A Symphony of Storms (Demon Crown Book 3)

by Vardeman, Robert E.

  “No.” Kaga’kalb’s single word caused a heavy silence to fall on the room. Even the minor thunderings in his scrying clouds died.

  “But we…” Santon’s voice trailed off when he saw the utter determination written on the wizard’s face.

  “We fight now. We can go to the rebel camp, if you need to assemble your troops there, but they will hardly be needed if we can destroy Lorens.”

  “They are needed,” insisted Lokenna. “The castle forces must be committed, separated from Lorens. That will give us the best chance of defeating him. Kaga’kalb might not be able to summon many of his cloud warriors — human ones will be needed to bear the brunt of the battle.”

  “Very well.” Kaga’kalb motioned for them to go to the roof of the turret. They silently filed up the stairs. Santon pulled his rude cloak tighter around him when the fierce, bitter cold winds clawed at him. Kaga’kalb herded them into a small circle, then lifted his arms.

  Santon tried to scream, but the words jumbled in his throat. He felt impossibly strong hands lift him, yet those hands were composed of fog. Winds buffeted him and snow pelted his face. Lightning of unbelievable intensity crashed around him as he tumbled and fell head over heels.

  His arm and legs became numb with the cold. Frost formed on his eyelashes and threatened to freeze his eyelids shut.

  At the instant he thought he would surely die, he stumbled and dropped to one knee on the muddy banks of the River Ty. The distance that had taken them weeks to travel on horseback had been traversed in Kaga’kalb’s storm in the wink of an eye.

  “Assemble your troops. Get them into the field,” ordered Kaga’kalb. “And hurry. I…I do not like being exposed like this.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Santon.

  The wizard tensed, then seemed resigned. “I have given you my name. I might as well bare my final secret. The storms I have created are all I can do unless I return to my Castle of the Winds.”

  “You mean you can’t summon any of the cloud warriors unless you’re in your castle?” asked Lokenna.

  “From these storms, I can — a little. I cannot conjure new storms. My powers are severely limited.”

  “Then return to the Castle of the Winds,” said Efran. “Let us prepare on this front. We will need all your skills, all your spells.”

  Lokenna held up her hand. “Wait,” she said in a choked voice. “He knows. My brother knows we are here.”

  “The crown has betrayed our presence,” said Santon. He knew, though, that it required no great spell for Lorens to detect their arrival. The prodigious thunderhead rising above them marked something unusual. He hoped that Kaga’kalb had conjured enough in the way of storms.

  “Send the soldiers out,” ordered Efran. “Use the ambush tactic we discussed.” His lieutenant looked sceptical, then rushed off to obey. Santon’s heart froze when he saw how few rebels rode out to engage Lorens’ troops.

  “Only a hundred are left in fighting prime,” said Efran. “We will keep them from retreating unscathed, if only they are overzealous in attack.”

  “You intend to hide and take their riders off the perimeter of their force?” Santon knew that a direct confrontation would destroy the rebel army. Lorens could afford a two-for-one or even a five-for-one loss and still emerge victorious on the ground.

  “Aye,” said Lokenna, again seeming to have accurately read his thoughts. “The true battle occurs above us.”

  “I cannot see Lorens. The crown obscures him and those around him, but it will not matter. I will show him magic!” Kaga’kalb thrust his arms upward and made gestures as if trying to grab the clouds between his fingers. A purple nimbus of energy formed around him, then arched up to the thunder cloud in a blinding flash.

  “What can I do?” asked Santon, feeling useless.

  “There is nothing either of us can do,” said Lokenna. “We must let Kaga’kalb and Efran carry the battle to Lorens. Afterward, then it will be our time.”

  Santon paced restlessly, trying to keep the snow and rain from running down his neck. The wind came up in powerful gales, then died as the power was redirected toward Lorens’ troops. Through the ebb and flow of the storm, Santon saw Bane Pandasso arguing with Efran.

  He edged closer. The rebel leader showed obvious distress at what the man said.

