Sourcethief (Book 3) (39 page)

"That hunted look stayed on the shore, I
think," Stalyart said, snapping Tanner from his musings. Tanner shrugged.
"I do not know the sort of trouble you may find back in Kadrin, should you
return. They exist in a state of fear and distrust of their own making."

"Heads'll cool," Tanner replied.
"It'll be fine, eventually. They can always use a good blade."

"With sorcerers such as Rashan Solaran and Mr.
Hinterdale? Your value is limited, I think. With me, you could make your
fortune. I would use your blade seldom, but to good effect."

"I get the impression you are trying to hire
me," said Tanner, giving Stalyart an appraising look. Stalyart clapped him
on the shoulder.

"Your wit is sharp as your blade."
Stalyart laughed.

* * * * * * *
*

"Why me, of all people?" Celia whined. She
stood in the goblin lands, just north of Sk'Klt on Kyrus's map. Smoke from the
goblin forges and workshops rose up around her ankles.

"You are dressing like one of the Inner
Circle," Kyrus argued, sweeping a hand up and down at her gold and red-trimmed
black gown, so new it practically smelled of tailors' chalk. "Maybe you
should take on some level of responsibility. Planning a royal wedding is a
great honor."

"You just know that you can be rid of me a
while, is that it?" Celia replied, her voice rising. "Ever since
Iridan's death, you have been sniffing after that widow of his like she was in
heat. It's unseemly."

The map flickered as Kyrus's eyes bore into Celia.
She took a step back, reacting to Kyrus's draw even before Kyrus realized he
was gathering aether. Kyrus took a slow, even breath, and allowed the map to
stabilize lest he rip it apart.

The doors to the Map Room slammed shut. Celia
flinched.

"Now Brannis, darling, you can understand a bit
of jealously now, can't you? You keep evading talk about a betrothal, and ...
" Celia let the thought hang unfinished. Kyrus's expression had not
changed.

"We are going to lay a few cards on the table,
Abbiley," Kyrus said. He kept his voice as even as he could, but even he
heard a touch of Rashan in it.

"Yes, Kyrus?" Celia asked. "What are
we to discuss?"

"Did you mean what you said to me last night,
at the Harwick Estate? That you would leave Tomas, and run away with me?"
Kyrus asked.

"Of course," Celia answered, without
hesitation. "You know I love—"

"Liar!"

"Kyrus, I meant that—"

"Not another word until I finish!" Kyrus
shouted. "You are going to take the job to plan a wedding of gluttonous
proportion for our rutting hog of an emperor. You are going to do it because I
told you to. It is going to take you beyond my sight, keeping you busy from
pre-dawn until after dusk, handling a mind-twisting array of pointless,
trivial, ornamental tasks.

"You are going to do it because I know. I know
how Rashan has had you manipulating me," Kyrus said. He held up a warning
hand when Celia seemed about to object. "I know that you and Caladris
pillaged the life of Abbiley for any secret you could get to fool me. I have it
by Caladris's own word; and liar though he is, he had better sense than to toy
with me on this subject once his hand was caught in the donation box.

"I have tolerated your advances, at first
because I believed you, then to cover the charade once I found how it could
benefit me. Rashan has used you as a shield to ensure my behavior, keeping you
just close enough to caution me against reckless magic. That charade is not
over. I will continue brushing aside your little advances until it becomes
seemly that I propose to my best friend's widow. In the meantime, think on how
much protection Rashan can offer you, should you decide to tell him that this
little arrangement is a farce. I assure you, he is in no rush to stand between
you and my temper."

Celia stood, the blood drained from her face,
staring. Kyrus watched, wondering with an idle curiosity how long it would be
before she dared blink.

"You are feeling a bit overwhelmed by the
responsibility you have been handed. Perfectly understandable. Best thing is to
just immerse yourself in the task, and seek help as needed—from someone other
than the warlock and myself. We are both of a mind that this is a travesty, and
he wants as little to do with it as I.

