The Captive Flame botg-1

by Richard Lee Byers

  Sure enough, here came the clink of armor and the thump of feet striding in unison. The other Black Wasps pulled stones from their pockets and the bags and pouches on their belts.

  Randal could go them one better because his father had taught him to use a sling, and he’d borrowed it from the chest where the old man kept it. And a sling could throw a stone hard. His father said it was a genuine weapon of war, although Randal suspected that had been truer in olden times than it was today.

  The soldiers tramped into view. A dwarf with a spear in his hand and some sort of axe strapped to his back was in the lead.

  Randal’s father said dwarves were as evil as wizards. They practiced the same sort of diabolical arts. So Randal whipped his rock at the small warrior, and his friends threw theirs too.

  The missiles clattered on shields, helmets, and mail. Some of the sellswords staggered, although to Randal’s disappointment nobody fell down.

  “There they are!” said the dwarf. He reversed his grip on the spear-so he could strike with the butt, presumably. Then he and several of the human soldiers charged.

  Randal and his friends turned and ran. He felt excited, not scared, because he was sure they’d get away. They weren’t carrying the weight of armor, and they knew the back alleys of the ropemakers’ precinct like no outsider ever would.

  They rounded several turns, and then he glanced back. The sellswords were nowhere in sight. He waved the hand with the sling over his head and gasped out that the others should stop.

  Everybody grinned and, once they caught their breaths, slapped their comrades on the back. Even Theriseus, who also asked, “What now?”

  “What do you think?” answered Randal, pushing sweaty hair back from his forehead. “The same again!”

  They sneaked through the alleys, staged a second ambush, and once again escaped. If anything, the new assault was even more exhilarating, yet still not entirely satisfactory. Because even after two volleys, some of the armored warriors were bruised and bloodied, but every one of them was still on his feet. Surely the sling could do better. In practice, it had smashed chips loose from a stone wall.

  “Once more,” Randal said.

  “Are you sure?” Theriseus asked. “This time they’ll be expecting us.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Randal said. “We’re smarter and faster than they are.” And that really did seem to be the case. It made you wonder how these Brotherhood of the Griffon ever won a battle.

  He and the other Wasps crept through the narrow, shadowed space between two tenements. Up ahead, the first rank of outlanders prowled into view. Randal kissed his stone and offered a curt, silent prayer to Loviatar, goddess of punishment, for luck, then let the missile fly.

  His target clapped a hand to his eye. Blood welled between the soldier’s fingers, and then he pitched forward.

  Randal whooped. He and the other Wasps whirled to flee, then faltered. Somehow the dwarf and three of his men had sneaked up right behind them.

  It would be useless to turn back around, because the rest of the sellswords were blocking the other end of the passage. All the Wasps could do was try to dart by the dwarf and his allies.

  Theriseus and another boy made it. The outlanders beat others to the ground. Some swung the same sort of truncheons as the regular watch. The rest struck and jabbed with the shafts of their spears. It seemed unfair that they wielded the long weapons so nimbly in the crowded space.

  Randal faked left, then lunged right, but the sellsword in front of him wasn’t fooled. He kept himself in the way, dropping his cudgel and snatching a long, thin dagger from his belt.

  He and Randal slammed together. A sort of shock jolted Randal. His legs gave way and dumped him on his back in the dirt. He heard a rattling, whistling sound. Something wet was in his throat and mouth, choking him, and he coughed a glob of it out.

  The dwarf discarded his spear and shield, kneeled down, and pressed his hands against Randal’s torso. Randal, whose thoughts seemed murky and slow, realized the human sellsword had stabbed him, and the dwarf-the evil, magic-loving dwarf!-was trying to stanch the bleeding.

  “Curse it!” snarled the dwarf. “They’re just boys. How do you think the town will react to this?”

  “That’s the little bastard who put Fodek’s eye out,” said the warrior gripping the bloody blade. “He had a sling, and a sling is a deadly weapon.”

  As he retched more blood, Randal was glad that his father had been right about something.