  “We can do it, I tell you. It’s for the best. He would never harm his sister — or the one who ends this madness!”

  Efran Gaemock cried something that vanished in a clap of thunder and pushed Pandasso away angrily. The rebel spun and stalked off, every muscle tense. Pandasso waved a fist at him. When he saw that Efran had vanished into a small tent, the innkeeper looked about. The set of his body warned Santon that Pandasso sought a fight.

  He ducked behind a tree and waited for Pandasso, intending to follow him and see what the man did next. The pounding of a horse’s hooves startled him. Pandasso rode past his place of concealment, a sword in hand and a look of grim determination on his face.

  Santon blinked in surprise. He shook his head in wonder and returned to the low hill where Kaga’kalb mustered his elemental magics for the assault. Lokenna stood to one side, ready to aid the wizard should he require it.

  “Lokenna,” Santon shouted over the din. “I owe you an apology — and to your husband.”

  “What? What are you saying?” She turned to him, eyes wide.

  “I just saw Pandasso riding out to join the rebels. I misjudged him. I’d thought him a coward.”

  The sudden cessation of lightning and thunder struck Santon harder than any body blow. One instant there had been peals of thunder and eye searing aerial discharges. The silence made him feel as if he had become deaf and blind.

  Kaga’kalb’s cry of outrage put those ideas to rest. “What has that craven done now?”

  “Pandasso?” asked Santon, confused. “I was apologizing to Lokenna for thinking her husband was a coward.”

  The flush of anger that rose on Kaga’kalb’s weathered face cut off any further words. The Wizard of Storms said fiercely, “He will not betray you again. I swear it!”

  “Wait, what are you saying?” Lokenna clutched at the wizard’s sleeve. He jerked free. “I demand to know. He is my husband! What has Bane done now?”

  Kaga’kalb clapped his hands. The small cloud that Santon had seen in the Castle of the Winds again formed around the wizard’s head. This time the swirling mist expanded to include both Lokenna and him. Santon staggered. Only Lokenna’s strong hand steadied him. He expected to see nothing but grey fog.

  The world opened for him. Every sense sharpened. He saw. He truly saw and realized what allure the Demon Crown had. His ears heard and heard. By turning slowly, he was able to witness events happening within a few hundred yards.

  “The scrying spells operate at great distance. This works only for a short way. You see the darkness where Lorens — the Demon Crown — blocks the magic.”

  Santon saw tiny darting black motes in the direction of the castle. Of Castle Porotane or its inhabitants he saw nothing.

  “There he is,” said Kaga’kalb. The anger had not died in his voice.

  “Bane,” Lokenna said in a choked voice. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing. He tried to get Efran to turn traitor and sell out to Lorens. Efran refused.”

  “Why didn’t Efran say anything…” Santon’s objection drifted away. He knew the answer. He had seen the look in the rebel’s eyes — and it had matched that in Lokenna’s.

  “He rides to betray us to Lorens, thinking the tyrant will return all things to the way they were. The unutterable fool!”

  “Kaga’kalb, no!” Lokenna tried to stop him but the spell had already formed on the wizard’s lips.

  A lance of lightning caught Bane Pandasso’s sword tip. For an instant the man stiffened — then he simply vanished. No trace remained of rider or horse.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” sobbed Lokenna. “He was my husband.”

  “He was
a demon-cursed fool and a traitor. And a coward. Only you can know what else he was — or wasn’t.” Kaga’kalb spun around and the scrying cloud vanished.

  Again came the eerie silence. Santon stood, feeling helpless in the face of such power and heartache. The crescendo of thunder drove him to his knees. He had no idea where the lightning stroke touched down, nor did he care. Such magic sickened him. Better to die of a clean sword thrust. At least that way you saw your killer.

  “Lokenna!” he called, seeing the woman rushing off. He got to his feet and followed her. He overtook the woman outside Efran’s tent. “Where are you going?”

