Duty Bound

by Lindsay Buroker

  The path ended at a patch of grass and tangle of mangrove roots. Lornysh hopped over the roots and continued onward, turning to follow the high ground between two pools of water. Mud squished under their boots, and a crocodile watched their passing from one of the pools. Zenia did not think Rhi was quite strong enough to fling it twenty feet if it clamped onto her bo.

  Lornysh zigzagged his path, turning here and there, seemingly at random, and Zenia grew nervous about being able to find her way back. She believed they had crossed onto Tildar’s property about where the path had ended, but it was hard to judge boundaries out here. Or even tell which direction one was going. The sun’s rays couldn’t break through the thick canopy, so one could wander in circles for hours. Maybe even days.

  Finally, as Zenia was panting and on the verge of begging for a break, Lornysh stopped.

  They had reached the largest pool she’d seen yet, almost a lake. An island rose from the middle of the gray water, taken up almost completely by a massive white oak draped in thick curtains of moss. Judging by the trunk’s girth, with lower branches thicker than an ogre’s waist, the tree had to be several hundred years old.

  A rope bridge led out to it, wood planks tied so they hovered an inch or two above the surface. Though the water did not appear that deep, Lornysh headed for the bridge. As Zenia followed him, she saw the reason. Half a dozen crocodiles floated lazily along the surface, a couple of them already eyeing the intruders.

  “Uh, Lornysh?” Jev squeezed around Zenia and Rhi to catch his friend before he started across the bridge. “Did you see those?”

  Jev pointed not at the crocodiles in the water but at six or seven more resting on the island under the oak.

  “Yes,” Lornysh said. “I have my sword and my bow, though it’s unlikely they will attack a group of warriors.”

  Zenia doubted anyone would mistake her for a warrior, though with the dragon tear, she might qualify as a mage. She pulled out the gem, intending to leave it atop her dress so she could easily wrap her fingers around it.

  To her surprise, it shared a vision with her of its own accord. A wooden platform high in the branches of the huge white oak tree with a spyglass mounted on a tripod up there. A faint magical energy came from the device.

  “Before we test that hypothesis,” Jev said, “want to tell me why this group of warriors would want to visit that tree?”

  “There’s something magical up there,” Zenia said, her eyes blurring as she saw both the platform above and her group. She blinked to refocus, and the vision faded.

  Lornysh looked at her, then at her dragon tear. Unlike Cutter, he’d never commented on it. If he thought there was anything extraordinary about it, he hadn’t shared it with her.

  “Yes,” he said simply and faced Jev. “I believe it may be pertinent to your investigation.” Lornysh pointed at the oak. “There’s a ladder leading up the far side.”

  Zenia eyed the oak’s branches, but from down here, the platform wasn’t visible.

  “I’ll lead,” Lornysh said, unsheathing his sword. Maybe he wasn’t as certain as he’d sounded that the crocodiles wouldn’t attack.

  Rhi went second, and Jev, his short sword and pistol in hand, nodded for Zenia to go ahead of him.

  “Are you letting me go ahead so you can protect my back?” she asked as they headed across the bridge, the wood planks swaying and creaking underfoot, “or so I’ll get eaten before you do?”

  “I’m a noble zyndar warrior,” he said, eyes narrowing.

  She couldn’t tell if he was truly offended by her joke or if he was only pretending to be. “Which means you’d risk your life to save mine?”

  “I’d give my life to save yours,” he said, his eyes serious as he looked from her to the crocodiles ahead of them.

  “What about if it was my life at risk?” Rhi asked.

  “The zyndar code demands a man step in front of danger to any woman,” Jev said.

  “But you’d be happier about getting impaled by danger to save Zenia?” Rhi smirked back at them.

  “This group talks too much,” Lornysh announced to no one in particular. The crocodiles, perhaps.

  He was almost to the island, and the creatures weren’t backing away. The ones in the water drifted closer to the bridge.

