The Coming Storm (80 page)

Their eyes met. It went against all of Talik’s instincts, his training, you could see it.

“Marakis needs you too badly, my friend.”

Talik went still and then nodded.

Both men left.

“What does Daran High King want us to do?” Olend said, “If we find something.”

“Harass and harry them. That’s why I brought the Hunters and the Woodsmen, to help. To slow the advance. Colath will arrive soon with a contingent of Elves. For obvious reasons, I doubt you want this army coming through here but I don’t know that we’ll be able to keep them out. No matter what happens we can’t  allow that army to reach the plains before the High King’s forces get here or we might never stop them before they reach Doncerric and the rest of the Kingdoms.”

Olend stood. “You should have told me the Elves were coming sooner. Elon wouldn’t risk his people without good cause. We’ll bivouac the garrison soldiers in the city. Itan, if you would arrange for appropriate quarters for the Elves and the garrison? Keep them as far apart as you can. Given that we don’t know when the attack will come Ailith and I should go to the garrisons as soon as possible. We’ll leave shortly.”

Better done than wishing it were.

Itan arranged for Ailith and Jareth to grab a quick bite to eat while Olend arranged their travel.

They rode out again within the hour.

It was already growing late. They would reach the southernmost garrison before sunset but it wasn’t likely they would leave there that night.

“It’s too dangerous to travel after dark these days,” Olend explained, on the way. “Many of the desert predators have been pushed this way by the incursions but there have also been salamander, mandrake, manticore and basilisk attacks, as well as boggins, boggarts and such. Few travel by night any more, not even in groups.”

“Mandrake?” Ailith asked.

“It’s a creature common to the borderlands here in the south. It looks like a lizard but walks upright. We have seen them ridden as well, by trolls and goblins. They have wicked claws and their bite is poisonous. Venomous like snakes.”

Jareth took another sip of water from the waterskin by his knee.

A look from Olend. “Water in the desert is precious, Jareth. You should conserve it against need. We should get you both into desert clothes when we return.”

The garrison was situated high on a hill. Sandstone again, or something like it. Native stone.

Guards stood on the walls. As they drew closer, Ailith kept looking at them.

What was wrong here?

On the walls at home, the guards would walk, talk to each other. These guards weren’t walking and they weren’t talking to each other much either.

“Jareth,” she said. “Olend.”

The mild alarm in her voice caught both their attentions.

“When guards walk the walls at the end of the day, what do they do?”

Both of them looked up at the garrison heights. Those men moved, they shifted in place but they didn’t change position and didn’t speak to each other.

“Ailith?” Jareth said.

There was an odd sense of familiarity to this

“I have concerns and an odd feeling. Jareth, stay alert. Olend, it might be a good idea if you told your men to be prepared.”

“For what?”

“I’m not sure but I don’t want to be caught unawares. Alert but not with weapons drawn.”

Olend gave a signal.

If the men and women behind them were surprised by the command, they didn’t show it. They were very well-trained.

“What do you suspect?”

“That the enemy already has this garrison, or at least its commander. Either that or he’s very strict about talking on duty.”

“Should we even take the chance, Ailith?” Jareth asked.

“We need the garrison and we can’t leave them here to attack our flanks. I’m hoping they didn’t have enough of soul-eaters to put one on everyone here. If they did we’ll be in a great deal of trouble.”

The gates opened.

Without noticeably looking around, Ailith saw a lot of people with nervous, frightened expressions and carefully guarded looks.

Jareth said, “I share your odd feeling.”

“Olend, listen but don’t ask questions,” Ailith said. “That concern I had looks much more likely. If you know your history you’ll know of the wizard wars. Some of the nastier weapons from that time are in use again. There’s probably a wizard here, one who practices either blood magic, soul magic, or both. They can be very hard to identify.”

“We should have brought Itan with us,” Olend said.

“Since we didn’t, we’ll have to make do. Jareth, be prepared for a wizard. They’re not going to want us to take command of this garrison. Do you know the garrison commander, Olend?”

He shook his head.

“Then we take our chances. We might be relieving the man of more than his command.”

As they dismounted, Olend went over to the leader of his group and said a few low words then came back to join them.

“No one will come in once we’re inside.”

“Once we’re inside we’re not safe,” she said. “Olend, take the lead here, you’re simply paying a visit to the company commander.”

He nodded sharply.

The guard at the door took his name and went inside and then came back to gesture them inside.

By all appearances the garrison commander was a jolly fat man with many jowls and a jovial nature. His eyes didn’t match his appearance or manner, they were sharp and calculating.

“Come in, come in, King Olend to what do I owe this visit so late in the day,” he said and gestured them to precede him into the office.

His very joviality raised Ailith’s hackles, there was something that sounded false in it.

With this many stars in her internal sky it was hard to differentiate but there seemed to be too many of them in his office. In that confined space their swords would be of limited use.

Since this was supposed to be Olend’s visit, Ailith had stepped back to allow him to go first.