"Go!" The door swung open, startling Celia
anew. Kyrus thrust a finger toward the corridor. Celia did not need to be told
twice. She scurried off as quickly as decorum would allow a sorceress to move
in a formal gown.

If Celia was going to burst into tears, she kept
herself in check until out of Kyrus's hearing.

* * * * * * *
*

"Alright, your Source might have made that a
bit murky to watch, but that was possibly the best thing I have ever
witnessed," Soria said after she removed her hands from the sides of
Brannis's head. "The hour it took to get the spell right has been paid
back with bankers' rates."

Rakashi watched with idle amusement as he partook in
a pre-dawn meal of bread and jerky. "So does this mean we are
agreeing?"

"Oh yes. I pay off my debts. This one is a
bargain, I think," Soria answered. "Toss me some of that jerky, I'm
starving." She took a strip when Brannis offered it, and rummaged in their
packs for bread.

It was not yet dawn in the little gully in Khesh.
Soria's foul mood upon waking early had disappeared before the morning fog had
a chance to burn off.

"Remember," Brannis said, "just
search Podawei from the air. If you can't find it from the air, just leave it
be. While you're on the way, take care to avoid Kadrin airships. I don't want
you crossing paths with the one Zayne has stolen."

"Not a chance of that. The
Marauder
is
too fast for those sailing airships. Juliana's still awake. We can get going
right away."

"What are we to do if the spirits
do
dwell within Podawei?" Rakashi asked. "The kalanoi are not known for
welcoming outsiders, if they are more than legend."

"The who?" Brannis asked.

"Their own name for themselves, or the best
pronunciation I know for it. It is a sign of your parochialism that you call
species by your own simplified names for them: daruu, kalanoi, dracos, g'bln,
guumaa; these are merely stone folk, forest spirit, dragon, goblin, and ogre to
you. I grant you that the goblin and dragon names are close, but you Kadrins
seem unconcerned with what these folk call themeslves."

Brannis shrugged. "I knew the daruu, but I
can't exactly carry on a conversation about them without calling them stone
folk. No one else would know who I was talking about. Anyway, if you run into
the
kalanoi
, just take note of their location. I'll make a point to
visit them when I can have time away from the warlock's notice."

"Shhr thng," Soria replied with nod, her
mouth full of bread.

* * * * * * *
*

In another forest, in another world, a campfire hid
beneath a tarp from overhead observers. Smoke billowed out and around the
edges, but diffused enough in the leafy canopy that the refugees worried little
about cooking their meal.

Dice rattled in a loose fist as a knot of men
gambled away the early night hours. Spears and swords were jabbed into the soft
forest floor behind them, ready in case of ambush, but it was a precaution
grown stale as the season wore on and Kadrin showed no sign of locating them.

"You should join us, Commander," one of
the men shouted from the circle of gamblers. "They ain't nobody to impress
out here but us lot."

The youngest of the company, Commander Stotaala
Bal-Kaynnyn turned from the task of brushing out her stripe-cat's fur.
"Perhaps another night." It was the same response she gave each time
they asked. The gamblers returned to their game and their merriment.

A short ways away, some fifty paces out into the
gloom of Kelvie Forest, a pair of sentries sat, watching the darkness for invading
crickets and squirrels with insomnia. They swatted mosquitoes and itched where
they had been bitten. They drank water, because that was all to be had to
drink. They groused, because fate kept playing them the same tune, in different
keys.

"You know 'bout that aether stuff?" Tod
asked. He reclined against a tree with his spear across his legs.

"'Course, 'cept if you mean anything
useful," Jodoul replied. He worked at his teeth with a fingernail, trying
to dislodge a bit of his dinner.

"Well, I'm wonderin' if maybe we got it writ on
us someplace that we's sentries," Tod continued. "Cuz I ain't seen it
writ noplace on you, and I'm guessin' you ain't seen it writ noplace on
me." Tod paused until Jodoul nodded his agreement. "But if you's
askin' anyone in charge o' puttin' a sentry out in the bleeding woods after
dark, they pick us, sure as sunrise."

