Huh. “Friendly fire, isn’t.” That’s what the Kaled’a’in say anyway. Ma’ar’s generals hadn’t pressed an attack on this point all day, holding a purely defensive line, and Shaiknam hadn’t made any offensive moves, a reflection of the inertia here for the past two or three days. Both forces glared at each other from the opposite sides of a wide, shallow ravine, but the only attacking going on was from little presents the mages dropped which were easily deflected by their opposite numbers.
The situation was a stalemate, at least here.
No-wait. He caught a hint of movement through the heavy haze. Something’s going on down there!
Aubri circled higher, to get a better perspective on the situation. So far as he had been told, Shaiknam wasn’t supposed to order any kind of attack unless an opportunity too ripe to ignore arose, and Aubri hadn’t seen any evidence of that. Was this just false movement? A little shuffling in place to make the enemy think that Shaiknam was about to press an attack?
He pumped harder, gaining more height, and looked down half a minute later.
At first he couldn’t make out anything at all. Then the haze parted a little, giving him a clearer view of Shaiknam’s troops. His wingstrokes faltered with shock, and he sideslipped a little before catching and steadying himself in the air. Demonsblood! What does he-Why-He can’t be that stupid! Can he?
Shaiknam’s troops had parted right down the middle, and were pulling back, leaving the easiest place to cross the ravine wide open.
This would have been a classic move, giving the enemy a place to penetrate and then closing companies in on either side of him while the troops to the rear cut his forces off from the rest. The only problem was that there were no other companies in place, and no time to get any in place. Shaiknam had not been positioned directly protecting one of the two vital passes, but from here Ma’ar’s forces could easily get to one of those vital passes.
He’s bluffing. Ma’ar’s commanders won’t believe this and he knows it. He’s just giving them something to occupy them. . . .
He couldn’t hover; the best he could do was to glide in a tight circle, panting with weariness and disbelief. Even as Aubri watched, the two groups that had pulled back moved on in a clear retreat, and Ma’ar’s army marched across the ravine and into Urtho’s territory with all the calm precision of a close-order drill.
What in hell is going on here?
Now he wished he was one of those gryphons with any kind of Mindspeech; if only he could tell someone what was happening! By the time he lumbered through the sky to a message-relay, it would be too late to stop the advance.
Damn, it’s already too late. . . . III can’t stop it, maybe I’d better find out who ordered this. That’s what Skan would do. Has Shaiknam lost what little mind he used to have? Or have his troops somehow been sent false orders?
Aubri dropped through the haze, well behind the line of advancement, and landed just outside of Shaiknam’s all-but-deserted command post. He got out of sight, just in case someone from the other side was watching, under cover of a grove of trees right behind the command tent. Predictable, he thought savagely. Trust Shaiknam; ignore the fact that someone can sneak up to your tent in favor of the fact that you get to sit in the shade all day. I hope there’re red ants in those trees biting on his fat behind. He’d wondered why there seemed to be so little activity going on around the command tent, but he’d figured it was simply because there was no activity along this section of the front lines. Now I know, maybe. Either Shaiknam’s been assassinated or replaced or-
or something worse has been going on. He tried to emulate Skan, blessing Zhaneel for all those hours on the obstacle course, as he slithered on his belly through the underbrush. The lessons were second nature now; shove the branches aside with your beak, close your eyes, and let them slide over your neck and your tight-folded wings. Creep forward with forefeet until you were as stretched-out you could get, then inch the hindfeet up until your back hunched, and start over again. Vary the intervals and your steps. Make no patterns.
And why the hell aren’t there guards around the tent, after what happened to Farle? Because Shaiknam isn’t there? Or because he knows he doesn’t need guards? Or because he has no guards left?
He had concentrated so hard on his stealthy approach that he didn’t keep track of how far he’d come. The buff canvas of the tent suddenly loomed up in a wall from out of the underbrush a few talon-lengths in front of his beak, just as he heard voices coming from inside.
Well, there’s someone in there, anyway. He closed his eyes and listened. Whoever was in there murmured, rather than speaking in normal conversational tones, as if they wanted to be certain they weren’t overheard from outside.
