Lescari Revolution 03: Banners In The Wind (35 page)

Sorgrad was leaning out of the window to watch Gren climbing down. 'He's there.'

One of the door handles rattled. 'Pik?' A puzzled voice tried the handle again. 'Who's in there?'

Tathrin glanced at Sorgrad who raised a warning finger to his lips. Tathrin shot back an exasperated glare.

'Pik! Idnan!' The voice was growing angry. 'Is this some kind of joke?'

Tathrin heard another voice, more querulous. The door shook beneath the assault of a determined shoulder. He wondered how long the bolts would hold.

Then an outraged shout rang through the night.

'They've seen him.' Sorgrad stepped back from the window and took firm hold of the rope ladder. 'Help me.'

As Tathrin gripped the deceptively slender hemp strands, the door shook under another assault. The bolts rattled loosely, screws dragged askew in the wood. Tathrin saw a long splinter fall away. Someone had an axe.

Sorgrad hauled the ladder upwards. Tathrin matched his rhythm to retrieve Gren as fast as possible.

'Hold hard!' The younger Mountain Man's head appeared. 'Take these cursed things!' His expression was as black as the night outside.

Tathrin braced himself to hold the weight of the ladder with Gren and his burden while Sorgrad pulled the bulging sack in through the window. Gren clambered awkwardly after it, hampered by the cord still tying the burden to his belt. Dropping it was out of the question.

Tathrin looked apprehensively at the door. The axe was biting deep. He caught a glimpse of the shining blade before the assailant ripped it free.

'Let's not wait to introduce ourselves.' Sorgrad wrapped a swirl of azure magelight around his upraised hand.

Blinding giddiness overwhelmed Tathrin. He had to endure the loathsome sensations far longer this time. When his boots struck solid ground, nausea surged up his throat. He pressed his hands to his mouth as he staggered. That was a mistake. After the disorientating magic, even the lingering trace of Welgren's potion on his fingers nearly made him empty his stomach entirely.

'Tathrin?' A hand grabbed his forearm.

With a monumental effort, he regained his balance. A deep breath of cold air, faintly perfumed, went some way to restoring him.

'Branca.' He forced his eyes open.

They stood beside a fountain, now dry for the winter. Coloured glass lamps threw soothing light across this peaceful courtyard. The windows surrounding them were snugly curtained, outlined here and there by firelight within. He heard distant music and the memory of a fine dinner lingered on the air.

'Well done, long lad.' Gren sounded honestly impressed. 'Twice in one night and you didn't throw up once.'

Tathrin utterly failed to find a witty riposte. At least going without food or drink since noon had been worth it.

'Is that them?' Branca was looking wide-eyed at the lumpy sack.

Gren cut the cord with a slash of a dagger and handed it to her. 'I have the honour to present Duke Orlin of Parnilesse and his duchess, the honoured Sherista, along with several of their children.'

Now Tathrin wondered if Branca was about to be sick.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Branca

The Three Fountains Inn,

Solland, in the Tormalin Empire,

10th of Aft-Winter

She held the sack with its disgusting contents well away from her dress. 'That door, if you please? Up the stairs.'

As Tathrin obliged, she was thankful so few guests remained at the inn. Every room had been taken for the festival but now war with Lescar was all but confirmed, nobles who might have lingered through Aft-Winter had returned to more safely distant residences. They reached Charoleia's sitting room unseen.

''Grad, Gren.' From her daybed she extended a welcoming hand.

Branca debated where to put her repellent burden. She didn't want to leave any lingering, stinking stain.

Sorgrad kissed Charoleia's hand before contemplating her critically. 'You look better than you did.'

Gren simply stooped to hug her, saying something in the Mountain tongue. Charoleia returned his embrace, replying in the same language.

Momentarily surprised by this display of emotion, Branca chided herself. Charoleia and the enigmatic brothers had been comrades and co-conspirators for more than two decades, travelling back and forth between the ocean coast of Tormalin and the westernmost reaches of Ensaimin and beyond. How else could Sorgrad use his magic to come here, if he hadn't already visited the inn like any other traveller?

