The Conquerors Shadow

by Ari Marmell

  For all the horrors he’d seen, all the horrors he’d perpetrated, Corvis blanched. “Seilloah, I—”

  “Do it, Corvis, or Audriss wins right here and now.”

  He did it. With the help of several of the mercenaries, several dozen bloated corpses were laid out in the Pixie’s main storeroom. And then, after he’d sent the men back to assist the others, the warlord grabbed a knife and several basins, swallowed heavily once, and bent to work.

  He was sweating when he emerged some moments later. He carried a number of bowls, basins, and bottles, stacked precariously, and all covered in whatever spare cloth he could find. Balancing them carefully, he stepped back behind the bar and laid them down beside the witch.

  “Is that all?” she asked curtly; then, before he could reply, continued, “Never mind, it’ll have to do. Start adding it to the mixture.” She gestured toward a number of bottles filled perhaps halfway with the thick substance she’d concocted. “No more than two spoonfuls per bottle, though.”

  “If the men knew what was going into this cure of yours,” Corvis told her, doing his best not to really think about what he was doing, “we’d never get them to drink it.”

  “That’s why we’re not telling them, Corvis.” She frowned briefly at the sound of one of the victims trying to retch around a bloated tongue. “Not that any of these poor fellows would understand a word you said to them right now, anyway. We may have to force-feed them.”

  “Hmm.” The warlord kept working, his mind racing. “Seilloah,” he began, a thought occurring to him, “should we give this stuff to the healthy soldiers as well? Sort of a precaution in case they’re poisoned later on?”

  “Not a good idea, Corvis. This stuff we’re making counteracts urthet, but it’s also extremely toxic in its own right.”

  Corvis froze. “What? But then what’s the antidote for this stuff?”

  “Pure urthet, of course,” she replied in a tone that implied that he’d been foolish even to ask.

  “You mean—”

  “I mean that what I’m making here will cure anyone already poisoned, but it’d probably kill anyone else. Shall I explain to you the exact principles behind it, or would you rather just assume I actually know what I’m doing?”

  “I’m just going to sit here and mix this stuff.”

  “Good boy.”

  In the end, only about two hundred of Corvis’s men died, though more than four times that number had fallen victim to the deadly herb. Several of Losalis’s most trusted men were scouring the town, searching both for the perpetrators of this attack and for any further victims. The tavern was full of men laid out side by side and head-to-toe, wrapped in blankets and groaning in constant pain, but most would eventually recover.

  “How long will they be sick?” Corvis asked after hearing the prognosis. Fairly near exhaustion, Corvis leaned with both hands on the bar, staring grimly out over the new carpeting of living flesh.

  Seilloah shook her head, collapsing onto one of the stools across the bar from him. Her hair hung down in listless tangles, and she was splattered with the blood several patients spat on her in their agonized throes. “I can’t say. If the stronger men got only a moderate dose, they’ll probably sleep off most of the aftereffects by tomorrow evening. Others may take as long as three or four days. And that’s just taking the poison itself into account. More than a few of the men injured themselves during their convulsions, broke bones or bit their own tongues off. If you’re asking me how soon we can be ready to move or fight at full strength … I’d say probably five days, maybe a week.”

  “Damnation,” Corvis muttered.

  “Can we stand up to an attack now?” she asked anxiously. “A fifth of our soldiers are down.”

  “Audriss won’t attack us,” the Eastern Terror told her. “These are mercenaries, Seilloah. If the bastard had actually managed to kill a thousand of them, we’d probably have lost twice that many to desertion. Fighting and dying in battle is one thing to these men, but falling to poison …” Corvis shook his head. “As far as he knows, I don’t have enough of an army left to be any threat to him. He’s just going to go around Vorringar and continue on his merry way. And there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop him!”

  “But you still have your army, Corvis. And weren’t you telling me earlier that the larger the force, the slower it moves? We can catch him if we have to.”

