Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (68 page)

Xenos peered into the smoke for several moments before
turning his back on the devastation.  The last guard, unsteady, struggled to
his feet.  Fear bubbled through his aura.

“Wh-What the h-h-hells was…”

His words were abruptly cut off when Xenos pierced his
throat with razor fingernails.  He crushed the man’s windpipe before tossing
the body aside to rest with the others.

New noises could be heard.  Shouts rising from the
corridor, no doubt originating from alarmed guards stationed further away. 
Councilor Xenos raised his malformed hand to his face.  He scored deep wounds
across his forehead and down the right side.  Before the blood could drip, his
hands, legs, and body rippled.  Flesh undulated before settling back into the form
of an ordinary man.

Xenos dropped to the scorched ground several feet
closer to the corridor than the dead guards and waited.  Soon enough, shocked
men swarmed the gardens.

“By all that is sacred…”

“Sweet gods, what happened here?”

“Jerome!  Ah, no!  He’s dead!”

“Someone check the rest of the bodies!”

Hands probed Xenos.  He elicited a weak groan.

“Hey!  This one’s alive!  Help me with him!”

“It’s the councilor.”  New hands gently patted his
cheeks.  “Councilor Xenos, sir?  Can you hear me?”

He opened his eyes, finding a guard captain gazing at
him in concern.  “Yes.  I hear you.”

“Councilor, sir, can you tell me what happened?”

“Assassins!  Assassins from the far lands, sent to
kill the king!”  The guards gasped, wide-eyed.  “And these brave souls,” Xenos
gestured at the four dead guards.  “I owe them my life.  They came between
myself and them, taking a magical blast meant for me!  Thank the gods their
second attack exploded in their own faces!”

“Sir, is the king still in danger?”  Without waiting
for the councilor’s reply, the guard captain ordered half his men to run to the
king’s side.

“That I don’t know, captain.  But what I do know is
this.”  Xenos stepped away from his supporting grasp, looking furious as he
scanned the eastern skies.  “General Adrian has abysmally failed in his mission
to subdue the far lands.  Measures must be taken to rectify this.”

Full of patriotic indignation, Xenos strode away from
the stunned palace guards.

As soon as Seneschal Locke departed to order Hilliard’s
quarters prepared for an injured man, the future baron addressed his guards. 
“I imagine this is our moment of parting.”  He wobbled on his feet.

“You should be sitting down,” Landon chided.  He
gently pushed against Hilliard’s good shoulder until the young man eased onto a
yellow-cushioned chair in the hallway.  “Your full recovery is still a distance
off.  Don’t overstrain your body.”

“Yeah,” Kerwin added from the other side.  “A month of
road riding hardly qualifies as bed rest.”

Hilliard sighed deeply, a habit he had adopted during
the journey back to Spirratta.  The first two days of travel had been hardest
on him, leaving him near delirium by the second nightfall.  By then they had
journeyed far enough from the city to feel safer.  They stopped at a small town
to allow Hilliard time to recover.  His condition worsened alarmingly.  Marik
had run down the local herbman for help, and after three days their charge
improved to where he could resume the journey.

Despite the slower pace they set, their return trip
lasted only two days longer than their initial ride to Thoenar.  Without the
hoards clogging the roads from thousands of people making a pilgrimage to the
capitol for the tournament, they rode a smoother pace.

“I will have time enough now,” Hilliard returned
Kerwin’s remark.  “In fact with most of the other fosterlings still at the
tournament, the daily routine will be peaceful.”

“For the next fortnight, perhaps,” Dietrik countered. 
“Most of your mates must already be halfway home.  The last event was eightdays
ago.”

Hilliard shrugged, a motion that made him wince
momentarily when his bandages tightened.  “One will remain in Thoenar, by the
king’s side.  I wish I knew who claimed the victory.”

Marik winced as well in sympathy.  “I’m sure we’ll hear
sooner or later.  We would know already if we hadn’t failed so badly.”

“I am still alive, am I not?  You have served your
duty to my father.”

“Not the way he paid us for.  You won’t get another
shot at the position of Arm for three years.”  Marik bowed his head to
apologize.  “I know how much it meant to you.”

“Man plans; the gods laugh,” Hilliard responded. 
“Yes, I am disappointed, but the fault is hardly yours.  Though I might have
won through the jousting, I doubt I would have prevailed with the sword.”

“You’re not a bad hand with yours,” Kerwin observed.

