The Wizard and the Warlord (The Wardstone Trilogy Book Three)

by M. R. Mathias

  It took about ten feet of struggling through the thick grass for him to pull his axe off of his back and begin swinging it ahead of him. It was tiresome labor, but he was sure it would make it easier to find the boat later. Besides that, he told himself, he needed to sweat the drink from his blood. He had no brandy to put back in him, and until he worked the poison from his body, he knew he would be miserable.

  About halfway between the dinghy and the source of the smoke, something huge and brown shot across his path. It was moving toward the other trampled place he’d seen. He figured it might be a snapper’s nest. Or maybe it was a swamp dactyl’s nest and the snapper was just going for the eggs. He remembered that marsh and swamp creatures liked to laze in the heat of the day. He’d never actually been in the marshes, save for that trip up the Leif Greyn on a pirate ship with Lord Gregory and Lady Trella. The idea that the flattened grass he was seeing was actually a big creature creeping up on Phen came to him and he quickened his pace.

  “Oarly!” Phen’s voice called out.

  “I’m coming, lad,” Oarly called back with relief. “Stay put now.”

  ***

  Phen stood and quickly spotted the line of Oarly’s travel through the grass. A moment later the wild-looking, breathless dwarf came stumbling into the clearing.

  “Something big is in the grass, yon way, about a stone’s throw.” Oarly pointed. “Might be trouble.”

  “Get your wind back and then we will go see about it,” Phen said. “There’s water right over there. I can’t drink any, so I didn’t check to see if it was fresh.” He pointed to where the low-lying land fell away into the shore. “I tried to look for you, but I sank in the mud.” He indicated his dark-caked legs.

  “Bah,” Oarly exclaimed. “Water’s probably brackish. You did right to start a fire. Let’s check that place before I get too comfortable.”

  “Aye,” Phen said, letting Oarly lead the way. “You didn’t by chance see the boat, did you?”

  “I spent the night guarding it, lad.” Oarly thumped his chest. “The fargin boat is safe and sound.”

  Phen saw the human body before Oarly did, and pushed his way past the dwarf to get at it. Just as he started into the clearing, a big mud-brown lizard came out of the grass hissing and grunting. Its teeth were bared to defend its meal. Phen was in no mood to tussle with the creature. He thought he’d seen the body twitch, the chest rise and fall. He didn’t even bother with a spell; he just raised his white, shiny arms up high, let out a roar, and started toward the thing. The lizard hesitated a moment, then tore off through the grass. Oarly chased after it, howling and cursing.

  Phen went to the figure and was surprised to see that it was a young girl. She was muddy and haggard, but breathing. He shook her gently and her eyes fluttered into a squint.

  “Are you all right, m’lady?” he asked.

  Her eyes shot open in surprise and alarm swept across her face. Oarly was traipsing back up, and when she saw him both of them froze.

  “That girl’s an elf,” he said incredulously. “She’s a fargin elf maiden.”

  “Come, m’lady,” Phen said, trying to calm her with a smile. “Let’s get up now.”

  The fact that he appeared to be carved from stone came to him, reflected in her wild yellow eyes. He was overcome with embarrassment. Had he been his normal flesh and bone self, he would’ve glowed cherry with it.

  “Relax, girl,” Oarly said gruffly. “He’s not a threat, or a monster; he’s just Marble Boy.”

  Phen shot a look at the dwarf that was both pleading and menacing at the same time.

  “I dreamed of you,” she said softly. Her hand came up and brushed across Phen’s stony cheek. He regretted not feeling the touch.

  “See there, Phen,” Oarly said. “It proves my point. Not only are you destined to be known as Marble Boy throughout the kingdom, but even elf maidens are dreaming of you.”

  “I never believed them when they said that dwarves were rude and impolite,” the elf girl said with a scrunched nose. “But I see I should have listened to my teachers better.”

  “How did you come to be here?” Phen asked, ignoring Oarly’s dumbfounded expression.

  “Bah,” Oarly growled. “She would have been lizard food if it weren’t for me, and now she is calling me names. I say we leave her, Phen.”

