They finished supper and the two groups spread out their bedrolls, staying on opposite sides of the fire. Without a word, Mercer signaled to Trix and she nodded back, letting him know she would take the first watch. On the other side of the camp, Sparrow put his back to a tree and crossed his arms over his chest. Trix woke Drake after three hours and he roused Mercer halfway through the night. Cinder laid, wrapped in her blanket, jerking at the smallest sound. By the time dawn spread its creeping fingers across the rolling landscape, Mercer and Hardin were sitting across from each other with the glowing remains of the fire between them. Hardin had brewed more coffee and Mercer accepted a cup with a silent nod of thanks.
After they had breakfasted, both groups saddled their mounts, said their goodbyes, and left in opposite directions. Mercer led the way north at an easy pace. Cinder rode behind him, her slender body adding a pleasant weight against his back. She could have ridden with Trix. There would have been more room in the saddle, but Mercer had hauled her onto his horse in their flight from the crypt and now, through some unspoken agreement, they were permanent riding partners.
When Hardin and his crew were out of earshot, she said, “I didn’t like the look of Hardin. He’s got a creepy vibe. Kid Creole seemed nice enough. Maybe you were wrong? Maybe they really are headed south?”
Drake snorted a laugh.
“What’s funny?”
Mercer said, “We killed them in a bar fight three weeks ago. I cut Kid’s throat myself and he thanked me for it.”
“He thanked you?” Cinder asked.
“He was in a lot of pain,” Mercer explained. “I put him out of his misery.”
“And this morning you had coffee with him?” Cinder shook her head. “I don’t understand you at all.”
Mercer shrugged. “They’re in it for the money, just like us. It’s business.”
“Are you sure they’re the ones following us?”
“They’re Narsul’s mercenaries, all right. They’ll turn and take up our back trail just as soon as we’re out of sight. Sparrow is an expert tracker. We won’t be able to shake them again until we reach the mountains.”
Trix looked back over her shoulder. They could still see the three horsemen in the distance. She said, “Wonder what Narsul’s paying them?”
“Not enough,” Drake said.
Mercer agreed with a grunt.
“You think they’ll double-cross the baron?” Cinder asked.
“For ten million ByteCoin?” Drake said. “Hardin would double-cross his own mother.”
Cinder leaned out in the saddle and Mercer turned to look over his shoulder at her. She said, “You’ve got wonderful friends.”
“I heard you can judge a man by his enemies,” said Mercer.
“What’s that say about you?” Cinder remarked.
Chapter Forty-Seven
They stopped atop a rocky ridgeline around noon for lunch and to scope out the land. A cool breeze was blowing out of the north, and the air had a definite bite. Cinder rubbed her arms against the cold and joined Mercer at the precipice for a look. Far below and away to the south, she spotted three small, dark shapes moving over a broad green prairie they had recently left behind.
“You were right,” she said.
He only grunted.
“You beat him once?” Cinder asked.
Mercer nodded. “But that was a bar fight. Drake and I knew they were coming. Next time, they’ll attack from secret, try and take us by surprise.”
Cinder shivered and rubbed her arms. “Getting cold.”
“Be colder still atop the mountains.” Mercer turned back to the group, and looked at Trix. “Still want to tackle the mountain pass?”
“No,” she said. She sat with her back to a broad tree and her ankles crossed, munching on the last of her dried fruit. “But anything is better than waltzing into Eternal Night with no hope of coming out again.”
Mercer broke off a piece of hardtack, popped it in his mouth, and chewed. “Either road will be difficult. At least the dungeon will be warm.”
Trix shook her head.
Drake snorted. He was sitting on a flat rock, hunched over like a vulture waiting for something to die. He said, “That’s what I love about you, Merc. You’re an eternal optimist.”
Cinder laughed. “If he’s an optimist, I’d hate to meet a pessimist.”
