Gryphon (Rise of the Mages Book 2)

by Brian W. Foster

  21.

  Brant’s butt was getting numb from sitting.

  Midnight had long passed, and Vermin gave no sign he would ever leave. Not that Brant saw any reason for the man to stick around. He certainly didn’t seem to be having any fun.

  Brant sighed and took another sip of ale. At least he was drinking and carousing instead of being stuck outside in the cold like the other two. Being an officer had its privileges.

  About a half hour later, one of Vermin’s guards rose and left out the front door. A moment later, he re-appeared and nodded. Vermin hastily dumped coins on the table, and he and his party exited.

  Finally, they’d made a move, and not only that, they’d done so abruptly, meaning they had some place to be. Maybe someone to meet. Maybe someone who could reveal the information the duke needed.

  Brant grinned. Finally, he was about to gain all he’d wanted. He’d save Duke Asher, prevent Bermau from being invaded, and get his promotion.

  The important thing was not to screw it up. Be careful. Rushing after them would have looked suspicious, so for a torturous few minutes, Brant remained seated.

  “Well, I guess the party is winding down,” he said to no one in particular.

  He stood and stretched, making a loud racket as he did. As he staggered toward the exit, he weaved side to side and bumped into several tables. Once outside, he abandoned his pretended drunken stupor and waited for his vision to adjust to the low light of the waning quarter moon. His targets were a good hundred yards ahead, walking toward the north end of town.

  Perfect. If they’d been on horses, he’d have lost sight of them while he saddled Spear. He could have tracked them, but following gave them fewer chances to shake him.

  Of course, following also gave them more chances to spot him.

  Brant crept through the shadows, and sure enough, Vermin’s men kept looking back. A single misstep—tripping in a hole, knocking something over—and they’d find out they were being tailed. Whether they fled or attacked at that point, Brant’s mission would be ruined.

  He stayed well behind his quarry and used every stealth trick he’d ever learned, gliding from dark spot to dark spot and controlling his body and breathing. Vermin would have to be a mage to detect him.

  Blast! Brant hadn’t considered that possibility. Given that the man worked for Dastanar, him having a mage wasn’t exactly out of the question. Not much Brant could do about it, though. He fell back farther and shifted to an ambling path that might make them mistake him for a drunk rather than a spy.

  A short distance later, Vermin and his men stopped at one of the last buildings inside the town, some kind of assembly hall. He and two flunkies disappeared inside, leaving the other four posted as guards.

  Some kind of meet, exactly what Brant had been hoping for, but he was at a loss at what to do next. His training covered battlefields, not a covert rendezvous.

  He snuck forward, closing to within a few dozen yards. Movement on the far side of the building drew his eye.

  Stokes. Making hand signals. /Hold./

  Brant nodded and settled in to wait.

  The meeting didn’t take long. Minutes later, Vermin exited, gathered his men, and they passed Brant’s position as they headed back toward town.

  Stokes motioned again. /Man. Inside. Clear. No threat. Exit. Attack./

  Brant signaled back. /Acknowledged./

  They waited another five minutes or so, with Brant hoping beyond measure that the place didn’t have a back exit. Surely, though, Stokes would have thought of that.

  Brant’s faith was rewarded an instant later when a man dressed in a brown messenger uniform came out. He moved with purpose. Quietly. Obvious that he knew his business. When he neared the ditch Stokes hid in, the man froze.

  No way he’d spotted Stokes. No one could do that.

  He spun the other way. Brant stepped out. The messenger froze again. As he opened his mouth to yell, something hit him on the back of the head. The hilt of a dagger. Stokes’ dagger.

  “Good shot,” Brant said in a low voice.

  “Go get Raleigh and our horses,” Stokes said. “Quickly. I’ll drag this guy behind the building.”

  Brant almost saluted before he remembered he was in charge.

  “Bring Ivie, too,” Stokes said. “We may not be able to return to the inn.”

  * * *

  Brant heaved the unconscious messenger atop Ivie’s horse.

