Sword of Shadows

by Karin Rita Gastreich

  “My friendship with the King is not your concern.”

  “Everything about you concerns me.” Corey’s tone became severe, patronizing. “Do you know what I thought all those years ago, when you refused the Crown yet attended Akmael’s wedding? ‘Now there is a woman with political instinct’, I told myself. ‘For all her apparent innocence, my sweet Eolyn understands that the only woman more powerful than a queen is the king’s mistress.’”

  “I despise your vulgarity, Corey.”

  “I’m not vulgar, I’m honest. And you have disappointed me, Eolyn. Why do you waste your affections on that peasant-turned-knight from the backwoods of Moehn?”

  Eolyn winced at his words, mortified that Borten might have overheard. “There is nothing unworthy about Moehn or its people. This is my home you insult with your arrogance.”

  “You are no daughter of Moehn. You are a High Maga, heiress to East Selen, and a woman most favored by the Mage King. You may not be able to trace your ancestors to the line of Vortingen, but your blood is just as precious and your power just as formidable as any nobleman’s. You could have been a mother of kings.”

  Eolyn laughed. “I’d rather be a teacher of magas. Let the good Queen Taesara be a mother of kings. She is prepared for that duty, much better than I.”

  “Prepared or not, the Gods may have other plans,” Corey replied. “Taesara has lost her child.”

  Eolyn reined in her steed. An icy flutter settled in the pit of her stomach. Her hand went inadvertently to her abdomen.

  “How awful,” she murmured. “How terrible for her. And Akmael, is he…?”

  Her words drifted into silence, for she was not quite certain what she wanted to ask, or whether she wished to hear the answer. Corey had stopped at her side, but waited until Mariel caught up with them, and bade the girl to ride ahead with Sir Borten.

  “The King is as stony-faced as any Prince of Vortingen ever was,” he said, “though I imagine he is much affected by the news. We are four years into his reign after all, and no heir to speak of.”

  Eolyn spurred her horse forward. Corey followed.

  “Miscarriages are regrettable, but not uncommon,” she said. “Indeed, they are much more common than most men care to acknowledge. Renate and I attended many failed pregnancies during our time in Moehn. The Queen will recover and conceive again.”

  “High Mage Rezlyn, it seems, would agree with you. As for myself, I am not so certain.”

  Eolyn cast him a sideways glance. “What would you know that Rezlyn does not?”

  He shrugged and looked away. “Not nearly enough. But I suspect the Queen has enemies, and so does she.”

  “Enemies?”

  “A sorceress, perhaps. Someone with the power to make her ill, to force a miscarriage.”

  “Are you suggesting that I—”

  “No. But others have, including Taesara herself.”

  “The Queen has accused me of killing her child?”

  “Not openly. Akmael would have her head for it if she did. But by all accounts, this is what she believes.”

  “Her ignorance of our ways has persisted for too long. Someone must help her understand that a maga would never—”

  “You would never. But there were many who fled from Kedehen’s brutal wrath, and we would be fools not to suspect they are watching us still, hungry for vengeance, plotting to bring ruin upon the House of Vortingen and the people of Moisehén. Ensuring that King Akmael has no heir would be an excellent place to begin.”

  “Akmael has an heir. He has the Princess Eliasara.”

  “A girl cannot become a king.”

  “Just as a girl cannot practice magic?”

  “You seduced the Mage King to see that rule broken,” Corey replied dryly. “I doubt Eliasara will have the same opportunity. Though it might be amusing to see her try.”

  Sir Borten halted his steed just then, and though he was some distance ahead of them, Eolyn was troubled by the thought that the wind might have carried more than a few words of their conversation to his ears.

  “Why did you attack him last night?” she said in a low voice.

  “Attack him? He attacked me.”

  “There was no need for that flame, and you know it. If you had injured Borten, we would have been left without a swordsman.”