  Zenia wondered if she could use her dragon tear to mentally coerce them to leave. She could if they were human, but would such power work on an animal?

  She was on the verge of trying when Lornysh stepped foot on the island. All seven crocodiles on land raced toward him as one.

  “Hells,” Jev cursed and rushed past Zenia as Rhi also ran forward to help.

  Lornysh shouted a word, and flames appeared along his sword. He leaped past one of the crocodiles, jamming his blade into its head as he went, and landed in front of the tree. He spun toward his attackers and put his back to the thick trunk. Three of the crocodiles lunged for him, jaws snapping. Two others veered toward Rhi and one angled toward Jev.

  Terror surged through Zenia’s veins as she grabbed her dragon tear with one hand and yanked out her pistol with the other. Jev fired his own pistol, lodging a bullet between one crocodile’s eyes. Rhi cracked another in the maw with her bo, but she had to leap into the air to avoid the snapping jaws of one lunging in from behind her.

  Zenia almost fired at that one, but her comrades were too close to the creatures. She risked missing and hitting one of them. Better to try to deter the crocodiles with the dragon tear’s power.

  Before she could focus on drawing upon its magic, movement to the side startled her. She was still out on the bridge, and two of the crocodiles in the water swam toward her at top speed.

  She envisioned armor protecting her, and the dragon tear hummed with power. The two crocodiles slammed into an invisible barrier several feet away.

  A huge splash came from behind her. Another crocodile. It snapped in the air, trying to bite the invisible shield that blocked it.

  Zenia lifted her pistol, aiming between its eyes, but an admonition emanated from her dragon tear, and she paused. Somehow, she understood that she wouldn’t be able to fire through the shield it had created around her, just as she wouldn’t have been able to fire through a knight’s shield of old.

  An image came to mind of a crocodile writhing in flames. She couldn’t imagine how anything in the water could burn, but she went with the idea, willing a fire to engulf the crocodiles snapping at her shield. More of them had advanced and butted at the invisible barrier. Growling, she envisioned a great ball of fire thrusting out from her on all sides.

  Orange light flared so brightly she had to fling an arm up over her eyes. An animal roared in pain. Splashes came from all around her spot on the bridge. The wood creaked and groaned.

  Someone cried out. Rhi?

  Zenia jerked her mind away from the dragon tear, afraid the flames would spread out too far and hurt her friends.

  The orange light disappeared, and she blinked to recover her vision. Charred crocodiles fled in all directions.

  “Look out, Zenia!” Jev shouted as he fired at another of the crocodiles on the island.

  Zenia spun, fearing another creature was lunging at her from the other direction, but there was nothing behind her. Nothing but flames burning the ropes that held the bridge together. Cursing, she ran toward the island.

  The ropes snapped first. The bridge slumped into the water and she lurched, wobbling as she flailed for balance. The wood planks wouldn’t support her, and she plunged into the lake. Her boots brushed a muddy bottom four feet down.

  Afraid the crocodiles would see she was no longer protected, she swam for the island as quickly as possible. Her arm bumped against something large under the floating planks. A crocodile. She screamed and jerked away, trying to form a shield around herself again, but she was too panicked to focus on calling forth the dragon tear’s magic. Until she realized the crocodile wasn’t moving. It wasn’t even alive. Its entire body was blackened, and the smell of charred hid
e hung in the air.

  A hand gripped her arm. Jev. He’d waded out to her, and he lifted her from the water, gathering her in his arms.

  Though she had recovered from her fright of the dead crocodile, Zenia let him carry her without objection. She craned her neck to see if her friends needed help, but their seven crocodiles were also dead, most bleeding from the gashes of Lornysh’s sword. His long blade was still shrouded in flames that danced and writhed along the gleaming steel surface. Zenia had heard that elves and dwarves could make magical weapons, but she had never seen one.

  “I killed that one,” Jev said, pointing at a crocodile with a bullet hole in its eye as he set Zenia down.

  He wore a self-deprecating expression rather than a smug one, so Zenia assumed Lornysh had killed most of the others. Or all of them.