  *****

  Jhesrhi tossed and turned until she couldn’t bear it anymore. Then she cursed, rose from her narrow, sagging bed, winced at the chill that pervaded her room, and dressed quickly.

  Now what? The shabby little house was silent except for the snores of one of the family who had billeted her at the war hero’s command. Jhesrhi hesitated to busy herself inside their home for fear of waking them. Her presence was enough of an inconvenience without that.

  But the only alternative was to go outside, and the prospect made her mouth go dry and her fingers tremble. And then she hated herself for her fear.

  Luthcheq was a genuinely dangerous place despite all the Brotherhood was trying to do to keep the lid on. And it despised her kind. But she wasn’t a helpless child anymore. She was a master wizard and veteran soldier who’d survived the horrors of Thay itself, and she wouldn’t let this miserable cesspit daunt her.

  She put on her tabard, wrapped herself in her cloak, and picked up her blackwood staff with its inlaid golden runes. Then she took a deep breath and opened the door.

  Scar, her griffon, slept curled beneath an overhang on the side of the house. She felt an urge to wake the steed and go flying, but she realized that would be a way of hiding just like cringing inside the house. And she was done cringing. She meant to walk the streets all by herself until they didn’t frighten her anymore.

  She set forth beneath a brilliant scatter of stars that made the shuttered grime and decay of the wizards’ quarter seem even sadder. The iron cap on the butt of her staff thumped almost inaudibly against the frozen mud. She asked the wind to warn her of anyone moving around outdoors anywhere nearby, and it whispered that it would.

  And after another heartbeat or two, it did. It didn’t speak in any mortal tongue or even think in mortal concepts, but after years of practice, Jhesrhi had no difficulty understanding it.

  And she liked what it had to say. Because while it might be a sad commentary on human nature, one effective remedy for fear was instilling a dose of it in someone else.

  The wind led her to a narrow three-story house at the edge of the wizards’ precinct. Two dark figures were just climbing out a gable window.

  Some might have thought it odd that the burglars of a town that supposedly feared mages would choose them for their victims. But the skilled professionals of Luthcheq’s thieves’ guild likely knew which residents of the quarter wielded true power and which only possessed enough to turn them into outcasts. They also knew that the city’s homegrown watchmen rarely investigated crimes against wizards with any particular zeal.

  Standing unnoticed in the darkness, Jhesrhi was eager to strike. But she recognized that a three-story fall could kill or cripple a man. So she waited for the burglars to climb partway down the wall before telling the wind to gust hard enough to knock them from their perches.

  One of the thieves squawked as he fell. They both thudded down hard, lay still for a moment, then started clambering to their feet.

  Jhesrhi murmured a charm, twirled two fingers in a circle, and wrapped herself in a shroud of silvery light. It ought to turn a thrown dagger or a dart from a blowpipe, but she mainly wanted it for the glow. She knew that with her willowy frame, amber eyes, tawny skin, and golden tresses-often stirred by a breeze that no one else could feel-she cut a reasonably impressive figure. Perhaps impressive enough to persuade a pair of robbers to surrender without any fuss, provided they could see her clearly, along with a manifestation of her power.

  B
ut no. They turned and ran, and she realized she was glad. Now she had a reason to knock them around a little more.

  She leveled her staff, and a pair of blue-white beams leaped from the tip, diverging to catch each thief in the back. They staggered and fell.

  She walked closer as, shaking uncontrollably, they tried to stand up again. “You aren’t badly hurt yet,” she said, her aura of protection fading, “but my next spell will freeze you to the marrow.”

  “F-f-f-filthy w-witch,” said the thief on the right, a scrawny specimen with a black goatee, a sharp nose, and the hint of cropped ears just visible inside his cowl.

  “I guess not everyone can be as worthy and upright as the two of you,” she answered. “Now, did you hurt anyone inside the house?”

  “N-no.”

  “Lucky for you. So this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to drop your weapons and return your plunder, and then I’m going to march you off to jail.”

