by Jim Hodgson
“Well, madam,” he said. “That was not very nice.”
Chapter 32
Ozel walked down the path to the tower using a magical light to show the way. Wagast had asked him the night before to mentor the youths standing watch in the tower.
“Do I have to stay there with them all night?” Ozel had asked.
Wagast had looked surprised. “Heavens, no. Just pop in on them, see how they’re doing. These little surprise visits will keep them on their toes.”
“Do you surprise them late at night sometimes?”
Wagast snorted. “At my age I’m surprised I’m awake during daylight hours, let alone at night. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“I see.”
“Just make sure you knock. Who knows what sort of revolting doings apprentices could be up to?” The old wizard narrowed his eyes at Alan as he said this.
Alan shrugged.
But Ozel hadn’t had to knock. They’d seen his light approaching from the direction of the city and were ready for him. That was good, he figured.
There were two apprentices plus a handful of archers. Ozel nodded at an older man, one of Alabora’s, who was the guard on duty. “Any problems with the apprentices?”
The guard shook his head. “A bit easier than my archers. Don’t have to shout at them to keep their bows in order.”
Ozel chuckled politely, then mounted the stairs to the round top of the tower. The view from up here was spectacular, as he’d guessed it would be. The two magic-users greeted him, then the three of them looked out over the water. A breeze heavy with sea water was rolling in off the waves. To the east, the sun was lightening the sky.
“I can’t help but notice,” Ozel said. “That you’re both awake.”
The apprentices looked at one another. “Well, sir, it’s our job to keep watch. We saw you coming down the path. Who else could it be with the white light?”
Ozel humphed.
The other apprentice said, “What was it like being Wagast’s apprentice?”
Ozel shrugged. “Aren’t you Wagast’s apprentices?”
“We are, yes, but he has loads now. When he trained you, it was just you.”
Ozel felt his eyebrows go up and down. “He was also my guardian, so we butted heads sometimes. But I learned everything I know from him, so I love him like a parent too.”
“That must have been so amazing.”
“He is a brilliant man,” Ozel agreed. “But he also had a lot to say about spicy sausage, as I recall.”
There was a shout from below, followed by the sound of someone running up the stairs. One of the apprentices readied himself to cast, but Ozel put out an arm for calm.
One of the young archers, bow in hand, appeared at the door. “There’s a light,” she said. “On the water.”
They turned and looked out across the waves. Sure enough, there was a pinpoint of light bobbing along.
The rest of the archers and their guard ran up the stairs, bows at the ready.
“Steady,” Ozel said, not taking his eyes off the water. “Nobody put an arrow through anyone or catch them on fire, please.”
A few tense moments passed. The light on the water was drawing nearer. Ozel closed his eyes for a moment to rest them. Staring intently out over the water was straining them too hard. When he opened them again, he could see better.
“It’s a boat,” he said. “But I think it’s empty. Send the signal.”
Ozel had to admit that it was his mistake, not specifying which of the apprentices should send the signal of a fireball straight up into the air. As a result, they’d both done it. Whether that was because both assumed he’d been talking to them or that neither wanted to miss the chance to use their magic was a matter for later debate.
As the boat drew nearer and the sun peeked over the horizon, Ozel could see that the vessel appeared to be empty. It wasn’t bristling with armed warriors ready to swarm onto shore, which was good, but the fact that the light on board appeared to be a magical one was disconcerting.
“I’m going down to have a look,” Ozel said. “Keep an eye on me from up here.” He headed toward the stairs, then turned around. “Please don’t shoot me in the back with an arrow or fireball.” The guard in charge nodded.
By the time Ozel made his way down to the rocky shore, the boat was close. It still seemed to be empty or nearly so. It was too small to have more than a man or two in it, and they’d have to be lying down. He could blast the boat to splinters long before anyone was able to do him any harm. He also thought it was peculiar that the boat appeared to be moving steadily toward the shore despite no sails, no oars, and the fact that it was unaffected by the wind.
There was something magical about it, but Ozel didn’t get the sense that he was in any danger. When the boat bumped against the rocks at his feet and stopped, Ozel could see that it was under an enchantment to propel itself. If whoever made it wanted the craft to explode or do harm, they surely had the knowledge. This could only be one thing; a message.
He tugged at a canvas cover thrown over the planking and grunted at what he saw. In the bottom of the boat lay the bleeding body of Gerent Ormuz of Ilbez. There was a rasping sound and the Gerent convulsed. He was alive.
Ozel leaped into the boat, conjured a healing potion, and tried to get it into the Gerent’s mouth, but was having trouble because the Gerent, despite his injuries, was trying to speak. Ozel put his ear close so he could try to make sense of the pained whispers over the waves. It was still difficult to tell between the man’s ragged breathing and words he was trying to speak, but eventually Ozel heard him.
“They are coming,” the Gerent was saying. “They are coming.”
Wagast agreed with Ozel’s assessment of the Gerent, in that it would be better for his recovery in the long term to avoid giving him too many healing potions. But there was also the matter of the Gerent’s message and its implications for the fate of Dilara. Ozel tried to give him enough potion so that he could talk to Dilara’s leadership, but without turning him into a gibbering lunatic.