  “I knocked out at least three,” Rhi said.

  She stood between two corpses and waved her bo, but those crocodiles also looked to have been slain by a blade. Lornysh gazed blandly at her.

  “All right, I hit at least three. It’s not my fault they have such thick skulls.”

  “I think Zenia killed six or seven,” Jev said, sounding dazed as he looked toward the water where a couple of charred corpses floated.

  Zenia shook her head, positive most of them had gotten away. And she hadn’t done anything. “It was my dragon tear.”

  “Dragon tears don’t act of their own accord,” Jev said. “You must have had the idea to use fire. A good choice. Forest animals know to fear flames, and I imagine even those that live around water have a healthy fear of it.” He eyed the closest charred corpse. “For good reason.”

  Zenia, remembering how the idea had popped into her mind from someone else—from the dragon tear itself?—didn’t nod in agreement. She caught Lornysh considering her contemplatively.

  “What I’d like to know,” Zenia said, eager to change the subject, “is why they all attacked en masse. I may be a city girl, but from what I’ve heard, that’s not normal, right? I know wolves do that, but crocodiles aren’t pack animals, are they?”

  “No,” Lornysh said. “I didn’t realize it before, but they were activated by a magical command. Coerced to attack as one.”

  “Activated?” Rhi asked. “Were they not real animals?”

  “They were real, but some mage was either controlling them from afar or placed a command in their brains to attack anyone who came close to a specific area.” Lornysh gestured toward the island and the tree.

  “Is that possible?” Jev gripped his chin. “I’ve heard of magical artifacts and weapons, but I didn’t realize it was possible to leave a command imprinted on an animal.”

  “Not for most races. It requires an affinity for animals and a great deal of time spent practicing magic on them. Some of my people do it. Dwarves can’t. Troll and orc warlocks might be able to. They live close to nature and are proud of their relationships with wild animals, especially predators.”

  “You said it’s also possible someone is out here right now, controlling animals from afar?” Zenia asked.

  “It wouldn’t be from that far,” Lornysh said, “but yes, that’s possible. It would be easier than imprinting a command for the long term. Animals have short memories.”

  “Meaning someone could be watching us right now?”

  “Very possibly.”

  “Fantastic,” Rhi muttered.

  14

  Jev carefully climbed up the “ladder” running up the side of the ancient tree. He didn’t think the boards nailed to the trunk qualified for the designation. Nonetheless, he’d stepped ahead of Lornysh to go first. His ego had been bruised when Zenia made that comment about him walking last across the bridge.

  He had intended to watch her back—all of their backs—and he knew she’d been joking, but he didn’t like that the thought had even come to mind for her. And then Lornysh had been the one to kill most of the crocodiles, descending upon them like a tornado landing on a pack of desert jackals. Jev knew the elf was a better warrior than just about anyone, so that wasn’t surprising, but it was hard not to feel twinges of inadequacy next to him. Something that hadn’t bothered Jev back on Taziira. What was different now? Zenia watching.

  He snorted at himself, feeling like a dumb kid for worrying about such a thing. And for letting it send him first up a tree that Lornysh was far more qualified to climb than any of them. Still, he wanted to see what was at the top, what all those crocodiles had been left to guard.

  Lornysh was following him up, navigating the boards with ease, no doubt wondering why they were going so slowly.

  The branches thinned as Jev climbed higher and higher. So did the trunk, but it remained thick enough that it didn’t sway under their weight.

  Bright sunlight struck the back of Jev’s neck as they climbed higher than the surrounding canopy. He paused to peer around and had an impressive view in all directions.

  He could now see the bottom of a wooden platform above them, so he kept climbing, soon pulling himself out onto it. Enough branches supported it that it felt solid, even at this lofty height. He couldn’t see the ground through the leaves but guessed they had climbed nearly a hundred feet.

