Warcaster (Mage Song Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  “Darion…”

  He gave her a hard look.

  “I do love you, you know.”

  “Then do as I say, and live to tell me again.”

  The others were almost to them now, trailing dust down the evening road with Kestrel in the lead and Jeebo’s thick-legged pony bringing up the rear.

  “Going north,” she heard Kestrel say as he galloped past them.

  Alynor wheeled and let Lana feel her spurs. The horse bolted, and the wind swept her up in its caresses. When she looked back, Darion was holding his sword high above his head, one hand tight on the reins to keep his beast from breaking.

  The dragon spread its wings and opened its claws to strike, hind legs swinging forward at Darion like two clusters of grasping knives. A burst of light flashed across Darion’s sword. That was the last glimpse Alynor got of him before everything went wrong.

  Tall grass whipped at her elbows. She turned forward to find she’d steered her gelding off the road and into the fields. A flurry of dark wings flooded her vision, causing her to rein up hard and sudden. Lana bucked and reared sideways, tossing Alynor from the saddle.

  She landed hard in a stand of dry summer grass, tumbling onto her back beneath a sky full of fleeing crows. An orange light woke and died on the grassline, but she could see nothing apart from the darkening patch of sky above her. When she tried to rise the first time, her back spasmed, and she collapsed again. There was another brief orange light accompanied by a torrid heat she could feel on her face.

  When she found the strength to stand, she saw Kestrel stopped further down the road, flanked by Triolyn and Jeebo, all three of them watching. Darion’s pitch-black stallion seemed determined to throw him and head for the hills, but Darion was holding the animal fast against the dragon’s onslaught. Each time the dragon struck out with tooth or claw, Darion held his sword in the way. Each time, a glint of bright blue light broke across the blade, deflecting the dragon’s stroke like some indestructible glass wall, visible for a mere instant.

  The dragon backed a step. Its nostrils flared. When its jaws unhinged, a geyser of liquid fire met Darion’s sword and forked around it, bathed in subtle blue. Darion waited for the blast to subside, still trying to control his stallion. Then he sent a cut at the dragon’s face, catching it on the muzzle with a shallow clang.

  The dragon backed another step. Darion wasted no time, catching the monster under its chin on the backswing. It screamed. Darion drove the point of his sword into the dragon’s open mouth, nicking it somewhere on the tongue or lip; Alynor couldn’t tell. The dragon staggered backward, and with a dense flapping of its wings, lifted itself off the ground and chugged away into the night sky.

  Darion held his sword high until he was sure the creature didn’t intend to circle back for an airborne strike. When the dragon was gone, Darion lowered his sword and slumped his shoulders. He sheathed the weapon, tossed his helm to the ground, and dismounted. Alynor was up and running the moment she saw him sink to his knees.

  “Oh, my dearest. Are you alright?” she gasped, sliding to a halt beside him.

  He looked at her, his eyes glimmering in the starlight. A sheen of sweat covered his forehead, a sooty black film coating his armor. “Alynor… I—”

  “You saved me,” she whispered. “You saved us all.”

  He said nothing, only sat on his knees and breathed.

  “A dragon,” she heard Jeebo say in amazement. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Gods, you’re the maddest fellow I’ve ever met,” Triolyn said.

  “He certainly lives up to the reputation,” said Kestrel.

  “I believe that was the biggest living creature I’ve ever seen,” Jeebo added.

  “Come to your senses, all of you,” Darion said, rising. “That dragon was scarcely more than a whelp. Were she not so young, I might’ve been able to bargain with her.”

  “You can talk to dragons?” Alynor asked.

  “Aye, and so can you, once they’re old enough to have learned our language. That’s the trouble with the young ones. They can be all the more dangerous for that reason. She would’ve done for us all if given the chance, make no mistake. Now do you see my reason for avoiding those fields? We’ll take ship at Falcon Falls, and we’ll reach Castle Maergath a few days later than we would have otherwise. What does that matter if we arrive whole and unharmed?”

  “I’ve played enough tunes to know when to change mine,” said Kestrel. “I’m with the dragonslayer.”

