A third was resiliency.
The Keeper healed quickly. Her stamina recovered faster than it should have, giving her the strength to carry the burdens of her office. It had let Calliande recover quickly from her battles against Tymandain Shadowbearer and Imaria Licinius, had helped give her the strength to rally the armies of Andomhaim and the dwarves and the manetaurs against the Frostborn.
It also let her recover from wounds that should have killed her.
Like a cracked skull, for one.
It had also let her endure things that should have killed her. Her pregnancy with Joanna might have killed her. It had gone wrong almost from the beginning. Yet Calliande had endured. And when Joanna had come early after an excruciating labor, Calliande had struggled, using healing magic to try and repair the damage to the little girl’s body, to heal the hole that had grown in her heart.
And she had failed. Oh, God, she had failed Joanna. When it had mattered most, she had failed her daughter.
And she had failed again, hadn’t she?
But with what?
A surge of alarm went through Calliande, and her eyes snapped open.
She let out a yelp of pain and screwed her eyes shut. The sun was blazing overhead, and it was hideously bright. It didn’t help that it felt as if she had an iron spike driven into her temple. Eyes still closed, Calliande felt the left side of her head with her fingers. She felt the dried blood in her hair and on her skin. She called magic from the Well of Tarlion and cast a spell, probing her injury. Healing magic was far less effective when used on herself than someone else, but the fracture in her skull had healed. She had a nasty headache, but that would pass in a few hours as the healing magic did its work.
“Ridmark?” croaked Calliande. She opened her eyes again. This time she could keep them open, though the intensity of the sunlight made her headache worse. Calliande sat up and looked around, her hand closing around the staff of the Keeper. “Gareth? Joachim?”
She was alone on the slope of the rocky valley, her gown dusty and torn.
There was no sign of Ridmark or Gareth or Joachim.
And then, in a surge of horror, Calliande realized what had happened.
The blue-tattooed orcs had taken her children.
They might be dead.
Black emotion poured through her heart. She had failed Joanna, and now she had failed her sons. Was this the final punishment for her mistakes? That she would outlive all her children? In that terrible moment, Calliande wanted to collapse back to the ground.
No. She hadn’t seen her sons die, had she? All she knew was that the orcs had taken them. Frantic, Calliande reached for the Sight, and swept it out, seeking for her sons.
She found them at once. They were about five or six miles to the northwest. The blue-tattooed orcs had made good time while she was unconscious.
Calliande might have failed Joanna, but she had not yet failed her sons.
And Ridmark? She grabbed the dagger’s hilt and cast a spell. Once again, she sensed him. He was alive, and about six or seven miles to the southeast.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Oh, God, thank you. Thank you. Let me find them. Please, let me find them.”
Calliande levered herself to her feet, leaning hard on the staff of the Keeper. She wiped some sweat and dust from her forehead, winced at the ache that sent through her skull, and looked around the dusty valley.
She had a decision to make, and she had to make it right now.
Should she go to join Ridmark, or should she go after the children?
If she had Ridmark’s help, almost certainly they could overcome any foe and recover Gareth and Joachim from the blue-tattooed orcs. If not for that damned sling bullet, she could have wiped out the group she had fought previously, and if Ridmark had been with her, they would have won the fight.
And yet…
Calliande drew on the Sight, sending it again towards Gareth and Joachim.
She did not like what it showed her.
Her sons were heading into a haze of necromantic energy, a lingering aura of dark magic. Whoever had used the necromantic spells she had sensed earlier was nearby. Likely those blue-tattooed orcs served that wielder of dark magic.
Which meant her sons were heading for him right now.
Calliande had to go after the children first. She desperately wanted Ridmark with her, but Ridmark could defend himself, and Gareth and Joachim could not. There was no telling what a wielder of dark magic might do with two children. Calliande could think of several possibilities, and none of them were pleasant.
No. Calliande would get her children back before any of that could happen.
An old proverb flickered through her mind. Better to take a bear cub from its mother, the proverb went, then to cheat a dvargir out of his payment.