One side of Drake’s deeply lined face hitched up in a grin. He took a pull from his flask and tossed it underhand to Cinder. She caught the burnished metal container and screwed the top off. It smelled like turpentine, but she had finally cracked Drake’s armor and didn’t want to lose this chance to break the ice, so she put the flask to her lips.
Liquid fire burned its way down her throat and into her belly, where it felt like a tornado stirring her guts. She coughed, banged her chest with a fist, and handed the flask back while the others laughed.
She said, “What is that?”
“Bark from the aspen tree mixed with maca root and dandelion blooms,” Drake said with a smile.
“Tastes awful,” Cinder said.
“Give it a minute,” Drake told her.
At first she felt nothing except the bitter aftertaste on her tongue and the storm in her gut, then she realized the knot in her lower back was relaxing and the pain from the savage gash across her ribs dulled to a distant throb. Her eyebrows went up. “Oh.”
Drake nodded.
“Don’t get addicted to it,” Mercer warned.
Drake took another hit and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s the only thing that keeps me on my feet.”
“If magic has such a high price, why use it?” Cinder asked.
“I was never any good at swinging a sword,” Drake told her. “And mining is too much work.”
Cinder offered a smile and then, before she could even think it through, she said, “Could you teach me?”
“You want to learn to cast?” Drake asked. “It’ll be a lot of hard work, and it’ll age you in the Realm.”
“But it won’t affect me in the Real?” Cinder asked.
“No more than taking a sword through the gut.”
She shrugged. “I’m only going to be here long enough to collect the prize money.”
Mercer, Trix, and Drake shared an unspoken dialogue. Trix shrugged and Drake nodded. Mercer said, “Couldn’t hurt to have another caster in the group. We’ll probably reach the wall before you learn to throw any spells worthwhile, but simple spells and potions will certainly help.”
“Great,” Cinder said and clapped her hands together. “How do we start?”
“With an invisibility spell,” Mercer said. He was looking north, and his eyes narrowed.
Drake started to tell Mercer it was way too complicated, then followed his gaze to a column of dust and he sat up a little straighter. “What fresh hell is this?”
“Should we try to hide?” Trix asked.
Mercer only shook his head. “They’ve already seen us.”
Drake used his staff to lever himself up and warmed up a spell. The air around him crackled and hummed.
The small hairs on Cinder’s arms stood on end. She said, “What are you going to do?”
“Hopefully nothing,” Drake told her.
They climbed into the saddle, Cinder gripping Mercer’s shoulders with her small white hands, and waited atop the ridge while the riders drew within shouting distance. Through clouds of dust, she counted fourteen in all, armed with swords and spears and wearing leather and chain mail. Mercer raised a hand in salute. The rider at the head of the column signaled a halt. The riders reined in their mounts and a cloud billowed over the group and then broke apart on the wind. They were hard bit men in need of a bath and a shave. Their mounts were lathered in sweat and their ragtag armor was layered in grit. The leader rode forward a few paces and called out, “Ho there!”
“Greetings,” Mercer called back.
“Have you come from Thunderside to help with the war effort?”
“We came north from Thunderside,” Mercer told him. “But not to help in the war.”
The commander of the column spurred his horse and trotted over. He reined in a dozen paces away, squinting his eyes against the noonday sun. “What’s your purpose?”
“Sightseeing,” Trix told him.
The lines around his mouth tightened. “Alright, your business is your own, but you’d find more pleasant sights further south. In case you haven’t heard, the Ravagers have swept down out of the north and we’re barely holding the Pass. I’m Captain Antelles, sent by Baron Kriss to hire sword arms. She’s offering fifty ByteCoin a day to any man or woman willing to hold the line.” His eyes went to Drake and he said, “She’s also hiring Casters at the rate of two hundred and fifty a day with a permanent seat on her council for those that prove their abilities.”
Drake’s scraggly eyebrows walked up his forehead.
Captain Antelles waved a hand at his column. “We’re headed to Thunderside to ask Barron Narsul for troops.”
