by K L Reinhart
“Break the bench, Novitiate,” the arcanum murmured, nodding to the nearest of the wide, thick slabs of mahogany. There was no way that even a young man of Mendes’s size would be able to break such an object without considerable magical enhancement.
Mendes hissed in a sort of savage pleasure as he swung one of his gauntleted fists down on the wood.
The bench smashed into splinters.
“Did you see that!?” Mendes jumped back up with glee.
“I did, Novitiate,” the arcanum congratulated. “Now, hide the blade under your robes.” He indicated the blood-letting blade. It had lost its red glow for the moment, as it was held in a metal scabbard. Mendes picked up the weapon reverently and attached it by straps to his thigh before pulling his robe over to conceal it.
“Remember, no cut made with that blade will ever heal, so you must be careful how you handle it!” the arcanum said sternly. The last thing he wanted was for his agent to end up bleeding to death from a careless pinprick in some corridor somewhere.
Mendes nodded that he understood.
“And now, last of all, the way-finder.” The arcanum set the tray down and waited as Mendes drew out the teardrop of blue steel. The singular orb of ochullax shone brightly with the nearness of so much magic.
“Hold it out. Turn,” the arcanum encouraged in a soft whisper, watching the orb just as intently as Mendes was.
The novitiate turned first one way, then another, took a step away from the arcanum —who made the orb light up like a bonfire—and turned completely around once again.
The orb flickered just the slightest amount in one direction.
“There!” Mendes said, carefully sweeping the way-finder back to see that its radiance dimmed to its lowest ebb, almost precisely due east.
“There,” the arcanum agreed. “You know what you have to do, Novitiate. For the Enclave. For yourself. For Torin.”
Mendes was nodding, already picking up his small bag of things and he moving toward the door.
“Novitiate!” the arcanum’s voice rose sharply. “You do remember everything I told you about the urgency of this mission?” Mendes paused, nodded, and drew his hood over his head and gloves on over the gauntlets.
“No one will see me, sir. I promise,” Mendes growled.
“Good.” The Chief Arcanum waved that he could begin his dangerous and murderous work. Big Mendes hurried off into the corridors, occasionally checking the way-finder in his gloved hands to correct his path.
He’ll kill the null, the arcanum thought, pleased. Before the curse of the Red Warriors claims his own vitality. The arcanum had ways of tracking Mendes’s progress, magical ways to find where the big lout was even when he was far away. It would be a simple matter for the arcanum to track Mendes after the deed was done, dispatch of the items he had given Mendes, and make it look like the novitiate had gone out of his mind with grief.
And then the magister will give me the Loranthian Scroll to study. The arcanum was pleased. At the moment, the Loranthian Scroll was being kept by Magister Inedi, but after a third heinous murder amongst the younger novitiates, the Chief Arcanum knew he would be able to rally the other chiefs to his side.
They will demand that the scroll be handed over to me to research. The arcanum hummed a lilting, happy tune. And I will master the greatest magic ever performed in all the Three Worlds!
18
Messengers
Terak and Ella’s boots had eaten the leagues down the side of the broken foothills where the Black Keep resided. Once again, Terak saw the land, visibly green around them. They passed by rough fields and stands of scrubby trees, wildflowers and fast-flowing mountain rivers.
They were walking down a ridgeway toward the uplands, with the mountains behind them and meadows on their left. Terak saw small black-robed figures walking between some bushes and realized that must be the area where the servants of the Black Keep harvested.
“This way.” Father Ella nodded to a place where a smaller, overgrown path dove swiftly from the side of the ridgeway to twist and turn across the banks of the hill.
The sun had reached its zenith by the time they attained the bottom, the view of the ridgeway behind them completely eclipsed by trees. The path met a small stream that wound around a secluded woodland glen, and there, leaning out over the trickling waters, Terak found one of the black stone way-markers, once again curiously inscribed with curves and dashes.
Just like the Loranthian Shrine, Terak thought as he ran his hands over the stone.