  At first it happened just that way. The burglars were sullen, but she thought she had them properly cowed. Still, she maintained a safe distance between herself and them, and stayed watchful lest they spin around to rush her or simply try to run.

  They did neither. But when they passed beyond the confines of the wizards’ quarter, the knave with the cropped ears abruptly shouted, “Help us!”

  A dozen figures pivoted in their direction. Intent on her prisoners, Jhesrhi hadn’t quite realized how many people were out roaming that particular section of street, nor was she certain why. Maybe there was a tavern or festhall nearby.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m an officer of the watch. These two wretches tried to rob a house, and I’m going to lock them up.”

  “She’s a wizard!” said the bearded thief. “Just look at the staff! She attacked us for no reason, and she means to feed us to her demons!”

  “I am a wizard,” Jhesrhi said, “but also a member of the watch.” She pulled open her cloak to display her tabard. “See?”

  “That wasn’t there a moment ago!” cried the thief. “It’s an illusion! She’s making you see it!”

  The onlookers muttered to one another.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jhesrhi said. She flicked her fingers, and the wind moaned and blew back the thief’s hood, revealing his mutilated ears. “You can see that this rogue has faced the war hero’s justice twice already.”

  The thief peered around wildly. “What is she talking about? What did she do to me?”

  Jhesrhi had to admit it was a good imitation of confusion. But she thought she’d demonstrated her credentials and the trickster’s duplicity to any reasonable person’s satisfaction, and despite the city’s prejudice against mages, she expected the bystanders to lose interest and turn away.

  They didn’t. In fact, though it was difficult to be certain in the dark, it looked like their expressions had hardened. It belatedly occurred to her that her demonstration of her powers, petty and harmless though it had been, might have heightened their mistrust.

  A woman bigger than most men shouldered a man aside as she stepped to the front of the crowd. Judging from her buckler and her short, heavy cleaver of a sword, she might have been a member of Luthcheq’s underworld too, or conceivably even a sellsword. “Let these fellows go,” she said in a startlingly sweet soprano voice.

  “I told you,” Jhesrhi said, “they’re robbers, I belong to the watch, and it’s my duty to turn them over for judgment.”

  “If you are a part of the watch, you shouldn’t be. Not when your kind are skulking around murdering decent people. And we’re not going to let you take these lads off to who knows where, and then maybe they turn up torn to scraps before the night is through.”

  “If that’s what you’re worried about,” said Jhesrhi, “you can tag along and watch me hand them over.”

  “Don’t!” said the thief. “For your own sakes! For all we know, there are more of them lurking in the dark! She could lead you into a trap!”

  “Oh please,” sighed Jhesrhi, addressing herself to the crowd. “Surely you people know where the guard station is. It’s just a couple of blocks farther on.”

  “Who’s to say they’ll do justice there?” demanded a dandy with a rapier at his hip, a mail glove on his off hand to catch and hold an opponent’s blade, and a brooch adorned with a red wyrm pinning his cape. “The folk in charge of the watch-and the folk over them-are stupid or worse. That’s why they can’t catch the Green Hand. That’s why the realm is falling apart.”

  “I think,” said the enormous woman to Jhesrhi, “you’d better let these fellows go and slink back to where you belong.”

  Not moving her head, just her eyes-she didn’t want to appear apprehensive-Jhesrhi glanced up and down the street. There had to be a watch patrol somewhere in the vicinity, but none was in sight.

  “The thieves are going to the guard station,” she said. “And if you people don’t want to join them in their cell, you’ll disper-”

  A clay flowerpot smashed at her feet, dashing shards, dirt, and the twiggy, leafless remains of a dead plant across the ground. Someone had thrown it from an upper-story window.

  Startled, she recoiled a step. Her prisoners bolted. She pivoted and pointed her staff at them. The huge woman lunged and cocked her fist.

  Jhesrhi glimpsed the threat from the corner of her eye. She dodged and the punch only glanced across her cheek, although that was enough to sting and to infuriate her as well.

  She jabbed the head of her staff into the big woman’s stomach and spat a word of command. A burst of force like the kick of a mule flung her attacker back and dumped her on her rump.

