The Captive Flame botg-1

by Richard Lee Byers

  He climbed up on top of the barricade. “You see how it is,” he called. “We’re trained men-at-arms, and we’re ready for you. Go home, or you’ll wish you had.”

  “Give us the wizards!” someone shouted back.

  “Go home,” Khouryn repeated.

  “The spears don’t matter!” cried another voice. “There are only a few of them, compared to all of us! Just get them!”

  The mob didn’t respond with an eager shout. Instead, it gave an odd collective sigh, as though accepting a wearisome chore. But then it charged.

  “Clubs!” Khouryn bellowed, because the spears had been a bluff. Aoth said they had to protect the wizards’ precinct without killing too many of those who hoped to butcher the residents. Khouryn understood the reason, but even given the Brotherhood’s advantages of training, discipline, and armor, it was going to make the job a lot harder than it should have been.

  He jumped back down behind the barricade, unsheathed his truncheon, and settled his shield more comfortably on his arm. Then the first howling rioters tried to scramble over the barricade. It was tricky for a dwarf to fight behind an obstruction as tall as he was, but he stabbed up with the end of his club and caught an attacker in the mouth. Broken teeth pattered down on his hand.

  *****

  To his irritation, Gaedynn’s archers were still climbing onto the rooftops when the mob-or mobs, really, since they didn’t seem to be acting in a coordinated fashion-converged on the wizards’ precinct from three directions. The bowmen could have formed up on the street, but then it would have been difficult to obtain a clear shot at the rioters.

  A pair of hands reached up from below the eaves to grip the edge of the roof, and then, as the sellsword started to clamber up, the left one slipped. Gaedynn dived down the pitch and grabbed the loose, flailing arm, risking a fall himself to keep his man from plummeting.

  Well… boy, actually, for when he pulled the lummox up, it turned out to be Yuirmidd, a half-grown, pimply youth who’d joined the Brotherhood during their brief time in Aglarond. As usual, Yuirmidd wore a tawdry assortment of trinkets in seeming imitation of his superior’s fondness for adornment.

  “How difficult is it to climb onto a roof?” Gaedynn asked.

  “I’m a bowman, not a mountain goat,” Yuirmidd replied.

  Gaedynn suspected he might be the model for the lad’s impudence as well, and he had yet to make up his mind on how he felt about it. “You’re not much of anything yet. Perhaps after a few more years’ campaigning, in the unlikely event you live that long.”

  “It’s starting!” someone shouted.

  Gaedynn scrambled up and looked to see for himself. Sure enough, rioters were rushing the barricades Khouryn’s spearmen had erected across the streets and alleys leading into the precinct. It was an idiotic, suicidal thing to do-but then, this was the City of Madness, wasn’t it?

  Aimed in a sensible way, a few volleys of arrows would do wonders to blunt the mob’s enthusiasm. Such a tactic would also slaughter them by the dozen.

  “If it looks like they’re breaking through anywhere,” Gaedynn shouted, “kill them! If you see someone who looks like a ringleader, kill him! Otherwise, discourage them! Put your shafts into the ground in front of their feet or the walls above their heads!”

  “You’re joking,” growled Orrag, a half-orc with the hulking frame and jutting lower canines characteristic of his kind.

  “Just do it.” Gaedynn nocked an arrow, pulled the fletching back to his ear, and let it fly. It punched deep into a rioter’s torso, and he dropped.

  “You shot that one,” Orrag said, his tone accusatory.

  “He had a torch.” Gaedynn laid another shaft on his bow. “If we let them set fire to the wizards’ precinct, they win. Now, are you going to start fighting, or are you waiting for the captain himself to pay you a call and humbly beseech your assistance?”

  *****

  Straddling Scar’s back, Jhesrhi wheeled above the wizards’ precinct. Other griffon riders soared to either side.

  Most of the rioters probably hadn’t even noticed the sellswords swooping and gliding through the darkness overhead, and the vast majority had no bows or crossbows anyway. The aerial cavalry were relatively safe.

