The Sorcerer's Scourge (44 page)

“Well that was easy,” he said to Ghost. “Now what?”

As usual, Ghost failed to provide an answer. He doubted that he could just walk up and ask for her back. He would need to follow them and rescue her. He decided to watch the pair and follow them to wherever they lived.

It did not take long before Ellyssa and the woman climbed down the steps connecting the top of the wall with the street below. Wolf watched them both climb into a palanquin, which was then hefted onto the shoulders of four enormous men wearing little more than a wrap around their waists and a huge curved sword.

Their mode of transport made it easy for Wolf and Ghost to follow. Many people gave the odd pair inquisitive looks, but Bakhtaran was a bustling trade city that often brought in all manner of people so no one bothered them. The big wolf’s presence also did a fantastic job of keeping away pickpockets and cutpurses.

 It was easy for Wolf to keep the palanquin in sight while remaining unobtrusively behind. His worst fears were realized when the conveyance disappeared beyond the walls of the incredibly beautiful palace in the distance. Palaces meant guards and guards meant trouble. Still, Ellyssa was his friend and he had to get her out. First, he needed to get inside.

Wolf scouted around the outside of the substantial wall. The palace grounds occupied a sizable amount of real estate within the city. It was an entire district unto itself. He eventually came upon an aquifer that ran beneath a small arch under the wall. Thick, steel bars prevented someone from simply swimming under. The grate was hinged at the top and a stout crossbar with a formidable lock secured it in place.

The half-elf studied the lock for a moment and pulled out his magnificent black-bladed shortsword. It had cut through the armor of some soldiers as if it was paper, perhaps it would cut through this as well, or at least force the lock open. Wolf slipped the shadowsteel blade between the lock’s shackle and the heavy crossbar and slowly began applying pressure to the hilt.

The blade did not slice clean though as it had the leather and mail armor, but it did bite deeply. Wolf worked the blade up and down, cutting deeper into both the shackle and the steel crossbar. The shackle was significantly thinner than the crossbar and it gave way first.

Wolf slid the crossbar out of the way, nearly dropping it on his foot as the weight exceeded his ability to manage it. He lifted the heavy grate enough for him and Ghost to slip through into the dark tunnel beyond. It was not very large and there were only a few inches of air between the wall above them and the water.

“Looks like we’re swimming. Keep your nose up,” he said unnecessarily to Ghost.

The aqueduct ran twenty feet under the wall where it continued past another locked steel grate and fed a large fountain within an enormous park or garden. Wolf used his blade to saw through this lock as well, a feat made much more difficult since he had to thrust his arms through the bars and work the blade from the other side.

That lock soon surrendered to his blade as well, and he and Ghost slipped into the garden and hid amongst the numerous hedges, flower-bearing shrubs, and fruit trees. Wolf decided he had best wait for dark before infiltrating the palace. It was not far off so he plucked several pieces of unusual fruit from a tree, found a soft spot of ground beneath a thick hedge, and took a nap.

A few miles away, Sandy was napping beneath the sands, luxuriating in its warm embrace. She had a sand pit back at the school, but it was not the same. It was a poor substitute for the natural, endless expanse of the sun-heated grains of her homeland. A disturbance made her poke her head up and look towards the city.

She scanned the long wall of the city and the surrounding land but saw nothing more than a few dry shrubs tumbling across the sands, driven by the steady desert wind. Sandy ducked her head back below the surface of the sand and curled back up to go to sleep.

She tried to get back to sleep but something nagged at the back of her mind and would not let her rest. Was Wolf in trouble? Had something gone wrong? No, it was something else. Something closer. The wind. The wind was blowing from the south but the tumbleweeds were coming from the west—the direction of the city.

Sandy thrust her head back above the sand and gasped as the tumbleweeds became six humans wearing purple robes with black sleeves. She darted back below the sand and tried to dig deeper, but some force prevented her from doing so. Despite her efforts to submerge herself further, she felt herself rising to the surface as if lifted by a huge, invisible hand.

When she breached the surface, she felt the hand close tightly around her body. She struggled but was unable to break free. Rising panic sent her blood coursing through her body and pounding in her head. Gathering her draconic power, she called upon the wind and the sand, creating a mighty sandstorm in hopes that it would disrupt the wizards’ concentration and binding spell.

The wind answered her call and struck at the wizards and the sand beneath their feet. The savage wind ripped the grains free from gravity’s grip and assaulted the wizards with its intensity. However, Sandy had not practiced her inherent magic much and it took only two of the wizards to quell the storm she summoned. The iron grip of magic never relaxed its grip as two of the wizards calmly directed their attention to the magical storm and quelled it with ease.

She lay helpless as a she watched a team of horses pulling a large wagon approach. Once the wagon reached them, men used thick ropes to tie down her wings and muzzled her. They then used sturdy chains to secure her legs and the lethal claws tipping each finger and toe.

“I am glad we brought the wagon. There is no way we could carry her back to the palace with our magic,” one of the men in robes commented as they magically hoisted her onto the wagon bed.

“She is certainly a fat one,” a woman agreed.

Sandy spoke fluent Sumaran and did not appreciate the slander in the least, but the rope tied around her muzzle prevented her from voicing her complaint.

