Awakener

by J. C. Staudt

  “Help,” he screamed. “Help. I’m being attacked.”

  Alynor held the door closed with her foot and spun him round before lifting her sword to his throat. “You’ll live to regret that. Where is the king?”

  “In Maergath, presiding over his empire.”

  “Not Olyvard. Tarber King of Orothwain. What’ve you done with him?”

  “Tarber is a king no longer. Olyvard is King of Orothwain now.”

  “Don’t play stupid. Where is he?”

  “Palavar,” Darion said, approaching.

  “What was that?”

  “Field Commander Palavar,” Darion repeated.

  “Darion Ulther? And Kestrel? Kestrel…”

  “Wadget,” said Kestrel irritably.

  Alynor was confused. “Who is this man?”

  “Palavar served as field commander at the Dathiri Ford during the Korengadi invasion,” Darion explained. “Have I told you that story, Draithon?”

  “Many times, Father.”

  “Good. Then you know what Palavar did.”

  The field commander’s face went white. “What did I do?”

  “You delivered me into the hands of Torrel Partridge, the druid and Pathfinder of Dathrond who nearly killed my wife.”

  “Your wife…”

  “The woman whose blade is at your throat,” Darion clarified. “I’m surprised to see you still in command. I presumed you’d been relieved of your duties, and perhaps your head, given your defeat at the ford.”

  “Olyvard predicted our defeat at the ford. It was part of his plan, if you recall. He likes a predictable man in command of his armies. He told me so.”

  “Still a charmer,” said Kestrel, wincing from the pain of his wound.

  “I fretted over the loss for a time,” Palavar admitted. “Yet Olyvard had little choice but to reinstate me, his armies stretched thin as they were. I’ve proven my worth to him since. I hope so, at least.”

  “Time you proved your worth to me. Your life depends on it. Where’s Tarber?”

  Palavar started to speak, but someone pounded heavily on the door upstairs.

  “No need to worry,” said Kestrel. “We piled the bodies waist-high. No one’s getting through that door for a while.”

  “There are other ways in,” Darion said, “and I expect we’ll see them used shortly.”

  “You won’t have long now,” Palavar agreed, listening.

  Alynor could hear choruses of footsteps approaching through the castle.

  “Tell me, Sir Ulther. How do you expect you’ll fend off the whole of my garrison without your magic?”

  “I probably won’t. But since I’m no longer a knight of the realms, I might as well start with you.” He drew his sword and took a step toward Palavar.

  “Magic may not be so far away,” said Draithon.

  Darion stopped short and turned.

  Draithon was standing above the Warpriest, holding the red ironglass sphere and studying it intently in the hearthlight. A rockslide tumbled within its depths, quaking and plummeting in a never-ending avalanche. The Warpriest was trying to speak, but a wheezing whisper was all he could manage.

  Darion extended a hand. “Give it me.”

  Draithon looked his father in the eye. “No.”

  “What do you mean no?”

  “I can repress it. Give you a chance to cast your spells.”

  “How?”

  Draithon never took his eyes off his father. “This priest was using the sphere to cast a spell. The more he drew upon its power, the weaker its influence became. I felt it. I can do the same thing.”

  “You’d need a spell of the wild-song for that. A strong spell.”

  Draithon reached into his pocket and produced a small notebook with worn edges and a purple floral pattern on the cover. “I have one.”

  Darion knitted his brow. “I’ll not allow it. We’ll figure out some other way.”

  “There is no other way, Father. Let me do this.”

  The clamor of approaching Dathiri soldiers grew louder. Fists began to beat on the doors. Alynor heard the first thunks of axes against the wood. “Let him, Darion.”

  Darion glared at her, then gave his son a grudging nod.

  Draithon held the sphere aloft in one hand and his open notebook in the other. He began to chant, in peculiar tones, a series of dark and twisted sigils. They reminded Alynor of something, though. Something distantly heard, perhaps from a time long past, or in a dream.

