War of Shadows: Book Three of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga

by Gail Z. Martin

  Kestel slipped up to the statues and withdrew a small bundle from beneath her cloak. She untied the bit of cloth and took out a hard roll and a bit of sausage. Bowing her head, she knelt before the statue of Esthrane and held out her offerings, murmuring a prayer to the goddess. From a pocket in her trews, she added a few smooth pebbles to her gift, and made a gesture of blessing, then rose to rejoin Blaine.

  “I’m with Piran on wondering whether anyone is listening when you do that,” Blaine said, taking her arm.

  Kestel chuckled. “Then it’s good the two of you have me to make offerings for you. I figure it can’t hurt.”

  A deep rumble inside the castle walls quickly became a roar, shaking the ground beneath Blaine’s feet. Blaine drew his sword, and Kestel had knives in each hand, ready for the worst. Blaine spotted Piran running toward the disturbance, shouting for Niklas. A cloud of dust rose where part of the castle’s inner wall had stood just moments before.

  “Let me through,” Blaine ordered, shouldering past the guards, with Kestel just a step behind him. “Someone give me a report!” Blaine shouted as they halted just paces away from the damage.

  Piran picked his way across the rubble and scowled at Blaine. “The guards were supposed to keep you where it’s safe,” he said, running a hand over his bald head in frustration. He was covered in rock dust, and there was a smear of blood from a cut on one cheek.

  “ ‘Safe’ is a relative term,” Blaine replied. “What happened?”

  Piran muttered a potent oath. “The area’s been getting pounded by storms, each worse than the one before. It weakened the wall. That blast from the mages was the last straw.”

  “Casualties?”

  Piran grimaced. “One man broke a leg, maybe some ribs. The battle healer is with him. No one dead, thank the gods.”

  Blaine looked up to find Dillon heading toward them with a young man behind him. “I’ve found someone you need to meet,” Dillon hailed him. “This is Jodd,” he added, with a nod toward his companion. “He was one of the master butler’s helpers.” He met Blaine’s gaze. “He knows his way around the castle, and he’s agreed to give us a hand.”

  “My mates and I sprung all the traps we could find in the tower,” Jodd volunteered. He was a half-grown lad, perhaps about fourteen summers old, with a shock of dark hair that poked up at all angles. He looked intelligent and wily, and the grin he shot Blaine was confident and full of mischief.

  “Are you certain?” Blaine asked.

  Jodd shrugged. “We didn’t find no more than what we sprung. Had a right good time of it, too. The blokes who were here before left some real puzzlers, I’ll say that for them.”

  “What kind of puzzlers?” Blaine asked.

  Jodd did his best to look nonchalant, though it was clear he was quite pleased with himself. “Trip wires. Parts of the floor rigged to give out when you step on them. Walls set to collapse if you opened the door wrong. We got banged up good, but no one died.” From his triumphant grin, it was clear that Jodd and his friends had considered it a fine lark.

  “Why would Reese and Pollard bother with traps?” Piran asked. “If they had what they wanted, why not just bring down the walls and be done with it?”

  “Because they didn’t find what they were looking for,” Jodd said with a conspiratorial glance toward Dillon. “They just found enough to make them go away.”

  Blaine looked from Jodd to Dillon. “I don’t understand.”

  Dillon glanced toward the ruined portion of the castle, and his expression grew somber. “After the Great Fire, when the king and the nobles died, the mages vanished. Seneschal Lynge rallied the servants to salvage what was left,” he said. “Then Lord Penhallow came, and Bevin Connor.”

  “They’re friends of ours,” Blaine said. Connor had traveled with Blaine’s group and earned their trust. Lord Penhallow, an immortal talishte lord, was an ally, if not exactly a friend.

  “They were looking for the disks that helped forge the magic,” Dillon went on. Blaine, Kestel, and Piran exchanged a knowing look. The disks had been critical to raising the magic, and had nearly cost Blaine his life. They were safely locked away at Blaine’s manor, Glenreith.

  “We know Connor found disks here at the castle,” Blaine said.

