Honor's Price

by Sever Bronny

  Darby’s voice was weak, face contorted with terror. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “No.”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Use you to save my kingdom. You’re going to learn what it feels like to be a hostage.”

  Into the Dark

  Augum put Darby into an arcane slumber, wrapped his injured ankle as well as his own calf, then painfully carried him deep into the lightning forest, where he placed a tracking enchantment on his robe. There he dug out the key from Darby’s pocket. It was a pale iron disk inscribed with runes that would allow him past the arcane barrier in the catacombs. He cast one more Sleep spell on him then hobbled back to the portal, following the tracking enchantment he had left on a lightning tree. He nullified it as he passed, leaving only the one attached to Darby. At that distance, he knew Darby’s shouts for help would scatter as if in a fog—not that Augum expected anyone to come looking for him, especially not in the lightning element room. He also knew the odds of Darby finding his way out were near zero. It was far from the ideal solution, but it was the only one he could think of under the circumstances.

  He stopped before the portal and turned to listen, hearing only silence. Satisfied, he hobbled into the roaring chaos of the lightning hall.

  When he passed through the shimmer of The Hub and into the Hall of Evernight, he saw a distant scene of devastation in the Hall of Heroes—there were char marks on the walls and bodies lying about. He hurried as fast as he could, praying to the Unnameables that Bridget and Leera were okay. When he got there, he checked the bodies, finding four overseers, five soldiers and five bowmen—all Canterran. There was blood everywhere, but thankfully Bridget and Leera were not among the dead. He glanced at where the Orb of Orion was displayed, but the glass case had been ransacked. Two empty pillows remained, one small and one large—the Orb of Orion and the control pearl were gone.

  An overseer moaned. Augum shot to him, grabbing his robe and turning him over. He turned out to be a woman in her twenties. Her face was pale and she had a ghastly wound in her chest.

  “She … reflected … my … spell … impossible.”

  “Where are they, the two girls?”

  “There were ten … of us. And we were still … outmatched. They summoned … a dragon … it was … horrible … horrible …”

  “Where are they?” Augum repeated.

  “Count … Von Edgeworth … showed up … overwhelming … them …”

  Augum’s heart sank. For a moment he couldn’t speak. “Where did they take them? To join the others in the catacombs?”

  The woman nodded weakly. She tried to say something and Augum leaned close. “Food …” she wheezed.

  “I am sorry, I have none,” Augum whispered, but her eyes were already sightless. She was gone. He gently let her go, processing what she had said. Gods, the count had captured Bridget and Leera. He felt light-headed.

  He dispensed the Final Valediction over the bodies and moved on with furious urgency, ignoring the stinging pain in his calf, knowing what he had to do. But that word echoed around in his brain like a terrifying children’s song. Captured. Captured!

  He hobbled through the windy and dark courtyard and stepped into the Student Wing. As he strode toward the secondary entrance to the catacombs, he heard the distinctive stomp of soldiers behind him. But finding himself too far from any doors, he plastered himself against the wall and focused on an 8th degree spell he hadn’t yet cast in battle, one he had only learned this term.

  “Armari obscura chameleano,” he said, hovering an open palm along his entire body, paying careful attention to the corresponding thoughts of obfuscation and praying he’d had enough practice with the spell for it to work.

  Whatever body part his hand passed over mirrored whatever was behind him. Just as he finished, a group of twenty Canterran soldiers and one overseer jogged around a bend, their snowy boots stomping onto the polished ground. The soldiers wore chainmail, their weapons unsheathed before them. Augum stood absolutely still, pressed against the wall. They jogged by, unaware of his presence, indicating the Chameleon casting had been successful.

  Augum, having honorably declared war on Canterra, saw an opportunity and took it. He yanked violently on the overseer’s neck, and the warlock flopped backward. His head cracked into the floor, knocking him out cold. The soldiers in the rear noticed and called out, but Augum was already casting his follow-up spell, drawing the precise outline of a dragon and incanting, “Summano elementus minimus draco—draco, attack!” The dragon appeared amidst the soldiers and began flailing, spraying blood and guts like a rabid shark. All Augum could see were flashes of its whipping tail amidst the panicked soldiers.

