Lord Of The Freeborn (Book 7)

by Ron Collins

  When he recovered, Reynard was staring at him with an expression that made Garrick wonder how long he had been in that daze.

  He wondered if Reynard understood the exact nature of his god-touch. Was the mage just delaying everything he could until Garrick would have to leave, then be unable to stop him? These thoughts did nothing to make him feel better. Perhaps Ellesadil was right about the Freeborn. If Garrick had wanted to spend his life soothing frail egos, he was in the right place. These mages were all the same—judgmental, vocal, and so painfully unwilling to budge from their own points of view. Unless, of course, that change came from some new perspective they had found all by themselves—which, of course, they discovered with remarkable frequency.

  Reynard was typical. Garrick understood now why Darien had struggled to work with the mage. He gave directions that were bold and directly made, but they changed on a whim, leaving the mages around him angry and bruised. But, Sunathri had proven it was possible to lead the Freeborn, so it was up to him to figure out how.

  “Our plan needs three parts,” Garrick finally said, raising a finger with each point. “One, a place to go—a place the Freeborn can agree to set up shop. Two, a set of travel plans—a map and a schedule of events as it were. And three, a preparation plan—the logistics of making it happen.”

  “I’ve already got all that.”

  Garrick once again swallowed the hunger that twisted through his gut.

  “I will call a meeting of the order this evening to talk about locations,” he said. “If nothing else we can get the list of potential destinations pared down to something I can get my mind around.”

  Reynard sat quietly, waves of disagreement blasting from him like the heat of a summer sun.

  “Call the order together,” Garrick said, this time making certain Reynard could not mistake it for anything other than the order it was.

  Reynard rose from the table.

  “Yes, Lord Garrick. I will do that. What time would you like to meet?”

  Garrick glanced outside. “Sundown.”

  “Will there be anything else?”

  “Yes, there is.”

  Reynard paused as a server collected what remained of his breakfast. Garrick waited until the server left.

  “I want a pair of Freeborn mages riding alongside every security patrol the Dorfort guard executes,” Garrick said.

  “Ellesadil asked for this?”

  “No. It is what we, as the Freeborn, must do to prove our interest in the people of the city.”

  “I see.” Reynard could scarcely contain his mirth. “Consider it done. I admit, though, that I look forward to the expressions on the faces of our brothers and sisters after they’ve traipsed all over the outskirts of town in this bitter cold.”

  “Tell them I will take my turn with them.”

  “They know it’s different for you, Garrick. They know you will not feel the cold.”

  Garrick nodded.

  “Tell them anyway.”

  “All right.”

  Reynard walked away, and Garrick gripped the table, fighting an inner battle with his hunger that no one else could comprehend. When finally the wave passed, he saw his fingers had turned the color of bone.

  Chapter 6

  As his horse stepped over a snow-covered branch, Torrance spat weed juice and pulled his hood tightly over his head. His ears rang with the bitter wind. He swore the juice froze in mid-air and clattered to the ground in a thick chunk.

  It’s as cold as a witch’s ear, he thought. Cold as a woman scorned. Cold as … well, so cold he thought his muscles might never unclench.

  Across the way, Pedaro, a young mage from the Rock Thorns, rode on the other side of the patrol.

  Ten men of Dorfort’s guard tromped between them, boots breaking through the hardened surface of the calf-deep snow, weapons jangling, and voices cursing. Their coarse grumbling told Torrance they shared his disdain of both the cold and their working relationship.

  He had been with the Freeborn since the early days, joining as much because he thought it might give him a chance to bed Sunathri as for any other reason, but the camaraderie of the group grew on him and he stayed even after Sunathri made it clear that nothing would ever come from that direction.

  Tonight, though, he was rethinking his position.

  Tonight he was cold, and he was sore.