  Dillon nodded. “Aye. When Connor and Lord Penhallow left with the disks, Lynge took me aside and had me work with Sir Alrik. Lynge told me that with Geddy gone, someone else needed to know the secret, in case anything happened to him. Sir Alrik gathered the remaining magic items that had been found, leaving just enough of the less valuable stuff for Pollard to find.” He gave a wan smile. “The items we left for Pollard might not have been as powerful as what he wanted, but they were good enough to make him wonder if there might be more if he had time to search harder. That’s why he set traps to keep other people out, and didn’t just destroy the castle.”

  “And it’s a good thing Lynge and Alrik took you into their confidence, considering what happened,” Jodd added.

  A chill went down Blaine’s back. Dillon met his gaze evenly. “Lynge sent us away when Lord Reese laid siege to the castle. We didn’t come back until we heard Lord Reese had been defeated.” He looked down. “We found Lynge’s body—laid him to rest.”

  “Thank you for seeing that he got a proper burial,” Blaine said. “He deserved a better end.” He paused. “Have you told Commander Theilsson about the traps?” Blaine asked.

  Jodd looked pleased. “Absolutely! Told him as soon as he arrived, and took him and his men around to show them what we’d found.”

  “Good work,” Blaine replied. He turned to Dillon. “Tomorrow I need to go into Castle Reach, but after that, I’d like to get back to Glenreith. We’ll need provisions for the road, and fresh horses.”

  Dillon nodded. “I’ll get started on it,” he said, and turned back toward the castle, taking Jodd with him.

  Blaine staggered as the vertigo struck again. “Sorry, lost my footing.”

  Kestel looked at him with concern. “Is the magic still affecting you? We need to figure out how to stop that from happening before we’re in battle.”

  “I suspect that when I anchored the magic, I got tied up in the bond.” Blaine replied. “So it’s not just breaking me out of the bond—it’s making sure that getting me untangled doesn’t affect the magic.”

  Kestel gave him a no-nonsense look. “You mean, making sure that if you get killed, it doesn’t destroy the magic again.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That, too. And I’m sure Pollard and Reese would like to make both those things happen.” He could see the worry in her eyes. “But we’re jumping to conclusions. Let’s see what Dagur or the other mages come up with.”

  Kestel nodded, and glanced past Blaine. “Just as well. Niklas is headed our way.”

  “What happened?” Blaine asked as Niklas approached.

  Niklas muttered curses. “The mages tried to use another artifact. Good thing they were warded this time, or they might have done more than set off an explosion—although it made that wall fall. As it is, there are two people down with minor burns, and a man with some broken bones from the wall collapse, but Rikard and Dagur seem to think the exercise went well, all things considered.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take to finish securing the grounds?”

  Niklas turned to look back at the ruins. “A few more days at most.”

  “Can you hurry it up?”

  Piran laughed. “You put him in charge of your army for a reason. He’s good at what he does. Maybe we should let him do it.”

  Blaine glowered at Piran, then nodded to Niklas. “Just make sure you don’t drag it out longer than necessary.”

  Piran headed back to the wall, and Blaine turned to look at the remaining tower and wing, silhouetted against the sky. “The last time I was at Quillarth Castle, I was in chains,” he said quietly as Kestel came to stand next to him. “I never thought I’d outlive either the king or the castle.”

  It had bee
n nearly seven years since Lord Blaine McFadden had come before King Merrill to be tried for the murder of his father, Ian McFadden. To the court, it did not matter that he had killed Ian for dishonoring his own daughter, Blaine’s sister. Merrill exiled Blaine to the Velant prison colony. After three years as a convict and three more as a colonist in the brutal arctic weather of Edgeland, Blaine had returned to Donderath when the war that killed the king and leveled the cities also destroyed the magic.

  “Even though we’re without a king,” Kestel said, “it makes sense to rebuild. Quillarth Castle is located on one of the meridians, so it’s a place of power. And it’s a stronghold to secure the city and the port. Someday, we’ll start trading again with the Cross-Sea powers and the other kingdoms. We’ll need a fortress to protect our interests.”

