The ceiling of the chamber shook, dust pouring down and whole stones dislodging and clattering to the ground.
“There? You see? That is probably the sweet little darling coming home now to—”
A second rumble shook the chamber, and a section of roof slumped inward under the weight from above. When the dust cleared, the slightly brighter light of the now-visible night sky revealed both Mott and Myn. The familiar looked badly battered and was barely moving. Straddling the beast was Myn, scored with slashes and dripping blood from a few wounds, but with triumph in her eyes.
“Ah…” Turiel said. “Well then… I can only imagine how well the rest of my precautions are faring.”
Ether tore one arm entirely free from its bonds while Myn stalked toward Turiel.
“I… believe Kenvard has given me all the strength it can spare,” she said. “Best to leave this place.”
She clacked her staff down, and six black voids appeared, growing swiftly into portals arrayed around her. With a flick of her wrist she sent the prone form of Aneriana flying through one of them. The sword was sent through another, and those bands still binding Ether began to drag her through a third. She fought against them, unwilling to lose the time it would take to return to this place from wherever she might be sent.
Myn stalked closer, attempting to reach Turiel, but the portals were close around her. Though each was far too small to allow her through, Myn was cautious not to venture too near. She’d seen what could happen to anything that only passed partway through such a thing before it closed.
“You seem a reasonable beast,” Turiel said, slipping through one of them. “It would behoove you to leave this place before any of these gateways close… beginning with that one.”
In response, one of the six portals began to swiftly contract. Ether was almost free, her eyes set upon Turiel as the dragon looked to her.
“Go, beast! I will see to her,” Ether demanded.
Myn swiftly obeyed, leaping into the air and whisking toward the rebuilt portion of the capital with the speed of a creature that knew all too well how potent the forthcoming eruption of magic might be. Ether finally fought free of the final bond just a moment before she would have been dragged through one of the portals and instead bounded through the one Turiel had used to escape. It led to the windswept and icy stone surface of Demont’s fort that had played host to their prior battle, but Turiel did not seem to be present. Ether looked all around, the portal behind her beginning to close, then finally took the gamble of shifting to wind. It would leave her open to attack, certainly, but it would also allow her to search the area in moments.
The instant she shifted to air, her awareness becoming unfocused. Encompassing every breeze and current of air, she became painfully aware of two things. The first was that Turiel was not here, or at least, was not here any longer. The other was that there existed a second portal…
She streaked toward it, hooking over the edge of the seaside cliff and discovering that this escape portal was located halfway down the cliff side. The bite taken out of the cliff beside it suggested it was precisely where the first portal had been, the one that brought Turiel to Kenvard. It too was closing. She quickened her pace, rushing toward it, and managed to slip through an instant before it closed entirely.
Ether realized as she whisked into the portal what Turiel had done, and cursed the cleverness of it. Of the six portals she had opened, not one but two of them had been to Demont’s fort. She’d slipped through one and back into the other. Ether caught only a brief glimpse of her, riding atop a badly ailing but still very much alive Mott. After that, the first of the portals closed, unleashing its torrent of energy with Ether directly beside it.
#
Myranda and Ivy had their hands full with the rush of possessed nearmen charging from the castle. Both of the heroes had the misfortune of having been a part of many battles before, but in nearly all of them their foes had been trying to kill them. The armored, mindless things rushing through the ruined streets of New Kenvard were barely aware of Myranda or Ivy, their eerie eyes set to the south and their movements tireless and unnaturally fast. Myranda attempted to dispel the spirits driving them, but either Turiel had worked a spell to protect them, or the years of torment had hardened their will. Only focusing on one at a time could tear the souls from their hosts, and more often than not they found their way back inside. The only way was to defeat the nearmen and deprive the spirits of new vessels.
This, at least, was a task Ivy was grateful to do. Chasing down and slicing up creatures that weren’t technically alive and didn’t even fight back was a delightfully uncomplicated way to indulge the predatory instincts she’d been forced to suppress for so long. For once, she was putting weapons to work not out of fear or anger, but out of duty and defense. She sprinted through the streets, bounding over mounds of rubble and flicking her blades through the air. Their spectacularly sharp edges slipped effortlessly through armor and artificial flesh alike, causing the sprinting soldiers to collapse into dust. Thrill and exhilaration flowed through Ivy as she chased down those nearest the walls, then slid to a stop to angle her ears toward the pounding boots of her next target.
The wizard took to the task a bit more grimly. She couldn’t move as quickly as her ally, and as crucial as it was to strike down these soldiers, it burned at her to have brought battle to her streets again. Nevertheless, there was a job to do. She summoned flashes of flame to sear away some nearmen. Others were buffeted with intense winds to gather them into clusters before striking them with bolts of destructive magic. She worked precisely, surgically. There must be no damage to the rest of the city. Too much time and effort had been invested rebuilding her home for it to be broken again.
