The Making of a Mage King: White Star (14 page)

Sean didn’t stay away from the guild house, though he did take the longest route he could find to get there.

He eventually found the place by following men dressed similarly to the way Nord had been dressed, only the color was black and these men had shoes. He pulled Laon aside and out of sight into the mouth of an alley. “How are you doing?”

“I won’t let you down,” he said. He was pale and sweating profusely.

Sean started to unwind the wires around their swords. “Leave the shield alone until we are well within the building. In fact, we probably should leave it alone right up until we need to use magic. You should be able to shrug it off easily enough. Mattie isn’t very strong, she’s just really good.”

Sean noticed Laon’s face relax at the memory. “She
is
good, isn’t she?”

“My intent is to shield every person we come across in there. No questions, no fuss, I hope. With luck I’ll be able to weaken them substantially before they figure out where we are. After that…”
After that, things might get interesting
.

Sean and Laon watched the entrance to the building for more than an hour. Men were coming and going, but by the way they hurried, Sean figured they must be servants or messengers. He toyed with the idea of waylaying a couple of them and using their robes as a disguise, but that would leave them without their swords, and though their main weapon might be magic, they couldn’t afford to be so disarmed.

Sean led them around to the back of the building and watched that entrance for a while. There was far less traffic here and next to none of it came and went from the building itself, not for more than a few feet anyway. Sean slipped up to a small, dirty window and peeked in. Lit only by the light from the window, it was difficult to see inside, but it appeared to be a storeroom.

The door opened again and a portly man stepped out with a large bowl of slop. Before he could sound an alarm, Sean slipped up behind him and gave him a none-too-gentle tap on the side of his head with the pommel of his dagger.

He cut the man’s apron into strips and used them to tie and gag him, then after dragging him a little farther down the alley, they went back to the door and into the kitchen where they found two more men, as well as four women. All but one of them froze in terror at their appearance. That one darted for an inner door and nearly decapitated herself when she almost didn’t stop in time to avoid running into Sean’s sword that was suddenly lodged in the doorframe in front of her. Master Mushovic would have been incensed, but surely he would have appreciated the precision, even if he would never admit it.

While Laon quickly bound and gagged the others, Sean tried to question the little rabbit, but she only shook her head in terrified horror. Then he realized that none of them had uttered a sound.
I wonder if they’ve been silenced to keep them from telling anyone about guild doings
.

Sean searched the adjoining rooms methodically before moving on and found a boy sleeping in one of them. He reminded Sean of Charles, only he was younger and thinner; perhaps he was the son of one of the kitchen helpers. After he too was secured, Sean and Leon headed for the front of the building. Sean was tempted to wait inside the front door and waylay everyone who entered, but there was no telling how closely tied these people were to the mages he was looking for, so instead, they followed the first man they saw coming in.

Oblivious to being followed, the man led them up a flight of stairs. He saw them as he turned at the landing, but it took him a moment to identify them as strangers. The tip of Laon’s sword silenced him before he could make a sound; whether he was merely going to question them or sound an alarm was impossible to tell. He was dead before he hit the floor.

Sean vaulted over him and onto the second floor of the building, though the stairs went on up. He opened the first door he came to. The room was barely big enough to hold the bunk beds, and other comforts were slim to say the least. A tiny table with a single candle, a single chair, and a couple hooks on the wall for clothes that weren’t there, was all there was besides the narrow bunks. There wasn’t even a window to vent the stale air. Laon dumped the body on the bed and pointed up.

“One more door,” whispered Sean. The floor looked to be full of small rooms, but he wanted to make sure. The next door he opened was also a bedroom, but there was a form in the lower bunk. Sean shed his shield and slipped up beside the bed. The boarded up window didn’t let him see whether the form was a man or a woman, young or old; all he saw was the glow of magic, so he rested a hand on the shoulder and shielded him, ensuring that he continued to sleep at the same time.

They went from room to room, Laon keeping watch on the hall. Men continued to come and go on the stairs, and every time, Laon kept them behind a door until the men passed, but no one came onto their floor, not yet anyway. The hall they followed went to the end of the building, turned right for a short distance, then right again before heading back to the stairs. There were thirty or forty rooms on the floor, and they found at least one sleeper, and sometimes two in almost every room.

The next floor was the same, which surprised Sean. If this was just the barracks, where was the main gathering of the guild? His ‘ping’ had indicated that all the mages were in one location. They had to be here somewhere.

Their stroll through the building wasn’t to go unnoticed much longer, however. A little better than halfway through the second floor full of rooms, they were found. It felt like they had been hit by a ping the size of a Mack truck. Where Sean’s ping had been the merest touch of a finger to the surface of a quiet pool of water, theirs was the strike of a fist with all the force of a powerful arm behind it.

Laon dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes, and Sean didn’t do much better. He was able to protect them from the brunt of the attack, but only just. Clinging to the doorframe of the room he had just quit, Sean barely managed to retain his footing. He pulled at Laon to get him to stand too. Half a dozen figures stepped out of their different rooms in front of them.

“Go back…sleep,” said Sean. For the first time in a long time, he missed the magic. Cisco had always warned him not to use his hands to signal his intentions, but this time he needed to. He reached his hand out. He pushed his strength through the shield and got a fingernail into the magic. “
Go back to sleep
,” he compelled, and watched the people in the hallway drop to the floor like Laon had done, though not quite so violently.

Laon swayed, wiping blood and tears from his face. It looked like he had broken his nose when he hit the floor.

