The Free Kingdoms (Book 2) (19 page)

Each wizard stood with his left hand on the shoulder of the wizard to his left, placing his right hand in a pile of hands palm up in the center. Nathaliey whispered the spell, while the others channeled their energy to her. It started as a tingle in Markal’s shoulder, then a current that surged through his left hand to the shoulder of the man on his left. Around and around the current raced, building a river of magic.

The circle of life required a wizard of stature to gather its true force. He’d thought only Chantmer the Tall held the necessary will to summon that force, but he’d underestimated Nathaliey Liltige. She shaped them to her purpose, drained them of power by calling up their belief in the Order. This must be what it felt like to be a great wizard, Markal thought, this feeling of power, of indestructibility.

“Gulgoletha na Mithyl vevrais!” she cried, claiming the most potent of magic, the force of life. The spell surprised Markal, but such was Nathaliey’s will that every tendon strained to answer her call.

A lightning flash of magic burst through the soles of their feet, sinking into the ground. Released from Nathaliey’s hold, the circle collapsed, and the wizards fell to the ground. The smell of smoking flesh filled the air, and Markal felt an excruciating pain as his right hand shriveled, together with the right hands of the other wizards in the circle.

A groan rocked the ground. The hillside churned, blasting geysers of mud. An ancient millstone rose from the ground next to Markal, together with the skull of a horse. The wizards and everyone else on the hill scrambled away from the tilting ground. Markal glanced down at the battle raging below the hill.

Under the griffins’ onslaught, the enemy boats were overturned and their riders killed. A few Veyrians fought desperately along the west river bank, but were overwhelmed by a great mass of Eriscobans. Griffins picked off half a dozen men who swam for the opposite shore.

But the two sides raged to control the bridge. The enemy cavalry had opened a sizeable breach in the Eriscoban defense, but they were met by Hoffan’s cavalry. Meanwhile, Hoffan’s archers in the tower and on the river banks continued their deadly hail of arrows, sometimes unable to discriminate who they shot at. The dead and wounded piled so high on the west side of the bridge that they formed a barrier of their own. Mammoths and giants charged across the bridge from Toth’s army to join the battle, together with hundreds more footmen and riders. If the enemy completed the breach, the Free Kingdoms would lose the bridge on the first day. Something had to be done to stem the attack.

Another lurch in the ground threw Markal from his feet while he tried to get away from the swaying hillside. As the ground churned, it coughed up centuries of refuse. Bones of men and beast, rusted shields, spears, broken ploughs, coins, wagon wheels and the rotting shell of a long-buried house. These things gathered in a muddy pile on the surface. At last, when the hill had nothing left to surrender, the refuse formed itself.

Metal and stone melded with bones, forming a long spine, and then a rib cage made from rotted timbers and the thigh bones of some long-dead monster. A head and tail formed, together with massive wings that stretched and grew. The creature had bones of refuse and muscle of mud from the hill but it was very much alive. It lifted its head and roared.

A bone gurgolet, Markal realized with awe, as it was called in the old tongue. Such a thing had not been seen in a thousand years. He’d not thought there enough magic in the Free Kingdoms to bind such force. Wild hope rose within his bosom.

The creature lifted into the air, dripping mud and rotting leaves. It was a terrible thing to behold and a wail went up through both armies. The gurgolet ambled toward the bridge with a heavy flap of wings. It spewed hot mud from its maw as it passed over the enemy. Men and beast fell under the spray, or hurled themselves into the river. It swept above the enemy, its tail destroying men with every lash. It roared again, and the enemy soldiers fled. Screaming, griffins raced in the beast’s wake, tearing the helpless Veyrians with their claws.

For one wild moment, Markal thought the war would be won today. Toth had underestimated the Order of the Wounded Hand, just as he had once underestimated the Crimson Path and a wizard named Memnet the Great. Nathaliey raised herself from the ground a few feet from Markal, triumph glowing in her eyes. Narud stood several paces back, a pure stupor on his face from the magic they’d summoned.

But then he saw the gurgolet’s answer rise dark and terrible from the back of Toth’s army. A dragon, eighty feet long, with fire burning in its jaws. Markal knew what had caused the fires in the mountains, the smoke visible all morning. Dragon kin had busied themselves shoveling charcoal into the dragon’s craw to stoke its fires for battle. Hundreds of dragon wasps buzzed around their sire, eager to press the attack.