  The mage clucked his tongue. “Swordsman, indeed. That swordsman speared your brother once, and now it seems he wants to spear you. But he will bring you little pleasure, I can tell you that. A peasant’s sword is a small and simple thing. Blunt around the edges. Disappointing in the thrust. What you require, Maga Eolyn, is a mage’s staff: long and sturdy, magically cured. Powerful to the touch, smooth in its finish—”

  “Borten’s sword cut your staff to the quick, Mage Corey.”

  Corey drew an indignant breath and then let go a low chuckle. “The highlands of Moehn have put some spirit on your tongue. I am glad to see it. I wasn’t going to hurt him, Eolyn. I just wanted to scar that handsome face a little. It would have served him right for courting my ward without permission.”

  “I am not your ward.”

  “You are my kin, cousin in the eyes of Dragon, and you carry the future of my Clan in your blood. You are not to waste your affections on the likes of that simple knight. Not when you have the Mage King at your beck and call.”

  Eolyn quelled a surge of anger, frustrated by the ease with which he could provoke her. She focused on the rush of wind through fragrant grass and the bell-like melody of a field warbler. She invoked the memory of Borten’s embrace, the tender confidence of his kiss, the song of Aithne and Caradoc echoing through their newly discovered desire.

  Sleep, Eolyn, he had said.

  And she would have, wrapped in the warm sanctuary of his embrace, had Corey not appeared with rude reminders of the outside world.

  “The path of a maga’s heart is governed only by the Gods,” she said, remembering the words of Doyenne Ghemena. “She must love as they command, with a ready spirit and an open heart. No amount of scheming or interference on your part will ever change that, Mage Corey.”

  “Love?” Corey replied with a confused frown. “When did I ever suggest we were talking about love?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Refugee

  Drostan and his men broke camp before the sun spread its rosy light across the eastern horizon. They had left Rhiemsaven the previous day, and now followed a wide dirt road south along the Tarba River toward the Valley of Aerunden. The breeze was fresh, the sky clear, and the landscape wide open, their visibility unfettered by woodlands. Reeds rustled in the wind. The river murmured at their side and sparkled like sapphires under the morning sun.

  Despite the bright summer dawn, something in the air kept Drostan on edge, a faint stench of rotten flesh that assaulted his senses unexpectedly and vanished the moment he tried to identify its source. No birds sang, no fish leaped over the waters, no dogs barked in the distance. Even the ducks sat still, huddled near the river’s edge, scanning their surroundings with nervous calls.

  The tension brought back memories of the War of the Magas, when Drostan and his fellow mage warriors patrolled the countryside in a constant state of wariness, uncertain where the next deadly ambush waited, or what magic would be used to conceal it.

  Drostan had sent scouts ahead of them. Now, he dispatched two more who took to the skies in the form of Hawk. His plan was to ride as far as the Valley of Aerunden today, though they would not camp on the battle ground where the rebel Ernan met his defeat. In a place so recently visited by violence and death, the barriers between the world of the living and the world of the dead were thin and easily broken. Under the cover of night, Lost Souls would drift through, drawn by Drostan’s magic, and attack him in his dreams. While they did not have the strength to drag down a mage of his power, they could certainly give the old warrior a restless and difficult night.

  A rider appeared on the road ahead, a dark shadow approaching at a fast trot, dust kic
king up under the hooves of his mount. When he recognized the man as one of his own, Drostan quickened his pace to meet him.

  The soldier carried a large, ragged bundle in his arms, a boy in tattered clothes. His feet were blistered and bleeding; an unruly mass of hair hung over fierce brown eyes. Drostan would have thought him a half-wild orphan spat out by the forest deep, had there not been a disturbingly familiar look beneath all that grime and sweat, and a hint of nobility in the lift of his young chin.

  “The boy comes from Moehn,” said the soldier who delivered him. “He claims to be a grandson of Lord Felton.”

  Drostan recognized him now. This was the youth who had walked with him along the decrepit wall of Moehn. An undisciplined child who had spent his days in the streets with a loose following of ragged urchins, more intent on learning arts of thievery than techniques of combat that befitted his station. It took Drostan a moment to place his name.

