[Storm of Magic 02] - Dragonmage

by Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead)

The fires burned. There were dozens of them, sprawling across the mountainside like the pyres of the dead.

  Some of them, higher up the slope, were pyres. Most though had been lit to keep the remaining soldiers alive during the harsh night. Groups of Caledorian troops huddled around the fires, wrapping their cloaks tightly about their tired limbs. Out of the edges of the makeshift camp, sentries stood in groups of four, heavily armed and vigilant.

  At the centre of the encampment, Rathien lay unmoving. Every muscle ached. His hands blazed with pain still, as if the skin had been stripped off and the residual flesh doused in acid. He had not been conscious for long. On waking, it had taken a while for him to remember where he was, why he was there, and what he had done.

  His face had been badly disfigured. The blood of the chimera had bored into the skin, turning it black. He could feel it still, eating away at him, gnawing away at his body like a parasite.

  Haerwal sat a few feet away, preparing an herbal elixir from the meagre supplies he’d brought with him.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Better,” Rathien croaked, though he didn’t mean it. “How many were killed?”

  “Many.”

  There was accusation in his voice.

  “You blame me,” said Rathien.

  Haerwal didn’t reply at once. He looked miserable, the way someone would look when breaking news of a death. Then, with a sigh, he put down the elixir.

  “I don’t think it’s enough, lord,” he said.

  Rathien narrowed his eyes.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I don’t think waking a dragon will be enough. We are defeated. Our army is scattered, or imprisoned, or dead.”

  Haerwal looked directly at Rathien. His eyes were pleading.

  “We are destroyed,” he said. “Accept it. End this march, I beg you.”

  Rathien felt the words impact like slivers of ice at his heart. For a moment, his will wavered. The skin on his hands and face burned with pain.

  It would be better to go back to Caledor. He closed his eyes, and let his mind sweep back to the dark fields of home. There would be remonstration there, to be sure, but also rest. Sweet, blessed rest.

  “You know I can’t do that,” he said, keeping his eyes closed. “You know there’s nothing for me in Tor Morven.”

  He opened his eyes.

  “Something has awoken in me. I am more powerful than I could ever have dreamed of. Can you explain it? It is the will of the gods. I must believe that.”

  Haerwal looked back at him, and there was doubt etched on his features.

  “Mastery of this magic is the work of a lifetime. What I saw you do back there…”

  He trailed off, not knowing how to end the sentence.

  Rathien sat up with difficulty. Since awakening from the dark sleep, the whole world seemed different to him. Everything was sharper and more vital. The remorseless energy within him was growing still. He could feel it, gestating inside his body like a living thing.

  More real.

  “You need not come with me, Haerwal. The others can leave. My soul tells me the drakes will stir. I can wake them. Everything is possible.”

  Haerwal looked at him steadily. In the flickering firelight, his features looked stretched and twisted.

  “To be a Dragonmage is a sacred calling,” he said. “You left that path a long time ago. You cannot return to it on a whim. You must not return to it.”

  Rathien smiled, though the gesture made his lips crack painfully.

  “You fear I will fail?”

  “No,” said Haerwal, his voice grim. “I fear you will damn us all. I fear you will succeed.”

  Anlia crept back through the door to Valaris’ abode. The key she’d lifted earlier clinked in the lock as she closed it behind her. She padded up a long, winding stairway, trying to keep her breathing shallow and her footfalls light.

  She eased open the door to her chamber, wincing as the faintest of creaks emanated from the old wood. Inside, the room was lost in shadow. Feeling her way, she crept over to the cabinet close to her bed. After some fumbling, her fingers found a lantern. She whispered a single word, and the candle within the glass flickered into life.

  “I am glad to see you back alive, Anlia.”

  She spun round, fists clenched, ready to summon more magic.

  Valaris sat on the side of her bed, his legs crossed. His face was as smooth and relaxed as ever, though there was a tightness at the edges of his mouth.

