Gabrion nodded sternly. “And yet, I have to try.”
Herchig bore into Gabrion’s eyes with his own, as if trying to read the warrior’s soul. Gabrion did not flinch away, knowing this was some challenge of his inner resolve. He knew he could do this now. He wasn’t traveling alone; an army would march with him. And it was an army that had been augmented in his absence.
Ervinor sat as still as stone, not wanting to intrude upon the contest of wills he was witnessing. It wasn’t as tense as he imagined it could have been, but he knew a pivotal decision was in the works here, though he couldn’t know what it would be. Perhaps Herchig would know of other troops to summon on their behalf, or perhaps he knew some leaks in the king’s defenses.
At last, the old man sat back in his chair, releasing Gabrion’s will. “Your heart is strong, young warrior. I will call upon my brethren to aid you. Give us until tomorrow or so before you plan to depart, for it will take until then to fit your army properly.”
“Fit us?”
“Kallisor lives without the blatant use of magic, but here in Hathreneir, the king is well-guarded, and you will need defenses against the king’s mages. We will give to you what armor we have and it will aid you against their spells. If you succeed in your discourse against the king, you may keep the armor for yourselves. If you fail, you will die and the armor will find its way back to us in the end.”
“We will not fail,” Gabrion assured him. “I will not fail.”
“If I thought you would, then I would not be offering you this boon. For, if you die, then all this armor will once again be stained with blood, and like the time in my thirties when we…”
As he rambled on now, Gabrion didn’t mind. He listened instead, trying to pull the underlying wisdom from beneath the story layered on top. He grew to understand why Ervinor seemed so amused by the old man, for Herchig had seen so many hopefuls rise up and be squashed, and yet the old heart still had hope as its guide.
The antimagic armor would help him in his quest for Mira, and once he had her by his side, he would swiftly race to the mages’ tower and rescue Dariak—and Randler and Frast if their plan backfired. He could not seek them out first, for Herchig’s offer of the armor demanded he first meet with the king, something the old man reaffirmed in one of his tales later that day.
Yet Gabrion wasn’t worried. Hope swelled within him again.
Chapter 24
Subterfuge
Randler and Frast left Marritosh a few hours after the bard gave his advice to Gabrion. It wasn’t easy escaping the town without notice; everyone was on alert for one reason or another. The mages were wary of retaliation from Magehaven and they spent much time together, trying to share spells and build a stronger set of defenses. The army was anxious to be off doing something productive, as were the natives of Marritosh who had fallen in with the visitors from Kallisor.
Dodging Lica and Quereth proved the most difficult. They had been working closely with Frast for years and they sensed that something was amiss. But Frast was determined to make this work, for Randler’s sake, and he evaded his colleagues the best he could, deigning to meet with them in the evening to lay it all out for them in detail. They accepted his delay, not realizing that he would be gone before then.
Packs on their shoulders, weapons close to hand, the minstrel and the mage trekked off to the west. The sun was blinding on the hot sand and made travel difficult, but they pressed onward, discussing their plans quietly as they went.
It wasn’t long before the creatures in the area noticed them. Randler alternated between his bow and his mace, depending on where the enemies were. Frast was of average skill with a short sword, which he used mostly in order to preserve his strength for the spells he would soon need when they reached the tower. The reptigons and sandorpions fell to their attacks, but then an eerie silence surrounded them and Randler’s skin tingled nervously. Sandorpions and reptigons, they expected; a young pack of lupinoes, they did not.
The clever cubs gathered around the duo, tracking them slowly, gauging their steps. They tromped along with the sun at their backs so the two men would hardly be able to see them. Wisps of sand swept up and concealed them further, and Randler wondered if the lupinoes themselves were kicking up the sand intentionally. The cry of an eaglon overhead disrupted the mounting tension and one of the lupinoes gave away its position by growling in response. Randler let loose with an arrow and took the cub down with a shot to its paw. It howled in agony as it huddled in on itself and tried to pull the arrow out.
The others, however, did not wait. As a unit, the remaining lupinoes charged inward. Randler let three more arrows fly randomly, hoping for a lucky kill before he had to switch weapons. One muffled cry seemed to indicate a victorious hit, but that was all. Slinging the bow over his back, the bard withdrew his mace and slashed it through the air to remind his arms of the balance they would need for this dance.
And a dance it was. He had spent a lot of time with Kitalla, trying to devise new songs for her that would focus her own skills, and Randler had watched her movements in awe. He called to the music now, feeling the frantic beat swelling inside him, and then he let his body follow the rhythm. As a bard and performer, he was already a decent dancer onstage. Now the dance would save his life. Down, up, spin around. Swipe, thrust, duck, bend. Leap, twirl, smash, dive. He was barely aware of what damage he was causing, but he knew he was striking his foes.
Frast was having a harder time. He saw Randler swing into a semi-trance and he stepped a few paces away to give him room. The mage brought his sword up with two hands and brought it down in a wide, sweeping arc. He batted away two lupinoes with the move, but rather than disabling them, he angered them. The cubs rushed in again, growling and spitting as they did so, and Frast almost fell for it. Something in his mind reached out to him and he turned sideways and saw another lupino sneaking up on him while the other two held his attention. It was a lucky move, for he was able to dispatch the one sneak, and then defend against the others.