Her hand tightened against her staff.
Before she finished, Calliande would make both that bear and the dvargir look timid by comparison.
Calliande set off to the northwest, staff in hand, her Sight sweeping the landscape for any sign of danger. Her stomach rumbled, and she felt sharply hungry, hungrier than she had felt for a long time, and her throat was as dry as the dust beneath her boots. Food had held little interest during the last few months, and the last time she could remember feeling this famished had been…well, before the pregnancy had become difficult.
She couldn’t do anything about the hunger, but she could do something about the thirst. Calliande drew on the magic of elemental water, pulling moisture from the ground and the air and letting it accumulate in her cupped left hand. She sipped at it as she walked, draining her cupped palm and then repeating the process all over again. It tasted tepid, but it was only a minor expenditure of magical power.
As Calliande walked, she tried to force herself to think. She had been in enough battles to know that blindly charging after an enemy was an invitation to disaster. Calliande needed a plan, but she knew hardly anything about her surroundings or what was going on.
So. What did she know?
Rhodruthain had brought her here, and he had also brought Ridmark and her children. That couldn’t have been an accident. Scattering the four of them across fifteen miles might have been an accident, but Calliande knew enough about magic to guess that bringing all four of them had been deliberate. The amount of power required to travel through magic was immense, and even if Rhodruthain was not entirely sane, he would not have expended that much power without a good reason. And he had said he wanted to find the Shield Knight and the Keeper, which meant he wanted them to do something.
But what?
His spell had dropped them into the middle of a battle between the bronze-armored human warriors and the blue-tattooed orcs. The humans had lost the battle, that was obvious. Did Rhodruthain want Calliande and Ridmark to help the bronze warriors? Or did he want Calliande to deal with whoever was using necromantic magic?
But why bring the children along?
She drank another mouthful of water, and then her mouth tightened as she realized the answer.
Rhodruthain had said her children would die if this New God of his arose…which meant he had brought the children to give her something to fight for. He had deliberately put Gareth and Joachim in danger to give her motivation to fight.
Oh, she would make him regret that if she ever saw him again.
Calliande climbed up the far side of the valley and saw the northern road stretching ahead of her. More dead humans and dead orcs lay scattered across the road, bronze weapons lying near their hands. She wondered why all the fighters she had seen so far seemed to use bronze, and filed the thought away to ponder later.
Dark shapes near a wagon caught her eye, and Calliande froze.
Then she nodded to herself and started forward, holding her magic ready.
Four muridachs surrounded a wagon, rummaging through its contents. The bony-headed lizards that pulled the wagon had been killed, but the contents were intact, and muridachs were in the process of
looting it.
One of the ratmen looked up as she approached, nostrils flaring, whiskers quivering.
“Muridachs!” said Calliande. “Hear me!”
All four ratmen turned to face her.
“What’s this?” said one. “A human female?”
“Wandering the hills alone?” said a second. “She must be mad.”
“I have some questions for you,” said Calliande. “Answer them for me, and I shall allow you to go on your way.”
All four muridachs loosed their chittering, gleeful laughter.
“She is a madwoman,” said a third muridach.
“Take her,” said the first one, probably the leader. “The Lord of Carrion has favored us this day. She does not look healthy, but she is young enough to fetch a good price in Urd Maelwyn yet. And if she is too much trouble, she will make a fine meal on the way back to the Deeps.”
Before the muridachs had taken their first step, Calliande cast her spell.
The white sleeping mist rolled over the muridachs, and they fell unconscious to the ground, their bodies limp. Calliande released the spell, walked to the wagon, and took the coil of rope she had seen there. With her dagger, she cut the rope into shorter segments and used the rope to bind the wrists and ankles of the muridachs together.
Her skin crawled with revulsion as she touched them. Calliande a visceral dislike of rats, and she didn’t much care for animals with scales, either. Morigna had used to tease her about it, but Morigna had usually liked animals better than most people.
