The Dragon Hunter and the Mage (35 page)

“That’s ridiculous,” Fadan said, but he didn’t sound too sure of himself. “They will look everywhere, even the empty Palaces, I’m sure.”

“Are you? If you could keep us supplied with food and water, we could remain hidden under the Emperor’s nose until the dust settled. It might take a week, maybe a month, who knows, but it
could
be done. And in the meantime, the Paladins will be running around like headless chickens, trying to find us in all the wrong places.” 

The Prince did not reply. He shuffled his feet, his hands fidgeting restlessly, then glanced at Sabium, who refused to return his gaze.

“I’m…” Fadan sighed, turning back to Alman. “I’m sorry. It just feels wrong. I can’t help you. You’ll need to find someone else.” He looked at Sabium once again. “Am I excused, Master?”

The old Mage gave Fadan a wave and the Prince fled out the door without so much as looking at Alman, leaving the two siblings alone in the twilight of Sabium’s candles.

“You just couldn’t give it up, could you?” Sabium asked after an overlong pause.

“No,” Alman replied, heading for the apartment’s door. “That would be your department.” He slammed the door behind him.

Chapter 14

Aric’s first day as Captain of the twenty third Company had begun mostly without incident. Saruk had decided that they should start out slow, giving Aric a simple, half-day desert patrol. Nothing the recruits couldn’t handle. Aric’s troubles, however, had more to do with his unexpected encounter the previous night.

All recruits had gathered at the fortress’s main gate, getting ready to roll out, when Leth tried to give Aric a morning greeting. Without stopping his inspection of the Company’s gear, Aric simply looked the other way and pretended not to hear him.

Soon, the Company was on the move and Aric got to empty his mind with the race across the sand and the vastness of the desert. It was funny how a place this dangerous could feel so calm and peaceful. Later, during a short resting pause under the shadow of a tall ridge, Leth approached Aric.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

“Pull your scarf up,” Aric replied. “You’ll dehydrate faster if you don’t cover your mouth.” Then he turned his back and signaled the Company to move out.

Leth, however, wasn’t about to give up that easily. The patrol ended shortly before nightfall. As soon as they arrived, some of the recruits dove straight for the water fountain in the fortress’s lobby while others shook sand off their clothes. Leth neared Aric as he took off his weapons and laid them in a small pile.

“Aric?” Leth said. “Aric, can we please talk?”

Leth received only a quick glance.

“Tharius,” Aric called. “You’re on weapons duty today. Get everyone’s blades to the storage room.” He received a ‘Yes, Captain’ then turned around and walked away.

Groaning, Leth chased him. “I was talking to you,” he said. “I know you heard me.”

“Yeah,” Aric replied at last without slowing down. “I’ve noticed your sudden interest in talking,” he said. “Too bad you didn’t feel like that sooner.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Leth asked.

“Well…” Aric said as he began to climb the great staircase leading to the dining hall. “You had plenty of opportunities to let me know about you and Clea. But I suppose it was a lot more fun to watch me make a fool of myself.”

“There was nothing to let you know about when we last talked.”

“Oh no, of course not,” Aric said. “The two of you just developed a relationship overnight.”

“Actually, yes. That’s kind of what happened.”

Aric rolled his eyes so far up they nearly disappeared into the back of his head. “Right,” he said, turning his back on Leth and pushing the door to the dining hall open.

“Will you grow up for a moment?” Leth asked.

“Oh, so now I’m a child?” Aric chuckled. “Is that because I thought I could trust you, or because I asked for your advice?”

“Listen to me,” Leth said, stabbing Aric’s chest with a finger. “I did nothing wrong.” At that moment, the rest of the Company walked into the dining room as well and Leth was forced to lower his voice. “You’re mad at me because you like a girl and she chose me instead. Well, I’m entitled to like her as much as you, so deal with it.”

“Is something wrong?”

It was Clea. She had walked up behind Leth. Aric froze, unable to answer.

“Everything’s fine,” Leth assured her. “We were just… discussing an issue with today’s patrol.” He turned to Aric. “Will you take what I’ve said into consideration, Captain?”

