Betrayer's Bane

by Michael G. Manning

  “We were not given that information, Tyrion. If we were, I would have acted on it,” said the lore-warden emphatically. “I understand your bitterness, but you have to believe that. I don’t know the plan of the Illeniels. We do support them, but they tell us little. If I had known, plan or no plan, I would have done something.”

  Tyrion leaned back in his chair, looking down his nose at the Prathion, “So what are you here for now? What can you do now? Offer us bread when our crops fail? That won’t be enough.”

  “It isn’t just that,” insisted Thillmarius, growing exasperated. “The Centyr will suspect you of having something to do with the disaster.”

  “Since they murdered my wife and children?” suggested Tyrion. “Do I take your statement as a confirmation that they were behind it?”

  Thillmarius blanched, “I have no proof of that, but…”

  “But you know it to be true!” spat Tyrion, leaning forward suddenly. “And now that some natural disaster has spoiled their precious lands, you come to relieve some of your guilt by warning me? Do you think we can face an attack from them if we are forewarned? If they come to take the lives of the rest of my family, what can we do? How many krytek do you think they will send?”

  “The Illeniels…”

  “Will do exactly as they please!” barked Tyrion. “If it suits their plan they will intervene, if it doesn’t then they’ll happily watch us bleed and die. Whatever happens it will be what they wished for, just as it has always been.”

  “There are other options,” said Thillmarius. “Fighting would be foolish, I agree, but you could hide your family. Bring them to the Prathion Grove. No one finds a Prathion that does not wish to be found.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t let stubborn pride be the death of your people,” begged the lore-warden.

  “If you truly wish to aid us, send your krytek here. Let them guard us. Better still, come yourself. Learn what it is to risk your own blood.” Tyrion’s eyes bored into the She’Har.

  “Tyrion, this is foolish…”

  “I will not leave my home.”

  Thillmarius tried one more time, “Surely you can see that this…”

  Tyrion stood, “I am tired, lore-warden, and I have a long winter to prepare for. Thank you for your warning.”

  Bowing his head, Thillmarius left. Once he had gone, Emma entered the room. Tyrion had left the privacy ward down so that she could eavesdrop.

  “Are you sure that was wise, Father?” she asked.

  “What better guardians against a foe that might teleport in to strike at any point, than those who cannot be seen?” he replied.

  “We don’t know that the Mordan will assist them,” she countered.

  “They will, and it will be a delight to watch them kill one another.”

  “A pointless battle,” she observed.

  “I have few entertainments left. Besides, we can’t move until the people of Colne and Lincoln have been safely stored. If Thillmarius is correct the Centyr might respond sooner than we desire. Better to have a strong defense. Get plenty of rest tonight, we begin moving them tomorrow.”

  ***

  Most of Colne came voluntarily, if reluctantly. When Sarah had brought the news that they needed to relocate immediately they had balked, since her anxious command was nothing like the pleasant invitation they had been told of before.

  Tyrion appeared the next day, alone, and walked the streets. He went from door to door, speaking to heads of family households and generally spreading his message. Move or he would move them.

  He did nothing to couch his demand as a request or anything genteel. He didn’t beg, plead, or debate.

  He merely told them he would return in two days and he expected them to be on the road when he did, if they hadn’t arrived at the meeting point near Albamarl already.

  Belongings were to be left behind. They were to bring only what they could carry.

  Given his violent history in Colne, only two families refused to leave.

  “How do we handle them?” asked Sarah during her report to him in the council chamber.

  “Send Brigid and twenty of the newly awakened slaves,” he replied.

  Sarah was aghast, “Brigid?”

  The look on his face was cold, “I consider that merciful. Would you rather I send Ian?”

  She shuddered, “No.”

  “What of Lincoln?” he asked. “I have not seen any of them in the arrivals.”

  Sarah cast her eyes downward. She had been the one to deliver the demand to move to Lincoln, “None of them have come.”