  Jhesrhi couldn’t say the same for her comrades on the ground, repelling wave after wave of attackers. Is this my fault? she wondered. If I’d known the right words to say to calm those idiots in the street, could all this have been avoided?

  But it was useless to speculate, especially when she had work to do. She hurled spells into the masses of rioters, forcing them to keel over fast asleep or snaring them in gigantic spiderwebs.

  *****

  Before the mob arrived, Khouryn had hurried from barricade to barricade, overseeing all the warriors under his command. Once the enemy appeared, it had been necessary to stay in one place, even though that limited him to directing the men in that location.

  Now he wasn’t leading anyone at all. He was too busy catching blows on his shield and swinging his club, and couldn’t spare a glance or a thought for anything but the next attacker rushing in at him.

  Someone on his right yelled, “Watch out!” The men on either side lurched backward, and a bench fell off the top of the barricade to crack down beside his boot. Both layers of the Brotherhood’s defense-the tangled mass of furniture and the lines of sellswords behind it-were giving way before the ferocious pressure of the mob.

  It shouldn’t have been happening. Not to expert soldiers. But Aoth had forbidden them to fight to best effect, and perhaps the Foehammer had seen fit to remind them that in battle, nothing was certain.

  Dripping sweat, his chest heaving, Khouryn sucked in a breath to bellow new orders. But just then, the barricade shattered. Stools and tables tumbled and slid, knocking soldiers off balance and fouling their legs as they tottered backward.

  A wooden box with brass corner guards crashed down on Khouryn’s head. Then he was on his hands and knees amid a scatter of furniture, with a fierce pain under his steel and leather helmet and no recollection of falling down. The mob was racing at him, and his men were nowhere in sight. Because they’d dropped back. Presumably only a couple of paces, but they might as well be sailing the Trackless Sea for all the good they were likely to do him in the next few heartbeats.

  He heaved himself to his feet. It made his head throb, and he gasped.

  The stains on her leather armor reeking of vomit, a truly enormous woman cut at Khouryn with a short, heavy, single-edged sword. He blocked with his shield, tried to riposte with his truncheon, and discovered his hand was empty. He must have dropped the weapon when he fell.

  His opponent attacked again. A well-dressed man armed with a rapier and a mail gauntlet maneuvered to flank him. Other foes, mere shadows in the dark and confusion, were surging forward too.

  Khouryn kept warding himself and snatched a dagger from his belt. He would much rather have grabbed his urgrosh, but it took two hands to wield. If he discarded his shield, his foes would kill him in the naked instant before the axe was ready.

  They stood a fair chance of doing that anyway, but a warrior could only select what seemed the proper strategy, then fight his best. He sidestepped to keep the enemy from encircling him and looked for an opening that would enable him to shift in close and use the knife on someone.

  Behind him, two voices roared. Lightning flared above his head. It crackled over the faces of the big woman and her comrade with the rapier, charring flesh and making them shudder in place. A blast of white vapor painted other rioters with frost.

  All the foes in the immediate vicinity halted, either because they’d just been hurt or simply because they were startled. It gave Khouryn a chance to unlimber the urgrosh and retreat.

  Which put him between the two dragonborn who’d just spit their breath weapons at his assailants. From the white studs pierced into their faces, he recognized Medrash and Balasar from the tavern brawl.

  He wondered what they were doi
ng here, but now was not the time to ask. He had a battle to salvage. “Make a new line!” he shouted to his men. “And get out your blades!”

  *****

  Peering down from Jet’s back, Aoth cursed. One barricade had already given way, although the Brothers who’d manned it were still fighting to hold the rioters back. Another was on the verge of collapse. And there was no sign of any of Luthcheq’s homegrown watchmen. Evidently they’d decided to sit out this particular confrontation.

  If the insurgents got inside the perimeter of the wizards’ quarter, they’d be impossible to stop. They’d loot, burn, and murder the residents at will.

