“Emily,” Casper called. He looked wary. “What happened?”
“Gaius was the traitor,” Emily said. She suddenly felt very tired. “He tried to kill me.”
She turned back to Gaius. The spell should have embedded itself firmly in his mind by now, tearing through his remaining defenses. “You’re the traitor, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Gaius said. His voice was utterly dead. “I am.”
Casper cast a truth spell on him. “Why?”
“I was humiliated,” Gaius said. There was still no emotion in his voice. His face was inhumanly serene. “One moment, I was going to rise to the top; the next, everything came crashing down and everyone was laughing at me. My fair-weather friends deserted me. I resolved on revenge. I left my family and sought opportunity. I heard rumors from the far side of the Desert of Death and sought to make an alliance with Dua Kepala.”
Emily swallowed, hard. Gaius ... she hadn’t liked him, when she’d first met him, but she’d never realized he could be this petty. It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to marry Melissa. But he’d been turned into a laughingstock. Everyone would have known Melissa deserted her family rather than marry him. All of a sudden, it would have been a great deal harder for him to find a potential match.
“Madness,” Casper breathed. His truth spell confirmed that Gaius was telling the truth. “How?”
“I traveled to Heart’s Eye and met Dua Kepala,” Gaius said. “Once he was convinced of my sincerity; he offered me wealth and power in exchange for my service. He even offered me Heart’s Eye itself.”
“And you accepted,” Emily said.
“Yes,” Gaius said.
Emily looked down at the ground. “What did you do for him?”
“He wanted me to disrupt the army before it reached the city,” Gaius said. “I spotted Casper as the weak link and did everything in my power to undermine him. When you arrived, I saw a chance to get close to you and make Casper’s life worse. I sowed dissent within the ranks as we moved to the city ... I saw a chance to kill you, during the first battle, and took it. But you survived.”
Casper coughed. “Did you push me into challenging Emily?”
“No,” Gaius said. His voice sounded stronger, just for a second. Emily hastily tested the spell to make sure it would stay in place. “It was a surprise to me. I hoped Emily would kill you, thus causing problems amongst the command staff. Instead ...”
“You tried to capture me,” Emily injected. “Why?”
“Dua Kepala wants you,” Gaius said. “He doesn’t understand how you managed to kill two necromancers. Your magic is strong, but not a match for his. My orders were to get you alone, stun you, and then take you to Heart’s Eye.”
Emily swallowed. “And then what?”
“I do not know.”
“Sacrifice, perhaps,” Casper muttered. “Or he might have found another use for you.”
Emily nodded. Stunned, she would have been helpless. Dua Kepala and Gaius could have fed her a potion designed to dampen her magic or simply turned her into something inanimate, at least until they decided what to do with her. Her defenses were good, but Gaius had already weakened them. The remainder could have been quietly dismantled while she was too weak to resist. And then ... it would have been the end.
“Master Bone,” Casper said. “Is he a traitor too?”
Gaius, just for a second, showed a flash of anger. “Of course not,” he said. “He was just happy to give me some time off after the wedding disaster.”
Emily nodded. “Is Fulvia involved in this?”
“No,” Gaius said. His voice was dead again. And yet, something wasn’t quite right with the spell. “I don’t know what’s happened to her.”
“Oh,” Emily said. She frowned. “What do you know?”
“She left her family,” Gaius said. “After that, I heard nothing. She certainly didn’t bother to check up on me.”
“You planned to kidnap or kill Emily,” Casper said. “What about me?”
“The orcs are already preparing for the second assault,” Gaius said. “You would have been caught and killed when you tried to make your way back to the city. Farrakhan will fall and you will fall with it. There’s no more Wildfire and no Necromancer’s Bane.”
Emily shared a glance with Casper. In the distance, she could hear the sound of orcish horns, calling the hordes to war. If they mounted up and rode like lightning ... she turned and looked at where the horses had been, then swore. All three horses were dead. They must have been caught in the crossfire ... she damned herself, once again. She or Gaius must have killed them and she hadn’t even noticed. And on foot ... the haze was growing stronger, mocking them. She didn’t dare try to teleport.
