He had known the che’ther in both human and dragon forms. As a petite little blond, Cheleya was almost insignificant physically and her che’ther body was perhaps even more pathetic. She was a runt among her kind. Nearly old enough to be full grown, the dragoness was half the size of most of her race. Even a human could hardly be impressed by a midget dragon, even though it still dwarfed a man in size.
Then she had been trapped in her human form by his magic only to turn into this beast of legend. Malaketh’s mind still felt fear though he knew her true nature. He wanted to return to face the girl once more and prove himself, but it would be a mere show of hubris and the wizard knew better than to give in to that.
Malaketh had been a spy living among the creatures easily manipulating and directing even their masters to do his bidding. They were inferior despite their size and strength, but he was just one man now. After his loss of control, they would probably pursue him without their amulets removing the one piece of magic that could allow him to defeat them all.
In fact, he had delivered their salvation by breaking Cheleya’s amulet removing his ability to control the girl. Then the legendary dragon had come, he shivered unable to pull his mind away from the fear. It dominated his thoughts even as Malaketh struggled to focus on the path before him.
Dargan and the others would certainly give chase. His decade long ruse had been destroyed in a single night. If he could return to Mar’kal in time, the master might still be able to salvage this however. He would use the council and masters against those who would certainly follow. The agent of the Dark One still had a few tricks left that would let him convince Mar’kal that the trackers had become corrupted. They would become the traitors, not him, and he would ensure that they all died before they could unravel the careful web of lies he had constructed during his time amongst the dragons and gargoyles.
When the sun came up, snow glistened below him adding to the brightness of the world. The plains would take at least three days to cross without sleeping, but Malaketh doubted that he could push himself that hard without some necessary rest. Starting from the previous morning, it would make four days without more than an hour’s break at a time. His magic and mind would be pushed to their limit with several more days of flight still needed to thread his way through the mountains to Mar’kal.
A growl pushed up from the bowels of his stomach as anger threatened to take the man over in his frustration. All his work ruined by a simple, foolish girl.
How hard would the trackers push themselves during the day to catch him? Could he take the rest that he would need to keep his lead?
A quick look over his shoulder gave no sign of pursuit, but he knew that they would come once the control spell lifted. Turning his gaze to the land before him, Malaketh watched in shock as a dozen black winged shapes rose into the sky less than a mile before him. These were no gray mar’goyn’lya and were much too large to be mere birds.
The man considered changing course, until he wondered if this might not be the salvation he desired. Could they be shrikes sent by Toban to aid him? How could the man know that he would fail and need help?
Either way, this was a chance to at least get them to slow down those pursuing him. With so many, they might even be able to slay the entire team. With Cheleya and Kel’lor joining their number, there would be eight and they were wizards and magicians. The shrike leader had been a warlock, he had found, so perhaps there were more like him in their number?
As he closed with the flock, the man noted that the shrikes weren’t actually coming toward him. They were waiting for him then. Surely this must be a force sent by Toban as he had surmised. When he closed, Malaketh noted a pair of men walking beneath the umbrella of shrikes. Toban and Delever had come as well as their pets.
Landing a dozen feet in front of the warlocks of the Dark One, Malaketh smiled greeting the men as the shadows of the shrikes swirled along the ground around the three. “Toban, Delever, I am surprised to see you here, though your timing is excellent!”
Cocking his head slightly to the right, Toban questioned, “Did your attempt to eliminate the girl and her friend fail, Malaketh? You had half a dozen trackers with you. Surely they could deal with these students of yours?”
With a quick frown of disgust, the master replied in frustration, “Cor’Dargan turned the che’ther to Cheleya’s side making the odds too even. I used the black amulet to override those wearing their charms, but Cheleya surprised me with a new magic that turned her into a winged dragon. It turned the battle and I had to flee, but with your forces I can destroy them now! Once they are dead, then I can return to Mar’kal telling them that Dargan turned against me. I will tell that a final battle left the others dead and only I have survived,” he finished beaming at the thought. Not only would he rid himself of all those who knew the truth, but he would be the returning hero.
Movement around the man drew his eyes to the dozen, black feathered shrikes landing around the three humans.
Having the dangerous creatures behind the other two warlocks was no worry, but four had landed behind and to the side of the master. After all the deception he had enacted in Mar’kal, Malaketh found it hard to trust anyone behind him. Maybe it was just his nerves and lingering fear from the dragon’s spell making his worry rise instinctively, but the master knew he must be wrong. He was too valuable to the emperor and vital to his plans. Wasn’t he the only the secret agent in Mar’kal buried deep within the Academy of Magic? Wasn’t he also the one who had learned dragon magic that he could pass on to the wizards and warlocks in Ensolus?
He was too important to the future to worry over these creatures betraying him, wasn’t he?
“If your student has discovered the magic to become a winged dragon, has she also discovered their power? You look like a man filled with fear, Malaketh. If the girl has become so powerful, then perhaps it would be unwise to risk the emperor’s newest weapons so carelessly?” Toban challenged calmly. The rebuttal had merit and the dragon mage master worried that his plan would not come to fruition.
