Twilight of Kerberos - [Shadowmage 01-03] - The Shadowmage Trilogy (Shadowmage; Night's Haunting; Legacy's Price) (96 page)

The knight fell to the ground, out cold.

“Bloody Pontaine idiot,” Alhmanic muttered. “No wonder you lot lost the damned war.”

Turning away from the knight, he paused to grasp the dagger with one hand. Closing his eyes, he tore the weapon from his flesh.

Gasping with the effort, he cast a baleful look down at the unconscious knight. It did not sit well with him to leave an enemy at his back, but Alhmanic knew he was weak and getting weaker. If he was going to claim the blasted artefact in the name of the Anointed Lord, may her farts part the clouds, he had to act now.

L
UCIUS COULD NOT
see. Pain screamed at him from every joint, with every movement, and his skin burned. His greatest dread though was that he was blind. Had his eyelids been melted and sealed by Adrianna’s flames?

The Guardian Starlight still called to him and he tried to reach out with his magical senses to find it. The artefact was close, but the constant waves of pain shook his concentration with every tremor.

He felt he had been so close to a final understanding of the device and, perhaps, of his own origins. It burned to think he could give up so easily.

Crawling forward on his knees, Lucius swept the ground before him, hoping to feel the familiar cool touch of the Guardian Starlight.

T
HEY MET IN
the plaza.

Tellmore instantly let loose with a salvo of raw magical energy that chattered his teeth as its power swept through him. He had hoped the rapid but powerful bolts would throw Adrianna off balance, perhaps even send her tumbling down into the rivers of lava far below, but the Shadowmage waved a hand and the spell diverted its energy into the plaza below her, blasting a crater into the stone.

She responded by sending shockwaves through the stone at Tellmore’s feet and he had to leap backwards to avoid plummeting to his death. He retaliated by creating the ghostly apparition of a sword above Adrianna’s head and with a chopping motion, brought it down.

The blade cracked on an invisible shield Adrianna created, shattering into a thousand ethereal fragments.

Tellmore tried again, this time clapping his hands together and allowing the magic to amplify the sound so it would burst the ears and crush the heart of anyone in front of him, but the Shadowmage seemed impervious to it.

Not wanting to wait around for her reprisal, Tellmore wrapped a spell about himself, and disappeared, only to find that Adrianna had created a vivid pink mist that silhouetted him perfectly. He managed to raise an arcane shield just a fraction of a second before a bolt of black energy burnt itself out against its surface.

She was too powerful, he knew. A graduate of the Three Towers, his spells were insignificant against hers, while his own defences would eventually be breached. However, Tellmore had not gained stature in Pontaine society by charging at problems head on, and he resolved to try a different tack.

Seeing Adrianna floating towards him and preparing to throw another attack, he bolstered his shield and drew upon his power to create a very different spell.

The air before him seemed to thicken and twist, before a dark blue fog spiralled out of nothingness to quickly envelop first him, then the whole plaza. Though it blinded him, Tellmore was thankful it also concealed his position.

Already, he could hear the savage discharge of powerful spells as Adrianna threw spells randomly before her, hoping to strike him by chance. He turned and ran before she summoned a wind to blow his fog away and leave him naked before her fury.

The plaza shook as spells impacted again and again on its surface, and the stone itself began to groan under the punishment it had sustained. It would not be long before the plaza could no longer support itself and the whole structure, bridges and all, would plummet hundreds of feet down to smash upon bare rock or sink into molten lava.

Amidst the clouds of dust and wisps of blue fog, a hand reached out, straining for the marble shaft of the Guardian Starlight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

T
HE WOODEN HATCH
opened and then banged against brick as it fell. Poking her head out, Grennar peered about, then hoisted herself up the last few rungs of the ladder into a small chamber. A single door led out, and it was already open. Breathless from the long, long climb, she held her side as she walked out into the open air.

Outside, she found herself on a balcony that circled the spire just a few yards down from its spiked peak. The view this high up was amazing, with only the central keep of the Citadel rising above her.

Before her was the ocean.

Waves that would easily swallow the spire on which she perched raged high, cresting in a deluge of white foam. Further out, they seemed calmer, though she knew that was deceptive. What looked like gentle rolling hills of water were in fact a nightmare to navigate and could easily swamp a ship.

Grennar had never been to sea but hoped to one day. Perhaps when things had calmed down in the city and the Beggars’ Guild did not teeter on a precipice of failure and destitution.

Getting her breath back she followed the balcony as it rounded the spire. On the opposite side stood Wendric, now guildmaster of the thieves. She had not quite sussed him out as yet, and so remained wary in his presence. Lucius had trusted him enough to run the guild in his absence, and she supposed that should be recommendation enough. Trust was not an easy thing for her to bequeath, though.

“Good morning, young miss,” Wendric said without turning, and Grennar grimaced.

He had insisted on calling her “young miss” since their first meeting as guildmasters. Nothing was meant by it, she knew, it was just Wendric’s way to address her as such; in his mind, he was showing the deepest respect. For her part, it merely reminded everyone who heard how young she really was.