  “I’m sorry, sir dwarf, if I offended you,” the girl said. “But you were calling your companion names, and I thought you needed a dose of your own medicine.”

  “Never mind him,”Phen said with a grin. “He’s just an unemployed jester.”

  “I thank you both,” she shivered. “I don’t quite remember what happened to me, but I thank you both for coming to my aid.”

  “Let’s get her to yon fire,” Oarly said a little more softly.

  Phen helped the elven girl to her feet and Oarly chopped them a wide path with his axe.

  “You’re a long way from home, lady,” Oarly said as they came to the clearing where Phen’s fire was still smoldering. “The Evermore Forest might as well be on the other side of the world from here.”

  “Where is here?” she asked.

  “See that tiny black fang shape jutting up to the north?” Oarly stood on tiptoe and pointed until she and Phen both sighted it. “That’s Dragon Tooth Spire. We’re somewhere near the sea edge of the Great Marsh.”

  “I just don’t know.” She clenched her fists at her side and pouted like a little girl. “I remember a big black-skinned creature clawing me.” She shrugged her shoulder out of her blouse uninhibitedly to show them the scars. “I remember men dancing and chanting around a hole in the earth on some island far below me. Then I was in the sea in a storm. I— I…” She hugged herself again and sobbed. “I can’t even remember my own name.” Her sob turned into a wailing shudder and she crumpled to the ground and began to bawl.

  Phen looked at Oarly and the dwarf just shrugged and started down the trail he had come from in the first place.

  “I’m going after the boat,” he called back over his shoulder.

  Phen reflected on what the girl had said. A memory of priests dancing around a hole in the earth in a Westland castle garden while demons and worse things crawled forth into the world came to him. “Were these men around the hole wearing red robes?”

  “How did you know?” she asked with enough surprise in her voice to stifle her crying.

  “One of those red-robed priests turned me into this.” He gestured at his marble-colored body.

  “Oh.” She looked more closely at him. He tried not to be embarrassed as she took him in. When he was transformed he’d been wearing a hooded mage’s robe. Now it was stone like the rest of him. It was impossible to see where his garments ended and he began. He hoped she didn’t ask him how he went to the bathroom, because he didn’t. He was relieved when she smiled politely at him.

  “Are you sure it was an island?” Phen asked with growing concern.

  “Yes.” She heaved out a sigh. “Though seen from high above. I was in the sky.” She looked as if she expected him not to believe her, but he just nodded.

  “Borina, most likely,” Phen reasoned. “The priests of Kraw helped the Dragon Queen summon forth Gerard—uh... the Dark Lord or whatever you want to call it. Can you remember anything else?”

  “I remember trees that weren’t aflame, but were on fire.”

  Phen grunted and scratched at his hardened chin. He’d recently heard a similar description of trees from someone, but he couldn’t remember who.

  “If we can get out of here, we will escort you to the High King. He will know what to do.”

  Phen stood and looked toward the southwest, where many, many miles away the island of Borina sat with a few other little atolls. “If those red-robed fools have opened up another gateway there’s no telling what has crawled up into the world.”

  He stood there for a long moment, contemplating, then he turned back to the elven girl. “I can tell that your shoulder was magically healed.
Do you remember any—” His voice trailed away. She was curled up into herself, lying like a babe and sleeping.

  Phen sat down, closed his eyes, and sought out his familiar, Spike. The lyna cat responded to his magical probing quickly. Through their link Phen had the lyna seek out Captain Biggs at the helm of the Royal Seawander. They had established a few signals with the captain before leaving the ship. There was nothing that would explain to the captain that they were hundreds of miles southwest of the Serpent’s Eye at the edge of the Leif Greyn River Delta, but he could let them know they were alive.

  After having Spike pester him long enough, the captain realized what was happening. “Where are they?” Biggs asked the lyna excitedly. He looked haggard. No doubt they had been searching since the storm passed. Phen knew the captain of Queen Willa’s royal vessel wouldn’t want to return to tell the High King that he’d lost two of the realm’s greatest heroes on a lark.

