CAT AND MOUSE
What do I do?" the nervous woman asked the great mage.
Knellict eyed her sternly and she shrank away from him. It was not her place to ask such questions. Her duties at the Vaasan Gate were simple enough, and hadn't changed in five years, after all.
The woman chewed on her lower lip as she summoned the courage to press on - and she knew that if she did not, the danger to her would be greater than that of invoking the anger of the mage. "Pardon, sir," she said, working her way around the damaging words. "But people are hanging by their necks, o' course. Spysong's all about... here, too. They're finding our like and turning them on others, and them that don't turn're getting the hemp collar in the south, so it's said."
Knellict's returned stare was utterly cold, devoid of emotion. The woman, despite her fears, couldn't hold firm under that gaze and she lowered her eyes and assumed a submissive and contrite posture, and managed to whisper, "Beggin' yer pardon, sir."
"Consider that it is good that you know of no one here against whom you might turn," Knellict said to her. He reached over and cupped her chin in his hand and gently tilted her head up.
The woman's knees wobbled when she looked into the archmage's cruel face.
"Because of course nothing that Spysong might do to you would approach the exquisite agony you would suffer at my vengeful hands. Do not ever forget that. And if you find the noose about your slender neck, will yourself to sleep, to relax completely when the trap door falls out beneath you. The clean break is better, I am told."
"B-but sir..." The poor woman stammered. She trembled so badly that had it not been for Knellict's hand against her chin, she would have wobbled across the room.
Knellict stopped her by placing the index finger of his free hand over her lips. "You have served me well again today," he said, and no words ever sounded more like a condemnation to the fitful and terrified tavern girl. "As you have since you chose to enter my employ those years ago," he added, emphasizing her complicity.
"A little extra this time," the mage went on, smiling now - and that seemed even more cruel. He let the woman go and reached to his belt, producing a small pouch that rattled with coins. "All of it gold."
For a brief moment, the woman's eyes flashed eagerly. Then she swallowed hard, though, considering how she might explain such a treasure if Spysong came calling.
Still, she took the pouch.
A cloud of smoke and the sound of coughing told King Gareth and his friends that Emelyn the Gray had at last arrived in Heliogabalus. Surprisingly, the old wizard had chosen to teleport to the king's audience hall in the city's Crown Palace, rather than in the safer - for teleportation purposes - wizard's guild on the other side of the city. And even more surprisingly, Emelyn was not alone.
All eyes - Gareth, Celedon, Kane, Friar Dugald, and Baron Dimian Ree - turned to the pair, the old wizard and a pretty young woman with a round, flat face and fiery red hair.
"Well met, troublesome one," Celedon remarked dryly. "As always, your timing nears the point of perfection."
"I did not ask for your advice, and that alone would make any of my actions less than perfect in your self-centered thinking," Emelyn countered. "If all the world obeyed only Master Kierney, then all the world would be... perfect."
"He's learning, now isn't he?" Celedon asked the others, turning back to Gareth.
Emelyn grumbled and waved his hands at the rogue, and coughed again.
"In truth, I find your timing quite favorable," Gareth said. He looked from Emelyn to his guest, the Baron of Heliogabalus, who had long been a quiet adversary. For Dimian Ree, who led Damara's most populous and important barony, was rumored to be in league with the Citadel of Assassins to some extent, and so it didn't surprise Gareth and his friends to find the agitated man banging on their door that morning to complain vociferously about the multiple hangings that Gareth's men were carrying out in his fair city.
"Baron Ree," Emelyn said, rather coldly, and he did not dip a bow.
"Gray one," Ree responded.
"Our friend the baron has come to protest the justice we have brought to his city," Friar Dugald explained.
"I only just arrived," Emelyn prompted.
"Spysong has encountered many agents of the Citadel of Assassins," King Gareth explained. "They brazenly attacked an apprentice knight of the order."
"That Entreri creature?"
"Precisely him," said Gareth. "But our enemies overplayed their hand this time. They did not know that Master Kane and Celedon were about, along with many allies."
"And you're hanging them? Well, good! And what of this matter might Baron Ree find objectionable, I must ask? Are any of his former lovers swinging by their necks?"
"You would do well to weigh carefully your words before uttering them, gray one," Dimian Ree said, drawing a dismissive scoff from the archmage.
