FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Ah, Chantmer the Tall,” Markal said. “He is always right, isn’t he?” He shrugged, as if this were no concern. “I’ll look at the king when I reach Eriscoba. But tell me, are all of the knights away from Arvada?”

  “I saw others from the Brotherhood in the city, but not a single Knight Temperate within ten miles of Arvada. It’s more than Chantmer’s quest. The Brotherhood remains divided. There are reports of fighting in their numbers.”

  Whelan said, “Fighting? Surely you are mistaken.”

  Nathaliey said, “I am not mistaken, my friend. A few weeks ago a score of Knights grew so disgusted with the continued division that they renounced their vows and rode south, swearing they would leave Eriscoba and never return.”

  “What?” Whelan cried. “Are you certain?”

  “Enough of this.” Markal changed subjects in that abrupt way of his. “I also have news for you, Nathaliey.”

  A half smile played at her lips. “Of course you would.”

  “It is a constant struggle to maintain my reputation as the bearer of ill tidings, but I do my best.”

  Markal shared what had happened with the Veyrian army at Balsalom, news that alarmed Nathaliey. He said, “So be careful. Any roads to the east are dangerous.”

  “Thank you for the warning. In that case, our way will be slow. We’d best leave. Chantmer sent us to find Prince Ethan and secret him back to Eriscoba.” She turned and whistled for the dog and the two of them disappeared into the darkness, traveling east.

  Whelan said, “I don’t care for Nathaliey’s tidings.” He had calmed considerably, as Markal had no doubt intended when he’d changed the subject.

  Markal shook his head. “No. The news disturbs me. We need a healthy king and a united Brotherhood.”

  “I didn’t think the Free Kingdoms had a single king,” Darik said. His father had been to Eriscoba several times, but he knew little about how the Free Kingdoms ran their affairs.

  “Daniel’s only the king of Arvada, in truth,” Markal said, “but the other lords trust his word, and he’s spread the wealth of his kingdom throughout Eriscoba. Musicians, poets, blacksmiths, tinkers, and farmers have all prospered under his hand. His influence is as great as the High Khalif of Veyre is to the khalifates, I assure you.”

  “Come,” Whelan said. “Let’s get some sleep. Wizard, will you keep the first watch?”

  After a few hours rest, they broke camp and Markal spurred them on again. Sunrise came but still they traveled. The terrain changed. The land grew hilly and greener. Trees, mostly oak and maple, shaded the ground, replacing the grass. Further ahead, the trees turned to pine. Sometimes the trees grew right up to the road. The mountains rose like ragged teeth on the horizon, with snow crowning the tallest peaks.

  Scree came squawking to Whelan’s arm from one of her scouting flights. They immediately moved the camels from the road to the trees. Darik and Markal crept back to the road to watch. By now, the man’s left hand had mostly healed, and while his right hand was still weak, he could use it. It comforted Darik to know the wizard had regained his magic.

  Soldiers shortly came up the road. Twenty men on horseback led the group, lightly armed with spears and leather armor. Behind, several wagons, pulled by teams of horses. From the way the horses strained, the wagons carried heavy loads.

  Markal said, “I wonder—” He shook his head. “No, we haven’t got time. And there aren’t enough to threaten Montcrag. But for how long?”

  Whelan sent Scree aloft to search for more soldiers before they returned to the road. The falcon raised no alarm this time, but they proceeded with caution nevertheless.

  By now, other roads branched from the Way, leading to freeholds and towns. They passed a man with a handcart and later, a boy herding goats by the side of the road. Darik guessed that much of the risk had disappeared. They stopped in a small village that afternoon, where Whelan sold the camels and bought four horses, figuring they would be better suited for mountain travel. They changed their robes and tunics for jerkins and trousers and boots. Whelan put away his sword and kept Scree covered.

  Darik wasn’t as comfortable with a horse as a camel, and the young gelding he rode was more spirited than he’d hoped. He made sure the Tome, as he’d began to think of it, lay in his own saddlebags.

  The horses were well rested and made better time than the flagging camels. They left the village and started the long climb into the mountains. Several Veyrian soldiers rode past late in the afternoon, but ignored the companions. Too much traffic used the road this close to the village to draw attention.

