The Black Shield (The Red Sword Book 2)

by Michael Wallace

  “Quiet, both of you,” Jethro snapped. “This takes a great deal of concentration, as you both well know.”

  Chantmer drew Narud further into the library until they reached the Vault of Secrets. Books hung around them, thick and hoary, carrying their own deep magic. The scrolls, whispering, the clay tablets, reaching out to him. If Chantmer listened, he could almost hear the words in the old tongue, sense the hands that had written them. Narud was right—they could not be surrendered to the sorcerer and his dark acolytes.

  “We don’t know for sure that Toth will be back,” Narud said. “The library fought him off. Our defenses bent, but they did not break.”

  “For now. This was no subterfuge like Zartosht managed, stealing a few pages. This was a brute attempt.”

  “But maybe he doesn’t know the result,” Narud said. “Only knows that he failed. He doesn’t know how much of the external defenses are left, let alone how strong we are in the libraries. And then there are the vaults themselves. The innermost sanctuary—it will resist to the end.”

  “I found it,” Jethro announced.

  Chantmer and Narud returned to the copying table. Jethro pointed to a page of the open book with his good hand while Karla wrapped the other in gauze, and another archivist whispered an incantation to ease his pain. There was no spell that would restore the hand.

  “That is what they were doing in the market,” Jethro said.

  The page showed various runes and symbols, together with words that looked solid enough until Chantmer tried to read them, and then they shimmered and twisted, carrying away their meaning. He bit down on his lip to force his concentration.

  “Is that a . . . am I looking at a salamander?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” Jethro said.

  “What kind? Mud, oil, ice?”

  The archivist traced one of the words with his ink-stained index finger. “Fire, my friend. It’s what they were writing on the stones. An incantation to draw fire salamanders.”

  Chantmer’s stomach felt cold, his mouth as dry as a strip of parchment abandoned in the desert.

  The master had always said that no fire could touch the library, no open candle flame or lamp harm it. But what he meant, Chantmer understood, was that no earthly fire could touch it. What about something from below the earth? A creature of molten rock?

  Three dark acolytes: Jasmeen, Zartosht, and the one Chantmer killed with his spectral hammers. They’d been making marks in the night market, raising old runes while opening a gateway into the earth, down to the fiery depths where such creatures lived. And they were calling them up to Syrmarria. Meanwhile, the enemy had battered down most of the library’s defenses. There would be little to stop the beasts when they burned their way into the library.

  #

  Early the next morning, when the gray of dawn stained the eastern horizon, Jethro approached Chantmer and Narud in the highest palace gardens. Night flowers gave off their heavy, perfumed scent, and bats were still scooting about overhead.

  Chantmer and Narud had maintained vigil here all night, searching the palace with their seekers. They had spotted enemies on the move—the dark acolytes, most likely, but perhaps Toth himself—and Chantmer had braced for discovery and attack. He was almost surprised to discover that they had survived the night.

  Jethro’s right hand was bandaged and held in a sling. He was pale, but walking steadily.

  “How do you feel?” Narud asked.

  “Better. The archivists have cast spells, and Karla mixed me a soporific to deaden the sensation. It’s a shame I didn’t put the pain to some sort of magical use. A real wizard could draw a lot of power from a withered hand.”

  “There’s a small chance you could regrow it,” Chantmer said.

  “Such a thing could be done,” Narud said.

  “But not, I’m afraid, by me,” Jethro said. “My hand is gone—I accept that. I am only grateful that it wasn’t my copying hand. An archivist who can’t write is not much use to the order.” He looked them over. “Have we weathered the attack?

  Chantmer cast a glance over the darkened palace and down to the city. Smoke still rose from the direction of the night market, and he wondered how many dozens had lost their lives in the riots. But it hadn’t spread, thankfully. The city remained standing.

  “I believe so,” he said. “For a few days, anyway.”

  “Are we sure?” Jethro asked.