  Well, his two soldiers helped, of course, but he sure felt like he did the majority of the work.

  After the three of them secured the man to the saddle, Brant mounted Spear and pulled Ivie up to sit behind him, and Stokes led the group out of town. A good ten miles into a thick forest, he dismounted in a clearing bounded by a stream.

  “This should be good enough,” Stokes said. “Not likely to be anyone about to hear what we’re up to.”

  As he and Brant tied the messenger to a tree, Raleigh lit torches and secured them with holders to overhead limbs. Ivie dumped the man’s bags on a blanket she’d spread on the ground. Besides three coins and a few weapons, all nicely made, he’d carried a satchel stuffed with maybe twenty sheets of paper.

  “Ivie, take a look at this,” Stokes said, holding one of the sheets up to catch the torchlight. “This look like anything you’ve ever seen?”

  “The letters are from a Dastanarian dialect I know how to read, but none of them form words I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s encoded.” Stokes sighed. “Looks like we’re in for a long night of unpleasantness.”

  Brant agreed. Anything that smacked of schoolwork sounded dreadful, and only someone like Xan would enjoy code breaking. “Ugh! You really think we can figure it out?”

  “Sir,” Stokes said, “it’s exceedingly unlikely any of us could decode it even if we tried for a month. If we took it to Escon, maybe someone working for the queen could do it.”

  “I don’t understand, then,” Brant said. “What will be so unpleasant?”

  “My lord master,” Ivie said, “they’re going to torture him.”

  Brant’s jaw literally dropped. “But we’re the good guys. We don’t … Torture?”

  “We have to know what’s in those documents,” Stokes said. “There’s no time to get the information any other way.”

  Brant found himself looking to Ivie. “This is a bad idea, isn’t it? You can’t think this is right.”

  She shrugged as if it was to be expected. Figured. Nothing riled her.

  “Your orders, sir?” Stokes said.

  Brant opened his mouth, but nothing came out as he had no idea what to say. Torture was wrong. Period. He had no desire to be any part of it, so the correct move, obviously, was to order them not to touch the messenger.

  But he couldn’t do that. The information in that satchel might save Asherton. What if his refusal to commit a vile act caused thousands of people to die? What was one man against thousands?

  Brant let out a long breath. What was his soul against thousands?

  Maybe being an officer wasn’t as great as he thought it was.

  Ivie put her hand on Brant’s shoulder. “Sometimes, you have to do bad to do good.”

  The bright side of being a soldier—or, in his case, a low-ranking officer—was there were always orders to fall back on. Brant’s mission was to find out Dastanar’s plans by any means necessary. Torture was the necessary means. No matter how bad it seemed to him, his orders said it was the right thing to do.

  Brant set his jaw. “D—”

  He swallowed. Hard. “D—”

  “What was that, sir?” Stokes said.

  “D-do it,” Brant said.

  “Why don’t you and the maid go take a nice walk,” Stokes said. “A long one. No reason for either of you to see this.”

  “No,” Brant said. “I won’t order you to do something I’m not willing to do myself. Raleigh can ‘go for a walk’ with Ivie.”

  Ivie frowned at Brant. “I’m not …”
<
br />   “What?”

  “Never mind. As you command, my lord master.”

  As Brant readied his sword, Stokes dug around his saddle bag and pulled out a tiny vial. He popped off the lid and held the glass under the messenger’s nose.

  His eyes popped open and went immediately to the sharp metal pressed against his chest. “I have little gold, but I can tell you where to get some.”

  “That’s not what we’re after,” Stokes said.

  “I was afraid of that,” the messenger said.

  Stokes scowled. “This doesn’t have to be difficult. Tell us how to decode these papers, and we’ll make your end quick and painless.”

  Brant choked back a response. Surely Stokes was making an empty threat. They weren’t really going to kill an innocent man who was just doing his job.

  Torture? Okay, if they had to, but murder?

