Mystic: A Book of Underrealm (22 page)

“You do mean for me to fight, then,” said Loren. “I will not, nor will I leave Annis and Gem to their fate. Or have you forgotten them in pursuit of your quest?”

“Of course we will not abandon them,” said Jordel. “I said before they do not deserve to be left here in the midst of a war and that the Yerrin girl may be of great use.”

“You speak ever of use and little of safety.” Loren saw Vivien from the corner of her eye. The woman studied her with grim amusement and stoked her temper further. “I cannot hope to guess at your grand purpose, but you seem to look upon the rest of us as pieces to play against some opponent.”

“I know you have plans and mighty dreams,” said Jordel. “Come with me but a while, and you will find them closer than ever—almost within your grasp. And I pledge to you this—I will never ask you to do violence. Please, Loren. This is the best chance for you, Annis, and Gem. I doubt not your resilience, but it cannot hurt to have powerful allies.”

Loren felt torn. The Mystic seemed a mighty friend indeed, and if he could promise care for Annis and Gem, how could she refuse? But in her mind she saw him plunge his sword into the mercenary’s chest—and the cold light in his eyes as he murdered a trio of men in a blink.

“What do you think of all this?” she asked Xain. The wizard’s stare was buried in the corner. “You seem willing enough to join the Mystic. Would you have me do the same?”

He stared at her blankly, and again she saw that nameless fear in the wizard’s eyes. “You must keep your own counsel,” he said, his voice a bleak shadow of its former strength. “I would not force any other to step upon this road—though it might be the only road we have left.”

Loren did not like any of this. Not Jordel’s mysterious hints at great danger nor Vivien’s gloating smirk. She did not like the way Gem and Annis stared at her as though waiting for an answer, as though both their fates rested on her next words. Even less did she like the way Xain had turned to this dead thing on the bed before her.

She tried to speak, but her words were drowned out in a sudden, clanging peal of sound. A deep, reverberating clang of brass, soon joined by a choir of others throughout the city.

Loren spun towards the door. “What under the sky is that?”

“Bells,” said Vivien, her voice hushed and furious. “Dorsea is at the gates.”

twenty-five

“IT IS TOO SOON,” JORDEL muttered as he stood. “I thought they would not attack for another day at least. The northern force must have been closer than our scouts reported.”

“We do not know that the sellswords have reached us,” said Vivien. “Mayhap the Dorseans are making another feint. Regardless, they will need me on the wall.”

“Go, then,” said Jordel. Vivien gave Loren a final look and left. “And Loren of the family Nelda, what say you? If you would go with me, it is now or else fall with this city.”

Loren tried to answer, but her voice seemed to have fled. On and on, the bells clanged. She could feel each thundering strike deep in her chest. What must she do? What if Jordel led them beyond the gate only to find the sellswords’ flying arrows before them? What if she stayed and the city crumbled to rubble around her?

“You—you cannot expect me to decide this now! Not when a host of foes is on our doorstep and these
accursed
bells will not be silent!”
 

Loren looked up at the roof as though she could spot the bells and somehow yank them from their mounts.

“I would not, but I have no other choice,” said Jordel. “What is your answer?”

“Get us out,” Loren said desperately. “Get us beyond the Wellmont walls, and then I can answer. You owe me that much, Mystic. I did not ask to find myself in this war, caught between two armies while the world falls around me. Nor did Annis and Gem. Let us escape this city, and we will each answer in our time.”

It was not a fair thing to say, perhaps. Jordel had done no more to bring them here than Annis’s mother or Xain had. The Mystic looked thoughtful at her words and after a moment nodded.

“I accept if that is all you can promise. But let us leave now. A wagon waits beyond the northern wall. Go!”

Loren gave Gem and Xain their new bedrolls, and the four of them packed their meager things. With their supplies slung across their backs, they let Jordel lead them from the inn and into the streets.

Where before all had been quiet with the calm of uneasy waiting, chaos now raged around them. Men and women ran hither and yon, some carrying empty buckets, others lugging bags and sacks the contents of which Loren could not guess at. Guards and constables moved through the masses, islands of calm in an ocean of fear. In rank and file they marched, on many streets but always south.