  Then it hit her. These sigils were not unlike the ones Clever Deg had spoken in the depths of his lair to weave spells which had choked Alynor and bound her limbs with gnarled roots. She shoved Commander Palavar aside and locked the door before turning to watch her son.

  Draithon chanted louder, his voice rising in pitch and swelling in timbre. The rockslide within the sphere buckled as if to resist some unseen power. Slow red tendrils ghosted from Draithon’s fingertips and coiled around the sphere. The avalanche within began to settle.

  The boy was shouting now, his words full of venom and rebuke. Spittle flew from his lips as he formed the intricate sounds of his dark speech. Presently his voice slurred to a low rumble. By now the doors were being breached. Soldiers were kicking them open and flooding into the great hall by the dozens. If this ploy didn’t work, they were done for.

  Palavar knew it. “Surrender, Warcaster. You’re finished.”

  That was when the landslide within the ironglass sphere came to rest. Draithon looked around as if waking from a trance. “Cast your spells,” he shouted. “Cast them now. This will not hold.”

  Darion and Alynor spoke their sigils while Kestrel held Palavar at swordpoint, all three backing toward the hearth where Draithon stood over the fallen Warpriest. Dathrond’s soldiers rushed forward to surround them, crowding onto the gallery with crossbows, lumbering down the stairs with sword and shield, and surging through the lower doorways to level their spears. They lined up sixty strong and waited for their commander’s orders.

  The room went quiet.

  Spells hovered in front of Darion and Alynor. The sphere in Draithon’s hand remained still and lifeless, though Alynor noticed a flicker within.

  “It would seem we’ve reached an impasse,” said Palavar, gulping beneath Kestrel’s blade. “You will not win this, Warcaster. Lay down your weapons. Dismiss your spells. I promise you will be treated fairly as a captive of war.”

  “It’s been fifteen years, Palavar. Fifteen years since Rudgar’s armies stood before Maergath’s gates. Fifteen years I gave you when I turned his wrath from the city. I’ve paid my penance for those fifteen years. You’ve gone on as though nothing happened.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Darion. We’ve each made our choices. They led us here. Don’t choose wrong yet again.”

  The spells were fading, the sphere beginning to agitate once more.

  Darion turned to his wife and son. “Is this what it comes to, then?”

  Draithon repeated, scarcely above a whisper, the words he’d spoken before. “There is no other way.”

  Darion sobered. He scanned the faces of the men standing throughout the room. “Many of you are not men of Dathrond. You came from elsewhere, sent by your liege lords to appease Olyvard King. You may leave now if you wish to keep your lives. This is my final word.”

  There was a moment of silent hesitation. A few soldiers broke rank. Others grabbed them by the sleeves to stop them. Most stayed.

  Alynor understood the deep ties keeping them there. Many did not realize whom they faced. Others held fast not for loyalty to the crown, but for the brotherhood they felt toward one another.

  “Palavar,” said Darion, “you may resume command of your garrison. Let him go, singer.”

  Kestrel frowned, but released Palavar, who slid through the ranks and disappeared behind his troops.

  Darion cleared his throat. “Farewell, Men of Dathrond.”

  His hand shot forward.

  The flared staircase exploded i
n a torrent of flame and splinters. The balustrade supports gave way, dumping the soldiers off the gallery as it collapsed. Crossbow shots flew wild, peppering the room with bolts. Kestrel thrashed with both swords, hobbling on one leg as he fought through the pain. Palavar was screaming orders, but Alynor couldn’t hear him above the roar of flame or the tranquil rhythm of her own voice. She fed a spell into her sword, mundane though it was, and cut a bright sidelong slash through the air.

  She’d felled trees with this spell. She’d seen Darion use it to clear a forest edge in a single swing. She would’ve used it to clear the undergrowth blocking their way to Cliffside Harbor, had only the mage-song been awake then. There were no trees here, though. No undergrowth. Only bodies.