  Phen felt for the man. He and Oarly had more or less bribed him into this. Now that he had Captain Biggs’s attention, he thought about how he could say what he wanted to say through his familiar. He got the captain to follow the lyna down into the Royal Compartment where Phen and Oarly were quartered. There was a map of the southern coast spread out on the booth table. Spike hopped up onto it and began trying to unroll it further westward. The captain watched stupidly for a moment, but after Spike pushed a paperweight off the table Biggs suddenly got it and helped the strange animal unfurl the rest of the parchment.

  Phen had to struggle to see through Spike’s eyes in the dimly lit cabin, but he managed to make out the coastline on the map. He had Spike indicate the marshland west of O’Dakahn, the area labeled Leif Greyn Delta.

  “You drifted past O’Dakahn, then?” Biggs asked.

  Spike paused and nodded his quill-covered feline head.

  Phen tried to be more creative and had Spike trace the shape of the letters S M O K E, but that only served to confuse the exhausted-looking captain. Finally, Spike, on his own, darted up to the unlit lantern and began thumping on it with his tail. A few minutes later Biggs finally said he understood that they would light a fire for him to use to locate them. He said he felt stupid talking out loud to the little feline, but he did it anyway.

  Biggs told the lyna that it would be midmorning before he could get the ship that far west. Phen wished he could talk back to the captain through Spike, but that just wasn’t possible.

  Sometime later the grunting, huffing sound of Oarly’s return came to Phen’s ears. He stood to see what all the commotion was about. Oarly had dragged the dinghy the entire quarter mile across the grass by himself.

  “What did you do that for?” Phen asked him.

  “So we’ll have a way to leave this blasted lizard den, boy!”

  “You should have said that’s what you intended to do, Oarly,” Phen said matter-of-factly. “Captain Biggs is on his way. I imagine they will row the cargo skiff right up to our fire.”

  “Bah,” Oarly plopped down and scowled.

  Chapter 8

  “Are the instances related?” King Mikahl asked the Lion Lord.

  The great wolves and Borg had left Dreen the day before. They were headed to Castlemont to try and spread some hope for the people there. The giant admitted that he was supposed to spy on the breed giants of Lokar for his king, as well. The joyful reunion was over and Mikahl was now in a private council chamber dealing with the current issues of the realm.

  “It’s hard to say,” Lord Gregory answered. “The men in Southport were on one of Glendar’s three ships. They admitted as much, but they deserted when Glendar’s ship sank. They came to Westland to look after their families. The odd connection is that they said the ship sank off of the Valleyan Coast near Crags, but the more obvious commonality is that all of them, especially the two skeletons the Valleyan fishermen netted, should be dead, but aren’t.”

  The room was silent for a while. High King Mikahl, Lord Gregory, Cresson the castle mage, and General Escott were sitting around an oak table in the modest room. The small chamber was annexed from Dreen’s throne room. They all agreed that a matter such as this one should be discussed in private. There was no reason to alarm the people with tales of walking dead men, even if they were true.

  They’d just learned that a few weeks earlier a fisherman from the Valleyan village of Crags caught up two human skeletons in his nets. The skeletons had writhed and twisted and tried to get free of the tangle of ropes, but the quick deckhands worked swiftly enough to secure them. The skeletons were now in an iron cage. The fisherman captain mounted the cage on a horsedrawn wagon and was now dragging the spectacle from town to town making a fortune in copper pieces from the common folk. Queen Rosa’s mother, who still ruled over Seaward, had sent the scroll.

  It said that the captain was there in Seaward City, saying that one of the skeletons was actually that of King Glendar.

  The other incident was a little more disturbing. Outside of Westland’s main trade center, Southport, two other men who had fought with Glendar and Pael were alive when they shouldn’t be. They had been working the lumber trade, felling trees that would be shipped to the builders of Salazar. A miscut caused a towering pine to come crashing down on them. One man’s ribcage was crushed; the other had a branch speared completely through his guts. The incident happened days ago, yet both men were still speaking and alert. Even as their dead flesh was beginning to rot and fall away, they weren’t dying as they should be.

