“I’d hurry if I were you,” Desmeres warned. “There isn’t much in that sack I would trust him to play with.”
Twice more the soldier had the puppy slip through his grasp, until finally Dowser got his legs sorted out enough to break into a bounding run. As expected, he galloped right to the sack of potions and plunged his head inside to sample the complex aromas.
“Dowser, no!” Genara shouted.
Dowser pulled his head from the sack and turned. He was clutching bottle of thick red glass. It had a fat bottom and clearly had not been intended to be held sideways. The stopper had been loosened in the puppy’s jostling, and a fat drop of syrup-thick brown liquid oozed slowly toward the ground.
Desmeres’s eyes opened wide. “That is the antipode potion. Very dangerous. Very, very dangerous.”
“He is bluffing,” Anrack said. “Fetch the dog, now.”
The soldier hesitated. Dowser helpfully trotted toward him, eager to present the bottle, perhaps for a pat on the head in return. His bopping little walk shook the drop free. The concoction sizzled when it touched the ground, then flared to flame. Dowser whipped his head around to see the source of the sound. The motion flung an arc of fresh drops. They spattered on the ground and produced their own flames while the first drop shifted from flame to ice. The other drips followed suit, and the area around the puppy became a cluster of alternating spouts of flame and jagged pools of ice.
Dowser’s attention span quickly reached its limit and he turned back to the soldier. The man had retreated, a wise decision if threatened by a human with a dangerous weapon. When the creature wielding it was a puppy, running away simply turned it into a new game. He romped after the soldier, sloshing drops of the dangerous potion along the way.
“Do not run! Kill that blasted beast before it causes any more damage!” Anrack ordered.
The order came just a moment too late.
Soldiers of the Northern Alliance, particularly the Elite, were profoundly well trained. They could stand up to the most terrifying threats their enemies could throw at them. Tales had been told of Alliance Army soldiers facing down forces five times their size without their resolve breaking. They had stood firm against packs of wolves and fierce dragons. They had not, however, had to face the terror of a happy puppy attempting to ‘fetch’ a devastating work of alchemy. As seemed to happen so frequently around Desmeres, things dissolved into chaos. Terrified soldiers ran in every direction, giving Dowser a dozen new targets to chase after. Anrack shouted for order and limped after the puppy, but it was far too interested in the dashing soldiers to pay attention to their hobbling commander.
Horses, spooked by the gouts of flame, scattered. Soldiers rushed after them. Only Anrack and two of the men holding Desmeres kept their heads about them. Even the ones holding Genara ran for cover when the puppy turned their way. Then the puppy’s eyes locked on the woman herself.
“No, Dowser…” she said, taking a nervous step back. “Don’t. Don’t you dare…”
The puppy didn’t even hesitate, instead bounding excitedly toward the person who had been clutching and fondling him for the last few hours to present this wonderful toy to her. Every ounce of poise vanished from Genara as she squealed and ran from the puppy. It clearly decided no one else mattered. This toy was for Genara. It awkwardly wove between the pillars of flame spurting from where some if its prior drops had fallen, evidently too thickheaded to view the fire as a threat, and made its way after the fleeing woman.
Anrack approached Desmeres and grabbed the tie of his cloak to yank him forward. “You will get control of that dog.”
Desmeres grinned. “What makes you think I can control him?”
“Get it away, get it away, get it away!” Genara squealed, rushing toward them.
She dashed past Anrack, Desmeres, and the remaining two soldiers. In her present state of panic, they were not enemies, they were potential obstacles to keep the puppy away from her. She slid to a stop behind Desmeres and clutched his shoulders.
“I swear I’ll kill that thing if I ever get the chance, Desmeres!” she cried, attempting to maneuver the half-elf between herself and the dog.
The sight of the puppy charging directly at them, trailing a mind-bending string of burning ice as it went, was the breaking point for the commander and his last men. Anrack and the others moved away. Now only Desmeres and Genara stood in the puppy’s path of destruction.