For all their efforts, Myranda and Ivy couldn’t stop every soldier. Some made it as far as the wall. Celeste had gathered the guard and spread them among the choke points, the streets and alleys between the buildings. Bows were pulled taut; volleys of arrows launched at the fast-moving forms as they emerged from the shadows. Some fell, others didn’t, passing instead to the next line of defense. City guards with swords struck and slashed, men with great shields formed mobile walls, pushing the nearmen back and jabbing them with pikes. The scattering of foes that made it through and survived to scale the wall or whisk through the gates were targeted by a final row of archers stationed on the wall itself. With the open field south of the city sprawling out before them with no cover, the nearmen were easy targets.
The flood of haunted constructs had slowed to a near stop when the thunderous bursts erupted from the ruined castle. One by one the portals shut, releasing their miscast overabundance of energy as raw destruction. Massive plumes of dust and stone rose into the air. There was little structure still standing in that part of the city. Most of the castle was little more than gravel at this point. But even if it had still been the grand symbol of her land that it had been in her youth, Myranda’s concern for its destruction would have paled in comparison to the other things threatened by the blasts. Ivy skidded into the main street and locked Myranda in her gaze, the two heroes of one mind.
“Did they all get out!? Is Myn okay? Is Ether?” Ivy cried.
The malthrope turned and looked with agonizing concern over the center of the city. Myranda swept instead with her mind, but the burst of D’Karon magic hung like a thick, toxic fog over the city. It blotted out everything else.
“There! There, I see Myn!” Ivy said, jumping up and down and waving her blades in the air.
Myranda looked to the sky and could just barely make out the silhouette of her friend wheeling down from the cloud of dust and circling toward them.
Ivy hung her blades at her belt and ran to the dragon as she touched down wearily. The malthrope dove at Myn, wrapping her arms around the base of her neck and hugging tight.
“Myn, did Ether get clear? Did she follow Turiel?” Myranda asked.
The dragon turned and looked to the castle, her expression anythi
ng but certain.
“No…” Ivy said, looking again to the castle.
Through the concern, Myranda forced herself to remain focused on the task.
“They were portals, weren’t they? Turiel opened portals?”
Myn nodded. This much was certain.
“What about Mott? Was he still alive?”
Myn nodded again. Myranda brushed her fingers across the dragon’s hide, looking anxiously at the assortment of injuries great and small.
“You’re hurt…” Myranda said. “Let me—”
The dragon pulled away as Myranda readied her staff to heal her and gave the wizard a defiant look. She was evidently mindful of how near her limit Myranda was and how much of their task remained.
“Don’t be stubborn, Myn, you need your health. Just hold still so I can—”
Myn huffed her breath and stomped a foot, her expression quite firm.
“Fine, I don’t have time to argue. If you feel strong enough, go and find Mott. There’s no sense trying to track Turiel by the portals, she could have used any of them. But with her beast, we’ll at least have more to go by.”
Myn nodded and galloped off toward the castle. Ivy dashed after her, and when Myranda was confident the town guard could handle last of the flood of nearmen, she followed. She’d not made it halfway there when Myn came bounding back, fury in her eyes. From the way she was whipping her head about, gazing at the sky and sniffing at the air, Mott had not been where she’d left him, and there was no trace.
“No,” Myranda said, her fingers tightening around her staff and her eyes shutting tight. “I won’t lose her after getting so close. This woman, as mad as she may be, is frighteningly clever. Her goal is to get to the front. If the massacre was able to provide her with this much power, then I hesitate to imagine what the front will provide. Kenvard is by far the closest D’Karon portal point to the front. She wouldn’t have left this place.”
She gazed up at the sky, following the tower of choking dust up to the clouds.
“She covered her tracks, mystically and visually. Brilliant… Myn, can you fly?”
Myn responded by unfurling her wings and looking to the sky. Myranda climbed onto her back.
“Ivy, I know you don’t want to hear this but—”
“I’ll stay here and see if I can figure out where Ether went,” Ivy said, predicting her assignment.
“Tell father to head south as soon as he’s certain the city is secure. If Turiel reaches it, I suspect she won’t be difficult to find…”
“I will, and when I’ve got Ether sorted out I promise I’ll be by your side as soon as possible.”
Myranda nodded. “One way or another, Ivy. This ends today.”
#
The journey south had not been a pleasant one for Deacon. He and Myn had gotten off to a bad start, but when the time came to fly with her, she’d at least always allowed him on her back. As such was against a very ancient and sacred tradition among the Dragon Riders, Deacon had been forced to endure the multiday journey clutched in one of Garr’s forepaws.
“Dragon Rider Grustim!” he called out as best as his constricted chest would allow.
His host offered no response. Deacon knew from experience that was not an indication he’d not been heard, simply that Grustim didn’t feel as though a response was worth his time or effort.
“I think perhaps Garr’s grip is a bit too tight.”
As a dragon mount, Garr’s training was extensive, Deacon had no doubt. Likely the beast had been taught precisely how to carry a human in this way without injuring him or her. If that was the case, however, Deacon suspected Garr was following the letter of the training rather than the spirit, because the clutch of the dragon’s claws around him seemed to have been very precisely calibrated to fall just short of crushing his bones.
“Better that than the opposite,” Grustim observed.
One positive outcome of the uncomfortable journey was the peerless view of the ground it afforded Deacon. Fear of heights was not a problem for him, so the view was not only fascinating but crucial, as it had revealed to him something quite curious.
