Memnet was not above a little bit of theater, and now he leaned back with his head nearly submerged, while the other three looked at each other in confusion. At last, he rose from the water with a smile.
“We have enemies already, do we not? Rather, they were opponents before, who made themselves hostile when they disagreed with our judgment.”
“You mean the high king?” Nathaliey began tentatively. “Because of the highway?”
“Yes, of course. He uses the threat of griffin riders and the drought across the plains to compel the khalifs to surrender sovereignty as he builds his highway. We alone have resisted. Aristonia is not crippled by the drought, and we do not need the king’s armies to protect us from bandits and griffins. But the king wishes to bring the whole of the world, even Aristonia, under his power. That is the way of kings when they begin their wars. And this war has begun.”
Nathaliey still didn’t understand, and she could see from the confusion in Narud’s and Chantmer’s faces that they didn’t either. “Then the king has found a sorcerer to do his bidding?”
“King Toth hasn’t found a sorcerer to do his bidding,” Memnet said. “King Toth is the sorcerer.”
This pronouncement hung in the air. For a long moment, there was no sound but the flow of water into the bath.
“That is . . . impossible,” Nathaliey said. “Toth lost his magic when he left the order.”
Memnet’s expression turned grim. “Yes, I understand the contradiction inherent in that claim. When my old friend—and he was a friend, not merely a companion in wizardry—ascended the throne, he denounced the magical realms, and his abilities eroded and vanished. One cannot wield power over men and power over the natural forces of the world at the same time. They do not exist within the same realm, and such a thing, were it possible, would lead to a tyranny of wizardry. The laws of nature and of men rebel against it occurring.”
“You’ve told us it’s possible and impossible in the same breath,” Chantmer said.
“Natural magic is impossible for him. But necromancy is a perversion of the natural order. Toth wasn’t evil—I knew the man for many years, and I can swear to his character. I was displeased when he abandoned decades of study to return to what I consider the mundane world, but it is only natural for one man to question the path of another. Toth seemed sincere. I believe he was. When pestilence struck Veyre, he went to the city to use his healing powers. The red death carried off the royal household, and the city fell into chaos. Toth was the only one related to the royal household who the people would accept, a brother of the king’s great-grandfather, who had been much beloved of the people in his day.”
“Then what happened to him?” Nathaliey asked. “Why would he do such a thing?”
“I can only speculate. It probably started with the war against Sebiana.”
Nathaliey knew this story. After Toth ascended the throne of Veyre, the Sebianan army took advantage of the city’s weakness and invaded. Toth had hurled them from the Veyrian gates, then forced Sebiana to capitulate entirely. Since then, the Sebianans had paid a heavy annual tribute as penance. More than twenty years under this burden had left the rival city weak and decaying, almost a personal possession of the high king.
“When the Sebianans laid siege to Veyre,” Memnet continued, “King Toth must have dearly wished for his former powers to repel them. He sent for me, begging my help, but I declined to throw my strength behind him, instead attempting to negotiate peace. Perhaps it was a mistake. It would seem that Toth found assistance in other quarters.”
Not long after the new king’s first war ended, other cities in the Eastern Khalifates began to fall under Veyre’s suzerainty, and Toth began to call himself not merely a khalif, but the high king. A king of kings.
King Toth seemed overly puffed up to Nathaliey, vainglorious even. That was the way of kings in all lands and times. But she’d never thought his motives evil. Not even when the drought that had held the khalifates in its grip these past five years gave the king pretext to build his highway. The road was ostensibly to protect the land from marauders and griffin riders, to bring food from the green lands on the other side of the mountains, but as the Tothian Way spread west, year by year, so did Toth’s power over the cities of the plains. The boast of being the high king was no longer mere puffery.
“Master, did you know already?” Narud asked.
“That my old companion had delved into the dark arts?” Memnet lifted himself partway from the water. “No, my friends. I am ashamed to say that I did not. I no longer trusted him, and I knew that Aristonia would suffer should the high king’s road pass through these lands. But I didn’t suspect him of necromancy. I have been blind.”
