Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga) (52 page)

“A support beam and some paneling kept you from being crushed. The sword wound you took was deep, and you were injured further by the collapse. You lost blood while we searched for you.”

“You saved my life.”

Penhallow shrugged. “You’ve served me well.”

“I think I need training with a sword if I’m to survive what Donderath’s become,” Connor said tiredly. One of the
talishte
pressed a wineskin into his hand, and Connor savored the
wine, realizing that he was actually hungry as well as thirsty. He looked around at the ruined room. What had been a comfortable salon was now a charred wreck. On the other side of the room, two more
talishte
worked to clear wreckage from one of the room’s doorways. Three other vampires awaited Penhallow’s orders. None of the men were familiar to Connor.

“What now?” Connor asked.

If Penhallow felt any loss over his ruined salon, he did not show it. Connor wondered how many such hiding places Penhallow had throughout Donderath, and perhaps beyond its borders. “Your friends will head to Mirdalur eventually. We’ll meet them there, but before we do, I have a few suspicions to follow up on.”

While Penhallow’s men had cleared an exit, Connor fashioned a crutch for himself. He had no desire to be carried all the way to Mirdalur, even if the weight of a full-grown man was little burden to one of the
talishte
. He tested the crutch and tried to stand. Connor’s balance faltered, and he put down his left foot to steady himself, sending pain arcing up his leg. With a grimace, he experimented with the crutch until he could move with a reasonable approximation of his normal walking speed. That would still be much slower than the
talishte
could move, but it was a start. Exhausted, he sat down on a pile of rubble to wait. The cave-in had collapsed parts of several other escape tunnels. They were stranded until the guards could dig through enough rubble to find a tunnel in good enough shape to chance using it for their exit.

“How did you avoid being crushed yourselves?” Connor asked Penhallow.

“Quick reflexes help, although not all my men were so lucky,” Penhallow replied. He had stripped to the waist, abandoning the shreds of his silk shirt. His fine brocade pants were
bloodstained and covered with dust. Dried blood and rock dust caked his pale chest, the blood a reminder of wounds that had already healed. Connor eyed the amount of blood and frowned.
Just how badly were the “survivors” injured? Badly enough to kill a mortal, I’d bet. The ones that died must have been crushed beyond repair.

Connor had always figured Penhallow for being a typical noble: aloof, unwilling to do anything that smacked of physical labor unless it involved hunting or riding. Yet Penhallow bent to the task at hand alongside his bodyguards. Stripped of his finery, he had the build of an athlete or a laborer—lean-muscled and whipcord strong.
What’s his story? I wonder. Was he born noble? Or could a clever man acquire both title and fortune if he had several lifetimes to work on it?
Musing about Penhallow’s origins took Connor’s mind off his aching leg. After the example set by Penhallow, Connor felt chagrined not to be taking part in the excavation, but he could find no way of doing so without further injuring himself.

Instead, he picked his way around the rubble, scavenging weapons. His own sword lay in pieces. He found a serviceable replacement among the weapons of the dead and made a pile of the daggers, swords, and crossbows that were not too damaged to use. Penhallow’s
talishte
might be confident in their personal strength, but Reese’s men had obviously seen an advantage in matching strength with weaponry. And as the puny mortal in the room, Connor found that the pile of weapons rekindled something akin to hope.

T
HE MOON WAS BRIGHT OVERHEAD WHEN
Penhallow’s guards finally opened a passage to the outside. “Can you walk?” Penhallow said with a glance toward Connor.

“If you don’t expect me to run,” Connor replied. His leg throbbed, his body ached all over, and he wanted nothing so much as a few belts of whiskey to numb the pain.

“We’ll find a horse for you,” Penhallow said in a voice that did not accept argument. “It will slow us down less than having you pass out or hobble across Donderath.”

Connor chafed at feeling like a damsel in distress as he waited for one of the bodyguards to return with a horse. His pride demanded that he make a show of swinging up to the saddle without assistance. In addition to his looted sword, Connor had chosen a crossbow with a quiver of quarrels and two lethal-looking daggers. He would not go down easily if it came to another fight.

They rode in military formation, with crossbows at the ready. Connor thought the
talishte
actually looked nervous, something he had not thought possible.
How has Donderath
changed to make the undead afraid to travel by night?
he wondered.

Connor looked around. He had never thought about what the conflagration and the death of magic had done beyond the city walls. Now, even by moonlight, the damage took his breath away.

The trees that still stood looked scraggly and diseased, as if locusts had feasted on them. The rock fences that crosshatched the countryside lay in disarray, resembling more a tumble of stones than any actual barrier. Dams had broken, washing away everything downstream. The mighty aqueducts that carried water to the city were broken in multiple places, leaving behind only dry, useless stone arches. Many of the thatched-roof homes had burned. Sod houses had fared better, but even buildings made of stone stood roofless and charred.

They rode in silence for most of a candlemark. Connor possessed none of the
talishte
’s acute senses, but he sensed that the quiet night held more danger than he could see. In the distance, he saw the lantern light of a small village. As they grew closer, Connor realized that a high stockade surrounded the village and that the wall of close-set, pointed logs looked recently built. Ahead, there was a shadow across the road, and a few dark figures were milling about.

The group of riders slowed. At Penhallow’s signal, they lowered their weapons, but kept their swords and crossbows in hand just in case the sentries were not as peaceable.

“Ho there! What business be you about in the middle of the night?” A warning tone colored the greeting. A large tree trunk blocked most of the road. Marshland on either side kept riders from going around. The men who had created the roadblock looked equally well armed as their own party, and stood with weapons at the ready, eyeing them suspiciously.

