“Where the hell is the yeoman?” Olav said. “I want a fucking beer already.”
“You were drinking the whole time we were on Tachion,” Flanagan said as he tuned his axe-harp.
“And now I’m out,” the berserker said. “You sure you contacted the bridge, Ronan?”
“I spoke with Commander Reynolds,” the jump mage said.
“She’s almost as much a machine as Matthias,” Leith muttered.
“So why isn’t anyone here to greet us?” Moses asked.
The doors beyond the containment field slid open, and my breath caught as High Sorcerer Silvester Polgar glided toward us. The twisted staff in his hands thumped the ground like a metronome as he moved.
“I’m afraid the rest of the crew are rather busy,” he said. “I’ll have one of my men decontaminate you, and you can join them.”
“Who do you think you are, Sorcerer?” Olav asked him. “I don’t know you. What are you doing on our starship?”
It was peculiar that the berserker didn’t know who Polgar was, and from the confused expressions of the other knights, I figured none of them knew the sorcerer’s identity. Every person within the Caledonian Kingdom should have known Silvester Polgar and his infamous rise to power over a decade ago.
“I am High Sorcerer Silvester Polgar, Ninth Degree Mage in the Order of Myrddin, Envoy to Duke Edmund Barnes of Bratton.”
“Of course that bloody lord is responsible for this,” Olav said with a snarl. “He’s obviously still a pain in the ass after all these years.”
“Is your fancy title meant to impress us?” Flanagan smirked at the sorcerer. “You do know you’re wearing a dress, right?”
The comment earned chuckles from the knights and squires, and I would have laughed except I was terrified of the sorcerer now that he was aboard our ship. If he was greeting us and not a yeoman, I suspected the rest of the crew were detained.
“I can assure you, after today, you will never forget my name,” Polgar said with a grin.
“Make yourself useful and fetch me a beer,” Olav said to the sorcerer before turning his back.
Polgar’s eyes locked onto the boots at Olav’s back, and a smile pulled at his thin lips. After he lifted his arm and waved his hand, a unit of thirty RTF knights filled the deployment room. Each of them was clad in bone-white armor, and their tabards shone an immaculate royal blue. These weren’t regular knights, but the grand knights who served the royal family. Their ranks had swollen since the death of King Justinian, so they weren’t anything like the legendary cohort which once guarded Castle Stirling, but that didn’t mean any one of them wasn’t likely to be ten times deadlier than one of the Stalwart’s knights.
Only the forcefield separated the crew from the grand knights, and I shifted uncomfortably. The sorcerer hadn’t seemed to notice me yet, and it didn’t seem like the right time to reveal I was his spy while I was stuck with the Stalwart’s knights on this side of the forcefield.
“Don’t bother unsheathing your weapons,” Polgar said. “Although I’m more than happy to kill insurrectionists.”
“We’re not insurrectionists, Sorcerer,” Moses spat. “What have you done with the crew?”
“The Stalwart has been captured by the knights under my command, and your ship is surrounded by a fleet of seven Cachalot warships. None of them are as primitive as this compilation of scrap metal.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust as his eyes flickered from bulkhead to bulkhead.
I wasn’t surprised Polgar’s fleet had successfully boarded the Stalwart since seven Cachalots filled with grand knights could easily take on an army. Although I imagined the sorcerer had applied trickery rather than brute force. He’d probably entered our starship with his knights under some other pretense, and then they’d taken the vessel from within. I could only hope they hadn’t killed a bunch of the crew in the process.
“You have two choices,” Polgar continued. “Either you accept the manacles my knights shall bind you with, or we will kill you.”
I could have begged Polgar not to arrest the crew, but I figured it would be worthless. Although I didn’t know how he would connect the boots with rebellion, the smug smile twisting his scarred face suggested he had everything he needed to lock the crew away for a very long time.
Or have them sentenced to public execution at Castle Stirling.