“Not sure how much help you’ll get out of Narsul,” Mercer told him. “There was a major cave-in. Half the city is in shambles and the other half is busy trying to clean up the wreckage. Lot of people have left, headed south to Tanthus.”
The captain’s face fell at the news. He wiped his mouth with one hand and then said, “I’ll be stopping through villages and settlements on the way, hiring as many men-at-arms as I can. I’m authorized to speak for Baron Kriss. What do you say?”
Mercer’s horse started a sideways trot and he pulled the reins. “I say thank you, but no.”
Trix shook her head. “Got prior commitments. Sorry.”
The captain turned his attention on Drake. “What about you? You’ve got the look of an accomplished caster. Two hundred and fifty a day is nothing to turn your nose up at. We need good sorcerers.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed, but he shook his head. “Sorry. No.”
Antelles’s face pinched. “Don’t you people care? If the Ravagers break through, they’ll march across the south like locusts, killing and burning everything in their path.”
Mercer looked to Trix and then back at Antelles. “We care, but we’ve made a commitment.”
“Damn your commitment, man. Redgate can’t hold out much longer. We need all the strong sword arms we can get.”
Trix inspected a spot on the horizon. Mercer shifted in the saddle. Drake looked deep in thought.
The captain craned his neck so he could see past Mercer to Cinder. “What about you?”
“I’m no good with a sword and I don’t have any skill in magic.” Yet, she mentally added. “I’d be no good to anyone.”
Antelles sniffed and shook his head. He looked to Trix and said, “Tourist?”
She nodded.
“Hell of a time to be babysitting a spoiled rich girl.” With that remark, he wheeled his mount and waved for his troops. They spurred their horses and the column started forward at a trot, kicking up dirt.
“Captain,” Mercer called out.
Antelles stopped and turned in the saddle.
“We passed three bushwhackers half a day back,” Mercer said. “They tried to ambush us just this morning. One of them is quick with an acid spell. Damn near burned our faces off. If you happen to run into them, best use arrows. Don’t let them get close.”
Antelles nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.”
When he was out of earshot, Drake grinned and said, “Acid spell?”
Mercer shrugged, spurred his horse, and said, “Sounded good.”
Cinder asked, “What’s a tourist?”
Trix said, “Rich people get it in their head to tour the Realm, find out how the other half lives, take a walk on the wild side. That sort of thing. So they log in and hire a group like us to escort them around, see the sights. Then they go back and tell all their country club friends they spent a week in the Savage Realms.”
“It’s mostly rich guys,” Mercer said. “Logging in for sex with locals. Prostitution here is cheaper and safer.”
“Gross,” Cinder said. “Who would do that?”
The muscles at the corner of Trix’s jaw bunched and Mercer muttered under his breath, “Ixnay.”
They left the ridge, passing down into a wooded valley dotted by homesteads with smoke piping from chimneys and fields full of ripe orange pumpkins. The main road wound through the dale and then started to climb once more, steadily up over rocky terrain and through dense hardwood forests. It was another week of hard travels before they got their first glimpse of Redgate.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The great metropolis hunkered in the shadow of the mountain range, on a wide plateau at the mouth of a pass cutting between the eastern and western ridge. A rushing stream leapt down from the eastern shoulders of the mountains and formed a mighty river that hurried past the sprawling city before winding its way south and east. Vessels came and went, docking on the eastern shores of Redgate. The rest of the city was protected by a stout red-stone wall with massive gates, north and south. From the center of Redgate rose a slender spire that looked, at a distance, like crystal spun from a spider’s web. It reared up into the sky, catching light from the morning sun and shimmering at the heart of the city like a dazzling jewel.
Cinder leaned around Mercer for a better view. They had been riding all morning through a thick green wood. The road here was winding and broken, but still there was evidence of heavy and frequent use. They crossed a bridge, spanning a dry river bed; the trees opened out and Mercer pulled rein for a glimpse at the wide panorama. Cinder’s eyebrows crept up her forehead and her lips parted. Tanthus had been an impressive sight, and Thunderside even more awesome, but Redgate was breathtaking in both size and splendor.