"And you would do better to remember that the only reason I did not utterly destroy you with the fall of Zhengyi was because of the mercy of that man sitting on the throne before you," Emelyn countered, beside him the woman shuffled and glanced about, nervous.
"Enough, Emelyn," commanded King Gareth. "And the rest of you." He looked at them all alternately and sternly, letting his gaze fall at last over the angry baron. "Baron Ree, Heliogabalus is your city, to be sure. But your city lies within my kingdom. I do not ask for your permission to enter."
"And you would always be welcomed as my guest, my king."
"I am not your guest when I come to Heliogabalus," Gareth answered. "That is your basic misunderstanding here. When your king comes to Heliogabalus, you are his guest."
That brought a widening of eyes all around the room, and Dimian Ree began stepping nervously from foot to foot, like a fox caught against a stone wall with dogs fast approaching.
"And when I offer my resources, as with Spysong, to aid you in keeping your fair city safe, you would do well to express your appreciation."
Dimian Ree swallowed hard and didn't blink.
But Gareth didn't blink, either. "Pray do so and be gone," he said.
Ree glanced about, mostly at Kane then Emelyn, the two members of Gareth's band most antagonistic toward him - openly at least.
"The king is waiting for you, fool," came a booming voice from the back of the hall, and all turned to see the bearlike figure of Olwen Forest-friend and the lithe Riordan Parnell, the missing two of Gareth's band of seven, standing by the door.
"Go on, then," Olwen commanded, coming forward with great, long strides, and seeming even more ominous because he carried his mighty axe Treefeller in one of his large hands. "Tell your king how grateful you be, and how all your city will dance the streets tonight knowing they are more safe because of his arrival."
Dimian Ree turned on Gareth. "Of course, my king. I only wish I had been invited to the hangings, or that my city guards had been informed of the many battles before they were waged about our streets."
"And they'd be flipping gold pieces to see what side to join," Emelyn muttered to the woman at his side, but loud enough for the others to hear, drawing muted chuckles from all - except for Gareth, and Dimian Ree, of course, who glared at him.
"And it would have been even more interesting to see how many of the doomed prisoners looked to their baron for clemency," Emelyn said, taking up the dare of that look.
"Enough," Gareth demanded. "Good Baron Ree, I pray you be on your way, and I thank you for your... advice. Your complaints are duly noted."
"And discarded," said Emelyn, and Gareth glared at him.
"And how long might Heliogabalus be honored by your presence, my king?" Dimian Ree asked too sweetly.
Gareth looked to Kane, who nodded. "Our time here is nearly ended, I expect," Gareth answered.
"Indeed," Emelyn added, turning Gareth his way yet again. The mage tilted his head to indicate the woman at his side, and Gareth got the message. "Baron," he said, and he stood and motioned toward the door.
Dimian Ree paused for just a moment, then bowed, turned, and walked from the hall. Before he had even departed, all of the friends descended on Olwen, patting him on the back and offering their condolences over the loss of Mariabronne the Rover, the ranger who had been as a son to him.
"I will know Mariabronne's final tale, in full," Olwen promised.
"And I have brought with me one who might tell you some of that tale," said Emelyn, and he led the others to look at the woman, who still stood off to the side. "I give you Lady Arrayan of Palishchuk."
"That's a half-orc?" Olwen blurted, and he cleared his throat and coughed repeatedly to cover his rather blunt observation.
"Arrayan?" said Gareth. "Ah, good lady, please approach. You are most welcome here. I had hoped to be in Palishchuk by now to present you with your well-deserved honors, but the situation here intervened, I fear."
Arrayan skittishly moved toward the imposing group, though she relaxed visibly when Riordan offered her a confident wink.
"We had been told that you would not be journeying south to the gates," Gareth said.
"And so I was not, good king," Arrayan replied, her voice barely above a whisper. She bowed, then curtsied, halfway at least, before turning it into another uncomfortable bow.
"Pray be at rest, fair lady," said Gareth. "We are honored by your presence." He turned to Dugald and Kane and added, "Surprised, but honored nonetheless."
Arrayan's glance at Emelyn, one full of nervousness, clued in Gareth and the others that she wasn't there merely as a courtesy.
