But almost instantly, a clear vision swept everything aside. The camp was gone, and it was daytime, not night. He stood in the middle of a forest, surrounded by the largest trees he’d ever seen, their trunks as wide as houses, rising like towers into the sky. One massive tree had fallen and battered a path of destruction through the forest where it had crashed to earth. Ferns and giant, finlike mushrooms grew along the side of the fallen tree, which also sprouted saplings, these alone the size of a maple or birch from the forests he knew. Somewhere nearby, a woodpecker was hammering away in its endless search for insects.
Wolfram opened his eyes in shock, and found himself once again in front of the little campfire. His eyes took a second to adjust to the change in light, as if he’d really moved from a forest in daylight to the foothills of the Dragon’s Spine at night.
“You were in a forest, right?” Bronwyn asked.
“How did you know?”
“I can feel it coming off you. And I’ve seen the place before. That wasn’t long enough. Close your eyes and try again.”
“But what is it? How did I . . .”
“It’s not real. It’s a vision sent by one of the more powerful souls trapped in the sword. Now close your eyes until you see the garden.”
Bronwyn’s tone was impatient, and he obeyed.
The forest reappeared, but only for an instant, and then he found himself walking a road as it bisected a stretch of fertile farmland. But not any road. This was made of finely cut and fitted stone, its surface even except for a slight rise in the middle so water could drain off the sides. He had never seen a road so precisely built, except perhaps over the stone bridge crossing the Thorft east of Arvada, and that was only thirty feet long and ten feet wide. This massive construction seemed to continue for miles.
“The work of the sorcerer,” a voice said.
It wasn’t his sister, but a man walking next to Wolfram in the vision. The man wore a robe with its hood drawn, and carried a walking stick of pale carved wood. A gnarled hand with bent knuckles emerged from the sleeve to grip the staff.
“This road will soon penetrate your own lands unless something is done to stop it,” the man said. “The sorcerer’s highway will cross all lands and kingdoms until his dark hand controls every land, every people.”
“But how?” Wolfram asked.
“Thousands upon thousands of slaves. And evil magic to bind their pain to the stones.”
“He must be stopped. Must be killed.”
The old man’s stick clicked on the paving stones. “It might not be possible.”
“We will do it. By the Brothers, we’ll cut him down. Where is he? How do we find him?”
He caught motion out of the corner of his eye, something shadowy slinking along behind his right shoulder. A chill raced down his spine as he turned, expecting to see an assassin coming up behind him with a dagger. But there was nobody there, only a breeze that gusted dust onto the road from the ditch on the edge of the farmland. When he turned back, his companion was gone.
Wolfram glanced behind him once more to be sure that whatever he’d spotted was gone, too, and then suddenly he was gone. Gone from the road, gone from the forest, gone from the campsite in the foothills of the Dragon’s Spine where he’d been talking to his sister.
Instead, he was in a small garden. Vines with flowers and ripe fruit snaked up the surrounding walls. Birds with crimson plumage and long iridescent tails chattered in the boughs of orange and lemon trees. Bees the size of his thumb hummed past his ear. The air smelled rich and alive and yet deadly; the threat of it surrounded him. Indeed, the entire place throbbed with sorcery.
The stones beneath his feet murmured angrily at his presence. A breeze ruffled the vines, and they seemed to bend toward him, the leaves curling and beckoning, and he knew that if he stepped closer the vines would strike like snakes and drag him in. If he took a single step, the ground would heave and throw him down, and the roots of the trees would break from the ground and pull him under.
A hand on his shoulder, a voice. His sister’s. And then he was blinking in the darkness again, sitting in the chill air of an early spring night in Eriscoba. Bronwyn removed his hands from the blade and returned her sword to its sheath.
“The garden wanted me dead,” he said. “Thank the Brothers it’s not real.”
“Oh, it is a real place, I’m convinced of it. That sorcery you felt would have killed you, too. Or tried to, at least.”