Aric didn’t reply right away. “I don’t think we were talking about the same issue. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m getting something to eat.”

Aric mindlessly filled a tray with flat bread, dried dates, and some cheese he didn’t even like. Calculating how far he could sit away from Leth, he walked to the Company’s usual table to find them huddled around something instead of sitting down as always.

“Is anything wrong?” Aric asked.

“Look Aric,” Clea said. “Tharius found it in the weapons storage room.”

“It was on one of the top shelves,” Tharius confirmed. “Behind a whetstone.”

Pushing Prion out of the way, Aric found what that fuss was all about – a Lagaht board.

“I bet you and Leth are really good at it,” Tharius told Aric, his eyes gleaming.

“Yeah,” Clea agreed. “It would be really exciting to see a match between two serious players.”

“What do you expect will happen?” Leth asked Clea and Tharius. “Just because we’re nobles doesn’t mean fireworks will go off every time we make a move. Besides, I don’t think Aric will want to play.”

“Aww, I’m sure he would,” Clea said. “Wouldn’t you Aric? I bet you would love to beat Leth’s ass.” She smiled.

It made Aric smirk. “Oh, I wouldn’t mind that.”

“As if…” Leth said, shaking his head.

“You think you can beat
me
?” Aric asked.

Leth didn’t answer right away. Slowly, he looked at Aric and said, “Wouldn’t be the first time I beat you at something.”

Aric’s eyes narrowed. “Tharius, take the board out.”

There was a collective cheer. Clea even clapped. The two players sat across from each other as Tharius placed the Lagaht board between them. The Company gathered around, and even some senior Hunters eating nearby joined them, looking curious.

“Looks fancy, doesn’t it?” Tharius said, placing the game’s contents over the table.

“Looks like Samehrian dung,” Leth replied.

Aric was forced to agree. This was certainly not the kind of board made for a Duke or an Emperor. It was an ugly old thing, with washed out paint and ridiculous woodcraft. The horses had bulgy, disproportionate eyes; the spears looked mostly like swords, and the swords looked mostly like spears. Not to mention that every single piece was chipped in places or outright missing something.  Its problems, however, weren’t merely esthetic.

The deck of spell cards, for example, was extremely small, with only forty cards, the bare minimum allowed in a Lagaht board. The cards themselves were also as bland as Lagaht spell cards could get. Aric flipped through the deck three times and didn’t find a single one that could really make a difference. Then, there was the layout of the board itself; an extremely basic design with only a couple of choke points. The sort of board that would make for predictable matches after a while. Still, since none of them had ever played in it, that shouldn’t be much of a problem. And, at the very least, it did look fairly balanced.

Well, at least this way, he can’t complain about luck.

That had always been Fadan’s excuse. What Fadan had never known, however, was that Aric had read just about every single book on Lagaht in the Citadel’s library. Some of them twice.

“I shuffle; you break?” Leth asked.

“Sure.”

The cards moved swiftly between Leth’s fingers. He obviously had a lot of practice. Then, with a thump, Leth placed the deck down and Aric broke it. It was a rushed movement, and Aric regretted it immediately. He had just split the deck into two highly uneven piles. One being at least twice as big as the other.

Leth chuckled. “Well, well… Someone’s feeling confident,” he said. “Suit yourself, I’m not stupid.” He promptly grabbed the taller pile of cards.

Making a huge effort to hide his gritting teeth, Aric grabbed the remaining pile of cards and flipped through them. Thirteen cards. Thirteen lousy cards. It didn’t give him much choice, considering he could only keep ten. Still, there wasn’t any point in complaining now. The overall quality of the deck was so bad that the lack of choice would hardly make much of a difference.

After discarding the three spell cards he felt were least useful, Aric began laying out his pieces on the board. He picked the blue pieces, took them out of their wooden case, and then used the case as a blind, to keep Leth from peeking at his formation.

Aric had decided on a strategy the moment he had seen the board, so it didn’t take him long to knock on the table, signaling he was ready. It also meant he would get to move first. Leth, on the other hand, had decided to take his time. He carefully placed his pieces one by one, arranging and rearranging them over and over again.

“Think you’ll be ready before dawn?” Aric asked.