“You had a chat parchment,” Casper said. “What happened to it?”
“Gone,” Gaius said. His entire body quivered. Somehow, Emily realized numbly, he was fighting the spell. “Destroyed it while spying on the orcs. Dust now ...”
“Shit,” Casper said.
Emily forced herself to think. She hadn’t brought any chat parchment of her own. Nor did she have any other way to send a message. She wasn’t sure how far they were from Farrakhan, but without a horse it would take hours to get back. And even with a horse ... she briefly considered turning Casper into a horse or allowing him to transfigure her, yet there would be no guarantee of getting there in time. Even a cheetah would have problems.
And yet ... A thought was bubbling at the back of her mind. The necromancer is expecting us.
She looked at Gaius. His body was twitching, rocking back and forth like a man chained so heavily he could barely move. She wanted to reinforce the spell, but she wasn’t sure what would happen if she did. Compulsion magic was dangerous because the effects tended to linger, even if the curse itself was thrown off within seconds. The nastiest spells she’d seen — at least before her trip to the past — were designed to make the victim think he’d won, even as it took a solid grip on his mind. And the risk of brain damage could not be underestimated.
“You said you wanted to take me to Heart’s Eye,” she said, slowly. “How?”
“I was given a charm to command the orcs,” Gaius said. His voice was starting to sound agitated. “It’s in my pouch. They would take me the rest of the way, if I couldn’t get there myself.”
“You did all this,” Casper said. “You enchanted the traitors?”
“Yes,” Gaius said. “I found a dozen men and women and enchanted them. I ensured the portal wouldn’t form. I poisoned wells, destroyed food supplies ... even started to spread rumors about the aristocracy having entire basements full of food.”
“And you did all this because you wanted revenge,” Casper said. “Is that it?”
Gaius produced a sound that was alarmingly like a snicker. “Yes.”
Emily stared down at him for a long moment. “You will take us to Heart’s Eye,” she said, the idea slowly crystallising in her mind. “And ...”
She broke off as Gaius started to shake, his hands clenching and unclenching. Magic was crackling over him, unfamiliar magic. She stared for a second, then hastily raised her wards as Gaius’s entire body exploded. Blood splashed against her protections and dripped down to the sandy ground. Behind her, Casper had shielded himself too.
“A silencing curse,” Casper said. “I’ve heard of it, but ...”
Emily nodded. Master Grey, of all people, had talked about silencing curses during her ill-fated year. They were designed to stop people revealing secrets, she recalled. If they realized that their subject was being interrogated, regardless of the method, they activated. Gaius’s own magic had been warped and twisted into tearing him apart. She was honestly surprised the curse hadn’t triggered earlier.
The spell must have interrupted Gaius’s ability to think clearly, she thought. Master Grey had told her that the curses had gone out of fashion, although he hadn’t gone into detail as to why. She rather thought she knew now. And that kept Gaius from realizing w
hat was happening to him. If he didn’t know, the silencing curse didn’t know either.
She glanced up at the sun. It was late afternoon.
“I’ve had an idea,” she said. It wasn’t something she would normally try, but they were desperate. “Do you know how to cast an intensive glamour?”
Casper gave her a faintly insulted look. “Of course.”
“Good,” Emily said. She checked her pouch. Both batteries were still in place. “The necromancer is expecting us. I think we should go straight for him.”
“Caleb said you were brave,” Casper said. He looked pensive as he shook his head. “But Emily ... how do we stop him?”
“I have a plan,” Emily said. Maybe they couldn’t teleport. She could still craft a pocket dimension and use it as a bolthole. And Casper ... she could convince him to keep the nuke-spell a secret, if he saw it. “But we have to get to him before the army attacks Farrakhan.”
