The Road To Sevendor - A Spellmonger Anthology (36 page)

“By his own admission, Magelord.  Indeed, if you would like to bring him somewhere private, I can take off my talisman and you can question him yourself.”  She quickly told the tale of how the man had revealed himself to her on the road.

The Spellmonger grinned.  “You know, I was questioning the wisdom of bringing you into the household,” he admitted, “but if you are borne out, Lesana, you will have repaid my investment handsomely.  Let’s go talk to this lawbrother, shall we?” he asked,

Lesana followed behind, grinning quietly to herself over exposing the man who had admitted to being a spy.  Thanks to the Spellmonger, she now had a position, a home, and a life.  Or at least the means to begin one. 

“B-but I’m not a spy!” the man insisted, shivering under his robe.

“That’s not what this lady says,” Minalan said, indicating Lesana with his thumb.  “She says you blurted out your mission around a campfire, in the presence of a roadbrother, no less.  So who do you work for?”

“How does she know?  Who is she?  Probably just some commoner sent to undermine my authority!  Sent to bedevil . . . Magelord, you must believe me!  I am a man of gods under holy orders!”

“Who is Karsus of Grayhorn?” demanded Minalan.

“I don’t work for Karsus of Grayhorn!  I swear it!  I’ve never heard of the man!”

Minalan smiled again, but more grimly.  “I have no doubt you haven’t.  Because he’s the author of one of the most important canon texts in Luin’s holy laws.  Every noviate lawbrother studies Karsus of Grayhorn until he can quote him in their sleep.  So,” he said, his strange green orb rising higher behind him, like a scorpion’s tail, “let me ask you again: who do you work for?”

“No one, Magelord!  I swear it!”

The Spellmonger gave Lesana a knowing look, and she nodded, taking off her amulet and allowing her power to affect everyone around her.

“Now,” she said, softly, “who do you work for?  The Spellmonger wants to know.”

The man began babbling, much to Sire Minalan’s interest, and within moments he revealed himself for what he was, who he worked for, and what his task was to be.  As he was being led away to the dungeons, Minalan passed her a solid gold coin – the first time she had touched one – for her efforts, and praised her profusely.  Lesana accepted both as graciously as she could. 

She had a home.  She had a job.  She had a place.  And she had control over her curse.  Lesana, for the first time in her life, was not afraid anymore.  She skipped back to her cottage in the woods like a child that night, humming “The Road To Sevendor”

Oh!  The chandlers flee and the Censors seethe!

On the Road to Sevendor!

The spellmongers sing and silver bells ring!

On the Road to Sevendor!

Fertile vale, enchanted stream

A wish come true in every dream

The most magical place you’ve ever seen!

On the Road to Sevendor!

“The Iron Ring”

A Spellmonger Short Story

By Terry Mancour

Copyright © Terry Mancour 2013

“There she is, lads,” called the Warbrother, in a voice as harsh as the rain that fell around them.  “There’s our new home: Castle Dardafan.   The most miserable pile of rocks in the Penumbra.”

The men looked up through the drizzle at the stark fortress on the hill.  It seemed as dark and foreboding as the lairs of the dark powers they had been sent here to fight. 

The tall, thin keep on the hill was built of limestone, surrounded by two rings of wall, with small, slender towers overlooking strategic points.  It could hold a thousand men, it was said – at least, that’s what the company cleric, Warbrother Thune, had told them on the long, perilous journey out of Tudrytown.

They had been the first, they were told
by Magelord Astyral, the military commander of Tudry.  The sad collection of thieves, murderers, rapists and debtors who had enlisted in the Iron Ring companies had gathered at the Wilderlands town all winter, preparing for the day when the cold winds stilled and the weather warmed.  The weeks of boredom had even encouraged the men to look forward to their lonely deployment.  Only when that fateful day came did they begin appreciating the simple comfort of a warm, dry, safe bed and two meals a day.

Their trek had taken them far past the pickets and patrols the army at Tudry sent out, deep into the dark and twisted lands known as the Penumbra.  Their destination was a fortress scouted during the winter, abandoned but serviceable, a castle behind which the men of the Iron Ring could be safe.  And from which the men of the Iron Ring could fight.  For they had vowed to faithfully serve against the forces of the Goblin King until their terms were ended.

In return, if they survived, all of their debts and crimes against men and the gods were forgiven, and they could begin anew as free men.  Some, like Hastan the Plowman, had never breathed as a free man in his life.  For others, like Mecal of Meers, taking up the Iron Ring had allowed him to escape the noose for being too free with other men’s property.

But the twenty men of the First Company of the Iron Ring to be deployed were united in purpose, united in spirit, and united in . . . fear.

For all knew what awaited them in the darkness of the Umbra.  Many of them had come from behind that cruel horizon themselves, and knew the horrors the goblins were capable of.  Many had once had homes and lives and families beyond the Umbra’s frontier.

