Lord Of The Freeborn (Book 7) (4 page)

He kept his voice down with great effort.

“We need a plan that holds water. And it can’t be something you just dream up and start giving directions for. We need everyone to agree. If Sunathri and Darien were here, you know that’s what we would be talking about.”

“You have to stop bringing her up,” Reynard replied. “She’s gone.”

“I bring her up because her way worked.”

Reynard pursed his lips. He, too, was clearly restraining himself due to the public nature of their location.

“We should just head to the Red Marshes,” Reynard said. “We can live there in isolation while we get the Freeborn into better status.”

“That is your pet idea, Reynard. Not a plan. What do we need to do to arrive at a plan that everyone agrees with?”

Reynard sighed. “That will never happen.”

“But we can get close. Close enough, anyway. I’ve seen it. Sunathri and—”

“Please.” Reynard held a hand up. “Sunathri and Darien, Sunathri and Darien … I swear I hear that phrase in my sleep.”

Garrick clenched his jaw. A stab of Braxidane’s hunger reached a cold tendril through his thoughts. It was painful, but it was a glorious pain, a pain that made him shiver. The hunger seemed to reach out to the sweet rush of life force he felt moving throughout the room, it snaked its way across beating hearts and rode the warm streams of blood flowing within. Garrick could taste their lives with a thick, stifling sensation that started at the back of his throat. It made him want, made him crave. But he could handle that now. To the greatest degree, anyway. Unclenching his muscles and swallowing down the darkness inside him, he pushed the hunger into the recesses of his being and returned his thoughts to the present.

When he recovered, Reynard was staring at him with an expression that made Garrick wonder how long he had been in that daze.

He wondered if Reynard understood the exact nature of his god-touch. Was the mage just delaying everything he could until Garrick would have to leave, then be unable to stop him? These thoughts did nothing to make him feel better. Perhaps Ellesadil was right about the Freeborn. If Garrick had wanted to spend his life soothing frail egos, he was in the right place. These mages were all the same—judgmental, vocal, and so painfully unwilling to budge from their own points of view. Unless, of course, that change came from some new perspective they had found all by themselves—which, of course, they discovered with remarkable frequency.

Reynard was typical. Garrick understood now why Darien had struggled to work with the mage. He gave directions that were bold and directly made, but they changed on a whim, leaving the mages around him angry and bruised. But, Sunathri had proven it was possible to lead the Freeborn, so it was up to him to figure out how.

“Our plan needs three parts,” Garrick finally said, raising a finger with each point. “One, a place to go—a place the Freeborn can agree to set up shop. Two, a set of travel plans—a map and a schedule of events as it were. And three, a preparation plan—the logistics of making it happen.”

“I’ve already got all that.”

Garrick once again swallowed the hunger that twisted through his gut.

“I will call a meeting of the order this evening to talk about locations,” he said. “If nothing else we can get the list of potential destinations pared down to something I can get my mind around.”

Reynard sat quietly, waves of disagreement blasting from him like the heat of a summer sun.

“Call the order together,” Garrick said, this time making certain Reynard could not mistake it for anything other than the order it was.

Reynard rose from the table.

“Yes, Lord Garrick. I will do that. What time would you like to meet?”

Garrick glanced outside. “Sundown.”

“Will there be anything else?”

“Yes, there is.”

Reynard paused as a server collected what remained of his breakfast. Garrick waited until the server left.

“I want a pair of Freeborn mages riding alongside every security patrol the Dorfort guard executes,” Garrick said.

“Ellesadil asked for this?”

“No. It is what we, as the Freeborn, must do to prove our interest in the people of the city.”

“I see.” Reynard could scarcely contain his mirth. “Consider it done. I admit, though, that I look forward to the expressions on the faces of our brothers and sisters after they’ve traipsed all over the outskirts of town in this bitter cold.”

“Tell them I will take my turn with them.”

“They know it’s different for you, Garrick. They know you will not feel the cold.”

Garrick nodded.

“Tell them anyway.”

“All right.”

Reynard walked away, and Garrick gripped the table, fighting an inner battle with his hunger that no one else could comprehend. When finally the wave passed, he saw his fingers had turned the color of bone.

Chapter 6

As his horse stepped over a snow-covered branch, Torrance spat weed juice and pulled his hood tightly over his head. His ears rang with the bitter wind. He swore the juice froze in mid-air and clattered to the ground in a thick chunk.

It’s as cold as a witch’s ear,
he thought.
Cold as a woman scorned. Cold as …
well, so cold he thought his muscles might never unclench.

Across the way, Pedaro, a young mage from the Rock Thorns, rode on the other side of the patrol.

Ten men of Dorfort’s guard tromped between them, boots breaking through the hardened surface of the calf-deep snow, weapons jangling, and voices cursing. Their coarse grumbling told Torrance they shared his disdain of both the cold and their working relationship.

He had been with the Freeborn since the early days, joining as much because he thought it might give him a chance to bed Sunathri as for any other reason, but the camaraderie of the group grew on him and he stayed even after Sunathri made it clear that nothing would ever come from that direction.