  Ten soldiers not involved in the melee charged Augum with a battle cry. He was merciless, telekinetically sweeping the first two against the wall so hard the stone cracked; shoved the third into a fourth so viciously both were knocked out; paralyzed the fifth; made the sixth scream like a child having a vivid nightmare; hit the seventh with such a potent Confusion casting he thought he was swimming; and scared the remaining three into surrendering by making a whipping gesture at the ground while gutturally roaring, “Grau!” The sound of thunder ripped through the corridor, echoing and amplifying in the confined space. Even soldiers who were fighting the summoned dragon ducked, only to experience a gruesome death because they’d dropped their guards, allowing the dragon’s jaws to make mincemeat of them.

  Out of the ten soldiers who’d taken on the dragon, five perished fighting it before the remainder vanquished the beast with their blades. But then Augum swept over them with his arcane might like a forest fire roaring over dry grass. After, he bid the three survivors to leave the grounds of the academy, then dispensed the Final Valediction with a heavy heart, realizing he had finally become the warlock the academy had trained him to be.

  He wiped Burden’s Edge clean and left the bodies behind, knowing he and the invaders had chosen this path of war and thus its consequences. He also knew it would only get worse and steeled himself for what was to come.

  There were no guards at the secondary entrance to the catacombs, which made him pause with suspicion. He extended his palm. “Un vun asperio aurum enchantus.” Sure enough, a carpet of arcane tendrils flared. They were the color of blood, meaning an explosive trap. Augum kneeled before it, wincing from the pain in his calf, took a deep breath, and nullified his Reveal spell. Then he refocused on Disenchant, readied his hands, and incanted, “Exotus mia enchantus duo dai ideum exat.” The trap reappeared, but now he had access to its tendrils, and so he delicately removed the crucial threads until the entire carpet unwound like a cheap sweater. The trap disappeared in a puff.

  He stood, grateful for having had the foresight to check. Had he not stopped, he’d be legless, bleeding out, if not dead outright. And he had felt it his duty to disarm the trap lest some unwitting Solian step onto it.

  He descended into the darkness, casting Reveal often but keeping his palm dark, choosing to rely on the dim backlight from the hall and his memory as a guide. He found no less than four Object Alarm enchantments hidden on the floor, and stepped around them. He soon crept up on the fork in the tunnels, with the left passage displaying statues of all the 20th degree warlocks. But, sensing the fork was an ideal location for a trap, he hunkered down and listened. Hearing nothing, he cast another Reveal spell, discovering a huge enchantment carpeting the entire area. Upon closer inspection, he identified it as a 10th degree Area Alarm spell, which he was familiar with from his academy studies but had not encountered in the wild. Luckily, his steady hands and concentration allowed him to disenchant it in short order. Then he kept going toward Oakenfield Keep.

  Battle spells, dueling strategies and war tactics flowed through his thoughts like a raging river. The warrior in him would suffer no setbacks. Those who surrendered he would spare in good faith, but the remainder would taste his wrath. This was not a game, and every fiber of his being screamed that this
was real. Everything was on the line. Everything.

  The mantra repeated itself as he began to understand the brilliance of the Arcaner dragoon trial—in that it was not a trial in the common sense, but a real and true practical in the old way. It was trial by fire. Trial by combat. A true test of one’s mettle.

  Only one question remained in that regard. What would it take to complete the trial and achieve dragoon rank?

  He hobbled past the academy crypts, paying attention to the contour of the walls, feeling for hiding spots. He ducked into a divot when he heard a stone skitter across the floor ahead.

  “Quiet, you fool,” someone whispered in a gravelly voice.

  “How can you see? It’s pitch-dark,” another replied in a young, cagey voice. Both had lilting Canterran accents, though cruder and plainer, as if they came from the countryside of that kingdom.

  “I can’t. Use your ears like you were trained to. Now shut up, be still and listen.”

