by Paul Collins
The Preceptor now controlled an area nearly half that of Skelt.
‘You were right about that mailshirt,’ the Preceptor said as he and Fa’red gazed out over the mountains from the Great Balcony of the Monarch’s Leisure in the Dremari palace.
The Preceptor lounged on the vanquished Queen’s throne, while Fa’red stood beside him with his arms folded. The Queen’s lepon had died defending her as the Preceptor’s men cornered her in the palace, and its skin now adorned the greenstone railing at the balcony’s edge. The Preceptor’s pennons were flying from all poles within sight and at a distance the city seemed almost undamaged by the short, sharp siege. Repair work had already begun on the towers.
‘So it is confirmed,’ said Fa’red, not so much in answer but as if he were thinking aloud. ‘Any Adept using magical force against the wearer of the mailshirt will be drained of life and killed. Apparently it is merely a minor property of the mailshirt, too. Would you believe that?’
The Preceptor shook his head in wonder. ‘If it can kill an Adept 14 with its minor properties, what are its major properties?’
‘They are probably beyond our comprehension, Preceptor, but we should not need them to realise our ambitions.’
‘Nevertheless, I want them investigated. Where is the mailshirt now?’
‘I cannot say.’
‘What?’ exclaimed the Preceptor, rising from the throne and facing Fa’red with his fists clenched.
‘Those three young outlaws escaped with it on the day of the former queen’s coronation,’ Fa’red explained.
‘But – but how then was the Adept 14, Longrical, killed?’
‘I … set up a confrontation with the girl who was wearing the mailshirt –’
‘Girl!’ exclaimed the Preceptor.
‘– which Longrical very foolishly blundered into. I tried to seize the mailshirt from her on the same night as I ordered the King killed. The damn wench killed two deadmoon warriors that I sent after her and damn near saved the King as well. Still, they were identified as lindraks, and that touched off the war very nicely.’
‘Who in the name of Black Quell is that girl?’
‘The late Count Juram’s daughter, Jelindel,’ said Fa’red. ‘My deadmoon warriors were supposed to despatch her – but there is a lot more to the girl than I suspected. Her name of calling is her truename, however, so she will not be a problem should she ever think to challenge us with enchantment.’
‘That’s some comfort. What did you do to catch her and her companions?’
‘I sent another enchanted messenger bird south, ordering twenty of my deadmoon warriors here, but by the time they arrived the girl and her own two warriors were long gone.’
The Preceptor bowed his head, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘Those extra twenty of your elite assassins saved me a lot of trouble in the siege when they eventually arrived,’ he said with resignation.
‘Yes, and you now have a strong and beautiful city from which to rule your new empire,’ said Fa’red.
‘Damn, but we are still at risk, for all this triumph!’ shouted the Preceptor, his frustration overflowing as he turned to gesture across the mountains and city.
‘Not so,’ laughed Fa’red, clapping him on the shoulder as the echoes of his outburst died away. ‘The girl has done what I would have done anyway. Two of the five Adept 14s died of their own researches, two I killed while the mailshirt was mine, and the last died in this very palace. Five from five is zero, Preceptor. There are no Adept 13s, and Adept 12s are merely dangerous but vulnerable mages. One stands guarding your back at this minute.’
The Preceptor’s shoulders drooped as he sighed with relief. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
Fa’red puckered his lips. ‘Shall we say … certain entities – powers not of this world are bestowed upon Adepts who defeat their peers in combat. Should this girl have accepted the powers – and she would be a damn fool if she refused them – she could rightly claim to be an Adept 14.’
‘This is preposterous!’ the Preceptor snapped. ‘You never said anything of the kind!’
Fa’red smiled wanly. ‘Having powers and knowing what to do with them are two entirely different matters. Trust me, Preceptor; have I ever failed you in the matters that really count?’
The Preceptor shook his head, then he descended the steps from the throne to the railing. With his hands on the soft fur of the changeling lepon’s skin, he gazed down on his new domain.