“Why … stick?” the Gerent whispered when he saw his daughter enter his room, and using a walking cane to support her weight. She was on her feet at last, which Ozel thought was good both for obvious health reasons and so that she could see her father.
“I got shot through the heart with an arrow,” Elgin said. Her voice was still a bit weak as well.
“Ouch,” the Gerent said. Then he coughed for a few moments.
“What do we need to know?” Usta asked.
“Mages,” The Gerent said. “Yetkin … mages.”
“The Yetkin have mages?” Usta asked.
The Gerent gave a slight nod.
Usta looked worried. “Right. Well, I’m sure we can still defeat them if we focus our efforts properly. Which way will they attack? By land or by sea?”
The Gerent was coughing again. He put a weak hand up to his mouth. When he stopped coughing and regained a measure of strength he said, “Both.”
The King of Dilara said quietly, “Fuck.”
Chapter 33
Ergam had been following the hill people all over the mountains for some time. At first he merely followed them at a distance, listening to them speaking to one another and watching them trap small rodents to eat. But over the last few weeks, he’d gotten closer and closer until now he was just sitting outside the mouth of a cave where hundreds of them sheltered.
He’d apparently become part of the scenery. One or two had gotten near to him, but they’d paid for their curiosity with their lives, so the rest gave him a wide berth.
They looked a bit like humans, if smaller and squatter, and they acted a lot more feral. One bearded hill person was gnawing on a rat bone next to a fire while two others were having what was either a sexual encounter or a grunting competition at the rat-eater’s feet. Neither of the two activities seemed to interfere with the other.
There were a lot more hill people than Ergam had thought. Th
ere might be as many of them as there were people of Dilara, in fact. And there were more every day, thanks to all the fireside copulating. If they ever got organized and wanted to, Ergam thought, they could probably take Dilara based on numbers alone. But no. They seemed content to stay in their caves and screw.
Ergam was good at learning languages, but the hill people’s communication methods were proving tough to crack. He was reasonably sure that this was because they didn’t really talk. They grunted from time to time. They pointed and gestured. That was about it. Then again, he’d seen them attack as a group once or twice. That had to mean there was some form of collective understanding, didn’t it? They’d attacked his father as a group.
He could just stand up right now and start killing these filthy animals. He might not be able to exterminate the entire race or clan, or whatever it was, but he’d certainly take a lot of them with him before they managed to do him any harm.
These thoughts were interrupted by a commotion deep in the cave. Ergam stood and walked a few steps inside. There was some kind of shoving match going on. Wait. No. One hill person was being forced by a group of others toward the mouth of the cave. There was a lot of grunting and pointing. Ergam got the impression, though he had no idea why, that the one being pushed around was a thief. Uh oh, buddy.
The hill people continued to manhandle the criminal toward the cave mouth. Ergam moved aside so they wouldn’t be bothered by his presence. He wanted to see where this little procession was going. They were dragging the man in the direction of the path that led to where his father had been killed. Ergam felt a thrill of excitement.
He followed the crowd. Here and there, members of the mob looked over their shoulders at him with wide eyes. A few even grunted and pointed in his direction as though they were suggesting an attack, but none seemed keen. They focused on the job at hand.
Sure enough, they dragged their prey to the flat rock and metal pole where Ergam’s father’s bones had been scattered. Ergam had considered collecting them together, but instead buried each of them where they lay.
The hill people wrapped the unfortunate thief with chains, securing him to the pole, then stepped back to admire their work. The condemned man twisted this way and that, but was held fast by the thick chains. Even so, they heaped extra chains onto his body, and piled even more around his feet until he was nothing but a thrashing head poking out of a mound of heavy links. Then, one by one, the hill people trickled away except for a handful. They stood on the opposite side of the flat rock, eyeballing Ergam.
It seemed that they couldn’t leave the condemned man to meet his fate alone, and they also knew that Ergam was an unpredictable and deadly force.
This standoff went on for hours as evening approached. The wind gusted, getting stronger as the temperature dropped and heavy, wet clouds moved in. Raindrops made small smacking sounds as they hit the rocky summit.
The hill people hunkered down inside their cloaks, turning their dirty faces this way and that to keep an eye on Ergam as they watched the storm roll in. Thunder rolled in the distance.
There was a deafening boom and a crash. Ergam threw himself backward and rolled into the rocks, thinking he was avoiding some form of hill people magic, but when he opened his eyes again he realized it had been a lightning strike. The metal pole near the flat rock was glowing red with heat and the body chained to its base was limp under the chains.
The hill people who had stayed behind left. Ergam sat looking at the ruined body of the executed man until night fell, then sat some more.
So, that’s how they’d killed his father. They’d forced him to be hit by lightning? Ergam wasn’t sure how the metal figured into the process, having only ever seen lightning strike things like trees. You heard from time to time about it striking sheep in an open field, but they didn’t have to be chained to a metal spike for that. What was it like, to die that way? Was it horrible?
And then a thought struck him. What was it like to live this way? The way he lived?