  There was a long pause before the cagey voice returned. “Has it triggered yet?”

  “Did you hear an explosion?”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear an alarm?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Did you hear our people screaming for help?”

  “Obviously not.”

  “There’s your answer.”

  “But you think he’s coming.”

  “Of course he’s coming. We have his wenches. And if he has any brains, he’ll want to steal the Heart of the Colossus to prevent the engine from starting up, maybe even use it for himself.”

  “He’d annihilate us all, even our kingdom.”

  “He’s an honorable fool who would do no such thing, only drive us out, I guarantee it. Besides, we’ve got our best man in the pit.”

  “That Von Edgeworth scares me right stiff.”

  “All Von Edgeworths scare me right stiff, but somebody has to keep the peasants in line. But don’t worry, once that engine gets going, this kingdom—all of Sithesia, actually—is ours. Personally, I plan to settle into a cushy manor. Drag out the wife and kids, maybe do some sport hunting of Solians. Might as well train the kiddies while clearing the rats out of the kingdom.”

  They chuckled and resumed walking.

  Augum’s fists curled in the darkness as they trod by. He contemplated attacking, but thought better of it. He could take care of them later, and he didn’t want to risk raising an alarm yet.

  Their footsteps soon faded. He suspected the traps and alarms weren’t the only things they had in store for him, and prepared himself for what lay ahead, knowing he would be relying on his Military Strategy training.

  He resumed his hobbled pace, sticking to the wall while occasionally casting Reveal, which helped light his way as it often revealed ancient leftover academy enchantment tendrils that clung to the contours of the tunnel.

  The passageway was soon visible again, lit by faint candlelight from ahead. He stopped, focused, and hovered an open hand over his limbs and torso. “Armari obscura chameleano traversa,” this time casting the off-the-books extension of the spell Jez had taught them. The spell already sucked a huge amount of stamina, and this variation used up even more, so he would have to use it sparingly. But as long as he remained in tune with his apportioned concentration, it should last awhile. Now his body turned near invisible when he stood still, and shimmered as he continued to slink along the corridor.

  I’m coming, hang in there.

  He came upon another four-way fork and peeked around the corner, spotting the dark silhouette of a hunkered figure, backlit by a distant torch. The same was true of the other tunnel. They were waiting, watching. Across the way were the steps that would take Augum down to Oakenfield Keep. The tricky part was getting across without the soldiers seeing him.

  A patrol of four warlock overseers strolled up from the far left tunnel. Their hands were unlit and they conversed in quiet, conspiratorial voices.

  “Well, I think he’ll blow himself up trying to get past our enchantments.”

  “What do you think he’ll do with His Highness?”

  “Hopefully slap him around a little to make that whining man-child grow up.”

  The others nervously laughed.

  “What degree is he?”

  “5th, maybe 6th, I think.”

  Try a war-honed 7th, Augum thought.

  “Ah, so he doesn’t know Chameleon yet. Good.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. He vanquished the Lord of the Legion. Let that sink in.”

  “With help, but point taken. Don’t underestimate him.”

  There were nervous murmurs of agreement.

  “Anyway, if he does know Chameleon, it doesn’t allow for movement, so it wouldn’t help him.”

  The standard version doesn’t, Augum thought. He made a note to thank Jez later for teaching them the complicated but legal off-the-books extension.

  “Now let’s check on the dig. Maybe we can get out of here soon. Watch the top one.” They hopped over the first step, telling Augum a trap or alarm was present, and descended to the ruins of the ancient town that surrounded Oakenfield Keep.

  Augum slipped onto his stomach, still camouflaged in a chameleonic shimmer, and crawled across the exposed tunnel fork, taking advantage of the darkness at low height, for the light from the steps ahead angled toward the ceiling. The golden steel of Augum’s Defender scraped against the floor, as did Burden’s Edge, sheathed on his left hip, forcing him to move at a snail’s pace to avoid making too much noise. The bones in his left knuckle ground against each other in this position, but at least the pain in his calf lessened without his weight on it. He then timed a low jump over the first step, freezing upon landing, and listened. All he heard was frantic clanging from below. Commands were shouted and there was the distinct crack of a whip. At the bottom of the stairs was the source of the light—two standing iron candelabras. They were intended for Ordinary workmen, for warlocks could light their own way.