  “It’s not quite that simple, Seilloah. Besides, at the moment I’m not sure what we’d do if we did catch him. But you’re right, it’s not over.” He sighed wearily. “We both need to get some sleep, first and foremost. Then we need to meet with Davro and Losalis again. We’ve got to decide our next move, and I don’t particularly care for our options.”

  THOUGH CORVIS SLEPT DEEPLY, the following morning didn’t find him feeling particularly well rested. The black-and-bone armor grew heavier every time he donned it, and the pendant around his neck weighed him down, a stone around his soul.

  He’d clanked loudly as he stepped over the recovering mercenaries, muttering encouragements and promising bloody retribution for the dishonorable assault.

  “What we need to know,” Davro said as soon as they’d gathered in the storeroom, “is how Audriss poisoned the ale in the first place. If we can’t figure out how he did it, we can’t defend against it if he tries again.”

  “I don’t know that there’s anything particularly mysterious about it,” Losalis said thoughtfully, scratching at his beard. “As many men as we’ve got here, it wouldn’t be too hard for a few outsiders to slip into the crowd. No one here could possibly know everyone by sight.”

  Corvis, however, disagreed. “I don’t think so, Losalis. Audriss wouldn’t risk letting a human agent fall into our hands. I’ve got ways of getting information from them they wouldn’t be able to resist.

  “No, Audriss has stolen yet another page from my book, it seems. He’s got the gnomes working for him.”

  Even Davro shuddered at that. “Creepy little buggers, aren’t they?”

  “They are. They’re also nigh undetectable by magic and just a little bit sneakier than a hunting owl when they want to be. It would require pretty much zero effort for one of them to have snuck in here and poisoned the drinks.” Corvis frowned. “Given their other penchants, it’s also likely that it was they who killed our missing soldiers.”

  “So if they’re so undetectable,” the hulking lieutenant asked, “how do we keep this from happening again?”

  “Tedious as it is,” Corvis said, “we have Seilloah or myself check over the food and drink stores on a regular basis. Magic may not detect the gnomes, but it should do just fine for detecting any contamination of the food.”

  /Speak for yourself, fragile one. I don’t have the first notion of what might or might not poison you. You’re all so damn easy to kill, it’s a wonder you didn’t all keel over dead two minutes after the gods spit you out into the world like so much phlegm./

  “How colorful. I’m sure Seilloah can explain to you what to look for.”

  “I can do what?” Seilloah asked suspiciously.

  Corvis sighed. “Later, people, later. As it happens, while I don’t intend to take any chances, we probably don’t have to worry about Audriss trying this again. It didn’t work, and he won’t waste any time reusing old tactics. The trick is to figure out what he’s going to do next.”

  “He’s going after the key,” Losalis said simply.

  The warlord blinked. “He’s what?”

  “The key. The one to decode that spellbook you were talking about. He’s going after it.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Davro demanded.

  “Think strategically,” Losalis replied. “So far, Audriss has shown a substantial—one might even say impossible—level of knowledge of your previous campaigns. Correct, my lord?”

  Corvis nodded with a scowl. “He has. The fact that he even knows about the spellbook has me stumped.”

  “However he knows,
he knows. I think we have to assume that he also knows about the necessity of the key, yes?”

  “Your logic’s getting a little fuzzy there, Losalis,” Seilloah told him. “We didn’t know about the key until Corvis actually held the book in his hands.”

  “Audriss knew that Lord Rebaine found the book,” the warrior pointed out, “but he didn’t ask why it wasn’t used at Denathere. That book would have made the difference between victory and defeat. Had I been in his place, I’d have tried to find out from Lord Rebaine why he didn’t use the book. Unless, of course, I already knew.”

  “It’s possible that he simply didn’t think I’d tell him,” Corvis suggested, absently drumming his fingers on the wooden crate.

  “I suppose it is. Still, I think we have to assume that he knows about the key, if only so that we can plan for the worst.”

  “All right, I’ll buy that,” Davro said. “But how do we know he hasn’t already got the key?”

