Shadowkings (38 page)

Tauric, help....please
...

(Alael!) He could feel the texture of her thoughts, the closed-in terror and the narcotic weariness that deadened her limbs and dragged at her mind. (Where are you? Who - )

They...outside Oumetra they trapped me...drugged me...remember this morning, saw a white Keep, soldiers, riders
...

But the effort was too much for her and he felt her thoughts drift apart and her presence fall away, even as he was plunged back into waking pain...

"No, wait! - he yet lives!"

Through blurred sight he recognised Lord Commander Mazaret crouched next to him, one hand keeping Tauric seated upright while the other had been lightly slapping his face. All the fighting seemed to be over, for there was only the moans of the wounded and dying to be heard. Tauric still felt the horrible pain of his shoulder, and his head was full of grey veils, but now he fought to stay conscious, to speak.

"She is here!"

"Don't tire yourself," Mazaret said.

Then another squatted on the steps nearby - Kodel. "Who is here?"

"Alael!" Tauric almost shouted. "She is a prisoner, here in Sejeend. We must rescue her..."

Mazaret and Kodel glanced at each other, then listened carefully as Tauric related the events of his strange vision. The Lord Commander's gaze became oddly intense when he spoke of the first voice and the strong odours of the forest, while the chief of the Hunters Children was a still, regarding presence throughout. When Tauric finished, Mazaret got to his feet.

"If her captors intend to leave, it will be by the north or east gates. I will have patrols sent to both - no cart or wagon will pass unsearched, I promise." With a sharp nod to Kodel, he hurried down the steps, shouting orders as he went.

"A good man," Kodel said. "If somewhat stiff-necked. He was not amused to learn that you and your followers joined the assault with my approval. My friend the Armourer was similarly put out by your impulsive charge, although like me he sees that you have the essential qualities of a good commander - intuition and luck."

"Kodel," said Tauric. "What happened to the mercenary chief, Crolas?"

Kodel reached behind him and dragged something into view - it was the spiderclaw, the reptile-hide of its upper-arm covering torn and slick with blood. "I heard of the offer you made him. It was more than he deserved - pity that he made such a poor choice."

"He didn't seem like an evil man," Tauric said, troubled. "I almost found myself liking him, even though he was my enemy."

"Of course," said Kodel with a wintry smile. "Your enemies cannot betray you - they can only kill you."

The standard has been raised,
And the dagger is blooded.
The enemy knows our names,
And the number of our arrows.
Driven by the blast of Time,
We rush towards the brink.

—Vosada Boroal,
The Great House Of Hallebron
,
bk.iii, 1.27

Cloud-broken sunshine was brightening and darkening the courtyard outside when Mazaret emerged from Hojamar Keep. The first person he saw was Rul Yarram climbing the long main steps, so he descended to meet him part way.

"Commander," Yarram said, saluting with open right hand against his chest. "I can now report that the enemy's presence within Sejeend no longer presents a threat. Apart from those we have killed or captured, there are no more than a dozen Mogaun still at large, with about a handful of mercenaries holed up somewhere, perhaps hoping to pass themselves off as townsfolk or Roharkans from the country."

Mazaret indicated the smoke trails rising from a number of places across the town. "But it seems that our problems are not over."

The Rul nodded. "The mobs. We've been hard put to deal with some of them, especially when pursuing enemy stragglers - the looters attack us and the Mogaun without discrimination."

"So - sixteen years of barbarian rule has finally borne its fruit," Mazaret said, staring bleakly out at the town. "Did you know that Sejeend was once a haven for master weavers and tapestry-makers, Yarram, a place of learning and beauty?"

"My grandfather was from here, ser," Yarram said thoughtfully. "I used to visit him twice a year until he died, almost a year before the invasion."

Mazaret looked at him in faint surprise.
It must be hard for him to see the town brought so low
, he thought.
How might I feel to walk the streets of Besh-Darok again after sixteen years?

For an awkward moment neither spoke, until Yarram broke the silence.

"When will the reinforcements arrive, ser?"

"Two hundred knights of the order are due by nightfall, and another hundred before the dawn. As for the Hunters Children, Kodel tells me that a hundred bowmen will here by late evening with smaller groups arriving throughout the night." He gazed levelly at Yarram. "But even if our forces grow, the Mogaun will inevitably move against us and when they do it will be a sore, hard fight."

