The Making of a Mage King: White Star (26 page)

When all pertinent reacquaintances had been made, recent events came to the table and talk turned to Sean. Though not a recent event, the first thing that came up was the incident at the Barleduc estate seventeen years ago. That subject, however, was painful for everyone, so Sean quickly moved the conversation toward his desired end, by telling of his visits to the other districts and his exploits along the way.

Lady Lorraine was the first to pick up on where Sean was trying to lead the conversation. “You want us to go back to the city, don’t you?” she asked.

Sean looked at her. She was the decision maker in the family and he wanted her to be comfortable with her decision; he wanted the decision to be hers. For their protection and peace of mind, he would leave them here in this obscurity and go to the city himself. One other city had a ruling council; he could do that again.

Lady Lorraine smiled. “You’re not going to ask, are you?”

Sean smiled and shook his head. “I didn’t have to do much asking of any of the others, and there is a lot I don’t know yet. I’ll go into the city tomorrow and see how the wind blows.”

“‘See how the wind blows’,” repeated Lady Lorraine. “That is an odd expression, but I suppose it’s apt. However, tomorrow we will hold a welcoming feast for you…”

Sean held up his hand. “I must decline your offer. I am running ahead of winter snows and I have only just begun to penetrate the mountains. I must move on as quickly as I can.”

“In that case, I think we should go with you. You may spend the night here at least. It will give us a small chance to greet you properly, though not as properly as I would like.”

“My lady,” said Sean, “you are gracious and generous, and under other circumstances, I would be delighted to accept your offers, but I really must return to my men.”

“He’s got the other…demons bringing the destriers out of the city,” said Leto, speaking softly. The subject was difficult for him.

“Oh good lord, why would you do such a thing? Those unfortunate creatures are crazed; they should be destroyed,” said Lady Lorraine.

“That description applied to two members of your family a very short time ago,” said Sean, speaking softly but deliberately in order to remind them of the connection. Then he waved the connection aside as he leaned back in his chair and hooked an elbow over the back. “I may have to destroy a few of them. I’ve had to destroy one horse already. Three horses out of four isn’t too bad, I suppose. I didn’t count how many demons I sent to my uncle before I took the throne, but knowing what I know now, I regret every one.”

The silence that followed Sean’s statement was complete, as he intended. He pushed himself to his feet and bowed low to Lady Lorraine. “I must go. If you still wish to enter the city with me, Guire knows where my camp is. I’ll meet your envoy somewhere between there and the city.”

He, Larry, and Jenny shook hands all around then left, followed by Laon. Leto went with them out to their horses. “I’m not sure Mother wants to go back,” he said.

“I was wondering,” said Sean. “I wasn’t about to make her, though. Stay here, enjoy your life; I’ll set up a council. Your family has suffered enough.” He took his horse from the servant who had brought them up. With a glance at the early afternoon sun, he headed for the lane.

Sean made it back to camp long before the men he had sent into the city did. They didn’t return until near midnight, and they brought wounded with them. Sean was angry about this, but he was more angry with himself than he was with them. He hadn’t missed the implication that they were going to be looking for trouble; he should have gone with them.
I didn’t have to go meet Lady Lorraine; that could have waited. If I had gone into the city first, I could have accomplished so much more with the Lorraines when I
did
go see them. If I could go back and do it over again, I would do it all differently.

As he went among the men healing their wounds, he took their reports. Apparently, they had lagged and wound their way through the city, deliberately presenting a target for any takers. The foot might have come away alone, but they found their trouble early on and didn’t think it wise to separate after that.

Fortunately, they were what they were and they had numbers; if the governor had been able to mount a unified defense, it would have been a slaughter. As it was, they fought four separate exchanges and took wounds at each one. The demons, and their grizzly mounts, had been the point and the core of the districts’ military strength for years. Without it, they were somewhat at a loss, especially when that core took the citadel and officers first.

By the time Sean had finished with the wounded, some of which would have died or been permanently disabled without help, the sun was showing itself above the eastern sky. Many of the destriers had been wounded, too. The need to stay with the foot soldiers may have saved their lives, but it also put the horses in danger far longer than they would have been had they been alone.

Grimly frustrated by the time already wasted by bad decisions, Sean put off going to the city in favor of trying to redeem the destriers rather than just heal their wounds, some of which couldn’t wait any longer.

After a sleepless night of using magic to heal his men, Sean was forced to measure out his time to preserve his endurance. He worked slowly through the ten big horses, giving himself no less than two hours to spend on each one, meaning those with minor wounds left him with more time to rest before the next one. He had started with the worst case,  and was immersed in healing the seventh horse through a lanky man of his own, when Guire and Louis rode into camp. They were dressed in their best, which caught the attention of Cordan, but he wouldn’t let them disturb Sean, so they waited and watched.

It was well after midnight before the last horse was healed and the last of the tack was made usable. Haggard and drained, and walking heavily, Sean headed for the fire and the stew Mattie was keeping for him. She had kept it warm the entire time he worked, so he could have some during every break. Now that he was finally finished, he could sit down; this time he could let himself relax.

He had almost reached the fire before he spotted the new faces, and it took another moment before his tired brain identified them. “Guire, what are you doing here?” Then he remembered. “I’m sorry; I was supposed to meet you near the city today. I should have sent a message. This just couldn’t wait.”

Guire smiled and bowed low with some flourish. “Perhaps it is for the best, my lord. Lady Lorraine sent me with a message of her own. Her reentry into the city was greeted with cheers, and after the disaster at the citadel, the people cleared out the palace for her to finish the job. She asks that you come tomorrow before the sun is at its highest. She also asked that you arrive with all due pomp.”

