these from the inside if we have to?”
Suzy pointed at a spot near Dana’s foot. “A switch by your left foot opens the door.”
“It will do the job,” Jayden said. “How soon do we leave?”
“Now-ish. I hope you don’t mind sharing that space with Yub. He’s a dear, but people overreact when goblins show up a their door, especially ones with bombs.”
Dana took the grinning goblin onto her lap before Suzy swung the door closed. She heard Suzy say, “Watch your hair,” moments before there was the bang of the other door closing. Dana found the eyeholes Suzy had mentioned and was able to watch the wagon leave the inn behind and go onto the road.
The trip there was more interesting than Dana had expected. She saw many other wagons on the road, plus carriages and men riding horses. Most people going into Armorston brought produce, hay, livestock and other simple goods. Men riding carriages were better dressed, and traffic stopped to let them go through. Dana was surprised by what she didn’t see, for there were no trolls, dwarfs, elves or other races, only humans.
Traffic slowed when they neared the city gate. Bored soldiers went through the motions of searching vehicles and people, but they seldom did more than open a few bags or barrels. When Suzy brought her wagon to the gate the soldiers perked up.
“Morning, boys,” Dana heard Suzy say. She couldn’t see the alchemist through the eyeholes.
“Hey, it’s Lockheart,” a soldier said cheerfully. “Got anything to perk a man up, besides seeing you again?”
Dana rolled her eyes at the cheesy pickup line, but Suzy laughed. “I’ve got a bottle of what an innkeeper called wine. It’s half done, but if you don’t mind leftovers it’s yours.”
“I don’t turn down alcohol.” A soldier reached up past the eyeholes and came back into view with a bottle. More guards checked the back of the wagon, but they didn’t search it long. Dana saw soldiers pass around the bottle until it was empty and toss it into the snow. “Go on, ma’am, but you’ll need a permanent residency pass soon.”
“No need for that when I’ll be leaving soon,” Suzy told him.
“That’s a crying shame,” the soldier said before waving her on. “The kingdom needs more pretty girls.”
They went into the more protected areas of the city, and what little Dana could see through the eyeholes proved that Jayden hadn’t exaggerated about Armorston’s weapons manufacturing. The wagon rolled by five large blacksmith shops with many men working at each of them. Firewood and charcoal were stacked up to fuel the forges. Large wagons with reinforced axels brought in iron ore, and armed men carried out swords, spears, axes, arrowheads and maces. The air stunk from so many fires, and it hurt Dana’s eyes and made her nose itch. Yub stayed quiet on her lap and read papers covered in strange formulas.
The wagon rolled through the streets for hours. Suzy received friendly greetings in some quarters and was barely tolerated in others. Soldiers urged her to leave whenever she neared a military post or government building like a jail or courthouse. Dana saw the same agitator from yesterday spinning his lies for a new audience. Eventually night fell and traffic dwindled as the streets emptied of foot traffic, carts and animals. Once they were alone, Suzy turned the wagon down an alley to a street filled with artisans such as surgeons and barbers who advertised their shops with colorful signs.
Suzy stopped her wagon next to a large stone building with its door shut and windows shuttered. “This is the place.”
“Halt!” Dana tensed at the shout. She saw two spearmen wearing winter coats over their chain armor approach the front of the wagon. “Traffic is prohibited on this road.”
“Hey, boys,” Suzy greeted them. “I’ve got a pass for this part of town. I’m supposed to bring your alchemist fresh supplies.”
Suzy showed them her papers, which they took one look at before glaring at her. “Your permits aren’t valid after dark.”
“I’ve come here at night plenty of times,” she protested.
A spearman shoved her papers into a coat pocket. “New regulations took effect yesterday. No travel after dark for citizens or visitors without military permission and armed escorts.”
“No one said anything about new rules when I came here today!”
“It’s your responsibility to keep up with regulations, not ours to inform you. Step off the wagon.”
Dana heard Suzy grumble and the sound of coins jingling. “I’m sure we can work this out.”
Both spearmen approached the wagon with their weapons raised. “You may have bribed soldiers in other cities, but not here. Step off the wagon now, ma’am, and keep your hands where we can see them.”
Suzy gave them a dramatic sigh, and then giggled. “Jayden, be a dear.”