“Our business is our own,” Penhallow answered smoothly. “We have no quarrel with you. Let us pass, and we’ll be on our way. We want nothing from you or your village.”

The man who hailed them barked a laugh. “That’s right nice of you, but we be wanting something from you. Your gold and your horses, if you please, since you’ve got no wenches with you.”

“No.” Penhallow’s voice was toneless.

Connor saw the armed men raise their crossbows. In the split second before he could react, something swept him from his mount. Connor slid to the ground, grateful to have fallen on his good leg. Overhead, he heard the thud of crossbows. His mind registered the importance of the sound a second later. The brigands had drawn first, but Penhallow’s men had fired first, in the heartbeat between the brigands’ motion and when they could twitch their fingers to loose their arrows.

“You can get up now,” Penhallow said laconically.

Connor staggered to his feet and dusted himself off, then stared. Every one of the dark-clad men lay dead on the ground, quarrels protruding from their chests. Two of Penhallow’s guards bent to the task of rolling the huge tree trunk out of the roadway, something Connor bet had taken a dozen mortals to place. His heart was pounding although the battle had lasted mere seconds.

“What in Raka was that about?” Fear and unspent anger found vent in Connor’s voice.

The two men finished clearing away the tree and swung up to their mounts. Penhallow afforded Connor a glance. “Look around you. This is what the world is like without magic.”

“I don’t understand.”

Penhallow’s arm swung in a shallow arc to indicate the countryside around them. “At court, you saw only the great magics, though small magics were always around.”

“And now it’s gone.” Connor supplied, still at a loss to understand the ambush. He swung back up onto his horse.

“A year ago, these were fields, not marshlands. Magic drained the water away, and magic bound the dams and levees together that kept the land from flooding. When the magic died, the wardings and charms went with it. People and livestock died in such numbers, one might have thought a plague struck. In a way, it did. Nature came back with a vengeance, and there was no one to turn to for help.”

“Except the
talishte
?” Connor asked.

Penhallow’s expression was pained. “There are not enough of my kind to prevail against those odds, even if mortals would trust us enough to seek us out. And few of the vampire lords would bother to intervene in mortal affairs. They are content to sit back, watch the situation sort itself out, and adjust accordingly.”

“And you?” Connor’s tone was more of a challenge than he intended. Penhallow did not reply immediately, and Connor wondered if he had given offense.

“The last time the magic died, in another place long ago, I withdrew and waited to see what would come of it. The result was not to my liking. I will not make the same mistake again,” Penhallow said. There was steel in his voice, and Connor wondered just how badly wrong the last situation had gone. Bad enough, obviously, to stir Penhallow to hedge his bets this time around.

They rode on, leaving the corpses of the dead brigands where they lay. “I still don’t understand the highwaymen,” Connor said, anxious for a change of subject. “Were they from that village?”

Penhallow shrugged. “Probably. Without law, the survivors form armed camps. First, they loot the dead, and then they
horde what they can steal from the living. Over time, the strongest and most ruthless men become warlords, and feud among themselves. After a few decades, or longer, a victor emerges and is crowned king.” Penhallow wasn’t looking at Connor as he spoke. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, but something in his gaze gave Connor to know that Penhallow looked out over centuries, and not at the road in front of them.

“I don’t understand how the magic played a role in that,” Connor said.

Penhallow seemed to return from wherever his thoughts had strayed. “Magic, large and small, kept the peace in a hundred little ways.” He chuckled at Connor’s look of amazement. “You weren’t supposed to be aware of it, but we could feel it in our blood. Magic assured decent crop yields, to keep the people from getting too hungry. Hungry people revolt. Mages also made sure there was enough wine and ale for all. Hedge witches and sorcerers alike could use a flicker of magic here and there to diffuse hot tempers, avert riots, make it impossible to raise an angry mob.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t a perfect system. But the Long Peace that spanned the reigns of King Merrill and his father was no accident, nor was it all due to wise and beneficent kings,” he said with a hint of bitterness.

“And no one noticed?” Connor asked, outraged. “The bloody mages were mucking around with our minds and no one objected?”

Penhallow’s smile was mirthless. “It was hardly a conspiracy, or at least it was an open conspiracy. Tell me truly; were you totally unaware of the small magics around you on a daily basis?”

Connor stopped to think. Anger shifted into confusion. “Not completely, although I don’t have a wink of magic myself.
I knew the cooks used it to help cakes rise, nursemaids used it to soothe squalling babies, and farriers used a twitch of magic to steady the horses while they worked. I’d heard about the way farmers, shopkeepers, and tradesmen used a flicker of magic here and there, and I appreciated when the distillers, vintners, or brewers used it to keep us from running out of drinks.”

Penhallow nodded without looking at him. “Did you mind the magic, so long as it kept you from being inconvenienced?”

Chagrined, Connor let out a sigh. “No.” He paused. “And I had an inkling that there were more powerful mages who helped put down riots or scouted to help the war. Now I know more than I wanted to know about what a mage could do in battle.”

They rode in silence after that. Connor mulled over the conversation with Penhallow, disturbed by a perspective that, while unexpected, felt like the truth.
I’ve been blind.

At Penhallow’s signal, they quickened their pace. Just as the horizon was growing lighter, Penhallow veered from the road, heading through a forest down a well-worn lane toward a large, walled house grand enough to be a lord’s manor and secure enough to be a fortress. “We’ve arrived,” Penhallow murmured.

Before Connor could ask any questions, a dozen men emerged from the forest. Even in the waning light, Connor could see that these men were well armed, and unlike their previous attackers, stayed far enough back to avoid being the target of arrows.