  “Lord Markl, if I recall correctly?”

  “Yes, Sir.” Exhaustion and hunger were plain upon the boy’s face, yet he responded with vigor. “I’ve come to tell King Akmael that Moehn is under siege.”

  Drostan dismounted and helped the boy to the ground. “The King has been informed.”

  “How?” the boy asked, eyes wide with astonishment. “No one could have come faster than me. I rode without stopping from Moehn, until my horse collapsed coming down the pass. Then I walked from there, and ran as much as I could, until your man found me.”

  “Word reached King Akmael by the gift of magic and the will of the Gods. We are the first to respond to Moehn’s call for aid.”

  “You?” The boy assessed Drostan and his small company. “Just you and these men?”

  “More are on the way.”

  “Well, I should hope so! We’ll need much more than this. I have to get to the City and speak with the King. How much farther is it?”

  “Three day’s ride on a fast horse,” Drostan informed him grimly. “Longer, if you’re walking.”

  Drostan led Markl, limping, to a large rock on the edge of the river and bade him to sit down. He signaled the healer Laeryon, who hurried forward to examine the boy’s feet. Markl winced at the healer’s touch and stifled a cry by biting his lip.

  Laeryon frowned, shook his head, and drew water from the river to begin washing the bloody wounds.

  “He’ll have to stay off his feet until they are healed,” Laeryon said, “or they will fester and most surely be lost.”

  “Fifty men will not free Moehn,” the boy insisted. “I saw the enemy’s army. A thousand strong, it was. Maybe two. The King must send more, much more, and they must go up the pass now or everything will be lost.”

  “You saw their army?” Drostan received this claim with caution. A child prone to thievery would also be prone to lying.

  “They marched into Moehn from the east, under flags of burgundy and yellow. Three miles long, the column was. Further than the eyes could see.”

  Drostan, who had been bending over to listen to the boy, straightened now and surveyed the landscape with a determined frown. Just to the west of the road he spotted a small rise.

  “Bring the boy,” he said to one of his men.

  Markl was gathered up and carried to a modest vantage point on a small knoll.

  “How far away was the army when you saw it?” Drostan asked, indicating various landmarks within view. “From here to that fir, or to that stream? Show me.”

  Markl frowned. “Further than the stream. Almost to that patch of woods over there. That’s what I’d say.”

  “And if you were to see that same army in front of us today, at the same distance, where would it start?”

  “Down there,” Markl pointed toward the south.

  “Where, exactly?”

  “At that big patch of grass.”

  Almost everything in front of them was either grassland or fallow pasture, but Drostan did not allow his impatience to show. “Which patch?”

  “The brownish part, with the yellow flowers.”

  “And where would it end?”

  Markl jerked his head toward the north. “A mile that way. Maybe two.”

  “How far is a mile?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Show me.”

  Markl pointed to a distant stand of dead trees, leafless white trunks clawing their way toward the clear sky. “About that far.”

  Drostan sucked in his breath, troubled by the boy’s account. If Markl spoke true, the threat was far greater than the old knight could ever have imagined.

  “How wide was the column? How many men across?”

  Markl shrugged. “Can’t say, really. I wasn’t close enough to see each man. Maybe about as wide as this road here. That’s what it looked like, anyway.”

  “I see.” What the boy described seemed well nigh impossible. How in the name of the Gods had the Syrnte dragged a force that large through the unexplored maze of the South Woods and into the heart of Moehn? “Now you must tell me, Markl: you said there were spearmen. Where in the column did the spears begin, and where did they end?”

  Drostan’s interrogation of Markl continued in this manner for the better part of an hour. The knight returned repeatedly to the same questions, asking them a different way each time, taking the boy to new vantage points, obliging him to use alternative landmarks, until at last he was satisfied with the relative consistency of the child’s account.

  He then brought Markl back to the riverside, delivered him to Laeryon’s care, and dispatched a messenger to the King’s City.