“Is that the seat of the sorcerer’s power?”
“I believe so, yes. The sword can be . . . tricky. The visions are real, but not always what they seem.” Bronwyn snapped a stick and fed the pieces into the fire. “I’m going to find this place.”
“How?”
“The sword will show me.”
“You said it was tricky.”
“I will be cautious.”
“You’re going alone?”
“Yes. And I doubt I will return.”
“Don’t talk like that. Why wouldn’t you?”
“The only thing that can kill him is Soultrup,” Bronwyn said. “And once I’ve bound his soul, the blade will turn against me. The sorcerer will inhabit the sword, and he will overwhelm the others living inside.”
“But it won’t matter if he’s in it or not. The sorcerer will be dead. You can rid yourself of the blasted thing and return in triumph.”
“You think the sorcerer is alone in this war? That he doesn’t have lieutenants whose hearts are every bit as dark as his own? One of them will pick up the sword, and it will obey him. And whoever that is will renew his master’s fight.”
“So you’ll kill the sorcerer, the sword will fall into the hands of an enemy, and you’ll be killed in turn?” Wolfram asked. “In that case, what will you have accomplished but your own death?”
She put a hand on his forearm. “No, Wolfie. You still don’t understand. I’m going to fall on the blade as soon as I’ve killed the monster. I will be inside, too, and I will resist.”
He lost his resolve when she spoke his childhood nickname, and found himself blinking back tears. Bronwyn was a hard woman, filled with resolve and purpose, but she hadn’t always been that way. She’d been his older sister, protective and sometimes even tender.
“You must be strong,” she said.
He cleared his throat. “Yes. I will be.”
“Because you are the captain of the paladins now.”
“No, I’m not that strong. Give it to Andar, to Marissa.”
“You are that strong, Sir Wolfram. You will be their captain, and you will continue our crusade against these invaders.”
“I’m too young—”
“Young, yes. But also the brother of Randall and Bronwyn, and they will respect you in turn as they respected us. Act the captain, and you will be the captain.”
He hesitated. “All right. But only until you return.”
Bronwyn took him by the shoulders. “Listen to me. I’m not going to return. I will do this or die trying.”
“You might,” he insisted. “The Brothers will guide your path, and the time may come when you find another solution.”
She released him, and a bitter looked crossed her face. “What other solution?”
“An ally, a hidden path that you haven’t yet discovered . . . something. Anything but allowing yourself to die.”
He slipped the pendant with the silver moon from around his neck and gave it to her. “Wear this.”
“When did you get this?”
“Father gave it to me before I joined the paladins. It has a small bit of magic in it. If you are still alive . . .”
“I know what it is, and what it does. Mother used to wear it, too, before she could no longer fight. But how did it come to you, little brother?” There was a smile in her voice as she said it. “Always the coddled one. Everyone’s little wolf cub. Here, take it back—you need courage more than I do.”
He refused to accept. “It’s become a crutch to lean on. Any
way, I’m a different man than I was three years ago.”
“You were a boy three years ago.”
“Exactly my point. I’m a man, not a boy, and I can stand on my own two feet. Besides, you’re forgetting its other purpose.”
“Ah, that. So you want to know the precise moment when I’m killed? That sounds like torment. Why do that to yourself?”
“Not at all. I want to confirm that you’re still alive so that I can come look for you when you need help.”
“You can’t come look for me, because I’m not coming back.”
“Like I said, anything can happen. Put the chain around your neck. Please.”
Bronwyn did so, but seemed grudging as she tucked it beneath her shirt. Then she rose to her feet holding the sheathed sword and glanced at the moon as if to gauge its position in the sky. When she spoke, her voice had hardened once more.
“Our watch is up, Sir Wolfram, and it’s time to wake our replacements and get some rest. We each have a long day ahead of us. You, leading the paladins as their captain. And I, riding through the mountain passes on my way to the khalifates on the other side. Alone.”
