Mask of Dragons (5 page)

“Hold!” roared Adalar at the top of his lungs. “Do not pursue! Do not pursue! Swordthain Talchar!” The one-eyed Jutai swordthain turned to face him. “Focus on the pavilions. Don’t let any of the valgasts out. The more we kill now, the fewer there will be to kill us later.” 

Talchar nodded and shouted commands of his own. The men split up, moving from pavilion to pavilion, butchering the valgasts as they tried to escape. Sigaldra’s archers poured volleys into the pavilions, killing more valgasts, and screams and fire and blood filled the night. 

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As the sun rose to the east, Sigaldra cast a weary look around the camp, the smell of the burned pavilions and valgast blood filling her nostrils. 

They had lost a total of nine men. Six had been overwhelmed and killed as the valgasts tried to escape. Three had been hit by the darts, the venom stopping their hearts. 

In exchange for their lives, they had killed over four hundred valgasts. It had been less of a battle and more simple butchery. The creatures had been entangled in the collapsed pavilions, and while a few had managed to organize themselves and fight, the rest had been shot down by arrows, cut down by swords and spears, or simply burned alive. It had been, all things considered, a great victory. 

Certainly the men were in an upbeat mood, congratulating each other. Even Sir Rufus seemed better disposed towards the Jutai than he had been last night. The young knight had killed nine valgasts in the fighting, so Sigaldra supposed the boy was good for something after all.

A great victory…but it changed nothing whatsoever. 

Four hundred valgasts dead, but the ancestors alone knew how many more lurked in the tunnels beneath their feet. They still had to defeat the Skuldari and their spiders, and the soliphages with their dark magic and their inhuman strength.

And the Prophetess and Rigoric still had Liane, and the Prophetess had dark magic of tremendous power. 

Sigaldra let out a long breath and listened with half an ear as the men talked, and then saw Lord Adalar approaching her. He, unlike all the others, still looked as grim as he had the night before. Though he did not seem tired. The man was indefatigable. 

After surviving the Great Rising and the runedead, the valgasts likely seemed like a small concern. 

“A great victory,” said Sigaldra in a quiet voice.

Adalar shrugged. “It could have been worse. The valgasts were overconfident. They won’t make the same mistake twice.” 

“Perhaps they shall refrain from further raids,” said Sigaldra. “The scouts saw more of Lord Mazael’s men coming.”

“Really?” said Adalar. “So soon?” 

“Another five hundred from Sword Town,” said Sigaldra. “They will arrive within the hour. Once Lord Mazael’s host gathers, the valgasts may not be bold enough to launch their night attacks.”

“Perhaps,” said Adalar. “I doubt we can relax our guard, though. Likely the valgasts will pick off any stragglers and raid our supply carts at night.”

“Aye,” said Sigaldra.

They lapsed into silence. Sigaldra was unsure of what to say. Without Adalar’s help, Earnachar would likely have destroyed Greatheart Keep and slaughtered the Jutai, and the Prophetess would almost certainly have killed her. This bleak, tired-looking young man had been of tremendous help to Sigaldra. 

Why was she thinking about him so much? Sigaldra had so many other things to occupy her thoughts. 

“It was a good trap,” she said at last.

“Oh?” said Adalar. “Ah. The pavilions, you mean. It wasn’t my idea. Lord Gerald came up with it when we fought the runedead in Mastaria. Lured them into an old barn stuffed with hay and set it aflame.”

“Nevertheless,” said Sigaldra. “I shall use any weapon at hand, so long as it works.” 

“Aye,” said Adalar. “I suggest that you go meet the men from Sword Town, my lady. Lord Mazael left you in command of the camp, and it would be best to establish your authority at once.”

She felt a flicker of irritation that he would presume to tell her what to do, but she quashed it. For one thing, he never actually told her what to do. He made suggestions that made sense. And she would obey her own words. To free Liane, she would use any weapon at hand, so long as it worked.

And grim, weary Lord Adalar was an effective weapon. 

Yes, her father and her brothers would have approved of him.

Sigaldra supposed that she did, too.

Chapter 3: Armies

By the time Mazael reached the camp, they had fought and broken two more Skuldari warbands. Mazael put them to rout, killing most of them and sending the survivors scurrying back to Skuldar. The second Skuldari warband had a pair of soliphages with them, but the magic of the Guardian blocked their spells, and the knights cut them down. As Mazael rode west, he encountered more of his vassals making for the camp, and they joined his column, and soon he had fifteen hundred additional men with him. 