  “Did you check on them?”

  “Yesterday,” she answered. “They were very clear in their dismissal.”

  “Did you make an example of any of them?”

  “No, sir.”

  Tyrion sighed, “Well, there’s not enough time for that now. Send the rest of the slave mages to round them up. The five Mordan we have can begin teleporting them here in batches.”

  “That will cause a panic,” Sarah protested.

  “You should have considered that when you were being diplomatic,” he said, his voice harsh.

  She blanched, “There are more than ten thousand people living in or near Lincoln.”

  “Who will be dead soon if we don’t hurry,” he finished for her.

  “Unless you delay,” she suggested. “An extra week would enable us…”

  Tyrion lifted a finger, silencing her with the gesture. There was violence in his aura. Gone was the newly gentle man that had returned a few months ago. This was the man who had kidnapped her once, years past. The man who had taught her to fight and kill.

  The man who wouldn’t hesitate to punish disobedience with pain so intense it made one wish for death.

  “We will move them now.” Dismissing her with his eyes he looked toward Ian, who sat silently at the table. “You will be in charge of bringing them here. Use whatever methods you prefer, just make sure they get here alive.”

  Ian stood, smiling, “Certainly Father.” He had been discarded and distrusted by his siblings for so long that he hadn’t expected to receive any meaningful instructions ever again. “We only have a few hundred slaves to use, it may be difficult to accomplish without injuring some of them.”

  Most of his children kept their expressions carefully neutral, though Abby and Sarah didn’t bother hiding their disgust.

  Sarah swallowed, forcing her anger down, “I’ll go with him.” She could at least moderate her sadistic brother’s behavior.

  “You’ll be needed here, keeping our voluntary evacuees calm while we separate and store them in groups,” he told her.

  Sarah glanced at Emma, hoping to find support from the only other person in the room who might have some authority, but her sister turned her eyes away.

  Chapter 43

  Serrelia watched and waited. Her spellbeasts brought her frequent reports, linking directly with her mind to show her what they had witnessed. Most of them were tiny, finch sized flying creatures that would be hard for even a mage to spot, so long as they stayed a few hundred yards distant.

  The slaughter of Tyrion’s baratti servants made her job much more difficult, and since he and his children weren’t allowing anyone new into the area she couldn’t insert a new spy, forcing her to use this cruder method of gathering information.

  She had yet to see anything that suggested he might have been involved in what happened at the Centyr Grove, but the events of the past few days were highly suspicious. One of the Prathion lore-wardens had visited, and the day after he had begun transporting large numbers of wildlings.

  But why? she wondered. The numbers were boggling. Thousands had arrived in one day, only to vanish into the city he had been building. But they weren’t there now. Now there were more arriving, teleported to the same area in groups of twenty. New groups arrived every few minutes, only to enter some of the buildings and disappear.

  What is he doing with them? Doing a rough calculation
in her head she realized he had brought in somewhere between two and three thousand people that day already. And that was on top of the much larger group that had arrived under their own power the day before.

  They were powerless and lacking any useful weapons. Even if they had been mages they wouldn’t have been a real threat. What could ten or twenty thousand helpless humans be used for? They would be useless as soldiers.

  She continued to send her reports home. It wasn’t her job to judge.

  Another two days passed and the number of people arriving slowed dramatically. Dutifully, she reported that as well, and then she got a response from Ceylendor.

  Stretching out her hand she accepted the tiny spellbeast on her palm and then began absorbing the information stored in its tiny mind. Her mentor’s voice played silently for her, There have been new volcanic eruptions. One on the southern continent in a desert region, and a second near the smaller portion of the Mordan Grove. There was no significant damage, but their combined effect will likely produce a drastic effect on the climate. The elders believe Tyrion’s actions to be responsible. It is clear now that he is moving to shelter the wildlings. The ash from these events will darken the skies, possibly forcing some of the elders into a dormant state for a time.

