Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy)

by J. S. Morin

  From behind the lines, Brannis was the first to notice the goblins’ reinforcements charge in from the south and west. They were not as numerous as the main force attacking from the east, but they presented a tactical problem: no defenders were prepared to hold those sides against attack. The shield wall had held so far, and the knights had done well to prevent the goblins from coming around the flanks, but this they were not going to be able to stop in time.

  “Pull back and bring the shield wall around to face the south as well!” Brannis shouted.

  * * * * * * * *

  As the knights helped direct the troop movements to carry out their commander’s orders, Iridan watched Brannis draw his sword and prepare to defend the interior of the camp. Iridan himself was behind the lines and knew they were unlikely to survive this battle without his magic, so long as the goblin sorcerers still lived. He stayed watching both his friend's position and for places his spells might be needed.

  The first attackers among the goblins stopped short. They had been eager to rush in against a lone human knight and an unarmed sorcerer, relishing the glory of cutting off the head of the army. But the sight of an almost ogre-sized human, wielding an enchanted sword that glowed a foreboding green and trailed a strange mist in its wake, gave them pause. As the goblins at the forefront slowed, those lagging behind caught up to the front of the charge, and their renewed numbers swelled their courage once again, and they recommenced the attack en masse.

  Iridan saw the goblins heading for Brannis and started another spell.

  “Haru bedaessi leoki kwatuan gelora.”

  Iridan held his arms wide with his fingers spread apart. Then, rapidly, as he finished his chant, he drew his hands together and, just before they met, turned his palms upward and raised both hands overhead. He was only a few paces from the cooking fire and that was what had inspired this particular spell. As the aether flowed through him, he directed it into the various pots, spoons, bowls, and ladles that the Kadrins had brought along with them. These various items rose quickly into the air to hover around waist height and with a commanding gesture from Iridan toward the onrushing goblins, they flew.

  In all of Kadrin history, there was perhaps no instance where the contents of a larder had been put to such deadly use on the field of battle. A storm of crockery hurtled through the air with the speed of a diving hawk. The great clanging and splattering sounds that resulted hinted at one of the greatest culinary assaults of all time. Though it sounded quite incongruous in the middle of a battle of spell and steel, the charge from the west was brought near to a halt.

  * * * * * * * *

  Just a few steps away, Brannis was beset by onrushing goblins, leading with their spears. Three-wide they charged;three at once they were cut down. The goblins were astonished by the speed at which the blade cut through the air … and spears … and goblins. That is, all but the first three were astonished, for those at the forefront of the charge never realized what had become of them.

  The rest of the goblins charging Brannis drew back and began to try to encircle him, staying just out of his reach. Brannis kept Massacre waving back and forth in front of him, leaving the green mist wafting in the air behind the blade, and forming a hazardous barrier for the goblins to cross.

  The goblins were sensitive creatures, naturally better attuned to the aether than were humans. They could sense the power in the weapon and thus had some misgivings about letting the mist touch them. One who had gotten a bit too close was already unsteady on his feet and did not look well at all. Several gave up on Brannis altogether and instead tried to get past him to the sorcerer, whom they saw was much distracted by other concerns.

  “Brannis, the shield wall!” Iridan called out, drawing Brannis’s attention to a gap that had formed.

  As Brannis turned that way, he heard Iridan immediately began another spell: “Kanethio mandraxae.”

  Iridan crossed his palms, facing outward, and aimed toward the breach. A blue-white ray of light shone out from him, wide as his shoulders, and he ducked his head to keep the brightness from hurting his eyes. The blast was one of pure aether force, and left a large number of goblins missing entirely when the blinding glare left the spot and everyone could see there again. But the smoking ruin of a gap was once again quickly filled by a few of the remaining goblins.

  Iridan winced in pain as the aether blast took more power to cast than his body was accustomed to. Brannis knew that every vein in his thin body must have been like a river of fire. Brannis had studied along with Iridan at the Academy, before being expelled for lack of talent. The pain was really in the mind, and Iridan’s body would still function if he had the will to endure through it.