“And you want me to pose as Gaius,” Casper said. He sounded rather doubtful, although she was sure she could hear an undertone of excitement. “Right?”
Emily nodded. A simple glamour would fool orcs, she assumed, but probably not a twisted magician. The glamour would have to be far more powerful ... she scooped up some of Gaius’s blood, silently praying the spell would work and that Casper would handle his role perfectly. If they were spotted before they reached the necromancer, they would be in deep trouble.
“We tell them that you’re taking me to the necromancer,” she said. She found Gaius’s pouch and poked through it, eventually removing a tiny silver badge. Merely touching it made her skin crawl. “And they should take us there.”
Casper took the badge as Emily cut the reins from a dead horse to use as rope. “And what if they refuse?” he asked.
“Then we have to improvise,” Emily said. She took a long breath. “Everything depends on us now.”
And if we fall, she thought darkly, the city falls with us.
Chapter Thirty-Two
EMILY FOLLOWED CASPER, FEELING UNCOMFORTABLY VULNERABLE.
He’d bound her hands behind her back, using a trick knot that should come free if she pulled on the end of the rope. She’d tested it twice, just to be sure, but it still worried her. Her wards were weaker than they’d been in years — and they were walking straight towards a necromancer. She knew the risk of being caught before they reached the necromancer was far higher if she was clearly warded, yet it still gnawed at her. If they ran into trouble, Casper would have to do most of the fighting while she rebuilt her wards.
He should be able to handle a bunch of orcs, she told herself, firmly. And they’ll think he’s on their side.
The landscape was a desolate nightmare, steadily growing creepier as they headed south. She could taste sand in the air as the wind blew north, scattering sand across land that had once been fields and villages. They would be beyond recovery, she feared, even if the necromancer was defeated tomorrow. The sand was choking the life out of them, killing cropland and draining wells. She knew, from Lady Barb, that most of the farms and villages could be quickly rebuilt, but the sand was another matter. The Desert of Death was steadily expanding in the wake of the invading army, pressing north. It wouldn’t be long before it reached Farrakhan.
Casper held up a hand as night started to fall. “I can smell them,” he said. “They’re near.”
Emily took a breath. A sharp scent lingered on the air, foul enough to send alarm bells ringing at the back of her mind. Orcs. Orcs ... and something else, something both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. She tensed, reaching for her magic. If something went wrong, they would have to fight. There was no way they could outrun a bunch of orcs.
“Just remember the script,” she muttered back. Orcs weren’t very bright. They could be fooled easily, as long as they weren’t being led by someone smarter. And it was unlikely that any of them knew Gaius well enough to see through the blood-glamour. “Don’t give them any hint of weakness.”
She tested her bonds again, silently praying the orcs wouldn’t look too closely. If she’d been asked to accept a prisoner, she would have made damn sure the prisoner was both tied up and incapable of using magic. Tying her hands would have been effective, when she’d been a first year student, but now she didn’t need to make elaborate hand gestures to cast spells. Her captors would need to drug her to render her powerless.
A shame we don’t have any of the magic-draining potion with us, she thought, as the orcs came into view. I could have splashed some on my shirt.
Her heart started to race as the orcs came closer. They weren’t the first orcs she’d seen, not by a long shot, but she’d never been so helpless in front of them. The towering brutes, shambling parodies of the human form, eyed her with piggish eyes, blinking dully as they slowly spread out to surround the two humans. She forced herself to look down, readying a spell at the back of her mind. Casper and she would be in real trouble if the orcs drew their colossal swords and started to take swings at them.
Casper held up the badge. “Take me to your master,” he said, in a commanding tone. “I have brought him a gift.”
Emily winced, inwardly. The voice wasn’t quite right. Someone who knew Gaius would wonder, quite rightly, what had happened to him. But the orcs didn’t seem inclined to question Casper. Instead, they started to speak amongst themselves, grunting together in a language she knew hardly anyone spoke. Even her best translation spells still couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It sounded as though they were having an argument.