  “And so,” said Jet, discerning his thoughts, “you know what you have to do.”

  “Yes, damn it.”

  He’d kept the griffons out of the fight for one reason. No matter how well trained the beasts were, if you took them into combat, they were going to kill. But because they were so frightening, they might only need to slaughter a few rioters before the rest turned tail. And in any case, the situation on the ground suddenly looked uncertain enough that he was no longer willing to trust the outcome to half measures.

  He unstrapped the ram’s-horn bugle from his saddle, lifted it to his lips, and blew the signal to attack. Jet screeched, communicating the same message to his kindred.

  *****

  The sellswords were now wielding spears, axes, and swords. Morric would still have fought them if necessary, but he was glad it wasn’t. Once the barricade and their initial battle lines had broken, the soldiers had formed a couple of ragged little circles to keep anyone from striking them from behind.

  As far as self-protection went, it was a sound tactic, but it left an opening between the sellswords and the row of houses on the right-hand side of the alley. People were scurrying through the gap, and Morric figured he might as well be one of them. The outlanders were scum-that went without saying-but why waste time on them when it was mages he’d come to kill?

  A fool in a tavern had once jeered that Morric didn’t even know why he hated wizards. He answered the taunt with his fists and boots, but after he sobered up, he realized he could have used his tongue if he’d wished. For of course he knew.

  Wizards trafficked with demons. It was the source of their power. They spread disease and misfortune to amuse their evil masters. They used their secret arts to control all the merchants and guilds and steal a dragon’s share of all the coin, and as a result, a simple man couldn’t earn a decent wage.

  They must be spying and otherwise aiding Chessenta’s enemies too. Nothing else could explain why the news from the north and east was so bad, even though the war hero’s troops were the bravest in all Faerun.

  And obviously, the Green Hand slayings were the vilest crimes of all and made retaliation a matter of simple self-preservation. The honest people of Luthcheq had to get the mages before the mages got the rest of them.

  Morric had noticed arrows falling from overhead, and the fear of them kept his head down and his shoulders hunched as he darted through the opening. But no shaft whizzed out of the dark to pierce him-or any of his companions either. The bowmen must be looking elsewhere.

  Which meant they’d missed their chance at Morric. Once he broke into a mage’s house, no sellsword would even know where he was, let alone have any hope of stopping him. He glanced around, deciding where to start-and then, above his head, something shrieked. Shadows swept across the ground. He froze.

  A winged beast plunged down in front of him, right on top of one of his fellow avengers. The creature’s talons stabbed deep into its victim’s body, its weight smashed him into a crumpled heap, and he died without making a sound.

  The griffon flapped its wings and leaped onto a second man. That one did manage a truncated yelp, but only because he saw death hurtling at him. The beast ripped him to pieces a heartbeat later.

  As it did, Morric noticed the armored warrior on its back. In other circumstances, the sellsword likely would have seemed fearsome, or at least formidable. Astride his eagle-headed steed, he was inconsequential.

  Morric’s adz slipped from his grip. He’d brought it to serve as his weapon. Still, now that he was numb and slow with dread, it didn’t seem to matter that he’d dropped it. He couldn’t imagine such a puny instrument hurting the griffon.

  But it mattered in a different sort of way. The adz clanked when it hit the ground, and the noise made the creature’s head with its gory, dripping beak snap around in his direction.

  Morric still couldn’t move. Or scream. He needed to, but the cry felt jammed in his clogged throat and dry mouth.

  The griffon gathered itself to pounce. Then a madman ran at its flank with a leveled spear. The beast spun to defend itself.

  When the beast turned away, it broke Morric out of his paralysis. It occurred to him that he could try to help the man with the spear as the fellow had saved him, but the thought was just a chain of words that scarcely even seemed to have a meaning. He whirled and ran.