As they paused to let a column pass through an intersection before them, Loren turned her gaze to the south. In the dimming daylight, the southern sky glowed red with the light of many fires. Smoke rose from everywhere, and under each column she imagined another home burning. She had a sudden, mad urge to run towards the fighting and see the battle up close, but Jordel commanded them to move forwards and she discarded the thought like a threadbare cloak.

They reached the gates to find them closed and barred. At Jordel’s mighty shout, a pair of guards appeared at the parapet above, scowling down under their helmets of steel and bronze.

“Let us out!” bellowed Jordel. “We must leave the city at once!”

“These gates open for no one,” said the guard. “Under command of the mayor.”

“I am of the order of Mystics.” Jordel’s voice rang with an authority and command that Loren had never heard. His hand rose to his breast, and when it came away he brandished his silver badge—three winged rods bound by a circle. “By this badge and the authority of the High King herself, I command you to open the gate.”

“The High King is a thousand leagues away and cares little for us!” said the other guard. “But the mayor is close, and his own constables all around. He has promised to hang any man who opens this gate, however just the reason.”

“Do your duty to the High King, or I will come up there and open them myself!” They jumped at Jordel’s roar, and the guards paused before replying.

“You will have to, then, but I beg that you do not, m’lord. For it is no idle threat—we will hang, and our families will starve. You do as your duty commands, but we must do the same.”

Loren put a hand on Jordel’s arm. “Do not do it. We can leave once the battle is done.”

“Not if the sellswords strike from the north, as I believe they will.” Some of Jordel’s fire had left, and Loren could sense it. “Still, we could evade them, at least long enough to escape. And I would not see men come to harm for doing their duty.”

“Nor should they,” said Loren.

Jordel looked at her, and she wondered if he was thinking of his promise—that he would never command her to violence. “Very well. We shall return to the inn and wait until this is over. Even if the mercenaries arrive, they cannot bring down the walls in an hour.”

They turned and retraced their steps and this time found the going easier. Many had left the northern part of the city, and the few who remained were shut indoors. Indeed, Loren would have thought the place abandoned if she could not hear a distant roar in the south, like thunder ripping through the hills. The noise gave haste to her steps and gave a trip hammer to her heart.
 

They reached the inn, but before they could enter, the front door burst open to an ash-and-soot-covered Vivien. Where her hair had been carefully arranged before, it was now tousled, hanging about her head in a mess of fraying strands. Her eyes fell upon the wizard and washed with stark relief. She went to him and seized his sleeve. Xain was too startled to draw away.
 

“There you are. The city needs you for its defense. Come with me.”

Jordel stepped between them and pushed Vivien’s hand roughly away. “He is not meant to fight in this war of yours, Vivien. I have told you as much already. He must leave the city, and soon.”

Vivien looked ready to snarl. “Yet they will not open the gate to you, will they? And how will he help you in your great war if this city is toppled stone by stone with him inside it? The Dorsean dogs throw their full strength at us, Jordel. If the sellswords have not already reached the northern wall, it is only a matter of time. If we do not hold them back now, at once, they will kill every soul behind these walls.”

“I granted you leave to stay and fight,” said Jordel in his steeliest voice. “No more will I grant you, and certainly not the lives of these here before you.”

Loren interrupted. “And are our lives yours to bandy about and barter with?”
 

Jordel paused, and the Mystics turned to Loren. She flinched before Jordel’s hard stare and Vivien’s smug expression, but quickly pressed on.

“If it is as she says, and the city will fall, can we not choose for ourselves whether to aid it? Or are we your prisoners in truth, for all your talk of our choices? If our hands can keep the city walls standing, then I would pledge mine, for one.”

“The city will
not
fall,” said Jordel. “Not yet, at least.”

“They have brought wizards, Jordel,” said Vivien quietly. “Wizards of great power. I fear they may be abominations. Eaters of the black crystal.”

Jordel fell silent, his face suddenly grave. Loren saw Xain behind them, his eyes rediscovering their hungry glint.