  But what else could they do with the messenger? They didn’t have a way to lock him up and couldn’t risk letting him free.

  He met Stokes’ and Brant’s eyes in turn. “My name is Michal Duffy. I have a wife. My son, Loyd, is five and my daughter, Lessa, is two. My mother loves me. And I swear to you by everything that is holy, I do not know how to decode those messages.”

  Brant closed his eyes.

  He had no doubt that Michal told the truth. He also had no doubt that he and Stokes were going to torture Michal to make sure and that they’d end up killing him.

  Brant had no doubt that Michal knew it, too.

  22.

  Brant clenched and unclenched the hilt of his sword.

  He wasn’t exactly sure who he wanted to stab. Perhaps Stokes for what he was doing to Michal. Better, Michal to put him out of his misery. Or best of all, himself for allowing it to happen.

  Regardless, he wanted to stab someone.

  They’d been at it most of the night, and Michal hadn’t broken. Yet. From the damage applied to his feet from the red-hot coals, he’d already never walk again.

  Stokes prepared to burn Michal’s face.

  “Please, man,” Brant said. “For the love of the Holy One, just talk! He won’t stop until you do, and he’s too good to kill you before you answer his questions. All you’re doing is making this worse on everyone.”

  Stokes had fixed two sticks with ropes to hold a hot coal, and he moved the rig close to Michal’s cheek. The heat reddened his face.

  He shut his teary eyes and mumbled something.

  “What was that?” Stokes said.

  Michal hung his head, defeated. “I’ll talk.”

  Brant got him water and tried to make him as comfortable as possible, no easy task considering the sheer number of wounds. In fits and starts, Michal shared his story.

  He truly didn’t know how to decode the information, but he was to deliver it to Lord Numav at Bodbridge Hold. The minor castle was located inside Dastanar near the Bermau border, and he gave detailed directions.

  “Does anyone in there know you by sight?” Stokes said.

  Brant understood the point of the question at once. He was of a similar height and build as the messenger, meaning he might be able to infiltrate the castle by pretending to be Michal.

  He shrugged. “People come and go a lot, but I’ve never been there.”

  Stokes met Brant’s eyes. “What do you think?”

  “It could work,” Brant said. “We’d have to darken my hair, and there’s nothing to do about my eyes. On the plus side, since Michal is from Bermau, we have the same accent.”

  “Definitely a risk, though, sir.”

  “One we have to take if we want to get General Flynn the information he demanded,” Brant said.

  Prompted by more questions, Michal told them Dastanar’s troops were slowly making their way toward the border. To keep morale low and strain resources in preparation for the invasion, Truna’s soldiers had been ordered to disrupt the countryside around Asherton.

  “That’s all I know.” His eyes begging, Michal looked first at Stokes and then at Brant.

  Stokes drew his sword.

  Brant tensed. Though he didn’t like it, he’d accepted that Michal had to be murdered.

  “Wait!” Brant yelled.

  Stokes eyed him.

  “I’m in command. His death is on me, so I should be the one to carry it out.” Brant had never felt like more of a complete monster.

  Instead of offering even a token protest, Stokes sheathed his blade and stepped out of the way, a strange look on his face. Grim approval, maybe?

  Brant’s sword cleared its scabbard almost without him telling his arm to move. Disconnected. Mechanical. He was about to kill someone in cold blood.

  “My family,” Michal said. “The money in my bag … will you get it to them?”

  Brant glanced at Stokes, who nodded. “Where are they?”

  As Stokes made note of the directions Michal provided, Brant casually moved behind the man.

  “Third house on the left,” Stokes said. “Got it.”

  Brant swung his sword.

  Thud!

  The blade connected with the back of Michal’s neck, and blood sprayed leaves and plants covering the ground. His head rolled several feet away, stopping against a log.

  “Good job, sir,” Stokes said. “Quick. Painless. He didn’t suffer.”

  “There was nothing good about that.” Brant turned to stare into the dark trees.

