Court Wizard (Spellmonger Series: Book 8) (80 page)

Sometimes, Pentandra reflected as she walked back to her office, all it took to bring a group of powerful women together in consensus was one utterly irritating and unredeemable cunt.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Plots & Preparations

Pentandra began looking forward to the Spring Wildflower Festival despite herself.  

It was hard not to, as the preparations started to take shape in town and in the palace around her.  Everyone else was genuinely anticipating the festival, and the season was cooperating by producing brilliant blossoms in the fields and hedgerows around the town for the holiday.  

The snows long melted, the rains starting to fade, Spring was coming to the Wilderlands with a belligerent vengeance after a long, cold, snowy winter. The fruit trees burst into flower with robust abundance, filling the town with a faint, sweet scent that occasionally cut through the odor of the sewers, the animals, the woodsmoke, and garbage.  

Along with the flowers, unfortunately, came an abundance of
pollen
.  While the season conspired to produce its most brilliant gifts, the residue from the blossoms filled the sky with a yellow haze every evening, the pollen was so thick.  A bright yellow coating covered every surface, and while many enjoyed the beauty of the flowers, many others did so through a haze of mucus and congestion.  

Even the open sewers of Vorone were decorated with the stuff, turning the ubiquitous river of filth running through the center of town into a deceptively gay golden path.  While the spring rains were frequent enough to rinse the worst of the pollen from Vorone’s cobbled streets every few days, the plants seemed determined to make up for the loss by producing yet more of the insidious yellow dust.

Pentandra didn’t mind the pollen – she had spells for that – but when she looked at the sewer covered with bright golden powder, it seemed to reflect her suspicions about the entire Wildflower Festival event.  

What mire might be hidden beneath Ishi’s thin mantle of misdirection, she wondered?  

From what she knew about the mythology of the goddess, Ishi schemed like Duin thundered and Huin worked the land.  It was part of her essential nature.  And rarely did those schemes end well for the mortals involved.  While that made great romantic poetry and good religious instruction, when
you
were the one who happened to be entangled in one of the goddess’ schemes, the allure of myth lost some of its appeal.  

Pentandra was having mixed feelings about the matter.  So many of the townsfolk seemed excited about the coming festival, especially after the riots on Briga’s Day.  They were marking it as the first true important social event since the funerals of Their Graces.  

The woodland theme of the holiday was embraced by a town that too often felt the Sealords had advanced their culture over the rustics in the north.  The idea of a masque was likewise greeted with particular excitement.  Despite their attempts to keep the business of the Woodsmen and the Wood Owls secret, the mystery of the apparent criminals had sprouted a romantic attachment to them.  A few enterprising merchants were already making good coin constructing masks of willow, cloth, and glue for civilians who had taken up the fashion of masks.  

The festival was a good thing.  Pentandra knew that,
intellectually.
 

While she had no real desire to see Lady Pleasure prosper – she found the woman obnoxious and hells-bent on injecting her influence throughout the court, whenever possible -- she also appreciated the massive effort she was deploying on the festival’s behalf.  As it was dedicated to Ishi, in her guise as the Maiden of Spring, Pentandra found the dedication just a little self-serving.  Her girls – the “maidens”, as they were being called now in the town – seemed to be
everywhere
, running errands and organizing events in between flirting outrageously with every man they saw.  

Yet Pentandra could not fault their industry.  Far from trying to pawn their organizational responsibilities off on the men they seduced, the girls seemed determined that the event would not only come to pass, but that it would be remembered for years for its novelty and excellence.  

They were at the palace before daybreak, when the gates opened, and many ended up sleeping over (in a variety of beds) if they were caught working on the festival after the gates were locked for the night.  From what Pentandra had seen, Lady Pleasure’s maidens had arranged for ample entertainments, security, special vendors, and had even organized many of the non-military contests associated with the event, from the beauty contest to the basketry competition.

The archery competition was particularly important.  Count Salgo had been despairing over the number and types of troops that protected the town, and while he had finally pronounced the royal garrison “adequate” after sacking dozens of lackluster soldiers, and he’d made a stab at building up the palace guard, there were still
far
too few trained and armed men at his command for his comfort.  

One of the efforts during the popular spring festival, therefore, was a grand archery competition, opened to all, with relatively impressive prizes for the difficult contest.  That was exceedingly popular with the Voroni.  While the nobility were a little irritated that their traditional sport, jousting, would not be offered at the festival, they had to concede that the novelty of a grand archery competition was intriguing.  

It helped that the Wilderlords did not generally share the dismissive attitude of their southern peers when it came to the art of the bow.  There were Castali and Remeran lords who had never touched one and sneered at them as ignoble weapons of the peasantry.  Whereas, just about every man north of Gilmora could shoot a bow, and the powerfully laminated Wilderlands bow was nearly six feet long when strung.  

Count Salgo was offering additional incentives than mere prizes for the winner.  Every man who presented a marshal or knight with a strung bow, extra bowstring, and a quiver of a score or more of arrows was given a half an ounce of silver on the spot.  If he had either armor or helm he was gifted a brand-new steel spearhead and a lamb, in addition.  

The contest was designed to contribute to the development of a more martial commonfolk, as the Duke had directed.  Not everyone was happy with that, even if the southernmost barons of the Wilderlands had grudgingly accepted it as necessary, under the circumstances.  

That was contrary to the cultural ways of the Narasi nobles, who saw the monopoly on violence as largely the domain of the military aristocracy.  The laws of the various gods assured the right of a free man to arm and defend himself, and be called to service in a time of war, but the duty of defense fell squarely to the jealous warrior class.  Preparing weapons, even ones so meek as spears and bows, assisted the common people to see that they, and not just the knights, were responsible for their safety.  