  They yawned before her, blades and limbs and chainmail rings divided by an arc of light as thin and sharp as a sliver. Blood rained; soldiers fell in twain, severed at the waist. The sword in Alynor’s hand crumpled beneath the weight of the spell. She discarded it, already casting again. Behind her, Darion was a one-man archery brigade, spraying the soldiers with caustic yellow-green arrows as they struggled to escape the ruins of the collapsed stair and balcony.

  “It’s coming back,” Draithon shouted, faltering on his feet. “The sphere is waking.”

  Alynor managed to fire off a flurry of whirling heartseekers, but it was her last spell. The next died in her hands as the power of the ironglass sphere returned. She snatched up a sword missing six inches of its length and skewered a spearman before he could lunge at Draithon’s back. Kestrel joined her in fending off the last few enemies on their side of the hall while Darion waded into the ruins of the staircase with sword in hand. The soldiers who remained were more intent on escaping the room than fighting for it, and they quickly broke and scattered.

  The great hall was a graveyard of Dathiri black-and-white, echoing with the cries of its wounded. Alynor began to sift through the bodies, looking for those who needed mercy. She was surprised when she saw Commander Palavar climb out from beneath another man and crawl for the door. She got there first and stood in his way.

  “Don’t hurt me,” he pleaded. “I surrender.”

  “Surrender the location of Tarber King, and perhaps I won’t.”

  Palavar sighed in defeat. “It appears I’ve run out of reasons not to.”

  Chapter 23

  Castle Deepsail’s great hall was spinning. Draithon felt as if he’d been lashed to a wagon wheel and driven for leagues across a stony field. His head was made of melting wax, his heart a lump of anvil iron under hammer.

  The soldiers of the Dathiri garrison were dead and dying all around him. So much blood, he thought. He’d skinned deer and trapped small game, but it was never like this. The blood didn’t bother him, though. Not like he’d expected it to. He was more concerned with the sphere in his hand, and what it had done to him.

  The details of his father’s stories—even the ones he knew best—were fading from his memory. When he closed his eyes he could no longer see the faces of his brother and sisters, which lay obscured behind an avalanche of tumbling earth. When he opened them, the sigils of the wild-song he’d copied down in his journal under Jeebo’s guidance stood as hazy smudges against the backdrop of the page.

  Amidst the room’s chaotic blur there came a face. His father’s face, gruff and unrelenting. Father was speaking to him from somewhere beyond the reach of his understanding. There was blood on Father’s face and clothing. All Draithon could see was the blood. All he could hear was the blood. Then, from the indistinct crush of Father’s words, Draithon discerned his own name. “Draithon. Draithon, listen to me.”

  When Darion snatched the sphere from Draithon’s hand, it was as if a veil had been torn from his eyes. He could see again, though the chamber still spun and danced across his vision. Father took the journal too, and studied the page Draithon had used to quell the sphere’s power.

  Mother came alongside for a look. “What’s all this? A spell of the wild-song?”

  Father studied the sigils Draithon had written in row after meticulous row to fill the pages of the small journal. “This is no spell. It’s a list of sigils.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he was conjuring just now.”

  “Conjuring?”

  “Creating magic. Arranging the sigils to form his own spells.”

  “How would one do such a thing?”

  Darion didn’t answer. He was too busy staring at Draithon. “What is this, son? Where did you learn these?”

  Draithon shook himself and focused on his father’s face. “From Jeebo. He’d been teaching me.”

  “I suspected as much.”

  “You did?”

  “How else might his birds have he have been speaking with his birds all these years? Communion with animals is no gift of the mage-song.”

  “I assumed it was something else. Something beyond magic. Beyond nature, even. A coupling of the minds.”

  “I believe it was. Yet the wild-song played a part.”

  “He only knew a little of it. I taught myself the rest. Turns out the sigils are quite different from those of the mage-song, as is the casting. It’s less rigid. Less about hitting the right notes and more about the emotion behind them.”

  “Heavens forbid we should all be ruled by emotion. Why would you choose to fill your head with such nonsense?”

  “The wild-song is part of our world, Father. Nothing so vital to our lives ought be dismissed as nonsense.”