  Not a quarter hour later, Raleigh returned with Ivie, though how the private knew exactly when to return was beyond Brant’s knowledge, and the three men buried the body.

  “What now?” Brant said.

  “Well, sir,” Stokes said, “that’s for you to decide.”

  Brant sighed. He needed to get his head back onto the business at hand. “From what Michal told us, Dastanar is planning an invasion, which is what we suspected.” He paused, working through everything. “The duke needs to know that. But we have no actual proof beyond the word of a man facing death who would have said anything.”

  He looked up for a minute, trying to clear his head. Though wired, fatigue and emotion clouded his thinking. “I know we haven’t sent any messages because one being intercepted, even encoded, would let the enemy know we’re in Truna, but the information about the attack is important enough to send to the duke.”

  Stokes nodded.

  “But we need more,” Brant said. “Numbers of troops. How many, if any, more mages do they have. Timetable. Solid proof to back up Michal’s word.”

  Stokes nodded again.

  Brant’s heart thudded. “Infiltrating a castle relying on information given by an enemy who had every reason to want me dead isn’t the greatest of plans, but I don’t see a choice.”

  “Yes, sir!” Stokes said.

  Great. Brant had been hoping the sergeant would tell him that even thinking about such a mission was completely idiotic.

  “On to Dastanar, then,” Brant said.

  23.

  Xan trudged up an endless incline.

  The road rising without ever going back down wasn’t possible, but that was the way it had seemed for the past three days. His feet felt like daggers stabbed them with each step, and his stomach rumbled.

  He, at least, could use magic to gain energy from a tiny bite, even if it left him still feeling empty. The rest of the party didn’t have that ability, and with no horses or wagons to transport the old and the weak, the group made even worse time than they had going. They should have reached Asherton in six days. Instead, it would take at least eight.

  Xan walked near the front of the group, and as the sun reached the midpoint of the sky, Hosea called yet another break. Each member received a small biscuit and a hunk of cheese that constituted only a few mouthfuls. Xan tore off a third of his bread and distributed the rest to Marco, Ramon, and Dea.

  Ada shot him a scolding look, but he ignored it. She and Hosea were doing pretty much the same thing.

  After about a half hour, the group moved again, and miracle of miracles, t
he road took a downward jaunt. Maybe things would turn out okay. He’d stay with them until they got near Asherton before slipping off into the night. Duke Asher would feed them. The kids would be okay. Somehow, they’d escape the coming troubles.

  Yes. Xan would find somewhere to make a life for himself. Everything would be just fine.

  Amazing how something as simple as easing a burden by going down instead of up could change his outlook.

  The road continued to twist and turn as it wound its way down the mountain. Over the next several hours, they passed several dry gulches but no streams. Without their wagons, they weren’t able to store much water, and their canteens would be running dry before the end of the day. Considering all the rain they’d gotten a couple of weeks ago, though, they’d surely find a pond or something.

  They rounded another bend.

  More than twenty soldiers in Truna’s burgundy livery stood waiting.

  Xan berated himself for not paying more attention. He should have been scanning constantly.

  Along with Hosea beside him, Xan immediately halted. They held out their hands to show their lack of weapons.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Hosea said.

  “That’s too bad,” one of the soldiers, a lieutenant by his insignia, said. “Cause you found it.”

  Hosea took a step back. “Please sir, we have nothing. No money. Barely enough food for each of us to have a few bites a day. I beg you, please let us be.”

  To his credit, the lieutenant looked chagrined. “Sometimes, when betters fight, the common folks get chewed up like grain between millstones.”

  “But why?” Xan said. “We’re nothing, certainly no threat to you.”

  The lieutenant shrugged. “Orders.”

  “Your army was routed,” Xan said. “Disbanded.”

  The lieutenant narrowed his eyes. “Men, bare swords.”

  Blurred motion and the sounds of steel rasping against leather met the command.

  “If you don’t fight,” the lieutenant said, “we’ll make it quick. A slice of the neck. You’ll barely feel anything.”