Rune Master (Dragon Speaker Series Book 3)

by Devin Hanson

  “These are dark times.” The king glanced up at the sky. For any Salian, being out under the night sky was something to be avoided at all costs. The pavilion was little comfort. “I thought our forces enough to claim an easy victory, but the dragon changes everything, especially if it is controlled by the Speaker.”

  “You cannot give up now,” Trent growled, his voice harsh. “The Speaker still lives! The alchemists must pay for their crimes against Salia.”

  “You overstep yourself, young Priah,” General Forthist snapped. “You speak to the king!”

  Trent backed down, whispering to himself and glaring at the general.

  “My apologies, Majesty,” Corvis said hastily, stepping between Trent and the king. “My son is simply distraught over the outrages committed in Galdaris. Without a resolution here, what will befall our great city?”

  “We must sue for peace,” Delran said sadly. “The might of Salia is broken. Andronath and its alchemists have proved their strength over everything we could bring to bear. I have sent a messenger to the Academy requesting parley. If there is a way to get the alchemists to leave us in peace, then we must accept their terms.”

  “But, your Majesty,” Corvis said, his voice trembling with anger, “we control the city! They have nothing but a slender foothold remaining! We can still crush them!”

  “And what will we do when the Speaker calls the dragon down among the soldiers? We cannot fight such a beast as that! You think I like this any more than you do? But what option do I have?”

  “You are a coward,” Trent hissed. “The Speaker must die!”

  “Trent! Be silent!” Corvis shouted. “Your Majesty, please! If we back down now, how many will have died for nothing?”

  “That’s enough, Baron,” Delran snapped. “I’ve already made the decision. Take your son and leave my presence. General Forthist, spread the word to the soldiers. Have them withdraw to the outer city.”

  The baron bowed, his face white with rage, but didn’t speak. He strode away from the king’s pavilion with Trent at his side and returned to where Travis waited with the horses.

  “That old fool. We’re too close to let him ruin everything with a parley!”

  “What of the Speaker,” Trent rasped. “I want his blood!”

  “You’ll have your chance at the Speaker, Trent. If we’re to parley, we could still turn things in our favor. I must remain here and prepare things. Travis, take this flare and fire it off where you are unobserved. We still have options.”

  Travis accepted the flare gun and tucked it into his belt. “It will be done, my lord.” He bowed and turned away, a sick feeling in his stomach.

  There was no doubt the baron planned some sort of treachery. He had engineered this whole assault on Andronath and had sacrificed many hundreds of lives in the process. Betraying the parley would be a small deed compared to what he already had committed.

  Travis walked away from the landing site of the Pride and headed up the hill toward the Academy. What was he to do? He had to send a message to the Speaker somehow, warning him of the treachery. Maybe he could sneak a note to whoever replied to the king’s messenger.

  He had to do something, but if the baron suspected him of being unfaithful, all would be for naught. Travis glanced around to make sure there were no eyes on him then slipped into an alley. He fumbled his way in the dark until the roofs over his head opened up and he could see the sky clearly. With a last look around, he drew the flare gun and fired the flare into the sky. It went up trailing a line of blue smoke.

  With a feeling of foreboding heavy in his chest, Travis turned around and started walking back to the baron.

  Corvis Priah waited in a tavern lit with a single lantern and nursed a tall tankard of ale. The gloom of the tavern matched his mood. Burn Trent. Burn the Speaker and his burned dragon. Burn that alchemist flyer than had forced the Pride to land. Things would have been so simple if the dragon had killed the king.

  But no. The king was alive and getting ready to surrender to the alchemists. Outside the tavern, the king’s guard bustled about, preparing the square for the arrival of the alchemist delegation. The messenger had returned a short while ago with the news that the alchemists would send someone to treat with the king and hear his demands. That didn’t sound like the Speaker was coming. Condign would send a flunky to hear what the king had to say.

  At least some things had gone according to plan. Craul had reported a mere twenty percent casualty rate among the Priah forces. The mercenaries he had hired had fared poorly, but that didn’t worry him. He could always hire more mercenaries.