Lucius had always treated her as an equal, not some child off the street.

“Wendric,” she said and joined him leaning against the balcony, staring down at the city going about it business below. Today, that business was unusually loud and colourful, and it filled her with nothing but dread.

Grennar decided to avoid the uncomfortable truths happening below them for at least a little while longer.

“Have you heard anything from Lucius?” she asked.

Wendric shook his head.

“No. I thought you would have heard something before we did.”

“Well, that’s what we do,” she said.

Wendric looked down at her and, after a moment, put an arm gently across her shoulders.

“I miss him too,” he said. “I’ll never be the guildmaster he was.”

“You’ll do alright. So long as you listen to the beggars.”

He smiled at that. “The one lesson he continued to pound into me, day after day. Beggars are the eyes and ears of the city. You’ll get far better return of information from them than you will on all the bribes you pay to guards, merchants and nobles.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“Aye.”

For a few moments, they stood in an awkward silence. Wendric finally dropped his arm.

“Can’t say I miss those crazy Shadowmages though.”

“Oh, they are still about,” Grennar said. “Just nothing like what they were under Adrianna.”

“She was the craziest of the lot of them.”

“You’ll get no argument from me there. I just hope she never found Lucius.”

He looked down at her, hearing the forlorn tone in her voice.

“Don’t you be worrying overly on Lucius,” he said, trying to put a hint of mock reproach in his voice. “You are talking about the man who joined the thieves as a pickpocket and became guildmaster in a matter of minutes.”

Grennar smiled. “And brought down the Vos rule in the city, single-handed.”

“Indeed, bringing freedom and prosperity to all in his wake. What is one mad Shadowmage compared to all that?”

“Wendric,” Grennar said. “I am scared for him, you know.”

“I know, young miss. I know.”

Grennar shuddered and wrapped her arms about her body. “She’s different now. It is as if she doesn’t see people as, well, people any more. We are all just here to be used by her, and crushed when we get in the way.”

“Then I daresay it is a good thing that Adrianna is far away from here. And I don’t think she’ll catch Lucius. They may both be Shadowmages, but he is a thief as well. He can stay one step ahead of anyone.”

“I hope so,” Grennar whispered, then suddenly felt the need to change the subject. She stopped staring at the horizon and forced herself to watch the procession in the streets far below.

The forces of Pontaine had been roused from their slumber and were now marching through Turnitia in all their glory. Winding through the Five Markets, which had been closed by the Baron de Sousse to mark this special day, a long trail of troops meandered through Turnitia. Unlike the uniform Vos troops, however, the army of Pontaine was a brightly coloured array of nobles, men-at-arms, knights and assorted hangers-on. Each noble had his own livery and this was transposed onto the men following him in a variety of ways. It almost seemed more like a carnival than an army marching.

Though she knew it was just as likely she would never see any of the fighting men again, Grennar had taken the trouble to learn the different units that comprised the army. After all, you never knew what piece of information would prove useful in the future.

Immediately below them, crossing the Square of True Believers, were the Sardenne Militia, drafted from a hundred different towns and villages scattered across the great forest’s borders. They were a ragged looking lot, wearing their own clothes for the most part, and many bore only farming tools as weapons. They were all identified by the small red and golden shield that had been granted to them by the Baron du Fillimont, their leader. There was a lot of them in the militia but talk around the city had already suggested they would not be of much account in battle. Most would turn tail and run at the first sight of an aggressive enemy, while the rest would be cut down where they stood.

Du Fillimont brought up their rear, leading his own household guards, magnificent looking knights in full plate armour that gleamed silver and gold in the morning sun, while from their red lances flew long blue pennants that fluttered in the breeze. As they rode past the crowds lining the square, children scampered forward to cast handfuls of petals under the hooves of their horses.

They looked impressive enough, but talk said they would be of little more use than the militia they followed. Still, no one would say that to their baron’s face, not if they wanted his continued patronage and friendship within the realms of Pontaine politics. That was a skill he very much possessed, by all reasonable accounts.

A crowd looking even worse off than the militia followed, but there was something in their gait that suggested a rare potency. They wore unclean clothing of greens and browns, but it was the dirt of the country that covered them, not the filth of the city. A mercenary band, they roamed the Pontaine countryside, offering their services to whichever feuding landowner paid the most or, as rumour had it, could serve the best wine.

Still more troops came, and with every salute, every blow of a horn, Grennar became more depressed. There was a damning inevitability to it all, as far as she could see.

Vos hits Pontaine, Pontaine hits Vos back. Pontaine gets stronger, begins to push Vos around. Sooner or later, a knockout blow would be delivered by one or the other that would consume them all. And for what? The lives of the common folk, who far outnumbered the nobles and soldiers, would not be improved. Quite the reverse.

She did not pray often, but Grennar hoped to God that Turnitia would not become like some hellish urban version of the Anclas Territories.

It was her home.

From her lofty vantage point, the army looked almost pretty, and she wished it really were a carnival.

The reality was altogether different. Pontaine was finally making its move against Vos.

A new war had begun.

THE END

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