War of Magic (Dual Magics Book 4)

by Meredith Mansfield

  Gerusa’s vision began to blur. Her taut muscles loosened. Strong hands caught her before she crumpled to the deck. Then the world went dark.

  ~

  Gerusa blinked her eyes, but the world was still dark. No. There was a little circle of light high above her. Everything else was dark, though. She was lying on something soft and covered with a soft blanket—one of those from her own chambers, she thought. And the floor wasn’t moving. Not on the deck of that ship, then—or anywhere on a ship, for that matter.

  Surely there hadn’t been time to reach Caere already. How many days . . . Gerusa tried to piece her memories together. She’d woken in a tiny closet of a cabin on board that ship. One of the two guards had offered her peasant food and water. As she attempted to chew the stale bread, she’d tried to use Far Speech to contact Selene. And darkness had descended again. After that, there were only fuzzy memories of waking briefly and drinking something that tasted sweet and . . . a little strange.

  A groan from nearby sounded like Selene.

  “Good. They’re waking up.”

  She knew that voice too well. Veleus! Gerusa struggled into a sitting position. A hand—not Veleus’s steadied her. Something metallic was thrust into her hand.

  “You’ll be thirsty. I recommend you stick to water for today. We’ll provide something better tomorrow.” That was Boreala’s voice.

  A plate of something that smelled good was set beside Gerusa.

  “You should eat, too. But only soft foods for today,” Boreala added before she moved away to assist Selene.

  Gerusa took a drink of the water, then squinted up at Veleus. “What is this place?”

  “Somewhere you can’t escape from. At least, not in the next decade. It’d probably take that long at least for you and Selene to dig your way out without any tools. And, even if you Transformed into birds and managed to learn to fly, the only opening is way up there.” He pointed to the circle of light. “And too small for the wingspan of any bird you could become. Even without the grate that covers it.”

  “How long do you plan to keep us here?”

  “Until a way can be found to be sure it’s safe to release you,” Veleus answered. “I admit, that’s something of a problem, given that I wouldn’t trust your word if you told me the sky is blue. Still . . .

  “In the meantime, every effort will be made to make you comfortable. Your beds have already been brought down. And your clothes. There’s a table and two chairs where you can eat. A lantern. I’ve even had a selection of scrolls copied out for you to read. To pass the time. If there’s anything else you need, you can ask one of your guards. They’ll bring your food down to you three times a day and whatever else you ask for. Except, of course, your freedom. Or digging tools. At all other times, the ladder will be drawn up.”

  As Boreala returned to his side, Veleus made a gesture and a long ladder was lowered to the floor. Boreala went up first, then Veleus, and then the two hulking guards Gerusa had barely noticed before. As soon as the last one had reached the top, the ladder was pulled back up, leaving her alone in the dark with her one true daughter.

  Chapter 41: Revised Plans

  Nertan paced across the command tent, trying to decide what to do now that their ally in Kausalya had been deposed. They certainly couldn’t count on the kind of supplies they’d been getting.

  His instincts told him to move now, start the attack on the Dardani. But . . . the women and children had only just arrived at this camp, ragged and exhausted. They needed time to rest. And everyone wanted some time to . . . reconnect. Ordering a lengthy march now was a recipe for revolt.

  Nertan raised an eyebrow as Loran stormed into the command tent. “I didn’t expect to see much of you today.” Or for the next few days, truth be told. “Shouldn’t you be with your new bride?”

  Loran scowled. “Zoria’s not here. Platan let her get away.”

  Nertan went very still. “Get away?”

  “Run off. Just after they came over the top of that pass.” He ducked his head, for the first time looking young and vulnerable instead of just angry. “I don’t understand why she’d run away, though.”

  Nertan felt a pang of sympathy for his son, quickly suppressed. There was something more here than just a romantic rejection, painful as that could be at his age, or Nertan missed his guess. Something that might be critical to their larger plans. “Bring Platan here. Right now.”