‘Full-scale war is again possible, and the world is suddenly open to all comers,’ he declared to the wonderful panorama. ‘I shall be first. Nevertheless, I feel nervous with the girl out there. And the mailshirt. Whether we still need it or not, I want it found.’
‘In time it will be found,’ said Fa’red soothingly, ‘but in the meantime you have a continent to conquer.’
The Preceptor leaned forward, his hands clasped. After some minutes of thought he turned to Fa’red.
‘How many of your deadmoon warriors remain back at Firebrand Castle in Skelt, Fa’red?’
‘A hundred in total.’
The Preceptor fixed him with a cold, serious stare and asked calmly, ‘Could they wipe out the lindraks?’
Fa’red whistled and ran a hand over his scarred and almost hairless features.
‘Given time, perhaps, but …’
‘Strike now and I could conquer Skelt without having to fight another major battle! That would leave me free and strong to strike out at some other kingdom. Well?’
‘Preceptor, no more than twenty of my deadmoon men back in Skelt are the equal of an average lindrak as yet, but – no, it’s too dangerous.’
‘But what?’
‘Six of my deadmoon warriors are Adept 10 mages, and all are back in Skelt. The lindraks’ Guildmasters forbid their number to mix thaumaturgy with their training, they say it confers too much power. An Adept 9 or 10 rides with them and conjures the enchantments needed for their work. I have had no such qualms, of course. I have another dozen Adepts ready to begin deadmoon training, but they could fight by enchantment alone.’
‘That’s good enough for me. Despatch one of your enchanted carrier birds to Firebrand. Tell them to go in stealth to the woods near Blacklight Castle. There they must wait to –’
‘Blacklight Castle! Preceptor, that’s the lindraks’ very stronghold.’
‘Yes.’
‘My deadmoon warriors are good but not so good that they could storm Blacklight.’
‘Overwhelming odds, speed and surprise are what wins battles, Fa’red. Here we have speed and surprise, so that may be enough. There are never more than fifty lindraks, because they are an elite brotherhood. Two to one might be enough. Prepare two birds, and send my message to Firebrand Castle with one of them. I am returning to Skelt with as much haste as mortals can manage.’
‘And the second bird, Preceptor?’
‘Send it to the Skeltian King in Altimak, exactly two weeks from today. I shall dictate a very, very insulting message for him.’
When the Preceptor returned to Tol, it was with all the speed that a relay of despatch horses and a fast-oared barge could provide. Awaiting him was his King’s earlier demand that he come to Altimak at once, along with a cage of pigeons tagged as Altimak returns. He made no reply, but instead set off down the coast with his fleet of nine war sloops and a marine cavalry transport.
Blacklight Castle was near the coast, and was held in fear by the local peasants. They had no communication with the dark and deadly lindrak warriors who rode back and forth on their stealthy errands, generally at night. Thus it was that the locals paid no heed to a hundred or so riders who arrived one afternoon and passed on into the woods that surrounded Blacklight Castle. They were all wearing dark travel cloaks and were riding swift despatch mares rather than stocky war stallions. Their faces were cowled and invisible.
Although the villagers had never before seen lindraks during the day, they knew not to even mention among themselves the strange n
ew arrivals.
A squad of ordinary lancers also arrived and set up camp nearby. They were polite and disciplined, and apart from buying fodder and supplies, they kept to themselves. This was nothing strange, however, as there was rumoured to be a war beginning somewhere to the north.
Three days later a rider arrived bearing the King’s pennon and escorted by a squad of ten from the palace cavalry. He rode straight through the woods to Blacklight Castle.
Nothing happened until that evening. With Reculemoon high in the sky, the gates of the castle were drawn up and four dozen riders swarmed out to take the road to the capital. Those who lay hiding in the woods were not dressed quite like lindraks and fought less effectively than lindraks, but there were many more of them and they were ready. Six of them could also use binding words.