I couldn’t let that happen, but I was at a loss for a solution at the present moment. I’d find some way of clearing the crew’s name. Duke Barnes wasn’t like the sorcerer; he would be capable of seeing reason. I couldn’t contact the duke now, so I’d have to wait until we were closer to Bratton.
For now, I didn’t want the crew to know I was a traitor. I’d go along with them to the cell and then slip out from among them while they were unaware. It was cowardly, but I couldn’t stand to see the disappointment on their faces when they learned I was a spy.
“You think we can’t take you on?” Olav shot at Polgar.
Moses touched the berserker’s shoulder in a calming manner. “We’ll work this out, Olav. We can’t risk the lives of the other crew members.”
“How many points is a high sorcerer worth anyway?” Leith asked as he inspected the notches on his belt.
“I’d say he’s worth at least five knights,” Flanagan responded.
“We’ll accept your fetters,” Moses said to the sorcerer. “But you will regret the day you shackled an Alkegian.”
The other knights went quiet as the words of Moses’ surrender sunk in. The decontamination cycle initiated after a grand knight activated it from a console near the doorway. We waited while the system scanned us for any foreign entities.
Zac nudged me. “Is this sorcerer the guy you’re working for?” he whispered.
I didn’t know how to answer him, and the others must have overheard the artilleryman because every head snapped toward me.
“Ah, yes,” Polgar said, and he walked toward me. “I almost forgot about you, Outlander.”
“What’s he talking about, Nick?” Moses’ voice was a fusion of hurt and anger. The rest of the crew glared at me, and I could feel their fury bore into me.
“The Outlander has been working for me. I’ve suspected the Stalwart and her crew were guilty of insurrection. Now he has provided me with the proof.” The sorcerer gestured to me as he spoke, and I could feel the anger roll off the men who I had come to call friends.
“There is no proof, you slimy--” Flanagan began to say, but a heavily armored knight stepped next to the Polgar, and Moses grabbed the herald.
“The decontamination has completed, your eminence,” a grand knight reported to the sorcerer.
“Prepare your weapons,” Polgar said to the unit of thirty grand knights. “If one of these rebel knights offers you so much as a snarl, I want you to carve them to pieces. Release the forcefield.”
The field vanished, and I was half-expecting the Stalwart’s knights to unsheathe their weapons and charge into the grand knights. Instead, Moses raised his wrists to Polgar.
“We are not guilty of any insurrection, Sorcerer. We serve the Queen, who do you serve?” The shield knight’s words were dripping with unspoken accusation.
“Of course I serve the Queen. I have her best interests in my mind at all times.” With an impossibly quick movement, Polgar flicked his staff toward Moses and jabbed the knight on the neck with it.
Moses hit the floor in a shuddering mess, and Olav and the others rushed forward to assist him. Polgar brandished his staff toward them, and with a twist of his arm, the other knights were convulsing on the floor like Moses.
“Do you really think the RTF would provide soldiers with equipment that couldn’t be manipulated by their overseers?” Polgar asked with a grin.
My eyes widened as I realized the true power of High Sorcerer Silvester Polgar. With the ability to manipulate the Runetech we were all wearing, he was unstoppable.
The sorcerer tilted his head to either side with an audible crack before t
urning his staff on the squires. “Now, do you wish to share the agonizing experience of the rebel knights?”
The squires shook their heads, and Polgar’s men fettered them.
By the time the Stalwart’s knights broke free of their convulsions, they were shackled shadows of their former selves. Their befuddled expressions suggested they’d never been defeated in such a demoralizing manner. Even Olav didn’t have a quip to go with their current circumstance.
The berserker snarled at me as two grand knights gripped his arms and led him away. Leith gave me a death stare that suggested I’d one day be on the wrong end of his dirk. Flanagan grinned at me, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile; it was the countenance of a man who was taking pleasure in imagining the death of a hated enemy.
While Zac and the squires were escorted out of the deployment room, they looked at me with disbelief, and I could see their thoughts behind their eyes. They wanted me to do something, but I couldn’t. At least not yet.