  Brannis had taken advantage of the blinding light to cut down most of the goblins facing him. His back had been to the blast and his adversaries had seen it directly, blinding them temporarily and giving Brannis an easy time of dispatching them. With the quick respite in the battle, Brannis took stock of his army and was dismayed. Both sides had been ravaged during the fight. Fewer than half of his troops were still standing and goblin bodies littered the battlefield. Even as he pondered this, a plume of fire erupted from nearby and engulfed several more of his men.

  Brannis spotted a goblin sorcerer—one of two that he had figured remained in the battle—at the source of the fire. Distractedly slashing through a goblin that had thought to catch him in an unguarded moment, Brannis charged across the battlefield toward the deadly goblin sorcerer.

  The goblin spotted him as well and began another spell. Brannis understood nothing of goblin speech or how they used magic. Not the fleetest of runners, he could only hope he was fast enough to close the distance in time. He saw the goblin cup his hands together as something grew between them. It began as a tiny puff of golden light and expanded as Brannis watched, his eyes intent on nothing else. The energy grew into a globe the size of Brannis's fist. The goblin sorcerer was struggling to hold it in check, squeezing it between its bony hands. He tried to slow himself as he saw the goblin bringing its hands around behind the globe, realizing he was not going to be able to close the distance in time. His momentum was too great to dodge to the side. The goblin let his spell loose straight at Brannis's chest.

  Brannis saw the blast coming and did the only thing he could think to do. He brought his sword up in front of him, tip pointing down, into line with the oncoming missile. With his left arm, he tried to shield his face from the blast.

  He felt a wrenching pain in his right shoulder, and the sword was torn from his grasp. There was an impact on his breastplate that felt like someone had just slung a sack of flour into his chest but he managed to keep his balance and hardly break stride.

  When he brought his other arm away from his face, Brannis caught sight of one particularly astonished goblin who stood gaping at him. The little creature turned to run but Brannis was running full out, and dove onto the sorcerer before he could get more than two steps away. Pinning the goblin was child’s play as Brannis easily outweighed the sorcerer five times over. The goblin tried casting one last spell, but two heavy blows from Brannis’s gauntleted fist were more than the creature’s frail body could endure.

  * * * * * * * *

  Iridan and the last remaining goblin sorcerer had torn into each other’s forces in a fury of magical power while not directly encountering each other. The goblin sorcerer had seen too much of the human’s magic to want to test himself against Iridan directly, but now he had a much better chance. Having snuck around the fallen left flank of the human army, he crouched low by the brook and, quietly as he could, timed a spell for when Iridan was most vulnerable.

  Iridan had just cast another aether blast spell, figuring that his own body was a price he was willing to pay to save the rest of the army. He was beginning to feel nauseous with the pain of his last casting, once more having pushed himself too far, when he heard a crackling sound to his left. Turning, he saw a ball of lightning heading toward him and panicked.

&
nbsp; Iridan raised his hands out in front of him and reflexively drew in all the aether he could muster. Without a word of arcane or a conscious thought, a translucent barrier formed in the air between his body and the balled lightning, bowl-shaped and facing his enemy. When the two forces collided, Iridan felt the impact in his shoulders, as if his outstretched hands had been supporting the barrier. The barrier flashed but remained intact. The goblin’s spell rebounded from the barrier and right back at him. The goblin had no time to react.

  Iridan had another problem, however: he had drawn in more aether than he could control. It felt like a wildfire had been ignited behind his eyes. He clutched at the sides of his head and fell to his knees, screaming incoherently. With what little of his mind that was not muddled by pain, he tried to force the aether out of his body and into another vessel. His training would have had him divert the aether into fire and heat the nearest water available to him but he was too blinded by the pain to find the stream, and so he randomly started to release the aether wherever he was able.

  The few goblins that had not begun to retreat when they saw their last sorcerer fall tried to take advantage of Iridan’s infirmity and finish him off. They did not realize their mistake until they burst into flames as they drew too near the human sorcerer.