  “The wild-song is nature tuned toward depravity. Life contorted beyond its intended limits. To align yourself with it is to ally with Olyvard and the empire he wishes to establish. I’ll not have a member of mine own family practicing the natural arts.” Darion tossed the journal into the hearth, where it took flame and was consumed in a flare of bright light.

  Draithon screamed and threw himself toward the fire, but his parents pulled him back.

  “Hush, now,” said Darion, restraining him. “It’s gone, and we must be off.”

  Darion tucked the sphere into his pack and hurried out one of the great hall’s side doors. Alynor took Draithon by the arm and guided him along behind. Kestrel followed at a limp, grunting with every step. They left Palavar cowering on the floor in the corner, shielding himself with his hands as if expecting to be struck.

  “Are you alright, darling?” Alynor asked as they hustled through the castle.

  Draithon could not find the words to respond. He could hear others running through rooms and hallways around them, but no one came to block their way. They passed through a narrow door and followed a corridor through the curtain wall. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “The king’s dungeon is in one of the east towers,” Alynor explained. “Tarber King is being held there. Or so Palavar claims.”

  At the end of the corridor stood a closed door leading into one of the castle’s wide round turrets. Grasping the handle, Darion pressed an ear to the door and listened. When Kestrel and Alynor drew their swords, Draithon noticed his mother’s sword wasn’t the same one she usually carried.

  “Hold,” Darion whispered. “I hear someone. Ready yourselves.”

  He yanked open the door, startling the two Dathiri soldiers coming up the tower stairs.

  “Leave your posts and run,” he told them. “Dathrond no longer holds this castle.”

  They scrutinized him in the torchlight, frowning at the beads of scarlet covering his face and clothes. “Are you supposed to be in here, old man?”

  “Haven’t you heard the alarm?”

  “We’ve been in the dungeon since supper. Who are you?”

  “I’m the one for whom the alarm was raised. And I’ll be your death unless you leave now.”

  The soldiers backed off a step and drew their swords.

  Darion entered the tower, followed by his three companions, who formed a wall across the staircase. “You may continue up these stairs unharmed, go back to your homes, and renounce all allegiance
to Olyvard King. Or you may die here and now.”

  The two men shared one look, dropped their swords, and fled up the stairs as fast as their armored legs would allow.

  Darion took a torch off the wall and started down.

  “What if they come back with more soldiers?” Kestrel asked.

  “Then they’re not only stupid, but deserving of what they’ll get.”

  A locked iron gate secured the dungeon entrance at the bottom of the stairs. Darion smacked the bars with his sword to alert the two Dathiri guardsmen dozing on wooden stools in the vestibule beyond. “Get up. Unlock the gate and leave with your lives, or refuse and pay the price.”

  “You suppose we’re going to let you in just because you come knocking?”

  “Do you suppose being on the other side of this gate gives you any choice in the matter? This castle and all its defenses failed to stop us. Don’t make the same mistake as your brethren in the great hall. They paid with their lives.”

  “Are you admitting to violence against the king’s soldiers?”

  “Aye, the soldiers of a foreign king who doesn’t belong here, and who rules these lands only by force.”

  “Dathrond’s empire is ours by right of conquest.”

  “So you’re true men of Dathrond then, not conscripts. Very well. I rescind my offer. Someone fetch me a crossbow and a quiver of bolts. We’ll capture this dungeon by right of conquest.”

  “I’d like to see you get through a stone wall,” said one of the soldiers, gesturing further into the dungeon.

  “Flee, then. My associate here will have an easier time opening the lock while you’re away. Singer, if you please…” He stepped aside and gestured.

  Kestrel looked at him in confusion. “What?”

  “Pick the lock.”

  “Oh… I doubt I can do that.”

  “How did you get through the postern?”

  “I never did tell you, did I? I arrived at the gate to find myself standing face to face with a soldier of Dathrond. He stared at me through the bars for a moment—it was very dark, mind you—before asking who I was. Naturally, I improvised.”

  “Naturally,” said Darion. “Go on.”