The biggest orc eventually stabbed a clawed finger at Emily. “Dinner,” he said, his voice so guttural that it took Emily a moment to realize it was speaking the common tongue. The expression on his face was one that Emily would have unhesitatingly called a leer, if he had been human. “We eat.”
“Take us to your leader,” Casper said, firmly. “Now.”
A faint ripple of laughter ran through the orcs. The biggest orc marched forward, reaching for Emily. Casper pushed her to one side, then cast a force-punch, slamming the spell into the orc as hard as he could. The creature was picked up and tossed across the land, crashing down into the remains of a village. Emily braced herself, half-expecting an attack, but the remainder of the orcs merely laughed. They were a violent people, she recalled. Someone getting hurt, perhaps even getting killed, was a source of humor to them.
She tensed as she sensed the presence of a magician. The orcs drew back, some of them dropping to their knees, as a twisted human came into view. Emily fought to keep her face expressionless as the man peered at her, his face warped and twisted beyond recognition. It was hard, so hard, just to look at him. Half of his face looked melted, as if he’d stepped too close to a fire; the other half looked normal, but inhumanly still. His eyes flickered over her, pausing on her breasts just long enough to make her feel uncomfortable. Standing close to him felt as though she was standing close to a wild animal.
Wild magic, she thought, as she forced herself to stand her ground. He’s been exposed from birth.
“Greetings,” the twisted man said. He eyed Casper unpleasantly. “You have caught her?”
“Indeed I did,” Casper said. The voice still wasn’t perfect. “She was overrated.”
The twisted human snickered. “We will take her to the master,” he said. “You may return to the city.”
“No,” Casper said. “I will take her to the master.”
He stared at the twisted human for a long moment, daring him to try to take Emily. Emily braced herself, unsure what would happen. The twisted human had good reason to want to take her, knowing that claiming credit for her capture would bring him vast rewards. Perhaps even his freedom. But Casper was a strong magician, infinitely better trained ... trying to snatch Emily might end badly. If he chose to try ...
The twisted human evidently thought better of it. “Then you will accompany us,” he ordered, flatly. “Follow.”
He turned and marched south, half of the orcs falli
ng into formation around him. Casper glanced at Emily, then led her after him. Emily was uncomfortably aware of the remainder of the orcs behind her, their eyes fixed on her back. There would be no hope of escape without magic, even if she’d had her sword. Her staff, well-hidden on her person, would break if she tried to use it as a weapon. She covertly reached out with her senses and scowled, inwardly, as she realized that the haze was growing stronger. Teleporting was still not an option.
It was nearly an hour before they reached a small village. Emily was surprised to see that it was nearly intact, although several buildings had been reduced to piles of ashes. A number of twisted humans were evidently living there, surrounded by dozens of orcs. She couldn’t sense the necromancer, at least. Their escort halted on the edge of the village and waited, nervously, while their leader spoke to his superiors. Emily wished — not for the first time — that she could understand their language.
And they have chat parchments, she thought, as she watched the leaders start scribbling out messages. It was yet more proof of treachery. Did Gaius teach them how to make chat parchments, too?
She closed her eyes in pain. What had Gaius hoped to achieve? Revenge ... or something else? Had he planned to unseat the necromancer? Or did he think that whatever kept Dua Kepala relatively sane could be duplicated? It was a chilling thought. Gaius might have assumed that it was possible ... and, perhaps, he might have been right. He could have amassed vast amounts of power, then set out to wreak havoc. The devastation he could have unleashed would have been beyond imagination.
“Horses,” Casper said, surprised.
Emily winced, again, as he helped her onto the borrowed horse. The orcs seemed surprised she wasn’t being slung over the horse’s back like a saddlebag, but apparently didn’t feel any urge to question Casper’s judgement. He’d established himself as a strong man, simply by knocking down a lone orc. Emily would have argued that it hadn’t been a fair contest, if she hadn’t been relieved by the results. Casper shouldn’t have had any trouble frying the orc to ash.
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