The Skuldari did not attack again after that. 

It troubled Mazael.

The victories had come easily. The Skuldari had remained hidden within their mountain homeland for centuries. The men of the Grim Marches and the Tervingi were both accustomed to hardship and battle. Did the Skuldari think they could overcome the Grim Marches so easily? If so, they would learn otherwise. 

Yet Mazael was uneasy. In his experience, when a foe did something foolish, it meant one of two things. Either the enemy was an idiot…or he had a trick up his sleeve, some trap or stratagem that Mazael had not yet seen. Earnachar and the Prophetess had done that to Mazael at Greatheart Keep, luring him into a trap so the Prophetess could stab Mazael with that Dark Elderborn maethweisyr and claim some of his demon-charged blood. 

He still didn’t know why she had done that. Earnachar had claimed the Prophetess would take Liane to the Skuldari city of Armalast, in search of something called the Mask of Marazadra, but Earnachar didn’t know what that Mask was and neither did Mazael. 

For that matter, he still didn’t know why any of this was happening, and that contributed to his unease. The Prophetess claimed to have a plan to bring all the world under the sway of her goddess. Marazadra herself had appeared in Mazael’s dreams, trying to recruit him, and had claimed that the Old Demon’s death had freed her. 

So what was the Prophetess planning to do? Claiming that she would bring the entire world under the sway of her goddess was one thing, but actually doing it was another matter entirely. Once, Mazael would have thought such plans the ravings of an unbalanced mind, but he knew better now. Ultorin had brought a horde of Malrags to the Grim Marches. Lucan Mandragon had raised countless legions of the undead. The Old Demon had almost become a god. A wizard with sufficient power and will could wreak horrible havoc. 

Mazael feared that the Prophetess might be one such wizard. 

“What troubles you, husband?” said Romaria from where she rode next to him, her braid bouncing against her back with the movement of her horse. 

“Many things,” said Mazael. “I’ve a war to win, but I don’t know why I’m fighting it.” 

Romaria shrugged. “Isn’t that enough for you? A war to fight and a foe to crush. Nor need you fear that you are making an error by going to war. The Prophetess and her servants attacked the Grim Marches first.”

“Aye,” said Mazael, “but the why of it, that’s what troubles me. It’s one thing to fight a man. But to defeat a man, you have to understand him. You have to know how he thinks, why he wants what he wants and why he does what he does. Mitor’s actions made no sense until we knew the San-keth and the Old Demon were pulling his strings. We didn’t know why Ultorin and his Malrags assailed Deepforest Keep until we found out what Malavost wanted.” 

“Or why Molly wanted to kill you,” said Romaria in a quiet voice, “until we understood how Corvad had lied to her.”

“Exactly,” said Mazael. He glanced to where his daughter rode with Riothamus, both of them speaking in low voices. Suddenly Molly threw back her head and laughed. He was glad that Molly had found Riothamus. The Guardian of the Tervingi balanced out Molly’s darker moods and wilder rages. 

“You understand,” said Mazael. He drummed his fingers upon the horn of his saddle for a moment. “So. Mitor wanted the Grim Marches, Malavost wanted the Door of Souls, and Corvad wanted the Glamdaigyr. What does the Prophetess want?” 

“Will it matter once you kill her?” said Romaria. 

“Maybe,” said Mazael. “I killed Lucan and it didn’t slow him down for long.” He rubbed at his jaw, his close-cropped beard rasping against his fingers. “So what does the Prophetess want?”

Romaria shrugged. “To give the world to her goddess. She said so herself.”

“Aye,” said Mazael. “But the Skuldari aren’t going to give it to her. Nor are the valgasts or the soliphages. She must have something else in mind. Some reason that required her to take Liane from Greatheart Keep.”

And, Mazael reflected, a maethweisyr soaked with his blood. He was angry that the Prophetess had dared to kidnap Liane, but that blood-soaked dagger troubled him. Mazael was the last child of the Old Demon, and his blood had power. Lucan had taken some of Mazael’s blood to augment his magical powers, and that had started Lucan down the path to destruction. His intentions had been good, but the stolen power had destroyed him nonetheless.

Mazael had no doubt the Prophetess’s intentions were malicious. So what would she do with the blood of a Demonsouled? 

Maybe Romaria was right, and the Prophetess's plans wouldn’t matterwhen Mazael killed the Prophetess and crushed her allies. 