But they had enlisted anyway, swearing their vows and foreswearing any previous feuds and allegiances, the men
of the Iron Ring answered to their commander, and then the Warlord, and no lesser person than the King, himself.  This first company had been cobbled together out of those most eager to be in the wilds or those their comrades in Tudry wished to be most far away.  Their grim mission was no less than to occupy the fortress of Dardafan and hold it against the goblins at all cost. 

Their commander, Sir Sastan of Presan, was a dour fellow with a grim visage, his beard split by an unsightly scar, still pink in its freshness, from left ear to right cheek.  He had earned it fighting for his life as his tiny foothill holding was overrun last year by the first wave of dark-furred demons from that accursed vale. 

He once had a wife and six children, brothers and sisters in a rustic manor with the glorious Mindens on the western horizon.  Then in one night he had lost it all, as one by one his kin were slain or captured.  He had spent weeks fighting his way back toward his homeland in the vain search for some sign of them.  Sir Sastan had nearly lost his face and his life to the goblins’ falchions, but once he was mended in Tudry, he had been the very first to volunteer for the Iron Ring Company.

His was the first shield adorned with the black circle, and his helm was the first to bear the stark crest of the order.  In his pain he had sworn bitter, bitter vengeance against the gurvani hordes and their undead king.  He sought death on the twisted plains of the Penumbra, for himself as much as his foe. 

Recognizing the passion or insanity of a fanatic, Magelord Astyral had invested Sir Sastan as the Iron Ring’s first Commander, and bade him make a stronghold in the wasteland.

Behind him had come Captain Antrig, a mercenary commander of excellent reputation and poor luck at games of chance.  He had enlisted in the Iron Ring to forestall a hasty and brutal collection far in excess of his funds by wicked men in Vorone. 
Tudry had seemed the closest haven for the dashing captain, and he saw the term of service generous compared to the alternative.  The Ring had given him an opportunity for honest service – and Royal protection – and he intended to see out his two-year term.

Third in command was Warbrother Thune, a giant of a man with
a squint eye and a crooked jaw.  The veteran of a score of campaigns and a hundred battles, the grizzled old priest saw his enlistment as the Iron Ring’s chaplain as a holy office. 

Never in his time had Duin the Destroyer created such a foe.  He had fought against the goblins since the defense of Tudry, and through the ferocious battle of Timberwatch.  He had seen the fiery giant conjured by the Spellmonger, and the devastation wrought on the field by both sides, and he knew with his heart of hearts that Duin had sent to him his reward: unending battle in unyielding defense. 

Thune himself had come to the council of wizards that ran the defense of the Penumbra, now, and begged for a role in fighting the hordes.  When the opportunity to form the Iron Ring had occurred, he had been instrumental in its support, giving it Duin’s blessing.  He had proudly donned his bearskin cloak of office and pinned it with a new catch with the insignia of the order, surmounted by Duin’s Axe.

Lastly, the fourth officer, Hanith the Cunning, was a warmage.  A
young student of the arcane and gifted with the preternatural Talent that allowed men to bend the universe to their will, Hanith the Cunning had come to Tudry in the aftermath of the great battles there and had volunteered for service at the first opportunity.  He had ambitions to procure one of the precious witchstones the goblin shamans were reputed to have.

As he had no friends at court or in the small circle of the powerful Spellmonger, he had elected to gain himself a stone by earning it in battle.  The incredible power a stone promised was far more alluring than any forgiveness of debts or crimes.  If his service for a few years was the price, the quiet young man in the dark green armor was all too willing to part with them. 

The truth was, he had explained to Sir Sastan when he had enlisted, he loved battle.  Crossing staves with the nastiest witchdoctors the goblins possessed was a challenge he welcomed.  As his papers were in order, and Lord Astyral had vetted him, the mage was admitted to the ranks of the Iron Ring and given commission as an officer.

The rest of the men were veterans, infantrymen of the common sort, most themselves fled from the occupied lands of western Alshar.  They sought resistance, vengeance, and redemption themselves, and most importantly they were committed to the new order and its success as they had nothing before.  They were dedicated to the ideal of resistance against the shadow.  They had pledged their lives to it.

But their motivations, noble or base, were unimportant once they crossed the frontier into shadow.  Once they were in the Penumbra, they were merely men, with no more protection from death or enslavement than their steel and their fellows.  If they did not achieve their mission, they would be replaced, they would not be rescued.

For ten days they traveled across the barren wastes by foot.  Every mile was fraught with tension as the shadows seemed to seethe at them with hungry eyes.  When the fear became too great to bear, Hanith cast some spell to ease men’s minds.

“It is but the dweomer of the Dead God,” he explained.  “It will contend against your spirit night and day, if not countered.”