Yarram straightened. "What are my orders, Lord Commander?"

"Place all your men, bar twenty, under your most trusted officer - by my order they are to seek out any grain or victuals store still intact and near the Keep, make it secure and send a messenger to me here. In the meantime, Yarram, you will take your twenty men across the town, post ten at the east gate and the rest at the north gate where I want you to remain. All wagons and carts leaving the town must be searched for a young girl, perhaps bound and concealed. She seems sixteen summers of age, slender with long, fair hair and maybe wearing a floral dress."

"And if we discover her?"

"If it is safe and if she is fit to be moved, bring her to the Keep with all despatch - otherwise, she is to be kept from harm at all costs." He laid a hand on the man's shoulder. "It will be dangerous, Yarram, but the girl must be found. She is an unschooled mage of great power and must not fall into the hands of the Acolytes."

A steely determination came into Yarram's eyes. "I understand, ser. By your leave."

Mazaret nodded and watched the officer hurry away down the steps.
Would you be equally eager if I told you that she was Tauric's rival for the throne?
he thought, then smiled ruefully.
Yes, I think you would. You are an honourable man, Rul Yarram
.

Tauric. Thoughts of the young heir brought back with sharp clarity the wild alarm he had felt on seeing the Fathertree banner unfurl on the Keep's high battlements. When he and scarcely a score of his knights broke through into that great chamber and saw the mercenary chief Crolas standing over the prone Tauric, Mazaret was certain that all was lost. Then Kodel had appeared out of nowhere and after a mad flurry of blows Crolas lay dying at his feet.

Which meant that Kodel had saved Tauric from looming death twice, and in turn Tauric was clearly coming to regard Kodel as a mentor. Mazaret, uncertain of Kodel's motives and uneasy at the possible consequences, now felt a vague resentment after hearing Tauric's account of his vision. Listening to the boy speak of a terrifying spiritlike voice and strange, intense smells of leaves and earth, he was privately amazed at the similarities to the reverie he'd had when his family died in Krusivel years ago.

Not for the first time, he found himself wondering what kind of presence truly lay behind such visitations. His own had suggested that of the Earthmother, but what could her purpose be, and was it good or evil or neither? Once, while on a secret buying trip to Scallow, he had chanced upon a travelling Ogucha seer from the islands and queried him about a few details from his vision. The aged man, sitting cross-legged beneath a low canopy of cheap yellow silk, had fixed Mazaret with a doleful stare as he produced a little sack from within his grubby robe and tipped out the contents. After poking amongst the bones and pebbles and dusty feathers for several moments, the seer had muttered - "You will have no wife, but many sons."

At the time he had felt like striking the scrawny old man but the need for anonymity had stayed his hand, and now he smiled wryly at the memory.

One of Kodel's men, a flame-haired youth in the greys and browns of the Hunter's Children, approached with a message from the mage Medwin. At once Mazaret followed him down the steps, in through the great doors to the lower Keep and along to a dining chamber hastily rearranged to hold meetings. For the next half an hour he engaged in heated discussions with a handful of men who had been town stewards and wardens before the invasion, two administrators appointed by the Mogaun chieftains (and now cooperating rather than face the mobs), and several surviving nobles released from the dungeons.

With a combination of coercion and cajolery, Mazaret and Medwin persuaded them to work together in restoring order to Sejeend. Mazaret found himself playing the harsh disciplinarian to Medwin's reasonable negotiator, and thoroughly enjoying it. As the provisional town council began drafting its first decrees, the soldier and the mage walked back up to the courtyard.

"That was a fine performance, Lord Commander," said Medwin, a grey- bearded, portly man whose dark brown robe was as spotless and undamaged as it was before the battle. "I almost believed you when you proposed burning at the stake anyone guilty of supplying the Mogaun with harvests from seized lands."

"If I didn't believe it," Mazaret said, "neither would they. Nor would a couple of the former collaborators have turned quite so gratifyingly pale."

Medwin laughed. "Then I should assure you that the flattery I employed in that room was far less sincere."