  Tonight he didn’t care that Lectodinian mages were reported to have been taking action north of Dorfort. It was an asinine assignment. Nothing he had seen tonight said a Lectodinian uprising was imminent, and even if it was, who cared if the they ripped a few Koradictine mages to shreds—more power to them as far as he was concerned. And, if the blue order decided to rough up a few Dorfort guard in the process, well, it wasn’t like Ellesadil’s mates were exactly an endearing crowd, anyway.

  What were the Freeborn doing out here?

  Garrick was a fool if he thought offering protection to these patrols was going to sway Ellesadil. They had been supporting the guard for nearly two weeks, and nothing had changed. The Freeborn were still as welcome in Dorfort as the gout. The order was getting tossed on their arses no matter what they did.

  He pulled his scarf down, and again spat juice.

  The wool of the scarf was prickly, and the whole thing came only up to his ears. It kept scratching his chapped lips. His backside hurt with each of his horse’s movements. His joints ached in the damp cold. Yes, he thought, he was definitely getting too old for this.

  Pedaro’s breath billowed with each exhalation, too.

  It was Garrick’s idea that a young mage be paired with one more experienced—which, he had to admit, was a good idea. Not that it mattered tonight, though. There was no interaction to be had with the cold so bad.

  A movement came from the corner of his eye.

  There was something unnatural about it, yet familiar—a streak of ruddy brown, the flicker of an arm, maybe the fold of an elbow. He turned to face it just as the odor of dry blood came, and just before the spell work itself started.

  Koradictine magic!

  Suddenly everything became shaper, and he drew breath that stabbed his lungs.

  “Weapons!” he yelled. “Pull your weapons!”

  The blast crackled across the open meadow, catching Torrance full in the chest with a thunderous clap. Red fire erupted around him. He fell backward as if he had run full-bore into an overhanging limb, but his right foot caught in the stirrup and his horse reared in fright, toppling with the unexpected weight, falling to one side with high-pitched shrieks and coming down on Torrance’s legs.

  His bones crunched, and pain speared his body. He couldn’t breathe.

  The Koradictine was on the hillside, standing in the open now, chanting with arms outstretched.

  Guards ran for cover.

  Torrance tried to calm himself enough to open his link to the plane of magic. Pedaro cast a green bolt toward the Koradictine, but the mage waved it away with a single, nonchalant motion, then cast a rope of fire at Pedaro. The young Torean died screaming.

  Torrance’s link opened, and he channeled power.

  The braying horse struggled and twisted on the ground, sending searing pain up Torrance’s leg. The leg was done for, mangled, he knew. He was too old to heal properly. Torrance ignored the pain and the bitter smells of freezing blood and horse lather as he concentrated on his spell.

  The horse managed to stand, then it bolted, and Torrance, his foot still caught in the stirrup, groaned and grunted as he was dragged along the rough trail. He gave a cry out as snow rushed under him. His spell pooled, but he couldn’t cast it. A stone or root jarred his back. His jaw clapped shut so hard he broke a tooth. His leg stretched to the breaking point, and he screamed with pain.

  The Koradictine’s next spell was a cadmium blue streak of searing fire that forked over the ground to engulf both Torrance and the horse in a single ball of flame.

  Chapter 7

  After long travel, Neuma and Hezarin we
re approaching Dorfort. It was not surprising then, to come across a detail of the guard on its patrol. It was fortuitous, actually. When they destroyed it, the detail’s silence would serve to hide their approach for just long enough to matter.

  Now Neuma stood on the hillside and watched the Torean guard scatter. Hezarin’s magic burned like razors inside her. She gathered energy at her fingertips and let loose at will, casting blue death on an old mage, then turning to the soldiers that scurried like bedazzled ants.

  Never had her casting been so fluid, never had it been accompanied with such rapturous release.

  She had removed the mages first, surprised that the young one had gone down so easily. And, not that it would have mattered, but she was happy the horse had dragged the more powerful of the two for so long.