In the deadly battle in the darkness that followed, the true lindraks were defeated for the first time in their history. The villagers cowered and prayed as blue flashes, screams, clashing blades and blasts of orange light lit up the woods from within like lightning in a thundercloud. Before long the woods began to burn.
While this was happening five more of Fa’red’s deadmoon warriors scaled the castle walls and seized the gatehouse. They raised the heavy gate and jammed the mechanism, then held off the small garrison of trainee lindraks and their two masters who had been left behind.
Now a squad of the Preceptor’s militia appeared, their mounts exhausted from a long ride from the southernmost fortress of his province. These men were accompanied by Fa’red’s remaining Adepts, and they smothered the lindraks in the castle by sheer numbers, losing four for every lindrak and novice killed but prevailing nonetheless.
Those lindraks who escaped the carnage in the woods were ridden down by the deadmoon warriors. In their arrogance the lindraks had never dreamed that they would be attacked by anything less than an army, and had thought that they would thus have ample warning. When the sun rose the only two lindraks to have survived were fleeing for the Garrical Mountains as fast as their wounds and exhausted horses would permit. Each had a squad of deadmoon warriors on his trail.
One lindrak was quickly run to earth and killed. The other reached the mountains, and for a time it seemed as if he would escape. He stole horses, changed clothes, and even cut the lindrak tattoo from his arm, but it was to no avail. The hounds of his pursuers sniffed out the discarded square of bloody skin and kept on his trail, which grew ever more fresh.
With the deadmoon warriors closing in, the last lindrak apparently flung himself over a precipice, and in true lindrak fashion he did not scream as he fell. His pursuers retrieved his smashed body from the rocks below, only to find his head was crushed to a pulp. The square of skin cut from his arm matched with the wound on the body.
‘The lindraks are no more,’ the deadmoon warriors laughed as they trussed their prize to a horse.
Far above them the last lindrak, R’mel, watched the body of the unfortunate mercenary who had crossed his path being taken away by the men who had defeated his supposedly invincible brethren. He was alive, and he knew that he might survive now, but never before had he felt so alone.
When the Preceptor eventually entered the Skelt capital, it was at the head of three thousand militiamen. The palace was already in the hold of Fa’red’s surviving deadmoon warriors, whom the King had mistakenly welcomed as lindraks from Blacklight Castle. Needless to say, the King did not dare to order his standing army against his new and deadly rival. He did, however form an alliance with the Preceptor and generously ceded the entire northern province of Skelt to him.
Meantime, far across the continent, Jelindel, Daretor and Zimak had travelled all the way down the Serpentire River to the great port city of Centravian. From there they crossed into Delbrias, then Unissera, then back into Baltoria where they stayed awhile in the capital of Hez’ar.
From here they took a river barge down the Marisa River into Hamaria and through the great crater lake of Skyfall where the war dragon of one thousand years ago had fallen. Having reached the open ocean they took passage on a ship that sailed north along the coast to the Skelt capital, Altimak.
Almost two years after the death of her family Jelindel was finally on Skeltian soil again.
Chapter
19
In spite of the King’s defeat by the Preceptor, the port of Altimak was prospering. It was still being used by Skeltian merchants and foreign ships from dozens of kingdoms, but the new Baltorian ships and the privateer militia ships in the Preceptor’s pay also docked there frequently. Alongside were the sloops of the King’s navy, but a popular mutiny had seen them go over to the Preceptor. Altimak was a place where even the stallholders in the market needed to speak a smattering of a dozen languages, as well as being skilled and ruthless street fighters.
Jelindel negotiated cheap but clean rooms for herself, Daretor and Zimak in a hostelry between the docks and the market. She had deemed it wise to be close to the centre of the port, but she had not discussed it with the other two. These days she had to resort to subtle pressure rather than reasoning to get her way, as Daretor and Zimak were growing increasingly reluctant to take orders or even suggestions from her.
Once alone Jelindel spoke the word of seeing that sent her eyes and feeling to the paraplane, but she found no more than the sorts of minor enchantments that one might expect in such a port city.