The last of the Stalwart’s crew to be carted away was Moses. His reaction was the worst of all because he refused to acknowledge me with so much as a glare.
“Not all the crew should be shackled,” I said to Polgar as he picked up the boots the crew had taken back from Tachion. “Not all of them are rebels,” I added.
The sorcerer looked upon the items with glee, and he scowled when I repeated the sentence. “Hmm? Oh, of course, they should. Not one of them is innocent.”
I could see the sorcerer would take no quarter, but there was at least one person I could get out of imprisonment. It was also the one person who could help me find a way to exonerate the rest of the crew before it was too late.
“There’s a Caledonian Kingdom point clerk aboard the ship,” I said. “Her name is Elle McGrath. She carries no guilt for whatever crimes you believe the crew might have committed. She arrived on the Stalwart the same day I did.”
“Ah, yes, Miss McGrath. Her assignment to this starship was my doing. A troublesome woman like her mother, the Duchess of Clonatis. If the point clerk isn’t embroiled in the Stalwart’s crimes, then she’s involved in her mother’s schemes. In either case, she will remain shackled.”
“You can’t lock her up! She’s a point clerk!” The point clerk position was both military and ministerial, which afforded her special treatment when it came to criminal accusations.
“I can do as I please. The Caledonian Kingdom has plenty of point clerks. I’m sure she won’t be missed should she be meted out the punishments along with the rest of the crew.”
“Are you insane?” I asked, unable to believe how readily Polgar would ascribe guilt to someone who obviously wasn’t culpable. I regretted my words as soon as the sorcerer’s attention shifted from the books and he glowered at me.
“I would be careful how closely you ally yourself with these rebel scum.” Polgar tilted his head, as though searching my mind. The sensation of another presence in my head made me wonder whether he possessed a diviner’s gifts, which would have made him an even deadlier enemy than he’d shown himself to be today.
Although there were grand knights standing in the deployment room, I felt like only Polgar and I were present. His gaze wouldn’t leave mine, and his brown eyes darkened to black abysses. I was lost in those orbs, and the intensity of the chilling feeling in my head increased.
A mental image of Elle appeared, and my memories of saving her from the pirates and the time we’d spent together on the ship played like a movie in my mind.
The foreign presence in my head vanished suddenly, and I shuddered in the aftermath of the mental violation.
“So, you consider this Elle McGrath a friend of yours? That is the only reason you would defend her with such resolve. Friendship is a fickle thing, Outlander.”
“You are a sad man,” I said. Before the Stalwart, I’d only ever had one true friend, Alice, and I’d watched her die. Now, I had many friends, and I understood the value of true friendship.
“I have lived a long time, young one,” Polgar answered. “I have learned many things. Friendship requires trust, and trust can be so easily broken. Your presence on this ship is a perfect example. The entire time you have been secretly violating the crew’s trust, have you not?”
I didn’t answer the sorcerer while he grinned at me. He had cornered me with his probing, and despite knowing he was manipulating me, I couldn’t disagree. I’d become friends with the crew under false pretenses.
Now, they were imprisoned on the Stalwart.
“Where is the rest of the armor, Outlander?” Polgar asked me once he’d placed the boots into a metal box held by a grand knight.
“I will tell you if you promise me the crew won’t be harmed. They must be given a fair trial, and any crew members who aren’t rebels must not be punished.” I figured anyone other than a sorcerer with a vendetta against the crew would be convinced they weren’t insurrectionists. A trial would see them proven innocent.
“I make no promises,” Polgar said. “This starship and her crew is mine to do with as I see fit.”
I realized then that the fate of the crew depended on this vile man before me. He could do whatever he wished at this point in time. The Stalwart was the worst ship in the RTF, and her crew was widely despised. If Polgar harmed them, he’d probably be given accolades in the hierarchy. At least if I gave him what he wanted, he might show some semblance of gratitude by not harming the crew before a trial.
“There are gauntlets within the enchantry,” I said.
