Avenger botm-3

by Richard Baker

  Sarth read the indecision in her eyes, and came to stand at her stirrup. “Kara, there is always tomorrow,” he said. “If Geran and I succeed tonight, we will defeat the runehelms for you, but we will need your army to deal with the Council Guard.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” Kara looked around a moment longer, hoping that she’d find some opening or opportunity that would let her salvage the day without abandoning the camp-but each moment she delayed, she knew that she decreased the chances of getting an intact army away from the battle. With a growl, she wheeled and waved her sword over her head. “First and Third Shields, pull back! Icehammers, pull back! Back to the rallying point! Brother Larken, I want the Second Shield to hold in the camp. You’re our rearguard!”

  The cleric glanced over at Kara, and gave a grim nod. Not many of his soldiers would fight their way free, but if they could slow the runehelms and the Council Guard enough for the remaining companies to break off, their sacrifice might be worth it. Brandishing his mace, Larken turned back to the fray, shouting orders at his soldiers; Kara wondered if she would see him again.

  More of Rhovann’s constructs flooded forward; Sarth and Kara had to back up to stay out of their reach. All around them, Shieldsworn were yielding ground, an orderly fighting withdrawal through their own camp. “Thank Tempus that we practiced this in maneuvers,” she breathed aloud. So many battles ended with one side or the other in panicked flight. “Sarth, see if you can’t persuade the merchant cavalry to keep their distance. I don’t want our soldiers ridden down as we retreat.”

  The tiefling nodded. “Will you be able to hold on your hilltop there?”

  “What choice do we have?” Kara answered. “We’ll hold somehow. Now go!”

  Sarth leaped into the air and arrowed off toward the Icehammers as they withdrew before the merchant coster riders. Kara swallowed her bitter disappointment at the outcome of her first meeting with Marstel’s forces, and turned her attention to the challenge of extricating her army from the murderous strength of the wizards’ runehelms. She’d lost the day, but the war wasn’t over yet-the next move was Geran’s.

  TWENTY-TWO

  14 Ches, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)

  Dusk was falling over Hulburg as Geran led his horse into the small barn behind Mirya’s house and quickly stripped off the saddle and harness. He knew he ought to give the animal a good rubdown and look after it with more care, but he had little time to spare and he doubted he’d need to come back for the gelding. If he needed a mount in the next few hours, he’d borrow or steal one close at hand.

  By the time he finished with the saddle and blankets, Mirya was waiting in the yard with a shawl around her shoulders. “Are you ready?” she asked.

  He nodded, and they set off for Erstenwold’s. It was a little shy of a mile away, on the other side of the Winterspear. From Mirya’s lane they hurried down River Street, skirting the Tailings proper. Geran did his best to keep his stride quick but confident, maintaining a cool distance from Mirya. He’d already established for himself that his disguise was good enough to protect him in Hulburg’s streets, but now that he was accompanying Mirya, it felt far more risky. Mirya was a known friend of his, of course, and anybody who noticed her going about on the streets when most folk were taking to their homes might wonder why she was dealing with some foreign mage. Worse yet, if one of Marstel’s soldiers or spies saw through his disguise, they’d also catch Mirya. She could hardly deny that she was in league with loyalists if they were caught together, and he feared it would go hard with her.

  I should have left her safe in her house, he told himself. This is far too dangerous.

  They turned on Cinder Way and came to the Middle Bridge. Half-a-dozen runehelms stood guard over the span. Geran steeled himself to walk past them, feigning the same sort of dismissiveness he’d shown before. But Mirya’s steps faltered as they drew closer to the towering creatures. He risked a quick glance at her, and realized that she was shaking. Her lips moved softly, saying something he couldn’t hear, and her eyes were fixed on the nearest of the clay warriors. She’s terrified! he realized with horror. He hadn’t expected that, but then again, there was a difference between flouting the authorities with a secret meeting and brazenly walking down the street in his company.

  Geran grimaced. It was already too late to go back the way they came without being conspicuous about avoiding the monsters. And even if they did, they’d have to cross the Winterspear at the Lower Bridge or the Burned Bridge to get to the west bank and Erstenwold’s, and they’d run into more of the runehelms at the other bridges. He sidled up as close to her as he dared. “Courage, Mirya!” he hissed under his breath. “You’ve walked past these things a hundred times before. Just ignore them and keep on!”