  But by then, the dandy’s rapier was whispering clear of its scabbard. He extended his arm and charged.

  Jhesrhi jabbered rhyming words. Sleep claimed her assailant, and his momentum smacked him down on his belly.

  Still, that wasn’t the end of it. The huge woman clambered up and drew her sword. With fists clenched or with knives and cudgels in hand, the other meddlers spread out to flank the object of their hatred. More missiles showered from overhead.

  Jhesrhi raised her staff high and cried out to the wind. Howling, it exploded out from her in all directions, like she was a bonfire shedding a tempest instead of heat and light. Her attackers reeled, unable to make headway. Some fell down. The missiles raining from the windows blew off course.

  Now she had to decide what to do next. The gale wouldn’t last forever. She surveyed her adversaries, and the answer came to her.

  She snarled an incantation in an Abyssal dialect and jerked her staff through short, stabbing passes. Hate buttressed her will and lent additional power to the magic taking form around her, swirling green fumes that stank like carrion.

  Because she’d hated Chessenta for her entire adult life, and now she knew she’d been right to do so. Certainly she had every right to despise the idiots before her, brutes and bullies every one.

  She was almost at the end of the incantation before something-perhaps the pure concentration required to perform a complex spell with the necessary precision-cooled her fury a little. Then she remembered that she hadn’t gone to war, and that her employers didn’t consider these folk to be their enemies. She mustn’t slaughter them wholesale for fear of repercussions.

  Even then, it was difficult to alter the spell so close to completion. The magic was eager to manifest the pattern the opening phrases had defined, and the final words were flowing automatically. Straining, she regained control of her tongue, then recited a line that completed the conjuration-but in an attenuated form, like music played an octave lower.

  With the last of its strength, the wind she’d made caught the malodorous vapor seething around her and blasted it into the faces of her foes. Those who had somehow remained on their feet doubled over or collapsed, and then they all started puking their guts out.

  The sickness wouldn’t kill them. The diluted poison was too weak. But they were likely to wish it would.

 
She tried to enjoy their misery, but she couldn’t. Except for their retching, the street suddenly seemed too quiet and too empty. At first glance, she didn’t see any watchers peeking down at her from the windows or the rooftops, but she felt the pressure of their stares.

  Her instincts told her what was coming, and she retreated toward the wizards’ precinct. She’d only gone a few yards when, as though evoked by a spell potent as any at her command, the first shadowy figures swarmed out of the doorways. Her heart thumping, she whispered a message for the wind to carry to her comrades.

  *****

  Working as fast as they could, Khouryn and his spearmen hauled furniture out of the houses-or just tossed it out the windows-then piled it across the street to make a barricade. The householders with their tattooed palms stood watching in distress, either because they disliked seeing their meager belongings so mistreated or because they understood the reason for it.

  If it was the latter, then that made them shrewder than some of the sellswords. “I don’t think anything is going to happen,” grumbled Numer, a beak-nosed fellow with a limp, a missing finger, dozens of scars, and a clinking collection of “lucky” amulets that never left his grubby neck. “We’re doing all this work for nothing.”

  “If Jhesrhi says it’s going to happen,” Khouryn answered, “then it will. Didn’t you see the crowds gathering as we rushed over here?”

  “I’ve seen plenty of crowds since we came to this stinking town. Marching around with their dragon banners or whatever. Doesn’t mean they’re going to do anything.”

  Khouryn scowled. “Just keep stacking.”

  They had time to make the barricade a little stronger. Then a mob surged into the mouth of the street. Forged by All-Father Moradin for life underground, dwarves saw well in the dark, and Khouryn had no difficulty making out the faces of the newcomers. He almost wished it were otherwise. He didn’t like the wildness, the edge of hysteria, that he found there.

  “Present!” he snapped, and, acting as one, his men leveled their spears over the top of the makeshift fortification. Khouryn hoped the martial precision of the action-and the rows of rocksteady, razor-edged points reflecting Selune’s light-would give the insurgents pause.