  They stopped for the night at the foot of the mountain canyon through which the Tothian Way climbed. In the morning they set out again. The air was crisp with a hint of autumn in the air. The seasons changed earlier in the mountains.

  A ravine dropped on the right side of the Way, through which a small brook churned. Springfell, Whelan confirmed, the same brook which later flowed across the road itself. The road snaked back and forth as it climbed next to the ravine. Mountains loomed on either side, although they were only a hint of what they’d see later, the others told Darik.

  “Look!” Sofiana cried as they rounded a bend.

  “Montcrag,” Markal said.

  A small castle sat perched against the side of the mountain, as if carved from the rock itself. Indeed, its cool gray colors matched the stone that marked bare spots here and there against the pine trees that carpeted the mountain. If Sofiana hadn’t pointed it out, Darik might not have seen it at all.

  The castle disappeared from view a few minutes later as the road passed through a copse of pine. A small road climbed up the hillside from the Way, but Darik would have paid it no attention had he missed the castle.

  “Something is wrong,” Markal said. They stopped at the foot of the road.

  Whelan nodded. “By now, Hoffan’s men would have spotted us from the Eagle Tower and sent someone to collect a toll.”

  Darik nodded. His father had paid tolls to several petty lords through the mountains. In return, these men kept the Way free of highwaymen. Father sometimes argued that these lords amounted to little more than bandits themselves, but Darik’s mother reasoned that it was better to know who robbed you and how much they’d extract.

  “Could Montcrag have fallen already?” Whelan asked Markal, but then shook his head in answer to his own question. “Too few troops have come this way yet.”

  Markal said, “Where did all those riders go? Surely they won’t leave Montcrag alone. One way to find out.”

  They left the Tothian Way, making their way through the trees. The smaller road was a marked contrast to the Way. Weeds sprouted from the packed dirt, and deep ruts marred the surface. The horses picked their way gingerly along the edge of the road. At last they emerged from the trees and got a better view of Montcrag.

  Three towers rose on the edge of the castle, providing an excellent view of the canyon and the valley below. The road winding its way to the castle was steep, narrow and exposed. Any attackers would have to throw themselves at the towers or scale forty-foot rock walls. A grassy slope rose behind the castle as an alternative to a frontal assault, but it had to be difficult to circle the castle from over the mountain.

  Sheep grazed the hillside beyond the castle, tended by a dog and a boy with a stick. Two men sat in the tallest tower—the Eagle Tower—watching. No flag waved from its height, leaving Darik to wonder who held the castle.

  They approached the front gates, heavy iron-bound doors in a space carved between the rock cliff. Above the doors, the castle proper began, with arrow loops and peep windows spacing the stone. Writing had been carved into the stones on either side of the door, although time had worn some of these smooth. Markal studied the writing while Whelan dismounted and approached the door. He pounded his fist against the door.

  A slat slid open high on the door, perhaps ten feet over Whelan’s head and a man with a shaggy black beard peered his head out. “So it’s the bird love
r, is it?”

  Whelan looked up and grinned. “Hoffan!”

  “I thought I recognized that swagger. Come back to take my offer of employment?”

  “If I wanted to be an outlaw, I’d go into business for myself.” Whelan said.

  “So you say,” Hoffan said, still making no move to open the door and keep Whelan from craning his neck. He looked back at Darik, Markal and Sofiana. “You brought Markal the Meddler with you.” He grunted. “I should have known he’d be weaseling around with this nasty business going on up and down my road.” He disappeared.

  The door swung open a moment later and the others dismounted and joined Whelan in leading the horses inside the bailey. Inside, several stone buildings huddled against the walls. Two men practiced sword play next to the well at the center of the green.

  Hoffan was a large man, just shy of fat. He gripped Whelan in a bear hug so tight that the man’s bones creaked, then did the same to Markal. If the wizard was annoyed by Hoffan’s comments, he didn’t show it, but grinned and clapped the man on the shoulder. Hoffan looked at Darik, shrugged and gripped him in another hug. Darik grunted as the big man squeezed the air from his ribs. Hoffan hugged Sofiana last, showing the girl no mercy.