  Others did the same. Tripping and trampling over fallen bodies he couldn’t see, but only felt thrashing beneath him, he struggled to bull his way through the press. A griffon dived and slammed a man to the earth. The creature was almost close enough for Morric to reach out and touch, and as it ripped its victim apart, warm blood and gobs of flesh spattered him.

  He was so frantic to avoid the griffons that he nearly flung himself onto the point of an outlander’s sword. But he somehow twisted away from the thrust and floundered onward, and then people weren’t packed together quite as tightly. He could run faster, and he did.

  He started feeling his exhaustion not long afterward. Still, he wouldn’t allow himself to halt until the wizards’ precinct was several blocks behind and he’d separated himself from everyone else who’d fled the battle.

  Then, legs leaden, heart hammering, he flopped down in an alley and wheezed. He remembered the man who’d saved him-and whom he in turn had abandoned-and felt a pang of shame.

  But curse it, it wasn’t his fault the wretch was dead! It was the fault of the despicable Thayans and the war hero who’d given them authority. Who’d sent them to slaughter her own people when they’d risen up to cleanse Luthcheq of a canker.

  THREE

  30 CHES-6 TARSAKH THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

  The rain pattered down from a gray sky. It made the task of picking up bodies and tossing them onto carts even more cheerless, if that was possible.

  Since she was an officer, Jhesrhi didn’t have to dirty her hands with such labor. Since she didn’t have any men under her direct command, she didn’t even have to supervise it. But she watched it for a time, then stalked back to her billet and stuffed her grimoires and spare clothing into her saddlebags.

  Then she hauled them and her tack to the overhang at the side of the house. So named for the long, livid ridge that marked his flank from feathers to fur, Scar spotted the gear and knew they were going to fly. He gave an eager rasp and leaped to his feet.

  And Jhesrhi faltered. Because while the griffon was hers in one sense, in another he belonged to the Brotherhood. Did she have the right to take him away with her, particularly when, in the wake of the Thayan campaign, the pride was so diminished?

  She scowled and set her burdens down while she weighed the question. Scar padded over and nuzzled her, almost hard enough to knock her off balance. He was expressing affection, but also urging her to get moving.

  As she should have. For a moment later, someone whistled a jaunty tune, a song whose lyrics she considered particularly tasteless and offensive. Looking like he’d enjoyed a full night’s sleep and like the rain had no power to plaster down his feathered copper hair or otherwise mar his debonair appearance, Gaedynn sauntered toward her from the street.

  He glanced at the little pile of her possessions. “Ready for a change of scene?”

  “War is one thing, but I don’t have the stomach for this.”

  “Just because we killed civilians? At least th
ey were Chessentan civilians. And I was under the impression that you detest this place.”

  “I do. But…”

  He arched a trimmed eyebrow. “But…?”

  “If I’d handled myself better when those meddlers accosted my prisoners and me, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “Yes, I agree with you there.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  He shrugged. “Admittedly, some might compare last night’s unpleasantness to an avalanche. Given your intimacy with the ruling spirits of earth and stone, you no doubt understand better than I how at the start of such an event, one rock bumps another, and that one jostles a third, until an entire mountainside is falling. Here in Luthcheq, the various pebbles were the Green Hand murders, the news of pillage and piracy, the resulting disruption of commerce, the bad blood between dragonborn and genasi-and what have you-all knocking into one another to create a surge of violence that inevitably targeted the outcasts Chessenta loves to hate.

  “In this analogy,” he continued, “your little confrontation in the street was only one pebble among many. Still, it was your duty to pluck it from the air before it could do any harm, and you failed.”

  She sighed. “I know what you’re doing. You want me to say that if that particular pebble hadn’t triggered the avalanche, another one would have. But I don’t know that for certain. What I do know is that someone else-someone like you-could have sent those louts on their way with cogent words and a jest.”

  “Oh, undoubtedly. After all, I am exceptionally charming, and clever too. But Aoth didn’t hire you for your ability to placate the dull and ignorant. As I recall, it has more to do with your gift for knocking down walls and setting enemy troops on fire.”