“And now?” Nathaliey asked. “What do you make of it?”
A shake of the head. “I don’t know the extent of his strength, but it’s obviously significant. He controls the souls of the dead—that is not something to be done lightly. He has assassins who can baffle and defeat our magic. They might even find the gardens if they are determined. And yet . . .”
Nathaliey seized on this. “And yet?”
“He has not been able to finish his business, has he? I am still alive. You are all still alive. And while I slept, a paladin and four apprentices fended off an attack. I expect another assault—very soon, in fact, and of increased ferocity—but we now recognize our enemy. We are not defenseless.”
“And now you have returned,” Chantmer said. “You’ll crush this sorcerer and send his miserable soul to the Harvester, where it belongs.”
“Me? No, my powers are crippled and may be for some extended period of time.”
“What are you saying?” Nathaliey asked.
“Simply this. If the enemy returns, I can guide and advise, but you must defend these gardens yourselves.”
Chapter Seventeen
Unlike Pasha Malik, who stared warily at Bronwyn without seeming to notice the second intruder in the room, King Toth’s eyes found Markal’s and held them. It was a compelling gaze, not unlike the master’s, and Markal found it hard to look away. A smile crossed the king’s face, an acknowledgment, and a promise.
You will be dealt with in time.
Then the king looked back to Bronwyn. “You have returned the sword.”
She didn’t look at him. Her eyes focused on the pasha, fixed in place, not noticing her surroundings. When fighting wights on the bridge, and again when battling the marauder in the road, she’d seemed to take in everything in a glance, seeing threats from all sides. There was something wrong with the intense focus on her face.
It was a ward or sorcerous device. Magic in this room affecting her. Something she’d been unable to batter through as she’d done with the protective spells of the gardens. The sorcerer must be near, must have anticipated her arrival. But where?
The pasha had drawn his sword and remained at the king’s side. But now Toth nodded at him. “Kill the barbarian.”
Malik frowned. “But the sword. You said—”
“Kill her!”
Malik was renowned as a swordsman who rode personally at the head of his troops, but he didn’t attack at once, instead studying his opponent warily. She studied Pasha Malik in turn, seeming to recognize a worthy foe. Neither paid the king or the apprentice any attention.
Markal found his voice. “No, Bronwyn. Not this one.”
She didn’t acknowledge him, but took a step toward her opponent. Soultrup shifted in her hands. It was a living, moving thing.
“Listen to me,” he urged. “You don’t want Malik’s soul in the sword. By the Brothers, you’ll have a fight if you do.”
“She doesn’t hear you,” the king said. “You are as beneath her notice as the spiders in the rafters.”
Markal grabbed Bronwyn’s arm. The paladin shoved him with a shoulder, and he flew back. Before he could regain his balance, she sprang at her enemy. Pasha Malik had been readying himself, but her attack was so swift that he barely raised his blade up
in time. She drove his weapon down, but he ducked beneath the blow and came up swinging.
And then the two were fighting in a fury of clashing swords, shouts, attempts to drive the other back, to fight free or pin the enemy against the wall. Bronwyn fought in silence, but Malik cried out in fury every time he closed for an attack. He was a strong swordsman, but he couldn’t get past the paladin’s defenses, and she nearly caught him with a brutal counterattack before he battled his way clear.
And then she drew blood. It was only a nick on the arm, but he staggered back toward the king. Toth had stood passively, but now he scrambled aside as Bronwyn came forward, swinging at Malik.
The furious combat had momentarily distracted Markal, but he had a sudden moment of clarity. Finally, he understood. Yes, the necromancer was near. Very, very near.
“It’s the king!” he shouted. “Kill the king.”
Bronwyn’s eyes had a glazed, almost drunk look. “What?”
“King Toth is the sorcerer. Strike him down!”
She looked around, as if seeing her surroundings for the first time. Her eyes swept past the king. Markal searched for a spell that would dissipate the cloud that seemed to have come over her mind, but could find nothing he was capable of raising.
