The Black Shield (The Red Sword Book 2)

by Michael Wallace

  And then they emerged from the woods onto a ridge, and Markal got his first view of Eriscoba stretching vast and glorious toward the horizon, a green quilt of forests and meadows in the hills below them, and a patchwork of fields and farms in the distance. A river turned, slow and lazy through the lowlands, and villages dotted its banks. Huge, pillowy clouds moved across the sky, giving depth to the sheer scale of his view.

  Several days had passed since they’d left the dusty foothills on the eastern, rain-starved shadow of the Dragon’s Spine—even drier than usual in the grip of a long drought—and he’d seen plenty of meadows and forests, but he caught his breath at the full scope of it. So green and beautiful—like a corner of the master’s gardens, but stretching for mile after mile.

  After the chill of night, of forest and mountain valleys, the morning sun felt wonderful, and he turned his face toward it like a sunflower, eager to soak it in. It was then that he spotted the flock of griffins dropping from the sky.

  There were at least twenty in all, hurtling so silently from the clouds that for a split second he thought his mind was playing tricks on him, finding something in the sky that was not there. The griffins tucked their wings into a dive, and their riders had their swords drawn while they leaned against their mounts, both for speed and to lower their profile. They came charging directly at the company of paladins.

  Markal shouted a warning even as he slid from the saddle, lowered his palms, and searched for an incantation. A spell materialized at once, as if his own private archivist had retrieved it from the mind’s library. Nathaliey was at his side, asking his help, but he ignored her to concentrate on the task at hand.

  Marissa galloped up from the rear with several other paladins, and Wolfram pulled back from the vanguard. They gathered around Lucas, who had been holding the center, and within moments were assembling a bristling hedgehog of upturned swords and spears, with shields to guard against claw, talon, beak, and sword. Unfortunately, the paladins had become strung out in the night, both behind and ahead, where the scouts kept a wary lookout for ambush, and maybe a third of them were out of position as the griffins swept above the ridge.

  One of the riders released a piercing whistle, followed by two shorter blasts, and the entire formation of griffins changed direction to target a trio of paladins desperately trying to reach Lucas’s force. The paladins galloped past Markal and Nathaliey, who were suddenly isolated.

  “Markal, watch out!” Nathaliey said.

  He cast his spell just as the shadow of the griffin flock passed overhead. A vortex of air gave a tremendous whoosh and shot skyward, where it blasted into the heart of the flock. Griffins spiraled out of control with riders dangling from their tethers. One skidded to the ground a few feet away and screamed as it beat its wings and shoved off with its back legs to get airborne.

  A handful of griffins at the front of the formation had raced past before the air hit them, and they hit the straggling paladins. A man went flying from the saddle. A second paladin’s horse stumbled and threw its rider clear. A griffin seized the third paladin, lifted her several feet off the ground, and dropped her. The woman landed with an awkward cry.

  Markal wiped a trickle of blood on the cloth at his belt and readied another spell. Nathaliey had found something to suit her purpose and had her hands palms down with the power rising quickly to the surface. But to Markal’s relief, the griffins were already retreating from the short, aggressive charge and lifting higher in the sky, chased by a few ineffective crossbow bolts before Wolfram shouted for his paladins to hold fire.

  The entire encounter had only lasted a minute, maybe less, from the moment Markal spotted the griffins to their retreat. The griffins circled overhead for another few minutes while Wolfram gathered the company in a defensive position to the side of the road. Finally, the griffins wheeled about and retreated toward the mountain heights.

  Wolfram brought the wounded paladin to Markal and Nathaliey. “Those blasted buzzards,” he growled. “Someday, I swear . . .”

  Markal felt along the woman’s upper arm and shoulder. “Your shoulder bone is fractured.”

  The woman cursed. “How bad is it?”

  “The bone’s not separated. Nathaliey will give you a spell to start it mending, but you need to get it in a sling. And no fighting.” Markal turned to Wolfram as Nathaliey looked after the woman. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you more warning.”