Tonight, though, he was rethinking his position.

Tonight he was cold, and he was sore.

Tonight he didn’t care that Lectodinian mages were reported to have been taking action north of Dorfort. It was an asinine assignment. Nothing he had seen tonight said a Lectodinian uprising was imminent, and even if it was, who cared if the they ripped a few Koradictine mages to shreds—more power to them as far as he was concerned. And, if the blue order decided to rough up a few Dorfort guard in the process, well, it wasn’t like Ellesadil’s mates were exactly an endearing crowd, anyway.

What were the Freeborn doing out here?

Garrick was a fool if he thought offering protection to these patrols was going to sway Ellesadil. They had been supporting the guard for nearly two weeks, and nothing had changed. The Freeborn were still as welcome in Dorfort as the gout. The order was getting tossed on their arses no matter what they did.

He pulled his scarf down, and again spat juice.

The wool of the scarf was prickly, and the whole thing came only up to his ears. It kept scratching his chapped lips. His backside hurt with each of his horse’s movements. His joints ached in the damp cold. Yes, he thought, he was definitely getting too old for this.

Pedaro’s breath billowed with each exhalation, too.

It was Garrick’s idea that a young mage be paired with one more experienced—which, he had to admit, was a good idea. Not that it mattered tonight, though. There was no interaction to be had with the cold so bad.

A movement came from the corner of his eye.

There was something unnatural about it, yet familiar—a streak of ruddy brown, the flicker of an arm, maybe the fold of an elbow. He turned to face it just as the odor of dry blood came, and just before the spell work itself started.

Koradictine magic!

Suddenly everything became shaper, and he drew breath that stabbed his lungs.

“Weapons!” he yelled. “Pull your weapons!”

The blast crackled across the open meadow, catching Torrance full in the chest with a thunderous clap. Red fire erupted around him. He fell backward as if he had run full-bore into an overhanging limb, but his right foot caught in the stirrup and his horse reared in fright, toppling with the unexpected weight, falling to one side with high-pitched shrieks and coming down on Torrance’s legs.

His bones crunched, and pain speared his body. He couldn’t breathe.

The Koradictine was on the hillside, standing in the open now, chanting with arms outstretched.

Guards ran for cover.

Torrance tried to calm himself enough to open his link to the plane of magic. Pedaro cast a green bolt toward the Koradictine, but the mage waved it away with a single, nonchalant motion, then cast a rope of fire at Pedaro. The young Torean died screaming.

Torrance’s link opened, and he channeled power.

The braying horse struggled and twisted on the ground, sending searing pain up Torrance’s leg. The leg was done for, mangled, he knew. He was too old to heal properly. Torrance ignored the pain and the bitter smells of freezing blood and horse lather as he concentrated on his spell.

The horse managed to stand, then it bolted, and Torrance, his foot still caught in the stirrup, groaned and grunted as he was dragged along the rough trail. He gave a cry out as snow rushed under him. His spell pooled, but he couldn’t cast it. A stone or root jarred his back. His jaw clapped shut so hard he broke a tooth. His leg stretched to the breaking point, and he screamed with pain.

The Koradictine’s next spell was a cadmium blue streak of searing fire that forked over the ground to engulf both Torrance and the horse in a single ball of flame.

Chapter 7

After long travel, Neuma and Hezarin were approaching Dorfort. It was not surprising then, to come across a detail of the guard on its patrol. It was fortuitous, actually. When they destroyed it, the detail’s silence would serve to hide their approach for just long enough to matter.

Now Neuma stood on the hillside and watched the Torean guard scatter. Hezarin’s magic burned like razors inside her. She gathered energy at her fingertips and let loose at will, casting blue death on an old mage, then turning to the soldiers that scurried like bedazzled ants.

Never had her casting been so fluid, never had it been accompanied with such rapturous release.

She had removed the mages first, surprised that the young one had gone down so easily. And, not that it would have mattered, but she was happy the horse had dragged the more powerful of the two for so long.

Her flame work scoured on, its heat raising a thick, milky mist over the sparse woods she had used as cover. A wave of swirling blades made mincemeat of a guardsman, and she turned a thrown dagger back toward another. She cast lightning, laughing as it raised hackles along her arms and savoring the lovely, bittersweet taste it brought to her tongue. It was a citric taste, orange and lemon and glory. This magic was like candy, like swimming in a lake of mage force, like walking in a cloud of power.

She cast a specter, a silver and gray woman that sang as she snaked across the snowscape to devour a man who charged up the hill. She cast a shadow, black and cold, with the touch of ice. A scream, so satisfying, came from another man, his weapon falling, disappearing into fresh snow as easily as his soul disappeared into her spell work.

This was it, Neuma thought.

This was what she had always wanted. Life was hers. From this point forward she would take orders from no one.

And this, she thought as she stood alone amid the remains of the Dorfort guard, would not be the end.

Koradictines today.

Dorfort tomorrow.

And the Lectodinians, well, she smiled, the Lectodinians would fall in their own sweet time.

Chapter 8