Malik used his opponent’s momentary distraction to hurl himself back into the fight. Bronwyn, her golden braid swinging about as she blocked and dodged, fell back before a flurry of blows. For a moment, it seemed as though she’d be overwhelmed, but she quickly regained the initiative. In an instant, she went from the defensive to battering her enemy while he fought desperately to turn aside her blows. Bronwyn drew blood a second time, this time a cut across Malik’s upper thigh.
Two soldiers burst into the room, perhaps drawn by the noise. They rushed past Markal, drawing swords as they charged in. Markal stuck out his foot and sent one of them sprawling. The other man leaped into the fray with a cry.
Bronwyn turned, blocked his blow, and brought Soultrup around in a devastating counterattack. The sword caught the soldier across the neck. He fell dead. She leaped over his body and thrust her sword tip into the second man’s back before he could rise from where Markal had tripped him. He cried out in pain as she jerked the sword out again.
Malik tried to take advantage of her distraction, but he was tired and wounded, and the paladin was ready for him by the time he returned to the fight. She smashed against his sword and drove him to his knees.
“Don’t kill him!” Markal cried as she lifted her weapon.
“Help me!” the pasha cried. “My lord!”
King Toth lifted his hand. Malik cried out and clutched his wounded thigh. Blood streamed between his fingers. The second guard, grievously wounded, but not yet dead, writhed in agony. Magical power swirled around the king. He was drawing it from his injured men.
“Markal,” Bronwyn said. She took a step back. “He is here. I feel him now. Where? By the Brothers, where is he? Where is the sorcerer?”
“Right in front of you! It’s the king. Swing your sword. Quickly!”
She stared past King Toth, clearly not seeing him, but she readied her stance, stopping only to shove her boot at Pasha Malik’s chest when he struggled to regain his feet. The pasha fell away. Bronwyn pulled back her sword to swing.
If there was any remaining doubt, it vanished when King Toth lifted his hands. He muttered words, dark and oily, that made Markal’s flesh crawl. The air blackened in front of him. It struck Bronwyn and threw her back.
She recovered quickly. Physically, anyway. There was a wild, confused light in her eyes, and Markal cried out in despair, trying to grab her around the waist as she turned her attention back to the pasha. Malik regained his feet. He hefted his sword and staggered toward the paladin. She wrenched free from Markal and swung her sword at Malik as he approached.
The blow cut past her enemy’s sword and hacked into his neck. He went down, spurting blood. Dead.
The instant Bronwyn rose again, her eyes were clear, and horror spread across her face. For the first time, her gaze fell upon the king. Rage replaced her confusion. She let out a cry and took a step toward him. Doubt flickered in Toth’s eyes. But Soultrup began to struggle in her hands as she lifted it to attack. In an instant, she was turned around, and she swung wildly toward Markal, sending him scurrying back to flatten against the wall.
“Bronwyn! Fight it.”
“I—I can’t! It’s the pasha—he’s got it now.”
“By the Brothers, you are a paladin of Eriscoba. You can do it.”
Bronwyn spun back toward the sorcerer. She lifted the sword with a cry, momentarily in control. Soultrup twisted in her hands, bending and curving as if it were a living thing. It slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground. She bent for it, but it rolled away.
The door burst open, and more soldiers poured into the room. There were six this time, panting, raised by some alarm. They’d already drawn swords, and if they’d come right at Bronwyn, she’d have been finished. But they stopped to take in the scene in front of them: two dead guards, their pasha slaughtered, the high king standing to one side, a barbarian struggling to pick up a massive two-handed sword. And still, nobody saw Markal.
“Bronwyn!” he warned.
She danced backward as the first, most alert of the guards came at her. She nearly tripped over Malik’s body, and grabbed the first thing she could find. It wasn’t Soultrup, but the pasha’s own sword, with its long blade curved at the tip. In a moment, she was fighting all six men.
Because Soultrup was out of her hands and she was already tired from her fight, Markal expected her to fall at once. But she wounded the first attacker and killed the second before her enemies had a chance to regroup. Two more men entered the room as the survivors from the first group tried to encircle her.