  “Will you come off it?” Darion snapped. “I didn’t slay that dragon. Far from it. I’ll not have you spreading word that I did.”

  “I give you my solemn vow that I shall speak no such word,” said Kestrel. “Though I make no promises about what I might sing.”

  “If I weren’t so tired, I’d make your head sing with my knuckles.”

  “Much obliged for the offer, milord.”

  “We’ll make camp by the roadside a little ways north,” said Darion. “Set watches until morning. With luck, we’ll reach Falcon Falls by tomorrow night.”

  When they were rested and fed, their horses hobbled, and their bedrolls laid out, Alynor called for the night’s story.

  “Haven’t these past few days been story enough?” Darion asked.

  His small but dedicated audience hissed and heckled until he relented.

  “Very well. Very well. Quiet down, now,” he said with an amicable grunt.

  “Tell us about what you did after you left Sir Jalleth’s service,” said Alynor.

  “Well, the first thing I did after I collected Orynn King’s bounty was to have myself a break. Much-needed and long-anticipated, I might add. That only lasted a few weeks, though. Soon I was right back in the war, only without Sir Jalleth by my side. The king sent me to help with a maneuver along the northern Breakspires. There, I led an advance through mountainous territory to drive the ogres back from the farms and villages near the Tradecross.

  “There were other casters with us, of course. I fought with quite a few experienced mages in those days, though none near as good as Sir Jalleth. And no Warcasters—not full-fledged ones, anyhow. Then one day, I…” He glanced at Alynor. “… I met a girl.”

  There were howls and whistles from the others. They think he’s talking about me, Alynor realized with embarrassment. She felt herself flush, and was glad for the darkness. I am most certainly not the girl of whom he speaks. We met far more recently than that. I was no more than a child when the last of the Ogre Wars ended.

  Darion went on to tell of the girl, whose name was Miryam. The others quieted when they became aware of their gaffe. As Darion sensed Alynor’s growing discomfort with the tale, he shifted his focus away from the woman to detail his battlefield exploits instead.

  From what Alynor could piece together, the girl had been a commoner, the daughter of a merchant at the Tradecross. Darion’s own father had been a merchant, so he and Miryam had found common ground in that. When the ogres captured the Eteron Bridge outside Laerlocke, Darion had lost touch with her for nearly a year.

  In the end, it was the war itself which tore them apart. For Darion’s heroism in battle, Tarber the Mage-King of Orothwain had awarded him his own keep and lands and made him a lord. When that happened, Miryam became an unsuitable match for him. By the time he tracked her down again, her father had married her off to another man. Darion had subsequently made the alliances leading to his marriage to Alynor. These were details Alynor filled in herself, though she had no doubt they were true.

  When Darion finished the tale, he grew quiet and stared off into the darkness, caught in one of his daydreams. His introspective episodes had always puzzled Alynor. She could not say what brought them on, though telling his tales seemed to do it often enough.

  He has loved another, she thought. I wonder why he felt the need to mention it. Could he truly be so insensitive? Maybe he thought I wouldn’t mind. Or does he do it to taunt me?

  Alynor decided then that perhaps
she shouldn’t have asked Darion to tell her all his stories. She certainly wished he hadn’t told this one. Nor did she enjoy feeling a distant second to the woman he really wanted. Yet how could she not? How could she feel like anything more than the price of a bargain well-struck—a trading piece in a political game? That was what she was, after all. Had she truly been so foolish as to believe he might one day come to love her?

  Before she knew what was happening, she felt tears welling in her eyes. She stood and walked into the darkness, trying to wipe her eyes without anyone noticing.

  “My lady,” Darion called after her. “Stay by the fire, will you?”

  She heard him get up and come out to her.

  “Alynor—” He stopped short when he saw her face. “Alynor. What is it? What’s the matter?” He took her by the shoulders and spun her to face him.

  “Nothing, my dearest. I promise, it’s nothing.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  She steeled herself. “I was thinking about home, and I just… I miss it.”