The soldiers looked puzzled by her sudden change of mood. Their confusion ended abruptly when a black clawed hand as big as a man punched one man and then slapped the other to the ground. One spearman maintained consciousness and opened his mouth to scream. Another punch from the giant hand came before he could cry out a warning.
“Ooh, that’s a new one,” Suzy said as the giant hand dissolved. “I love watching you work.”
Jayden and Dana opened the secret compartments and got off the wagon. Suzy brought out rope from inside the wagon, and they tied up the soldiers before stuffing them into the secret compartments. Once that was done they studied the door. Jayden frowned and said, “Oak boards bound in iron, locked and likely barred. The owner values his privacy. Are there more defenses inside?”
Suzy took a small bottle from her coat and pulled her arm back to throw it. “Not that I saw.”
Jayden saw what she was doing and grabbed her arm. “A bomb? Are you trying to draw attention to us?”
“That happened when we beat up those guards. Their officers will notice when they don’t come back. After that we’re looking at an armed response by hundreds of soldiers. So, new plan, smash and grab.”
Dana drew her sword and walked up to the door. “I can do this fast and quiet.”
Suzy put her bomb away and watched Dana cut off the lock on the door with her sword. There were some sparks as the sword sliced through the iron bands on the door, but the light seemed to go unnoticed. She had to cut through an iron bar on the other side of the door. Once she had it open they went inside.
Suzy took the lead as they went through the alchemist’s shop. She took a glass tube from her belongings and shook it, making it produce a bright green light that lit up the building interior. There was a large counter running across the room, and behind it a dizzying array of bottles, vials, pots and jars filled with the most bizarre things Dana had ever seen. Dana winced when she saw a glass jar filled with pickled lizards.
“Ignore that,” Suzy said as she jumped behind the counter. “Those are props to make him look mysterious. He keeps legitimate ingredients back here…or he used to.”
“What?” Jayden asked. He and Dana went around the counter to find row after row of drawers. Suzy pulled them out one after and other and dropped them on the floor, each one empty. Only three drawers had pouches of ingredients, which Suzy took. “Where are the materials you need?”
“Kind of wondering that myself,” she said. Two doors were behind the counter. Suzy opened one and went inside. “This might take a bit. Yub, watch the door for trouble. Dana, be a dear and check the other room.”
Jayden went to the door and stood guard. “Could the alchemist have become suspicious of you and moved his stock?”
Suzy threw papers and clothes out of the room she was in and left them in a pile on the floor. “Last time I saw him, he invited me back and said he hoped we could have a long and productive relationship, the old lecher.”
Dana tried the second door and found it locked. It took her seconds to cut the lock off the door. She opened it and peered inside. Suzy had taken the light with her, so it was hard to see inside the room, but she could make out some things.
“Suzy, what would your bomb look like when it’s done?” Dana asked.
There were thuds and cursing as Suzy continued her search. “About three feet long, a foot thick, iron casing, knobs and a plunger to set the explosion.”
Dana backed out of the room. “That sounds about right, but this one is a bit thicker.”
Jayden and Suzy ran to her side. Suzy lifted her strange light producing tube to illuminate the room. There was a large table covered in empty bottles, dirty spoons, a mortar and pestle, stacks of paperwork and one enormous bomb. The black iron casing was rough and pebbly. The controls were made of wood and recessed into the casing. It looked unworldly, and somehow menacing.
Suzy pushed past the others and stuck the end of her light producing tube into her mouth so she could go through the paperwork with both hands. Jayden followed her and marveled at the bomb.
“This would explain where the alchemist’s stock went,” he said. “Producing this monstrosity must have exhausted his supplies.”
“Why would he make this?” Dana demanded.
“Mmm hmm hmm hmm,” Suzy said. Dana took the tube out of her mouth and held it overhead. “Thank you. The paperwork says this is a Class X Incendiary Device, made on orders from, Jayden, say it with me.”
“The king and queen,” Jayden growled.
“Clever boy.” Suzy held up a contract with a royal seal on the bottom. “He was hired to make his bomb a month ago. It looks like it took weeks to get the materials brought in. Once that was done he only needed days to throw it together.”
“How dangerous is it?” Dana asked.
Suzy went through the papers until she came up with a diagram. “My bomb would have gone off with one big boom. This one has fifty little bombs filled with powdered phoenix blossoms and drops of etherium. A small charge inside would blow open the outer casing, another charge would scatter the smaller bombs, and those would go off like fireballs twenty feet across.”