  Perhaps more importantly, the Black Drake had survived the dragon attack. He had no news yet on which airships had been destroyed, but the Drake had gone to ground at the first roar of the dragon, only rising back up into the night when Travis had send up the blue flare. The Drake’s return signal that all was well and they were awaiting orders had come a few minutes later.

  Corvis felt the side of his satchel where the bulk of the flare gun was waiting, loaded with a different colored flare.

  Unlike the king, he still had options.

  Commotion outside the tavern caught Corvis’ attention and he pushed aside his tankard. “Trent!” he called, “It’s time.”

  Corvis’ son came down the stairs, his nightmare face set in a twisted scowl. “I’m not interested in your games, Father. I’m here for the Speaker, that is all.”

  “You forget what I’ve done for you,” Corvis said firmly. “My so-called games are the only reason you’re here in Andronath at all. You and your fellows have all that you can feast upon because of me. You will help me in this last thing then you can hunt the Speaker all you want. I will not stop you.” And may the Speaker strike you dead, he thought to himself.

  Trent scowled. “Fine. One more task. But then I’m done. I’m tired of you holding your so-called benevolence over my head.”

  Corvis nodded and beckoned to his son. “Good. That is all I ask. Time runs short and we must be in position.”

  He stepped out of the tavern and into a controlled chaos. Coming in a small procession down the street was the delegation from the Academy, flanked on both sides by an honor guard of the king’s riflemen. While the delegation and the immediate surrounds were moving at a calm, thoughtful pace, soldiers and officers rushed about madly, carrying out the king’s orders to halt the attack, and fall back to the outer ring.

  Corvis tilted his head back and made out the faint shape of the Drake hovering overhead. If he hadn’t known it was there, it would have been nearly impossible to spot. The Drake was his ace-in-the-hole, his surprise leverage in the coming negotiations.

  He looked around, searching for his lieutenant, but Travis was nowhere to be seen. Corvis frowned, but while the young man was useful to have around, he had no part to play in the coming events.

  The delegation was approaching the pavilion and Corvis lengthened his stride. If he arrived too early, the king might tell him to remove himself. Too late, and the guards wouldn’t let anyone else enter.

  Corvis timed things perfectly and nodded to the rifleman in passing as the king was just wrapping up initial pleasantries with the leader of the delegation. The king spared him a glance, and frowned when he saw Trent, but he couldn’t tell them to leave without making a scene. Still, there was no point in pushing his luck. Corvis took up a position near the open side of the pavilion where he was out of the way.

  “Master Alchemist,” the king said, his baritone voice carrying the weight of formality, “Thank you for agreeing to parley on such short notice.”

  The Guild Master, a slender man with a graying beard kept neatly trimmed, nodded his head politely, but didn’t bow. Corvis saw the king’s jaw clench at the affront, but it was only to be expected. The king was surrendering, after all.

  “Your Majesty.”

  The two matched stares and the king looked down first. “It would seem,” Delran said, “that Andronath’s legendary strength
still holds.”

  The Guild Master looked at the king impassively, no visible emotion giving away his thoughts. “We have both suffered,” he said.

  Delran shifted on his feet, uncomfortable. He didn’t know how to handle the emotionless Guild Master. If he had been furious, that would have been understandable. If he had been afraid, he could have manipulated that. But no emotion at all?

  “There was a time,” Delran said, “when both our people were at peace with one another.”

  “Andronath and the Guild have made no aggressive action, your Majesty. Any breach of the peace was your doing.”

  The king frowned. “It was your people who brought us to war! The people of Galdaris have been driven from their homes, too fearful to stay within the city. Alchemists have brought horror to Salia, and you would say this was my fault?”

  Master Kilpatri looked taken aback for a moment, his mind racing as he took in the new data. Then he turned and scanned the pavilion and his gaze locked on Corvis. No, not on Corvis, but behind him on Trent. “Things are beginning to make sense to me,” he said. “It was not the Guild nor Andronath which has assaulted Galdaris, your Majesty. It was he.” Kilpatri leveled a finger at Trent.