  “Now that you’ve crushed us to a pulp,” Markal said, “We have some important business to discuss.”

  Hoffan sighed. “Don’t you always, wizard? I don’t know whether to run and hide when I see you, or pull on my boots and start stomping. And you’re not alone this time. Your friends dropped in night before last. Nathaliey and—what’s that strange man’s name? You know, the one who talks to my sheep?” Hoffan snapped his fingers. “Narud. That’s it.”

  Markal said, “That’s nothing. You’d seen him yesterday and he’d have chased your sheep. Barking.”

  Hoffan shook his head. “Wizards,” he said in an exaggerated tone of voice.

  He led them to his personal apartments, a spartan set of rooms to the side of the keep. They sat on stone benches while a serving man brought flagons of ale.

  “Ah, something real to drink,” Whelan said. He took a long draught from the offered flagon.

  Darik took a sip. It was too bitter for his taste.

  “I have a few words before you start harassing me with your troubles again,” Hoffan said. He wiped flecks of ale from his beard, a growth so thick that Darik half expected the man’s hand to chase out a nesting sparrow. “Your bird friends are devouring my sheep faster than I can steal them.”

  “Griffins keep dragon wasps from the mountains,” Markal said. “You know that.”

  “So you keep telling me, but I’ve never seen a dragon wasp and I see griffins taking sheep every fortnight. I’d shoot a few well-aimed arrows at the buzzards, but those bird riders would swoop down and that would be the end of me.”

  “We saw dragon wasps three days ago,” Markal said. “You’ll be glad for griffins soon enough.”

  “Can’t you at least tell them to eat someone else’s sheep for a change?” Hoffan grumbled.

  Whelan nodded. “I’ll talk to them.”

  Markal told Hoffan of Cragyn’s attack on Balsalom, then said, “Now tell us what you know of the dark wizard’s army.”

  Hoffan told them all he knew. For the last week, small groups of men had flowed continually up the Way to the west. Hoffan had four score men under his command and could have challenged any of the groups, but he hadn’t got rich getting his men killed. He’d hoped to lay low until the fighting passed through and he knew which way to direct his allegiances, but earlier this morning ten armed men rode to the doors and demanded that Hoffan declare himself a vassal of the dark lord.

  “And what did you say?” Darik asked.

  Hoffan shrugged. “My chamber pot needed emptying. It had been several days. I believe those men are presently bathing in Springfell.”

  Darik, Sofiana and Markal laughed, but Whelan looked grim, no doubt imagining Cragyn’s full army marching on Montcrag.

  “I got the idea thanks to Whelan’s bird friends.” He grinned at Darik. “Ever have a bird fly overhead and drop his load on your head? Now what if that bird is a griffin the size of a horse and flying with several friends? It gets ugly.”

  Even Whelan laughed this time. “I’ll definitely talk to Flockheart about that one.”

  “Come,” Hoffan said, rising to his feet. “I’ll show you to your rooms. You won’t be staying long, I’ll wager.” He cast a sidelong glance at Markal. “Unless you have other bad news, Meddler.”

  “I’ll think of something,” Markal said. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

  Before they could move, the door burst open and a young man ran in, shrugging into a breastplate. The laces of his boots hung untied. “They’ve come back,” he said, struggling to gain his breath. He laced up his breastplate, then did the same thing with his boots.

  Outside, men rushed across the green toward towers and walls, pulling on jerkins and armor. On the hillside above, the boy rounded the sheep and herded them back toward the castle. The man turned to go.

  Hoffan grabbed him by the arm so hard that it spun him around. “What do you see and how many?” he demanded.

  “Horsemen,” he said, shrugging loose from Hoffan’s grip and lacing his breast plate. “Hundreds of them. They’re coming this way in a hurry.”

  Hoffan turned to Markal. “Looks like you found some more bad news for me. Well done.”