“Touching them is supposed to bring bad luck,” Ella said, and Terak thought that he heard a hint of humor coming from the human woman.
“It’s not like my luck has been outstanding in the last eighteen years,” Terak muttered.
He wondered just who had built them. It had to be the Reign of the Elves, right? My people. They ruled this place. Perhaps even built this place.
“You’re here to learn, not daydream,” Ella said, pausing to take her fill of the stream, before standing up to make a quick, three-peep whistle.
“You want me to whistle?” Terak did, performing the exact same tune with perfect clarity. It was one of the natural skills that he was very good at, although it hadn’t been one that the Enclave had valued up until now.
Threep-pip-pip! Suddenly, Terak was answered by something. A burst of red—into their secluded clearing flew a songbird no bigger than Terak’s palm. It lighted on the top of the way-marker, dipping its head and performing the same call once again.
“Messenger finch,” Ella said, taking a handful of the seeds she had collected from the kitchen storerooms and holding out her hand for the bird to alight. “He was sent out some time before dawn, and because he has returned—” She carefully reached with one gloved hand to the bird’s leg to pull at something attached there. “—it means that the message was received, and we have a reply.” Ella nodded in satisfaction.
She held in her hand a tiny bronze tube, which had been attached to the bird’s leg by a black ribbon. “Three pips as you gave will call to the nearest finch that has been trained by the Enclave-External.” Ella gave him his first lesson. “So long as you are in the right place at the right time, you can keep the flow of messages from the Enclave to our contacts and back again.”
“But who’s it from? What does it say?” Terak was intrigued, practicing the messenger finch call once again for the bird to hop over to his own hand and peck at his gloves several times. It looked disappointed that he had no seed already there.
Terak thought that Father Ella would refuse to tell a lowly novitiate like him her secrets. But as she unrolled a tiny scroll from the tube and read it, her face screwed up in agitation and she burst out, “What it says is that there’s been a change of plan. We have to move now!”
“A change of what plan?” Terak blinked.
Father Ella gave a long, rising whistle followed by a sharp “pip” at the end, and immediately, the messenger finch chittered and dashed into the air.
“That dismisses it. Remember that. Three pips as you did to call the bird, one long and sharp to dismiss it.” Ella was already scattering the seed on the floor. She handed the scroll to Terak.
Delayed. Danger on the Road. M.G.
By the time that Terak had rolled the scroll back into its tiny tube, Ella was already striding down the path at an even quicker pace than before.
“What danger?” Terak asked. “What’s M.G.?” Or who?
“Mother Galda,” Ella hissed over her shoulder. “She’s one of Enclave-External’s best contacts on the outside. We sent urgent word last night that we needed her expertise with . . .something.” Terak saw Ella cast a sharp glance in his direction, and he knew then that “something” had to be him and what he had achieved at the shrine.
“Is it about the Loranthian Scroll?” he asked as they jogged through the undergrowth.
“Hsst!” Ella’s feet skidded to a stop, sending leaf-litter spraying around them. “Never say that name out loud. Not out he
re, and not in the Black Keep—unless you are asked to talk about it!”
But, why? Terak nodded that he agreed, but his face clearly stated that he didn’t understand.
“People have been after that scroll for centuries. When word gets out that the Enclave has it, there will be all sorts of powerful people heading our way. And not all of them are so intent at destroying the gates as the Enclave-External is!” Father Ella said, resuming her quick march.
19
Always Hungry
The boots of the novitiate pounded on the ridgeway at a steady pace. Mendes was almost running—no, galloping would be a much better word for what the novitiate was doing. And yet Big Mendes, who had always been one of the first to break a sweat during Chief Martial’s training, felt like he was flying.
The skies above him were just giving over from their hazy blue to a lighter gray as the clouds peeled from the tops of the Tartaruks. Mendes knew that the weather could change quickly, and he had been warned a thousand times of the sudden, driving rains and biting hailstones that could come seemingly out of nowhere.