That was a scandalous idea in the Riverlands, where peasant uprisings and revolts were more common and the restrictions on the peasantry having access to arms was far heavier and more enforced.  

Here in the Wilderlands arming every human able to swing a sword against the inevitable future goblin invasion was just wisdom in action.  That it also helped stabilize the realm and give it order was a boon.  There continued to be a regular chorus of chivalry who dismissed peasant warriors and lobbied instead for more armor, larger horses and an emphasis on knights, but the invasion had taught the Alshari peasants that waiting to be rescued by your liege lord was a poor strategy for having grandchildren.

That was part of the argument within the court
against
inviting the 3
rd
Commando to Vorone, as well, and one that cut across Wilderlord and Sealord party lines.  The military aristocracy disliked the idea of soldiers largely of common birth – and, more importantly, who did not see a heavy cavalry charge by a traditional and institutionalized aristocracy, as the logical course and ultimate goal of any battle – coming to Vorone and disrupting the frayed social order any further.

Some of the more ignorant and uneducated voices in court also feared the 3
rd
Commando would inevitably use any power or position it found itself with to take over the duchy entirely if they were invited in.  Though this sounded like a fanciful idea at best, as anyone familiar with the actual use of power in the duchy would quickly realize just how pointless attempting to impose order and control over it was, it nonetheless became a common argument against inviting the 3rd Commando to Vorone.

Others feared that the mercenaries would act as an occupying army thrice the size of the garrison and eat the town down to the field stubble.  Folks with an understanding of finance did not see any way the treasury could pay for such a large army for any length of time, and worried that unpaid mercenaries might be forced to take control of the fragmentary duchy over back pay owed.

But no one wanted to turn away help lightly, especially not with all of the recent hostile activity being reported north in the Penumbra.  

When Arborn arrived back from his trip a few days later, his lieutenant Jerics and his best Kasari rangers accompanying him, he looked worn and nearly defeated.  News of his demeanor upon his return quickly circulated through the palace, and soon the wild rumors involved everything from an unexpected encounter with a dragon in the wilderness to a tussle with a brigade of hobgoblins.

The truth of the matter was rather more dire.

“It was
undead
, Penny,” Arborn confided to her, when they had accomplished enough of a reunion to speak again.  “Cold to the touch and no heartbeat.  But
smart
,” he added, sourly.

“There was just the one?”

“It was leading the others,” he said, quietly.  “And leading them well.  They were somehow its inferiors.  They all wore a man’s body, but whatever was inside them had power far beyond what a mere mortal can inspire.  It even spoke with us a bit, taunting and laughing, unconcerned about the danger we posed to it.”

“Did it use magic?” she asked, cautiously.  

“Only of the most elementary sort, apart from the spell that animated it.  It seemed to delight in swordplay more than I can imagine any wizard.  Perhaps the . . .
host
was a knight, at one time.”

“If not mortal, is the
soul
human, at least?”

“I do not
think
so,” her Kasari husband said, shaking his head.  “It did not speak or react as a human would.  Perhaps gurvani, perhaps Alka Alon, perhaps something else.  But not . . .
human
.”

“Yet not immortal, either,” she pointed out.  “You slew it.”

“Only by cutting off its head,” he admitted.  “And only with Jerics’ help.  It was filled with arrows and slashed to the point of staining the ground with its blood or . . . whatever fluid runs in its veins, now.  Yet it felt no pain, no sorrow, no regret.  It did not slow at all.  It did not stop until its head hit the ground.  And five of my men lay wounded,” he added.

“So who created it?  Certainly not those gurvani shamans,” she ventured.

“No, though they have oft employed undead in battle,” he sighed.  “But never like this one.  Not this smart, this fast, this resilient in battle.  Not intelligent enough to speak.”

“So who?  Sheruel?”

“You would know better than I,” shrugged her husband, glancing at her.  “If he is the one creating them, though, one has to wonder why did he wait so long? With such warriors at his command he’d be halfway to Merwyn by now!”

“That suggests it
isn’t
Sheruel,” Pentandra pointed out.  “And since you’re certain Korbal the Demon God is revived and active, I’d hate to propose someone else when Korbal is just the kind of crazy undead Alka Alon renegade who might see it as his mission to improve the general quality of undead in the Duchies.”  

“It does seem more like his style, according to the legends,” Arborn admitted.  

“But that still doesn’t answer the question of why Shereul even
needs
his assistance.  He still has great legions of gurvani at his command. Or why he helped Korbal escape from his tomb.”

“He seeks allies who hate the humani and the Alka Alon as much as he does.  Korbal is his top priority as a result.  I learned much from Ithalia,” he confided.

“Such as?” she asked, curiously.  She could never get enough of the Alka Alon’s culture, even as she was growing more suspicious of their motives.  Most of the near-immortal little beings had little care in return, but she took note when the two races decided to work together on anything.   Like most magi, she was a professional admirer.                 

But that professional familiarity also left her open to the darker shadows of the Alkan culture.  Their long history was ancient before humanity ever came to Callidore, and even a cursory inspection revealed tragedy and betrayal about as often as in human legends.

“But . . . that wasn’t
Korbal
in that body . . . was it?”

“No,” assured Arborn.  “I believe it was one of his retainers, not the Demon God himself.  A henchman who accompanied his master into the afterlife, and was returned a body as his reward for his loyalty.  What he was doing that far away from the Scarred Lands is a mystery, and unlikely a good one.  Nor do I think he was alone.  They are . . .
searching
for something.  Or some
one
.  On behalf of their dark master.”