  She didn’t reply, and her steps slowed even more. In desperation Geran reached out to take her arm, gently pulling her along and doing his best to ignore the hulking creatures looming around them. Human guards would certainly have suspected something by now, but these were automatons, endowed only with the power to execute the orders they were given. They possessed no intuition, no empathy; they might not notice Mirya’s distress or the solicitude of a foreign wizard toward her.

  He put his arm around her shoulders and urged her on more forcefully. But as they drew abreast of the first pair of runehelms, she stopped suddenly in her steps. With a dull, sick look on her face, she looked up at the blank visors of the tall creatures, now regarding them both in silence. “Mirya!” he hissed again. “Come on!”

  Looking up at the runehelms, Mirya said clearly, “Tell Rhovann that this is Geran Hulmaster. He is here with me.”

  Geran stared at her in horror. Mirya did not just betray me, he tried to tell himself. But she had. She stood, frowning at the monsters around them, not paying any attention to him at all. And the runehelms were already swinging into motion, swiveling to face him as their massive black halberds lowered.

  Somehow he found the presence of mind to step away from Mirya, so that she wouldn’t be hacked down by a careless swing of those terrible axes, and drew the shadow sword from its scabbard. If he could teleport out from the middle of these creatures, he might have a chance to elude them-but the monsters were on him before he could even draw breath or seize the calm focus he needed to wield magic. Automatically he ducked beneath the first halberd, twisted away from a second, and lunged wildly at a third. Umbrach Nyth gleamed with an eerie purple radiance as it slashed deep into the gray flesh of the runehelm, and this time a great gout of thick black vapor spurted from the cut. The creature sank to the ground as the enchantment binding it frayed and failed under the shadow sword’s touch.

  “It works!” Geran said aloud, and allowed himself a fierce smile. The runehelms had no instinct of self-preservation, and gave no thought at all to defending themselves from his blows-an acceptable strategy so long as they were nearly immune to injury. But now he had a weapon that could slay them as easily as it would any mortal opponent. He blocked several more halberd thrusts with a flurry of slashes and jabs. The shadow sword sliced deep into gray flesh, and oily black ichor splattered from the wounds. For a moment he’d hoped that a simple cut from Umbrach Nyth would be sufficient to unbind a runehelm’s animating spell, but he found that the creatures stayed on their feet under his attack-he had to strike deep into their substance to reach the magical essence they harbored, something that would have been a mortal wound in a living foe.

  He turned on the nearest of the constructs, trying to draw it farther from Mirya-why had she betrayed him to Rhovann? — and sliding in under its guard to bury the shadow sword’s point just under the creature’s breastbone, or whatever it had in place of one. The runehelm crumpled, and Geran began to hope that he might be able to fight his way free despite the superior numbers of his enemies. He wheeled back to engage the next of the monsters, but a hard-driven halberd blade glanced from his wardings and knocked him off balance toward the others. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the thi
ck haft of a halberd loomed right before his eyes and struck him a terrific blow across the forehead. The bridge and the town around him turned upside down, and darkness reached up to embrace him.

  “Mirya,” he croaked. His mouth was dry, and it was difficult to speak. “Why?”

  She did not answer him. She didn’t even give any sign that she’d heard him. The last thing he saw was her gazing down at him, a small puzzled frown creasing her brow.

  It seemed that he flailed and struggled in dark dreams for a long time, somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. Full wakefulness hovered just out of reach; it felt as if he’d been buried in warm, thick blankets that clung to his limbs and smothered him in blackness. Eventually it was the throbbing ache in his skull that brought him back around. His forehead stung fiercely whenever anything brushed the crust of dried blood above his eyes, and trickles of warm fresh blood dripped down his face. He was dully aware of being dragged down stone steps, his arms pinioned in the cold clay grip of a pair of the towering runehelms. Then he was stripped and stood up against a rough wall while iron fetters were locked around his wrists. He sagged weakly, held up only by the cruel chains.