Desmeres painfully crouched to receive the puppy. He caught the neck of the bottle with one hand and wrapped the other around the puppy’s middle. A gentle tug upward kept the mouth of the bottle high enough to keep any new drops from pouring out, but despite the now-happy puppy wagging his tail at the attention he was receiving, Dowser wasn’t willing to release his toy.
“Drop it,” Desmeres said, lifting the puppy as he stood again. “Drop it, Dowser.”
The puppy shook his head slightly, the game having now switched from tag to tug-of-war.
“Fine…”
Desmeres held the puppy across the front of his body with one arm and did his best to control the potion bottle with the other. He advanced a step forward, wielding the puppy like a weapon and carefully navigating the obstacle course of fiery geysers that were only just beginning to relent.
“Genara, pick up my weapons,” Desmeres said, turning the puppy menacingly to any soldiers that attempted to approach.
“What do you imagine you will do, Desmeres?” Anrack growled from a safe distance. “You can’t hope to escape the Elite forever.”
“So far, since you targeted me, I’ve scarred your face, defeated the man you sent after me with a D’Karon wand, and now my dog has bested your entire squad. I’m growing more confident of my chances with each passing moment.”
Genara joined him. She’d gathered the small armory of blades the guards had stripped away from Desmeres under one arm. The only exception was his short sword. That she held out in the other hand. Her grip suggested she’d never used such a weapon before, but the gleam in her eye suggested she was ready and willing to use it now.
The soldiers gradually returned to their senses as they discovered that the dog’s reign of terror had come to an end, but the horses were long gone. It would take time to round them up again. Desmeres’s cart would likely have been lost as well, if not for the fact that the weight of the heavily laden vehicle and the inability of the two draft horses to agree on which way to flee had kept it from rattling too far away. They edged carefully toward it. Every time a soldier came too close, Genara would swipe the blade or Desmeres would tip out a fresh drop of potion. Soon they came near enough for Genara to dash for the seat and gather the reins. Desmeres continued to keep the soldiers at bay, but the bottle was nearly empty, and without it, a dozen soldiers were well beyond his capacity to overcome. Certainly he had a cartload of the finest weapons in the world at his disposal, but he was badly injured and horribly outnumbered.
As he’d been walking, Desmeres had been gently turning and twisting the bottle. Finally he eased it free of Dowser’s jaws.
“Good, good,” he said. “Get ready. What comes next, if the last time I did it is any indication, might be a bit unnerving.”
He moved as swiftly as he could to the rear of the cart and tossed Dowser inside.
“It might help if you told me what you were planning.”
“Nonsense. It would spoil the surprise, which at the moment is a rather crucial element.”
Desmeres climbed into the back of the cart and held tight to some of the straps holding the cargo in place.
“You did fine work strapping all of this in. Except for these last few sacks.”
“They rummaged through those, don’t blame me.”
He tried his best to layer some canvas over the loose bags and cinch them down with one hand. The soldiers formed up behind the cart.
“Get us moving. Straight ahead, slowly,” Desmeres said.
“Lumineblade! Surrender and we shall assure the safety of bo
th you and your woman! Resist and I shall personally receive permission from the queen to kill you at next sight.”
“Fine advice, Commander. I shall take it under advisement. And now may I offer some advice of my own? Head for cover. Now.”
He lobbed the potion bottle underhand. It twirled through the air, tracing stripes of freezing and burning liquid along the ground. When it reached the end of its arc, it smashed directly atop the sack of other potions.
To describe what came next as an explosion would fall well short, but it was as near a word as seemed appropriate. Fire, wind, and smoke rushed from the sack. Foul fumes and sizzling acids spewed in all direction. A thunderclap of detonation joined wailing and whistling gouts of steam and smoke. It was a maelstrom. The draft horses reared, now in agreement of which way to run, and the cart lurched into motion and rattled forward. It was all Desmeres could do to keep himself, Dowser, and any loose cargo from sliding free.
