Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy) (73 page)

“But goblin give us gold. Say you give us weapons to
fight goblins, we fight humans instead,” Glumg said.

Brannis was impressed at the point he was managing to
convey.

The goblins paid the ogres off? So it would seem
.

“I make you a better offer. You fight for
me
,
you get freedom. You fight for me, kill goblins, I make you free. No more
cages. You get paid for working. Same as humans. You work, you get gold, you
buy things you like. You come and go when it is not work time. Free,” Brannis
promised.

Duke Pellaton hates me anyway. If he still has a city
left in the morning, he will be needing more than just slaves to populate it.

“Hmm. Deal,” Glumg decided after a moment’s pondering
with his chin cupped in one massive hand.

“Deal,” Brannis removed his gauntlets and extended a
hand through the bars. Glumg had seen the human custom of clasping hands and
tried it for the first time. Brannis hand was engulfed in a stone-like grip of
Glumg, and they made their deal in the custom of free men.

“Juliana, burn through the hinges,” Brannis said over
his shoulder.

He had not watched her sneak up behind him, but he had
caught Glumg’s gaze flicking over to her on occasion, and he had assumed she
would follow him anyway.

“Kohtho ilextiumane veeru,”
Brannis heard from just behind him

He smiled with amusement that he had outguessed her
for once. The hinges glowed red and soft. Putting his gauntlets back on, he
reached out with his good hand, grabbed the door not far from the hinge, and
heaved. The weakened metal gave way, and he stumbled back with the door in his
grasp. Not trying to balance the heavy and awkward piece of iron, he turned and
let it fall away. He hoped the display was impressive enough for his new allies
to respect his strength.

 
Kthooom!

Brannis turned at the sound.

That did not sound right. The cannons were buried
under the falling glacier, and if they had others out there, the snow and rock
would have muffled the sound almost completely. Where was that sound coming
from?

“Hey, everybody. We goin’ do kill goblins. All
goblins. Big boss say it gonna be fun,” Glumg shouted back, beckoning his
fellows with a great sweeping gesture, and the leader of the captive ogres
strode past Brannis out into the undercity.

*
* * * * * * *

Brannis jogged through the city, Juliana in tow,
looking for someone knowledgeable to ask. He had a suspicion about where the
sound of cannon fire could be coming from. He had not seen Jinzan on the
battlefield, and he had begun to suspect the sorcerer wished to use those
cannons to destroy Gehlen’s Obelisk and sabotage the city. The plan seemed
overly complex, especially if, as Mennon claimed, stopping the obelisk’s
function would have no immediate effect on the city. He needed to find out
where the echoes were
emanating
from, though. That would tell him what he needed to know.

The front lines of the running battle were impossible
to define. The goblins were cut off from their senior commanders, and their
organized charges and flanking maneuvers from the battle for the overcity were
gone, replaced by small roving bands of twenty to fifty goblins that were
operating under lesser-ranked commanders. Brannis and Juliana avoided one such
band and sent another scattering. They recognized Brannis and wanted no part of
him, disengaging as quickly as they found and attacked them.

At length, Brannis found Mennon, protected by a
regiment of his father’s personal guards, near the undercity entrance to the
castle. Brannis gave him credit for getting within sight of the battle, even if
his men’s posture was strictly defensive.

“Where is that noise coming from?” Brannis asked.
Twice more they had heard the cannon fire, and with no clearer understanding of
whence the noise came. “Could we be hearing it from the upper mines?”

“Quite possibly. There is a cross-link between the
upper and lower mines from one of the earlier horizontal shafts. The way
between is boarded up, but sound certainly travels down from the upper mines
when we have men working up there,” Mennon replied.

“I thought you said the upper mines were abandoned,”
Brannis said.

“As mines, yes, but we use the old mine shafts for
storage now. There is far more space than we would ever need there, and the
castle is not so large that the extra storage is wasted,” Mennon said.

“What is the quickest way there?” Brannis asked.

“Through the castle, there is an entrance from the
kitchens, cut through into the old mines to use for dry goods and wines,”
Mennon replied.

“Lead the way! All of you,” Brannis said, gesturing to
the duke’s guards, “are coming with me. There is a sorcerer in those mines, and
we have to stop him.”

*
* * * * * * *

Jinzan swept away chunks of stone from the base of the
obelisk with a bristle broom he had found within the warren of tunnels that
constituted the upper mines. The Kadrins had apparently been using the
abandoned shafts as a dumping ground for all manner of excess supplies:
barrels, nails, iron ingots, old books, horse tack, cured meats, and anything
else they did not wish to store elsewhere.

It had taken him far too long to find his way through
it, much of the wasted time coming when he had to climb over clutter and push
things out of his way. He was thankful that the cannon had been miniaturized,
or he would have been delayed far longer maneuvering it through the mess in the
mines.

The cannon and its accessories were back to their
normal size now. Jinzan had managed the enlargement as deftly as he had
shrunken them in the first place, and he could detect no flaws in the aspect of
them. The cannon now was set facing the obelisk from a dozen paces away at the
entrance to the obelisk chamber. The “chamber” was a dead end in the mines, a
widened area with one entrance, and a rather suspect exit—it had an exposed
view of the conduit of the volcano. If it were to ever erupt, the lava would
rise through that very same vertical shaft.

The obelisk was a genius work of ward crafting. Half
again the height of a man and shoulder width on each side, every bit of it was
covered in a single intricate ward with numerous functions all mingled into its
web of runes. It drew aether in from all about it—Jinzan could approach no
closer than a pace without feeling deathly ill, and even three paces away was
uncomfortable—and it undid all magics that approached too close to it. It was
formed of a light grey stone that was unfamiliar to Jinzan and was not native
to the Cloud Wall.