  “My lord,” stammered Anlia, trying too late to affect an air of offended pride. “A little late, is it not, to be in the chambers of a lady?”

  Valaris shrugged.

  “If that was my ambition, I’d have achieved it long ago. You left this place against my orders.”

  Anlia bowed her head. There was little point in attempting further deception.

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps you have forgotten that, even after all this time, there are still those who wish to kill you. They are not stupid. They will not forget what you did.”

  Anlia smiled wryly. She’d already been reminded of that.

  “I know.”

  Valaris raised an eyebrow. “So one of them found you. What happened?”

  Anlia shrugged. She didn’t want to relive the experience.

  “I dealt with it. I’m not as defenceless as you think.”

  Valaris looked exasperated then. He shook his head wearily.

  “Pathetic. So close, and you jeopardise everything. I am wondering, yet again, whether I can trust your judgement.”

  “You can. You know you can.”

  “Really? You act like a child in the face of danger. Despite all that has been done to aid you, you persist still in this recklessness.”

  “So what would you prefer? To cage me in your hidden citadels forever?”

  “Do not tempt me,” said Valaris grimly. “You told me you had learned to control your powers.”

  “I have.”

  “You killed seven mages in Hoeth, Anlia. There is a price on your head from Saphery to the remains of Nagarythe. Their acolytes will hunt you down to the six corners of the earth. Do you not understand this? They will keep coming. They will never relent.”

  “It was an accident! You know this. I was young and terrified. I have learned to control my art.”

  Valaris shot her a level gaze. In the semi-dark, his eyes were like pools of pitch.

  “So you say. But if that is true, then I do not know how you did it. I know so little of you, Anlia, despite our long association. I must take much on trust. You ask me to protect you, to seek out books of lore for you to study, to deflect the attentions of the vengeful noble families who hunt you still. And what, after all this, do I get in return?”

  “You get power, lord,” said Anlia. “None has worked harder for you than I. Let me prove it to you.”

  She came closer to him, kneeling on the floor and cradling the lantern in her lap.

  “You will not regret your choice,” she urged, looking up at him with a pleading expression on her face. “The loremasters of Hoeth never understood me. They were scared of my power. They sought to punish me when the power was unlocked too early. They knew it was their mistake. You saw their short-sightedness. You saw my innocence even when all others cried for my execution. Do not forget what you saw then, lord. Do not forget the promises I made to you, and those you made to me.”

  Valaris said nothing for some time. His eyes roved carefully over her face, as penetrating as ever.

  “If I take you to this place, then you must be my mage, Anlia,” he warned. “Riches and influence await both of us, but only if you submit to me. Can I trust you to remember that?”

  Anlia smiled.

  “I am your mage, my lord,” she said, as meekly as possible.

  Valaris rose from the bed then, straightening his robes.

  “Remember it,” he said, making for the door. “Remember what it means.” He paused a
t the doorway and looked back at her. “I almost forgot. Who were you talking to, just before you came in?”

  Anlia started. “Talking to?”

  “I thought I heard voices.”

  “I am alone, lord. You can see that.”

  Valaris looked sceptical for a moment, as if pondering whether to put that to the test, then shrugged.

  “You have persuaded me to venture this thing,” he said, sounding as if he still doubted the wisdom of his decision. “Do not make me regret it. The ships are ready, and we sail with the dawn.”

  Two days of climbing, and the heights of the Annulii became ever harsher. The wind lashed hard, screaming down from the ice-fields at the roof of the world. The roar of the high winds was constant, an ever-present rumble that preyed on the nerves. Every so often, an echoing cry would sound out like the screams of children, or women, or some flock of unearthly summit-creatures.

  It might have been a trick of the wind. It might not have been.

  Rathien, Haerwal and the household guard pressed on, passing up into the snow-clad slopes. All the surviving horses had been sent back down the mountain, together with the wounded and most of the footsoldiers. Those that remained in the diminished band were mostly the blood-servants of Rathien’s house. No more than thirty still remained—a pitiful return from the mighty host that had left Tor Morven with such hopes of conquest.