  “Toth is a powerful sorcerer, but he is no god. We’ve seen him twice on the full attack now. First in the gardens, and now here. He didn’t have the strength to finish in either case.”

  “So what do we do?” Narud asked.

  Chantmer took a deep breath, proud that they looked to him for guidance, but feeling the weight of responsibility at the same time. Let the Brothers guide him, let his decision be a wise one.

  “It will take Toth himself to summon the salamanders,” he said. “The runes themselves won’t be enough to draw them from the depths and force them to obey his will. And since he spent his magic attacking the library, we have time.”

  “Time to do what?” Jethro said.

  “The library has weaknesses that the gardens do not. First, we are in enemy territory. There are dark acolytes, Veyrian soldiers, the pasha’s cunning mind, and the sorcerer himself.

  “Second, our gardens have had time to recover since the battle. The defenses there are weakened, too. The walled garden is a desolation, and the Golden Pavilion suffered massive damage. But the order has been rebuilding as fast as they can.”

  “And then there is the master,” Narud said.

  “Yes, and Memnet himself,” Chantmer agreed. “If the gardens and the library are our fortresses, Memnet the Great is our army. The greater part of it, anyway.”

  “Are you saying the books will be safer in the gardens than here?” Narud asked. “That we should move them?”

  “Safer in the gardens, maybe,” Jethro said. “But getting them there is another matter. You can’t just load up a few carts and haul them off. Hide them all you want, put as many concealing spells as you can manage, the enemy is watching for us. We’d never make it out of the palace, let alone cross half of Aristonia carrying all those books.”

  “Of course we’re not strong enough to do it alone,” Chantmer said. “I never thought we were—I’m not so arrogant as all of that.”

  “Good,” Jethro said, “because you had me wondering.”

  Chantmer suppressed a scowl. “I’m going back to the gardens. Maybe Markal and Nathaliey will be back from the barbarian lands. No, we need the master himself to come.”

  “The master is needed in the gardens,” Narud said.

  “We must save the library,” Chantmer insisted. “And that means bringing him here.”

  “But if the enemy attacks the gardens while he is away—”

  “I know, Narud. By the Brothers, I know. But you said it yourself. We are replaceable. These tomes are not.”

  Narud hesitated a long moment, then gave a curt nod. “Very well.”

  But first Chantmer had to reach the gardens, a small matter of escaping the palace, escaping Syrmarria, and taking the road across Aristonia with enemies on his heels. He wasn’t the only one with seekers; once he got away from the protection of the palace, the dark acolytes would surely attack him on the road. Toth himself might even join the hunt.

  “I’ll go with you,” Narud said, apparently coming to the same conclusion. “We’ll make another run for it. One of us to speed our passage, the other to hide it. And it must be done now, before the enemy regains his strength. Before he activates the runes in the night market.”

  Chantmer felt cold. “I see no alternative.”

  “And I’ll hold the library,” Jethro said.

  Chantmer eyed him doubtfully. Jethro’s magic was slight; all five of the archivists together couldn’t raise enough power to match a single dark acolyte. They would have to rely on cunning and the greatly diminished powers of the library itself.
r />   Jethro must have seen the doubt on Chantmer’s face. His expression hardened.

  “We’ll give our lives to save those books, Chantmer. By the Brothers and by the Crimson Path, I swear it.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Wolfram wrapped his sister’s throat in linen before they carried her to the funeral pyre to join the other bodies. With the ghastly wound covered and the gray faded from her skin, he could almost convince himself that she was sleeping.

  Two more dead marauders were also former paladins, missing since a battle last fall, when they’d been presumed slain. Wolfram added the pair to the pyre, making eighteen bodies in all. He ordered it set ablaze. The paladins stood in solemn silence as the flames licked upward.

  Wolfram ached all over; he was hungry and exhausted. All of this faded when the fire reached Bronwyn’s body, and grief overwhelmed him. It wasn’t just Bronwyn’s death, but Gregory and all the others who had followed him, suffered, and struggled by his side.