Now she grabbed his arm and threw him back, shouting, “‘Ware, Jareth!”

She drew her shortsword to parry the one the commander suddenly drew and swung at her as men burst out of the office at her cry. The corridor was too narrow to draw her longer sword, so she swung the shortsword in a quick slashes to drive them back, then Olend was next to her putting his shorter scimitar to good use beside hers.

A mage-bolt went off behind her but didn’t flash past her.

Jareth grunted as she spun to put Olend at her back and she at his.

To her shock and horror Jareth was down but so was the woman beyond him. She, though, seemed only dazed, shaking her hands as if they stung while trying to bring them up. Having seen Jareth make that gesture many times, Ailith knew what was coming.

Leaping forward, Ailith dodged sideways as the mage-bolt went past her. She bounced off the wall, pivoted and swung. The mage-bolt scorched her side a little before it punched through the men in the hall but the wizard now had no head.

Turning quickly, she saw Olend dispatch the last of the men from the office.

Jareth, however, was down and bleeding bad.

“Warded against the mage-bolt,” he hissed between clenched teeth, “missed the knife.”

It protruded from his chest, buried to the hilt. He coughed, winced and there was blood on his lips. His lung was damaged, at the very least. Without even thinking about it, Ailith had her hands around the knife, trying to assess the damage.

“Ailith,” he whispered, warningly.

Very few wizards Healed, it wasn’t a talent that came naturally to men. Some Lore Masters did and many Elves.

If she Healed him she would give herself away but if she didn’t he would die. That much, she knew.

Elon trusted Olend. She glanced at him as he knelt down next to Jareth to prop him up on his knee, making it easier for Jareth to breath.

“Can you keep a secret?” she asked, looking Olend in the eye.

Jareth shook his head, “Ailith, don’t.”

He knew what the penalty was if someone found out what she truly was. At the very least, the Dwarves would behead her.

“If I don’t you’ll die,” she said, sharply. “I won’t lose you, too, Jareth. I’ve lost enough.”

Olend’s black eyes studied her. “No one will know from me, Ailith but my wife. I keep no secrets from her.”

There was no choice and no time.

“All right,” she said.

Ailith pulled the knife quickly, placed her hands around the wound and found the harmony that was her friend, Jareth. The one that cared so much about her and Elon that he’d asked difficult questions. That had been hard. On both of them. He was the one who had stood beside her, fought beside her and feared for her enough to risk dying to keep her secret. She wasn’t going to lose him.

Finding that harmony, she set about restoring it again, felt damaged tissues rejoin and muscles knit again. In moments the wound was closed.

Her hands were covered in blood. She looked at Olend.

“You can Heal,” he said.

She nodded.

“Taran the Otherling,” he said, after a moment, “came from Marakis. We here know the histories, all of them and are quite proud of him but I know why you don’t speak of it. I won’t either.”

“Thank you. Can you check the Commander’s office for any more surprises? His quarters as well, they should be through there.”

He nodded and moved quietly away.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jareth whispered.

“It’s already done,” she said, with a small smile. “I can’t take it back.”

Jareth’s eyes closed.

Olend helped carry him back into the commanders quarters and laid him on the bed. He looked at Ailith.

“I swear this, I won’t speak of it.”

She smiled wryly. “I believed you when you said it the first time. We have a command to take. There’s the chance there will be a snake, a turncoat, and we’ll have to find him. They learn from their mistakes, they’ll have insurance this time. Let me show you a thing.”

Drawing back the dead commander’s shirt back she showed him the charm quickly and then covered it again.

“It’s called a soul-eater. It kills a man’s soul and puts him in thrall to the wizard. We’ve seen them before. We’ll leave the bodies in the desert and drop these down the well before we leave.”

The troop leaders apparently already knew the snake in their midst. When Ailith announced the change in command, one of them killed him for her.

So far in the desert, any who had wished to escape the commander or his wizard would have had to leave under cover of darkness, risking the creatures of the desert and almost certain death so far from water. Even if they survived the night, they then faced the heat of the day. An attempt at a mutiny had cost several their lives. Some had died unpleasantly at the hands of the wizard. They weren’t happy people and more than willing to find their own justice.

By morning Jareth was still weak but well enough to ride. Ailith sent the garrison under the command of one of Olend’s troop leaders to Marakis.

“If I were the one who was doing this and there were two garrisons between me and success, I would take both if I could,” Ailith said, as they rode up to the gate. “We’ll go in fast and sort the innocent from the guilty after.”

Olend nodded.

“Jareth, are you up to this?”

He looked a little pale and tired but he nodded, shaking his sleeves back from his hands.

Two snakes and a wizard later the garrison was theirs.

On the way back to Marakis she felt a familiar quiver in the bond and then saw Chai in the stables.

Colath found she and Jareth in the hall on their way to find him. They clasped arms and for a moment simply looked at each other.

Jareth said dryly, smiling. “It’s only been days.”