Siege Tactics (Spells, Swords, & Stealth Book 4)

by Drew Hayes

  Thistle wasn’t happy. He didn’t look especially angry, either—more annoyed than anything, frustration radiating off him as he surveyed the battlefield. Without drawing attention, Gabrielle made her way over to the gnome. “You don’t look like a man whose party just won a skirmish without any loss or injury.”

  “Because I’m not sure I am.” Thistle didn’t even look at her; he only had eyes for the slowly settling scene before them. “A warning? Even if Kalzidar didn’t want to fight the people of Notch, I can’t believe he’d really come in like this with threats and demands. Kalzidar is the type to gather forces in secret, make preparations, and then strike when an enemy is most vulnerable. Direct confrontation is a needless risk, one that he doesn’t tend to take. Maybe he’s trying to trick us into running, into taking a route we think is safe but will really be an ambush. Even that might have been more likely if we didn’t just get confirmation that there was an enemy at our gates.”

  A long sigh left Thistle’s lips as he finally looked away. His fingers pressed against the bridge of his nose, rubbing gently. “I don’t see it. I don’t know what kind of move Kalzidar is making, and while, on a personal level, I recognize that there’s no shame in being outmaneuvered by a god, it still bothers me. Mostly because, if Kalzidar is indeed bluffing about the automaton army, then that means that whatever he’s truly sending will be that much worse.”

  31.

  With the finished potion, thanks to the costly ashes from a phoenix rebirth, joining the eye of a lyranx and the feathers of a golden roc safely tucked away in their magical bags, the party of Chalara, Wimberly, Gelthorn, and Timanuel said their final goodbyes to the kingdom of Alcatham. There was only a single component left, one they could hunt for on their way to Lumal. Rather than take the roads, the party had decided to spend some of their hard-won gold on magical transportation. It wasn’t an option available in every town—few cities had enough mages or demand to offer it—but Camnarael was a kingdom’s capital, and therefore, an exception to the rule.

  For a sum of gold that seemed borderline exorbitant until one factored in the time and cost of making the journey on foot, they could be teleported to an outpost town on a far northern border of Alcatham. If the information they’d gathered along their quest was right, an entrance to Lumal would be only a day or two’s journey from that spot, hence why some enterprising wizards had bothered offering the magical transport option.

  It wouldn’t just be a simple trek, however. In those lands, a dangerous type of monster was said to lurk. The potion, ashes, eye, and feathers were pieces of a spell that opened the door to Lumal; however, the final component was more variable. Whispers and rumors all lent themselves to the idea that the last piece of the spell was to demonstrate an act for the sake of Lumal. They had to do something for the kingdom before they would be permitted entrance. Some went the route of finding rare items or magics, offering to strengthen Lumal by direct donation. Others undertook tasks, fulfilling some of the few quests from Lumal that had slipped into the world.

  Then there was the more direct option: killing. The strange monsters that stood between Alcatham’s outpost and the Lumal entrance had, supposedly, not always been there. They were a recent infestation, and Lumal considered each one killed as a service done for the kingdom. It was the most straightforward way to get into the city, and also among the most dangerous. Plenty of people were willing to trade rumors about these roaming monsters, but there were few tales of success to go around. Whatever these beasts were, they wouldn’t go down easily.

  Even knowing the risks, the party had agreed that it was their best shot. The other methods were too cumbersome and complex, with ample opportunities for things to go wrong. This was better suited to their straightforward style: kill a dangerous monster and be done with it. Only so many ways for that to go wrong, and in none of them would it be a problem for long. Triumph or death; such was the danger of life as an adventurer.

  Together, they gathered at the teleportation point and set out, ready for a brief stop-over before heading off on their hunt. That plan fell apart in moments, as instead of a peaceful countryside hamlet, they found themselves surrounded by people screaming and the unmistakable stink of fresh blood.