  He pulled her close and comforted her, whispering his consolations. Alynor heard none of them. All the while she let him go on thinking it was homesickness that was breaking her heart, when in fact it was something else entirely. Something she was not sure she would ever get over.

  Chapter 14

  Darion had forgotten what a soulless town Falcon Falls was. It had a sleepy feel to it; a shadowed malaise beneath the constant rushing of the distant falls, by which the Lake of Eaves emptied into the head of the Dathiri River. He had never liked the way its people moped about among those cliffside dwellings, old and warped with moisture rot and salt corrosion. He and his companions would not be there for long, and for that he was glad.

  “Isn’t it time you quipped about how this place makes your skin crawl, singer?” asked Darion, as they rounded a steep, narrow bend in the cliff road.

  “For once, you beat me to it,” said Kestrel.

  “I’ll not make a habit of it,” Darion answered.

  They had already passed a few lonesome cottages on their way up the escarpment as the night closed in. Now, around the bend, the town proper came into sight. Wreathed in a dense fog, the slow-moving river obscured all but the closest buildings. Iron lanterns shrieked on porch hooks to give the mists an eerie yellow glow.

  “It isn’t always like this,” Darion said, mostly for Alynor’s benefit. “Falcon Falls is busier during the harvest season, when farmers cart their crops from the Eastgap to be sent downriver to Maergath and Forandran.”

  “I can’t imagine this place being lively and full of people,” she said. “It’s just so… so—”

  “Bleak? Foreboding? Cheerless?” said Kestrel.

  Lady Alynor laughed. “To be precise.”

  “I would be nowise else, milady.”

  She laughed again.

  Darion rolled his eyes. Curse that dragon for attacking when she did. Had she waited until Alynor and I were down the road, she might’ve made a meal of the singer and rid me of him for good and all. Our separation from this lot cannot come soon enough.

  At least some good had come from their encounter with the creature. Darion had summoned the mage-song to great effect. Now he was certain the knack was returning to him; he could cast while fighting, as he once had. Not only that, but he’d managed to impress his wife in the process.

  The thing that stuck out to him most was how afraid he’d been. Not for himself, but for her. Sir Darion Ulther had fought in defense of a thousand innocents. He’d protected nobles and commonfolk alike, yet never before had he been so frightened of letting harm come to someone he was fighting for. Someone who, as he judged now, he loved.

  The arched wooden bridge spanning the river was as rickety as the rest of the town. Boards shrieked under hoof as they crossed, giving Darion the sensation that any step might be Kalo’s last. No mishap befell them, though, and they were soon crunching over the gravel road on the far side.

  It was a warm night, and though the humidity beaded on armor, skin and horseflesh, entering that town gave Darion a chill. The only public lodging house in Falcon Falls was the Darkwaters Inn, a fitting name for a place as big and old and creaky as this one. It loomed out of the mists before them, bedecked in brown shingles and flanked by a pair of leaning street-post lanterns.

  When they entered the common room, nearly everyone there stopped to look at them. It grew so quiet, in fact, that for a moment Darion wondered if he’d gone deaf. But the fire crackling in the hearth was evidence to the contrary. “Don’t even think about touching that lute of yours,” he said, giving Kestrel a meaningful glance. “A song is the last thing this place needs.”

  “I can think of a few things it needs even less,” said Kestrel. “Us, for example.”

  “You may be right. Unfortunately, there’s no other place to bed down for the night. Unless you’d rather take your chances in the woods.”

  “You know me too well.”

  “Better than I’d like to,” Darion muttered.

  They crossed to the counter and secured rooms for the night from a withered old codger with a crinkled mouth whose constant gum-sucking made his sunken chin waggle like a fuzzy prune. “Animals ain’t allowed inside,” he said, gesturing toward Jeebo’s gyrfalcon. “Best find a spot for your bird in the stables.”

  Kestrel came quickly to Jeebo’s aid. “This creature is the namesake of your fine township. Surely you mustn’t think it right to banish a symbol of such pride and significance to some cold dark corner of a horse-infested—”

  “Falcon Falls ain’t named after no bird,” said the innkeep. “Township’s the namesake of its founder, Bertram Falcon.”

