Severine nodded thoughtfully, turning to Wyatt. “You have the loyalty of the Reishi Sovereign. You have my daughter’s love. And now you have my blessing. I ask only that you strive every day to live up to her.”
“Lord Severine, that is easily the most joyful and difficult challenge that I have ever accepted,” Wyatt said.
“As for command of my army, General Janos has the loyalty of many of my soldiers and officers. He is a known quantity to them. You are not. Now that I’m here to provide General Janos with clear guidance, I believe it would be wise to reinstate him as commander.”
“I’m happy to serve in whatever capacity that I can be most useful,” Wyatt said.
“Do you object, Lord Reishi?” Severine asked.
“Not in the least,” Alexander said, shaking his head. “My only concern is that your army moves into position to attack the fortress city.”
Severine hesitated for a moment, frowning. “General Janos wasn’t wrong to doubt the success of such an attack. Over the centuries, the House of Karth has made many attempts to destroy the fortress city. All have failed because those walls are impregnable.”
Alexander nodded. “Perhaps this is a discussion we should have in private. If we could have the army continue to march south while we find General Janos and Tasia, I’m confident that I can allay your concerns.”
“Tasia,” Severine said, “is another issue that I have questions about. Janos tells me that she claims to be a dragon.” His disbelief was clear in his expression and colors.
“She is a dragon, Father.”
Severine frowned at his daughter, doubt still swirling in his colors.
“Your doubts are only natural,” Alexander said.
“No they’re not,” Anja muttered.
Alexander gave her a sidelong glance to forestall any more comments.
She frowned.
“As I said, let’s have this conversation in private.”
“Where did you have in mind?”
Alexander opened his Wizard’s Den.
Severine blinked a few times before walking around the doorway, shaking his head in wonder.
“I’ve heard stories of such magic …” he said, his voice trailing off.
“Summon General Janos and have Tasia brought here,” Alexander said. “Order your army to continue south.”
Severine didn’t respond, still looking at the door.
“Father,” Ayela said.
“Oh, yes, of course,” he said, nodding to one of the men who’d accompanied him.
“Please,” Alexander said, motioning to the doorway in the fabric of the world of time and substance.
It wasn’t long before Janos arrived. The general stopped at the threshold of the Wizard’s Den, a bit wild-eyed. Fear, doubt, and wonder vied for dominance in his colors.
“Come in, General,” Alexander said.
Janos looked to Severine, who nodded with a gentle smile. Janos entered a bit wary, scanning the room for any hint of a threat.
“This is highly irregular, Lord Severine,” he said. “Magic is forbidden.”
“Not any more,” Severine said. “Sit down, General.”
He obeyed hesitantly.
Tasia arrived a few moments later as the army marched by, many soldiers craning their necks to see inside the door to Alexander’s Wizard’s Den. She gingerly climbed down from the wagon that was transporting her.
Anja rushed to meet her.
“Tasia, it’s so good to see you,” she said, offering the elder dragon her arm for support.
“You as well, Child. I’m quite certain that your mother would like to see you too.”
“I know,” Anja said, looking down with a hint of guilt. “When this is over, I promise I’ll go home to visit.”
She helped Tasia to a bed while Alexander retrieved the healing draught that Lucky had concocted for her.
“I had this made for you,” he said, handing her the oversized vial.
She frowned skeptically. “What is it?”
“It’s a healing potion suitable for a dragon,” Alexander said. “After you drink it, you’ll fall asleep for a while. When you wake, your injuries should be mended.”
She looked at it for several moments as if weighing her options before nodding to herself, taking the potion and quaffing it in one long pull. She frowned at the taste and gratefully took the flask of water offered by Anja before lying back and closing her eyes.
Alexander closed the door to his Wizard’s Den and said, “Phane can’t hear us now.”
“You mean he could before?” Janos said.
“If he was listening, yes,” Alexander said. “He has powerful magic at his disposal. Some of his spells give him the power to spy on his enemies.”