“A fair hand,” Hilliard admitted without boasting,
“but many of the other competitors could easily put me to shame.  I will spend
these three years improving my swordsmanship, so that when next I compete, I
will make a showing fit for the Arm!”

“Don’t neglect your archery,” Landon admonished with a
casual grin.  “You need to advance through the preliminaries before you can
fight for the prize.”

“Of course,” Hilliard returned the grin with a broad
smile.  “I have learned much during this journey, and you have given me still
more to consider.  I thank you for your service.”  He reached out, firmly
grasping each of their hands in turn.

“You are a decent chap, for a noble,” Dietrik
commented, then laughed.  “Do not allow your peers to shame you into becoming
one of them.”

Hilliard shook his head.  “I hold to my values and the
moral path.  Thus will I ever do.”

They left Duke Tilus’ manor, each nurturing fond
thoughts for the young man, Marik in particular wondering why so few of the
nobles seemed to warrant the designation.

*        *        *        *        *

Dispirited destitutes watched travelers on the road
with flat eyes.  Their expressions were dead, their bodies wasting.  Many
expected nothing and would find an offered coin as surprising as a sword
through the gut.  Few pleaded with the Galemarans who passed them on the
Southern Road.  Whole families sat under trees, nowhere to go, no shelter to be
had, their gazes fixed, eyes reflecting horrors that still haunted them.  Men and
women fell to malnutrition on what meager food they managed to scratch together
each day.  The children were hardest to ignore.

Marik could not bear to look at them, but turning
away, writing them off as life’s misfortunes, seemed terribly heartless.  He
knew the disquiet he felt stemmed from his own prosperity.  True, he could only
claim a cot in the midst of a barracks, a closet hardly overflowing with
clothing and knickknacks, a drawer with an assortment of coins, and his sword,
as long as Sennet did not demand its return.  Even so little was far beyond
what these poor refugees could claim.  His life in Kingshome marked the success
of his chosen path, and the homeless vagrants around him forcibly displayed a
future that might yet be his own.

His companions might have felt similar unease, which
could account for the continual conversation while they rode.  Marik found it
easier to pass the refugees without acknowledging them if he were in the midst
of speaking to his friends.  They relived stories from the battles they had
fought together, or recounted tales from their individual pasts.  Talk of what
had been or what would be passed between them with far greater frequency than
usual.

“But that would require a whole extra wing on the
side!” Kerwin explained.  “I love the idea of it, but I’m already at around
thirteen golds just on the cost of materials.”

“Holy gods, Kerwin!” Marik exclaimed.  “Wood enough to
rebuild all of Kingshome probably wouldn’t cost that!”

“I’m not talking about wood alone.  Wood’s cheap in
Galemar,” Kerwin returned.  “But how are you planning to hold it all together? 
Spit and toenail shavings?  Nails might be apprentice blacksmith work, but a
whole barrel full can get pricey.  Then the iron T-brackets for the framing
posts will set me back—”

“T-brackets?  You are hardly building a bloody palace,
mate!”

“No, but I am putting together a building four floors
tall.  My architect says you can’t put all that extra weight on the lower
framework without strengthening the supports.”

“Four?”  Dietrik sounded incredulous.  “Last I heard
you were considering adding a third!”

“I finally decided on that after I made up my mind not
to expand the first floor any further.  Originally I wanted to build an add-on
to the side for the rooms Ilona wants, but she had ideas of her own.”  The
gambler shook his head in exasperation.  “You make a decision for her, and she
grinds you into the dirt!”

“What did the lass have objection to?”

“What didn’t she?  First,” he told them, holding up
one finger, “she explained to me how she
doesn’t
need ‘merely’ three or
four rooms.  She’s only bringing three women with her to open her new location,
but she wants a whole gods cursed floor!  Then she doesn’t want any space on
the ground floor because my inn isn’t inside the ‘civilized’ districts of the
Inner Circle.  She wants to be upstairs with a dozen peacekeepers stationed on
the steps to keep anyone out who she doesn’t want.”

“I understand she intends to be selective regarding
her clientele,” Landon offered.

“She knows her business,” Marik asserted with a hint
of pride.

“Her business?” Dietrik leered back.  “I thought you
said your sweet never—”

“Watch it, you,” Marik growled, eyes narrowed, cutting
off Dietrik’s rib.  Dietrik shied back defensively, hands raised.

“Anyway, she wants the whole floor.  At the moment
I’ve got it divided in half on the plans.  I’ll give her the half she wants and
see how she does.  I can always renovate the top floor so she has the entire
deal, if it works out.”