  As he trudged through the snow, Haerwal ached all over. Like all the others, he carried wounds from the fighting. When the chimera had attacked, his death had been moments away. Then Rathien had summoned the fire.

  After years of forgetfulness, Rathien had become capable of summoning such fire that even the beasts of Chaos had no answer to it. Haerwal knew enough of the ways of magic to know that such a sudden reversal could only be the result of some profound change in the world. Nothing made sense anymore. Old rules and old laws had lost their power to govern, even as the spirits of the asur strained at their self-imposed bonds.

  Haerwal gritted his teeth against the driving sleet and pushed such thoughts to the back of his mind. The column of troops, all with cloaks clutched tight against the cold, rounded the corner of a great spur.

  Beyond the corner, the land suddenly fell away. Directly ahead was a great valley, running transverse, its depths lost in a rolling tide of cloud. The far side, visible in patches through gaps in the sleet, was sheer and dark, and the snow on its ledges ran in stark bands. The nearside terrain dropped precipitously. The track curled round the mass of rock to the right as if for protection. It looked like it gave out a few hundred feet further up.

  Haerwal peered over the edge, and felt the queasy grip of vertigo.

  “What now, lord?” he called out. There was no path across that yawning gap, and no point in following the track much further.

  Rathien turned to face him. The black marks on his face had spread, lending the exposed flesh a bizarre mottled aspect. Haerwal could see a vivid, unsettling light in his eyes. There was a strange, latent energy there.

  “Do you not see it?” he cried.

  As he spoke, Haerwal drew up close behind him. Loose stone bounced over the edge where his horse stamped, chinking from the rock beneath as it tumbled into oblivion.

  “I don’t—”

  Then he did.

  The curtains of sleet and half-snow parted for a moment. The path did end a few hundred feet up the slope, but there was a tower at the end of it. Not much to look at—thirty feet high, and pocked with holes. A steep-pitched roof had partially fallen in, and the tal-wood door banged loose in the mountain air.

  But the tower was not what held his attention. Beyond it, a pier of stone extended out across the void. It was slender, like a bowstring stretched shiver-tight, and the far end was lost in mist. There was no rail or parapet—just a blank road of rock, hundreds of yards up in the high air.

  Asuryan only knew who could have built such a thing. Perhaps no mortal had done so.

  “Yes,” he said, quietly. “I see it.”

  Rathien laughed.

  “We’ll make camp in the tower,” he said, failing to disguise the yearning in his soul. “We all need shelter.”

  “And then?”

  Rathien was looking hungrily across the gap.

  “You stay there. All is ready, and I cross with the dawn.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sunlight blazed from the waves, so sharp that it made Anlia’s eyes water. The hawkship’s lateen sail was full, taut against the rigging, the hard white of unbroken snow. Spray burst up from the prow in showering cascades as it plunged through the swell. All around her, the unbroken ocean vista stretched out of sight, lost in a haze of blue.

  She remembered leaving the stone quays in Lothern three days ago. The great harbour had been as busy as ever, jostling with warships and trading galleys. Alongside the slender asur vessels had been mighty carvel-built galleons of the Empire, rolling on the water like drunkards. There had been sleek dhows and carracks, bilge-slopping cogs and the caravel of a visiting duke from some petty realm or other. All of those ship names had been new to her, explained patiently by the hawkship’s master, a grey-eyed Sea Guard called Noreth.

  “Ugly creations. Slow,” he’d remarked, looking over the array of wildly different vessels with distaste. “And more of them every year.”

  She remembered passing under the Emerald Gate, that colossal arch of sea-green stone. Seeing it at close quarters had thrilled her more than she would admit. There had been eagles flying alongside them as they passed the threshold, majestic creatures that wheeled and darted in their wake, escorting them from the heart of the harbour and into the open sea.