  “It was an ambush. Obviously well prepared. We’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

  “I thought you had an arrangement. Why do they keep attacking us?”

  “You mean when you spotted me talking to the rider? That was no arrangement, it was a meeting to discuss a shared threat. To make a temporary truce. That’s obviously done with, and they’ll gladly tear off our limbs if we let them.”

  “It would be nice if they’d make an effort to tear off marauder limbs, too,” Markal said.

  “As soon as we defeat the necromancer, I’m mounting an expedition into the mountains,” Wolfram said. “I’m going to drive these buzzards out and send them back to the northern wastes where they belong.”

  “Seems to me that they’re trying to drive us out,” Markal said. “They’ve made a claim to the mountains and intend to defend it.”

  “We are already leaving, dammit. And now I’m down another good fighter. Not to mention losing more time. Do these fool griffin riders think the necromancer will leave them in peace? Because they’re doing their best to help him win.”

  Wolfram left for his horse, still fuming, and took the injured woman with him.

  “You don’t suppose the griffin riders are actively helping Toth, do you?” Nathaliey asked Markal.

  “We’d better hope not. There must be hundreds of them living in the Spine.”

  Marissa rode up as the company was remounting and preparing to move out again. She unwrapped a clay flask with a stopper.

  “Good work, wizard. We’d be facing a lot more than a broken bone or two if you hadn’t spotted them and sent them flying off course with that magic of yours. Here,” she added, handing him the flask. “Every victory deserves a toast.”

  He pulled out the stopper and took a tentative sip. “Brandy? Is this what counts as essential supplies?” He put it back to his lips for a longer pull.

  Marissa grinned. “I have to keep up the strength of our wizards. Hey, that’s enough!” She retrieved the flask and handed it to Nathaliey. “Go ahead, but no guzzling.”

  When Nathaliey handed it back, Marissa took her own swallow, then put it away. “Forgive the captain. He hasn’t eaten a thing since we left Montlac, and he needs to kill his own sister.”

  “Bronwyn is already dead,” Markal said. “A walking, sneering corpse, soul bound and enslaved. What he kills will not be his sister. Not really.”

  “Which makes it all the more horrible.” Marissa glanced between the two companions. “Conserve your strength. We’re going to need it again, and soon.”

  “That settles it,” Nathaliey told Markal when the other woman was gone. “If claiming to be a wizard is what it takes to get a swig of brandy after a day and a night in the saddle, then yes, call me a wizard, a master of the Order of the Crimson Path.”

  “Now you’ve caught the vision.”

  The Blackshields followed the road along the ridge, their pace accelerating, moving faster than they had since late yesterday afternoon. The horses were tired, but seemed to feel the determination of their riders, and pressed forward relentlessly. They reentered the forest about fifteen minutes later, descending sharply before they climbed an even steeper stretch to emerge onto another ridge. Here, they caught another glimpse of Eriscoba. The lowlands were still at a discouraging distance, with many miles of torturous terrain to cross before the road emerged from mountains. Soon it was back into the woods for an extended spell.

  “Do you remember when Toth came to Syrmarria a few years ago?” Nathaliey asked as they stopped to drink from a mountain stream.


  “When he tried to convince Omar and Memnet to bring the highway through Aristonia?”

  “He claimed it would cut the travel time in half from the old roads, a straight shot through the mountains instead of all of this up and down.”

  “Almost makes you sympathize with his plan, doesn’t it?” he said.

  “Except for the sorcery, the wars, and the armies of slaves, it really kind of does.”

  Markal splashed water on his face, then climbed back onto the horse. His backside ached at the contact with the saddle.

  It was midafternoon before they emerged from the woods onto another exposed ridge, where the Blackshields ground unexpectedly to a halt. Markal pushed through the company to find Wolfram on a curve of the road as it skirted the edge of a sharp embankment, very nearly a cliff. The road bent and twisted to follow the ridge line down, before disappearing into the trees again as it curved around to the right.

  “You have better eyes than I do,” Wolfram said. “Follow the road and tell me what you see.”