How the dragon had survived the Tothian Wars, Markal didn’t know. Until the wasps appeared a few years ago, he’d thought the last dragon killed. He could only guess that both it and its mate had spent the wars in pupal form, and then hidden themselves in the Wylde. This dragon was fully mature, skin blackened and hardened by fire. Its eyes glowed from the tremendous heat building in its stomach.

The two monsters closed in the air, one a creature of earth and water, the other fire. The armies stopped and watched, aware that this battle would decide the war. Even wasps and griffins shrank back, content to let their respective champions fight until one destroyed the other. And then, the unthinkable happened.

The bone gurgolet stopped in front of the dragon, but didn’t attack. It hesitated, then swung around to the side of the dragon. Together, they flew back to the bridge, catching the startled Eriscobans beneath them, those men who’d charged across the bridge when the gurgolet scattered the enemy. The gurgolet sprayed hot mud again, but this time at the armies of the Free Kingdoms.

Scores of griffins closed in immediate challenge. They attacked the dragon with beak and talon, together with the swords of their riders. The dragon belched a cone of fire. A terrific wave of heat roiled through the sky, its blast even reaching the hill. Griffins plummeted to the ground on fire and screamed in pain.

Still flying slowly over the bridge, the gurgolet lashed its tail at the fleeing Eriscobans. Enemy war drums boomed a call to attack, and the Veyrian army pressed to take advantage of this new turn of events.

Markal stared at the carnage, unable to comprehend.

“Chantmer,” Nathaliey said. She drew up to Markal, eyes dull. “He corrupted our spell and turned it to the dark wizard’s purpose.”

Markal turned to her, angry that she should make such an idle speculation about a man who had taken the covenants of the Order of the Wounded Hand. But the dejection on her face stopped his rebuke.

She said, “I should have known the magic was too strong without his aid. He was channeling his energy with everyone else, but turning it to the dark wizard’s purpose.” Nathaliey turned away, face bitter, even as the two monsters darkened the sky. “We are ruined. The Citadel will fall.”

Chapter Ten

Kreth’s feet touched the ground in the mountains, some ninety miles west of Aristonia, but he felt Aristonia’s pull even so. He felt it every time he left the Cloud Kingdoms to slip unseen among the outlanders.

Kreth longed to set foot in Aristonia one more time, smell the dirt of his garden. He held a small handful of Aristonian soil in his hand which he poured in a small circle around himself and the king, finishing the spell. So precious, and yet he spilled the soil on the ground as if it were mere sand from the desert. For a moment he envied Markal’s order, able to use their own life-force to bind magic.

Kreth stood next to the king on the Tothian Way, surrounded by the Balsalomian Army. Such was the nature of Kreth’s spell, that none of the men or beasts saw, heard, or smelled them. They simply deviated their course slightly, without noticing the cause, and continued on their way. He breathed slowly, savoring the smell of pine trees.

Collvern knew nothing of patience. “Hurry, magistrate, hurry. The spell will fail.”

Not magistrate. Kreth the Sage.

He still thought of himself as Kreth the Sage, even after all of these centuries, even though he’d become the king’s own magistrate with power over all of the Cloud Kingdoms. He still remembered the day that Memnet the Great found him tilling his garden in the fertile fields of Green Down, in the heart of Aristonia.

Kreth had felt the tall man standing behind him long before he turned to acknowledge the trespasser. He turned over the soil with a small hand spade, breaking apart clumps of dirt to open the soil for the roots of the plants in his herb garden. There were no rocks in his garden, hadn’t been for hundreds of years. His was a family of gardeners, always had been, and always would be, or so Kreth had supposed at the time. They had tilled this garden for generations and long since removed any rocks. But even without rocks, the soil still needed breaking and sifting, as the worms that constantly ate and renewed the soil left it in clumps.

He ignored the man, who stood over his shoulder, instead savoring the warm spring sun on his neck, the rich, earthy smell in his nostrils. Kreth prayed thanks to the Forest Brother for giving them this land. His father had been a religious man, who prayed at the temples every morning, and his habits remained in Kreth, just like the rich soil under his fingernails, always there but rarely noticed.