“. . . going very well, my lord,” whispered an unctuous voice. “And Ma’ar is keeping his side of the bargain. By the time Judeth of the Fifth realizes what has happened, Ma’ar’s troops will have the Pass.”
“Well, good.” That was Shaiknam, all right; Aubri had heard his whining tones often enough to be certain of that. “Once he has the Pass, we can close behind him, and no one will know we let him through. His mages can set up Gates to pour troops down onto the plains, and I can ‘surrender’ with no one the wiser. My command and holdings will remain intact. And without you, Levas, I would not have been able to contact Ma’ar’s commander and bring all this to pass.”
Levas? Conn Levas? Wasn’t that the mage Winterhart used to-
“Thank you, my lord.” The unctuous voice was back. “I always make certain to be on the winning side, and I was pleased to find you are a commander as pragmatic as I.”
Shaiknam laughed. “I have another task for you, if you think you’re up to it. Urtho may yet be able to pull off a miracle; he has a disconcerting habit of doing so. But without Urtho . . .”
There was a certain archness to the mage’s reply that held Aubri frozen. “I am a mercenary, my lord; you knew that when we made our bargain. There will be an additional price for additional services.”
Shaiknam laughed very softly. “Name it,” he said, as arrogantly as if he had all the resources of all the world to call upon. “Whatever coin you choose.”
“Twenty-four thousand silver, and the coin of bodies, my lord.” The mage’s voice, already cold, grew icy. “Two bodies, to be precise, and both still alive and in a condition to be amusing to me. The Trondi’irn, Winterhart, and the kestra’chern, Amberdrake.”
“Done and done,” Shaiknam replied instantly. “Neither are combatants; they should be easy to subdue. Cheap at the price. You could have sold your services more dearly, mercenary.”
“Their value is peculiar to me-“
Aubri could bear it no longer.
I have to stop them! Now!
He lunged at the tent wall, slashing it open with his sharp talons, back agape to bite the spines of one or both of them in half-
And tumbled ignominiously to the ground, unable to move even his eyes. He landed with bone-bruising impact right at the feet of General Shaiknam, skidding a little on the canvas of the tent floor.
If he could have struggled, he would have, but there wasn’t a muscle of his body that would obey him. His heart continued to beat, and his lungs to breathe, but that was all the movement he was allowed.
He’d been the recipient of a spell of paralysis, of course. Idiot! Conn Levas is a mage, idiot! How could you have been so incredibly stupid?
General Shaiknam looked down at him with mild interest in his catlike eyes, then searched his pockets for a moment. Then he turned to Conn Levas, and flipped him a coin. The mage caught it deftly, and pocketed it. Shaiknam’s serene, round face produced a smile that went no further than his lips. “Payment for additional services,” he said, his voice ripe with satisfaction.
“Indeed, my lord,” Conn Levas replied. “As I expect payment on completion of your other task.”
Shaiknam shrugged, and his eyes reflected his boredom. “They have no interest for me. I will see that they
are captured unharmed. It should not be terribly difficult.”
“What of-this-my lord?” A new voice, but another one that Aubri recognized. Garber.
Shaiknam’s second-in-command spoke from out of Aubri’s line-of-sight, but there was no doubt of where he was. A toe prodded him in the ribs, waking pain in his chest muscles.
“I can dispose of him if you like,” Conn Levas began, but Shaiknam held up a hand to forestall him.
“No,” he said. “There is a use for him. Ma’ar is rather fond of gryphons. I believe we should send him this one, as a gift, in earnest of many more to come.” He waved at the unseen Garber. “Package this up for me, would you, and deliver it to General Polden with my compliments to the Emperor.”
“So the Emperor enjoys the antics of these creatures?” Conn said with interest.
“He does,” Shaiknam replied. He smiled down at Aubri; the gryphon gasped, as the ice of horror and the chill of pure fear swept over him. “I hope you can learn some new tricks, beast,” he said sweetly. “Other than ‘playing dead.’ ‘Dance,’ for instance, or better yet, ‘beg.’ Make certain to learn ‘beg.’ The longer you entertain the Emperor, the longer you will live. Or so I’m told.”