Horrible. Yes, it was horrible now.
He stayed on the mountaintop for days, thinking about it. The hill people came back and removed the body, then spread the chains out on the ground so they weren’t touching one another.
Storms came and went, but none struck the metal rod. Curious. Very curious.
When the next storm rolled in, Ergam was ready. He piled the chains around the base of the metal rod. He expected this to cause the rod’s magic — if it had any — to summon the lightning. He watched, rain spattering around him. There were a few strikes on the mountaintop, but none like the one that had killed the hill person. Perhaps it needs a body, he thought.
Ergam had been thinking about his friends. Would he miss them, if he died? Probably not. He wouldn’t exist at all, so he wouldn’t have the capacity to miss anyone.
He hadn’t fully realized it while his father was alive, but Ergam thought his purpose had been to be his father’s son. Now that his father was gone, what was he? Just a pile of bones that, for some stupid reason, hadn’t realized it was dead yet. He couldn’t face it anymore.
He knew his friends would be angry. That was unfortunate. But then again, lots of things were unfortunate.
Chapter 34
The plan for the defense of Dilara was to split the forces. Wagast, Yonca, and Ozel would oversee the magical defense from a sea attack. Usta, Alabora, and Nazenin would defend against a land assault at the tunnel through the mountains, since the tunnel would make defending the entrance to Dilara easy. This plan would be supplemented by any intelligence Yonca could provide with the help of her spiders.
This plan, though, included the total evacuation of Ilbez, which Usta considered to be a problem because the Gerent appeared to be hovering near death.
The Gerent, for his own part, saw no problem and vehemently denied hovering near anything like death. “I made it across the sea with no wizards at all,” he said. “I can make it to my own country with a little help.” No one pointed out that he’d made it across the sea in an enchanted boat. He demanded to be put on a horse at once, but also asked to be lashed to the animal so that he wouldn’t topple out of the saddle on the way. Instead, he was rushed in the back of a cart to his home country, under the watchful eye of one of Wagast’s journeyman wizards who was especially good with healing potions.
Without the Gerent to assure them it was necessary, the citizens of Ilbez would never agree to evacuate their country. Some would probably refuse to do so even with the Gerent’s urging.
In the meantime, Usta felt he needed to give a speech to the city. Alabora and Nazenin were against it on the basis of it being a security nightmare, but Usta pointed out that they were all likely to die at the hands of an invading horde anyway.
“Dilara,” Usta began, addressing a crowd of citizens who were quiet — as people can only be expected, fearing for their lives. “We face a great enemy.” He scanned the crowd to let this sink in. “But we are a great people. You have seen the preparations taking place. Our army is strong. Our wizards are powerful. Our defenses are the best they have ever been. Yes, we face a hard road, but it is the only road. The only other choice would be to lie down where we stand and I will not!” He spoke these last three words with extra care and emphasis and was rewarded with a cheer. “You all know that Dilara lost a great friend recently, King Bilal Sakir of Kanat. The defenses he and his countrymen have built at the tunnel through the mountains will serve as a fortress. That fortress will be known as Sakir Tunnel, to honor our fallen friend. Once the evacuees of Ilbez are through the fortress, we will close the gates. A handful of men could defend Sakir Tunnel against an army of thousands!” This time the cheer started tentatively, but gained a little strength as it went. “Now,” said Usta. “I compel you; hug your wives and your children. Bolster one another’s courage, as all Dilarans do. For tomorrow, we go to war!” The cheer this time, much to Usta’s pride, was deafening.
Usta’s spirits were high after he’d given his
speech, but they fell quickly when he met with Yonca.
“Yes,” she said. “The Gerent did manage to get one of my spiders into the Yetkin territory, but they found it and killed it.”
“They found one spider and managed to kill it?”
“I don’t know for sure, but that’s my guess. We are dealing with a powerful dark wizard.” She turned to Wagast. “Can you think of any way to reveal something like my spiders?”
Wagast said, “It’s possible. I can’t think of anything immediately, but someone with experience in that area? Perhaps.”
“So we have no idea where they intend to attack?” Usta said.
“My impression, before I lost all possibility for information, is that they do not consider us a great threat. They will send a small force.”
“Ah,” Usta said. “Well, that’s good.”
“Small by Yetkin standards,” Yonca said. “They have conquered other nations far across the great seas, countries which are ten times our size. Maybe a hundred times. We are but a mote of dust to them.”
Usta breathed out. “So even if we repel this attack, they will send a greater force.”
Yonca nodded.
A long moment of silence stretched between the three of them.
“It pains me to ask this,” Usta said. “I feel I must. Would it be better to simply run?”
Wagast and Yonca looked at one another.
“There is nowhere to run to,” Wagast said. “We could move everyone here to Calan. To Kanat. To Bilgehan.” The old wizard shrugged. “There is no hiding from someone who has a fire in their belly to do harm. Especially not when they have an army as large as the Yetkin.”
Usta nodded. He’d expected the answer and, for his own pride, hated asking the question anyway. But if running would save more of his people than fighting, as king he had to consider it. Instead, it sounded to Usta as though Dilara was going to be crushed.