  It was time to do some classic chronocasting—casting a second spell while maintaining one’s hold on the first. He splayed his hand, whispering, “Un vun asperio aurum enchantus,” and found the rest of the stairs clear. He decided not to disarm the top-step trap, deeming it too risky to stay in this vulnerable spot long, and slithered down along a wall, pausing at the bottom to look around the looming cavern. Directly ahead, past a dry moat where Oakenfield Keep should have sat, was a monstrous, gaping hole. Jagged rays of dusty light projected from it as if the fires of hell lit it from below. Rubble and giant granite blocks were piled along the sides, and there was a mountain of more rubble just behind—the detritus of the keep. Augum felt a pang of sadness at seeing the rubble piles, for the Canterrans had so callously disassembled a piece of Arcaner history. He wondered if it could ever be arcanely repaired.

  To the left lay the ancient ruins of the partially roped-off town the trio had visited what seemed like eons ago. It was crawling with patrolling Canterran soldiers, bowmen and overseers, all of whom nervously watched the two entrances through gaps in the rubble, with the second entrance off to the far right, now exposed because the keep had been moved. It was a large force of at least a hundred men and women. But they had made the mistake of trusting that the earlier guards would warn them of an attack. Little did they know he had already slipped through their defenses and was hiding in plain sight. He could, with some luck and strategic planning, maybe take down a quarter of the Ordinary force before depleting his arcane stamina, but that would still leave over seventy-five enemies to deal with.

  Augum, maintaining his hold over the Chameleon extension, made sure his mind was at ease before slithering along on his stomach, using the rubble and patches of darkness as further camouflage. It was important with spells like this, particularly off-the-book extensions, to remain as focused and calm as possible, as that extended the life of the spell, and for this quest he would need to avoid recasting to conserve as much stamina as possible.

  He stopped
at the edge of the dried-out moat, which was now mostly filled with detritus, and splayed his hand, whispering, “Un vun asperio aurum enchantus.” A portion of a massive arcane dome appeared before him, laced with complex and dense tendril weavings. He balanced the two competing energies of the Chameleon extension and Reveal spell like a tightrope walker and dug out the disk he had captured from Darby, but froze, for although he couldn’t see the disk through the chameleonic shimmer, he could feel the runic engravings on its surface. That meant there was likely an activation phrase, without which entry was impossible. He thus waited chameleonic and prone on the ground, allowing the Reveal spell to fizzle out to maintain his concentration on the Chameleon spell. It was a feat that proved difficult because the crack of a whip followed by echoed yelps of pain threatened to break his concentration on the spell, which would expose him at the worst possible time.

  Footsteps approached from around the side of the pit, stopping feet away. Augum, lying against a rubble wall, didn’t dare move, not even to steal a peek. He only hoped the enemy wouldn’t step on him.

  The person stood, listening, watching. Then, “Shyneo. Esho kan xiarro.” Augum saw a sapphire robe as the person walked through the arcane barrier and on to the ruins of the town. Augum held his disk before him and, mimicking the exact pronunciation, repeated the phrase, then slithered through the barrier, wincing while hoping an alarm didn’t go off or he wouldn’t explode. Luckily nothing happened when he passed through, though he wondered how he’d get everybody out on the way back. A dark answer presented itself, for Count Von Edgeworth was the one who’d crafted the dome, and would thus have to be persuaded to destroy it.

  Focus and don’t panic. Stay calm, keep it slow, he told himself as he continued slithering, staying tuned to the Chameleon spell. He slithered between two blocks of stone, right up to the edge of the pit, and peeked over. About two hundred feet down sat a dark, jagged shape. It was huge, about the size of a small castle. He could not believe how much earth had been dug out. It explained why so many people had been put to work. Unfortunately, the drop was vertical, which meant it was impossible to get down this way. He had to find another entrance.