The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (22 page)

"I was just about to speak with Anderis. Perhaps I will mention your concerns to him," Draegon said. He beckoned to a soldier.

"Get a bowl," he said, and the man ran off to obey. The soldier returned and placed the bowl on the sand in front of the shaman.

"A blade," Draegon said, holding out his hand.

"What are you doing? You can't do this to me!" the shaman cried in an embarrassing display of weakness and fear.

The soldier put a sharp dagger in Draegon's hand. Draegon sliced across Kebetir's throat, and the soldiers held his head back, pumping his blood into the deep bowl below.

Draegon dipped his finger into the wonderful liquid and swirled it about, muttering the ancient words of power as he drew energy from the blood and focused it, bent it to his will.

A moment later the pool of blood lost its color and then seemed to disappear altogether, acting as a window to some other place, a dark, candlelit stone room. Anderis's head appeared gazing down into the bowl.

"Master," came his voice, a moment after his mouth moved in the pool.

"Anderis, I trust you have news for me. I would hate to have wasted all this blood merely for smalltalk."

Anderis hesitated, his gaze shifting for a tiny moment. It wasn't like Anderis to look anxious. Something was definitely wrong. He had better not have failed him already, because Draegon wasn't above killing his own apprentices to make an example of them.

"Master, there is much news, and some of it disturbs me," he said.

"What of the vertex?" Draegon asked, impatient.

"The briene are ready. They bring their siege engines upon Waldron at first light."

"After that business with the Woan Map, this had better go perfectly. I want that vertex destroyed tomorrow. You need to inspect the vertex yourself. I need to know if temporal shift has pulled the anchor away from the stone."

"It shall be done, master."

"Now, what is this news you hesitate to deliver?"

"My pet betrayed me. She has sided with the locals. She even tried to kill me."

"This is hardly newsworthy, Anderis. It would be newsworthy if she had succeeded in the attempt. I have warned you about keeping pets before."

"She has tremendous potential."

"Get to the point, apprentice."

"She and others sabotaged some of the briene siege equipment last night. Nothing that will stop the siege, but it may take a little longer now."

"I am still waiting for the part where any of this becomes relevant to me."

"Master, one of the people she is with…he is an arbiter."

Draegon took a step back from the bowl, shock running through his system, squeezing his lungs tight. "Impossible, they were all killed or shut on the other side of the vertex wards."
 

"Apparently not this one, master. And there is more."

Draegon dismissed the news with a wave of his hand. "Even if there is an arbiter, he cannot interfere; it would violate their oath. And besides, they were invaluable to our cause during the war, so why are you concerned?"
 

"Last night, before the raid on the briene, I felt something, something I haven't felt in ages."

Draegon seriously considered whether he should jump through the pool and strangle the incompetent bastard himself. "Out with it, Anderis, before I kill you out of impatience alone."

"It was a sigilord, master. There is a sigilord in Waldron."

The news hit Draegon square in the chest. His heart stopped and he gasped for air.

"Also impossible," he managed to say after taking a deep breath. "After the arbiters sealed the vertices under the terms of the so-called treaty, we killed every last sigilord and all of their sons and daughters, their spouses, and even their dogs."

"And yet that is what I felt. The sigilord was in the room with the arbiter and my apprentice when she betrayed me. The sigilord's presence was weak, tiny, but he was there, in that room, somewhere."

Draegon straightened and forced himself to take a deep breath. This could not be possible. There was no way it could be true. But if there was even a slight chance it was true…

"So,
apprentice
, you are telling me that there is a sigilord, an untrained rogue blood mage, and an arbiter all in Waldron, and they might be working
together
?"

Anderis nodded on the other side of the rippling pool.

"The wards are still up," called one of the floating spectres behind him. "The sigilord must have been born to this world. He is without a teacher or any knowledge of his birthright. He will be harmless."

"The sigilord may not have access to the sigils, but the waif already knows too much, thanks to your bumbling,
apprentice
," roared Draegon. "She is dangerous, and with him nearby, she could prove lethal."

"What are your wishes, master?" called Anderis from the pool.

"This changes everything. This is now more important than the siege. The briene can finish their work without you. The girl cannot be allowed to tap the sigilord's power."

Draegon bent over the bowl and glared into the eyes of his apprentice. "Kill her, but leave the sigilord to me."

18

Urus sat on a bench in the corner of a brightly lit room in a Waldron barracks, leaning against a cold stone wall, staring at nothing in particular. Again his thoughts returned to home—if there even was a home—and his missing uncle.
 

But how much of a home could it be now, anyway? He'd been branded to be shunned by everyone in Kest, only grudgingly fed and clothed like a prisoner. Despite the crowd of soldiers in the room, his best friend standing nearby, and his newfound companions, he felt truly alone.

Even at his lowest point, standing on the palace rooftop, looking down at the escape death might bring, he'd still had Aegaz and a city he loved, even if that city thought nothing of him in return.

A hand waving in front of his face brought him out of his reflection.

"We need to treat your wounds, sir," said the soldier, still mostly in his nightclothes.
 

Why would he call me sir?
Urus thought.

"I'm fine." Urus dismissed the offer with a wave of his hand.

"The Knight Marshall insists," he replied.

"I said I don't need any help," Urus said, straightening. Sitting up sent pain shooting through his chest, radiating out through his broken ribs.

Nobody needs to see what's under my armor
, Urus thought.
Nobody here knows that I'm not a real warrior.

"Sir, let me just get your armor off and I can dress the wounds and set your ribs."

"No!" Urus shouted. He tried to stand up to get away, but doubled over in pain. It hadn't been very long since he'd hit those trees, and the pain was getting worse with each minute.