  The outpost was under attack, and they’d just teleported in without any way of getting out. Exchanging a brief glance, each member of the party drew their weapons and began to scout the area, hunting for an enemy. If they were going to be stuck in a fight, anyway, then they’d damn sure try to win it.

  * * *

  Cleanup was a straightforward matter, although not quite a simple one. Everything rat-related was burned on the spot, until even their blood was nothing more than smoking ash. For those who’d been at the frontlines, their armor and weapons needed to be scrubbed as well. For good measure, baths were drawn and sprinkled with purifying herbs, along with a few spells of cleansing, to eradicate any residual bits and blood that clung still to their bodies. Magical disease protection wasn’t permanent, and if even one infected chunk lingered past the spell’s duration, it could turn the day’s triumph into tragedy.

  That was how Timuscor found himself in a large metal tub that magically kept the water contained inside warm, letting the heat soothe his various aches and pains. The scrubbing part was long since done—he’d made sure that not so much as a lone rat hair was left anywhere on him—but it wasn’t often he got to relax in such a manner. Since he had time to spare while the street was being decontaminated, Timuscor treated himself to a luxurious soak.

  His hand dangled over the side of the tub, idly scratching Mr. Peppers, who was standing patiently at the tub’s side. Between the heat, the early wake-up, and the post-battle exhaustion, it was hardly surprising that Timuscor fell into the gentle clutches of sleep.

  What was surprising, on the other hand, was that he found himself somewhere else. At a glance, it didn’t seem familiar, just a landscape punctuated by fog. Except… he knew this place. Not well, certainly, but Timuscor had been here before. Once, briefly, when his shield, armor, and internal organs were punctured by a projectile and he was bleeding out as death loomed. He wasn’t on the brink of death now, though—he hoped—which made the sudden return all the more confusing.

  “Hello?” Timuscor took several steps in a random direction, yet the scenery didn’t change. Just emptiness and rolling fog as far as the eye could see. “I know there’s someone here. The memory is fuzzy, but that voice still echoes clear as a bell throughout my mind.”

  No response came to Timuscor, momentarily confusing him until he thought back on his previous time here more carefully. The voice wasn’t flippant, it didn’t waste words, and Timuscor hadn’t actually asked it anything yet. Maybe some mysterious beings deigned to bother with polite greetings, but this probably wasn’t one of them. He needed to consider what was happening, why he might be here, and then use his chance wisely.

  “Have you brought me here to offer counsel once more? Everyone here who follows a god has been unable to speak to them, yet you’ve managed to pull me to this place, so I must assume you wish to help.”

  Many gods rely on divine channels, not all. Some prefer a herald.

  If there was any doubt in Timuscor’s mind—and really, there hadn’t been more than a sliver—that Mr. Peppers was connected to this voice, those words put the final scoop of dirt on the coffin. He’d even fallen asleep with his hand directly pressed against the boar’s head, and after seeing Mr. Peppers grow and shrink in a matter of moments, it was plain that he was still no ordinary pet. Much as he wanted to ponder that idea more thoroughly, the voice continued to speak.

  I am here for counsel, but not for your friends. The games of gods grow wearying over time; I no longer indulge them. My counsel is for you, Timuscor, the aspiring paladin.

  “Your herald has been a dear companion to me on my travels. He represents you well. Any counsel you have, I will gladly hear.”

  Wiser than when we last spoke. Healthier, too. Despite f
acing peril, you have not stood at the doorstep of Death since our prior meeting. You heard and understood, yet you’ve still not told my herald the price of being a paladin.

  “I… have been grappling with much lately,” Timuscor admitted. It wasn’t something he was sure he could say even to the others in his party, but here, speaking only to darkness, the truth flowed forth. “I know now that seeking a meaningful death is not the path of a paladin. It is a consequence they must bear. However, my mind is not like Thistle’s. I do not come upon things quickly. I must work my way through the slower paths, and at present, I confess, I have been more lost in wondering who I truly am now that I know more about my kind. About the echoes.”

