Aethersmith (Book 2)

by J. S. Morin

  Kyrus sighed, staring up at the ceiling of his little house as the sky outside gave way to the dark of night. The storm-churned Katamic stank of things normally buried deep under the water, and belched forth a cold, brackish wind. Kyrus was not bothered by the rank air that the sea coughed up, for the fragrance of Tippu’s and Kahli’s hair dyes filled his nostrils with scents of melon and spice. The unseasonable chill of the night’s winds blew in through the straw-covered doorway, but Kyrus did not mind. The two Denku girls pressed tight against him for warmth, and the heat from their bare skin warmed Kyrus as well.

  I have never even held Abbiley this close, Kyrus mused. I think that is why they bother me at times. They take liberties I had thought to have reserved just for her. I will make amends. I have grown stronger, and soon enough, I will rip a path through the aether and step through it, leaving Denku Appa and arriving back home, if only for long enough to reclaim Abbiley.

  I wonder if she would like it here …

  Kyrus thought his last thought before sleep claimed him, picturing Abbiley clad in Denku fashion, curled at his side instead of Tippu. He met slumber that night with a smile on his face.

  Chapter 3 - Plans and Preparations

  Steam rose from the sweating combatants as they circled each other in the palace courtyard. Two lads from the School of Arms with bared steel in their hands faced off against one young man in black sorcerer’s garb, who stood half a head shorter than either of them. The smaller man was wielding a heavily padded wooden sword in both hands and appeared to be holding his own against the pair of younger fighters. The two lads worked well in tandem, continually trying to flank their opponent, who spun, slashed, and parried his way free of the traps they kept trying to lay for him.

  “He seems to be improving, at least,“ Brannis commented, watching the practice session from afar.

  He was sitting at a small table set outdoors on a ground-level terrace just off the courtyard, sipping warmed cider in the cold morning air. Brannis was Grand Marshal of the Kadrin Army, and wore his gold-and-quicksilver armor covered in a doublet with both the imperial sigil and his own Solaran house crest. Young for such a lofty position, he wore the surprisingly comfortable magical armor often to give himself the appearance of authority to match his station.

  “His footwork is improving, and the technique is not the disaster it once was, but he lacks any strength behind the blows,” replied Rashan.

  Despite looking even younger than Sir Brannis Solaran, Rashan was an uncle of his, some five generations removed. Unlike Brannis, he was strong in aether. The empire had bred sorcerers for thousands of years to refine the hereditary aspects of what made for a potent sorcerer, and trained them at the Imperial Academy with the hope of teaching them the rest. Rashan Solaran was among the greatest successes of that endeavor. While sorcerers could be bred, warlocks were a chance occurrence—sorcerers gifted enough in their powers that they could use them safely amid the confusion and chaos of combat. Rashan was not only a warlock, he had learned the secret of immortality. After a century’s absence during which he was believed dead, he had recently returned to the Empire.

  “What do you expect? You may have been throwing him out into the practice yard daily this past season, but last autumn that boy had hardly lifted anything heavier than a quill. A body takes time to harden,” observed Fenris Destrier.

  A smallish, pudgy man with little hair left on his head, Fenris slumped round-shouldered in his chair as he cradled his own cider just below his face, letting the steam rising from it fill his nose with warm air. He could have used magic to warm himself, or at least keep away the chill—as a sorcerer of the Inner Circle, it would have been a scant test of his powers—but he did not wish to give the warlock the satisfaction of seeing him give in to a dislike of the cold.

  “You have seen the reports,” Rashan said. “Megrenn is readying for an invasion. We do not have a season to prepare; we have perhaps half a season if we are lucky. Iridan needs to be ready. He is just going to have to put in more of an effort. He does not have the luxury of a leisurely training regimen.”

  The warlock was shorter and slighter of build than his son Iridan, with long white hair the color of fresh snow and pale eyes that seemed to lack for any nameable color. For all the world, he seemed like a youth playing at being a warlock … until he spoke. There was a manner about him that carried energy, authority, and menace. He could make underlings uneasy just by inquiring about the weather.