#
The horses ran at a full sprint for several minutes before they calmed enough for Genara to control them. In time, Desmeres was able to navigate the jostled cargo to the hatch and pulled it open, slipping through to the seat to join Genara.
“I’ll take the reins,” he said. “Fine work back there.”
“Fine work? That was a complete disaster!” she said. “You couldn’t possibly have planned that.”
“Certainly not, but when fate hands you tools, you must be willing to use them.”
“And you!” Genara growled, snatching up Dowser. “I don’t know if I should hug you or slap you! You are lucky you didn’t get us all killed!”
Dowser practically wagged his entire body and tried to lick her nose. Genara decided hugging was the proper course of action and held the puppy tight against her, drinking in its warmth and trying to settle her hammering heart. As she embraced the creature, she noticed an odd, charred smell, then spotted a black patch of fur along the puppy’s side.
“Oh, he’s all singed up!”
“Is he hurt?” Desmeres asked.
“He isn’t acting hurt. Hold still, you inbred numb-skull,” she muttered as her attempts to investigate the possible burn were stymied by the puppy’s insistence on rolling to its back for a tummy rub.”
“Yes, inbred. That is a proper insult.”
“It looks like the fire didn’t get through his fur. Lucky devil. And what about you?”
“I’m a lucky devil as well, I assure you.”
“But what about your legs?”
“That depends. Are you any good with bandages?”
“I’ve applied a few in my day.”
“Then I’ll be fine. There are a few in my pocket there. If you think you could bind the worst of my wounds while we are on the move, I would be much obliged.”
She fished out the rolled strips of linen and quickly yanked them out of range of Dowser’s nipping teeth. The bandages smelled strongly of some kind of ointment and the puppy evidently felt the scent was irresistible. Desmeres helped wrangle him and she maneuvered to her knees in the narrow foot well to slide up his shredded pant legs and begin minister to his wounds. When she saw the state of his injuries, she felt a flutter of fear in her chest.
There must have been a hundred slashes and gouges in his legs. Some were the shallow stripes of claws and teeth dragging lightly across the surface. Many were deeper, where oloes had the time to gnaw at him. It was a gruesome sight, and though the bandages slowed the bleeding, she didn’t have nearly enough to take care of all of his wounds.
“Desmeres… you are in very bad shape.”
“I’ve still got my legs, which is more than I would have expected. Luckily, not many oloes found their way to me.”
“Are these bandages magic in any way? Because that’s what it will take to close some of the largest gashes. That or a needle and thread.”
“No magic, I’m afraid. I had healing potions in the sack with the rest, but we all know what happened to that.”
“Then we have a problem.”
“We have several problems. More of them than you realize.”
“Let us see. The Elite is after us. And I do mean us, as it’s been made clear that I’m now fully complicit in your crimes.”
“Something you had to realize would occur.”
“Naturally I was afraid such might be the case, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant to find out. In addition to that, you are badly injured. What other problems have I missed?”
“I faced a man inside the storehouse. I killed him, in fact. He had used a wand and hurled D’Karon magic. That in and of itself is bad, but not terrible. One of the more nefarious things that helped the D’Karon to so thoroughly secure control of the military and keep Tressor at bay for so many years was the nature of their magic. They fueled it with gems and as such the magic could be used by complete novices until those gems were drained. Once the empty, the gems would need to be refilled, often to the detriment of the user. The man I fought drained the wand fully and was able to continue casting spells.”
“So he was a wizard?”
“Perhaps… But some of the things he said… Listen, if Oriech spoke to us, it means the D’Karon or a similarly dangerous threat still exist. As such, am hesitant to dismiss this as simple coincidence.”
“But the D’Karon are dead, right?”