Dana’s jaw dropped. “You could burn down half a city!”
“Why stop at half?” Jayden asked. “Buildings in most cities are built one against the other, the wood dry and easily ignited. A fire could spread quickly from one building to the next until an entire city burned. It would be equally effective against an army with tightly packed ranks of soldiers.”
Suzy tapped a finger on a paper filled with strange symbols. “Phoenix blossoms are high in phosphorous. Liquefy it, purify it, and it turns white and burns really hot and makes lots of smoke, toxic if breathed in. Putting it out with water would be hard unless you totally submerged it. This bomb uses a lot of phoenix blossoms and can throw it far. The fires would be impossible to stop.”
“So he had all the stuff you needed for a bomb because he was going to build a bomb,” Dana said.
Jayden ran a hand over the bomb. “And he indeed built it. I can only imagine how the king and queen could use this weapon. Suzy, can you disable it and retrieve the materials you need?”
“That’s a hard no.” Suzy dropped the papers on the floor and took back her light tube from Dana. “The phoenix blossoms chemically reacted with the etherium to make it even more dangerous. It’s basically looking for an excuse to go off. I can’t reverse the reaction. It would explode if I even tried.”
“And this guy built it inside a city,” Dan said. She was in awe of the man’s stupidity. “What do we do with it?”
They saw Yub scamper in and point behind him, where a crowd of spearmen ran to the building’s door. An older man with thinning hair and dressed in a bathrobe and slippers led the group. The old man gasped and pointed at Suzy.
“You! You thieving wench! I should have known you were up to no good!”
Suzy smiled at him. “You really should have.”
Jayden stepped in front of her and cast a spell to form his black sword. “Gentlemen, and I use that term loosely, you can only attack us one at a time through that doorway, at least until it fills up with bodies. Allow us to leave in peace and you avoid needless casualties.”
One of the spearmen stepped to the front of the group. “You can’t stop us all! Come on, men, this man is a threat to the entire kingdom!”
The brave soldier took two steps forward and stopped when he realized the other spearmen weren’t following him. The soldier slapped a hand over his face and announced, “Whoever kills him gets the bounty money, tax free.”
“That’s more like it!” another spearman shouted. He ran forward with a dozen more men behind him.
“No one listens to reason,” Jayden said as the men charged him. He hacked two spears in half and dodged two more. That was enough to open the doorway for spearmen to pile into the room, a mistake when their long weapons were poorly suited to such tight quarters. Soldiers pushed up against each other, trying to bring their weapons to bear as Jayden cut spears to pieces.
Suzy giggled as she climbed onto the counter and pulled bombs from inside her coat pockets. She threw them with wild abandon into the packed soldiers, and was rewarded with screams of fear and pain as the bombs went off. Spearmen were thrown about, and many who weren’t hurt fell back to avoid her next attack. Yub joined her and threw more bombs into the fray, adding to the chaos and confusion.
Dana screamed when soldiers burst through the store’s windows. These men handed off their spears to other soldiers and drew swords before climbing inside. With Jayden and Suzy busy, Dana drew her sword and ran over to hold them off. One soldier swung his sword at her head, and she raised her sword to block the attack. There was a shower of sparks as her sword sliced through the soldier’s blade.
The soldier stared at her in horror, finally saying, “I’m still making payment on that!”
Dana put her left hand over her mouth. “Sorry!”
“Don’t apologize to the man trying to kill you!” Jayden shouted.
“Get help!” a soldier shouted. Soldiers outside blew whistles to attract reinforcements. Dana heard people running down the street toward them. She hadn’t seen other exits in the alchemist’s shop besides the front door, now choked with soldiers. Jayden and Suzy couldn’t keep them back forever. Dana wondered if there were wizards or more alchemists in a city this large who could back up the soldiers.
Suzy put a hand on Dana’s shoulder. “I’ve got an idea. Come with me.”
Dana, Jayden, Suzy and Yub fell back to the room with the completed bomb, fighting off soldiers the entire way. Jayden and Dana held back the horde of soldiers while Suzy climbed onto the table holding the bomb. Dana was fighting for her life, cutting apart swords and spears jabbed at her. She didn’t see what happened next until it was too late.