"And where is your fellow-mage?" Mazaret said as they emerged into the courtyard. Uninterrupted sunshine was filling the walled-in parade ground with brightness, warming the stones and baking the dust out of the ground, and Mazaret felt a sudden prickle of perspiration across face and neck.

"Oh, Eshmor is talking to the town's Earthmother priestesses and initiates about opening healing rooms in the Keep for the sick and wounded."

Mazaret frowned. "I thought the Earthmother orders in Sejeend were wiped out - the persecution and torture in this part of Roharka was especially savage."

"They went to extraordinary lengths to maintain the offices of their chapter with initiates trained and ready to assume another's position if they were taken by the enemy." Medwin shrugged. "How such an arrangement would rest with the Abbess back at Krusivel is, ah, debatable..." His eyes widened and he waved to someone across the courtyard. "Why, there's the Archmage - he would be able to shed more light on the question."

Mazaret saw Bardow and the female mage Terzis entering through the tall courtyard gates, the former leaning on the latter's arm. Medwin raised his arm in greeting and strode on faster, drawing ahead of Mazaret. The mage was barely two paces in front when he stumbled, put both hands to his throat, let out a strangled cry and slumped to the ground, gasping. At the same time, over at the gates, Terzis had uttered an agonising scream and was lying in the dust, writhing while Bardow crawled towards her.

Mazaret rushed to Medwin's side and found him with his hands clapped over his eyes and muttering - "In the name of the Mother - he's dead!..."

A pair of Hunters Children came over, offering help, but Mazaret waved them away. "Who is dead, Medwin? Who?" he said.

His voice seemed to break through the hysteria and the mage lowered his hands and looked straight up at him.

"Guldamar is dead - betrayed by cruel sorcery, then throttled..." He touched his own throat with a trembling hand. "I felt him try to reach us as the life...the life went out of him." He breathed in sharply, and reached to clutch at Mazaret's surcoat. "...a shaman! My master dealt with one of them, but how could we know that another was hiding himself from us..." Medwin shuddered, and seemed on the point of tears. "And poor Terzis...lend me your arm, my lord, I beg you. Let me see her and the Archmage."

Sentries from the gate were trying to help Bardow and Terzis to their feet as Mazaret half-carried Medwin over to them. Terzis was sitting with her face buried in her hands, sobbing and refusing to stand.

"Medwin told me that Guldamar is dead," Mazaret said to Bardow. "Is this true?"

The Archmage looked ashen and weary. "I exhausted myself in battle earlier and I only felt the edges of whatever happened to Guldamar, but yes...I think that he is gone."

"How could this be, Bardow?" Medwin said.

Bardow seemed dazed. "I'm not sure. He would have been with Dow Korren, helping him find - "

"Dow Korren?" Mazaret said abruptly.

Then Bardow quickly told of how he tracked a shaman from the western walls to a townhouse where he engaged in a nightmarish struggle, and was saved by the intervention of Guldamar and Dow Korren.

"He claimed that he and his colleagues had been taken prisoner, and that he had to find and release them." The Archmage rubbed the heel of his hand across his forehead. "I insisted that he took Guldamar with him, and now - "

"Do not blame yourself for what that snake has done," said a voice. It was Kodel, with Tauric at his side. "His Northern Cabal has thwarted our stratagems on many occasions."

Mazaret felt a surge of irritation at Kodel's presence, but concentrated on the urgency of the situation.

"How much of the murder do you recall?" he said to Medwin. "Do you have the slightest idea of where it took place? Was it inside the town or outside?"

"It is difficult, it was over so quickly..." The mage closed his eyes, put his hand to his chin and mouth. "...in the town, in shadows...shadows of a tall building - "

"In the shadows of trees," said Terzis, and all eyes swung round to her. She now sat with head raised, her eyes staring into midair. "Tall, old trees, near a high wall - "

"The north wall," said Medwin.

"Excellent," Mazaret said. "We should find that with ease - "

"The shaman," Terzis went on. Her voice had sunk to a low monotone, and she and Medwin had locked gazes. "He is full of fear, everyone, the betrayer Korren, their hired rogues - "

" - their prisoner, in a wagon - " Medwin murmured.

" - a young woman - "