Janos shook his head with a look that was almost frantic. “How can we defeat an enemy that knows our plans? If what you say is true, he must know we’re coming. We have to abort this attack or he’ll slaughter our men.”
“General, your concerns are valid,” Alexander said. “That’s why we’re having this conversation here, where he can’t hear us. Now, here’s my plan …”
Alexander spent the better part of an hour explaining his intentions in detail, his objectives and the ruse behind it all. By the time he was finished, he wasn’t sure that Janos or Severine believed he could do what he said he could, but both were greatly relieved to learn of the role their army would actually play in the attack.
Tasia sat up just before he finished, stretching and yawning.
“I heard the last of your plan,” she said. “I think I might be able to bring something to the fight now. And, General, I think perhaps it’s time that I show you the truth of my nature. Your doubts are beginning to annoy me.” She stood, testing her injuries carefully. She smiled at Alexander and said, “My compliments to your alchemist. I feel nearly myself again.”
When Alexander opened the door, Tasia strode from the Wizard’s Den, walking onto the trampled field until she was several dozen feet away from Alexander and the others, who had all filed out behind her. She turned and faced them, holding Janos with her eyes for a moment before transforming into her true form, her iridescent silver scales shimmering in the sunlight, her catlike eyes holding the general frozen in place.
“Do you still doubt me, Human?”
Janos was speechless, visceral fear coursing through his colors. Severine stood very still, fear mingling with wonder in his aura.
Ayela started toward Tasia, but Severine grabbed her arm almost reflexively. Ayela just smiled. “Tasia is my friend, Father. She won’t hurt me.”
He let go reluctantly and watched his daughter casually and fearlessly approach the snout of the ultimate predator.
“I’m so happy you are well again,” she said.
“It does feel good to be strong,” Tasia said, abruptly transforming back into human form.
“My wonder at your true form is only exceeded by my pride in Ayela. I never imagined that she might make friends with such a magnificent being.”
Tasia smiled slightly, nodding once deferentially to the King of Karth. “Well said, Human.”
***
After Alexander summoned Ratagan and Horst, it took only a few minutes by air to rejoin the army.
Most of Karth’s soldiers were infantry, armed with short bows, blow guns, atlatl-hurled javelins, and short spears. While many of their weapons were tipped with stone blades, most were also coated with blackwort poison. The men wore no armor and moved quickly, nimbly, and quietly. A small cadre of officers and scouts rode horses, most at the van of the marching army.
While he rode, Alexander let his thoughts turn to Isabel, wondering where his wife was and how she was faring. He considered looking in on her but thought better of it while he was riding. The last time he’d sent his mind forth while on horseback, he’d nearly fallen off.
They reached the jungle by midday. Alexander’s wariness increased as they moved into the thick rainforest, but the soldiers of
Karth seemed relieved to be out of the expansive grasslands and under the cover of the trees.
When they stopped to eat, Alexander took the opportunity to slip into the firmament and have a look at the progress of his enemies. The fortress city, being the closest, was his first stop and he found it about as he expected. The walls were well manned and bristling with a variety of heavy weapons from ballistae to trebuchet. The soldiers were armed with javelins, short bows, and slingshots. Barrels of arrows and baskets of stones were lined up neatly to provide each soldier with ample ammunition. Against any type of conventional assault, the Regency soldiers were virtually invincible. Fortunately, Alexander had no intention of fighting by their rules.
Next, he shifted through the firmament to Isabel. She was riding in an armored carriage with Phane through the southern grasslands of the Reishi Isle. Phane’s carriage was at the center of his entire force, surrounded by three legions of Regency soldiers and band after band of protective measures.
Alexander slipped inside the carriage, just to see his wife for a moment. Phane looked directly at him and smiled his boyish smile.
“It won’t be long now, Cousin,” he said.
Alexander materialized on the seat across from Phane and Isabel.
“Hi,” he said, ignoring Phane.