Dark forms had been moving across the Wastes, small clusters of troops on direct courses from at least three small cities and settlements. All were heading in the same direction as they were. Even as Garr shifted his angle of flight and began to drop down to the surface, another group of soldiers came into view.
“Grustim, are the Wastes commonly used for training and readiness drills?” Deacon called.
“Not this far south, not this many, not at this time of year, and not during a time of military uncertainty.”
“Then why are so many troops headed south?”
“I do not know, but I strongly suspect it is not a coincidence, pleasant or otherwise. And certainly not in our favor.”
“I suspect you are correct.”
A few minutes later they set down, and Deacon was rather forcefully dropped to the ground. He stood and dusted himself off, resolving to take some time when the current crisis had ended to determine why dragons seemed to more often than not take an instant dislike to him.
The Southern Wastes were a dry, arid, and cold place. Not as frigid as the Alliance, but cool enough that Deacon found himself longing for the traditional Northern garb. The air had a very slight salty sting to it, hinting at the sea that lay unseen beyond a line of low mountains to the south.
Deacon held up the page of his pad covered with the thin, precise lines of Ivy’s sketch and compared it to the landscape to the south. It was clear why Grustim had been concerned about the amount of time it would take. Never before had Deacon seen a mountainside so littered with caverns and crevices. Considering their destination only needed to be deep enough to shelter a single woman, even narrowed as they search was they would have to visit hundreds of them.
“Are you certain you can trust the sketch to be accurate enough to identify the place?”
“Ivy has a great many gifts. Though music may be her calling, her skill with the pen and with the brush is no less remarkable. If this is how she rendered it, then it is at least as accurate as Turiel remembered it.”
Grustim paced along, his armor jingling. “And how is this ally of yours privy to the memories of a foe?”
“As I understand it, there was some manner of exchange that occurred between them,” Deacon explained without looking away from his task. There was no indication in his tone that he felt anything he’d said thus far was out of the ordinary.
“I’d known the Alliance methods of war were different from the Tresson methods. I’d not realized how great the difference was.”
“I can assure you, Turiel’s methods are not typical of the Northern Alliance.” He tapped the pad. “This, the feature she indicated and detailed… there are only a handful of stretches of the coast visible that are high enough to host it. It is simply a matter of finding the proper angle. This upright here will become visible if we head to the east, I feel,” Deacon said. “Not more than a few hours and we’ll have it.”
“And you cannot speed matters with your magic?”
“I’ve been seeking it since we took to the air. All I can say with any certainty is that it is quite near.”
Garr stopped and raised his snout, shutting his eyes and drawing in a long, slow breath. Without any other indication of danger, Grustim reflexively tightened his grip on his lance and began to scan the horizon.
“What is it?” Deacon said, turning to his escorts.
Rider and dragon turned simultaneously to the north. Garr craned his neck, and Grustim climbed first to his back, then to his head, balancing effortlessly atop it and taking stock of the horizon.
“The troops. In the distance I can see at least three squads heading toward us.”
“Is it possible they saw a Dragon Rider and felt there may be a crisis that could benefit from their aid?”
“Why they are coming this way is of little concern. When they reach us, they will f
ind you with me and there may be questions, at best. Depending on who dispatched them and why, there may be no questions. Do your work quickly. If they find us and seek to stop us, we will be left with very few options.”
“Understood… I believe we need to go that way, east. A fair distance.”
Grustim dropped to the base of Garr’s neck, and the dragon snatched Deacon up. A few strides and a snap of his wings took them into a glide that practically skimmed the ground. Deacon kept his eyes trained south, watching the shape of the landscape shift. Miles whisked by and his wind-burned eyes focused on a single point. It was a steep spire, similar to the one Ivy had drawn, and with each moment it seemed to match the image more closely. Then, as they neared a section of cliffs that was taller and more intricate than the rest, he saw his first glimpse of the tree she had drawn.
“We are close! A bit farther southeast!” he called. “Farther… Farther…” His eyes flicked up to the land and down to the page.
Grustim grunted an order to Garr at the precise moment that Deacon’s hand shot out to a feature on the land.
“Footprints!” Deacon called.
Garr’s flight shifted seamlessly into a trot. He canted to a three-legged run with the remaining claw clenched about Deacon. When he had slowed enough, he dug his claws into the frigid earth and ground to a stop. He dropped Deacon, who stumbled briefly but managed to stay on his feet rushing toward the mountains.
There was no doubt anymore. The footprints were few and far between, swept clean by the constant wind in all but a few sheltered dips and gullies. Finally there was the cave. It was an unassuming one. Not the sort of shelter one would willingly choose. The mouth was tall and narrow, and a quirk of the mountain face seemed to funnel gusts of wind inside despite the constant breeze coming from behind the mountain.
Deacon stepped inside, Grustim close behind.
“Someone lived here?” the Dragon Rider said, eying the surroundings.
There was evidence of habitation. A few empty bottles and casks, and a stunning variety of animal remains, but nothing as basic as a washbasin or even a bed could be seen.
The D'Karon Apprentice Page 45