  “Because he didn’t tell Lord Rebaine that he had it. If Audriss was serious in trying to talk you over to his side, my lord, he’d surely have enticed you to bring him the book by presenting himself as the only person who could make it work.”

  Corvis blinked twice. “Losalis, are you sure you’re a warrior and not a politician?”

  The dark-skinned warrior winced. “Please, my lord. There are limits.”

  Corvis once more began to pace, the clack of his boot heels resembling the sardonic applause of a single, mildly amused observer. “It took me years to narrow my research to the point where I was almost sure the book was at Denathere,” he said slowly, his mind racing. “I couldn’t even begin to guess where to find the key.”

  Unnoticed by the others, Davro pivoted slowly and strode to the nearest corner, staring absently into the dust and cobwebs and dusty cobwebs that hugged the walls and ceiling. Something was nagging at him, as though he’d picked up a mosquito bite somewhere between his brain and the inside of his skull.

  “My lord,” Losalis began, his arms folded, “who else knows about the spellbook?”

  “Ha! If you mean who else has heard of it, the answer is pretty much anyone who has ever read any tome or treatise written about magic.

  “On the other hand, if you want to know who knew where to find the book, or knows that I have it now … well, everyone in this room, of course, and Audriss. He might have told someone, I suppose, but I don’t think it likely.” Corvis shook his head in frustration. “I don’t see how anyone else could know, but I don’t see how Audriss can possibly know, either, so take that for whatever it’s worth.”

  Seilloah smiled bitterly. “Well, so far we’ve narrowed the possibilities down to anyone. Anyone covers a substantial number of people, Corvis.”

  /My word, but she’s helpful, isn’t she?/

  “What, you’re the only one permitted to be sarcastic?” Corvis asked.

  /It’s just that most of you aren’t very good at it./

  “Oh, gods!”

  Everyone jumped, then stared at the ogre. One of Davro’s hands rested idly atop a heavy barrel, the forefinger and thumb of the other clasped tightly on the bridge of his nose. His single eye squeezed shut.

  “Davro?” Seilloah asked, concerned. “Are you all right?”

  “That depends,” the ogre said with a disgusted sigh. “If you mean physically, yes, I’m just fine. I am, however, an idiot.”

  /I—/

  “Shut up, Khanda.”

  /Wow. Quick reflexes there, friend./

  “Davro,” Corvis said carefully, “what is it?”

  “I think someone else knows, Corvis. I’m sorry I didn’t think to mention it before, but it didn’t seem all that important at the time. And it was so long ago, there was so much else going on, I didn’t—”

  “Davro,” the warlord said again, a bit louder. “What happened so long ago? What didn’t seem important?”

  “It was right after you left Denathere,” the ogre said. “We were pulling out, a fighting withdrawal as it were. Anyway, some of my tribe and I were holed up in one of the buildings across from the Hall of Meeting, keeping an eye on things, watching for an opportunity to get the hell out. We were there when Duke Lorum and his entourage arrived, Corvis. When they got there, they were wary, but relatively upbeat. You’d disappeared, the army was falling apart, and there was no real cohesive resistance. At least, that’s how they all looked when they got into the Hall. Maybe half an hour later, though, one of them storms back out into the street, and she’s sure as sunset irked about something. All kinds of rants and curses and words that, no offense intended, I really didn’t think humans had the wherewithal to use. So she keeps this up for a good five minutes, blows up a few nearby piles of what’s already pretty much rubble, and stalks back inside. I didn’t think much of it at the time—maybe she got some bad news, or found a friend among the dead—but now I’m not so sure.”

  Losalis raised a hand. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but did you say she ‘blew up’ a few piles of rubble?”

  But there was no confusion at all in Corvis’s expression. He knew of whom the ogre spoke; had known, in fact, since his first use of the word she. He wondered briefly if the past seventeen years were anything but a brief intermission in some stage play he performed for the amusement of uncaring gods, and if he was destined to continue every little thing left uncompleted so long ago.