  Markal came up beside him, looking pale and drawn from his work. He glanced at the spreading flames, then stared into the darkness toward the vast Eriscoban plains, no doubt wondering how many enemies below had spotted the funeral pyre.

  “How are the wounded?” Wolfram asked.

  “They’ll recover,” Markal said, “but not all of them are in condition to take to the road. You’ve got wounded horses, too, and will be short several mounts.”

  “I have thirty-one paladins, by my reckoning, counting the wounded. Not enough to pursue the enemy, regardless of injuries and loss of horses.”

  “Nathaliey sent a seeker. The marauders are fleeing with the sword. It’s in the hands of that one-armed brute, who seems to have taken command since your sister fell. We think he’s trying to meet up with the Veyrian army.”

  “We’ll go back for our supplies, paladins, and extra horses. They should be in Montlac by now.”

  “And then what?” Markal asked.

  “Then we find the other paladins, raise an army of footmen and knights if we can, and make war. We have to dislodge the enemy from Estmor and force them back through the mountains.”

  Even as it came out of Wolfram’s mouth, it sounded like a desperate plan.

  Markal reached into his shirt and pulled out the moon pendant. He removed the chain from around his neck and held it out. “Here, this is yours.”

  Wolfram didn’t take it. “Aren’t you coming with us, Markal? You won’t abandon us to the sorcerer’s army, will you?”

  “I’m not abandoning the fight, but my place is in the gardens. There’s power in our order, an army’s worth of it.”

  “But Markal—”

  “Once Memnet understands, once he sees that Toth can raise his own paladins from the dead—”

  Wolfram’s face flushed. “They’re not paladins.”

  “Gray marauders, ravagers, whatever you want to call them—he’ll know we have to join your war. We’re not going to hide, we’re going to attack his road and cut supplies. That’s more useful than anything I can do by your side.”

  “What about the castles in the mountains? You’re a wizard—you can shake their foundations, blast the enemy from the walls.”

  “Is that what you think? Maybe the master can do those things. I can’t. Here, take the pendant. It will tell me you’re alive and how to find you.” Markal raised an eyebrow. “Well, assuming you don’t go over to the other side, then it seems to get confused.”

  Wolfram couldn’t help but look at the pyre, where flames leaped ever higher, engulfing the dead. Paladins threw in more wood to feed the flames. Sir Marissa led a prayer to the Harvester to gather their souls.

  “Then you will be back?” he asked.

  Markal pressed the pendant into Wolfram’s hand. “That’s my promise to you. Wear this. Raise an army and take the war to the king’s highway. I’ll come through the passes from the other side. With allies, if I can. Alone, if I can’t.”

  Wolfram slipped the chain over his neck and let the cool silver pendant fall against his skin. A whisper of confidence entered him. A hint of courage, some strength to his bone-weary limbs. Even the hunger faded.

  He put a hand on Markal’s shoulder, and the wizard looked back with those young-old eyes, a warm smile on his lips.

  “So this is goodbye?” Wolfram asked.

  “For now, yes.”

  “In that case, travel quickly and safely. And get back as soon as you can.”

  “By the Brothers, that’s a promise.”

  #

  Markal and Nathaliey were quiet as they left the Blackshield encampment at dawn to begin the long climb into the mountains. They were retracing their journey on foot, and Markal felt tired just thinking about all the miles to cover.

  The silence grew between them over the next hour, until he sensed that something was bothering Nathaliey beyond what battle, hunger, and exhaustion could explain.

  “So, you’re a wizard now,” he said. “How does it feel?”

  “If this is what it feels like, all I can say is that it’s deflating.”

  “We won the battle.”

  “It doesn’t feel that way. Not with Soultrup still in the enemy’s hands.”

  “And Bronwyn’s death—her second one, that is,” he added. “It was just as ugly as the first time. Wolfram was . . . well, he’s a strong man. He’ll pull through. But it was brutal to watch.”

  “The moon pendant should help him,” she said. “How are you feeling now that you’ve coughed it up?”