Sean had the two of them under his own shield now, but he still felt the pressure. The manipulator was used to looking for blatant mages, not someone hiding under the magic. And since there was so much magic all around them, their shield was well camouflaged. But as soon as they figured out how to identify Sean’s particular shield, their reprieve would be over.

Sean drew his twin swords and Laon hefted his again with a grim expression on his bloody face. Sean braced himself for the battle he knew he had to face, and he figured the smaller swords might be easier to hang onto than the big claymore, the halls were too narrow for it anyway. Laon led the way this time as they headed toward the stairs, intent on going up into what could only be the attic of the building. It was all Sean could do to remain standing as he pushed against the searcher’s barrage.

When they reached the stairs again, three of the men they had seen coming and going earlier were passing. At the sight of drawn swords, or perhaps Laon’s blood, they turned to run. “
Freeze
,” Sean compelled, then regretted it as their momentum carried them the rest of the way down to the landing in a broken heap after their feet stopped functioning.

With the stairs clear for the moment, Laon and Sean pulled themselves up and through the narrow door at the top. Now that they had line-of-sight, the battle was truly on. Sean was highly reluctant to kill, but he had all he could do to keep the two of them on their feet. He moved forward into the large room, leaving Laon to guard the door.

Since the only attack that came at them was bashing into his shield, he had a moment to notice what was in front of him. Sitting on the floor in small groups, each holding a lit candle in front of them that they stared at to the exclusion of all else, was what was supposed to be a human representation of the royal flower.

Three women who were shrouded in a dirty white cloud, sat opposite six men who were steeped in shadow. Four men glowing fiercely red, sat across from five men and a woman who glowed dark blue. And five men glowing pale blue, sat across from four men and two women who glowed green. In the center, the only person sitting on a chair, was what could only be an albino.

The closest thing to an albino Sean had ever seen before was his uncle, but Ludwyn wasn’t a true albino, since his eyes were very dark. The malice that radiated from these red eyes rivaled Ludwyn’s, but perhaps due to their color, seemed worse.

Despite the lack of color in his features, the man on the chair radiated so much black magic that the darkness around him was almost palpable. He was Sean’s target. Cut off the head of the snake and the snake ceases to be dangerous; kill the caster and his spells will be broken, at least that’s what all the books said. He hoped there was some truth in those books. He wished for someone to ask, but it was certainly too late for that now.

Sean took another step into the room. He heard Laon engage someone at his back, but he had to rely on him now; Sean had his hands full. He forced another step forward into the battering onslaught, and the albino stood up. Three of his people gasped and went limp, and soon after another handful fell.

Sean took another step and the man tried to pull more magic from those around him that still endured. Magic was the only weapon he had and he was almost as strong as Sean, but he was burning it up on a tactic that wasn’t working.

Sean forced yet another step forward and drove his two swords into the floorboards in front of him; it felt as if he was using them like claws to hold him against the onslaught. By the door he heard Laon, still holding off men who fought with more conventional weapons; he was taking full advantage of the narrow door.

Feeling like he was swimming in cold molasses, Sean drew his ancestor’s great sword from his back and gave it an experimental swing. He felt the albino redouble his attempts to batter through his shield and another handful of his people collapsed, robbing him that much more of his power base. The standoff was killing his people. Sean gave his sword another swing then launched it directly at the albino. He saw no other option; he simply could not take another step. He was running out of time, as well. They may have been comparable in power, but the albino had the combined energy of his ‘flower’, or what was left of it. Given time, he would have won.

The albino’s life and his magic were snuffed out so quickly that all those who composed the flower collapsed, and Sean was left clutching the two swords he had stuck in the floor for support. He quickly snuffed the candles that threatened to catch clothing on fire, then gathered himself and turned to assist Laon, but that fight had evaporated too.

Sean took one look at the men gathered outside the door looking suddenly helpless, directionless. Using what seemed like the last of his energy, he compelled them to come into the room and kneel in the corner.

While Laon tied them up, Sean went through the prone figures of the flower that littered the floor. Of the thirty men and women who had been gathered here, nine were dead and another twelve no longer had their magic glow. He shielded the remaining nine.

Methodically, he bent over and picked up his greatsword.
Good thing it’s heavy; that had to be the shittiest throw I’ve ever made.
The hilt had caught the albino in the throat and the weight had knocked him over backward; somewhere along the line his neck had been broken.

Sean swayed and Laon caught his arm. “What now?” Laon asked as he spat blood.

Sean looked around them. He was wiped. “Now we call in reinforcements.” He turned his attention to Cordan. “Cordan, saddle up. I need a little help here. Before you panic, we’re all right; we’re just too tired to get outa here by ourselves. Gotta…clean up this mess, gotta… gotta…” Sean staggered sideways.

Laon caught him before he fell. “Sit down, my lord. Did you get through?” he asked, then parked Sean against a wall away from their prisoners and wiped more blood from his face.

“Yeah, he’s coming.” Sean dropped his head down between his knees. He felt like he had after his first seeing, like an overcooked noodle, only this time the noodle named Sean had been splattered against a wall with a lot of force. Dimly he was thankful that he hadn’t been dropped on the floor and stepped on.

With the horses already saddled, Cordan had the men moving as fast as humanly possible. He left twenty men behind to guard the camp and keep an eye on their guests. He even brought Mattie and Jenny, though it’s possible he just didn’t argue with them.

They reached the gate shortly thereafter and the guards were unprepared for them. Accustomed to the guild handling any overt disturbances, they were late to react. When the reinforcements saw the flag Cordan flew, two-thirds of them prostrated themselves, leaving the others in confusion. When Prince and Laon’s horse charged through the gate unsaddled and full of threat, they all scattered.