  It was sobering news at best, and Drostan felt a deep sense of foreboding as he watched its carrier race northward. Akmael, once Drostan’s student and now his liege, had never confronted an enemy of this magnitude. Though Drostan had taught the young prince well, and knew of no man more gifted in the arts of magic and war, the old knight feared for his King and for the people he was sworn to protect.

  Instructing Laeryon to take the boy back to Rhiemsaven, Drostan mounted his steed and assessed the small company of men who awaited his command. Thousands more would soon march from the King’s City, mage warriors among them, yet even so, it would be a paltry force given the scale of the Syrnte invasion. And they would be long days in arriving.

  We may not be able to stop them at Aerunden, he thought, bidding his men to continue. But we must stall them as long as possible.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sacrifice

  “Mistress Adiana!” The girls squealed and ran toward Adiana, filling her arms with laughter.

  Only a few days had passed since she last held them like this, yet it felt like an eternity. Adiana drew a deep breath, inhaling their sweet aroma, and took each face in her hands.

  “Catarina. Tasha.” They had never appeared more beautiful than in this moment. Catarina was rosy-cheeked and full of bright giggles. Tasha tried to smile, though her dark eyes were haunted, no doubt the mark of Mechnes’s brutality. Adiana drew the girl close for a comforting embrace. “Where is Ghemena?”

  “Don’t you know?” Tasha said. “She ran away. They haven’t found her.”

  Adiana’s heart filled with a mix of fear and hope. “When?”

  “Our first morning here.”

  “More a fool, I say.” Catarina twirled in a new gown, pink silks flaring around her ankles. “See what the San’iloman has given us? She says we are to live like queens.”

  Tasha was also dressed in a fine robe of pale blue, but she fingered the silver laces of her bodice, eyes downcast. “Ghemena wouldn’t have any use for pretty dresses. She wants to be a maga.” The girl bit her lip and added in a despairing whisper, “So do I.”

  Adiana touched Tasha’s chin, compelling the girl to meet her gaze. “You are a maga. You must never forget that.”

  “They will make fine Syrnte witches, both of them.” Rishona’s voice, unmistakable in its seductive tenor, interrupted their reunion.

  Adiana looked up, startled.

 
; She had not even noticed the San’iloman in all her splendor, having had eyes only for the girls. Rishona was even more spellbinding than Adiana remembered her, a melody of grace and womanly charm. She wore richly dyed silks that emphasized her shapely figure. Her ebony hair was braided and adorned with pearls; her throat and arms sparkled with jewels.

  Prince Mechnes’s warning about protocol returned to Adiana’s memory, and she averted her gaze, cheeks flushing.

  My Queen were the words that came to mind, but Rishona was not Adiana’s queen. After some consideration the musician chose instead, “Most honored Queen.”

  Rishona laughed out loud. “Oh, for the love of the Gods, Adiana! You would think we had never been friends.”

  Catarina giggled. Even Tasha managed a shy smile, though she found Adiana’s hand and clung to it tightly.

  Adiana glanced up, uncertain what to say or do. Rishona stood close, her perfume heavy with aromas of jasmine and night.

  “I can only imagine the cruel jests my uncle must have played on you,” Rishona said. “Tell me, Adiana, did he claim my guards would slay you if you as much as laid eyes on me?”

  “In truth, yes,” Adiana replied.

  “Well they might have earlier, when you were sitting amongst the musicians. But I am the one who summoned you now, and I have given my men very explicit instructions regarding your well-being. No harm will come to you, sweet Adiana. So look upon me, and embrace me as your friend.”

  Adiana stiffened as Rishona drew her close and kissed her. There was something in the woman’s tone that reminded Adiana of Prince Mechnes in moments when he thought he was being kind.

  “I never imagined we would find you in Moehn.” Rishona said. “I envisioned you making a fortune in Selkynsen, teaching music to the daughters of wealthy merchants.”

  “I came here to assist Eolyn.”

  “So I am told.” Rishona touched Adiana’s chin and studied her bruises. “Did my uncle do this?”

  Adiana nodded, wary of the tremble on her lip, shamed by the ease with which her captors could invoke tears.