“They overpowered me on the southern wall. Barely, for neither was mightier than I, but together they were too strong. But he could beat them,” Vivien said, pointing to Xain. “If he can fight as he fought upon the Dragon’s Tail, the walls will stand.”

Xain studied the Mystic, but his face betrayed nothing. Jordel heaved a great sigh and ran a hand over his eyes as though weary. Then he turned not to Xain, but to Loren. “You would help this city? Of which you know nothing, and have been in scarcely more than a day?”

“It is a city of Selvan. I will not fight, but I will help where I may. And if Vivien speaks truth, then no help is unwelcome.”

“Certainly not. We would all be in your debt,” said Vivien, and in her voice Loren heard the same earnest passion she had shown that afternoon in the craftsman’s quarter.
 

“Then I cannot stop you,” said Jordel. “And I should have expected as much. I will come, then, and try to ensure your safety. But each of you must decide this for yourselves, and do not pledge lightly. For you are all strangers to battle and may find it unpleasant to your taste afterward, if you come through it at all.”

Loren turned to Gem and Annis. “You should stay here. You will be safe within the inn. As with the riverboat—our hopes rest with Xain.”

“And yet you will go,” said Gem, straightening to stand as tall as he could, “and I will not have you alone. I will fight upon the wall. Have you a suit of armor to fit me?”

“Do not be an idiot,” said Loren, giving him a small shove. “You shall stay by my side.”

Annis looked at them both helplessly and threw her hands in the air. “You are both idiots. This is a fool’s errand, as anyone with sense can see. But if you can promise we will not be in the fighting, I suppose I cannot let you run off by yourselves—though you no doubt deserve it.”

“And you, Xain?” said Vivien. “I mean no insult to the others, but Loren speaks true. Your help will sway the battle. What say you?”

Xain looked to be deep in thought, his eyes unblinking, stealing glances at Annis. Again, she heard a warning bellow in her mind, and still she refused to listen.

“I will go,” said Xain. “And they shall not stand against me.”

twenty-six

THEY LEFT IN HASTE, ABANDONING their things back in the inn. On the street, Loren tugged on Xain’s arm to draw him towards her, letting the others drift ahead. Once out of earshot, she leaned in close to whisper.

“Are you well enough for this fight, wizard? Vivien thinks the other wizards have magestones.”

“And yet they are not as strong as she,” said Xain. “I took her measure upon the river. Had I been well, there would have been no contest to our match. Even now, some remnant of the magestones courses in my veins. I think it will prove more than enough.”

“You think?”

“Do not fear for me, Loren of the family Nelda,” Xain said scornfully. “And keep your head from making friends with an arrow.”

Roaring from the south grew louder with their approach. And as they drew nearer to the wall, at last Loren understood its source: thousands of voices, crying in unison with hate and fear and pain and death. The sky was streaked with spears of flame; burning arrows raining upon Wellmont, sending the buildings into a blaze.

“You will help with the fires,” Vivien commanded, pointing to Loren, Gem, and Annis. “The arrows have caught many buildings alight. When the men bring buckets from the river, you will carry them wherever they are needed.”

“Very well,” Loren nodded.
 

“Xain, with me,” Vivien said. “We are needed on the wall.”

Jordel seized her arm. “See to his safety, Vivien. I will hold you accountable if any harm should befall him.”

“I have seen his power,” said Vivien. “You need not fear for him, and I will have little part to play.”

“My words hold true.” Jordel released her, and together Vivien and Xain vanished into the streets, swallowed by the black smoke that seemed to pour in from everywhere.

“You will not join them?” Loren asked Jordel. “A wizard you might not be, but a sturdy sword will no doubt be of use in the fighting.”

“Not as much as a wary eye keeping watch on the three of you. If Xain is as powerful as Vivien claims—and as powerful as I have been led to believe—the battle will be a short matter once he takes the field. I would sooner see you safely through this.”

They joined the bucket lines, running from building to building, tossing water upon any flame that reared its golden head. Loren soon found it to be the most exhausting and unpleasant thing she had experienced since leaving the Birchwood and was in no time panting while lugging the hefty buckets through the streets.