  “I imagine just getting the city back under control will keep our garrison busy for quite a while,” Niklas added.

  Blaine shrugged. “That’s what you’re here for. Glenreith is in pretty good shape now, and well defended,” he replied.

  “You’ll still need all the help you can get for harvest,” Kestel replied. “At least our soldiers got enough planted so the manor, the garrison, and what’s left of the town won’t go hungry.”

  “It’s a start,” Blaine acknowledged. “But we’ve got so much left to do.”

  Blaine turned his gaze back to Niklas. “What’s the situation in Castle Reach?” he asked with a nod of his head in the direction toward where Donderath’s capital city sprawled down to the sea.

  Niklas let out a long breath. “Even with twice as many men I couldn’t get the whole city completely in hand, but we’ve made a start,” he said. “We’ve secured a corridor from the castle down to the waterfront that includes most of the area that used to be shops, markets, and pubs, as well as the docks.”

  “Any pushback?”

  Niklas swore. “Lots of it. Without the king’s guards to keep the peace, and what with so many of the people fleeing the city, the folks who were left fended for themselves as best they could. The city was divided up between bandit gangs, and they each charged a toll for anyone foolhardy enough to cross their territory.”

  Now that Blaine had a good look in daylight, he could see the fresh marks of recent battle in Niklas’s newly healed scars. “First, I took a garrison against the top two bandit gangs, and when we broke them, the others swore fealty, especially the dominant one, run by a man named Folville. He’ll keep the others in line.”

  Blaine’s eyes widened. “You accepted oaths of fealty from bandit gangs?”

  Niklas grinned. “No, you did. We dealt out death in the name of the warlord Blaine McFadden, and the survivors swore their loyalty to you.”

  Well, damn. “And does this fealty mean anything at all?” Blaine asked.

  “Yes and no,” Niklas replied. “Unless you want me to tie up half your army patrolling the city, we can’t keep a large enough presence to crack down on all the bandit gangs. But if they swear loyalty to you, those gangs patrol the city to keep out rival gangs—or any of Reese and Pollard’s men—and they pay a percentage of their profits to you as tribute.”

  Before his exile, such an arrangement might have seemed sordid. But after three years in King Merrill’s prison colony, Blaine understood the idea of using rivals to gain a balance of power. “Very well,” he said. “What else?”

  Niklas grimaced. “Reese and Pollard have left a mess behind. We’ve found an item we think was left as a trap. Dagur thinks it was meant to be triggered by magic. We dug a hole and buried it, and we’re going to have the mages see if they can set it off and contain it at the same time.”

  Blaine raised an eyebrow. “That’s rather risky, isn’t it?”

  Niklas shrugged. “Dagur seems to think it won’t be a problem.” He grimaced. “Then again, he didn’t think trying out this last artifact was going to be a problem, either.”

  Shouting near the front gate sent guards running. From where Blaine stood, it looked as if someone had arrived unannounced.

  “Expecting guests?” Kestel asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Hardly.”

  Whoever had arrived was heatedly arguing with Niklas’s guards. After a while, Piran brought the newcomer over to Blaine at sword’s point, with a guard trailing warily behind them. A slender man in patched brown robes strode toward him, his angular features pinched with annoyance, and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his sharp nose.

  “Well, well, well,” Blaine said. “Treven Lowrey. I thought you were staying in Valshoa with Vigus Quintrel.” His sidelong glance to Kestel confirmed that she was as wary of the mage’s reappearance as Blaine.

  “Lord McFadden! Tell this lout to unhand me,” Lowrey demanded, glowering at Piran.

  Blaine caught Piran’s eye. With a sigh, Piran lowered his weapon but did not sheathe it.

  “What brings you back to civilization, Treven?” Blaine worked to keep his features unreadable and his tone light, but he felt the same mistrust of the mage that was clear in his friends’ expressions.

  “I came to beg for sanctuary,” Lowrey said, managing to look both defiant and desperate at the same time. “Quintrel sent a delegation of mages to rebuild the University in Lord Rostivan’s lands, and I asked to join them, figuring that I could make a break for it once I reached the city.”