  “Want me to stand in for the boys, then?” Brannis offered, half-joking. “I would use a padded blade, of course.”

  Brannis smiled at the last bit. His own sword was rune forged, ancient, and powerful. It was named Avalanche, and virtually nothing could impede it when swung. Even gravity had little hold over it; for outside its sheath, it would hang suspended in air unless taken in hand. In battle, it cut through foe and fortification alike.

  “You tempt me, Brannis, but no,” Rashan answered. “You may be stronger than both those lads at once, but you are no dancing blade-master to be giving lessons. I promoted you for your brain, not your blade. If we were to be facing an ogre uprising, I would see the wisdom in preparing him against you, but the Megrenn fighters tend to be more nimble and skilled. Young as they are, both those boys fight more soundly than do you.”

  “He is taking too many blows against his shielding spell,” Fenris said, gesturing toward Iridan with his nose so he did not have to remove his hands from the warm cup.

  * * * * * * * *

  The blow to his stomach had registered vaguely in Iridan’s mind. He felt it not in the flesh, but in his sense of the aether. He was not harmed. He knew that the steel blades his opponents wielded would not hurt him so long as his shielding spell held; his swordsmanship was just not up to the task on its own yet.

  Jafin and Moln had maneuvered Iridan directly between them, as they always tried to do. Iridan only had one sword and no shield, so he could only defend himself from one side at a time. Iridan watched their timing, and stepped quickly aside and out of reach of Jafin, launching a spinning attack at Moln, the better fighter of the two boys. The squires hated the attack, and used to remind him how foolish it was. Iridan knew that the knights favored a defensive, tactical approach to swordsmanship, waiting for an error by their opponent, and trying to force them into making one if none was forthcoming. Rashan had given Iridan extensive tutoring on how a warlock ought to fight before turning him loose against the finest lads (aged fourteen summers or younger) of the School of Arms.

  Iridan used his aether-vision instead of the light to see during combat. It filtered out all the non-essentials of color and background and inanimate objects, leaving him a full “view” all around him of aether, and he saw his opponents by their Sources. The drawback was that swords had no Source and were virtually invisible to him, but he had been learning to judge the path of a weapon by the way it was wielded: posture, momentum, fighting style … all gave clues once one he knew how to interpret them.

  Moln knew that he could strike a quick blow before Iridan completed his spin, but this attack was one he had seen before. The would-be warlock could take the hit on his shielding spell, and there would be no defense from Iridan’s own attack if he did not devote himself to avoiding it. Typically Moln would either hop back out of reach, keeping his sword clear of Iridan’s to force him to continue the spin or switch to a two-handed grip and meet the blow hard with a parry.

  This time, Moln tried something new. He hopped back and lifted his sword clear, similar to how he often did, but he followed in immediately after the warlock’s sword cleared him, and struck a quick blow down on the blade.

  Iridan had been preparing to follow around and counter the attack that was already coming from Jafin at his back. Moln’s blow was solid enough to force his sword down and cause him to stumble in his swing. Jafin struck him square in the back, hard enough to have cut his spine had he not been shielded by aether. Moln closed in quickly, and a blow to the temp
le turned Iridan’s head to the side, dizzying and disorienting him.

  “Enough!” Rashan shouted from across the courtyard. It seemed that he had seen all he needed to for the day’s practice. “Good work, lads. The day is yours yet again.” The warlock reached into a pouch at his belt, and removed two gold lions, tossing one coin to each boy. “You have earned it. Spend it well and I shall see you back here tomorrow morning.”

  The two squires gathered themselves up in presentable fashion and, once they had sheathed their blades, saluted the warlock, fist to chest. “Yes, Warlock,” they replied in unison.

  Rashan dismissed them and walked a few paces to where his son was on hands and knees waiting for the world to hold still enough to stand atop it.

  “They are learning more than you are out here,” Rashan said. “Are two of them too much for you? I could invite back just Moln for tomorrow’s session, if you cannot handle Jafin and him together.”

  “They both have more experience at this than I do, and Moln is bigger than me,” Iridan said, breathing heavily.