“Gentlemen!” Suzy shouted. The soldiers kept pushing forward regardless of her shout. Suzy threw bombs into the packed soldiers, injuring several and forcing the rest back. It ended the fight briefly, long enough for Suzy to yelled, “May I have your attention, please! This shop contains a firebomb large enough to at a bare minimum destroy the entire block. Anyone standing near it will die horribly when that happens. Is the alchemist nearby? Come on, don’t be shy.”
The older man in his bathrobe slipped between the packed soldiers. Suzy pointed at the bomb and asked, “Would you tell these nice people what I’ve done?”
The man’s face turned white. He trembled and his jaw dropped. “Y-you, you fool, you’ve armed it!”
Suzy smiled, a deranged grin that suggested a total lack of self-preservation. “That’s right, it’s going to go off. If we don’t get away, nobody gets away. So make your peace with God, because we’re all going to meet Him.”
The alchemist asked, “What time did you set it to explode?”
The room was silent. Soldiers stared in terror at the bomb. Suzy looked curious at best before saying, “Hmm, now-ish?”
Soldiers screamed and ran away. Dana threw herself to the floor. She knew it wouldn’t save her, but there was no way she could escape before the bomb went off. For long seconds she stayed down, her arms covering her head. Then Jayden tapped her on the shoulder and helped her up.
“What, why aren’t we dead?” Dana asked.
“I set the bomb to go off in five minutes,” Suzy said. She burst out giggling like it was a grand joke.
Dana yelled, “I thought I was going to die!”
“That was the point, dear,” Suzy told her.
Dana looked at Jayden. “You didn’t take cover. How did you know she was lying?”
“I don’t believe anything she says,” Jayden said. “Come on, the soldiers will return when nothing explodes.”
Suzy bent down over the bomb and began tinkering with it. “Give me just a minute to shut it off. Hmm. Jayden, grab the metal tab here, yes, that’s the one, and pull hard. Harder. Oh dearie.”
“Oh dearie what?” Jayden demanded.
“A metal panel slid over the controls after I set the bomb,” Suzy explained. “It’s not coming off. I think it’s a safeguard to make sure no one disarms the bomb after it’s been set. We’ve got five minutes until it goes off like an angry dragon.”
“You set a bomb you can’t defuse?” Jayden demanded.
Suzy shrugged. “It was this or fight our way out through a hundred men. We aren’t that good.”
Dana ran to the bomb. “I can cut off the metal panel.”
Jayden grabbed her arm before she got close to it. “Your sword produces sparks when it cuts through metal and would set it off.”
Suzy took Yub by the hand and headed for the door. “Five minutes is enough time to get out of here.”
Jayden didn’t budge. “Us, but no one else. Armorston would be destroyed, and countless lives lost with it.”
Suzy told him. “The best we can do is help some residents evacuate.”
“As angry as I am with these people, I won’t condemn them to death.”
Dana’s mind raced as she tried to come up with a solution. The bomb was massively destructive, and Armorston was so large they’d never get it outside the city walls before it went off. Even if they did, there were many houses and shops outside the walls that would be destroyed. There wasn’t a river or chasm to throw the bomb in, either. What was left?
“Sewers!” Dana shouted. That earned her confused looks from the others. “Jayden, we saw sewers flowing out of the city. That means water, maybe enough to smother the fire. Pick the bomb up with your magic hand spell and dump it down a sewer entrance.”
“The nearest entrance big enough to use is three blocks away,” Suzy said.
“Take us there on your wagon.”
Jayden recast the spell to form his magic hand and picked up the bomb. He carried it outside and mounted the wagon. Dana helped Yub into the back while Suzy snapped the reins and sent the horses racing down the street.
The streets weren’t empty at this late hour. A crowd of soldiers was running from the alchemist’s shop, and their panic doubled when they saw the bomb coming towards them. Fresh screams erupted from the soldiers as they fled in all directions.
“There they are!” a man cried out behind the wagon. “Get them!”
Dana saw a crowd of over a hundred soldiers and five knights on horseback coming from behind them. For a second she wondered why they weren’t running for their lives, but then she remembered soldiers had blown whistles at the alchemist’s shop. These men must have come in response and decided to chase the most obvious target, a wagon racing through the streets at night.
“Trouble behind us!” Dana yelled.
“Busy,” Jayden replied. He was focused on keeping his magic hand moving ahead of them and couldn’t help.