But right now, the novitiate could only laugh off the threats at the top of the world. Even the rumors of beastials and orcs and worse that sometimes rampaged through this wild hinterland didn’t concern him.
That was because Mendes knew that nothing could stop him. He knew it as a certainty deep in his marrow. His body coursed with energy, grace, and raw power. He hadn’t paused to take food or water with him as he knew with every pounding step that he was unstoppable. No weapon strike, fatigue, or hunger could slow him down now.
Mendes was an inordinately large seventeen-year-old, large-boned with unfortunately small features. This had earned him taunts and pinches from the other children in his home village of Agin, in the adjacent northern barony of Durwald.
Agin had been barely a scrape of mud and pigsties on the edge of the northern uplands. Baron Durwald hadn’t cared when the fever had come to Agin, decimating its poor farmers.
Mendes remembered being hungry all the time. It was a cruel curse of fate that he of all people always looked well-fed. At just eight years old, with his parents and brothers claimed by the fever and with not enough people left even to gather firewood, the village Mayor had given him to the Enclave.
It wasn’t because Mendes had any special talent or had any deep desire to protect the light of civilization. It was because no one else would feed him.
But now, I have earned my place as a brother of the Enclave. Mendes grinned savagely to himself. Not only had he earned the gray belt of a novitiate, but he had even earned a revered place at the Chief Arcanum’s side!
Big Mendes wasn’t unwanted or a burden anymore.
But he was still so very hungry.
He paused only briefly to check the way-finder again, turning this way and that on the ridge until he saw the orb’s luminescence fade and the ochullax stone become nothing but a lifeless bit of rock. It might have been his imagination, but Mendes was sure that he could feel the way-finder pulling him toward his goal.
The empowered novitiate’s thundering steps started again, and this time, they were taking him down an overgrown path that zigzagged into a wooded vale.
Mendes was close, and he knew it.
20
Rukmol, Bugat, and Rodak
Who is Mother Galda? What does this have to do with the Loranthian Scroll? Terak wondered as they loped through the woods, the sun already well on its way toward its final quarter in the sky.
The woman who was guiding him set a punishing pace, but it was alleviated by alternating their loping march with a more sedate walk. But Father Ella never stopped, instead advising Terak to take small sips of water on the way. The young elf was surprised with how nourishing this pattern became. The trees were becoming taller as they traveled, but Terak still saw light glinting between their dark trunks, and the suggestions of meadowland between them. This was not the thicketed woodland of Everdell Forest.
“Hsss!” Ella made a small sound of alarm. She brought herself to a complete standstill before lowering into a crouch by the side of one of the trees.
“What is it?” Terak whispered as he joined her, his natural elvish grace making even less noise than the trained father.
“Breathe. Lower your emotions. Sense,” Ella whispered. The novitiate noticed her eyes droop a little, and her mouth hung open as she did the same.
Mental exercises, right . . . Terak did as he was told, breathing softly and steadily as his excitement, agitation, and even fatigue seemed to sink into his body, leaving him clear-headed. The elf half-closed his eyes and let the sounds of the copse around them filter in.
Wind playing at the topmost branches of the trees. The sigh of distant grasses somewhere in the meadows further about.
No birds, Terak realized. There was none of the usual birdsong that he might have expected from this wild patch of land. Not even the distant caws of Tartaruk vultures.
And then, the slightest aroma hit his nostrils. It was bitter and heavy, a little like the sweat that permeated the Chief Martial’s training hall, and something sharper, the acrid tang of iron . . .
Or blood. Terak’s eyes snapped open. Ella was nodding, her gloved finger to her pursed lips. She slid from her thigh scabbard a shortsword and directed Terak to pull his knives. Very slowly, she made a series of hand gestures to Terak—first the exposed palm of “stop” and then a point to Terak and a slow, curving wave. Terak nodded that he understood. He was to pause, and then follow in a curving pattern after her. A nod sealed the arrangement, and Terak waited as the woman crept forward in a crouch, hugging the edge of the trees and staying a few feet from the path.