'Let's keep that by the window.' Tathrin removed the cushions so she could rest the bulging sack on the broad wooden sill. 'How are you, Branca?'

'I'm well, thank you.' Branca quickly turned to address Charoleia. 'Shall I send word to Esquire Den Dalderin?'

She had thought it would be easier to meet Tathrin in person, without the need to hide her thoughts from him. But as his eyes searched her face, she saw he wanted to raise matters she had no wish to discuss. But how could she avoid that, lacking the unquestioned control she had when they were linked through Artifice?

'No need. I sent a note after dinner.' Charoleia extricated herself from Gren's embrace.

'You were so confident we'd succeed?' Tathrin tried to make a joke of it but Branca saw his surprise equalled her own.

Charoleia smoothed lace ruffled by Gren's affection. 'If you'd arrived empty-handed or not at all, I would still have tried to persuade young Yadres that it's in Emperor Tadriol's best interests to limit the Tormalin legions' advance.'

Sorgrad was at the mantelshelf, finding a long wax taper. 'Do you have something I can use to bespeak Jilseth?'

'Here.' Branca had laid out everything Charoleia had requested on the table. Her hand shook as she tipped wafer cakes onto a plate and passed their silver salver to Sorgrad.

The last time she had seen wizardry, Charoleia and Trissa were imprisoned by that depraved mage Minelas. She had barely managed to hide herself away in Adel Castle, her Artifice strained to breaking point, terrified, cold and bruised after that villain Karn's assault when he had captured them. Jilseth, the Archmage's cold-eyed adviser, had threatened Sorgrad with unspecified retribution if he ever used his mastery over the elements to influence the course of the Lescari wars.

'Don't fret, pet,' Sorgrad said softly. 'There's no law against magic in Tormalin.'

Branca did her best to smile but catching a glimpse of Gren's scowling face only reminded her more vividly of that gruesome night. Usually so genial, the younger Mountain Man looked as brutal as when he'd gutted Minelas like a fish.

Sorgrad glanced at the taper and it kindled with arcane scarlet flame. He brought his hands together until the magefire reflected in the polished silver plate. The Mountain mage concentrated on the mirrored glint. No longer leaf-like, it blossomed into a scarlet circle. The burning ring widened, a flicker of ruby brightness swirling round and around its outer edge. Beyond it, the silver shone, untarnished. Inside the magewrought circle the metal grew darkly opaque.

'Jilseth?' Sorgrad looked through the fiery ring. 'How are you this evening? How's the Aft-Winter weather in Hadrumal?'

'I am well enough and the fog is as thick as usual. I take it you wish to explain yourself?'

Branca shifted in hopes of a clearer view but could see no hint of the distant, waspish speaker beyond the sorcerous blackness.

'So she has been watching us,' murmured Tathrin.

'I have an invitation.' Sorgrad smiled charmingly into his spell. 'We would like you to help us persuade Emperor Tadriol not to send his legions into Lescar.'

'How often must you be told?' Incredulity strained Jilseth's annoyance. 'Every Archmage has forbidden the use of magic in the dukes' wars.'

'The dukes are gone, or as good as,' Sorgrad said crisply. 'We're not in Lescar now and I don't propose to use any more magic tonight. We have need of your particular talents.'

Branca missed Jilseth's reply as Gren growled under his breath. Charoleia held out her hand with a few words of his mother tongue. Gren went to sit on the end of her daybed.

Sorgrad was talking over Jilseth's objections. 'The argument against magic in Lescar has always been that it would make battles more lethal. You can use your craft to save countless lives. If the legions' campaign carries them clear across Lescar, how many hundreds of innocents will fall victim to winter's cold, to hunger, to sheer despair, never mind the bloodshed of battle?'

His voice hardened, striking a faint echo from the silver. 'How long before I find a family frozen to death in a ditch, their mouths full of dead grass? A father who's smashed his starving children's skulls before hanging himself from the doorframe? Shall I scry those visions for Planir and tell him you scorned the chance to turn such misery aside?'