  Her flame work scoured on, its heat raising a thick, milky mist over the sparse woods she had used as cover. A wave of swirling blades made mincemeat of a guardsman, and she turned a thrown dagger back toward another. She cast lightning, laughing as it raised hackles along her arms and savoring the lovely, bittersweet taste it brought to her tongue. It was a citric taste, orange and lemon and glory. This magic was like candy, like swimming in a lake of mage force, like walking in a cloud of power.

  She cast a specter, a silver and gray woman that sang as she snaked across the snowscape to devour a man who charged up the hill. She cast a shadow, black and cold, with the touch of ice. A scream, so satisfying, came from another man, his weapon falling, disappearing into fresh snow as easily as his soul disappeared into her spell work.

  This was it, Neuma thought.

  This was what she had always wanted. Life was hers. From this point forward she would take orders from no one.

  And this, she thought as she stood alone amid the remains of the Dorfort guard, would not be the end.

  Koradictines today.

  Dorfort tomorrow.

  And the Lectodinians, well, she smiled, the Lectodinians would fall in their own sweet time.

  Chapter 8

  Ashgood was no coward, but if he had learned anything at God’s Tower it was that no good things come from standing against a wizard with his dander up.

  At the first explosion—the one that took the young, brash mage, Ashgood had taken a few running steps and dove headfirst into the snow-covered brambles behind a pine tree. He fell, tumbling farther than he expected, smashing his hand, and grazing his cheek before landing in a gully formed in the dry creek bed. He coiled there, staying still until the blast no longer echoed, then—ignoring pain that throbbed throughout his entire body—he peered over the ridge.

  A thin Koradictine mage cast killing magic, engulfing Gil and Camric in flames, and tearing into Hasi with a cloud of razors that left nothing behind but a pool of crimson stained snow.

  Even if he could gather himself to race into the clearing, Ashgood saw that any attempt to help his mates would be futile. The mage was filled with wizardlust so deep that no one who got in his way would walk out alive. So, Ashgood lay back, shivering in the gully while a trail of melted ice ran down the small of his back, and he waited while the wind carried snippets of the mage’s chanting, its tone strong like an entire choir whose voices were raised and singing to the powers. Explosions and the sound of splintering wood roared out with each of the mage’s spells. The screams of horrific deaths came to him, all muted against the falling snow.

  Then it became quiet.

  Still Ashgood waited, suffering the trickles of snow that melted to run over his neck, down his spine, and to the small of his back.

  A hawk whirled in the winter sky as the wind blew snow into drifts and caused branches to scritch together in rackety laughter. Ashgood’s fingers grew as numb as his toes. He thought, perhaps, that he had cracked some ribs, and, for a moment he considered the idea that he might just die out here, alone and huddled down in this creekbed.

  When he could no longer bear to wait, he eked his head over the ledge.

  The only movement was snow falling across the clearing, and edges of clothing, scarves and fur, that fluttered lifelessly in the bitter wind. Ashgood crawled out of his hiding hole, watching the hillsides carefully for movement.

  Seeing no signs of mages, he limped across the field.

  One-by-one, he stopped at each of his compatriots, and one-by-one he found they were dead. The patrol was gone, he thought, straightening his back painfully and feeling bitter air spear his lungs.

  He was alone.

  He looked around and saw the falling snow had not yet grown so deep that it obscured the trail the Koradictine had taken.

  It led directly toward Dorfort.

  Chapter 9

  Something was wrong.

  Garrick fell to one knee, his vision swimming.

  All the Freeborn were here to finalize plans for the trip to Spire. They had just finished supper, and were retiring to the common meeting chamber. Sound cascaded inside his head—voices echoed and ceramic plates and spoons clattered in the distance, amplified and warped by the government center’s high, rounded ceiling. Garrick’s stomach turned in on itself. He felt Braxidane’s hunger grow hard and substantial, twisting with sibilant whispers at each turn. It was too much. He hadn’t lied when he told Ellesadil he could control this curse of Braxidane’s, but control had its price, and now that price was coming due. It had been too long since Garrick had given his darkness its head.

  It was nearly time to step back into Existence and restore himself.