“I’m almost done.”

Aric made a sleepy face and pretended to yawn.

“Only fools trade moving first for a better starting position,” Leth retorted.

It made Aric roll his eyes. This was typical of players who thought they were better than they really were. Fadan was the same, confusing indecision with thoughtfulness. 

At last, Leth signaled he was ready and the two of them revealed their formations. Leth had clearly gone for an aggressive approach, with most of his horses at the front.

He’s going to rush for the choke point,
Aric thought.

The logic was sound. Controlling that choke point was key to victory on a board like this and horses did have the most movement of all three kinds of pieces. But without cover from other units, horses were useless. Aric’s spears would make short work of those horses if they found them isolated.

Which means he built a hand to protect horses.

And there it was. Leth hadn’t even made a move and Aric already knew exactly how the game would play out. This was the problem with players like Fadan and, apparently, Leth. They always overplayed their smartness.

The initial rounds played out without incident as both armies marched forward. As predicted, Leth moved his cavalry forward, rushing to the choke point.

Not wishing to disappoint him, Aric sent some spears to meet Leth’s horsemen.

Always good to allow an enemy to commit to the wrong strategy
.

The first pieces began to fall as Leth’s cavalry clashed with Aric’s spearmen. This was also the moment the first spell card came into play. As always, the card’s instructions were simple but effective – Enemy spears cannot move for two consecutive turns. It saved some of Leth’s cavalry, but not for very long.

Dead pieces piled around the board as they were removed from play. The initial orderly formations had been replaced by an apparent mess of blue and red pieces. Aric played a card that allowed him to teleport three pieces and used those to punish Leth’s rear. It wasn’t the final blow yet, but it wreaked havoc on Leth’s lines.

Then, suddenly, the balance seemed to shift. Although outnumbered, Leth’s forces remained fairly balanced, with the same number of each kind of piece. On the other hand, while Aric’s cavalry remained intact, he had lost most of his swords and spears. To compensate, Aric was forced to spend several spell cards protecting his vulnerable pieces.

Aric looked across the board and found Leth smirking at him. Had he purposefully sacrificed numbers in order to get Aric off-balance? That smirk certainly said yes.

We’ll see who laughs last.

This wasn’t the ideal situation Aric had planned for, but then again, no plan ever played out exactly as predicted. The game was still well within his reach.

“Been a good game so far, hasn’t it?” Aric asked, smiling.

Leth shrugged, smiling as well. “Can’t complain.”

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to finish it now.”

“By all means,” Leth said.

Aric was going to have fun wiping that smirk off his face.

He played his final card, allowing six of his pieces to traverse mountains – impassable terrain. The plan was deliciously simple. Use that card to send his abundant cavalry around the choke point Leth controlled, and smash the swords Leth had been carefully protecting beyond it. From there, the game would be all but finished.

A frown grew above Leth’s eyes as the stratagem unfolded. He could obviously see what was about to happen. He made some adjustments, retreating a couple of spears and horses, but it was useless. Those units would never get there in time. Leth’s army was doomed. Aric could only smile.

Then, at the last moment, as Aric prepared to charge, Leth played his last spell card as well.

“I turn my swords into spears,” he said, holding the card at Aric’s eye level.

“What?” Aric mumbled.

“That’s right. Which means your entire cavalry force is dead, and my army is free to hunt down what little is left of yours.” Chuckling, Leth placed the card on the table and leaned back. “But you don’t have to be dragged on hopelessly for the next few turns. You can just yield.”

“That’s not possible…” Aric said, livid.

Leth didn’t reply, though. He simply shrugged smugly.

“You cheated!” Aric yelled, jumping to his feet.

“What?”

“You sneaky rat! You reached into the deck while I wasn’t watching.”

“I did no such thing!” Leth replied, getting onto his feet as well. “You take that back, right now.”

“How else would you possibly have that precise card at this precise moment?!” Aric asked. He swung around, looking for support. “Did anyone see it? Did anyone see him reach for the deck?”

“You’re pathetic!” Leth said. “Did you consider just for a moment that I might have planned this from the start?”

“Impossible. You’d have used that card by now if you had had it from the start.”