  While he waited, Nertan’s fingers tapped the revised map—marked up with all the information he’d been able to glean from the Themyri and the few scouts he’d sent out onto the plains and, of course, with the outline of the Great Forest and the Pass which would lead them back to the Valley, eventually. They were nearly ready to put their plan in motion, but they needed the element of surprise. If Zoria had been picked up by scouts from those guards who’d held them back from crossing the rivers last year, that chance at surprise might have been lost. And what should he do, then? They couldn’t stay here much longer.

  Nertan spun around as the two younger men entered the tent. “All right, Platan. Tell me exactly what happened with Zoria.”

  Platan shrugged uncomfortably. “Lorania said she’d been sort of . . . twitchy. I thought it was just anticipation. Or . . . nerves. Then one night, she just ran off down a steep drop-off, almost a cliff, where we couldn’t follow her. Well, most of us couldn’t. She used her avatar—a mountain antelope.” His brows lowered. “Though . . . she changed it, too. Her avatar used to be white, but she used a black antelope that night. Which made her harder to see.”

  Nertan paused, recalling the switchbacks of the trail that led up to—and down from—that pass. A mountain antelope was swift, but Zoria wasn’t one. Not really. She would have had to use more care. And a horse—or even a running man—could go faster on the trail that had been beaten out by the passage and re-passage of the Exiles. “But you would have been able to intercept her lower down, surely. She was, after all, alone.”

  Platan looked down and shuffled his feet. “Not . . . exactly.”

  Nertan bit back an urge to curse. “What do you mean?”

  “She . . . she stayed away from the trail, sticking close to the little river that runs down there. It was still running pretty high and fast, so we didn’t think much of it, other than she was trying to stay away from us, but . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Someone came up that river to meet her. Whoever it was, had a giant lake otter as his avatar. Had to be an avatar. There shouldn’t have been a giant lake otter anywhere near there. And, anyway, it was white. And then he carried her down the river a lot faster than we could give chase.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “We shot at them, but then that black wyvern we had trouble with last year tried to stop us. We got him, at least. Shot him down. Only . . . it turned out that it was Zoridan, Zoria’s brother. One of the women recognized him when they brought the body back. I thought that was odd.”

  Nertan swore. This was far worse than he’d imagined. He’d only thought the fool girl would blunder into their enemies. But, if she’d had help to escape . . . if her own brother was with the enemy . . . that put an entirely different color on . . . everything. “And you didn’t think this was information I needed sooner?”

  Platan took a step back at the tone of his voice. “I . . . thought it was something it would be better to tell Loran in person.”

  Nertan’s voice lowered dangerously. Loran backed up behind his friend at the tone. “And you didn’t think any of this was strange? That Zoria would have help from two Valson to run off in the middle of the night?”

  “Of course I thought it was strange. According to Lorania, Zoria’d been asking about Loran all winter. I thought she was eager to be with him. And then . . . .”

  “And then she went off, clearly to join our enemies—or at least those annoying guards who kept us tied down all last summer—with whatever information she’d been able to wheedle out of my imbecile daughte
r. Obviously, she was a spy all along.” Nertan clenched his fists. “Get out of my sight, Platan. Send Gylfi in at once.”

  “Why Gylfi?” Loran asked, after his friend had gone.

  “Because we now have to devise an entirely new plan. Since it seems likely that our enemies—who we know are in communication with Vatar—know all about the old one. That fool has lost us any chance at surprise.”

  “What do we do now, then?”

  Nertan turned back to the map, studying the right side, where a guess at the edge of the Great Forest and the location of the Pass had been roughed in, mostly based on the reports of Loran, Platan, and Lorania. “How certain are you of these distances?”

  Loran rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s kind of hard to be sure. We . . . wandered around a lot on the way out. And going back we were chasing Vatar, not measuring distances. If anything . . .” He stared a moment at the map. “I’d say it was farther than that.”