'You wouldn't dare!'

But everyone heard the hesitation undercutting Jilseth's protest.

Sorgrad replied with low menace. 'Ask Usara what he thinks I'll dare.'

Branca couldn't place that name, though she thought she'd heard it before. Regardless, it clearly had an impact on Jilseth.

'We need not rouse him. Where are you?' she demanded. 'In Toremal? Tell me--'

'We're in Solland.' Sorgrad spoke swiftly over the magewoman. 'I'll come to Hadrumal myself and fetch you. Unless you're too much a coward to trust to my aberrant magic?'

'For a man who wants a favour you are abominably rude!' The scarlet ring of the spell flared with Jilseth's anger.

'Meet me in the Boar and Elder, just as soon as suits your convenience.' Sorgrad dismissed the spell with a contemptuous snap of his fingers.

Branca stared at the silver salver. She expected to see it blackened with soot, the surface irreparably distorted. But the metal shone, pristine, as if it had just left the inn steward's polishing cloth.

'I don't know how long it'll take her to find Planir.' Sorgrad was addressing Charoleia. 'She won't come without telling him that something's afoot. But I'll go now, to be sure I'm waiting for her.' He grinned suddenly. 'You never know what interesting gossip I might pick up in Hadrumal's best tavern.'

With that, he was gone. Branca had expected something akin to the blinding light that enveloped her when Sorgrad's magic had carried them away from Adel Castle. Instead, she was left wondering if she had imagined that azure flicker.

'Is everything ready?' Tathrin turned to the table with its curious collection of bottles and bowls.

'Charoleia explained what we would need.' Despite the cosiness of the room, Branca shivered. 'You've seen necromancy worked?'

'In Relshaz, once.' Tathrin hesitated, looking at Gren.

The younger Mountain Man sat hunched on Charoleia's daybed, looking mutinously at the carpet. She spoke soothingly in the archaic tongue of his people.

'What is his objection?' Branca asked quietly.

'I'm not entirely sure,' admitted Tathrin. 'He pays scant heed to his gods but Mountain folk set great store on bones being returned to their own soil.'

'I see,' Branca said, uncertain. Hadn't Gren dug up bones from a long-forgotten battlefield, to convince Duke Garnot that Failla had truly been kidnapped and murdered, to ensure he wouldn't pursue her?

Gren looked up and glared at them both. 'Only the
sheltya
should seek guidance from the bones of the dead and seldom enough at that, at Solstice and in times of great trial. Hadrumal's wizards have no notion of what they're corrupting.'

'If there were any other way, we would take it, but there isn't.' Charoleia was sympathetic but implacable.

Tathrin was equally resolute. 'We said we would do whatever it took.'

Somewhat to Branca's surprise, it was Gren who looked away first, his face still dark with disgust.

'Never mind,' she said quickly. 'I'll see for myself soon enough.'

'Will Jettin?' Tathrin looked around, as if searching for unseen eyes.

'I've no sense of him through the aether.' Branca paused to make certain no fresh presence lurked at the edge of her thoughts. 'Kerith and I stopped harrying him as soon as I saw you arrive in the courtyard. But he has become remarkably subtle in his Artifice. Do you want me to try and find him?'

'No.' Tathrin quickly shook his head. 'We don't want him to suspect we've any interest in him now.'

'Very well.' Branca didn't hide her relief. Jettin was becoming increasingly ferocious in his aetheric assaults. Contacting Kerith had become like trying to shout through a gale to someone a plough-length away.

Her reprieve was short-lived.

'Have you tried to reach Aremil recently?' Tathrin asked.

'No.' Branca turned away. 'Now, Yadres Den Dalderin--'

'Branca.' Tathrin's firm hand restrained her. 'You're the only one who can reach Aremil. We're certain of it, me and Failla--'

'I have tried,' she protested, 'but at this distance--'

'Then go to Carluse.' Tathrin wasn't about to yield. 'If you're there to hold his hand, to speak to him in person--'