  “I hadn’t heard that she had all that much of a temper,” Corvis mused, speaking to no one in particular. “For something to anger her that badly, it must have been pretty important.”

  “My lord,” Losalis interjected again with just a bit less patience, “I don’t mean to be rude, but might I impose on you to tell me who in the gods’ names we’re talking about?”

  “I’m sorry, Losalis. We’re talking about Rheah Vhoune, of course. Personal adviser to the regent, His Grace, the Duke Lorum of Taberness. And also, incidentally, one of the greatest sorcerers alive. Back when we were acquainted, she’d mastered the Seventh Circle at an age when most mages are struggling with the Fifth. She’s probably achieved the Eighth by now.”

  “Oh,” Losalis said simply. “Is this really the sort of person that we want getting mixed up in this mess? I think we’ve got enough wizards and witches and sorcerers involved already.”

  Corvis actually laughed. “I couldn’t agree more, Losalis. Unfortunately, our large friend got me thinking with his useful, if somewhat belated, revelations, and I’m afraid that I don’t have any choice anymore.”

  “You think she knew about the book?” Seilloah asked.

  “It certainly appears that way, doesn’t it? I’m starting to think that I should have just messengered an itinerary of my entire campaign to anyone who expressed an interest. Obviously, we weren’t doing a great job of keeping it a secret.”

  /Or,/ Khanda suggested, /she didn’t have the slightest clue what you were looking for until after you’d left, and just threw her little tantrum when she found the room and figured out what she’d missed./

  “You know,” Corvis admitted reluctantly, “you may just have a point.”

  /Oh! Oh, he acknowledges my humble contribution! My heart palpitates with glee!/

  “You don’t have a heart, Khanda.”

  /No? Then what’s palpitating?/

  “Khanda suggests,” the warlord announced to the others, “that Rheah may not have learned of the book until after I’d left. She may have initially only realized that something important slipped through her fingers.” Corvis frowned darkly. “Not that it really matters when she found out. If anyone in this whole bloody kingdom could dig up that key,” he acknowledged, “it’d be her.”

  Losalis’s eyes narrowed. “Do we have any reason to believe that Audriss can’t figure this out?”

  “I don’t think so,” Corvis replied. “We’ve been assuming that Audriss has access to the same information we do, if not more. I see no reason he couldn’t come to the same conclusions.”

  “Then we know
where he’s going, don’t we, my lord? It seems to me that the question now is, what do we do about it?”

  Unfortunately, as much as he might wish otherwise, Corvis knew exactly what to do about it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rheah Vhoune strode through the broken streets of Denathere, but her eyes scarcely saw the damage, her ears barely registered the moans of the injured or the cries of mourning and despair. The smoke in the air swirled around her, but her magics held it at bay. The dirt of the alleys wafted over her boots and rained back down to earth, unable to find enough purchase to stick.

  For a time, as ash-stained brick loomed overhead and the occasional sound of lingering skirmishes echoed from afar, her attentions remained focused on the conversation she and Nathaniel Espa had just held with the young regent. Some level of despair was expected, understandable even, given the wound inflicted upon Imphallion’s second greatest city and the frustrating escape of the Terror who’d inflicted it. Still, they’d need to keep a vigilant eye on Lorum, make sure that he had sufficient time to recover before he did something foolish. And she wasn’t going to have unlimited time, either. When the Guilds regrouped, recovered their authority from the regent, and set out to rebuild, that would be the time to make her own move, to see her own dreams bear fruit. If she was too preoccupied with Lorum, her best opportunity would pass her by like a wild horse, leaving her in the dust.

  But soon, thoughts of the Society she sought to construct turned to matters of politics and government and war. Again, as so often in the past hours, she wondered what it was that Corvis Rebaine had thought he was doing, why the Terror of the East had allowed himself to be cornered in this city, scarcely halfway to his goal. And Rheah Vhoune found herself—without the slightest surprise, though she’d no memory of choosing a destination—standing before Denathere’s monolithic Hall of Meeting.