  The road emerged from the trees directly below them. From there it dipped through a valley, went up over a hill, and passed in and out of the woods. Markal worked his way slowly down by sight, moving toward the foothills ahead of them.

  And there, maybe two miles by the curve of the road, he spotted a plume of dust. The wind changed and carried the faint sound of clomping hooves. Moments later, the first of them emerged into clearer view. Even from a distance, Markal could tell by the gray of their garb that he was looking at a marauder company.

  “Marauders,” he said. “Twenty or thirty in number.”

  Wolfram’s face was grim. “Coming or going?”

  “Coming.”

  “No more fleeing into Eriscoba, apparently—they’re going to ride up to meet us in battle. Trying to finish the Blackshields once and for all.”

  “And no doubt Bronwyn is in command.”

  “Good.” Wolfram’s tone was sharp. “Then she has given me the right to choose the field of battle.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The game wasn’t cat and mouse, Chantmer thought, so much as cat versus cat. Or better still, spiders in a maze, each trying to ensnare and devour the other. Chantmer and Narud both hunter and hunted at the same time.

  Zartosht’s traps hung like invisible webs across doorways, meant to vibrate for their owner should someone with magical ability pass through. Chantmer detected them easily; sometimes he triggered them on purpose, then doubled back and triggered them in the opposite direction. Other times, he bent their magic to serve his own purposes or slipped by without touching them at all.

  The traps that worried him were not the ones he sensed, but the ones he didn’t. Certain flagstones were dangerous, and to be avoided, but what about the orange groves near the pasha’s apartments? There was something strange hanging in the air nearby, but Chantmer couldn’t pin it down, couldn’t identify where, if anywhere, the enemy had left his wards and runes.

  Meanwhile, Chantmer and Narud left their own marks, cast their own incantations. They spun webs to ensnare the dark acolytes, constructed funnels to force them down corridors where Chantmer and Narud waited, and as always, clouded the air near any approach to the libraries. He sensed the enemy about, felt them tickling the edges of his traps, or worse, meddling with them, but he had yet to confront the acolytes again face-to-face.

  On the third day of the hunt, he and Narud slipped past a pair of Veyrian guards on their way toward the khalif’s harem, a center of labor, as the harem was expanding into nearby apartments to take into account the larger number of slave girls being brought in by Pasha Izak and his lieutenants. The bulk of the residents of the palace, from the lowest serving boys to the pasha himself, seemed unaware of the struggles for dominance among the two rival magical orders, and there were no attempts by the pasha’s servants to search for them or to set guards where they might trap the intruders in their midst.

  “If it were me,” Chantmer said, “I would tear this palace to its foundations until I found it.”

  Narud stopped beneath an arched arcade. Olive trees grew in the small courtyard to their left. “To find what?”

  “The library, what else? Toth knows it’s here, and so do his acolytes. Zartosht penetrated the vaults once already, and it must drive him mad searching for them again. So why not start at the top, remove the stones one by one until they have uncovered the library, and steal all the books and scrolls that way?”

  “I’m not so sure it would be that easy.”

  “Maybe not, but I would try,” Chantmer said firmly.

  “And how long would it take? How would Toth or his pasha control Syrmarria without a palace? And how would they control Aristonia without the city? This is more than magic. It’s marauders and paladins and armies. And the king’s highway. Always the highway.”

  “I disagree,” Chantmer said. “Nothing else matters but this. He who wins the magical battle wins the war.” He looked around. “What about these olive trees? Do you think we could enchant the roots?”

  “To do what?”

  “Like in the gardens, make them trip an enemy. We’ll leave a whiff of magic, like a spell carelessly left exposed. Say that Zartosht passes this way, stops to investigate after sensing the magic, and then steps up to the tree. The root snaps his ankle—that will at least slow him down, make him easier to track.”

  “That kind of work takes preparation,” Narud said. He left the arcade to walk around the gnarled trunks of the olive trees, prodding at roots rising knee-like from the ground. “We could bury a stone or brick here with a chiseled rune.”

  “Complicated,” Chantmer said, “but it might work.”