  Kestel fingered one of her knives. “The last time we saw you, you’d decided to throw in your lot with Vigus Quintrel—right before he tried to keep us prisoner in Valshoa.”

  Lowrey’s eyes widened. “One of the biggest mistakes of my life,” he said, clutching at his chest dramatically. “Quintrel is a madman. That’s why I had to leave—and why I wanted to warn you.”

  “Why did you think you’d find us here?” Piran asked suspiciously. He still had his sword in hand, and Blaine suspected Piran would be just as happy to give Lowrey a poke.

  “I didn’t,” Lowrey said. “But I was desperate to get out of Valshoa. Once I got to the University—what’s left of it—I managed to sneak out for a pint at what passes for a pub these days,” he said with a sniff of derision. “That’s where I ran into one of the mages I knew from my days as a scholar. He told me he’d gone to ground after the Cataclysm, and wanted no part of organized magic anymore.” He gave a conspiratorial smile. “Seems my friend now sells good-luck tokens and love charms,” he said, “and makes enough to keep himself in ale.”

  “And your point is?” Piran prodded with an unfriendly look.

  Lowrey gave a long-suffering sigh. “My old friend told me that some of the other mages had come out of hiding. And I heard they joined up with you.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Blaine could see that Dagur and the other mage were watching with a look of concern. Their expressions gave Blaine to believe they were about as thrilled as Piran was to see Lowrey.

  “With Reese in hiding and Pollard on the run, I’m not surprised mages have started trickling back,” Blaine replied, dodging Lowrey’s implied question. “But these days, nothing’s safe,” he added. He paused. “You said you wanted to warn us.”

  Lowrey nodded vigorously. “Two things you must know. First of all, Vigus is dangerous. He’s allied with warlord Rostivan, and he’s trying to gather any magical items he can find and to have the mages figure out how to use them in battle.” Lowrey leaned forward, and there was fear in his face that for once seemed utterly genuine. “He’s convinced the mages should emerge to rule the Continent,” Lowrey said. “And he’s mad enough to believe he should be the power behind the throne.”

  Kestel gave Lowrey a no-nonsense look. “We already knew Quintrel wasn’t to be trusted when he tried to keep us prisoner in Valshoa. Anyone who knew Quintrel before the Cataclysm knew he was always—only—out for himself. As for the other part, there are a number of delusional warlords who all think they should be king—why is this news?”

  Lowrey lifted his chin and pulled himself up to his full height. “All right, then. How’s this? Res
toring the magic by himself put Blaine in grave danger, according to Quintrel. If Blaine can’t figure out a way to create a broader anchor, it’s going to kill him—and he’ll take the magic with him. Quintrel wants to own the anchor and control the magic. And he won’t rest until he takes Blaine prisoner and has the power for himself.”

  Several candlemarks had passed since the mages’ disastrous experiment and the wall’s collapse, long enough for Niklas and Piran to get free of their duties and join Blaine and the others in one of Quillarth Castle’s parlors. Blaine paced near the fireplace. Kestel leaned against the wall where she had a good view of the doors. Dagur and Zaryae had joined them, along with Ordel, Niklas’s battle healer.

  “What makes Quintrel think he found a way to anchor the magic without it going through Blaine?” Niklas asked, with an expression that made it clear his trust of anything Lowrey had to say was highly conditional.

  “If Quintrel figured it out, why hasn’t he already done it?” Piran added.

  Lowrey dropped into a chair, looking miserable. “Because Vigus isn’t himself these days,” he said, running a hand back through his wild, graying hair. “He was angry when Blaine left—and livid when he found out you’d stolen the thirteen disks,” he said, leveling an accusing gaze at Kestel.

  “Oops?” she said with false coquettishness. “How did those get in my bags?”

  Lowrey gave her a narrowed glance. “I’m not saying you weren’t wise to steal them, but it put Quintrel into a fury. I think he knew before Blaine even arrived that using just one Lord of the Blood to anchor the power would create a deadly bond. He probably figured that he could keep Blaine and the rest of you from leaving, or at least control you long enough to find a way to transfer the binding. But you left.”