One of the newcomers tried to push his way into the fight, but the other spotted Soultrup, which was almost pulsing with red. His eyes widened, and he dropped his weapon and bent for the red sword.
“Do not touch it!” the king roared.
The soldier paid Toth no attention. There was something about the sword that seemed to compel him, and soon his hands closed around the hilt. Markal saw the thing as nothing but a malignancy. Pasha Malik’s soul was trapped inside now, and he’d thrown his strength to Bronwyn’s enemies. Already, control had been tenuous; what chance did Bronwyn have now? It had been turned to evil purposes, and it would be deadly in the soldier’s hands.
But Markal understood at once why the king wanted the sword left alone. If the Veyrian soldier picked it up and killed Bronwyn, her soul would join her brother’s in the fight to control the weapon. The sword might be turned once more.
The soldier lifted the weapon with a triumphant cry. The king lifted his hands, eyes flashing with rage. The wounded cried out in agony as he drew their pain.
Meanwhile, Bronwyn was still on her feet, still uninjured, but tiring. She was more than a match for any one of these men, but without Soultrup, it was only a matter of time.
Now was Markal’s chance. Quickly, while the king was distracted.
Put Bronwyn’s opponents to sleep.
It was the only spell Markal could think of. He’d cast it earlier that day, and a second casting would be weaker—especially with his exhausted condition—but it was a spell he could manage, and if he made their enemies sluggish, they might yet escape. He put his hands palm down and drew his strength.
Or tried. There was nothing left. He was drained. Not so much as a single drop of blood rose to the surface.
By the Brothers. You can do it.
A spear of shadow thrust from the king’s hands. It struck the wayward Veyrian soldier in the chest and threw him across the room. The soldier’s face twisted in anguish, and the flesh seemed to be sucked out of his body as he hit the wall. He slumped facedown, a withered husk. The sword clattered at Markal’s feet. The king staggered backward, weakened by the effect of his own magic.
Bronwyn cried out in p
ain. One of the swordsmen had got past her defenses and cut her right arm. She ducked from another attacker, but this one struck her a terrific blow on the breastplate and knocked her against the wall. Her sword fell from her wounded arm. The enemy swarmed her, and she went down. Sword points stabbed again and again. Bronwyn cried out once more, then fell silent as they continued thrusting. Markal stared in horror.
Soultrup lay at Markal’s feet, vibrating. Shadows curled along the surface like black mist rising from water. It was the remainder of the king’s sorcerous power, bleeding away. He snatched up the sword and ran for the door.
“Stop him!” the king cried.
Soultrup moved and twisted in Markal’s hands like a snake. For a moment it was a snake, writhing, biting, sinking its fangs into his hand. He nearly dropped it. There were voices, too.
Throw me down.
No, you must fall on the sword. Let it take your soul.
Do not listen to them.
You will die, boy.
Worship me.
A hundred voices, most of which never rose above an incoherent wail. The Harvester take him; how many were there? Above them, came a calm, sane voice. For a moment he thought it was Bronwyn, but then he remembered seeing her fall to the Veyrian soldiers while Soultrup lay smoking at his feet. But it was a voice very much like hers, calm and yet commanding at the same time.
Hurry, Markal. There isn’t much time.
More Veyrians came running. Other soldiers staggered, bleeding, from the building at his back. There was confused shouting, and King Toth was pushing through them, trying to get outside.
Yet nobody seemed to see Markal. Was it the remnants of his spell, the red sword itself, or something else entirely? He didn’t know, but there was his mare, still standing next to Bronwyn’s horse. Nobody paid either animal any attention.
He gained the saddle even as the confusion gathered all around. Soultrup kept fighting him, but he got control long enough to thrust it into his saddlebag. The tip speared out the bottom. Soldiers kept appearing, now joined by laborers with mallets or stones wielded as brickbats. He turned the horse toward the gates, certain he would be swarmed, but nobody challenged him.
The Red Sword (The Red Sword Trilogy Book 1) Page 18