Calliande wondered what Morigna would have said about Joanna. Would she have sympathized?
Or would Morigna have told Calliande to deal with her mourning and attend to her duties? Before this trip to Tarlion, Calliande had not left her home in months. Though this trip had taken her rather further than she had thought.
A happier memory flickered through her mind. Joachim was named for her father, and her father had been a fisherman. As a child, Calliande had helped him tend to his nets and the ropes on his boat.
Which meant she knew how to tie knots.
She straightened up and smiled in satisfaction. The muridachs would not break free of those knots.
A moment or so later the muridachs started waking up.
Calliande let them realize what had happened, let the panic start to set in, and then she struck her staff against the ground. An effort of elemental magic made the ground shake with a thunderclap, and four pairs of beady black eyes fixed on her with fear.
“As you might have guessed,” said Calliande in a quiet voice, “this human female, sick as she may be, has magic.”
“What do you want of us, witch?” said the muridach leader.
“As I told you earlier,” said Calliande. “The answers to some questions.” She held out her free hand, and white fire blazed around her fingers. The magic of the Well couldn’t hurt the muridachs, but she doubted they knew that. “You will answer my questions, completely and truthfully.”
The muridachs chittered, trying to cringe away from her.
“Am I understood?” said Calliande.
“Yes,” said the leader.
“Good,” said Calliande. “Now. What is your name?”
“Rynofael, human sorceress.”
“Then, Rynofael,” said Calliande. “Where am I?”
“The hills,” said Rynofael.
Calliande sighed and rapped the end of her staff against the ground, letting white fire play up and down its length. She pointed the staff at Rynofael and watched his black eyes grow wide.
“One more time. Where,” said Calliande, “am I?”
“The…the road from the human city of Aenesium to the city of Cytheria,” said Rynofael.
“I see,” said Calliande. “Are those cities ruled by the same king, or are they part of the same realm?”
“They were once part of the same realm,” said Rynofael. “The realm of Owyllain.”
“The Nine Cities,” said another muridach, helpfully.
“You…do not know this?” said Rynofael. “But you are human. This is your realm.”
Calliande opened her mouth to say that she had come from a distant land, and then a better idea came to her. “Like you said, I am a madwoman, and I have lost my memory. So, you are going to refresh my memory.”
That seemed to resonate with the muridach leader. “Perhaps you ate some bad carrion and the parasites entered your brain. That happened to three of my brothers and two of my sisters. And my uncle. He thought he was the Lord of Carrion reborn, and believed he could fly. Alas, he could not.”
“A tragedy,” said Calliande.
“Yes. My brothers and sisters mourned for him as we ate his corpse at the funeral feast. It was a most solemn occasion, and he digested well.”
Calliande kept the revulsion from her face. The dietary practices of the muridachs were not something she wanted to contemplate. “You said Aenesium and Cytheria were once part of the same realm, the Nine Cities of Owyllain. What happened?”
“The High King Kothlaric was murdered, and his servants claimed the Seven Swords,” said Rynofael. “Now King Justin Cyros rules in Cytheria and holds the Sword of Earth. But King Hektor Pendragon rules in Aenesium with the Sword of Fire, and they wage war on each other.”
Hektor Pendragon? Something that Rhodruthain had said came to Calliande’s mind, connecting with something she remembered from the history of the realm. Rhodruthain had mentioned someone named Connmar. But long ago, during the war with the urdmordar, Prince Connmar Pendragon had despaired and built a fleet, sailing with his followers to seek safety in new lands. None of them had ever been seen again, and the histories of the realm said that Connmar Pendragon and his followers had likely drowned or starved, lost on the endless seas.
But Hektor Pendragon?
Calliande suspected she might have discovered what had become of Connmar and his descendants.
“The Sword of Fire and the Sword of Earth?” said Calliande. “What are those?”