“That’s incredible,” she said. “What is that tower?”
“The Tower of Dhingol,” said Drake. “It used to be home to the Sacred Order.”
Trix said, “Who lives there now, I wonder?”
Drake shrugged. “Hard to say.”
“You think Baron Kriss took it over?” Mercer asked.
Drake turned his head to the side and spat. “Fat lot of good it would do her. She hasn’t got the faintest idea about magic. That’s why she kept the Order around. They provided protection for Redgate in exchange for the tower.”
“What’s so special about it?” Cinder wanted to know.
“It’s one giant magical conductor,” Drake told her. “It amplifies any spell cast. With it, a powerful enough caster could control all the Realms.”
“No one’s that good,” Mercer said.
“Verastor was,” Drake said.
Mercer snorted. “Look where it got him.”
“Who’s Verastor?” Cinder asked.
“One of the very first players,” Drake said. “And the best caster the Realms has ever seen. He made most of the important discoveries, taught himself to cast by translating the ancient runes. He resided in the Tower in the early days, before the Range Wars and the barons with their peace treaties. I learned from one of his pupils.”
“What happened to him?” Cinder wanted to know.
A pained look twisted Drake’s wrinkled face.
Mercer cleared his throat. “He’s imprisoned.”
“What?” Cinder asked. “Like in jail?”
“Something like that,” Drake said.
Mercer said, “He’s locked in the Outer Darkness.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“There’s more than one dimension in the Savage Realms,” Drake explained. “There is the Material plane where we are now, and the Mystical Plane, which is the source of all magic in the Realm. Every time you cast, you tap into the Mystic and in turn, the Mystic taps a little of you.
“Verastor learned to walk between dimensions,” Drake continued. “He got so powerful he could actually travel from the Material Plane to the Mystical. He no longer had to tap into the power, he could step into the other plane and wield magic
from within. But he was too greedy, delved too deep, and the power drove him mad.”
“What happened?” Cinder asked.
“A group of the most powerful castors in the Realms formed the Sacred Order and, working together, managed to open a rift to another plane, an empty lifeless void, where they trapped Verastor forever.”
“Wait a minute,” said Cinder. “This guy is certifiably insane and he’s trapped inside the game? Do the programmers know about this?”
“Yep,” Mercer told her. He shook out the reins and they skirted the tree line north and west. “One of the best kept secrets in the Realms. The game designers don’t want congress to find out there’s a mad man imprisoned in the game. They have enough trouble as is from activist groups who say the Realms should be shut down. They claim it’s a mental health risk.”
“With good reason,” Cinder remarked.
Mercer shrugged. “Maybe, but just because some people can’t handle it, or abuse the system, doesn’t mean the government should take it away from the rest of us. Some people eat too much cake, get heart disease, and die early. Does that mean the government should outlaw chocolate?”
“Point taken,” Cinder said. “But that poor man . . . trapped in some cold, lifeless place. He needs mental help.”
“There’s no help for him,” Drake said. “The only thing a psychiatric ward could do was lock him up and medicate him.”
“How do you know?” Cinder asked.
“Used to be psychologist,” Drake told her. “Pretty good one too.”
They rode in silence. Farmland stretched from the borders of the woods all the way to the walls of Redgate. Mercer was following a meandering path in a wide circuit around the city to a low hill where they could get a better look at the Pass between the mountains. After a while, Cinder said, “So in addition to making me look like an old hag inside the game, casting could drive me nuts in real life?”
“Welcome to the Savage Realms,” Drake said.
The sun was directly overhead by the time they topped the rise and got a look at the battlefield. In the gap between mountains camped an army of at least twenty thousand behind hastily erected barricades of wood and earthen defenses. Men and horses milled about between tents. Separated by less than five hundred yards of war-torn earth littered with dead bodies was another force, this one five times the size. The Ravagers covered the field like a dark sea of swarming locusts.
The Savage Realms Page 18