  “Pael’s entire army was undead by the time he reached Xwarda,” Mikahl said. “I suppose some of the men, those on the ships who weren’t dead yet, had already been spelled to become as such.”

  “So then we have three hundred of these— these things, running around?” General Escott asked, with more than a little alarm showing in his voice.

  “One of the ships sank, so the number is more likely nearer two hundred,” said King Mikahl.

  “Your Highness,” Cresson said, indicating that he would like to speak. Dreen’s Castle Mage smoothed his black robes nervously, waiting for Mikahl to respond.

  “Cresson, it isn’t necessary to ask me permission to speak when we are in private counsel,” Mikahl laughed good-naturedly. “As a matter of fact, when we are not in the throne room, or formal court, you are hereby commanded to speak your mind to me, without asking permission to do so. Your respect is appreciated, but you would not be here if your opinions weren’t wanted.”

  “Thank you, Highness,” Cresson said. He stood as he continued speaking. “The idea that some hundred souls are trapped under the sea is disturbing to me. The fact is that they will live as undead beings for eternity, or until their skulls are separated from their spines, or your blade draws in their souls and sends them where the gods will. The same goes for the men whom Pael spelled that still live. They will never truly die. This could turn into a serious problem at some point. There’s a spell, though, that the late Master Targon taught me a few years ago when I studied under him in Xwarda. The spell would reveal to me if a person was under this type of necromancy.” He paused, wrapped his hand around his long black goatee and stroked it slowly. “I think that if we can identify those men who were spelled by Pael while they still truly live, then we can counter their individual curses somehow. Master Sholt surely knows these spells as well.”

  “What are you going to do, Cresson,” General Escott asked, “walk around the realm casting a spell on folks as you pass? Those men could be scattered about anywhere.”

  “The two men in Southport would know some of the others who were on the ships,” Lord Gregory interjected. “From there we could start compiling a list.”

  “Aye,” Mikahl said. “Lady Able has a firm grasp on things in Westland. I think General— I mean Lord Spyra, might be able to handle this sort of thing.”

  “Agreed,” Lord Gregory nodded. “Spyra could use the distraction, I’m certain. The loss of his wife left him empty.”

  “Aye.” Mikahl nodded. He was p
leased to have Lord Gregory’s input. It was always sound.

  “Excuse me, Your Highness,” Cresson said with a strange expression coming over his face as he hurried out of the chamber.

  “Strange one, he is,” General Escott said after the door closed behind the mage. “I don’t much like the idea of magic, or those who study it. It’s unnerving, especially in battle.”

  “He’s all right,” Mikahl said. “You should’ve met the castle wizard we had to put up with.” He shared a look with Lord Gregory.

  “What was his name?”

  “It was Pael,” Lord Gregory said with a halfhearted chuckle. “I’m sure most people think you’re a little strange as well, General.” He grinned and slapped Escott on the shoulder. “What with that tattoo-covered head and all.”

  The general’s eyes narrowed and his face bunched up into a scowl. “It’s an Ultura tradition to be inked with your Spirit Chivon once you pass your rite of passage.”

  “Aye, but on your head?” King Mikahl cringed at the idea of it. Loudin had been inked as well, but in those days Mikahl lacked the confidence to ask about more than a man such as Loudin offered. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “It’s more than my head—”

  The general’s answer was cut off by Cresson returning. The mage looked distraught as he hurried to get himself standing before King Mikahl.

  “Your Highness,” he began. “Master Wizard Sholt has relayed a message. It originates from Prince Raspaar of Salaya. The monks have come under attack by dark winged creatures. These things were described as hellspawned beasts and baby dragons. I assume them to be wyvern due to that description, and the description of the wounds they found on the deceased. One of the dying monks told the prince that evil was brewing in the south. The minds there that Master Sholt trusts agreed that he had to mean from the Isle of Borina. It’s the only land south of Salaya.”