The next face he saw was Goodwyn's, helping him back up onto the bench. "Let him tend to your wounds, you stubborn ass."

Urus lacked the strength to resist any further. He leaned back and looked around the room. Murin stood in a corner, saying nothing but taking everything in. Corliss barked orders at soldiers as soon as they arrived, continuing a half dozen other conversations over a table full of maps as soon as they left.

The barracks door swung inward, admitting a tall, barrel-chested man in plate armor with a sword slung over each hip. Stains and scratches marred nearly every inch of his gear.

Now this is a man who knows how to fight
, Urus thought.
Though the heavy armor makes him slow and easy to defeat.

"Captain Rhygant. Did you stop at the baker's for a nice sweet roll on your way here?" Corliss snapped, not looking up from the map-covered tabled.

"Sir," the captain said with a bow. "I've been seeing to the defenses. Lieutenant Vidiam has been organizing the men into companies while I have been readying the ballistae."

"And?"

"We're low on stones. We may end up hurling goats and laundry baskets by day's end of the first battle," Rhygant said with a sigh.

"Noted." Corliss pivoted his attention from a map of local geography to a diagram of Waldron's inner structures.

Cailix sat on a bench across the room from Urus, dressed in clean linens, eating an apple while being helped on with a suit of padded leather armor. She seemed as distant and unaffected by all of this as Murin.

Pain seared Urus's neck and shoulders as the soldier unstrapped the stiff leather plates.

"So what now?" he asked, hoping to take the focus off of himself.

Corliss looked up from the table. "Now you let my man tend your wounds before one of those broken ribs pokes a hole in your lung."

With the leather vest out of the way, the soldier grabbed the soiled and bloody sleeves of the acolyte's tunic and pulled it off.

All eyes in the room turned to him, the commanders straightening at the table, eyes wide and jaws dropping. They stared at his brand.

"What in the name of the gods did that to you, son?" Corliss asked.

Urus stared at the floor, biting back the tears he felt welling up inside. The brand on his chest was shame enough; he wasn't about to let anyone see him cry over it.

"Rhygant, stop staring," Corliss chided.
 

"Sorry sir, I just—" Rhygant said, unable to keep his eyes from the symbol on Urus's chest. There was something different about the way Rhygant looked at it. The glint in his eyes wasn't one of shock, but something else entirely.

Gritting his teeth and taking a deep breath, Urus tried to speak, but his throat tightened. He knew he would burst into tears if he opened his mouth.

Instead, mouth still clenched shut to block the tears, he signed to Goodwyn, who translated aloud, "It's the mark of the culled, those found not worthy and skilled enough to be true Kestian warriors."

"They burned that mark onto you like that because you weren't a good enough warrior?"

Urus nodded.

"Well if that isn't the biggest pile of manure I've ever set foot in." Corliss leaned forward on the map table with a look of disgust on his face, glaring across the room at the scar. "You're a better fighter than half my men. Hell, you blew up a fuel tower, jumped off a flying bird machine, and took out two briene pilots at the same time. How could they find you not skilled enough?"

"I failed their tests," Urus signed again, the emotional and physical pain still too much for him to speak. "I never passed the blindfighting test, and I scored lowest on all of the others."

Corliss gave Urus a deep, appraising look. After a long pause, he stood up and said, "Seems to me that you've got skill to spare, son, so if you failed those tests, maybe there was another reason."

Urus didn't get a chance to ask what he meant by that, as a pair of scouts charged into the room, both shouting and gesticulating. Even with Murin in the room, if Urus couldn't see their lips, Murin's strange language tricks didn't seem to work.

As the scouts delivered their reports, each of them turned and stared at the brand on Urus's chest. Ashamed, he wanted to go hide somewhere that no one could see him, but the poultice Corliss's man was rubbing into the bruises felt too good to refuse.

"They've broken camp. They are massing and bringing up more battalions from the coast," Corliss said, turning to Murin. "I need to know what this army will do. Will they try to starve us out? Will they come at us in waves? I need something so I can prepare my men."

"They will certainly not do anything to delay. This army is not here for conquest," Murin said, scrutinizing the maps. "They do not want land or power or title. They are here because the Order has manipulated them—lied to them, twisted their motivations, and convinced them that they fight a just cause. The Order wants the vertex destroyed, and they mean to lay waste to anything between them and their goal."

Murin stood up from the maps, stroking the few stands of white hair that passed for his beard, and asked, "Have you sent word to the king?"

Corliss nodded. "I sent word as soon as the fires were spotted, before last night's little adventure. Even if the fastest of my falcons makes it, the king's forces will take at least a week to get here."

"A week?" said Urus. "Isn't the king here in Waldron?"

Corliss waved Urus over and pointed to a spot on the map. Despite his body's complaints, Urus stood up and made his way to the map table. Corliss's physician followed, pasting more sticky goo onto Urus's wounds and wrapping them tightly with bandages. He didn't recognize any of the words on the map.
 

"This is Waldron here. We're just a ducal seat, and a small one at that." Corliss slid his finger across the map, north up through a forest and out over plains to rest on the image of a great castle, "Here is Niragan, the capital of Acederon, our kingdom."

Urus was stunned. The idea of the leader of a city not actually being in the city seemed—unthinkable. He could not imagine the emperor trying to rule Kest from some remote mountaintop. No one would stand for it.

"The king rules Waldron from that far away?"

"Not just Waldron, but Prilameth," Corliss touched a separate dot on the map as he listed off each city name, "Ethiral, Trienn, Alleigan, Jorelith, and all the farms, villages, outposts, and roads in this circle."