  The hunger screamed, though, it screamed in a strange and chilling way that led him to know something was different this time, something was more than wrong. It was tinged today with a malignant hue, a tumorous, translucent sheen that glistened in ways he had never before felt.

  Poison!

  Yes. That was it. Poison, ugly and foreign. He looked across the chamber to see Reynard speaking with three other Freeborn, gesturing in his usual, overly animated way.

  The idiot!

  Garrick bought himself time by setting a gate and casting magic that turned his hunger in on the substance. Yes, it was poison. Hemlock, paired with other toxins that were designed to hide it. He felt it oozing through his veins, blurring his sight and attacking his nerves, flowing over what remained of his life force like wax sealing a letter. His toes were already numb, and his fingertips growing cold. He wrapped Braxidane’s magic around the thing, and Garrick could see the poison’s origin, its broad leaves curling coldly against the wind as it was harvested, dried, then ground and slipped silently into the soup he had just consumed.

  The hunger raised itself then, unbidden by Garrick, untethered. It attacked, ripping into the poison with intent so violent he thought perhaps his blood had boiled over. Braxidane’s magic was bold and it was angry. It burned down his bones and ran through the flesh of his body like a river of fire.

  The effort of holding the hunger back was taking too great a toll now. His muscles grew weaker by the moment, his life force nearly spent. He should have returned to Existence days ago, but there had been so much work to do and he convinced himself he could hold this hunger down—and he had done so, too. He had quelled Braxidane’s darkness, made it stay in line.

  Until now.

  Damn Reynard. Was he really this selfish? Was he really senseless enough to poison a god-touched mage?

  Yes, Garrick thought. He really was, and he was more than that. Reynard was devious. And he was unhappy. Reynard was unhappy the mages had chosen Spire in the first place. He was unhappy he wasn’t strong enough to confront Garrick straight-on.

  Garrick gritted his teeth as the mage glanced over his shoulder at him, a glance that confirmed all of Garrick’s inner thoughts.

  Nothing had changed between them.

  The tension was, if anything, worse, and this moment of perfect clarity gave Garrick to understand that Reynard had used this gathering of the mages as an opportunity to catch him unawares. He wondered briefly who Reynard had set up to take the brunt of the accusation.
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  “Is everything all right, sir?” Will said, coming to his side.

  Garrick felt the boy warp as he approached—here one moment, then distant, then here again. His young voice wavered. The sound of his boots rang out nearer and nearer, yet echoed away into the distance. Garrick’s hunger stirred as the boy touched his shoulder. Will’s waiflike innocence permeated his being, and the darkness twisted in his gut.

  “No,” Garrick heard himself mutter. No, he thought.

  “Get away, Will! Get away!”

  Will drew back, but did not leave.

  Garrick felt the thrill of freedom surge through the thing inside him as it finished feasting on the poison. It surged, and he knew his pitiful life force could not hold it back any longer. It was too late. He was too late.

  The black power rose up. He felt the gate set, and he felt magestuff flow.

  You have given … Braxidane whispered with such sickening pleasure that Garrick knew his superior had been lying in wait for just this very moment.

  He fell to his hands and knees.

  “Run,” he whispered to Will.

  The boy stood rooted in place, staring at Garrick with panic on his face.

  … Now you must take.

  “I said, run!” he screamed.

  Will ran.

  Garrick struggled to his feet and set his gates. If he could hold it back for just one moment more, perhaps it would be enough that Will could make safety. Magestuff poured into his veins, and he gagged on power that tasted of raw ginger and cinnamon.

  The faces of Freeborn mages suddenly turned ashen.

  He cast magic, then.

  His fireball erupted with a deafening roar across the hallway. The chamber filled with smoke and fire and with voices that shouted and screamed and moaned and cried out in agony. The sharp odor of charred wood came then, and his hunger yearned for the force of the Freeborn life that was now hanging in the air like slabs of butcher’s beef. Members of his order, Garrick realized. He had killed members of his own order.