“She may not even join the trackers. Cheleya might be left behind by her father. He is very protective of the girl. Who would have guessed that one of their race would show so much feeling for his child? They are essentially just lizards, after all, and don’t many of those creatures eat their young?” he laughed a quick bark but his joke didn’t even elicit a smile or any positive reaction from the men and certainly not from the dark, feathered shrikes.
Delever surprised him by answering with a statement of fact that Malaketh knew as well, “The emperor doesn’t risk his forces needlessly very often. I agree with Toban that I doubt there is much of a reason to risk them here.”
Toban nodded, “Few know that Ensolus has been experimenting with flying creatures. One day we may need to send them in force to break this country, but until then I think that the fewer who know of their existence the better.”
“But if we don’t stop the trackers, I am unlikely to be able to outrun them all the way to Mar’kal. I can spin this to make those beasts believe that Dargan chose his daughter over the city and was forced to kill him to stop the traitor, but I will need your help.
“If you don’t think the emperor values my services undermining Mar’kal, then open a portal so that we can return to Ensolus. I haven’t been home in a decade, so I can be convinced to take what I know and train the warlocks in dragon magic. Just tell me what you think will be more beneficial and let’s do that,” Malaketh finished wondering if the latter idea wasn’t worth considering. He had lived among the beasts long enough and knew enough to bring their magic to his emperor anyway. He would only have remained in Mar’kal for a short time longer, since Malaketh had mastered several lines of magic specific to the dragons and gargoyles.
Refusing to just answer him, Toban stroked his dark, bearded chin in thought as he mused aloud, “We have most of the hidden artifacts from the academy. The discovery of transformation amulets and breeding of the
shrikes means that the emperor already has soldiers and wizards that will be able to fly.
“When I look at what you can bring back to Ensolus, I really have to question what worth you have for our lord.”
Frowning in anger, Malaketh forgot himself in the moment and retorted, “What wizard wouldn’t prefer to use his magic to fly? Having to make an amulet for every wizard to try and use charm magic will require time and resources that aren’t necessary to dragon mage magic.
“Enough of this, Toban. You are simply trying my patience now. We both know that I am of great value to our lord, so stop wasting time with this nonsense! Either prepare these creatures to help me kill the trackers or open a portal to Ensolus that I might end my time with dragons and gargoyles.”
The warlock raised an eyebrow in surprise at the man. Though they had worked together to steal the artifacts from the academy, Malaketh barely knew Toban to be giving him orders. A look of bemusement crossed the warlock’s face and he looked to be finished with his meaningless teasing, in the master’s eyes. What his decision would be was still unknown, however.
“You are right. I was sent here to make sure that your time with the beasts came to an end,” he pointed over of the wizard’s head ending the gesture like a swordsman cleaning his sword with an arcing flick of his hand.
Malaketh’s eyes widened. “Curse you, Toban!”
Trying to move out of the range of the shrike wings, the master made to charge the treacherous warlock before him preparing to call on his dragon wings. If he could just get into the air, he had a chance to flee. There were a dozen shrikes, but he was a dragon mage master. Malaketh had confidence in his ability to fly that was likely to surpass the dark creatures around him.
He opened his mouth to cry out the words, but nothing came. Pain was slower to reach his mind as Malaketh’s eyes watched the world spin. Dipping forward, the wizard watched the earth coming towards him, but it wasn’t the snow covered grass that surprised him but the sight of his own boots and legs.
His body fell forward after his head as darkness washed over Malaketh’s eyes. His mind had a single last thought, that he had failed.
Chapter 34- A New Path
“There,” Elenek called over his shoulder to the team following the tracker. His finger pointed to a dark spot on the ground ahead of them.
Upon landing the trackers were a somber crew as Dargan knelt to check the body of Malaketh. His head was missing from a cleanly severed neck, but nowhere to be found either. Such a thing would have made identification much more difficult if they hadn’t been pursuing the man. A headless corpse found lying in a city could lie in a morgue for days to be identified or even buried nameless without a loved one looking for them. Only trackers following Malaketh, who knew his scent and the lingering traces of his magic, would easily know their target’s headless body.
Malaketh’s clothes were still on his corpse, but there were no other belongings left to the dead man. No nomads had killed the wizard by chance. It would have been a stretch to believe that he would have landed in a dangerous situation without seeing them from the advantage of his flight anyway. There were also no obvious signs of a struggle let alone a pitched battle between a wizard and whoever he faced.
“Two booted men stood here after walking up to Malaketh,” the che’ther tracker noted circling the area. “A dozen other feet that appear clawed like a bird’s surround all three men. Four were close to the wizard’s body, so I would surmise that one of them beheaded Malaketh from behind. Blood splattered the earth directly before his body and to his left.”
The other trackers were doing their best to avoid trampling the scene trapped by the frozen snow and ice. Cor’Dargan could see the same signs and had to agree with the tracker’s theory, but it didn’t give him the answer as to the identity of the men Malaketh had met on this field of snow. He doubted that the wizard would have settled on the ground without knowing at least the men whose tracks trailed off beyond his sight. Whether they had traveled a mile or more didn’t matter, the point was that they had walked to greet the wizard before walking back the way they had come.