"Yup," Jodoul agreed.

"There's gotta be somethin' on us writ that
everyone but us can see."

"It's quiet, at least, and the commander ain't
bad to look at," Jodoul said, preferring to look at the brighter side of
their lot. He looked up through a break in the trees to watch the moon. He had
picked his spot just because of the view it offered.

"What's that?" Jodoul scrambled to his
feet. "Somethin' just passed front o' the moon. Weren't no cloud,
neither." He crouched low, and scurried back to the main camp site, Tod
following in his trail.

"Kill the fire. Airship," Jodoul was
caught between a shout and a whisper, urgency and secrecy warring in his
throat.

The dice were forgotten, coins lay piled on the
forest floor. All hands went for weapons, even before someone thought to kick
dirt on the fire. Commander Stotaala took up her spear, and leapt atop her
stripe-cat's back. She showed remarkable flexibility as she bent to secure the
straps about her ankles and thighs that would keep her in the saddle in battle.
The riders of the other two stripe-cats did likewise.

Properly armed, they stood motionless, waiting. A
rustle of chain here, a cough there, the husky breathing of the massive
stripe-cat, nothing that should have been heard from above the trees. No light,
no sound, no foreknowledge of their presence gave them away. The only sense
that they had to fear was the one that the Kadrins brought to bear against
them: aether-vision.

They heard the crush of branches as the ship wedged
itself with ill grace down between the trees. Spears were lowered in a classic
defensive posture, off somewhere in the direction of the sound.

"Quickly, this is our only chance. Hit them before
they get settled on the ground. I will take their sorcerer myself.
Charge!" Commander Stotaala did not wait to see if her men followed. They
did. Desperate, frightened men rushed headlong into the darkness behind the
stripe-cat as it outpaced anything a running human could hope to match.

All but two. Tod and Jodoul joined the initial rush,
but they had worked out a system for such an eventuality. They lagged the pack,
and fell off the pace. They waited until none looked ready to turn back, and
found nice, thick trees to hide behind.

* * * * * * *
*

Kadrin soldiers clambered over the ship's railings
and down the rope ladders to the ground. Spears were tossed down to the first
men waiting, who were to hold the disembarking area until all could get to the
ground.

A bounding blur streaked toward them, a shadow
cloaked in leaf-shrouded darkness, growling as it came. A thicket of spears
attempted to present itself in opposition to the beast, but only managed to
rally a clearing's worth of opposing spears to the cause. The stripe-cat closed
the distance with ferocious speed and bounded into the midst of the unprepared
Kadrin soldiers.

"Whoops! Just got it in time," a
high-pitched voice called from the ship's deck. The stripe-cat hung, feet
scrambling for purchase, just out of spear's reach. Neither the rider nor the
ship's contingent could reach one another.

"Who are you? Let me down! We will never
surrender!" the rider shouted. She squirmed frantically in her saddle.

"I am Warlock Danilaesis Solaran of the Kadrin
Empire, bloody left hand of Emperor ... the emperor," Danil replied, his
childish voice carrying clear over the sounds of the approaching Megrenn
forces. "I guess since you don't want to surrender, we don't have much to
talk about."

Lightning twisted and crackled forth from Danil's
outstretched hand. Cat and rider both screamed in unison, but only briefly.
Smoke rose from the smoldering bodies before Danilaesis flung them clear of his
men. A cheer went up as the young, self-appointed warlock stepped over the
railing, and jumped to the ground. In the hand that had not spat lightning, he
carried a bared blade as long as he was tall, with room to spare; it gleamed
black in the moonlight.

Danilaesis had paid rapt attention whenever he had
heard his Uncle Rashan talk about what it took to be a warlock. He did not show
off. He minded his shielding spells, he charged into close range and drew from
his opponents' Sources when he could. He'd had to improvise a bit, and use more
blasting magics since his sword was still too slow to win at dueling, but he
swung the course of battles.