Randler felled three pups and the eaglon before his first focused attack wore off. He glanced over to Frast, seeing his plight, but he couldn’t help as a pack of sand rodia scrambled into the brawl. He turned away from Frast and focused on the new menace. Unlike the green-skinned rodia in Kallisor, these blended well with the sandy ground and were hard to see, save their dark eyes that never blinked. Randler gauged the enemy. The lupinoes were confused by the appearance of the rodia, but they quickly regrouped to fight in earnest.
The bard hummed aloud as he dove into a new song. Frast picked up its tempo and the two of them came together as a unit and battled back against the creatures. Some of the rodia slipped through the defensive maneuvers, seeking to chomp the victims with their powerful jaws, but Randler’s mace proved faster. It helped that, as more creatures fell, their will to fight lessened. One of the lupino cubs howled a retreat and the rest of its kin bolted away. The rodia did not follow suit and instead remained, hoping to claim a victory, but only meeting their doom instead.
Huffing, Frast sank to the ground. “I knew we’d have to defend ourselves, but that was a bit much.”
Randler joined him, flipping open a waterskin and sharing it. “Indeed, but it shows we have the skills we need to get through this task. Are you injured at all?”
Frast checked himself. “No. Just scrapes and bruises. Nothing major. You?”
“No, I’m okay.” He sighed with relief. “I don’t know what we would have done if I hadn’t spent all that time with the others, Kitalla especially for this case. I felt like I was channeling them during that battle.”
Frast smiled and placed a hand on Randler’s shoulder. “They are your closest and dearest friends. I’m sure they were with you.”
“Thanks,” the bard smiled. “I also know that I could not have survived this without you. I’m glad you’re with me on this trip.”
Frast blushed and then cleared his throat. “Onward then?”
The j
ourney to the west was difficult for the two of them. Fending off small packs of beasts was manageable, but it seemed to be an endless parade with little time for rest in between. Part of their plan called for them to circumvent the tower and approach it from the northwest, but after a solid day of continuous fighting, Randler decided against it.
“It won’t much matter if we’re successful getting around the tower,” he said to Frast, as much as convince himself as the mage. “They will recognize me anyway. It won’t matter the angle at which we attack.”
“I still say a disguise is worthwhile.”
Randler shook his head. “I need to be fully free to move about. And in this heat, anything I apply to my skin to alter its appearance will just melt off or drain with sweat.” For emphasis, he wiped his brow. “No, there’s nothing we can do in that regard.” He looked up at the horizon. “Oh, but that, we can do something about. You ready?” He pulled out his bow and nocked an arrow.
Frast moaned. “Eaglons and… are those swallomers?” The deep, curved wings of the swallomers made them more suited to flitting between trees than bearing the heat of the desert. Like their docile kin, the swallow, the swallomers were vividly colored, which added to the strangeness of their appearance here. “What are they doing in the desert?”
“Dying, by the look of it,” he responded, letting an arrow fly, but slaying an eaglon instead. It seemed the two avian groups were battling each other. “Swallomers may bite and draw blood, but I’d prefer to face them than those eaglons.” He let another arrow loose, striking a larger bird and felling it.
Once the third arrow sailed through the air, the birds turned toward their new adversaries. The eaglons shrieked and some broke away from the swallomers to dive at the humans, metallic talons clawing for them angrily. Frast was ready and though the eaglon twisted deviously as it approached him, he adjusted and cut into the bird’s chest, killing it instantly and splattering the mage with blood. Luckily, it was the eaglon’s salivary glands that carried the paralyzing venom and not the blood. He didn’t hesitate for long as three eaglons went into a spiraling dive, forming a sort of braid. Randler shot one down, but missed the other two. Frast cut forward and threw himself on the ground to avoid being struck.
They focused on the eaglons and ignored the swallomers. Indeed, when a couple of the smaller birds flew by the bard, he hesitated with his bow, aiming for the larger and scarier threat. The swallomers misinterpreted this, but their confusion worked toward the humans’ advantage.
One swallomer tweeted a merry tune and the others left their own clawing brawls to rally together. Randler watched in fascination; he had never seen them act that way in Kallisor. He wondered if it was a learned skill here in the brutal desert or if he had simply missed such a concerted effort. The lead swallomer tweeted again and more birds joined behind it. Frast looked up nervously, wondering if the avian pests were gearing up to take them down, but the eaglons recaptured his attention.
Randler avoided switching to his mace at all costs. The eaglon talons were too sharp to chance getting so close to strike. The nature of the feathery attacks, though, forced the birds to swoop down and away each time and melee moments were brief anyway. Randler dodged nimbly and kept grabbing for more arrows.