“Lady Lorraine rode into the city anyway?” Sean was stunned.

“Oh yes,” replied Guire, as if he had expected nothing less. “Lady Lorraine has always been very popular with the people, and since she was forced to leave the city, that has never changed. She has always been highly visible to the people, and highly invisible to the governor and his minions.”

“But…” started Sean. Mattie guided him into a chair before he stumbled once too often.

Guire smiled a little wider. “All is as it was meant to be, my lord. Shall I inform the lady that you will be there?”

“On one condition,” said Sean, his voice coming out grim from exhaustion.

“And what is that, my lord?”

“I shared a dungeon cell with you, Guire. Drop the fancy manner; I find it irritating.” Sean rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then raked his fingers back through his hair. Irresistibly, he locked his fingers in the hair at the back of his head and stretched. He arched his back and neck twisting from side to side in an effort to loosen up aches and kinks brought on by long hours working over the horses and their gear.

Mattie handed him his bowl of stew, then moved around behind him to work on his shoulders.

“Ah, Mattie, wait until I can lie down and die in peace,” he said with a sigh, as he drooped his head down on his chest.

She chuckled softly and shook him a little; he allowed himself to flop like a rag doll. “You eat first,” she said, then she turned to Guire. “We’ll see that he shows up,” she said.

“Oh, yeah, right, I’ll be there,” said Sean, with a limp-wristed wave; he was fading fast.

When Sean woke the next morning, he found all seven of the ex-demons gathered, waiting for him. Upon his appearance, they all lined up in front of him and knelt with one knee on the ground, their heads bowed and their swords offered to him hilt first, the points imbedded in the ground in front of them, their hands upon the blade near the hilt. They all looked so proper and polished that he decided that calling them knights was much easier to say than calling them ex-demons, more fitting too.

“What’s this?” he asked, as he finished fastening a buckle at his shoulder. The last time someone had done something like this had been when his knife brides’ fathers had come to him. He saw Elias and Gérard watching from a few yards away. Standing together, dressed almost identically, they looked very much like brothers, though Gérard looked like the older brother; he was heavier than Elias and the lack of hair obscured his age.

One of the men in the center of the formation spoke in answer to his question, bringing his attention back to them. “You have ended our nightmare, and in return we have only made trouble for you in the city. We deserve to be punished.”

“Yeah, you probably do, but I seriously doubt that you did anything I wouldn’t have done had I been there. Go, get ready, we’ll be entering the city as soon as everyone’s all mounted up.” When they continued to remain unmoved, he asked, “What?”

They shifted, uncertain what to say.

“All right then, if you insist; when we get back, it’ll be double duty for you until you can be just as deadly as you can be.”

The men had scarcely climbed to their feet when they all heard a scream from the other end of camp. Sean was sprinting the length of the camp before the men who had met him at his tent had scarcely turned, let alone identified the sound.

Others were running too, but the cold chill that ran down his spine lent wings to Sean’s feet. He could have used magic, but the thought was beyond him. He burst into the cluster of excitement to find four or five men sprawled on the ground. It was difficult to tell at a glance how many men had been involved; most of them had been dismembered and the parts scattered. There was only one person here who would, or could, do such a thing, and he was nowhere to be seen.

Sean spun and sought out the horses. They were being saddled and many were already done. Seth was leading Prince out now; he had become one of the few people who could handle him. Sean covered the distance without remembering whether he took a single step, perhaps he hadn’t. After giving the cinch a tug, he climbed aboard. He thought briefly of his sword belts, but just as quickly, he left them where they were. He would not be fighting with swords when he caught up with his uncle.

He was out of sight of camp long before anyone else had taken more than a dozen steps, let alone figured out what had happened. Ludwyn had managed to throw off his shield, and Sean followed his beacon across the landscape, heading southeast, deeper into the mountains. Using magic, each stride Prince took covered miles.

Sean caught sight of his quarry for the first time shortly after high noon, and that sight spurred him to push harder. With cold calculation, he pushed his uncle until the man made his first mistake. If you’re going to ride a horse in the mountains, you must do so carefully, especially if you want to continue riding. Ludwyn hadn’t been riding at all for some years now, and he’d never bothered to ride in the mountains; doing so with magic, the way they were both doing now, was truckloads more dangerous, so it was inevitable that, if pressed, Ludwyn would lose his horse.

Ludwyn left his horse half imbedded in stone, and the accident left him overly cautious and he slowed; he didn’t want to do the same to himself. He turned at bay several hours later and struck at his pursuer. Sean’s return strike was far more deadly, but it was a second late, though no less effective.

Unaccustomed to using magic for physical attacks of any sort, Ludwyn did the only thing he could think of. Using air, he picked up a rock the size of a chair and hurtled it at his pursuer.

Sean, however, was far more practical. If his uncle was strong enough to throw off his shield, he was too dangerous to keep around any longer; he had to be destroyed.

Prince climbed the sky, screaming a challenge, while the entire mountainside in front of them exploded and started to come crashing down. In desperation, before he realized that something had happened to Prince, Sean threw them out of the main avalanche flow. Only then did he realize that he had brought his own personal avalanche with him. Prince was upended on top of him and the shredding pain was made many times worse by the horse’s death throws.

In a desperate bid for self-preservation, Sean thrust the horse from him, but the damage was done. With ribs crushed and lungs collapsed, Sean couldn’t even draw enough breath to moan, and he would much rather have screamed. Desperately, before he passed out from lack of air, not to mention the pain, he reached for the only help he could think of—Mattie.