“Sweetie, there’s a big red bag next to you,” Suzy said as she drove the horses on. “Throw everything in there.”
Dana reached into the bag and pulled out two terracotta bottles sealed with wax. She threw them at the soldiers and was rewarded with twin explosions that sent men flying. Yub handed her more bombs to throw. She lobbed one after another, thinning the ranks of pursuing soldiers.
“Don’t be stingy,” Suzy called out. “They’re meant to be used.”
A knight rode up alongside the wagon and swung his sword at Dana. She parried the blade with her sword, cutting off the last five inches of the knight’s blade. Another knight tried to attack her. She grabbed a bomb with her left hand and threw it in front of the knight. The explosion spooked the knight’s horse so badly that it reared up and threw the knight off its back.
The wagon took a sharp turn and came to a stop next to an iron door set into the street. Suzy pointed at it and said, “That’s an access to the sewers for workers. Good news is it’s big enough to fit the bomb. Bad news is it’s locked.”
“Got it!” Dana yelled. She jumped off the wagon and hacked at the iron door with her sword. Sparks flew high into the air as she cut through the door until severed pieces splashed down into the sewer water below.
She stepped back as Jayden’s magic hand slipped the bomb into the hole. They heard a reassuring splash and saw water shoot up like a geyser. Soldiers and knights caught up and surrounded them, drawn sword around them like a circle of steel. No one moved. For five seconds the stalemate held, ending when the bomb went off.
The explosion sounded weird to Dana. Water muffled the blast, but the sewer walls made the sound echo. Bright light poured up from the hole, followed by foul smelling white gas. Narrow sewer grates along the street lit up as fire spread through the sewer. The heat was so great that Dana could feel it radiating up through the street and the soles of her boots. Soldiers cried out in confusion and fled. Then the street began to sag.
“You said water would smother the fire,” Dana said.
“If there’s enough to submerge it, yes,” Suzy replied. The street trembled and sunk further. “Construction standards are really low around here.”
“Run for your lives!” Jayden yelled, a warning the soldiers were happy to take. He helped Dana onto the wagon as Suzy snapped the reins. The wagon shot down the street with men fleeing alongside it. Dana looked behind them to see a huge section of the street sink into the ground. Fires burned brightly in the newly formed chasm, and smoke rose in billowing clouds. The chasm grew as more of the street collapsed from the intense heat.
“Ride faster!” Jayden shouted. He used his magic hand to batter aside a carriage parked across the street and then a stack of crates piled up in their way.
The wagon shot down the street at breakneck speeds. Dana saw fire consume more of the sewers and streets above them, but the blaze stayed contained in the chasms it made. She looked ahead to see a closed city gate in front of them. Suzy slowed the wagon, giving Jayden enough time to batter the gate with his magic hand again and again until it came off its hinges. The wagon rode on through the outer sections of the city until it came to a stop miles from Armorston.
Dana, Jayden, Suzy and Yub climbed off the wagon and looked at the devastation behind them. Barred sewer outlets poured out flames floating on the surface of the water. Fires inside Armorston were limited to the sewer network and spared the rest of the city. Panicked crowds fled the disaster but weren’t in immediate danger.
“Oh, oh wow,” Dana said.
“I knew it,” Jayden said. “I knew something would happen. I worked with Lockheart once and it went disastrously wrong. I was a fool to think it could end otherwise! This mission failed in every possible way. I didn’t get close enough to see what those wagons had brought into Armorston, and we didn’t get the bomb ingredients to save Brandish.”
Dana took him by the arm. “Jayden, this isn’t her fault. She didn’t make a huge bomb inside a city.”
Jayden broke free of her grip. “She set the blasted thing off! I can’t imagine who else I’d blame for this. No, I take that back. I blame myself. I should have had the common sense to look for another way in without Suzy ‘the walking disaster’ Lockheart!”
“At least the king and queen don’t have that huge bomb anymore,” Dana told him. “They must be out a lot of money, too.”
“For once in my life they’re not who I’m angry at!”
Dana went to Suzy. The alchemist stared at the city and the screaming crowds of people. She seemed stunned by the damage they’d done. Desperate to console her, Dana said, “Suzy, he doesn’t mean that.”
Suzy turned to face Jayden, not Dana. For a second Suzy’s expression was unreadable. Then she screamed, “Best date ever!” before lunging into Jayden’s arms and passionately kissing him.