  Even after the sunlight recovers, the gases released will trigger a vicious winter that may last years, stunting growth. The Elders fear what he may be planning to do during such a period. Their response will be swift and decisive. The baratti threat is to be eliminated tomorrow.

  Serrelia’s eyes widened as she processed the information. The last line of his message could mean only one thing. The krytek would arrive soon.

  ***

  Tyrion stood in the square in front of the council building, watching. He felt a constant tension, a pressure, to be doing something, anything, to speed up the process. There was nothing for him to do, though, other than look menacing.

  Everyone moved a little faster when they saw him.

  But it wasn’t a very satisfying job. He had grown tired of seeing fear in people when they looked at him years ago. He had just gotten used to it, and whenever things started happening it turned out to be too useful to give up.

  The sky dimmed for a moment and he looked up, wondering for a moment if the ash had finally reached them. It was just a normal cloud, however, passing in front of the sun. Tyrion turned his eyes back to the people in the square, disappointed. The latest eruption had been the closest to them so far, but it had still been several hundred miles to the west. That was close enough they would probably see some of the ash fall, eventually, but he wasn’t sure of the wind movement. Most of it might fall elsewhere.

  Of course, it didn’t matter if they saw any of the ash at all. That was merely an added benefit. The ash would be a nuisance to the areas it landed in, but it was the less noticeable gases from the eruptions that would do most of the damage.

  What he had learned of volcanic eruptions and the weather was interesting, but he didn’t really know how severe the consequences of his plan might turn out to be. The She’Har studies of weather were largely theoretical. The knowledge they had gained from the ancient humans had been far more practical, but he had no way to use that knowledge in a meaningful way.

  He was operating purely on guesswork. Besides, no one had ever seen a volcanic eruption of the magnitude that Emma had caused, much less seven of them.

  It might even trigger an ice age, he thought. He didn’t think that likely, though. From what he had learned, the sulfur dioxide and other aerosols wouldn’t stay in the atmosphere more than a few years.

  But he didn’t know for certain, what the long term effects might be. It was all a giant gamble, to nearly destroy the world. Like the farmwife who burns down her own home to rid it of mice.

  A flash of aythar signaled the latest arrival. There had been so many over the last few days that he hardly noticed. His eyes were open, but long seconds before he registered what he was seeing. Standing in the middle of the square wasn’t another group of civilians.

  Ian was the closest, since he was there to direct the arrivals. Only chance saved him, for he stumbled when the first blast of aythar ripped through the space above, where his head had just been.

  Most of the other people close to the landing point were not so lucky. People screamed and fell as the krytek leveled everything near their location, using blasts of raw aythar. They followed those attacks with spellwoven battlemagics, long lethal vines of energy that could be manipulated at will. They stripped flesh from bone wherever they touched human bodies.

  More flashes of aythar registered in Tyrion’s mind as more krytek arrived, appearing in spots scattered across the once empty city.

  Ian’s situation was dire. Everyone within ten feet of the landing platform was already dead. He was just beginning to react, his mind still struggling to catch up to reality. He had activated his runes, shielding himself, but even that defense would be inadequate as the krytek turned to focus their efforts on him.

  “Wake up, boy!” shouted someone in Ian’s ear and then he was pushed sideways, out of the path of several of the spellwoven vines that were now orienting on his position.

  Tyrion went over him as he sprawled, leaping into the enemy like a hunting cat that had finally found its prey. His armblades cut away the disorganized tendrils that reached for him, and then he was among them.

  It was too many to face alone, or at least that’s what a rational mind would have advised, but Tyrion’s mind had gone silent already, replaced by the coldly calculating battle mind that had been his constant companion during his years in the arena.

  Being outnumbered was always a disadvantage, but in that early instant, he had seen that his foes were still crowded together, shoulder to shoulder on the platform they had teleported onto. Their movements were limited as a result, for they didn’t want to hurt their allies, but Tyrion had no such compunctions limiting him.