“Great weapons,” said Rynofael. “The dark elves forged them in the depths of time. When the High King overthrew the Sovereign, the High King found the Seven Swords in Urd Maelwyn. He was wise and sought to destroy them, for such power corrupts mortals. But his vassals and allies betrayed him and claimed the Seven, and now war among each other.”
Calliande’s mind blazed with curiosity. She could think of a hundred questions to ask, but she restrained herself. Likely the muridachs did not know very much about Owyllain’s history, and she needed to focus on the matter at hand.
“The dead humans and orcs on the road,” said Calliande. “Who were they?”
“The humans were the soldiers of King Hektor,” said Rynofael, “on their way to Castra Chaeldon.”
“And the orcs?” said Calliande. “The ones with the blue sword tattoos on their faces?”
A shudder went through the muridachs.
“The soldiers of the Confessor,” said Rynofael.
“A dark elven lord, I assume,” said Calliande.
“He was once the Sovereign’s right hand,” said Rynofael. “Now he thinks to take the Sovereign’s place. Very dangerous. The muridachs are wise, so we stay away from him.”
“One final question,” said Calliande, and the ratmen tensed. “I saw the Confessor’s soldiers taking captives. Where would they have taken the captives?”
“Castra Chaeldon,” said Rynofael.
Calliande frowned. “Isn’t Castra Chaeldon a fortress of King Hektor?”
The muridachs loosed their chittering laughs.
“It was, it was!” said Rynofael. “Held by the Arcanius Knight Archaelon.”
“What is an Arcanius Knight?” said Calliande.
“The human wizards,” said Rynofael. “The gray elves taught magic to the humans. Stupid thing to do. The humans are good for slaves and for eating and for nothing else.” He fell silent as if fearing he had offended Calliande.
“Then why are soldiers of the Conf
essor going to Castra Chaeldon?” said Calliande.
Rynofael chittered with laughter. “Because Archaelon is a traitor! He has turned against King Hektor and sided with the Confessor. But he is doubly a traitor, for he has betrayed the Confessor as well. Castra Chaeldon stinks of his madness and his necromancy. He used the Confessor’s soldiers to betray King Hektor, and now he has used his necromancy to betray the Confessor. He will take the slain and raise an army of the undead to make himself a King in his own right.” The muridach leader sneered. “Stupid, stupid. If King Hektor does not crush him, then the Confessor shall, or King Justin, or the Necromancer of Trojas.”
“I see,” said Calliande.
Then her course was simple. If her sons had been taken to Castra Chaeldon, then to Castra Chaeldon she would go. And if she had to deal with this Archaelon, she would defeat him as well.
“I suppose,” said Calliande, “you don’t care about any of this. You just came to scavenge from the battlefield.”
“The Lord of Carrion provides for his children,” said Rynofael. He cringed again. “Are you going to kill us?”
“Not unless you get in my way,” said Calliande. She cast a spell one by one over each of the muridachs, a simple spell of elemental fire. They flinched as she did, but the spell did not hurt them. “That will burn away the ropes holding you in another few moments. I will be gone by then. You may do as you wish, but I suggest you flee. If you do pursue me or try to hinder me, I will stop you.”
“Yes, human sorceress,” said Rynofael. “Yes, we shall. Thank you for our lives.”
“See that you do not give me cause to regret giving them to you,” said Calliande with a cold stare, and then strode off to the northwest. The spell on the ropes would free the muridachs soon enough, but Calliande thought to be long-gone by then. She suspected she had put enough of a fright into the ratmen that they would not try to pursue her.
And if they did, well…she would be ready for them.
Calliande followed the road for a while and then stepped off it, weaving through the hills that surrounded it. She suspected the road would lead right to this Castra Chaeldon, and Archaelon might have set guards to watch. Calliande reached for the Sight as she walked, sending it towards her sons. The orcs had covered a good distance while she had been talking, and they were now seven miles to the northwest. A quick spell with her dagger showed that Ridmark had not moved much during her talk with the muridachs. Perhaps he was interrogating some muridachs or orcs for information as she had. Perhaps he had found allies.
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