  The king turned, following the guild master’s finger and his brow furrowed. “Priah? Why would Baron Priah seek to destroy his own sovereign city?”

  “Not the baron, your Majesty. His son. Trent Priah was expelled from the Guild and forbidden the use of alchemy on pain of death. He has taken on a corruption that twists the mind.”

  Trent barked a laugh. “You have no idea of what you speak, old man.”

  “Baron,” the king said through gritted teeth, “Silence your son or I will have it done for you. What do you have to say for yourself, Baron?”

  Corvis smiled slightly. “You have it partially correct, Guild Master. It was not my son who planned the attack on Galdaris. It was me.” He drew the flare gun from his satchel and fired it outside the pavilion up into the night. “Your Majesty,” Corvis said, his smile widening into a broad grin. The look of surprised horror on the king’s face was priceless. “I bid you farewell. Trent, shield us.”

  “Ban!” hissed Trent, and a dome covered them, the spherical shield cutting through the cobblestones and deep into the ground.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Red light flashed in the sky and Corvis pressed his hands over his ears, preparing for the salvo of grapeshot that would rip the pavilion apart. Then, with a rippling, thunderous boom, the Drake exploded.

  Canisters of swampgas detonated within the hold and the gondola disintegrated in a howling cloud of shrapnel. Pieces of timber and shattered fragments of airon blasted down on the king’s camp about the downed Pride. The balloon above the gondola ruptured in a rising cloud of flaming gasses. For a few seconds, the sky above Andronath was lit as bright as day.

  Corvis stared upward in disbelief, flinching as shrapnel and pieces of flaming airship tore through the pavilion and crashed into the shield. People were running, screaming silently. The king was kneeling next to the Guild Master, who held his own shield over the pair of them.

  What had happened? Had the dragon returned? No, there was no sign of the beast, and the destruction of the Drake had been from the inside out. The swampgas canisters had exploded, which would only have happened if an excess of dragongas had been mixed in… Corvis swore bitterly as he remembered young Travis hurrying below decks to get his gear and taking an inordinate amount of time to do it. Travis, who had been in charge of fueling the new airships. Travis, who still had a measure of dragongas left. Travis, who was nowhere to be found.

  Trent turned his gaze upward, watching with eyes wide and a delighted smile on his face. There was a manic hysteria in his son’s eyes. Then that crazed gaze swung down to meet Corvis’. He spoke, his words almost masked by the ringing in Corvis’ ears.

  “That was my last task, Father. Good luck!”

  Then Trent held up a hand and spoke a phrase that had no meaning to Corvis. Brilliant light flashed and Corvis cried out, throwing up an arm. His vision was blurred with a dark afterimage of the flash and he felt Trent leave his side, slipping away in the confusion.

  Corvis staggered to his feet, still trying to blink away the blur in his eyesight. He ripped his rapier free of its sheathe and turned toward the king. It wasn’t too late. If he could just reach the king and drive steel through the man’s heart, he could fix everything. His hip cracked into the massive table in the center of the pavilion and he almost lost his balance.

  Arms tangled with his and he stabbed blindly. A shock ran up his arm and someone screamed, distant over the ringing in his ears. He twisted the blade free and shoved, gaining a moment of free space. He could just barely make out the king, only now standing up, and the guild master beside him.

  He was ten feet away. Corvis lunged forward and something knocked him sideways against the table. Somewhere a rifle boomed. He struggled to push himself upright again, but the strength was fading from his legs. His chest felt heavy and he couldn’t breathe. Pain washed through him and he touched his side gingerly. Splintered ribs poked through a gaping exit wound and he held his hand up in front of his eyes in disbelief. Despite the blurriness of his vision, he saw his hand was red with blood.

  Corvis fell to his knees and leaned against the table. The pain was already fading and his vision was getting worse. Blackness was creeping in around the edges and he found an inordinate amount of interest in the sweeping curl of the edge of the map, held flat by a carved stone paperweight.