“Can you read for trace scents of magic from these others?” he asked still examining the ground around him. Dargan was the only one kneeling within the ring of strange footprints to avoid contaminating the site.
Alk’leyal answered first. He and the other trackers had each been using their various types of magic with a similar thought in mind. “They had magic power of some sort and were human, beyond that we have little more to see here. These others surrounding them were mostly non-magic users, though two give off traces of magic. Whether a spell was used on them or they were able to cast, I can’t be sure.”
Confirming nods by the other trackers left Cor’Dargan with little choices. “We will follow their trail to see if we can discover more.”
Mor’treya stalled the order as she asked, “What about, Malaketh?”
With a sigh that exposed his general disappointment with both the traitor and his fate, the che’ther stood calling forth a spell. Uttering words of the old world, the wizard’s magic pulled the earth and stone dropping the headless body into a shallow grave. Nearly a ton of stone swirled into a conical marker. It was a common sight among the broken and wind swept stones of the Dragon Spine Mountains, but on the gently rolling plains it would stand as a gravestone and protection from the beasts and elements as well.
Dargan would leave the final dealings for the traitor in the hands of the council. Carrying a decaying corpse all the way back to Mar’kal wasn’t a project he cared to deal with and the che’ther doubted what good it would achieve anyway. They couldn’t question a dead man without a head.
The thought made him frown. Malaketh’s head was missing. Had the men taken it to use dark magic to pull knowledge from a dead wizard’s mind in some way? There had been talk of reviving the dead. The Dark One’s army purportedly had wraiths, wights and wizards able to use necromancy, a form of magic most civilized schools forbade. If such things were true, even in death Malaketh might be able to spread what he had learned from Mar’kal to those he served.
Such worries would have to be put off until such a time that they knew there was no way to stop whoever had slain the wizard from getting away.
“We need to catch his murderers. With their numbers, this may be a fight that we can’t win, but if they are able to coerce Malaketh’s knowledge from his dead skull; Mar’kal itself could be in grave danger.”
Looking grim, the squad lifted into the air while Cor’Dargan switched to using his land running spell to increase his velocity. The others had held back to maintain their cohesion, matching his novice flight speed. With the che’ther wizard pushing the pace, they moved off in hot pursuit.
As Cor’Dargan skated along the frozen ice and snow driving his spell from the stone and earth beneath them, the wizard realized he had another fear. The black amulet had not been with the body. If they found the enemy, their amulets were still a weakness and potential threat to their safety.
Knowing the risks, the wizard moved on drawing his team like a kite behind him as they chased towards the unknown killers of Malaketh.
Cheleya sat with her friends in the Colonnades’ stands to the east of a field that had been adjusted for a unique four way match of wizards. Wizard duels were always one on one so the change had both upset the competitors and excited those watching the tournament.
While the noise of the crowd grew as the duelers entered the arena for the first match, the pretty blond remained unusually quiet. Her friends had given her space noticing her attitude that ranged somewhere between disappointment and pouting.
“I can’t believe they expanded the matches to four,” Evantus said conversationally to Colbie though his eyes strayed to the pretty blond looking sad. His attempt to bring the che’ther’s attention back to the present and perhaps a once in a lifetime chance to watch wizards dueling from around the entire world of Alus, seemed to fall on deaf ears a m
oment though Colbie nodded going along with his fairly obvious ploy.
“This one should be especially interesting to watch. First, we get to see Brahvai Froe from Estaria. I hear there were only a half dozen wizards representing Staron, but he survived the first two rounds,” Colbie said praising a hometown favorite.
A new voice spoke from behind them. A copper haired girl wearing a lightweight, red dress with a leather cloak bound with a golden amulet leaned forward to join the conversation. She was one of the che’ther wizards cheering on their own, “He may be good, but Fa’Arronnon is one of our best. I am afraid that I will have to cheer against your champion.”
Colbie gave the girl a look of annoyance as she added, “Brahvai is a fire wizard and even I can read the power of his aura. Your Arronnon won’t beat him easily, Isstmira.”
The mages had met the che’ther only twice, but they seemed to have warmed to them after the battle the night before. There had been a lot of time spent talking while they had waited for the effects of Malaketh’s spell to wear off to get to know them better. Once seemingly set strongly against Cheleya, Isstmira had become friendlier though someone had insinuated that her loss to an earth wizard in the first round, due to losing her amulet and turning into a dragon in the ring, might have released the tension the tournament had instilled in the girl.
Evan jumped into the conversation as a cheer went up for the lone man wearing the black and brown uniform of a falcon. “I almost want to cheer for this guy,” he started drawing the girls’ eyes to the field. “A battle mage made it to the third round of a wizard tournament.”
“He is the only mage to join in the tournament,” Isstmira announced clarifying the man’s statement. “He beat a Kardorian and some wizard from a country in Taltan. Though it is hard to believe someone with that kind of strength could stand up to any sort of wizard, I have little knowledge of the men he defeated. He was with the earth wizard I fought so I met him briefly after my loss.”
Battle Mage: Dragon Mage (Tales of Alus) Page 45