She made for her tent without another word. Wolfram tossed more sticks on the fire so it would still be burning when the next watch came, picked up his own sword, and started after her. Bronwyn. So bloody stubborn, and so dismissive. He was just little Wolfie, after all, her wolf cub who had once carried her shield and breastplate.
No, Sister, you are wrong. I am not a cub anymore, I am a wolf. And I am as tenacious and stubborn as you are.
Chapter Three
A road west of Aristonia, several weeks after the assault on the gardens of Memnet the Great.
It was a simple trap that lamed the horse. One moment it was walking at a good pace, an older mare leading a younger, less sure-footed one at dusk, while the two humans kept their attention on their surroundings, and the next it went down with the distinctive groan and rolled eyes common to injured horses.
The two travelers coaxed the animal onto its side, and it was there that Markal found a two-inch nail speared through to the soft part of her hoof. Nathaliey calmed the horse with gentle words and a whispered spell while Markal pulled out the long bloody piece of iron. He searched where the horse had gone down and found the trap a moment later.
“Someone dug this hole,” he said, “and lined the bottom with nails.”
Nathaliey muttered an oath. “Marauders?”
Almost two weeks had passed since they’d left Memnet’s gardens, long enough that the road seemed to have become their entire life. Every day the same exhausting slog, beginning with a bit of cheese and bread, followed by a long morning crossing open plains and abandoned farm roads through drought-blasted fields, with a bit of rest taken at nearly dry streambeds or wherever else they could get water and forage for the horses. More walking in the afternoon until finally exhaustion and nightfall brought them a few precious hours of rest. When the enemy was close, they hid during the day and traveled at night.
They’d paid for two nights’ rest in dusty farm villages along drying, nearly empty canals, and spent eleven nights sleeping under the star-choked skies. Markal had expected to reach the mountains by now, but the magical scent of hunting marauders had sent them on several detours, and the jagged peaks of the Dragon’s Spine remained nearly twenty miles to the west.
Memories of the chaotic weeks before their departure had taken on a hazy, dreamlike quality. First, Nathaliey riding into the gardens in anguish, carrying Memnet’s head after he’d been murdered by marauders in the desert north of Marrabat. Markal led the burial of the master’s head. Then, the arrival of Bronwyn of Arvada, followed by her brutal slaying of the elderly acolyte, followed in turn by Markal accompanying her to search for the sorcerer.
He’d witnessed the horror of the sorcerer burning the Sacred Forest and Bronwyn’s attack on King Toth in a battle that had killed the king’s pasha, Malik, before Bronwyn herself fell. Finally, Memnet’s awakening from his death—or near death, as it turned out—and the defense of the gardens against an army of marauders, wights, and Veyrian soldiers trying to destroy the order and recover Bronwyn’s sword.
Markal unstrapped Soultrup from the injured horse’s saddlebags. The sword was carefully wrapped in linen and bound with leather thongs so that nobody would accidentally touch either blade or hilt. He set it aside and worked to remove the saddle and bags while Nathaliey stroked the animal’s neck and encouraged her to stay down.
“I don’t think it’s marauders,” Markal said. “I haven’t felt them for the last two days, and they’d be more likely to ambush us from the road than try to lame our horses.”
“Except that we’ve slipped several ambushes already,” she said. “They might be wise to us by now, and set a conventional trap instead.”
“Fair point. You’d better send a seeker just in case.”
“Why don’t you let me see to the horse,” she said, “and you can send the seeker.”
“I suppose I could. Better you, though.”
“Why? Are you testing me? A wizard and his apprentice—there should always be a lesson somehow.”
“You’re not my apprentice, and I’m barely a wizard.” He shifted the horse to get the other side of the saddlebag out from where her body was pinning it down, then eyed Nathaliey, who studied him with a questioning frown. “You don’t really think I’ve been testing you, do you? I thought you were joking.”
“When is the last time you spoke an incantation?” she asked.