  “Where am I?” he rasped. No one answered. Slowly he forced his eyes open, and found himself gazing down at a brick floor, covered with a thin handful of straw. The Council Hall dungeons, he realized. He’d been imprisoned here once before, when Kendurkkel Ironthane took service with his cousin Sergen and set out to trap him. Strange to be able to recognize the dungeon he was held in by a glimpse of its floor; clearly, he was spending too much time in dungeons. For a moment Geran was lost in the incongruity of it all, and wondered how long Sergen would be able to have him held here before Kara and Harmach Grigor made the Merchant Council surrender him. Sergen hated him, and he was plotting to seize the throne for himself … “No, that’s not right,” Geran mumbled aloud. “Sergen’s dead. I killed him.”

  With a start, he came fully awake. He was exactly where he’d thought, chained to a wall in the prison beneath the Council Hall. Two Council Guards were making a careful inventory of his clothing and belongings at a table on the other side of the iron bars, leaving him only his smallclothes for his decency. Two of the runehelms stood close by him on either side, their blank helms fixed unwaveringly upon him. His forehead throbbed abominably, and when he glanced up at the small barred window near his cell, the sudden motion made him feel dizzy and nauseated with the blinding white pain. Outside he could see the orange gleam of a streetlamp on wet cobblestones in the gray light-it was after sunset, but not by much. In a few hours he was supposed to meet Sarth and Hamil to venture into the Shadowfell and search out Rhovann’s master stone, but Mirya had put a stop to that.

  She betrayed me, he told himself again. He didn’t want to examine it, didn’t want to believe that he’d heard her say what she’d said, but the thing was undeniable. Not only had she told the runehelms who he was, she’d suggested that they should go to Erstenwolds, and led him to automatons guarding the Middle Bridge. She’d planned it while they were talking in her kitchen … while he was opening his heart to her, and asking her if she would be his wife.

  Whether it was the blow to his head or the wound in his heart, his knees gave out again. “Was it all a lie?” he mumbled to himself. Had she allowed him to dote on her all the months that he’d been back in Hulburg? That he couldn’t believe. It simply wasn’t possible. He’d rescued her from the clutches of the Black Moon pirates and brought her safely back home. At that moment five months before there’d been no doubt in his heart that they were drawing closer again … and he’d been exiled from Hulburg before anything more could come of it. So no, her affection for him hadn’t been feigned, at least not at the moment when he was driven out of Hulburg.

  “Ah, our dreaming prince is awake,” one of the Council Guards, a burly half-orc, remarked. He stepped into the cell and advanced to seize a handful of Geran’s hair and raise his head fully upright. “Are there any other Hulmaster spies wandering about in Harmach Maroth’s realm, my lord? Speak up now, and it may go easier on you.”

  Geran winced in pain, but said nothing.

  The half-orc guardsman tightened his grip. “You didn’t slip into town just to pay a visit to Mirya Erstenwold,” he sneered. “Who else did you see? What are your plans?”

  “My plans are to kill or run off Rhovann Disarnnyl, that fat oaf Marstel, and all the brigands and thugs who call themselves their soldiers,” Geran replied. “What else would I be here for?”

  The half-orc’s face darkened. He stepped back and delivered a jarring backhand slap to Geran’s jaw. The swordmage reeled in his chains as his already-throbbing skull filled with hot red pain, and he found himself spitting blood on the cell floor. The Council Guard raised his hand for another blow, but one of the runehelms standing nearby reached out to catch his arm.

  The blank visor swiveled down to gaze at the half-orc guard. “Do not damage Geran Hulmaster further,” the creature intoned. “I am coming to attend to him soon. Do you understand?”

  The guard paled and stepped back. “Yes, Lord Rhovann. We will be ready for you,” he replied. “What shall we do with Mirya Erstenwold? She is waiting upstairs.”

  “Send her home,” the creature replied. “She’s been of great service to me.” The runehelm let go of the guard’s arm, and he quickly retreated.