“Then let us go there!” Polgar declared with enthusiasm. “Lead the way, Outlander!”
I walked through the starship’s passageway alongside the sorcerer and six grand knights and entered the elevator for Deck 2. The quiet atmosphere sent shivers down my spine. The Stalwart felt like a ghost ship without any yeomen rushing from one end of the deck to the other or servitors performing their automated tasks.
When we got to the enchantry, I led the sorcerer to the workbench. My path was clear since the cannon Casey had been working on with her grandfather was no longer sitting in the middle of the room.
I noticed my longsword on the bench, and it appeared Casey had repaired the Forcewave rune. I couldn’t help but smile since she’d done what might have been impossible to most RTF enchanters. The sight of the repaired rune made me feel guilty at my betrayal and all the more determined to ensure the safety of the crew. The sorcerer didn’t seem to mind when I secured the longsword to my prot-belt.
My plan to give Polgar what he wanted was foiled when I couldn’t locate the gauntlets on the bench or in any of the cabinets and crates surrounding it. The sorcerer and his grand knights waited impatiently while I scoured the room for the items.
“Where are the gauntlets, Outlander?” Polgar seethed from over my shoulder.
The muscles in my neck twitched at the man’s accusatory tone. He likely thought I’d lead him here for no good reason. I was about to explain to Polgar that the gauntlets might have been taken elsewhere but stopped myself. If Casey had hidden the items while the sorcerer took the ship, then she might be tortured into revealing their location.
A grand knight bent down to inspect the ground he had been standing on. He lifted a loose section of the metal flooring and reached into a hidden compartment. When he straightened, he was holding the gauntlets.
Polgar took the gauntlets from the knight and inspected them with glee. “Very good. But there should be more. Where are the other items?”
“That’s all there are,” I said.
“I know there are more.”
“I’ve only seen the gloves,” I said.
“It would be unwise to lie to me, Outlander. Remember, those you call friends are detained under my command. I am not beyond using unsavory tactics to obtain what I desire.”
“There are other items,” a female voice said, and I turned to see Casey slip out from behind an anchoring station.
Polgar snapped his head toward her, and he gave the knights a seeth
ing glare as though he were blaming them for not searching the starship sufficiently.
“Where are they, Woman?” the sorcerer demanded of Casey.
“They are stored in a room within the armory,” she replied with the exasperation of total defeat.
Seeing Casey bathed me in conflicting emotions. I was glad to see her unharmed, but my heart twinged after she looked at me with intense hatred. I also knew now what was behind that door in the armory, except the revelation gave me no relief. The solution to the mystery didn’t seem important when my friends were accused of insurrection and a hair’s breadth from condemnation.
“Can you confirm the presence of a room within the armory?” Polgar asked a grand knight.
The knight spoke through his comms while I tried not to wilt under Casey’s blazing stare.
Before I could stop myself, I called to her. “Casey, I’m sorry--”
“I only covered for you because I didn’t want the sorcerer to harm the crew,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m your friend. You betrayed us.”
“I--”
“Enough of this,” Polgar said, and he smiled as if he was taking great pleasure in seeing the enchantress express her hatred for me. “Take this woman and put her with the rest of the rabble.”
“Don’t touch her,” I said as I placed my hand on the longsword’s hilt.
The grand knight gripped Casey’s arm, and she winced in pain while the man smirked at me. “Or you’ll do what, Squire?”
I continued staring at the knight, wondering whether I’d be capable of injuring or killing the man. I figured he wouldn’t expect me to attack him, so I’d at least have the element of surprise. My longsword probably wouldn’t pierce his armor plating, but I could strike in the seams between his pauldrons and chest piece.
But the next event which came to mind was the overwhelming force of the other grand knights, not to mention the powerful sorcerer with a staff he’d had just used to disable all the Stalwart’s knights.
Despite the fury washing over me like waves of red-hot emotion, I controlled myself. I looked away from the knight and ground my teeth as he shoved Casey outside.
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