Urtho flung a plate across the room; it shattered against the wall but did nothing to help relieve his feelings. “Gods!” he cried. The cadre of hertasi and human messengers ignored him. There were no messenger-birds in camp anymore; Urtho had not wanted to leave these smallest and most helpless of his creatures behind even by accident. They had been the first through the Gate, to go with k’Leshya and the gryphons.
Urtho paced the side of the map table, issuing orders as fast as hertasi and humans could take them, doing his best not to seize handfuls of hair and start yanking them out by the roots. What in the name of all the gods had happened? How had Ma’ar’s men gotten past the defensive line? Why hadn’t anyone noticed until they’d already taken the Pass of Korbast and had set up a Gate to bring more troops in?
Never mind, it’s happened, now deal with it! This was his worst nightmare come true; the Tower still full of things he hadn’t gotten out yet, the traps not yet set, and the enemy pouring down into the plain, behind his own lines. Already the Sixth and the Third had been cut off from the rest and from retreat; they would have to fend for themselves. Judeth was bringing the Fifth in, but no one knew for certain about the rest. They have mages, they can Gate here. They can even Gate straight to their evacuation sites. They’ll be all right. I have to believe that.
He sent the last of his messengers off on their errands with orders to send the Healers and other support personnel to their Gates, and forced himself to stop pacing. He clutched the edge of the table and stared down at it, as if staring at it fiercely enough would make the situation reverse itself.
“Sir!” A hertasi scrambled in the door, all out of breath. “The mage Conn Levas is here from the Sixth!”
He started and turned toward the door, just as Conn Levas pushed his way past the lizard. He looked as if he had personally fought his way through all of Ma’ar’s troopers to reach the Tower; his robes were filthy, torn, and bloodstained, his hair matted down to his head with sweat.
“Go.” Urtho told the breathless hertasi. “Find me Skan and bring him here. I’ll need him in a moment.”
The hertasi let the door swing shut behind Conn Levas as Urtho took three steps toward the mercenary mage. “What happened?” he cried, eager only to hear what had gone wrong.
Too late, he saw Conn’s hand move, saw an empty bag in it, and felt the stinging of a hundred thousand tiny needles in his face and hands, in every bit of flesh left exposed by his clothing. He brushed at his face frantically, while Conn Levas laughed.
“That won’t help,” the mercenary said very softly as Urtho tried to cry out for help and realized that he couldn’t do more than whisper. “Miranda thorns, Urtho. Very potent. Quite impossible to magic away. A little invention of my new employer; I believe you might have seen their effects, once or twice. Mages never do consider that someone might attack them physically.”
Urtho’s knees crumpled beneath him; he managed to stagger back enough that he landed in the chair behind him before his legs gave out altogether. His entire body tingled, burned, twitched uncontrollably. His lips moved, but nothing emerged. Strange swirls of light and color invaded his vision; the furniture stretched and warped. Conn’s head floated about a foot above his body as the mercenary mage approached, and the head looked down at him malevolently.
“It’s a poison, of course,” the head said, each word emerging from his mouth in flowing script, and encapsulated inside a brightly-colored bubble. “You should enjoy the effects. I knew that all the defenses of the Tower are keyed to you, of course, as well as the node beneath it, and I knew that if I slew you outright, I would die before I had a chance to escape. I expect Shaiknam knew that, too, and was counting on not needing to fulfill his part of the bargain. But you’ll live long enough for me to get clear, and he’ll just have to keep his word, hmm?”
Urtho’s chest nearly burst with the need to howl in anguish, but all that he could manage was a pathetic whimper. Conn Levas’ head floated around the room for a moment, then suddenly produced a new body as the old one faded away. A large, furry body, of an eye-searing pink. Urtho shuddered as the fur turned into spines, like those of a hedgehog. Then Conn shook his body, and all those spines shot forward, piercing Urtho’s limbs with excruciating pain. The furniture grew tentacles, and the walls opened up into pulsing starscapes.