His visitor was patient, remarkably so. Most who came to buy herbs would blurt out their errands within seconds of finding Kreth in his garden.

“My name is Memnet,” the man said at last, his voice smooth and with the slightest trace of eastern accent, as if he was either born in the cities beyond Syrmarria or had lived there for many years. “You are a patient man, Kreth.”

Kreth turned around as if noticing him for the first time. “Gardening is not for the impatient, my friend.” He wasn’t as tall as Kreth had supposed from watching his shadow, and he was thinner than his deep, rich voice suggested. “Do you know why?”

Memnet said, “The sun rises, sets, the seasons change. A man cannot change the slow march of time.” He smiled. “As for the garden itself, a plant requires attention, but in limited doses. The garden, even the land, will die if overtilled, watered, and watched.”

It was such a good answer that Kreth looked down at the man’s fingernails, and was surprised to see the nails clean, and unsplit, with no calluses on the hands. “Who are you?”

“I need your help.”

“I’m a gardener,” Kreth said. “I work the soil. If you need herbs for your salad, or your rheumatism, I can help you. But that’s all I do. I grow plants.”

A half-smile played at the man’s lips. He wore no beard, looked rather young, and had no cartouches or emblems of power sewn into his simple gray robe, but Kreth was quite certain that the man was a wizard.

“That is exactly why I sought you out. I have a garden to grow. But I’m not growing plants, my friend.”

Kreth would soon learn that Memnet loved word plays, puns, and the study of languages in general, but this riddle intrigued him. “What kind of garden are you growing?” he asked, rising to his feet and brushing the dirt from his hands. His knees ached from kneeling so long.

“I am planting a garden of wizards, my friend.”

Kreth suppressed a laugh. “Wizards? I know nothing of wizardry.” He broke off a piece of sage and handed it to the man. “
This
is what I know.”

Memnet smelled the pungent sage and smiled. “Then I will call you Kreth the Sage.” This time, Kreth
did
laugh. Memnet continued, “Come, friend, show me your garden, and then we will talk.”

By the time they finished talking, the sun had set behind the mountains, the blackness broken by millions of stars that speckled the moonless night. Staring at the stars while listening to Memnet’s sonorous voice, he knew he would leave his garden to follow this man. He’d had no idea how long that journey would last.

King Collvern’s impatience broke through the barrier set by Kreth’s memories.

“What are you doing?” the king demanded. “What’s the matter? Are you ill?”

By the Brothers! The man had the patience of a child.
Kreth let the last of the Aristonian soil trickle through his fingers, then turned to the king, even as he suppressed his annoyance. “Patience, my king. The spell will last.”

The Tothian Way swarmed with soldiers and beasts. There were camel riders, and men on horse, footmen, and giant caravans of supplies, all rushing to their death in Eriscoba. It all reminded Kreth of the final days of the Wars, when all of Mithyl marched to war.

They picked their way along the road, barefoot. The smoothed stones of the Way had changed little since the wars, and felt comfortable beneath his feet. The king muttered at each step, his feet too soft for such walking without boots. But their feet needed to touch the ground or the spell would fail. The sun was warm, but a strong breeze blew down from the mountains and Collvern shivered.

“The khalifa,” Collvern said, pointing ahead.

Dragon banners snapped briskly overhead, while a guard of twenty men surrounded a litter carried between four horses. While they watched, a woman dismounted from a white destrier and walked back to the litter, where a whiskered old man with a blue turban helped her inside.

“Selphan,” the king said, a touch of disgust in his voice.

“Her pasha, I believe,” Kreth said. “His name is Boroah.”

“What kind of queen would surround herself with such men? They are such a weak, pitiful race.”

Kreth was tempted to remind Collvern that Selphan had lived in Syrmarria, too. Indeed, Boroah might well be a descendant of Selphan who had once served in the court of Collvern’s ancestors. But Collvern despised the Selphan, because they, like Aristonians, had seen their country destroyed. But even now, a thousand years later, they relied on the charity of outlanders to survive. The king swore that Aristonians would never suffer such an indignity.