  The Tiranien was superb. Everything on the hawkship—the spars, the balance rods, the asfel rigging, the pennants—was clean and clear. In its wake came the other ships, a whole flotilla of sleek vessels plunging through the spray. Their pristine sails glared white under the unbroken sunlight.

  Now the span of the sky was cloudless. The wind raced, tangling her long hair and blowing it across her face.

  None of that cleared the lingering echo of fear from her heart. Ever since the encounter in Lothern, she had been jumpy, her nerves strained by the very lack of confinement she’d once chafed against. She was out in the open, free of the security of Loedh Anlyn’s thick walls and the reassuring cloak of anonymity.

  Despite the prize ahead, despite the anticipation of all that power, she was still afraid. And the presence of the Sword Masters made it worse.

  As she looked out over the pitching foredeck, she saw one of the white-robed warriors negotiate his way to the prow. He was as sure-footed at sea as he would have been on land and compensated for the tilting motion of the ship with a fluid, unconscious ease. His robes rippled in the wind, exposing the taut outline of his killer’s limbs underneath.

  “Got used to them yet?” asked Valaris. He joined her on the reardeck, standing at the rail and leaning into it.

  “Since you ask,” she replied, “no.”

  Valaris grinned. His tanned skin looked healthy under the strong sun. “You’d better. They’re not going away.”

  “But Sword Masters? Of Hoeth?”

  Valaris shrugged. “They have no idea who you are. In any case, you’re under my protection.”

  “You know I can’t take that chance. They take their orders from the Tower.”

  Valaris laughed. “But you’ve taken such ingenious precautions.”

  Anlia didn’t like to be reminded of that. It was demeaning. Her appearance had been subtly altered with a minor spell. Not enough to frustrate a determined attempt to uncover her, but sufficient to protect her identity at a distance from non-prying eyes. Her face had filled out, her eyes were blue rather than green, her accent was less pronounced and her hair was a shade darker. It took a little effort to maintain the illusion, but it made her feel slightly less exposed.

  “Mere conjuring,” she said. “If they see through it, or guess the truth, then you will be defen
ding me against a whole troupe of those killers.”

  Valaris didn’t look concerned. Since leaving land, he had relaxed.

  “You worry too much,” he said. “They’ve probably never heard of you.”

  Anlia turned away from him, irritated by the change in his mood. If she wasn’t being admonished for being incautious then she was being admonished for the opposite. Ironically, as the days had passed, her bearing had become the opposite to Valaris’. As they drew ever closer to their goal, she had become more nervous, more willing to see the potential for disaster.

  She looked out over the southern horizon. The ships were making good progress. So far, the journey had been uneventful. They had all been lucky.

  The fulcrum was not far. The Winds of Magic surged around her, stronger already than the world’s winds. She could feel the heaviness of the air press against her, as if before a thunderstorm. The heavens dripped with raw aethyric matter, desperate for release.

  That fuelled her anxiety. There were creatures in the deep places that Valaris knew nothing of. As the tide of magic waxed, they would be drawn towards the centre of storm. Even out on the empty seas, there was always danger.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Valaris good-naturedly, shading his eyes against the sun.

  Anlia didn’t reply, but screwed her own eyes up, scrutinising the southern horizon. She saw nothing untoward. Just as it had been since they’d left, all was clear, and all was benign.

  Then, just as she was about to give up, she noticed something. Like all the children of Aenarion, she had exceptional vision, but her innate powers allowed her to see other things too, things that extended beyond the purely physical.

  She tensed. Far ahead, still under the waves, something was moving.

  “Prepare your ships for defence, lord,” she said, and there was none of the usual levity in her voice. “Perhaps bringing Sword Masters was wise after all.”

  She looked at him, knowing that her face betrayed her nervousness.

  “I do not wish to alarm you, but I fear we shall need them.”

  Rathien walked out onto the stone pier. He was alone. Around him, above him, below him, all was lost in a moving haze of pearl-grey.