  Remembering Zenia’s comment about magic, he didn’t crawl far out onto the platform. He would let Lornysh, who could sense such things, go first. He noted a log that someone had dragged up the tree for a seat. It rested in front of a tripod with a large spyglass mounted on it. The scope was pointed toward the sea and toward—Jev sucked in a breath—the city.

  Even though they were more than five miles upriver, he could make out a couple of the prominent structures that rose above the rooftops, the Obelisk of Tay’Nay’Gor, a war prize more than a thousand years old, and the great silver-topped Dome of the Orders where archmages from all over the kingdom met every two years for deliberation. Or orgies. Those not invited speculated greatly and widely on the goings on. The silver dome gleamed now in the afternoon sun.

  “That’s the magical item.” Lornysh crouched beside him—the branches overhead wouldn’t allow them to stand—and pointed at the spyglass.

  “Any kind of protection on it?” Jev didn’t want to get zapped or knocked out of the tree if he touched it.

  “It’s hard to tell when the item itself is magical.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “If it helps, crocodiles can’t climb trees.”

  “I’d accuse you of making jokes, but I think you’re seriously trying to assuage my irrational fear of crocodiles.” Jev headed slowly toward the spyglass, his hands outstretched, as if that would protect him from being zapped by magic. “Which, now that I’ve been attacked by six crocodiles at once, no longer seems so irrational.”

  “I believe only one focused on you.”

  “It was at least two.”

  “Six attacked Zenia,” Lornysh allowed.

  “More than six.” Jev shuddered, the memory flashing into his mind. He’d been so shocked and horrified when all those crocodiles in the water zeroed in on her that he’d almost let the one facing him bite his leg off.

  The huge fireball Zenia had created to destroy all those crocodiles had been even more shocking, but he’d been relieved that she’d been able to do it. For a few seconds, he’d been terrified the creatures would swarm her and kill her before he could get back to her side. If she’d died after he left her out there so he could help the others… Founders, he didn’t know if he could have lived with that. He had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but that would have trumped them all.

  Shuddering, Jev reached out and touched the end of the spyglass. Nothing happened.

  “Her dragon tear is extremely powerful,” Lornysh said.

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “Cutter advised you—and her—on the possible significance of a dragon carved into the front?”

  “He said that when sentient creatures are carved into the gems, the magic can create a link to an actual creature out there. I’m not sure I understand. Z
enia has said… Well, she hasn’t said that much about it, but I don’t get the sense she feels any hungry malevolence emanating from it.”

  “Dragons aren’t necessarily malevolent. They’re predators, like wolves and tigers. But smart enough to have a language and be extremely dangerous. Fortunately, they’re as lazy as lions and would rather sleep in a sunbeam or a cozy cave than hunt constantly.”

  “Good to know.” Jev scooted closer so he could peer through the spyglass. The silver Dome of the Orders was visible in such intricate detail that he could make out the decorative dragon shapes etched in some of the silver roof tiles. He’d never seen a spyglass with such powerful magnification. Was it the magic that amplified it?

  “You may want to keep an eye on her. It’s a powerful artifact for a human to have. Many humans who have in the past gained access to such power have made poor decisions with it.”

  “As an inquisitor, she wore a dragon tear that gave her power and didn’t abuse it, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

  “This is a very different kind of power. It’s palpable, not granted by social delusion.”

  Jev snorted at that description for the sway the Orders had over the populace.

  “She’s experimenting now and learning what the dragon tear can do,” Lornysh continued. “That’s apparent. When she more fully realizes its capabilities… Just be wary and watch her.”

  “I’m not her keeper.” Jev moved the spyglass, wondering what else he could see from this distant perch and how hard it would be to zero in on desirable targets, but it refocused of its own accord. Somehow, it found Alderoth Castle, choosing a magnification that allowed Jev to see the ramparts, with the guards walking along them, and also the front gate and the road leading up to it. “That’s disturbing.”

  “We are no longer talking about the dragon tear, I assume.” Lornysh had moved closer and was examining the tripod and outside of the spyglass.