‘Hopeless place,’ muttered Zimak as they later wandered through the market in thick, humid air. ‘We’re already wanted in Skelt for horse-stealing, arson, theft, murder and sundry other crimes that I’ve probably never even heard of. Why come back?’
‘Fa’red frequented these parts for many years,’ replied Daretor. ‘Something must have drawn him here. Besides, we’ve not come up with any more constructive thoughts on where to look throughout the seven kingdoms, twelve cities, eighty towns, ninety-six temples and two hundred and five libraries that we have checked over the past year and six months.’
Faced with numbers that he had trouble counting up to, let alone remembering, Zimak stopped to bargain for a skin of wine. Presently they continued on their way again.
‘I could have bedded a real queen in Passendof,’ Zimak said after taking a swig of the red stream from the wineskin.
‘And gotten yourself eaten,’ muttered Jelindel.
‘She might have married me and made me King.’
‘That’s not the way that things are done in royalty. I risked my life to save you from her.’
‘And I risked my life for you in the Valley of Clouds!’
‘Risked your life for me? Why of all the –’
‘Please shut up, both of you,’ rumbled Daretor. ‘We should search this place quickly and move on, not fight.’
‘Again,’ added Zimak.
‘I’m tired and hot,’ complained Jelindel. ‘Does anyone else want to wear the mailshirt?’
Zimak reluctantly took over their enchanted burden and they split up. Libraries were not considered of great import in Altimak, so while Daretor and Zimak went around the port looking for a glow from the mailshirt, Jelindel hired herself as a relief scribe in the marketplace. She charged low rates and did excellent work, so that after two days she was not short of customers.
‘While passing through the Garrical Mountains on the way to the Skelt coast we saw the devastation wreaked by the flying dragon,’ a salt merchant’s apprentice dictated proudly. This was his first really long trip away from home.
‘Don’t you mean the Hamarian crater lake?’ Jelindel prompted.
‘No, no, I speak of melted rocks and a burned village,’ the apprentice said earnestly.
Jelindel looked up at once.
‘Did you see this dragon yourself?’
‘Alas no, learned sir, and it seems that I was a full month too late for the show. Just as well, perchance. There were but few survivors to tell the tale.’
‘And what tale was that?’
‘Why, that a dragon appeared out of the sky
and spat fire upon the village.’
‘Why did it do that?’
‘Who knows the minds of dragons?’
‘Can you tell me where it is that you saw this devastated village?’
‘Yes,’ he said cannily. ‘If you can write my letter for free.’
The location turned out to be twenty miles west of the Dominer Pass, in the Garrical Mountains. The youth spoke of long, deep grooves in the rock, as if a hot knife had been dragged through the surface of a tub of mutton fat.
There had been none of the usual signs of fighting, such as arrowheads in the timbers. Some of the bodies had been burned to char on open ground.
Although it seemed relevant to nothing in particular, Jelindel decided that it was worth checking. The customs office had lists of trade routes, and these had towns and distances included.
Twenty miles west of the Dominer Pass was a village named Lers-Dharek. A penstroke was slashed across the name, and in the margin was scrawled ‘Razed by outlaws. Abandoned’.
The clerks at the office had heard only that it had been attacked and burned by outlaws, and on the surface that seemed quite a reasonable explanation.
A check of the city register revealed the names of twelve people with Lers-Dharek as their previous place of residence. Most had passed through the port and taken ships for elsewhere on the coast. All had arrived a month ago.
Only one man was still living there, a tailor named Korok who now had a stall in the marketplace. By that evening Jelindel found him and hired his services to sew a windcollar into her jacket while she waited. After a time she steered the conversation to the dragon that had burned his village.
‘It comes one night when Reculemoon setting,’ Korok said without looking up from his work. ‘Not a dragon like in crests and tapestries of rich nobles. Beautiful thing, full of facets, lights and intricate patterns. So beautiful, Korok cannot look away, even as – even as it spits blue flames.’
‘Blue flames? From its mouth?’