  “Not confident.” He sighed. “But it was only a moderate help to begin with, hardly a cure for my doubts. A trick, a small boost, but nothing to replace all the study and natural ability that makes a wizard a wizard.”

  “Markal, if I could give you half of Chantmer’s swagger, you’d both be better off. No, make that a third. At half, you’d be insufferable.”

  He laughed, and expected her to speak out on what was bugging her, but she fell quiet again. They continued as the road bent into ravines and climbed them again, working gradually higher. A pair of riders overtook them from below—paladins Wolfram was sending back to Montlac to make contact with the rest of the Blackshields, and the two sides hailed each other.

  “I’ll be honest,” Nathaliey said when the riders were past. “I like it when Wolfram and the rest call me a wizard. I like it when you call me that, too, even though I know you’re being ironic.”

  “I’m not being ironic. Well, it’s the same irony as when I call myself a wizard. We both have our limitations. So what? We look like wizards to the paladins, and we defeated Vashti and his friend.”

  “Once I’m back in the gardens, I’ll be an apprentice again. I’m not looking forward to that.”

  “What makes you think that will happen?”

  “Markal, please. You and I both know it was temporary.”

  “I’ll talk to the master, explain everything you did. You have more power than I do, and nearly as much knowledge. Not one of those paladins would have picked me out as the wizard and you as the apprentice.”

  “Except for the fact that you were leading, and I was following.”

  “Narud is even quieter than you are, even more likely to step back and let others make the decisions. He’s a wizard already, so why can’t you be one, too?”

  “Markal,” she said, her voice much sharper this time. “You know that has nothing to do with anything. I’m not Narud, and I’m not you. I’m younger than either of you, for one.”

  “Age is irrelevant. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.”

  “It’s a simple question of years spent in study. If the master says I haven’t put in the time, then that’s all there is to it.”

  Now he was the one who fell silent. There was a chance she was right, that Memnet would smile at Markal’s declaration that Nathaliey was a wizard, continue to call her an apprentice, and wait for some arbitrary period of time before declaring her ready for that honor. That might be two weeks, or it mi
ght be two decades.

  “You’re still a wizard as far as the Blackshields are concerned,” he said at last. “Do you want to stay with Captain Wolfram and his paladins?”

  “We have to carry word to the gardens. The master needs to know that the enemy has the sword, how they create new marauders, and that we’ve made an alliance with the barbarians.”

  “It only takes one mouth to pass the news.”

  “And the master needs all the strength he can get,” she said.

  “So does Wolfram. Maybe he needs it more. You saw how effective the dark acolytes were at the back of a company of marauders. You could give the Blackshields that same advantage.”

  Nathaliey hesitated, and he knew then that she’d been thinking of this all along. “Do you want me to go back?”

  “Do I want to travel the next three weeks alone instead of with my friend?” he asked. “With my only friend, you understand. That’s what you’re asking me. Of course I don’t want you to leave me.”

  She squeezed his hand and gave him a pained smile. “I’m scared for you. I’m scared for me, too.”

  “Then you are going back to Wolfram?”

  “Yes. I’m going back, Markal. Thank you. Explain it to the master, and don’t make it sound like I was too proud to face him. I don’t want to be like Chantmer. Make it sound . . . well, you know.”

  “I know. Take care.”

  “You, too, my friend.”

  Nathaliey left him then, returning the way they’d been walking since dawn. He stood in the road, watching, until she reached a stretch of woods below. She turned, gave him a final raised eyebrow and a tip of the head, then disappeared into the trees.

  Markal sighed and eyed the brightening mountain peaks ahead of him. Aching feet and fresh blisters awaited. It would be a long, long slog through the mountains, down the foothills, and across the drought-choked plains to reach Aristonia and home.

  The nearest food was miles away, in Montlac, and what he did get from the paladins would at best dull the edge of his hunger, not leave him satisfied. Any other provisions he’d have to forage himself. Meanwhile, there were griffins, giants, and possibly more marauders on the road ahead.