  You are not an echo, Timuscor. You are awake in a world of those trapped beneath a spell of slumber. The ones who existed before, they were the echoes, the precursors of what was still to come. And you are wrong about one more thing. It is not two answers you’re seeking. It is one. That is how you will know it to be true.

  Timuscor had no response for that. His prior words were honest; understanding was slower for him than for the others. He would need to consider the advice carefully to glean its true meaning. Thankfully, the voice didn’t force him to respond.

  Until then, work with my herald and gain mastery over his new power. Because that gift did not come from me. It manifested because of you, Timuscor. After all, what would an aspiring paladin be without his—

  “Timuscor!”

  The word shook Timuscor from his sleep. He jerked forward so fast that water came splashing over the sides of the tub. Standing in the doorway was Kieran, staring at him with confusion that was slowly giving way to worry. “Are you all right? I’ve been calling you for a while now.”

  That couldn’t be, except that Timuscor’s skin had grown substantially more wrinkled in what should have been the span of mere minutes. Time, it seemed, did not always flow at the same rate for gods—even lost and buried ones—as it did for mortals. Looking down, Timuscor found that Mr. Peppers was staring at him. Carefully, Timuscor reached over and scratched the boar once more, assuring him he’d gotten the message.

  “My apologies. After the battle and the early morning, I must have dozed while in the bath.”

  “You might want to work on not being such a deep sleeper. That’s a liability on the road.” Kieran didn’t seem entirely sure he bought the excuse, but after a few seconds, he continued. “Anyway, I was coming to let you know that this afternoon we’re going to have a meeting with the trader. Given what happened this morning, there’s a lot to discuss on top of that.”

  Timuscor nodded, finally looking away from the boar. “Of course. How long do we have?”

  “A few hours. We decided to deal with lunch and daily chores first. Plenty of time to dry off and get a meal.”

  “I appreciate that, but I fear I’ll need to spend my time elsewhere.” From a nearby stool, Timuscor plucked a towel and began to dry his torso. “It’s high time I see Notch’s blacksmith about some replacement equipment. It wouldn’t be proper to have Mr. Peppers go into combat unarmored.”

  Accepting the odd statement, Kieran tried to keep the confusion off his face as he shut the door and gave Timuscor some much-needed privacy.

  * * *

  “Fuck!”

  Jolia’s curse came moments before the sound of glass smashing to the ground. While not a mage himself, Thistle had served enough of them to know some of their tools. As this was the third smashed piece of the morning, however, it was hard to discern what had newly been broken amidst the pile of twinkling glass. “How are they doing this? How are they blocking off all communication between us and the outside world? I can’t get any sending spells through, can’t touch people in the realm of dreams. I’ve tried everything short of animating a letter and telling it to go fly and find someone.”

  Powerful as Jolia was, it had also become clear that she’d gotten out of practice dealing with true obstacles. Life as a citizen, rather than an adventurer, inherently came with fewer challenges. They were all hoping she’d eventually figure out a solution to the new development, pressure that was only compounding her stress.

  For his part, Thistle was making use of Jolia’s extensive library to research everything he could about automatons and the Helm of Ignosa. So far, nothing he’d found was good. While there were no official numbers on how large the automaton army had become before their capture, it was said to be capable of wiping out even a kingdom’s capital city in a single day. Their greatest weakness was the Helm of Ignosa itself, a magical tool that acted as a universal control gem. Supposedly, the one who wore it could control the entire army with no more than a few careful thoughts. A tremendous amount of power, but if one took down the leader, then the entire army would halt. While that should have been encouraging, Thistle had yet to find any limitations on distance for the helm. In theory, one could give the order from half a continent away, meaning that they might be facing down an automaton army with no readily-exploitable weaknesses.