  “You don’t say,” said Kestrel, looking genuinely intrigued. “Never heard of him. What kind of a surname is Falcon, anyway?”

  “I’ll remind you you’ve never told us your family name, singer,” Darion cut in.

  “There’s a reason for that. One I should like to tell you… only I won’t.” Kestrel gave him a wink. “Now, then. This bird is a fine specimen in its own right, regardless of its meaning to you, or this town. I’m sure you don’t mind making an exception.” He slid his hand across the counter. When he drew it back, three copper coins remained.

  The innkeep eyed him suspiciously. “Only for tonight,” he said, taking the coins. “Tomorrow, that thing is out of here.”

  Kestrel smiled. “Certainly.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” said Jeebo.

  “Nonsense. I always look out for my friends. Don’t I, milord?”

  Darion was too tired to refute the point, so he simply nodded. Except when dragons are involved, he almost said.

  “A lord, is it?” said the innkeep, suddenly impressed. “What brings you into town, ye don’t mind me asking?”

  “We’re headed east,” Darion answered vaguely. “We’ll need to hire a boat to take us downriver. A barge or a raft, most like. We’ve got horses to carry.”

  “Talk to old Mathal over there,” the innkeep said, pointing. “Though I dare say you’ll be hard-pressed to find one big enough to take you all with your horses in one go, if that’s what you mean to do.”

  “Is Mathal the dockmaster?” asked Kestrel.

  “That’d be old Tirus, next to him,” the inkeep said. “Tirus doesn’t own any boats, though.”

  “Is everyone old in this town?” Darion heard Triolyn whisper.

  “Anything else I can do for you, sir? A round for you and your friends?”

  “Not for me,” said Darion.

  “Do you have anything dark and gloomy?” Kestrel asked. “I’m in the mood.”

  Darion and Lady Alynor approached Mathal and Tirus as the others negotiated their drink orders. The bargeman and the dockmaster were sitting at a square table with two other men, none of whom seemed eager for conversation. They were focused more on their empty tankards than each other, spinning the vessels between bony fingers amid ringlets of condensation.

&n
bsp; “Hail, fellows. Might my lady and I take a seat with you?”

  The men looked up at him through dreary eyes, but none spoke. Mathal gave him a slight nod, so Darion pulled up a pair of chairs. “You’re Mathal, are you?”

  “Aye, that’s me.”

  “I’m told you’re the man to speak to about hiring a boat downriver.”

  “I would be, any other time. Not now, though.”

  “Why? Is there trouble?”

  “Not as yet,” said Mathal. “There will be soon, if the rumors are true.”

  “The war, you mean.”

  “War’s already happening,” said the man to Darion’s left, who had a thick fiery-red beard and long hair to match.

  “The Korengadi army marches for the Dathiri Ford,” said Mathal. “They’ve laid waste to half a thousand acres of good farmland. Crops would’ve passed through here come autumn, bringing the coin and commerce we rely on to see us through the winter. The harvest season is our busiest. Without it, our livelihoods are at stake.”

  “Has Olyvard King done nothing to stop this?” Alynor asked.

  “The damage is done. I only pray he means to stop them at the ford.”

  “We’ve heard tell that Berliac has allied with Korengad,” said Darion. “Is it true?”

  “By all accounts, yes,” said Mathal. “Soldiers in purple and gold have been seen marching alongside those in Korengadi red.”

  “But why? Berliac relies on trade with the Eastgap as much as Falcon Falls does on the custom of its farmers.”

  “The Dathiri desert has always been too sandy for good farming,” said the red-headed man. “Berliac has its own farmland, and Thraihm as well, below the snowdrifts. What Berliac can weather with the burning of the Eastgap, Dathrond can scarcely survive.”

  “What good can come of starving Dathrond’s people? If it’s conquest Rudgar King truly wants, he’ll find himself ruling a broken kingdom when he wins.”

  “Perhaps conquest is not his aim.”

  “What, then? If not for conquest or trade, what reason do kingdoms have for warring?”