“I see you can’t answer,” the mercenary said silkily. “No matter.”
He turned to go-that is, his head turned. His body remained the way it had been, and began walking backward toward the door. With every step he took, bleeding wounds appeared in the floor, and it felt to Urtho as if the wounds were to his flesh. He whimpered again, and Conn’s head turned back.
“Oh, one more thing,” the mage said casually. “In case you might have worried about that little misborn gryphon you named so charmingly. Kechara. I offered her a nice bit of rabbit and she followed me out to the Emperor’s new lines. I decided to make certain that Shaiknam would keep his word, by ensuring that the Emperor knows my name, and what he owes to me. She’s my gift to Ma’ar to pave the way for my new rank and position. I expect to be a Duke at the very least.”
Kechara! Oh, GODS! His anguish translated into more whimpers, and streams of blood began to flow from his open hands. Conn laughed and turned to open the door, which warped and deformed as he touched it, becoming a blood clot lodged in an open wound. The walls throbbed in time with Conn’s laughter.
But the door opened before Conn, and there was someone out there-
Skan hurried after the frantic hertasi, talons clicking on the stone of the floor. “Aubri missing, the Sixth gone silent, why did you leave that lying bastard alone with Urtho?” Vikteren scolded the little lizard, as they ran toward the Strategy Room.
“He told me to get you!” the hertasi wailed, caught in a dilemma between what he had been ordered to do and what Vikteren thought he should have done. “I couldn’t get you and stay there at the same time!”
“Leave it, Vikteren,” Skan snapped. “It’s done-let’s just hope that-“
The young mage sprinted for the door and shoved it open in the surprised face of Conn Levas. The mercenary mage recovered quickly from his surprise, and backed up a pace when Skan loomed up behind Vikteren.
From his greater height, Skan could see right past Conn, and spotted Urtho, clearly in terrible pain, collapsed into a chair in the corner. Conn followed his glance, paled, and began babbling.
“Urtho-“ he said. “He said he wasn’t feeling well. The strain-“
But Skan’s hearing was better than a human’s, and the word Urtho was forcing through spittle-frothed lips was “-poison-“
Skan’s vision clouded with the red of rage; he saw Conn’s hands move, and he didn’t hesitate. The Black Gryphon lashed out with an open t
alon, and caught the mage across the throat, tearing it out in a spray of blood. His second blow, the backhanded return of the talon-strike, flung the mercenary’s body across the room to slam against the table with the wet crack of a snapping spine.
There the body of Conn Levas lay atop the tiny space of land that was still theirs, blood pumping down onto the map, flooding the representation of the Tower and the plain around it with sticky scarlet.
Vikteren had headed straight for Urtho, as Skan stalked in through the doorway with every feather and hair erect in battle-anger. “Poison,” the young mage said shortly, his face flushed and his voice tight with grief. “Miranda-thorns, very rare, no antidote. The bastard probably had enough in his pockets to hit us both, too; that’s what he was reaching for when you got him.”
The hertasi gasped and scrambled off, presumably to fetch help.
Skan only heard and heeded one thing. “No antidote?” he roared, so that Urtho whimpered and Vikteren winced. “What do you mean, no antidote!”
“Skan, I can’t change the facts,” Vikteren shouted back. “There’s no antidote! It’s something Ma’ar created as an assassination-tool, and we haven’t seen more than three victims since the war started! All we can do is buy him some time and counteract some of the effects.”
“Do it,” Skan snapped, spreading out his bloodstained claws over the body of his creator and friend, invoking every tiny bit of magery he had. He opened himself to Urtho, found the places in his mind that the miranda had muddled, bringing hallucinations and pain, and joined with Vikteren to help Urtho straighten the mental paths and banish those symptoms.
He fought with every bit of his grief and rage, every atom of energy. And still, it was not enough. He saw for himself that Vikteren was right. The poison replicated itself within Urtho’s body, spreading like some evil, sentient disease, and with every passing moment it destroyed a little more of Urtho’s life-force, corroding it away inexorably.
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