Terak waited until Ella was almost obscured by the trees, and then stepped out, across the path to the far side, picking his way delicately to circle around—
Snap! Something was moving ahead of them in the woods, adjacent to the path. On his side of the path. Terak froze, unsure what to do. Was he meant to attack? Attack what? Friend or foe?
Pheeet-pip-pip! He heard Ella’s call-whistle for the messenger finch, but there was no answering call. Terak waited and heard another crunch of leaves from his left. Father Ella?
“Rukmol!”
A guttural voice cut through the eerie quiet, followed by heavy, grunted breathing. It sounded more like what would happen if a beastial or a rock could talk than a person . . .
Something moved on the other sides of the trees from Terak. It was large. Very large. Larger than he was, and wider still than Father Gourdain.
And its skin was a mottled, blotchy gray.
Oh no. Terak had seen such a creature painted in the Chief Martial’s compendiums. It lumbered at six feet, but Terak knew that when it straightened up, it could easily be seven or more feet tall. Its back was a wide slab of gray-white flesh, heavily corded with ropes of muscle. It wore a simple battle-harness, like an apron of studded leathers buckled over its hips, and a flare of studded leather for a kilt. The creature was bald, with a much wider jaw than a human or an elf, and bottom-row tusks that looked expert at tearing and crunching bone.
It was an orc.
“Bugat, quiet. I thought I ‘eard something,” grumbled another monstrous voice.
“Probably Rodak,” the first orc, Bugat, grumbled as he continued to step between the trees. Terak saw that he was surprisingly quiet for such a large thing. He managed to tread with only the slightest crackle of leaves. As he passed in front of Terak, the elf saw that he held, slung against his shoulder, a truly massive ax.
There was a groan of annoyance from the other orc, which Terak took to be the eponymous “Rukmol.”
“You know what the Hexan said. Quiet Hunt. Soft-soft. Stealing eggs from sleeping nests,” this Rukmol said in a growl of pleasure.
“She wasn’t no egg, ditchgrubber,” Bugat grumbled as he stopped, now standing in the middle of the path and looking up and down it. Terak sank deeper into his crouch and breathed softly into the late aftern
oon air.
But the danger passed.
“Don’t see nuffin’!” Bugat called, turning back the way he had come—
“Hyah!”
—just as Father Ella stepped out from behind the nearest tree and sank her blade deep into the meat of Bugat’s neck.
“Ragh!” The orc roared and stumbled back, green blood spurting from the wound.
“Fight, Terak! Fight!” shouted Father Ella.
The woman jumped back, yanking the blade from the orc’s flesh. Bugat clamped one meaty palm over the wound, his other arm swinging his battle-ax in a wild arc around him. It was too wide to go near Father Ella, but it would have cleaved her in two if it had hit.
Terak leaped from his hiding place, holding himself low with the two curving blades in his hands as he charged. Suddenly, his exhaustion was gone. His mind clicked into his training. He saw only the sweep of the ax as the orc spun on his heel and raised it again.
Terak lunged, striking with both blades at the orc’s scapula. He felt the small blades bite flesh and heard another snarl of pain. He tucked his hands and rolled, hitting the leaf-litter.
“Bugat!” Another roar as a giant shape, larger even than the first one, exploded through the low bushes. This orc—Rukmol, Terak assumed—wasn’t bald like the first. He had a braided topknot and one eye. On one powerfully muscled arm rode buckler made of strips of wood that looked oddly small on the seven-foot tall creature. The other arm held what for anyone else would be considered a halberd, but on Rukmol, looked to be a short spear.
“Terak!” He heard Father Ella’s warning scream and threw himself to one side instinctively. There was a crash as Bugat’s ax sank into the mud where Terak had just been.
Now, Terak was right in the path of Rukmol . . . And the danger didn’t stop there. another sound of crashing erupted as the third orc—Rodak, presumably—approached.