  Even for the people of Notch, that was a fight they may not win. Then again, all of that was conditional on the idea that Kalzidar’s emissary had been telling the truth, a concept Thistle wasn’t quite ready to embrace just yet. The trouble was that with no way to contact the outside world, they didn’t know if the army had really marched out of Lumal yet. Keeping them cut off ensured they couldn’t warn Lumal of the upcoming potential threat or gain useful information of their own.

  “Oh, come on! I can’t even take control of small animals and send them through.” There was no glass breaking this time, although Jolia did slam her head heavily down on the worktable. “This is ridiculous. Not even gods have infinite power, and unless Kalzidar is always giving us his full attention, he shouldn’t be able to block us this well, not against me. It can’t be a spell someone else is working, though. It’s much too comprehensive. Honestly, whatever this ward is, it’s unlike any magic I’ve ever dealt with.”

  “What if it isn’t magic?” Thistle sat up bolt-straight, the idea slamming through his mind like a runaway carriage. “This blockade, keeping us cut off from the outside world, it’s working too well, right? Almost as if it doesn’t obey the laws and limitations of magic?”

  From her desk, Jolia swiveled in place, fresh interest in her eyes. “That’s exactly how I would describe it.” Credit to the wizard, it took only a few seconds for her to solve the puzzle as well, now that the missing piece was in place. “Which is impossible, unless you have one of the only artifacts in the world that isn’t bound by those laws. Still, there aren’t many of those out there, and even fewer in circulation. It’s more likely that there’s another explanation.”

  “More likely or not, using a magical item to skirt the very rules of our world is exactly the kind of thing Kalzidar would do,” Thistle declared. “Even if we end up ultimately being wrong, at this point, I think we have no choice but to assume that one of Kalzidar’s minions is using a piece of the Bridge.”

  Hopping down from her chair, Jolia made a quick motion, summoning her staff to her hand. “In that case, it seems fortune is both with and against us. While the idea of facing down such an artifact is indeed worrying, at least we have a piece of our own.”

  “I must confess, my friends and I have never wielded the artifact for more than a few minutes at a time, and even in our limited experience, we’ve had things go wildly wrong. For them to pull off constant magic like this, it would seem undeniable that Kalzidar’s pawn has a better grasp on using the Bridge than we do.”

  To Thistle’s surprise, the admittance was greeted by a smile on Jolia’s face. She beamed as she hustled him toward the exit. “Aye, you make many a good point, but our luck hasn’t run out just yet. Whether it was pride or folly, they let someone slip into Notch. Someone who happens to be an expert on dealing with that artifact and how to use it.”

  It was Thistle’s turn to smile as he followed Jolia at a brisk pace. This felt like their first break in quite some
time, and it was nice to feel like the gods were still looking down on them, even if Thistle couldn’t actually hear Grumble’s voice.

  The good mood stayed until roughly the instant he saw who the expert was, but it was still a pleasant thirty minutes while it lasted.

  32.

  Finding the enemy was easy. No sooner had Timanuel popped his head into the street than he’d spotted five of them, most either attacking or chasing citizens. They were strange creatures, with six arched legs ending in a sharp claws spread out equidistant around the main body, which appeared to be little more than a large head with three beaks. Some sort of dark, oily scales covered most of the head, with the exception of a few skin patches, three sets of beady eyes, and the beaks. Like the legs, the faces were spread out at equal intervals around the body, meaning each creature was looking in nearly all directions at once.

  “I suppose that means we don’t need to bother worrying about stealth,” Timanuel muttered. Reaching back, he waved the others forward to his position. He didn’t have much of a plan yet, or even a grasp on the situation at hand, but people were being attacked in front of him. For a paladin, there was only one response to that sort of sight.

  Timanuel charged from his position in the alley, slamming a sword into one of the beaked monsters that was trying to tear the flesh off a woman pinned beneath an overturned stall. His blade caught it just below the eyes, but rather than cleaving it in two, the attack sent it sailing backward, much farther than should have been possible, before it floated lightly to the ground and its sharp legs clicked against the stone. There was a wound on it, thankfully, a modest slice across one of its faces.