  “Do you know the incantation? I don’t.”

  “One of the archivists would know where to search. Could even help us with the letters. We could shape a brick without ever leaving the library, then bring it up here when it was done.”

  “Let’s figure out where we’d bury it,” Narud said.

  They were still discussing the matter when Jethro entered the arcaded corridor running around the edge of the courtyard. He had his hood drawn and a shroud of concealing magic around him. He flattened against a wall to let a pair of young harem women pass, and Chantmer took the moment to study him.

  Jethro was a decent fellow, in spite of his limitations. He held tremendous quantities of knowledge in his head, and was hardworking and loyal. And he was also respectful of Chantmer and Narud, rather than resentful of having his space commandeered as some might have been. He called them both master, even though Chantmer was technically still an apprentice.

  That is only a formality, he thought with a glance at Narud. I am the better of any of them, except Memnet. And the archivist is clever enough to see it.

  Someday, when the time came to found his own order, Chantmer might bring Jethro along, and possibly Karla, too, assuming they were wise enough to take the opportunity. It would take a good deal to lure them out of Syrmarria. No pasha ever loved his harem the way these archivists lavished attention on their library.

  Jethro looked about, clearly searching for Chantmer and Narud. As a member of their order, he would sense their presence, but the pair were traveling heavily cloaked.

  “Are we safe here?” Chantmer asked.

  “I don’t feel the enemy,” Narud said.

  Chantmer pulled back his hood and let the concealers slip a fraction. Jethro spotted him and approached. His eyes were less bleary than usual, the bags not so pronounced, and Chantmer guessed he’d been moving about the palace rather than hunched over his books and papers.

  “I found one of them, Masters. I know where he’s gone.”

  “You have?” Chantmer asked, surprised. “And how have you managed, where we have not?”

  “I was at the palace gate, refreshing the rune of warning, when I felt him come past.”

  Chantmer was still confused. “They’re both heavily cloaked.”

  “This was outside the gate.
”

  “Ah, that explains it. Hmm, I wish there was something we could do with it. Even knowing he left the palace doesn’t particularly help. The city is big enough—he could be anywhere.”

  A hint of a smile touched Jethro’s mouth. “Except that he brushed a rune as he passed—he’s been marked.”

  Chantmer stiffened. Now this was news. He couldn’t remember the precise nature of the ward at the gate, but it was old, put in place by Memnet himself, and he knew its sort. Those runes were useful for tracking the comings and goings of viziers and khalifs, who were always scheming something or other. Aristonia hadn’t remained peaceful all those years simply because of the goodness of its leaders; the wise, guiding hand of the order had snuffed any number of plots and secret treaties before they could cause trouble.

  “He might very well be dragging a trail of it through the city with him,” Chantmer said.

  “Down where there’s no protective wards to hide him, either,” Narud said. “What do you suppose he’s up to? A stroll through the souks, or something else?”

  “Either way, he’ll be easier to track down outside the palace walls,” Chantmer said. “Let’s hope he’s alone—he’ll be easy prey. Come on.”

  Narud glanced at Jethro. “You, too, friend. We might need your help with the dark acolytes.”

  Chantmer doubted Jethro’s skills would amount to much, and he almost protested that they would be too busy staying cloaked while tracking the dark acolytes to worry about hiding the archivist as well. But he supposed Jethro had earned the opportunity with this information, and as they slipped past the guards at the gatehouse a few minutes later, and he confirmed that the ward at the door had been disturbed, another possibility occurred to him.

  Jethro could serve a useful purpose in battle. None of the archivists commanded much power, but they all had a good deal of knowledge in their heads, Jethro more than any of them. He rivaled Markal in that regard, and could feed Chantmer and Narud incantations.

  They descended the cobbled street from the palace and into the neighborhoods where the more prosperous class of merchants lived in their sturdy stone buildings with glass windows and strong oak doors. Armed servants manned guard posts at the larger homes, and one alert fellow with a pike even spotted the trio approaching and stepped out of his fortified position to challenge them before the magic they carried distracted him and they slipped away.