  Chapter VIII

  THREE SOLDIERS ESCORTED KALLIA TO her garden apartments. They didn’t dare touch the betrothed of the dark wizard, but neither did they allow her to deviate. When she tried to veer toward the slaves’ rooms, one took her gently by the sleeve and kept her moving in the proper direction. Cragyn had apparently furnished them with detailed diagrams of the palace before they ever came to Balsalom. She wondered what they would do if she produced a dagger.

  Shortly after Kallia instructed her pashas to surrender, Cragyn let open the Great Gates and the enemy poured into the city. True to the wizard’s promise, however, his men and beasts did not immediately attack the helpless inhabitants, but disarmed and quartered the Balsalomian army, then moved to the palace. Hundreds of troops didn’t enter the city at all, but continued west along the Tothian Way. The wizard had discovered her watching his troop movements from the tower rooms and ordered her escorted to the garden rooms.

  Guards searched her new rooms before allowing her inside. Much as they’d done with the tower rooms, they removed broaches, knives, ropes, and anything else she might use to hurt herself. One guard stayed inside while the others stationed themselves outside the door. Kallia lay on her pillows and affixed a pouting look on her face. Let her look like a spoiled princess and they might relax their guard.

  Saldibar’s pendant dangled from her neck. The poison inside represented release and defiance both, which would mingle in the form of her death. Dragon’s breath was quick and irreversible, its primary virtue, but it was also painful and messy. It was inhaled, and then the poison tore apart the lungs, leaving victims to suffocate on their own blood.

  Once, when she was a child, a would-be assassin tried to kill her father at the Harvest Festival. When guards cornered the man, he breathed a vial of dragon’s breath. Mother rushed Kallia from the room, but not before Kallia saw the assassin cough up clumps of pink foam. The incident had haunted her memory.

  She had until the marriage tomorrow afternoon to steel herself. Cragyn would busy himself in ceremony, and in the public execution of her brother Omar, and she would retire to her apartments to inhale the dragon’s breath. Or so she thought.

  Cragyn proved impatient.

  As the sun set over the gardens, two men came into her room unannounced. One of them was dressed in bright metal armor, painted black and gold, more ceremonial than functional. The other was a tall man with a long, thin nose. He wore a purple robe with an amulet of office around his neck. Cragyn’s grand vizier, a military pasha named Mol Khah. She’d never met the man, but his reput
ation scarcely bettered the dark wizard’s. Kallia sat up on her pillows.

  Mol Khah held a red robe and a jewelry box. He tossed them on her bed table. “Put these on.”

  Kallia balked. She crossed her arms and tried to look petulant, desperately trying to stall. “I will not. I haven’t taken my supper yet.”

  “Don’t waste your time playing games. I will see you dressed, even if I have to strip you naked and dress you myself.” He considered. “A chore that might prove pleasurable.”

  Kallia narrowed her eyes. “Very well. Leave the room. Order your dogs out too.”

  Mol Khah snapped his fingers twice and his armored escort and the other guard left the room, pulling the door shut. The vizier smiled. “My master would be displeased if anything were to happen because I was careless. I think I will stay. Now change. Your betrothed is not a patient man.”

  He furrowed his eyebrows, then stepped toward her, grabbing Saldibar’s pendant still hanging around her neck. He yanked, snapping the chain. Kallia gasped and tried to snatch it back, but Mol Khah pushed her back to the bedding.

  “You have no need of that, anymore. Cragyn will appoint ministers to rule Balsalom. Put on the gown, and remember the customs.”

  Kallia remembered the customs well enough, even if they were more strictly practiced in the east than in the Western Khalifates. A woman was to remain naked beneath the ceremonial gowns so as not to interfere with the pleasuring of her new husband. She did not intend to give Cragyn pleasures of any kind.

  She shook her head. “I will not put on these robes until you leave the room. And if you force me, you will deliver damaged goods. As for what I wear beneath the robe, that shall remain my own choosing.”

  He slapped her across the face with the back of his hand, sending her crashing into the bed table. The ceremonial gown slipped to the floor, the box smashing to the ground and breaking open at its hinges. Necklaces and bracelets spilled onto the robes with glitters of green and sparkling white. Kallia struggled to her feet, trying to get away, but he grabbed her by the neck and lifted her into the air, where she struggled for air, clawing desperately at his hand.