Isabel forced a smile. Her colors were a battlefield, darkness vying with her inherent light for dominance.
“You’re right, Phane, it won’t be long now. And this time, you won’t escape justice.”
“Such confidence. Too bad it’s so terribly misplaced. Two, maybe three days is all you have left before the Nether Gate is mine. And once it is, the torrent of darkness that I’ll send after you will scour your very name from existence.”
Alexander just shook his head, then looked at his wife. “I love you, Isabel. I need you to hold on to that, just a little bit longer.”
She nodded tightly. “I love you too, Alexander. Always.”
He slipped back into the firmament and focused his attention on Fool’s Gap. What remained of the force that had killed Anatoly and overrun his legion was now trapped in the gap with Conner on one side and Torin on the other. Alexander arrived just as Captain Sava and his company of Strikers crashed into the enemy line at the base of the switchback road leading up to the gap. As big as the barbarians were, they crumbled as the lances of Sava’s Strikers drove into them. Sava’s column turned immediately into the flank of the line and thundered into the exposed enemy, crushing and trampling them as they rode down their shield line.
Archers rained arrows into their back ranks and Sky Knights flew in squad formations, crisscrossing over the enemy, casting javelins into their midst. A bubble of liquid fire burst in the center of a tight cluster of Zuhl’s soldiers, sending them scrambling and screaming, running into their companions and setting them alight as well.
A flash of argent light arced from a makeshift tower behind Conner’s line, Mage Dax adding his magic to the fight. The lightning struck a single man, burning a hole through his chest in a blink, then arcing to another three, then three more, spreading out into the field, leaving a swath of charred and dead barbarians in the space of a heartbeat.
Conner was taking Alexander’s command to destroy them seriously. He decided to leave him to it. Flitting north with a thought, he stopped high over Zuhl’s main army at Fellenden’s Gate. It was much the same as it had been the last time he’d looked in on them, except that the glyph was complete. It screamed of power, arcane and dark, so much so that it hurt Alexander to look at it. Drawn in blood, Peti had imbued every inch of it with darkness like nothing he’d seen since his unhappy visit to the netherworld itself.
Just outside of their camp was a pile of rotting bodies several dozen feet tall, the corpses of thousands of barbarians all pale and bloodless. Alexander shuddered at the horror of such a sight. Peti had drained them of their life to draw the sigil occupying the middle of their camp. He could only imagine the power she would command when she activated her constructed spell and could only hope that Abigail and the Coven would kill her before that could happen.
Thinking of his sister, the world flashed by in a blur. Abigail was riding behind Magda on Taharial. Alexander was glad to see that the spellbook had been sufficient to reverse the wyvern’s transformation. They flew along the coastline toward Whitehall. The Queen of Ruatha and her small army of witches were just days away from ending Zuhl’s ambitions.
Alexander returned to himself just before the army began to move. Within an hour, he decided that riding a horse through the jungle was a fool’s errand, so he dismounted, joining the soldiers in their march. He marveled at how quietly twenty thousand men could move through the thick vegetation. They flowed like water, choosing the path of least resistance and leaving little sign of their passage.
By evening, they were half a day’s march from the fortress city. He’d originally intended to attack at dawn day after next, but seeing how close Phane was to the Gate convinced him to attack as soon as they were able. Once again, he was in a race.
They pressed forward until darkness overtook them and were on the march as soon as the sky began to show color the following morning. Alexander stopped periodically to send his sight ahead, scouting for any sign of danger. He half expected that Phane had left some sort of trap or assassin for him, but the more he thought about it, the more he discounted the possibility. Phane believed that he was nearing victory—and he’d made it fairly clear that he wanted Alexander to die badly while he watched and gloated.
By late morning, reports of contact with Regency scouts began to come in. Just after midday, Alexander called a halt and ordered the army to deploy along a line not five minutes from the imposing walls of the fortress city, but still well inside the protection and concealment of the jungle.
“Hold here until you hear my signal,” Alexander said. “And remember, there are a lot of innocents in the city. Focus on the Regency.”