They traveled during the day, alert for any who might follow them.  At night they hid as they could in abandoned huts or sties, and twice in caves.  Thrice they chanced upon a goblin alone or with a fellow, and set upon them without mercy.

On the tenth day, after a third of their supplies and nearly all of their patience had been exhausted, the distant spire of Dardafan was finally in sight.  The company prepared to camp outside its walls one final night, eager to gather intelligence before they proceeded within. 

To celebrate their arrival, the warbrother spared each of them a ration of spirits to ease their rest, while their warmage scryed the fortress ahead.  Sir Sastan and Captain Antrig talked long into the night, taking no watch for themselves as they assessed their needs and resources at hand.

What they knew of the keep itself was ambivalent.  From what they had learned from two men who had lived there as villeins, the lord of Dardafan had prepared his keep for siege a week before the goblins arrived, when the first murmurs of trouble arose from Boval Vale.  Yet even as the castle prepared, the Count, the lord’s liege, commanded him to take his people and flee the countryside, eschewing the safety of their castle in order to bring troops eastward.  While the lord had been loath to go, he had obeyed his liege, leaving only a few men behind to safeguard his keep.

After the lord departed, little was known of Dardafan, save that it had been abandoned days before the first dark legions approached.  The common people fled in terror with what they had on their backs.  Those who braved a fight were slain quickly, or worse, captured and dragged back to the Black Vale in chains.  After that, a single report from a far-ranging man-at-arms hunting during the winter told that Dardafan was gutted, abandoned by man and gurvan alike.

The castle was a well-built fortress, more stone than wood and well-defended by ditch and wall.  The gate, they could see even in the darkness, had been left open, and while the smell of smoke lingered in the air, there was thatch intact within – the manor had not been put to the torch, as they had feared.

“Why this place?” Ginar the Hammer asked that night around the campfire.  “What’s so special about it?”

“It’s not too close to the Shadow,” explained the warbrother, “and it’s close enough to Tudry to be supplied, or relieved.  Once we’re set up here, we can establish an outpost mid-way between here and there.  And then we can establish another one beyond here, once we scout the region properly.  A whole chain of iron around the neck of the goblin king, that’s what the Iron Ring will be, Duin willing!”

“Duin’s hairy sack!” dismissed Hastan, disdainfully.  “We’ll be lucky to last a week.  There are twenty of us.  And plenty of goblins.  All we’re doing is finding something interesting to do until they come along and kill us.”

“Then why did you come?” demanded Mecal. 

“Because going anyplace else would just be finding something interesting to do until they come along and kill me,” Hastan retorted.  “This way, I’m at the head of the line.”

“Don’t despair, lad,” Thune soothed the former plowman.  “We’ve all had swords in our hands before.  We have all had a man’s back before.  We’ll watch you at night.”

“Well, some of us might,” joked Mecal.

“We don’t have much choice,” Strandine of Salas observed.  “Every one of you lot who gets killed means longer guard shifts for the rest of us.”

That made all of them laugh – until their warmage appeared, suddenly.

“Are you all mad?” he asked, his face twisted in anger.  “We are surrounded by the foe, with no help in three days’ ride, and you’re bellowing like a wounded sow!  My wards are good – but they are crafted to keep our whispers from being heard, not stifle our shouts!”

“Sorry, Warmage,” the priest said, nodding.  “We’ll keep it down.  The men are just anxious to get to work,” he said, apologetically.  “What see you in your scrying?”

The young mage sighed and sat suddenly on the ground, at the edge of the fire.  “The place seems abandoned . . . but there are signs that some gurvani shaman has been through it.  And there are traces of . . . other things . . .” he said, trailing off.

“What other things?”

“Well, perhaps a cow or other beast,” he said, hopefully, “and there are certainly some birds about.  But there is something else, something I cannot discern.”

“Don’t treat us like stupid villeins,” mocked Jagan the Reve.  “You aren’t a marketplace conjurer, speak plain!”

“If I knew what it was, I would tell you,” the mage said, flatly, his dark hair hiding his face in the flickering shadows.  “But it doesn’t seem to be a goblin.  I’ve just never . . .”

“Perhaps it’s a hargulfara,” whispered one young soldier, Durwan, swallowing hard.  “My nana told me of them, the slithery beasties that haunt old ruined buildings, waiting to tear out your throat in the night—”

“There’s no such thing!” demanded Jagan, offended.  “Only a stupid villein would believe such tales . . .”

“There are more things out here in the Wilderlands than are known by men,” reminded the priest.  “We’ve been here but a hundred years.  There are all manner of creature hiding out in the forests and caves of this land.  I know not what this ‘gargulfara’ is, but any number of beasts may have taken up residence in this keep.  It’s our job to see them on their way.”

“Or bloody eat them, if the food doesn’t hold out,” complained Hastan, tossing aside his empty bowl.