“Even the Vila may have a hard time affording to feed this pet!” the first wizard laughed.

Sandy huffed in irritation then let her head slump against the bed of the wagon in despair. This was the second time humans had captured her, and she was certain it was not going end nearly as well this time.

Ghost nuzzled Wolf awake. Wolf stretched to wakefulness and peered into the early evening gloom. He would rather have waited until the palace was asleep, but that might actually have made it harder. A boy wandering around the halls in the middle of the night with a huge wolf was bound to raise questions. He needed a disguise.

He darted from hedge to hedge, sticking to the shadows as best he could until he finally reached the pristine white palace wall. He and Ghost crept along the outside of the palace until the smell of lye, potash, and soap reached his nose. Following the scent, with Ghost’s help, Wolf found a large crofting field practically covered in linens set out to bleach under the sun.

As he suspected, the door near the crofting field led into a washroom where he found hundreds of garments neatly folded and stacked from which to take his pick. Most of the clothing was a one-piece white garment that hung from one shoulder and wrapped around the waist. Assuming this was the most common uniform within the palace, Wolf stripped out of his doeskin leather shirt and breaches and spent several minutes getting the article to wear properly.

Wolf looked down at the piece of clothing and asked Ghost, “Does this look like a really short dress to you?”

Ghost answered the question with his usual cocked-head reply.

“Like you’re an expert on cultural fashion,” Wolf snapped back. “You’re idea of proper dress is deciding what dead animal to roll in given a particular function.”

The laundry room was not far from one of the kitchens, but Wolf, in a rare show of self-control, decided it was more important to find Ellyssa than stopping for a bite to eat. The pair slinked down one marble hallway after another with no clear idea of where to go. The palace was easily twice as large as the castle in North Haven, and it was not as though he could simply shout out Ellyssa’s name hoping she answered.

He was almost to the point of deciding to try exactly that when he rounded a corner and ran into a young man in a guard’s uniform. Wolf took a step back and reached for the sword belted around his odd, single-sleeved tunic. The man said something in a language Wolf did not understand then repeated it in Valarian.

“Who are you?”

Wolf swallowed visibly and replied, “Wo-Nanarin.”

“You are Valarian?” he asked.

Wolf bobbed his head up and down nervously.

“Why are you in the halls, and with a rather large dog?”

“Um, I was told to patrol the halls with Ghost. He is really good at sniffing out trouble.”

“He is very unusual looking.”

Wolf forced a smile. “Yeah, but don’t tell him that. He’s very sensitive about his looks.”

The guard nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen you before. Even if I forgot your face, the animal is less easily forgotten.”

“We’re new. We were both picked up in North Haven. This is the first time we have walked our rounds. Did I do something wrong? Please don’t tell on me!”

The guard tapped his chin as he thought. “I suppose not. Carry on then.”

Wolf gave an approximation of a salute and hurried away, not letting out the breath he was holding until he was well beyond the next hallway. He leaned against the wall breathing heavily for several minutes until his heart resumed its normal rhythm. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Wolf and Ghost continued their exploration.

His search was proving to be a lesson of frustration. He had not expected to have to comb literally miles of passageways and search hundreds of rooms to find his friend. Ghost went on alert and filled the hallway with a rumbling growl. Wolf sought out a place to hide but a group of people appeared at the ends of the only three directions of escape available.

Four guards stood at the end of each of the passageways with bows and blades drawn. One of groups had a man wearing the same purple and black robes he had seen Ellyssa wearing. He looked disdainfully down his beak-like nose at the boy and his wolf.

“Take the boy alive. Kill the dog.”

Wolf’s eyes darted back and forth between Ghost and the guards. “What? No!”

The guards released their bowstrings with a thrum that cut through Wolf’s soul. He could practically watch the arrows as they flew towards Ghost. He tried to shout for his friend to run, but even as slow as the arrows appeared to be going, there simply was not enough time.

Ghost yelped and thrashed on the marble floor when the arrows pierced his body. Wolf threw himself onto Ghost, hoping to shield his friend’s body with his own, but the damage had already been done. Ghost lay in an expanding pool of his own blood, panting and whimpering for only a few seconds before going silent and still. Wolf unsuccessfully fought back tears as his heart pounded in his chest and his stomach heaved as several guards advanced to pull him off the dead animal and take him prisoner. They paid for disturbing his grief with their lives.

Wolf felt the first man grab him by the upper arm and tug him upward. He sprang to his feet with a savage snarl, ripped the blade from its scabbard, and slashed the man across his middle inflicting a wound so deep it nearly reached his spine. The anguished young man launched himself at the next guard who pulled his sword and tried to intercept the wild swing. Wolf’s magical blade cut cleanly through the plain steel and continued on to shear through flesh, bone, and the organs beneath.

There was no attempt at style in Wolf’s swordplay. Rage and sorrow directed the blade and pushed him into a near-berserker’s fury. He wanted to kill the man in the robes and no one was going to get in his way. He looked into the eyes of the guard he had talked to earlier as he sprinted towards the robed figure.

A force like being struck in the chest by a battering ram slammed him backwards and to the floor, pinning him there as if someone had dropped a horse on him. The force of the impact sent the sword flying from his hand and blasted the air from his lungs. He could not even draw breath much less continue the fight.