“Understood, Lord Reishi,” Severine said.
Tasia joined Alexander and his friends as they moved forward. They stopped a few hundred feet short of the wood line, where the jungle had been cleared and leveled for five hundred feet surrounding the wall. Alexander sent his sight forward. The gate to the tunnel leading through the wall was closed but unguarded. Unsurprising, considering the thousands of men lining the wall above. On the face of it, the fortress city looked impregnable, but in reality, Phane had left these men defenseless and hopelessly outmatched. Without the protection of his magic, they didn’t stand a chance.
“Are you ready, Anja?”
“You’re sure these potions will work?”
“Lucky wouldn’t have sent them if he wasn’t sure.”
“You’re not trying to trick me, are you?”
“No, Anja. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“You better not,” she said, walking out into the clearing.
She hesitated for a moment, a frown creasing her brow before she seemed to make a decision. A moment later, she transformed into her true form, beautiful and terrible all at once.
“Be careful,” Alexander said.
“She’s safer and more formidable as a dragon than she ever was as a human,” Tasia said. “Besides, I’ll be flying with her.”
Anja launched into the sky, her red scales glistening in the afternoon sun. Tasia walked into the clearing a moment later, transforming into her true form and launching into the air with fluid ease.
Alexander opened his Wizard’s Den and went to the chest that Lucky had sent, selecting a potion of warding and the potion of speed. As he stepped out, closing the door behind him, Ratagan and Horst landed in the clearing, their wyverns folding their wings and settling in like birds on a nest.
“I should accompany you, Lord Reishi,” Jataan said.
“I doubt you’d be able to keep up,” Alexander said, popping the stopper off the potion of speed and quaffing the syrupy liquid.
A roar in the distance was followed by men shouti
ng and then screaming.
Alexander drank the potion of warding next, waiting for a few moments for the magic to take effect.
A strange sensation began to come over him, as if the world were slowing down.
“I’ll be right back,” he said so quickly that his friends frowned at the high pitch of his voice. He ran through the jungle, picking his path in a blink, selecting the easiest course through the foliage. He passed the wood line and into the clearing around the walls as if moving his mind through the firmament.
Two dragons wheeled in the sky, tipping over for another pass at the men on the walls, both breathing fire in great gouts. Phane’s guards ran off the walls screaming, fully engulfed in flames, plunging to their deaths. A few arrows sought Alexander out, but he saw them coming with his magical sight and avoided them with ease on his way to the city’s single entrance.
The Thinblade was out and raised when he reached the stout stone gate, slashing into it with blurring speed, carving away chunks of stone with every cut. Flaming oil splashed down on him while he worked, splattering onto his magical shield and igniting the ground all around him. The potion of warding had saved him from a terrible death, but not from the conflagration surrounding him.
With a thought, he opened his Wizard’s Den and stepped inside, closing the door a second later. He paced for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for the flames to die down before opening the door again and stepping out onto the still smoldering ground to resume his work on the gate. It was thick, several feet of stone, but no match for the Thinblade. Within minutes, he’d carved a passage through it and slipped into the long corridor lined with arrow slits and murder holes.
He raised his light to blinding intensity and sprinted for the midpoint of the passage. Shouts of warning could be heard from the men in the corridors that ran parallel to the main entrance, but they were unable to attack quickly enough to hit him, and they were unable to look directly at him because of his light.
Amid the clatter of arrows firing behind him, he reached the center of the corridor and opened his Wizard’s Den. It took only a few seconds to roll Kelvin’s explosive weapon into the hallway and close the door again, racing back the way he’d come with such speed that the enemy never laid a scratch on him. He emerged from the hole he’d cut through the gate and sprinted toward the wood line, crossing the distance in seconds and threading his way through the jungle and back to his friends. Before he reached the clearing, a great slowness seemed to overtake him, the world around him speeding up and leaving him feeling like he was running through molasses.
Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept Page 42