  The ground around Iridan began to steam and the grass withered to ash within several paces of him. The dozen or so goblins still able to move were now in retreat, and the few Kadrins still standing sought some way to aid their sorcerer’s plight.

  There was little any of them could do, though, and a moment later, with a convulsive gasp that sounded like a horrible mixture of pain and relief, Iridan collapsed onto the blistered turf.

  Chapter 4 - Disturbing Dreams

  The city's clock tower struck the hour, the count of chimes lost in the remnants of a lingering dream. Kyrus Hinterdale dragged himself out of bed, stiff and sore, and made his way slowly to the window. The room was dark except for a sliver of sunlight streaming between the closed shutters. When Kyrus drew them open, he had to squeeze his eyes shut against the brightness, only opening them in a squint once he had turned his head. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth to clear away the sticky, gummy feeling he had. He took up the pitcher he kept for filling the washbasin and drank a mouthful. The water was warm, as it had been sitting on his dressing table for days but he cared little. It was the second day since Expert Davin’s announcement of his new office, and the second morning in a row that had greeted him with a hangover.

  Kyrus went to the little mirror that hung from his wall and wiped it clean with a shirtsleeve. The face that looked back bore some passing resemblance to his own. The green eyes were bloodshot, the sandy-blond hair was wilder than was his custom, but it was him. The close examination was more work than his eyes were fit for. He squeezed them shut as a defense.

  To keep his mind away from the rioting headache he was experiencing, he tried to put the remnants of yesterday in order in his thoughts …

  * * * * * * * *

  It was destined to be perhaps the shortest day of Kyrus’s life. It began shortly after noon, when he found himself staring at the ceiling of his own room, both wondering how he had managed to get back home, and not wanting to move for fear of his skull splitting in two from sheer pain. His dreams, plagued by nightmares of fire and blood, did no justice to the waking torment that greeted him along with the early afternoon sun.

  Davin had brought him a steaming cup of coffee, an extravagance Kyrus rarely had the chance to enjoy, which had cheered him more than relieved his headache. Still, it was enough to coax him out of bed. Davin and the king’s steward Kornelius had hired porters to pack up the old scribe’s personal effects, so Kyrus’s help had not been needed during the morning hours. Davin wanted to spend some time with his young successor, though, before he took his leave. The two of them left the king's man to oversee the packing and went to find a suitable eatery for what they expected would be their last luncheon together for a long time.

  Dremmer’s Pub was a rich man’s dive. It was situated on the outskirts of the wealthy side of Scar Harbor, toward the docks but not near them by any stretch of creative geography. Still, the decor was that of a dockside tavern, with trophy fish hung on the walls and rustic, rough-cut furnishings of unfinished wood. The bottoms of the table were kept scrubbed with seawater to give the place just a hint of the briny smell that reminded sailors of the sea. It was all show, however, for the food was excellent and the prices a bit too high for most to afford easily or regularly. Any real sailor that set foot inside would have had a good laugh at how anyone could mistake the clean, well-tended tavern for a sea-dogs’ watering hole. It was a place where the genteel could get a taste of danger without actually experiencing it, making it a common destination for wealthy visitors to the city, as well as a few well-off locals with nautical pretensions.

  Kyrus and Davin had taken a seat just under a stuffed swordfish, at a small table in a corner of the common room. Kyrus had never before set foot inside the expensive establishment. He could not help but gawk a bit at the important personages that had stopped by to take their lunch there. He noticed two of the local merchant guild masters, discussing something over bowls of chowder. A lord, whose name did not come readily to his mind, sat by himself, looking through a ledger of some sort. There was Admiral Rand, a pensioner of the Royal Navy and a regular at Dremmer’s, sharing old war stories with Lord Harwick’s eldest son, Tomas. Kyrus felt out of place among his social superiors.

  "The place is all yours now, my boy. I know you will do it proud," Davin said over his plate of shrimp.