Somehow he knew it would not be that simple. It never was.

They reached the camp later that day. Mazael had commanded Sigaldra to make camp at the entrance to Weaver’s Pass, and she had followed his instructions to the letter, setting the camp at the edge of the foothills of Skuldar. He was pleased to see that nearly seven thousand of his men had gathered, equipped and armed for war. Furthermore, they had constructed themselves an orderly camp, with tents lined in rows, the camp itself ringed by a ditch and a low earthwork wall. That would be Adalar’s doing, Mazael suspected. The men of Knightreach had made similar camps for themselves to keep the runedead at bay during the Great Rising. He had thought that Adalar and Sigaldra would work well together, and that instinct appeared to have been right. 

Ashes crunched beneath the steel-shod hooves of his horse. 

“Big fire here,” said Molly, riding up with Riothamus. 

“Bonfire, maybe?” said Mazael. 

“No,” said Romaria, her blue eyes narrowed as she sniffed at the air. The gesture made her look peculiarly wolfish. “A couple of pavilions burned here, I’m sure of it.” 

“Pavilions?” said Riothamus. “Perhaps the valgasts launched a raid.”

“If they did, it failed,” said Romaria. “I smell valgast flesh in the ashes as well.” 

Molly laughed and pointed at the camp. “That might be a hint, too.” 

Stakes jutted from the top of the earthwork wall, and some of the stakes had been topped with valgast heads. There were dozens of the heads, their unblinking black eyes staring at nothing. No crows disturbed them. Apparently the carrion birds found the flesh of valgasts unpalatable, and their eyes were made a peculiar crystalline substance as hard as stone. 

“They must have gotten the idea from the Tervingi,” said Riothamus. “Of old, the valgasts only attacked on Midsummer’s Day and Midwinter’s Day. If a Tervingi hold repulsed them, they left the heads upon the walls as a warning to others.” 

A band of horsemen circled the camp and headed towards Mazael’s column. Most of the riders were Tervingi horsethains, and Mazael spotted the Tervingi headman Arnulf at their head, grim in his chain mail. A thin man in a black coat road next to him. 

“Ah, we’ll have some news now,” said Mazael. “Sir Hagen!” Hagen urged his horse forward, scowling at the valgast heads. “Get the men ready to camp. Oh, and find Sir Tanam. Have him send scouts around the camp, and a few men up Weaver’s Pass. If the Skuldari are about to throw their full strength at us, I would like to know about it.” 

“My lord,” said Hagen, and he turned to carry out his instructions. 

Arnulf and the black-coated man reined up before Mazael. The Tervingi headman was a big man, a perpetual scowl on his face behind his ragged yellow beard. The man in the black coat was shorter and thinner, with gray-streaked brown hair and a beard he kept trimmed to a precise point. His black coat and clothes were favored by the brotherhood of wizards, and he had served as Mazael’s court wizard for years. 

“Arnulf, Timothy,” said Mazael. “What news?”

Arnulf grunted. “Battle and fire.” 

“The valgasts tried to attack the camp several times before we arrived, my lord,” said Timothy. “Holdmistress Sigaldra and Lord Adalar devised a clever stratagem to defeat them.”

“How?” said Mazael. 

“Lured them into pavilions, and then burned the pavilions down around their heads,” said Arnulf. “Too bad I missed it. Easiest way to fight valgasts I’ve ever seen.” 

Timothy nodded. “After we arrived with the…ah, prisoner, I was able to raise warning spells around the camp. The valgasts have not attacked since. I suspect their wizards are able to detect the spells and so have held their fighters back.” 

“Good,” said Mazael. “Once we smash the Skuldari, perhaps the valgasts will reconsider their raids.” A lord had to show confidence to his men. Mazael could share his doubts with Romaria, but with no one else. “How is the prisoner?” 

“Behaving himself,” said Arnulf.

“Though his tongue is…rather abrasive,” said Timothy.

Arnulf snorted. “Earnachar son of Balnachar was always abrasive. Now that he’s vomited up his heart spider, he’s almost pleasant.”

“Have you decided,” said Riothamus, “what will become of him?” 

“No,” said Mazael. Sigaldra wanted Earnachar executed for his attack on Greatheart Keep, as did most of the Jutai, and Adalar was inclined to agree with Sigaldra. The Tervingi, however, wanted Earnachar forgiven. He had been under the control of one of the Prophetess’s heart spiders, and ever since the spider had been expelled, he had cooperated willingly.