  “I cannot stay. Not after he…he killed Bane!”

  “Your husband tried to betray us. Lorens can’t see the rebels any more than Kaga’kalb can see into the castle. Magic protects both sides. If he had given Lorens our exact numbers and location, your brother would have killed us all!”

  “He was my husband. Why did I ever leave Fron? I should have listened.”

  “Was he good to you?”

  “As good as he could be. In Fron (everything was simple. The inn required no great work, and that suited Bane. Me, too.”

  “It wasn’t my fault that you were born to wear the Demon Crown.”

  “It was your fault you found me!” the woman flared.

  “No,” came a whispering voice. “Destiny treats us all poorly. We must do what we can — what we must.”

  “Alarice!” cried Santon. He stepped forward and reached out. His hand passed through the misty patch that was the Glass Warrior’s elusive phantom.

  “You have done well, Birtle, my love. Now you must show even more courage. Vered still lives — or so I believe. The crown dims what vision remains with me.”

  “Alarice, I…” The phantom passed through him and now faced Lokenna.

  “Your husband died because he could not accept change. You will die, also, unless you realize your true position in the kingdom. Be strong, Lokenna.”

  “This phantom is the Glass Warrior?” asked Lokenna. She reached out. For an instant the mist firmed into a warm human hand that squeezed hers. Then the phantom drifted apart on a small gust of wind from the storm raging above.

  Santon stared into the light snow falling all around to catch some small glimpse of Alarice, but she had gone.

  From inside the tent came Efran’s voice. “You are sure? There is no doubt?”

  Santon went around to the front flap and saw that a messenger had arrived. He feared the worst, even though Pandasso’s traitorous mission had been cut short by the wizard’s spell.

  “We’ve done it!” The rebel leader pushed through the flap and caught Lokenna up in his arms and spun her around. Almost guiltily he put her down and smiled. “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. We caught Lorens’ personal guard in the woods. They were overconfident, as I’d hoped. With Kaga’kalb’s storm giving us magical cover, we attacked from ambush. We routed them!”

  “You defeated them totally?” asked Santon.

  “Not that, but we are giving chase. The wizard’s storms cut them off from easy retreat. We pursue — cautiously. If we can meet them on our terms in battle just once more, we can crush them.”

  “What other force does Lorens command?”

  “That I don’t know, but to send his personal guard tells me that he is not as well armed as we’d thought.”

  Santon considered this and agreed with Efran. A monarch as insecure as Lorens, even with the Demon Crown, would keep his most highly trained and trusted guardsmen to protect him. If he’d had another regiment, he would have sent it into the field. Even if he had one and did not consider it well enough trained, he would have fielded it.

  To be left in the castle with possibly mutinous troops while his personal guard fought and died in the field would be a situation Lorens would avoid at all costs.

  “We have him!” cried Efran. “We can push through the remnants of their force and take the castle!”

  Santon looked to the south and west. Kaga’kalb’s storms hammered at the castle’s battlements but did little damage. Lorens was a wizard in his own right — and he still wore the Demon Crown.

  What evil power had that accursed crown unleashed in the untrained wizard-king?

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Vered’s hands shook uncontrollably. He licked at his dried, cracked lips and tried to remember the last time he’d had a good drink of clear, clean water. He couldn’t. The deep rumbling that had bothered him so when it had started he now ignored — it was his belly complaining about the lack of food.

  “How long has it been?” he asked his fellow prisoner. The skeletal prisoner slept fitfully at the far side of the cell. Even when awake, he showed little sign of intelligence now.

  Vered answered his own question. “Too long. What’s happened to the jailers? Do they think to starve us to death?” The rattling and creaking in the castle told him that the guards had been drawn away from such futile work as guarding and feeding prisoners in the dungeons and put to defence on the castle battlements. He knew a huge battle raged above — but who attacked? And who won?

  Vered hoped that Santon and Lokenna had not forgotten him. He went to the wall holding back the underground river and began licking at the damp stone. He had considered working free a tiny bit of mortar to let the river water flow through, but he remembered what had happened when he was a small child playing along the coast.