  His armblades tore through their shields and then through arms, legs, heads, and other appendages too strange to name. The krytek came in a wide variety of bizarre forms. Those that survived his initial onslaught tried to scatter, but a square shield appeared just beyond the edge of the platform and then, in the span of a heartbeat, it compressed inward violently, knocking them back toward Tyrion’s waiting blades. Off balance, they were easy prey.

  Tyrion dismissed the shield and looked around. All those nearest him were dead, but others had appeared all throughout the city. “Where’s Anthony?” he asked.

  Anthony had been standing on the other side of the platform. He spotted the young man’s still form before Ian could say anything. He had died in the first blast, before any of them had been able to react.

  “Find Violet,” he ordered Ian, pointing toward the building she had been working in. “Get back to the main house with her.”

  “What about…,” Ian’s eyes were wide as he gestured around them with his arms. “…them?”

  Tyrion didn’t know if he was referring to the krytek or the civilians they were slaughtering, not that it mattered. “We’ve saved as many as we can. Don’t go out of your way to fight them, you aren’t good enough. Get Violet, get to the house!”

  Ian started running, and Tyrion went in the opposite direction, looking for Tad and Brigid. They hadn’t been far away. If they were still alive he’d know soon enough.

  He ran two blocks and reached the other landing platform, but they weren’t there. From the bodies around it, it appeared that most of the krytek that showed up at that platform were dead. More hand appeared not far off though, and he could sense fighting in a nearby building.

  They were inside, killing krytek as they attempted to enter the building, but the extended battle was drawing reinforcements from other areas. While Brigid fought the ones entering the front, Tad struggled to keep up with those coming through windows and the back door.

  Tyrion fell on those entering from the front, since they were the larger group. They were so i
ntent on their attempt to enter that they failed to sense the threat coming from their rear. Half were dead before they realized he was among them, the other half died when they tried to retreat, Brigid’s chain weaving a deadly path through them.

  In the brief pause that followed he spoke, “Get Tad, we have to return to the house.”

  “The people?” she asked, arching one brow curiously.

  “We’ve done all we can, these can no longer be saved.”

  “There are twenty in the building with us,” she informed him.

  They had been protecting them. How noble, he thought. He started to order her to abandon them, but then he realized they might be useful. “Circle around to the back. Give the ones back there something better to do. I’ll get Tad and bring the others out. We’ll take them with us.”

  She left without hesitation, her lean figure running gracefully, her chain circling her tightly as she went. Tyrion found Tad inside, and together they gathered up the group they were sheltering. Brigid was back at the front of the building by the time they emerged, smiling.

  Tyrion’s magesight found no evidence of anything living near the house, but by the smile on his daughter’s face, he knew there wouldn’t be. “We’re running for my house in Albamarl. Stay together and don’t fall behind.” He pointed up the road in the direction he meant, since most of them were unfamiliar with the area. “Go!”

  He put a hand on Brigid and Tad’s shoulders, forcing them to pause before following. “Brigid, follow on the left. Tad you take the right and I’ll stay center.”

  “We can’t protect them from the rear,” said Tad, puzzled.

  Tyrion started jogging and his children did likewise. “There are hundreds of krytek here already. We can’t protect anyone. If anything starts killing them it will give us advance notice. We can counterattack if there aren’t many, or change course if they run into something too big for us.”

  “But…,” Tad started to protest.

  “Shut up and run boy,” ordered Tyrion. “If you want to live, you’ll do as I say.”

  Tyrion was thinking as they ran. Lyra and Abby are at the house. Ashley, David, Sarah, and Piper are at the four storage chambers, they should be safe, so long as the She’Har haven’t discovered our plans. Emma and Ryan were a big question, though. He wasn’t sure where they were. Emma had earned a rest after her efforts, and Ryan might or might not be with her.