  “That is the sorriest excuse you have used yet. I am trying to train you here, not puff your ego. If you had been armed and trained, you might not have been defeated by that Megrenn sorcerer at Raynesdark. You might have prevented the Megrenn from obtaining the Staff of Gehlen,” Rashan said.

  “That's unfair. I was barely walking after exhausting myself defending the wall. A sword in my hand would not have made a difference,” Iridan said, pushing himself up to his knees as he stood. He bent to retrieve his wooden sword.

  “I disagree. You attack where your opponent is weak, defend where he is strong. You attacked from surprise and stunned him—I have no quarrel with that. But then you sought to defend yourself instead of finishing him. You allowed a more seasoned sorcerer to have his turn at attacking. He had one worry, and you allowed him respite from it to formulate an attack,” Rashan said, having gone through the same argument with Iridan several times on previous occasions when he questioned his training.

  “But I was undefended. A quick spell could have been the end of me, and—”

  “Precisely why you need to learn to fight. Draw aether into your shielding spells from close range. Your draw is still stronger than most, and you could strengthen your own defenses while denying him aether—this needs to be second nature. All the while, you press him, in close combat. His spells must be cast quickly or done silently, and you may force errors. The warlock’s trade is not so easy; few can manage to keep their wits clear enough to manage such a task while a sword is threatening their hide.”

  “But I—” Iridan began, but Rashan cut him off again.

  “Speaking of your draw … Fenris is ready for you.”

  Rashan smiled mischievously. Iridan’s swordsmanship lesson might have been done, but his day of training was not yet at an end.

  * * * * * * * *

  “Excuse me,” Fenris muttered to Brannis as he rose.

  They had both been watching the exchange between Rashan and Iridan, and Brannis knew that the warlock was ready for Fenris to take his turn with the boy. Ninety-four springtimes old, Fenris was now the senior member of the Inner Circle, excepting the warlock, whose birth was a matter for history books. Fenris’s joints ached, his eyesight was not so strong, and he found his thoughts wandering more than they used to. For all that, his Source was strong and so was his draw.

  The warlock’s lackeys had worn Iridan down physically, and Brannis knew that it was now Fenris’s duty to wear him down by the Source. Each day, it was the same routine, with small variations: practice at arms, then a draw against one of the Inner Circle. Rashan had made a mistake early in Iridan’s training, and had followed up sparring against a lad of thirteen summers with a draw against a Third Circle sorcerer. While Iridan had been battered and bruised by his adolescent sword-fighting tutor, he had embarrassed the poor sorcerer he had faced. Ever since, he had only been matched against the Inner Circle.

  So far, Iridan had shown that he could overmatch his great-great-great-great-niece Aloisha (eight summers his elder), the next youngest member of the Inner Circle, and could give Thayl Greydusk an even match or even defeat him at times. Rashan had not wanted Iridan to have easy matches; he wanted to temper and reforge him. Iridan had not defeated Fenris in eight draws. He had not fared well against Caladris—Brannis’s and Aloisha’s uncle, and fifty summers Iridan’s elder—in any of the twelve bouts they had. Dolvaen Lurien had drawn against Iridan just the once. A lowborn sorcerer from a bloodline not even accorded the status of “lesser,” it was clear that Dolvaen had gained his position among the Inner Circle by skill and power, not patronage. The draw between him and Iridan had been brief, decisive, and humbling for the younger sorcerer.

  Brannis watched as the old sorcerer made his way out into the courtyard to contest against Iridan. There was a temptation to stay and watch, just to see the result, but Brannis would take no enjoyment in it. Iridan was nearly guaranteed to lose, and Brannis was blind to the aether and thus could not even properly spectate the event. The two sorcerers would stand several paces apart and, upon command of whoever was judging the contest, they would each call upon the aether to see whose draw was more powerful. If neither was clearly stronger, they would be commanded to stop drawing and hold the aether they had drawn for as long as possible. Stored aether burned; the more a sorcerer held, the stronger the burning, and careless bravado could result in serious injury.