  Kyrus looked down to the Expert Scrivener's medallion that hung about his neck. It was so new it still smelled of silver polish. It felt like it belonged around someone else's neck.

  "You know, all the secrecy the past week when you refused to tell me what you were up to ... I somehow never guessed this," Kyrus said and gave the medallion's chain a tug. "Greuder had me convinced you were setting me up with some long-lost niece of yours."

  Davin laughed. "My elder brother's only girl is your mother's age. Tell that baker to stick to his pastries and leave prognostication to more gifted charlatans."

  Kyrus gave a little grin and shrugged. "What can I say? He had me convinced."

  Davin waved away his comments. "Kyrus, you have a good mind between those ears. You just need to get out more. Everything will work out in the end, there is no need to rush things. Besides, now you have a shop of your very own. Respectable member of the Scriveners' Guild and all that."

  Davin spent the rest of their meal explaining to Kyrus how to manage the business of the scrivener’s shop, and filled him in on the details of the commissions that he had yet to start work on but which Kyrus would be taking over. There was a good deal more to it than Kyrus had realized, and he tried his best to remember everything Davin said. Though it had lessened with the passing hours and continued to abate as he took in some good food and drink, a bright pain still dwelt behind Kyrus’s eyes; he was sure it had caused him to miss more than one morsel of advice from his mentor.

  What was that about the best prices on colored inks? Ah well, I am sure I shall have a thousand things to learn on my own regardless and one more cannot hurt much. Do not want to spoil the old man’s lunch by making him think I am not listening.

  The rest of the day had been spent seeing to the last of the packing and to making arrangements for Kyrus’s smooth transition to ownership of the business. It was frightfully dull and dry stuff: papers to be filed with the guild and negotiating with merchants to reestablish deals made by Davin in Kyrus’s name. Kornelius had been a remarkable help, for his position as a king’s man had lent importance to their activities and caught the attention of otherwise slow-acting officials of the merchant guilds.

  Interspersed among their bustling, Kyrus and Davin managed to conclude a game of chess that had been set up between their two writing desks. A book entitled On the Stratagems and U
nderlying Premises of the Game of Chess, Insights of Lord Arvind Kendelaine III sat nearby, well worn and well loved. It was the first commission that they had worked on jointly, and the game had been the first thing that Expert Davin found himself to have in common with his apprentice. It was in playing the game regularly that their friendship had developed. As they played more and came to discover that they were well-matched adversaries, Davin came to respect Kyrus’s intellect and his ability to analyze. In the years since then, Kyrus had come to be almost a partner to the Expert Scribe, rather than an apprentice in his tutelage. Kyrus almost wished he had lost the game so that Davin could leave victorious.

  By day’s end, a carriage had been loaded with all that Davin cared to take with him and at the end of the night, he and Kornelius were to depart for Golis. But Davin’s other friends had not been idle. The announcement of Davin's appointment as King Gorden's new scribe had been a cause for a celebration of Davin's own making the night before. For the occasion of Davin’s departure, however, they had arranged a party of their own to send him off properly.

  Having barely recovered from the aftereffects of Davin’s surprise revel, Kyrus had made a concerted effort to moderate his celebrating a bit that time. He could not say how well he succeeded at his goal, however, for the night’s carousing seemed vague in his memory, though he remembered seeing Davin and Kornelius into their carriage as the driver drew them away from the city. He was fairly certain that he had managed his own way home from the revel as well, but recalled little else.

  * * * * * * * *

  Kyrus decided at that point to swear off drinking entirely. It was unlikely that another occasion would come along soon that would demand a toast, let alone five or more in one night, so for the time being, it should have been no problem to go without. Taking another swallow of water from the pitcher, he poured the rest into the washbasin and splashed some onto his face. He noticed a bit of blood had reddened the water as he washed, and he soon found a cut on the knuckle of the index finger on his right hand. It did not look serious but his careless ignorance of it had reopened the wound, which he had presumably received last night.