  There was movement around him, words being shouted, but he couldn’t bring himself to focus on them and translate their meaning. The blackness in his vision swelled and he was…

  Not.

  Chapter 30

  Smoke and Fire

  Andrew paced outside the south gate of the Academy, trying to kick the irritation he felt at being left behind. It made perfect sense for the guild master to go to the parley. Andrew had no official role in either the Guild or the governing council of Andronath, so there was no reason for him to meet with King Delran.

  It made perfect sense, and it infuriated him. He had to keep reminding himself that he hadn’t wanted the responsibility of the Guild in addition to being the Speaker. He hadn’t wanted it, but he had taken on the burden of Andronath’s protection regardless. The wardens were doing the fighting, but he was responsible for the wardens.

  “Speaker!” someone shouted, and Andrew turned his head. A warden was holding back an alchemist, who was struggling to get past.

  It took him a moment, but Andrew recognized the alchemist. It was Michael Esterforth, the first alchemist he had ever spoken with when he had first arrived at Andronath. “Let him through,” he called to the warden.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, when Michael jogged up to him.

  “Speaker, you have to help!”

  Andrew smiled, a lopsided twist of his lips. “That’s what I’ve been doing,” he said.

  “What? No, it’s Meria!”

  “What about her? Where is she?”

  “She was flying the monoplane, fighting the airships before the dragon came. I saw her crash but I haven’t been able to get to her.”

  “Monoplane? What are you talking about? Start from the beginning.”

  “The beginning… okay. Well, uh, after the Maar arrived in Andronath I met an inventor by the name of Amir Nassah…”

  Andrew listened with growing excitement. Michael’s monoplane was exactly the kind of combined knowledge that he had hoped to foster. The technical science of the Maar combined with alchemy to create marvels the world had never heard of before.

  Michael’s story fell apart after the fighting began. He didn’t know how Meria had got the monoplane airborne, but he had seen it flying among the airships before the dragon had attacked them. He had lost track of the monoplane for a while, but had seen it coming back to Andronath, trailing smoke and spinning out of control.

  “Could she have
survived the crash?” Andrew asked. If she had, it would be a minor miracle in itself.

  Michael nodded. “I built the monoplane from nose to tail out of airon, and hardened it with my own Tan runes. She could still be alive.”

  “Then we should send a rescue party. The fighting should be over, but it isn’t safe. There might be Salians who haven’t heard the news. Warden!” Andrew waved the warden over who had been holding Michael back.

  “Yes, Lord Speaker?”

  “Form a rescue party. Five men should do it. Escort Mr. Esterforth here to… where did she crash?”

  “The second ring, near the western gate.”

  “Expect an injured woman. And hurry, it’s important to me that she lives.”

  “At once, Speaker.” The warden dipped a bow and strode away, already calling names to form the party.

  “Follow him, Michael. They’ll get you to Meria safely.”

  “Thank you, Speaker!”

  “Call me Andrew, Michael. Please.”

  “I… okay. Thanks, Andrew.”

  Andrew watched him go, worried over Meria’s safety. She had the kind of spirit the Guild needed. Too many alchemists were only concerned over their own power or wealth. It was rare to find one who wanted to help others or make the world a better place.

  Meria would be a perfect candidate to become an animi.

  The thought disturbed him. Meria was the kind of person he needed alive. Her personality and values would be transferred to the newly born dragon, but there would be a limit to how much interaction with humans even the most well-intentioned dragon could have.

  Even so, he still had to come up with five animi candidates. If it came down to it, he’d rather than a hardened warden as a dragon than a scheming alchemist. Iria could help choose wardens if it came to that; perhaps some of the ones with lost limbs from the day’s fighting would suit.

  Andrew shook his head. Even his own thoughts were becoming morbid. Once all this was over, he really needed to take a break and unwind for a while. His thoughts turned to the peaceful stillness of the Vanali ruins. Ava would have her young soon. It might be best if he tended to their needs for a while, rather than the withering politics of human civilization.