  Nertan nodded. “So, if we were to attack only a little later than originally planned—when, supposedly, these Dardani would separate for the autumn—we might not be able to complete the conquest and still get across the Forest and over the Pass before the snows close it. That timing was always the weak point in our plan.” He stared a moment longer. “Yet . . . for all the information our enemies have, that’s exactly what they’ll expect us to do. They’ll be ready for that. But the basic plan would be just the same if we were to wait until next spring to attack. With luck, they might have been lured into a false sense of security by then, thinking we’d given up. And we wouldn’t have to worry about the Pass closing before we could get there.”

  “So . . . we’ll wait here until next spring, then?” Loran asked.

  Nertan’s brows drew down as he stood up. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I . . . don’t understand.”

  “It’s clear that—apart from Kausalya—all these people are sharing information, working together in some way. Their logical next move if we don’t attack when they expect is to try to bring the attack to us.” He placed his hand on the part of the map where they now stood. “Their best plan would be to take Kausalya first and then sweep up the river to us. We know they’ve already succeeded in removing our ally in the city, Gerusa. They might not have to take Kausalya at all. Well, let them find nothing but our trash heaps when they get here.

  “We need to send out the Themyri to find us another camp site—somewhere more . . . hidden.” He tapped the edge of the map. “Under the eaves of the Forest, perhaps. That would give us back some element of surprise.” His hand moved to the location of their current camp and swept up toward the small lake marked as ‘Zeda’. “I’m sure they’re expecting an attack from the south and west. This way we can come at them instead from the east. Possibly from the north and east. Oh, and we’d better have the Themyri forage for supplies while they’re at it. Since we can no longer count on help from Kausalya, we’re going to need to stockpile for this winter ourselves.”

  “Shouldn’t we try to take back Kausalya?” Loran asked.

  “No, of course not. What’s Kausalya to us—other than a handy place to get supplies from?”

  “I thought . . . weren’t you planning to share rule over all this territory with Gerusa?”

  Nertan huffed a mirthless laugh. “I never planned to share anything with Gerusa. Nothing’s changed about that. Once we’ve secured these Dardani and retaken the Valley, we’ll have all we need to turn back and take these scattered cities for ourselves.”

  Chapter 42: Thrown Together

  Kiara’s eyes regained focus on her surroundings. She squinted at the change in perspective from stalking through the tall grass to sitting cross-legged in a little hollow about a mile beyond the last huts of the village at Zeda. An instant earlier she’d been looking through the eyes of a hunting lioness miles from here. Her range, at least, had increased with practice. She’d even gotten used to it. Well, almost. As long as she broke off before the actual kill, it wasn’t so bad.

  She just wasn’t sure how much good it was going to do. Surely Thekila and Theklan, looking through the eyes of the eagles, would recognize any approaching army long before they got close enough for her to use the eyes of the lions. Though, Thekila had had her doing the same exercises, so maybe there was a good reason for it. Maybe she just didn’t mind taking direction from her older brother’s life mate as much.

  Too bad neither Thekila nor Vatar could take time to train her themselves right now. But they’d both ridden off to confer with Orleus about some baffling moves on the part of the Exiles. And to bring back Teran and a couple of people Kiara had never heard of. At least when they returned there’d be someone else to teach her besides Theklan.

  “Well?” Theklan asked.

  Kiara shrugged. “Yes, I could look through her eyes, even that far away.”

  Theklan smiled. “You’ve gotten much better since the last time we worked together.”

  “But what’s the point? When the Exiles do come, you’ll be able to see them through the eyes of the eagles before I can through the eyes of the lions.”

  Theklan nodded. “True. But the eagles will see them from far up—small and mostly indistinguishable from each other. It takes practice even to recognize that they’re people from that perspective. Through the lions, you’ll be able to see things I can’t.”

  “Like what?”