"I did as you bade and traveled to the gates to see if our friends Jarlaxle and Artemis Entreri were there," Emelyn explained. "I found them."
"At the gate?" Gareth asked.
"Nay, they had already passed through, within hours of the skirmish here in Heliogabalus, so it seems."
"There is more magic about that pair than we know," Friar Dugald remarked, and no one disagreed.
"North?" Gareth and Celedon asked together.
"To Palishchuk?" Gareth added.
"Beyond," said Emelyn, and he looked to Arrayan.
When she hesitated, the old mage put his arm around her shoulders and practically shoved her forward to stand directly before the throne. Arrayan took a long moment to collect her wits then produced a parchment from a loop under a fold of her robes.
"I was bid travel here and read this to you, my king," she said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. "But I do not wish to speak the words." As she finished, she reached out with the parchment.
Gareth took it from her and unrolled it, arching his thick eyebrows curiously and looking briefly to his friends. He silently read the proclamation of the Kingdom of D'aerthe and the rule of King Artemis the First, and his face grew dark.
"Well, what is it?" Olwen demanded of Emelyn.
The old wizard looked to King Gareth, who seemed to feel his gaze and at last lifted his eyes from the parchment. He regarded all of his six friends alternately and said, "Rouse the Army of Bloodstone, all major divisions. Within a fortnight, we march."
"March?" said a confused Olwen, perfectly echoing the thoughts of the others, other than Emelyn, who had seen the proclamation, and Kane, who, principal among them, was beginning to understand the complexity of the web.
Gareth handed the parchment to Dugald. "Read it to them. I go to pray."
"There is nowhere to run, I assure you," Knellict said to Calihye, after simply appearing before her in her private quarters. "And I would advise against going for the sword," he added when the woman's eyes betrayed her and glanced at her weapon, which lay against the far wall. "Or for the dagger you keep at the back of your belt. In fact, Lady Calihye, if you make any movement against me at all, I can promise you the most exquisite of deaths. You know me, of course?"
Calihye had to force the words past the lump in her throat. "Yes, archmage," she said deferentially, and she only then remembered to avert her gaze to the floor.
"You wanted to kill Entreri for what he did to your friend," Knellict said matter-of-factly. "I share your feelings."
Calihye dared to look up.
"But of course, you buried that honest desire for vengeance, silly girl." The archmage gave a great and exaggerated sigh. "The flesh is too, too weak," he said, and he reached out to stroke the trembling woman's cheek.
Calihye instinctively recoiled - or tried to, but Knellict waggled his fingers and a wind came up behind her, pushing her back to his waiting hand. She didn't dare resist any more overtly.
"You have taken one of my mortal enemies for your lover," Knellict said, shaking his head, and he added a few mocking "tsks."
Calihye's mouth moved weirdly, trying vainly to form words.
"Perhaps I should simply incinerate you," Knellict mused. "A slow burning fire, carefully controlled, that you might feel your skin rolling up under the pressure of its heat. Oh, I have heard strong men reduced to whimpering fools under such duress. Crying for their mothers. Yes, it is a most enjoyable refrain.
"Or perhaps for such a one as pretty as you - well, as you once were before a blade reduced you to medusa-kin..." He paused and mocked her with laughter.
Calihye was too terrified to respond, to show any emotion at all. She knew enough of Knellict to understand that they were by no means idle threats.
"Still, you are a woman," Knellict went on. "So you are possessed of great vanity, no doubt. So for you, perhaps I will summon a thousand-thousand insects, that will bite at your tender flesh, and some that will break through. Yes, your eyes will reveal your terror no matter how stubbornly you choke back your screams when you see the bulge of beetles boring underneath your pretty skin."
It proved too much for the warrior woman. She exploded into action, leaping forward at Knellict with raking fingers aimed at his smug expression.
She went right through him and stumbled forward. Stunned, off balance, Calihye tried quickly to re-orient. She spun around, focusing on the image, which was even then fading to nothingness.
"It was so easy to fool you," came the wizard's voice, over by her sword. She looked that way, but he was not to be seen. "You were so terrified by the thought of my presence that a simple illusion and an even more simple ventriloquism had you feeling my touch."
Calihye licked her lips. She shifted her feet beneath her, setting her balance for a spring.