“Banished, actually, though I’m sure if they had returned I would be aware. If Deacon and Myranda can be believed, the D’Karon called Bagu was killed outright and Demont was sent back through the portal. Teht was already long dead by the time they killed him as well. Trigorah was not D’Karon, but is dead besides. That just leaves Epidime. If I recall her story correctly, Epidime spoke to Myranda shortly before the portal closed. Unless he was destroyed in the resulting incident or left of his own free will, he might still be on the loose.”
“Where did you hear her tell her story? Given the reputation you’ve built among the queen and the Elite, you don’t strike me as the sort who would be hobnobbing with the Duchess of Kenvard.”
“I didn’t hear it from her directly. She told it to the queen and thus it was in the royal records, which I spent some time with while I was tracking down the weapons I’d loaned her and her people.”
“Then a detail like that could surely have been left out, or you could have missed it.”
“No. Myranda was quite explicit in her concern that Epidime might still be present in our world.”
“This is the man who… took Trigorah’s life?”
“It was.”
“And was he the man you faced in the storehouse?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know. If I saw a man kill the one I loved, I would like to think I would remember his face.”
Desmeres sighed. “Something must be done to spread the truth in its entirety. Ignorance of what remains of the threat is liable to do more damage than the potential panic the knowledge of the threat might cause. Epidime isn’t the sort of man you recognize. He changes bodies the way you would change an outfit. A difficult creature to kill.”
“How precisely does he change bodies?”
“I don’t know. Physical contact seemed necessary for those with a stronger will. For the willing or weak he simply… slips his way in, like an errant spirit choosing a new home.”
“And you’ve fought him?”
He smiled. “He could not have subverted me. Not to worry.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Desmeres caught the bundle of chains about his neck and jingled them. “One of the more difficult things I managed while I was in the service of the D’Karon was to get a good enough glimpse at their magic to work out how to create charms against such a thing. As you might imagine, the other Generals weren’t fond of the idea of Epidime attempting to supplant them, so they produced enchantments against him. Nearly half of these charms are specifically designed to ward him off. I’m glad I never stopped wearing them.”
“I don’t suppos
e you’ve got any extra.”
“I don’t, but fortunately for you, I don’t need to make one for you or most others. Tell me, do you have any of the freshly minted coins from New Kenvard? The ones since Myranda and Deacon became the Duke and Duchess?”
“I… I suppose I may.”
She opened her coat and revealed a coin purse. After rummaging for a bit, she turned up three copper coins that had the fresh, unmarred faces of something recently pressed.
“Yes, excellent. Give them here and take the reins. I have some thread…”
He took the coins and selected the stiletto that had been among the weapons Genara had rescued from the ground at Desmeres feet. A bit of twisting and pressing was all it took to drill a neat hole through. He strung a bit of thread through and draped the makeshift amulet around her neck.
“Desmeres, if you keep making me jewelry, people are liable to start talking.”
“If it tempers the gesture at all, I’m making one for Dowser as well.”
“I don’t understand, is this Epidime character allergic to copper?”
“No.” He held up one of the coins, revealing the seal on the tail side of it. “Do you see this?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“I imagine it is the seal of New Kenvard.”
“No. It is the Mark of the Chosen. Myranda and the others were all born with such a mark. It is, among other things, a test of purity. Its touch is agonizing to the D’Karon or those who have betrayed the world to aid them. Wear the amulet with the mark against your skin and you should be safe against Epidime. It is a stroke of genius that they’ve minted these coins. Soon anyone with coins from the Kenvard mint will have a weapon against Epidime.”
“If this is all that’s required to keep me safe, why waste all of that time on all of those charms? Why not just spend the copper?”
“For the same reason I only handle money while wearing gloves these days.”
He raised his arm until his sleeve slid enough to reveal some of his bare arm, then gingerly touched the simple coin to his skin. Though the mark barely kissed his arm, it caused him to wince, and a faint red welt raised beneath it as though Desmeres had been scalded with boiling water.
The Redemption of Desmeres Page 21