  “The ratio of Exiles to Themyri. What kind of weapons they have. How many are riding as opposed to walking. All kinds of things that might prove useful—even vital.” Theklan stood up and held out his hand to her. “Anyway, that’s probably enough for now. We’ll start attracting notice if we stay out here much longer.”

  Kiara ignored his hand and stood up, dusting off the seat of her trousers. “What does it matter if we attract attention? We’re not doing anything they could see was magic.”

  Theklan sighed and started walking back toward the huts. “It doesn’t take much to start suspicions and rumors. You don’t know what it’s like to be ripped away from everyone you know. I’d like to protect you from that, if I can.” He glanced sideways at her. “You know . . .”

  Theklan paused to draw in a deep breath and then stopped and turned to look her in the eye. “Sharila was almost the only friend I had in the Valley. I’d been separated from my old friends too long. We . . . didn’t have much in common anymore. Sharila and I studied together. I never meant for her to be more than a friend. For my part, she never was. I’ve been trying to think . . . If I ever gave her the impression that we were more than that—and I don’t think I did—but if so, it was only because I missed you. I was lonely and I didn’t know if I was ever going to be allowed to come back. It was always you for me, you know. Even before I came back and discovered that you’d grown into a beauty.” He smiled a little. “That’s why Daron objects to you, you know. You distract the young men too much.”

  Kiara masked a smile with her hand and set Theklan’s explanation aside in her memory to examine and savor later. “But the shaman understands about you and Vatar and Thekila now. He’s accepted your magic. So why should I hide mine. No one else will give us serious trouble as long as the shaman approves of our magic.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say he approves,” Theklan said with a grimace. “He’s accepted that the Spirits sent us to protect the Dardani, but I don’t think he really likes it. And not only because of Dardani superstitions about magic. I think he also sees us as a potential threat to his influence with the tribe. I know Vatar worries about what will happen after the danger from the Exiles is past. The shaman just might decide to drive us all out at that point. That’s part of the reason Vatar has been keeping this side of what we’re doing—and planning to do—out of sight as much as possible.”

  Kiara made a small choked sound at this thought.

  “Don’t worry,” Theklan reassured her. “There’s no reason he needs to know about you at all. We’re going to try to make sure he doesn’t.
”

  Just before they reached the edge of the village, Theklan took Kiara’s hand to stop her. When she turned toward him, he grabbed her other hand too and looked into her eyes. She started to pull away, but he squeezed harder. “Don’t. Listen to me for a moment.”

  The urgency in his voice struck her and she stopped trying to free her hands from his grip.

  “I know you’re tired of hearing me say this, but I’m sorry I messed things up between us. Now I have to do my best to see that you come through this battle safely. I owe you that.”

  “You are not going to keep me out of the fight,” Kiara said.

  Theklan smiled thinly. “Much as I want to, I know you’d never let me do that, Kiara. Besides, we can’t afford it. We’ll need what you can do. But you’re not ready. Not nearly. And there’s so little time to train you.”

  “So, we’ll just have to work harder.”

  He nodded. “It’s not quite that simple, though. It’s going to be hard enough to hide our abilities during the battle. We can’t risk drawing attention now. If you suddenly stop riding with the herds, people will talk. But we need that time for your training.”

  Kiara shrugged. “The Dardani are always gossiping about something. It’s hard to keep a secret, here.”

  His lips twisted up ironically. “Don’t I know it. The best way I’ve found is to give them something else to think about—or better yet, to talk about.”

  Kiara didn’t like the intensity of his eyes. He was up to something. Oh, he meant everything he’d said, but there was something more he wasn’t saying. “What did you have in mind?”

  Theklan released her left hand so he could tuck that stray lock of hair behind her ear again. She was going to have to cut that off to stop him from doing that. “Courting couples are given considerable leeway in their duties. They’re not expected to be able to concentrate on much else. No one would wonder why we were spending so much time together.”