"Can you get to the sword, do you think?" Knellict's disembodied voice asked, and it still seemed to be coming from very near the weapon.
Before he had even finished the sentence, Calihye's hand reached behind her, grabbed the dagger, and whipped forward, launching the missile at the voice. It seemed to stutter in its progress for just a moment, before pressing on with a flash of bluish light. Then it hung there, in mid-air, hilt tilted down as if it had struck into some fabric or other flimsy material.
"Oh, and it is a magical dagger," Knellict said. "It defeated the weakest of my wards!"
His position confirmed, Calihye swallowed her fear and darted for her sword. Or tried to, for even as she started, the archmage materialized. Her dagger hung limply, caught in a fold of his layered robes. He extended his arm toward her, finger pointing, and from that digit came a green flash of light. A dart shot forth to strike the woman in the midsection.
"My dart is magical, as well," Knellict explained as Calihye doubled over and clutched at her belly. Her grimace became a loud groan, then a continual scream, as the dart began to pump forth acid.
"I have found gut wounds to be the most effective at neutralizing an enemy warrior," Knellict said with detached amusement. "Would you agree?"
The woman staggered forward a step.
"Oh please, do press on, valiant warrior woman," Knellict teased. He stepped aside, leaving the path to her sword clear and visible before her.
With a growl of defiance, Calihye grasped the dart and tore it free of her belly with a bit of intestine, yellow-green acid, and bile dripping forth from the hole, followed by the bright red of blood. She threw the dart to the ground and grabbed for her sword.
As soon as her fingers touched the blade, a jolt of lightning arced from it and through her body, launching her back across the room and to the floor. She tried to curl, but her spasms allowed her no control of her body. Her hair stood out wildly, dancing from the shock. Her teeth chattered so violently that her mouth filled with blood, and her joints jolted repeatedly and painfully. She wet her breeches, as well, but was too agonized to even realize it.
"How did you ever survive the trials of Vaasa?" the archmage taunted her, and the sound of his voice told her that he stood right over her. "A first-year apprentice could destroy you."
The words faded along with Calihye's consciousness. She felt Knellict reach down and grab her hair. She had the thought that he would kill her conventionally - a knife across the throat, perhaps.
She hoped it would come that quickly, at least, and was relieved indeed when darkness descended.
The heavy cavalry were the first to come through the open gates into the frozen marshland of Vaasa. Four abreast they rode, breaking off two-by-two to the left and right, the plated armor of knight and horse alike gleaming dully under the heavy gray sky. The clatter of hooves continued for a long while, until a full square of cavalry, seven ranks of seven, had formed at each flank of the gate. Forty-five of the riders in each square were veteran warriors, trained in lance, bow, spear, and sword, and tested in battle. But every other row, one, three, five, and seven, was centered by a man in white robes, which, like the chestplates of the warrior's metal armor, was emblazoned with the White Tree symbol of the king. They were Emelyn's warriors, the wizards of the Army of Bloodstone, well-versed in defensive magic and well-trained to keep the magical trickery of an enemy at bay, while the superior warriors of Bloodstone won the day. Well-respected by the armored warriors who surrounded them, the wizards were affectionately known as the Disenchanters.
Behind the cavalry came the armored infantry, ten abreast, marching in unison and presenting a deliberately ominous cadence by thumping their maces against their shields with every other step. They did not veer to either side, but continued their straightforward march, until fifty full ranks had cleared the gate. There too, the ranks were speckled with Disenchanters, and few wizards in all the region could hope to get a spell, even a sorely diminished spell, through the web of defensive magic protecting King Gareth's men-at-arms.
Then came more riders, the mounted guard of King Gareth Dragonsbane, encircling the paladin king and his entourage of six trusted advisors, including the greatest wizard of all in the Bloodstone Lands, Emelyn the Gray.
The rest of the heavy infantry, fifty more ranks often, the core of the Army of Bloodstone, followed in tight and disciplined formation, similarly playing the cadence of mace and shield. As they passed out onto the field, the cavalry began its march again, riding wide and stretching the line to aptly protect the flanks of the core group, eleven hundred men and women, many the children of warriors who had fought with Gareth against the Witch-King.