At last, the swallomer swarm was ready. All fifty-something birds screeched and dove forward, cutting through the air like a scythe. The eaglons in their path were stunned by the loud cry and then destroyed by the countless beak and claw strikes of the smaller foes. Randler couldn’t help but chuckle about composing a song touting a heavy rain of eaglons. Once the large birds were defeated, Randler replicated the bird call and the swallomers turned to him, circling overhead. He called up his thanks and whistled delicately in what he thought would be gratitude. The birds dove lower, flying rapidly around Frast and Randler; then, after a few moments, they darted off toward the horizon to continue whatever quest they had already been on before the eaglon strike. The bard and the mage followed suit.
Evening approached and the sun dipped behind the horizon. The duo opted to set up a small camp, taking advice from the citizens of Marritosh who lived in this brutal region. Because they were a group of two instead of a host of a hundred fighters, survival tactics were a bit different. They dug a trench deep enough so they could lay within it and not breach the surface of the sand. Once the pit was ready they shared a quiet meal of bread and cheese, then they arranged some defenses, mostly made of brittle twigs they had brought with them arranged in a perimeter around their campsite, about which they set a few spare daggers and broken shards of pottery. With any luck, nighttime invaders would step upon the sharp objects and howl, and if that didn’t awaken the two of them, the snapping twigs would help.
This, of course, did not protect them from avian attackers, but the Marritosh soldiers had also explained that the birds would not typically swoop down at level ground, hence the trench and a sand-colored tarp Randler had procured in town. Frast lay inside the trench first, clearly nervous about this refuge, while Randler secured the tarp into the sand before crawling in next to the mage and rolling the tarp over them. He could feel Frast trembling in the darkness.
“Relax, it will be fine.”
“I don’t feel protected here at all,” he returned.
Randler agreed, but he couldn’t let it show. “Close your eyes and relax.”
“I’m sorry.” He shook, trying to breathe deeply and to settle his nerves.
There wasn’t really any room to move around, for they hadn’t dug a particularly large trench. Randler shifted and turned toward Frast, where he placed a calming hand over the mage’s heart. He then sang a gentle lullaby.
Close your eyes.
Find your dreams.
The darkness is just a veil.
The sun will rise.
And you will be
Rested and calm and safe.
I am here.
You have no fear.
I shall watch over you.
You will see;
Count one, two, three.
Warm and secure and safe.
The path ahead
Is in your mind
You can take it if you choose.
Dancing trees
Swaying flowers
Happy and sound and safe.
He felt Frast’s pulse calming as he sang the song, but then a noise outside alerted them both. Randler halted his song, tilting his head to listen to the approaching foes. He was baffled at first, for it sounded like high-pitched lilting music and then it dawned on him that it matched the song he was singing. He hummed along and reached up to peer through the tarp, despite Frast’s silent protest. Randler freed his hand and then rolled the tarp back, still humming the sweet melody.
Their small campsite was lit well enough by moonlight for Randler to see the swarm of swallomers, perched all around, just inside the ring of twigs. Some of the smaller birds had their heads tucked into their wings, clearly catching some much-needed sleep. The larger swallomers looked at Randler, not entirely sure what kind of creature would be humming from beneath the ground, but then recognition set in among them both. The birds continued whistling the melody as Randler smiled and sank back below the surface.
He quelled Frast’s question by answering in verse, keeping the melody flowing strongly, yet with a tender softness underneath:
The birds,
They’ve come.
They are guarding our camp.
Fall to sleep
Fade into night
Tomorrow we both shall rise.
The mage shook his head in disbelief, but the confidence of Randler’s words and tone comforted him anyway. He turned on his side, curling slightly, believing in the minstrel and hoping beyond all that they would survive the night. Randler buried his own doubts as he turned the other way, resting one hand on a dagger, just in case.
The night passed quietly, save one moment where the swallomers fended off a swarm of firegnats. Cawing and howling awoke Randler
, but he couldn’t move at first. Groggily, he felt himself held down by a tender embrace, arms trapping him, a warm body pressed lovingly up behind him.
The screeching of the swallomers awoke him further and he pulled himself up to peer cautiously through the tarp, but retreated once he saw the flurry of feathers swatting away the tiny mites. He certainly didn’t want to attract any of the venomous fliers into the trench. He lowered himself down, still with a pair of arms clutching him longingly.
“Dar—” he started, but caught himself, remembering that it was Frast, not Dariak, trapped with him. The mage was still sound asleep, clearly exhausted from their day. As Randler settled back down, Frast clutched him more tightly, and he curled himself against the bard as if he would never let go. He remembered how nervous the mage had been settling down and so he closed his eyes, letting the arms remain where they were, holding him tightly.
In the morning, Frast awoke, finding himself deeply entwined with Randler’s body. He enjoyed the warmth and the security he felt, the slow rise and fall of the bard’s chest under his hands. He nuzzled his cheek against Randler’s neck, holding on to the moment for as long as he could. A gentle cooing sounded outside as some of the swallomers also awoke for the day, and Frast mentally wished them to be silent, so as not to awaken the bard. He thought he could feel Randler’s life force racing through his body and the sensation filled him with a great hope for the day.
The Shattered Shards Page 28