Marik secretly thought Kerwin’s plan would meet with a
slender, brown-eyed obstruction.  Dietrik asked, “So I take it you have finally
settled on a design.”

“I can’t very well trot all the way back to Thoenar to
make changes, can I?”

“No, I suppose not.  I only wondered if you had
obtained a complete design, considering our sudden departure.”

“He was working out the latest figures when I told him
I needed it done by next morning.  I had to listen to his endless complaining,
but he already had most of it finished.”

The last days in Thoenar.  Most of them had lingering
business to tend to before their departure, each scurrying around the city. 
Kerwin coerced his final plans from his architect.  Dietrik went out on his
own, presumably to finish whatever shopping he had in mind.  Landon stayed with
the sleeping Hilliard seeing as he had little else to occupy him.  Marik,
seeing no sense in avoiding a chore merely because he found it unpleasant, had
returned to the palace to speak with Celerity.

He had needed to know what further information the court
mages had uncovered regarding his father.  Winning his way through to her had
required the entire day.  His disruption annoyed her yet she had nodded when he
explained he would be departing the city within the next day if Hilliard’s
condition permitted.

“No, Tru has not been able to summon your father’s
image,” she informed him while they stood in a great hallway within the palace
proper.  “This has vexed him considerably.  We are at a loss.”

“Can’t a mage shield against scrying, or prevent the
working from finding him?  I think I remember that.”

“Any user of magic can,” she nodded, “but he must
first be aware of the scrye.  Detecting it is very difficult and usually only
possible if a detection spell is functioning.”

“They were only sitting by a fire.”

“So either this man in red set a detection spell in
place after settling in for the night, or he is gifted so strongly in his art
that he sensed your scrye.”

“I don’t like the way that sounds.”

“Nor do we.  Reports from Tullainia paint a grim
picture.  If this man is involved, then we must discover all we can of his
intentions.”

Marik studied his boots, arms folded.  “How can you do
that if you can’t scrye his image?  That’s on the assumption father is still
anywhere near him!”

“That much I think we can assume,” Celerity revealed
with a nod.  “If Rail were simply dead, Tru would have uncovered that long
ago.  The fact we can’t find him argues strongly that he is under protective
spells set by this red-eyed man.  This worries me greatly.”

“Why?  You said a mage could protect against the
working.”

“These kinds of protections, under any class of magic
user, are not overly difficult, even if they aren’t simple either.  But
maintaining the spells constantly, day and night both, for day upon day…the
effort should be staggering.  I set members of the enclave to researching the
different spells possible under each class.  None have found a spell simple
enough to maintain for so long with little effort.”

“We already know he must be a powerful mage to sense
my first scrye.”

Celerity gazed back on him.  “There is a difference
between being gifted strongly and possessing the strength of ten.”

The strength of ten.  That comment made Marik consider
his personal creation, a working designed to bless him with astounding physical
power.  “Then he must have figured out a new working on his own.  Some new way
of achieving the same effect without the energy drain.”

“That might be it,” Celerity agreed.  “In magic there
are countless possible ways to achieve the same end.  Every class of magic has
a method to light a fire, but each does so in a different manner than every
other.  Even within a single classification there are multiple methods for
using one’s talent to achieve the same effect.”

“So that must be it,” he started to say when the
graying woman ushered him a step back.  He looked to see who entered the
hallway important enough for her to make way for, given that people had been
streaming around them continuously during their conversation.

An obvious aide, younger than Marik, carried a satchel
from which protruded scrolls and the white tip of a fluffy quill.  He followed
a striking figure clad in midnight blue.  The strong, squared features on this
man, old enough to have grown sons, radiated a charismatic presence.  Clearly he
meant to continue past to his destination, until Celerity called to him.

“Ah, Lord Orburn.  Meeting with the advisory council
today?”

The man stopped.  His appearance suggested he found it
a pleasure to pass the time with King Raymond’s enclave chief.  “Lady Celerity,
indeed you guess correctly.  We must reach a resolution lest our people resume
their bloodshed.  Would that your tournament had fallen on a different year so
we could devote our undivided attentions to the business at hand.  Time
proceeds as it wills.”

“You have already heard our position.”

“Yes.  It is unfortunate, as such demands would leave
Nolier vulnerable to aggression and my people as little more than serfs
scratching in the dirt.  Your council must accept that unreasonable stances like
this only strain our diplomatic relations.”

“Diplomacy means give
and
take, my lord. 
Unless Nolier backs down on its stances, you hasten the likelihood of renewing
the war.”