  Brannis, alone at the table after Fenris’s departure, rose to make his own exit. For all Brannis would see, it would be two sorcerers standing and staring at each other, until suddenly one was declared winner. The first clue to an aether-blind observer as to who was winning might be a blast of steam from the water basins into which the losing sorcerer would discharge his stored aether to signal his defeat. Brannis had better uses for his time, and many responsibilities. Even staying for the sparring was beyond what he had intended in visiting with Warlock Rashan.

  Brannis had merely needed to give him the status of the reported Megrenn troop movements. As usual, the information was scant, received third- and fourth-hand from traders and travelers. The Empire’s own information sources were scattered and ineffective. Long years of focusing on internal squabbles among the powers of the Kadrin Empire had left their foreign information sources undermanned. It was a constant annoyance to the warlock, and Brannis felt little better about it himself. Though Rashan had said nothing yet to Brannis, Kadrin’s young marshal suspected that the old warlock had some plan to remedy that deficiency.

  * * * * * * * *

  Brannis spent much of the afternoon meeting with various officers and representatives of noble landholders who bordered on Megrenn. Troop strength and readiness discussions always discouraged him. The borderlands were better defended than the Empire’s interior; with ogres, bandits, and raiding to contend with, they had to be. But none had the sort of standing army to contend with the reported numbers the Megrenn were amassing.

  Brannis looked at the map of the continent of Koriah, laid out on its own massive table. Kadrin occupied most of the south, all of the east, and a bit of the northeast as well, wrapping cautiously around the ogre lands. Megrenn was tiny by comparison, a federation of city-states along the north coast on both sides of the Cloud Wall mountain range. It was a populous land for its size, but even at that, they had fewer than a tenth Kadrin’s citizenry. What troubled Brannis was the vast expanse past Megrenn to the north. Across the Aliani Sea in every direction lay nations that traded with the Megrenn, providing weapons, food, sell-swords, and the exotic mounts that the Megrenn preferred over horses for their heavy cavalry.

  Brannis picked up a small, painted clay figurine representing a stripe-cat with a rider. The green and brown stripes helped the creatures hide in their native jungles, far away in Elok, but would give them little advantage in the rolling plains and forested countryside that formed the Kadrin border with Megrenn. He looked at the rider sitting atop it, an aftert
hought with a tiny spear and shield, guiding the deadly beast with his knees. By accounts of the older knights who had seen them in person, the scale was correct—and daunting; the creature was more than head height at the shoulder. Brannis set it back down on the map just south of the Megrenn capital city of Zorren, where it represented a unit of actual stripe-cats that his spies had reported being based there. Brannis’s map was littered with similar toy military units, helping his generals understand more intuitively where their forces and the enemy troops were arrayed. There was a log book so that any time figures were added, moved, or taken away, it was noted with the time and exact nature of the change in case the truth of any bit of intelligence be brought into question.

  The map with figurines was inspired by something that Kyrus had seen once in the drawing room of the Society of Learned Men in Scar Harbor. It had been set up to depict the Battle of Garlow Falls, but that was not what had caught Kyrus’s fancy. He had been fascinated by the tiny soldiers and horses, each representing a number of real ones that had been present at the battle. Forces had been arrayed across half of Acardia during that period of the Staltner Revolution, but with the aid of a hooked stick to slide the figures around, one of the professors had explained the battle to Kyrus in just a few minutes.

  Brannis and his generals were now using the same technique to track all Kadrin troop movements and what they could learn of the Megrenn and their allies. A few local tradesmen had made the figures in short order and had done a marvelous job of rendering the various martial assets in exacting detail. Brannis only wished he had cause to purchase more of them, since they showed a rather embarrassing imbalance in strengths. The Megrenn had obviously planned and saved for this invasion for many winters; they probably borrowed coin as well, with a promise to repay in plunder. Kadrin could eventually build up to the point where the Megrenn army would fall to them by sheer numbers, but conscripts fought poorly, and proper soldiers took winters to train. It was one thing to show a man which end of a spear was which and drape a mail shirt over him; it was another to teach him not to break ranks the first time he saw an eight-hundred-gallon monohorn thundering toward him (in fairness, the proper response was a withdrawal action, which was distinctly not “running away”).