  His village had built dikes to reclaim part of the western ocean. One hot summer afternoon he had idly worked a long steel rod into the dike, not knowing or caring what would happen. The first trickle had amused him. When he could not stop it, he had been concerned but not frightened. When huge chunks of the dike began cracking away and the sea threatened to inundate the entire lowland farm, he had rushed off for help.

  Only a few acres had been lost back to the sea — but the lesson had stayed with him. Vered knew that he would drown in the cell before the pressure of the water burst open the cell door.

  Tongue raw from the rock but his thirst quenched momentarily, he went back to the front of the cell. He had pulled down most of the stone blocks and found only steel plate. In the other prisoner’s cell — he had never learned the suspicious man’s name — the steel plate had been even thicker. To the rear of the cell ran the underground tributary to River Ty and to the far end of the cell he had found only solid rock. That left the other wall, the far wall in the distant cell.

  A half-dozen heavy stone blocks had been pulled free before Vered had given up. It seemed too thick and he grew increasingly weak from lack of food.

  He lay on his belly, the third of his four daggers dragging around the flagstone to pry it loose. Vered cursed the loss of his first dagger; its point permanently jammed the lock on the other door. His second dagger had worn down to a nub from working through so many miles of mortar and block.

  The third dagger bent at crazy angles as he used it. He knew it would break soon. Vered rolled onto his back and closed his eyes to rest. He should save the final dagger for a quick end.

  “I refuse to die of starvation. May all the demons take you for this, Lorens!”

  “We are already demon food,” said the other prisoner. He propped himself up on an elbow and stared at Vered, his eyes glazed over and unfocused. “This Lorens you curse so. What is he like?”

  “He’s the kind of ruler who would put a prisoner into a cell and then starve him to death,” said Vered. Changing the subject, he asked, “Did you ever make any attempt to escape?”

  “Once, then I reconsidered my plight. They tortured others who tried. Me, they left alone. I never questioned that.”

  “The ship with the smallest sail takes the longest to arrive,” said Vered.

  “How’s that? You from the coast?”

  “The ones they tortured are out of their misery,” explained Vered. “You evaded death for this.”

  “Slow death instead of quick,” the man said, as if the concept had never occurred to him. />
  “Haven’t seen any guardsman lately, have you? I had a dream.”

  Vered didn’t want to hear about it. He began scraping away again at the flooring. Getting the dagger tip under the large, flat block, he heaved. The knife blade snapped off but he exposed the hard dirt beneath. Hope returned. He drew the fourth dagger and began scratching at the packed dirt.

  “What good’s it going to do to tunnel under the steel plate?” asked the other man. “You’ll still have to tunnel up through the stone floor outside.”

  “Gravity will work for me then. A small chamber is easy to cut in dirt. A bit of sawing at the block and it falls into the chamber and we can climb out.”

  “You can climb out,” said the other. “I am too weak.”

  Vered refused to let hope die. He felt as weak as the other prisoner sounded. It had been almost a week since their last meal. Dining off his boots had not helped much, but it had provided bulk for his stomach to work on. Beyond this, he’d eaten nothing.

  He lay flat on his stomach, thinking rather than working. What the other man said might be true. In his debilitated condition it might not be possible to perform the ambitious tunnelling required for escape.

  And what then? What if he managed to get free and into the dungeon proper? He was too weak to engage a soldier in combat. Vered wasn’t sure that he could even wield his dagger properly from ambush. How was he to get free of the castle and past the rebel lines to rejoin Santon?

  He rested his forehead on the cool stone and thought back on his days with Birtle Santon. Life in the village had been brutal. Soldiers and rebels alike had burned and massacred constantly. Santon had taken him, a young and clumsy thief, away from that and shown him the vastness and beauty of Porotane.

  He owed the older man much — his life and more. Who could put a price on the friendship they had shared over the years?