  Geran closed his eyes, hoping that would dull the pain. The guards ignored him, and he returned to the question of Mirya’s betrayal. He knew that nothing could have turned her against him before he was exiled from Hulburg, so what had changed between then and now? “Selsha,” he whispered aloud. That had to be it. When he’d returned to Hulburg and called on her at Erstenwold’s, Mirya had said that she’d sent Selsha away for safekeeping. But what if Rhovann or his captains had threatened her daughter? That was the only thing that he could imagine to explain Mirya’s betrayal. She wouldn’t have done it for money-she wouldn’t have done it to save her own life.

  But if she’d betrayed him on Selsha’s account, she hardly would have needed to admit her love for him. Had Mirya lied when she’d said she was a fool to love him, that she couldn’t bear to live in doubt of his own constancy? No, he decided, it wasn’t a lie. She loved him, perhaps as much as he loved her. But that made the fact of her betrayal hurt more, not less.

  Whatever her reasons, Mirya had put him in a desperate situation indeed. In a matter of hours Kara would be moving in on Hulburg, expecting to brush aside the wizard’s deadly constructs. If he didn’t carry out the strike against Rhovann’s hidden source of power, she’d have to fight her way through all the runehelms at the wizard’s command. Scores, perhaps hundreds, of Shieldsworn and Hulmaster loyalists would die in that battle … assuming they won.

  It’s up to Sarth and Hamil, he decided. When he didn’t show up for their planned rendezvous, they’d realize that he’d fallen into some kind of trouble. They’d understand that somehow they’d have to undo Rhovann’s spells without his help-if that was even possible. The black hilt of Umbrach Nyth gleamed in its silver-tooled sheath among Geran’s clothing and other possessions. Was it even possible to destroy the master pearl without the lich’s gift?

  With a small groan of frustration, Geran gave himself up to his black despair and slipped into unconsciousness again.

  TWENTY-THREE

  14 Ches, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)

  Some time later, the creak and clang of the dungeon’s heavy iron doors roused Geran from his darkness. Swift, light footsteps echoed down the hall, and then Rhovann appeared, dressed in a long, tailored blue waistcoat over his shirt, with breeches of elven graysilk and knee-high suede boots. His wand rested in a holster at his hip, and his silver hand rested lightly on its slender ivory handle.

  The elf wizard halted a few steps from Geran, studying him with narrowed eyes. “Ah, now this is a sight to warm the heart,” he said softly. “Here hangs Geran Hulmaster in chains. The reckless freebooter and scof
flaw, captured by a few words whispered in my runehelms’ ears!”

  Geran carefully set his feet under him and levered himself fully upright. Standing, his hands were chained at about the height of his head; sharp twinges of pain in his shoulders and wrists brought a wince to his face, but he stifled it quickly. “Enjoy it while you can,” he told Rhovann. “No matter what happens to me, your days in Hulburg are numbered.”

  “Your confidence appears misplaced,” the elf answered. “Matters seem well in hand to me. I have you exactly where I want you, my harmach’s dealt with your army-with a little help from my runehelms, of course-and soon enough I’ll have Mirya Erstenwold help me clean up the ugly little resistance she’s been fomenting all winter. I anticipate nothing but success in all my endeavors.”

  Geran set his jaw in an angry frown. Dealt with the army? He had a sinking feeling that Rhovann wouldn’t bother to lie to him as long as he was in his power, which meant that something else had gone wrong with the Hulmaster strategy. Kara was supposed to be waiting near Rosestone; she wouldn’t have deviated from the plan they’d worked out. Had Rhovann sent out his army to face Kara already? He and Kara had talked about whether it would be wiser to wait until the runehelms were disabled before bringing the Hulmaster army eastward, and ultimately they’d decided that it would be useful to either lure much of Marstel’s strength away from Hulburg or bring their own force within striking distance. But if Rhovann had somehow surprised Kara outside of the town with a number of runehelms, then they’d simply stuck their heads into the spring-loaded trap Rhovann and his minions had readied for them-the worst possible outcome, really.

  How many more catastrophes am I going to blunder into today? he wondered. Even though he had no desire to listen to Rhovann’s smug triumph, he had to know more about Kara and the Shieldsworn. “I don’t believe you,” he replied. “Kara trained that army all winter. They wouldn’t break.”