If the infantry was the backbone of the force, and the cavalry its arms, and King Gareth and his six friends its head, then next came the legs: a second cavalry force, less armored and with swifter mounts. They were Olwen's men, rangers and scouts trained to act more independently. And behind them came still more infantry, lightly armored spearmen, mostly, serving as protection for the batteries of longbowmen.
On and on it went. More light infantry, battalions of priests with carts full of bandages, caravans of supply wagons, lines of strong men carrying ladders, horses towing rams and beams for siege towers....
Men and women lined the top of the wall, watching the procession as it issued forth from the Vaasan Gate for hours, and when at last those great gates swung closed, the sun was beginning its western descent and more than eight thousand soldiers, the heart and soul of the Army of Bloodstone, marched out to the north.
"It surprises me that Gareth moved so quickly and decisively on this," Riordan Parnell said to Olwen and Kane, the three of them bringing up the rear of Gareth's diamond set between the main ranks of heavy infantry.
"That has always been his strength, as Zhengyi learned," Kane replied.
"To his great dismay," Riordan agreed with a wide grin. "Zhengyi's, I mean," he added when he saw that his two companions were not similarly smiling.
While the others rode, Kane walked, his face as stoic as always, his eyes set with his typical grim determination. On the far side of Kane, on his lightly-armored but large horse, Olwen obviously stewed, and his great black beard was wet around his mouth from chewing his lip.
"Still," Riordan argued, "we have merely a simple piece of paper. It might mean little or nothing at all."
Kane motioned forward with his chin, directing Riordan's gaze to Gareth and Dugald, and the two wizards, Emelyn and Arrayan.
"The half-orc woman was very clear that the castle had returned to life," the monk reminded. "Our apprentice knight and his dark elf cohort meddle with the artifacts of Zhengyi. That is not 'nothing at all. "
"True," Riordan admitted, "but is it sufficient to rouse the Army of Bloodstone and abandon Damara at a time when we have gone to open war against the Citadel of Assassins?"
"The Citadel has been dealt a severe blow - " Kane began to answer, but Olwen cut him short.
"It's worth it all just to get the answers on the death of Mariabronne," he said, a throaty growl behind every word, so that it seemed to his companions as if he might use some ranger magic and turn into a bear at that moment.
It occurred to Riordan that the ranger's horse might not enjoy that experience, but the bard kept the thought to himself - though he did begin composing a song about it.
"Those two were involved, I'm sure," Olwen went on.
"Our information says they were not," said Kane. "Mariabronne scouted forward of his own volition, and contrary to the orders of Ellery. It is a convincing tale, particularly given Mariabronne's reputation for risk-taking."
Olwen snorted and looked away, his meaty hands working the knuckles white by clenching at the reins.
"Well, they are two people, and foolish ones at that," Riordan quickly put in, trying to get the conversation away from a subject that was obviously too painful for his ranger friend. "Even if they are dabbling in Zhengyian magic, as this report from Palishchuk and the words of the dragon sisters might indicate, are they truly such a threat that we should open our flank and our kingdom to the retribution of Knellict and Timoshenko?"
"Nothing is open," Kane assured him. "Spysong's network is fully ready to repel any moves by the Citadel, and if we are needed Emelyn can get us back with a wave of a wand."
"Then why didn't Emelyn just take us six there, leaving Gareth and the soldiers in place?"
"Because this is the opportunity our king has been patiently awaiting, to fully reveal his influence in Vaasa," answered another voice, that of Celedon Kierney. The eavesdropper slowed his horse to bring him in line with the three. "Gareth's aim here is not the castle - or at least, not the castle alone."
Riordan paused and considered that for a moment, then said, "Palishchuk." He glanced at Kane, who nodded knowingly. Olwen gave no indication that he was even listening. "He's showing Palishchuk that they are vital to his designs, and that when they are threatened, he will take that as seriously as if it were Heliogabalus itself under the Zhengyian shadow," Riordan reasoned on the fly.
The looks from Celedon and Kane showed him that he had correctly sorted the puzzle.
"That's why he's the king," Riordan added with a self-deprecating chuckle.
"I expect that by the time we return through the Vaasan Gate, the Kingdom of Bloodstone will be whole, Vaasa and Damara united under the banner of Gareth Dragonsbane," said Celedon.
Suddenly, to Riordan, the day seemed just a bit brighter.