His first few shots had been promising, but the broken
pieces the cannonballs blasted free had slid slowly back toward the rest of the
ward and reformed themselves. Jinzan had tried to keep ahead of it, hoping to
shatter the ward through force faster than it could repair itself, but alone he
could not clean, load, and fire the cannon fast enough, even using telekinesis
to do all the hard work. He had gone back into the mines to find the broom at
that point.

Now, after each blast, he approached as near as he
could and reached out with the broom to brush away the loose pieces. If he
moved them beyond five paces or so from the obelisk, they no longer tried to rejoin
the rest.

It is only a matter of time now
. Jinzan grinned.

 
Kthooom!

Jinzan fired again, and the cannonball cracked a large
chunk free from one corner. The heavy iron sphere ricocheted off and through
the archway that led off into the nothingness of the volcano’s conduit. Runes
were carved all along the archway, even along the floor from one side to the
other, forming a ward that prevented the toxic fumes of the deep earth from
wafting up into the inhabited portion of the mines. The obelisk seemed not to
hinder those wards, despite their proximity. Jinzan suspected they might be
somehow linked.

The fallen chunk of rock was too heavy to yield to the
broom’s bristles, so Jinzan picked up one of the cannonballs in his hand. Using
telekinesis yet again, he “threw” the ball at the loose piece of the obelisk,
releasing the magic before the ward stole the aether from him.
Crack!
The rock split, but both of the two largest chunks—along with the
cannonball—went down the shaft as well, into the vast depths whence came a
faint red glow.

Back to his work, Jinzan loaded the cannon again,
impatience making him forget to clean the gun before firing it again.

 
Kthooom!

Another huge chunk fell loose and did not seem to move
thereafter. Jinzan’s eyes lit. He saw it then, a glint of white wood, the core
of the obelisk: the Staff of Gehlen. Jinzan realized that he had finally done
enough to the ward that it no longer drew against him. He inched carefully
closer and discovered to his glee that there was no further effect on him.

Jinzan drew up a reserve of aether and prepared to
free the staff from its stony prison the way he knew best: with magic.

It is mine!

*
* * * * * * *

 
Kthooom!

Brannis, Juliana, and twelve of the duke’s guards
hustled down the passages of the mine, pausing to recheck their bearings each
time they heard the cannon fire. They were growing close.

When they had arrived at the kitchen entrance to the
mines, Brannis had picked out the dozen men he had taken, and Juliana had taken
advantage of the pause to re-infuse his armor with aether, hopefully enough to
protect him in the event that they managed to find the Megrenn sorcerer and
engage him in combat.

There ought to be a crew of four or five goblins
working that cannon. This should be more than enough men to deal with them.

Brannis had also traded his spear for a sword from one
of the guards he left to defend Mennon—there were only so many men that could
travel swiftly together through the mines, and twelve was already stretching
it.

“This way!” Brannis whispered urgently after the most
recent report.

The group took a left at the next intersection they
came to, based on Brannis’s hearing of the noise.

 Kthooom!

There had been little pause that time between blasts.

Not good. They are rushing. Either they know they are
being pursued, or they are eager about something. Neither option bodes well for
us.

Despite their attempts at swift stealth, a group of
fourteen, mostly in armor, could not avoid detection for long. The last blast
had been close, and Brannis increased his pace, wincing at each step as his
injured arm was jolted. The time for quiet was over, though, and the chase was
on.

BOOM!

There was a great explosion, followed by a clatter of
rock. It sounded distinctly different from the sharp report of the cannons. It
sounded like destructive magic. It had come from just ahead and around the
corner.

Brannis led the way and stopped short when from a
dozen paces away he saw the Megrenn sorcerer standing before an archway that
was lit from the far side with a red glow. The sorcerer was a ghost from
another world. It was Denrik Zayne, younger looking perhaps, and sporting
longer hair, but definitely the pirate he had come to know. In his hands, he
was holding a long white staff, topped with a pair of stylized wooden wings,
cut at sharp angles.

“Kyrus!” Jinzan gasped, eyes wide in shock. The staff
leveled toward him. “Stay back!”

“Hello, Captain Zayne,” Brannis replied evenly,
smirking. “You are caught. There is no escape now. Drop the staff and
surrender, and I shall guarantee your safety.”

“Kyrus, you were not lying after all. You
are
just a brigand. No, I think I shall not surrender. With the Staff of Gehlen, I
can fight my way out now,” Jinzan said.

The sorcerer seemed much the same man Kyrus knew from
Tellurak, perhaps a bit less reserved, but the voice, the manner, everything
seemed to Brannis that this was Denrik dressed for a masquerade.

“Not with a demon warlock outside. He would never let
you escape, and I do not think it would be wise to draw against him,” Brannis
said.

His companions seemed ill-inclined to move past him
toward the Megrenn sorcerer their grand marshal parleyed with.

“The only deal I will make is this. I will spare your
life here, and you will spare me
there
. Understood? I know my predicament
all too well now,” Jinzan bargained. “We can discuss this later. But for now …

“Fetru oglo daxgak sevdu wenlu,”
Jinzan began, leveling the staff at Brannis and his
companions.

Brannis reacted instinctively. He did not recognize
the spell, but he understood Jinzan’s intent all too clearly. He dove and drove
Juliana to the ground an instant before the air erupted in lightning. He heard
the sizzle of flesh and felt a tingle along his back where the armor was
probably saving him from a similar fate. He checked to see that Juliana was
untouched by the lightning and then turned to see what Jinzan was doing as the
duke’s guards fell dead all about him.