“I cast spells every day.”
“A real spell.”
Markal sighed and admitted the real reason he’d asked her. “I want you to send a seeker because yours are stronger than mine.”
“Is that all?” Her frown turned to a smile, and she shook her head. “And I don’t want to cast the spell because I can’t remember the words. I knew it this morning but . . . well, the blasted thing has slipped my mind again.”
Now it was Markal’s turn to smile. “In other words, your insecurities and mine are clashing. How about I help you with the words, young apprentice, and we both ignore the fact that the student is stronger than the master?”
It had been a source of low-level tension since leaving the garden, usually manifested through banter and gentle teasing, that Memnet the Great had officially named Markal a wizard after decades of study, while Nathaliey, much younger, but with greater power, remained an apprentice. If only she could hold the slippery incantations in her head, she would far outmatch his meager abilities, and they both knew it.
Markal fed her the words to the incantation, and magic flowed out of her, together with blood from her pores that ran down her forearms to her palms. The seeker materialized. It was a small invisible eye that floated above the ground in whichever direction she sent it. Nathaliey wiped her bloody hands on the towel at her belt, sat cross-legged in the middle of the dusty road, and closed her eyes as she guided it out. Markal let her work while he saw to the injured horse.
He cleaned the wound with water and vinegar—much to the horse’s distress—and applied a poultice of herbs and honey so that it wouldn’t get contaminated, but when he raised the animal to her feet, she stood awkwardly with her hoof raised. He brought her forward, but she refused to put weight on it.
“I’ve found them,” Nathaliey announced. “Four men coming this way from the east. And this isn’t the only trap they’ve set. In fact, it seems as though we’ve passed two or three traps already, and neither saw them nor tripped them. Good fortune, I suppose, but it was only a matter of time before it ran out on us.”
“What about the men?” he pressed. “Are they enemies?”
“Of course they’re enemies—they just lamed our horse. But not marauders, if that’s what you mean.”
Markal breathed a sigh of relief. King Toth’s gray-skinned champions had magic about them, mostly contained in their gray cloaks, which had been imbued with power. They were formidable foes. It h
ad been a marauder who cut off the master’s head, and marauders who led wights into the garden. Markal had witnessed Bronwyn fighting a marauder, and she’d overcome him only with difficulty and some magical help.
“Look at this!” Nathaliey exclaimed. “They’re carrying something—they must be something more than mere bandits.”
Markal released the reins of the horse, closed his eyes, and followed the tendril of light from his companion until he found her seeker, west on the road where she’d pushed it. It was a full half mile from their current location, yet strong enough to show the four men in bright relief, with a gray spot on the road where they were bending to attend to one of their traps. Had it been Markal’s seeker, and not Nathaliey’s, it would have begun attenuating in strength at five hundred feet, and faded entirely a few thousand feet after that. Yet she held it in place effortlessly, and he knew she could send it for many miles more before she lost control.
The bandits had a donkey with them—no doubt stolen from some other traveler—laden with bundles and bags. Using Nathaliey’s seeker, he took a closer look and saw that the bundles hid clothing, a pair of brass candlesticks, and other objects whose forms could be seen, but not exactly sussed out. And there, within them, was something glowing cool white. An object of power.
“Stealing magic,” Markal said with an ironic cluck of the tongue. “You’ve been very bad, my friends.”
“What is it? It’s not one of our books or scrolls, is it?”
“Not a book, and not something of ours—the feel is all wrong. I think it’s a charm of some kind, most likely a vizier’s chain or a ring for a wealthy merchant who wants protection from bandits.”
“It can’t offer that much protection if these four got their hands on it,” she said.
“No, I suppose not. They’re coming this way—I was going to suggest hiding, but now I’m curious.”
“You’re always curious, Markal. Besides, isn’t a magical sword enough trouble without adding someone’s ring of non-protection?”
The Red Sword- The Complete Trilogy Page 30