Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy) (21 page)

“Minutes passed, and I stared at nothing but the
ground where the blade had entered. When I looked up, there was almost nothing
left. Where I had moments earlier ridden into battle beside a hundred men and
faced an army of uncountable thousands, there was nothing left that moved. The
fog dissipated soon after the last of the aether had been burned off, and I
could see to the horizon in all directions, and there was little left but
cracked earth, fallen weapons, and a few bits of camp debris to tell there had
been living men there at all. Bits of skeletons lay here and there, not fully
consumed before the fog had gone, enough to hint at the vast scope of the
carnage.

“I felt dizzy and sick. My life was war and carnage,
and such a clean battlefield was nothing to my sensibilities, having seen the
guts of friend and foe alike spilled an arm’s length from me more times than I
cared to count. No, it was being a conduit for all that aether, and not just
aether, but dead aether. Imagine if you had gorged yourself at a feast, only to
find that half the food was rotten with maggots.

“I felt infested, unclean. It was a nearly
indescribable sensation. I stumbled away from the battlefield, confused. I am
not one who is used to uncertainty, but I did not know how to cleanse myself of
the aether that had gotten into me, that had merged with my own Source. I did
not want to bring that back to Kadris with me, nor to anyone I wished to remain
safe, so I set off alone to find seclusion and hoped that I could cleanse
myself of the taint I had acquired.

“The rest is a tale longer than the trip we have
remaining before us. Perhaps I shall tell bits of it, but understand that I
left the Empire after ending its greatest threat in centuries, and then stayed
away for its own good. If I stayed longer than perhaps necessity dictated, I
would say that I earned it.”

And with that, Rashan left them to consider his tale …
and the missing bits of history that he had just revealed.

Brannis knew well that the historical account said no
one had lived through the Battle of the Dead Earth.

*
* * * * * * *

The rest of the day passed more quietly. After
finishing his tale, Rashan became somewhat subdued, as if he had perhaps given
them a bit too much insight into his past. When Brannis, Iridan, and all the
rest had eagerly tried to find out what had happened thereafter, Rashan told
them that they would have to wait for another time when he was feeling
loquacious.

The open farmland they had been passing through gave
way to a small town called Pevett. It sprawled on either side of the Thadagar
River, a few hundred houses, mostly with thatched roofs, a marketplace, and
some mills. More importantly to Kadrin, it was a shipping port for transferring
goods up and down the Thadagar as well as dispersing the riverboats’ cargoes to
the smaller surrounding villages. Most importantly, within its borders was the
West Way Bridge, one of the main crossings of the slow, deep Thadagar River,
and where Brannis and his remaining command were intending to cross.

The town was surrounded by a wall of rough-cut stone
and mortar, with sentry towers at infrequent intervals. Pevett was far enough
from the borderlands that the wall defined the town more than it defended it.
It was kept in good repair, as Pevett was a prosperous town and the local lord
who ruled it, Lord Fenrigar Whitestag, was a responsible, prudent man. Pevett
was a hub of commerce, and Fenrigar believed that if war ever came, it would be
a valuable target for disrupting the western half of the Empire proper.

Brannis took the lead as they approached the gates.
Heavily armed though they were, they bore imperial garb and insignia, the
golden fist upon a red triangular background. Brannis did not expect
difficulty. The gate stood wide and there was no move to bar or defend it as
they drew near.

“Hail, Gatekeeper!” Brannis called out.

“Gatekeeper” was perhaps overly formal, given that the
lone man preventing their entry was a bored-looking young man from the local
militia, wearing Lord Fenrigar’s green-and-black livery, with a sword still
sheathed at his hip. He also carried a slate and chalk.

“Peace, Sir Knight. Identify yourself and state your
business here in Pevett. We were not expecting any envoy from the knights.”

The sentry’s voice was thin and reedy, and he did not
pause once in his greeting, rushing it all out in one long breath. He looked
over the group, nodding to himself at each, and made a series of marks on his
slate.

“I am Sir Brannis Solaran, commander of the Eighth
Battalion, and this is what remains of my command. We are en route to Kadris to
report and receive new orders. And this is Iridan Korian, of the Imperial
Circle. He was assigned to accompany my command and lend the Circle’s support
to our efforts,” Brannis replied. Then he added in a lower voice, “And we are
rather road weary and seek soft beds for the night before we travel onward.”

“Very well, I shall send word ahead to Lord Fenrigar.
If you would be so good as to follow the main thoroughfare to the town center
and bear left, you will find a warm welcome at the keep. Lord Fenrigar has
always been a friend of the knighthood.” A deep breath and then, “My name is
Snead, and if you require anything, please allow me to assist you.”

Brannis wondered if there was some sort of condition
that the man suffered from that made him gasp out his speech thus.

“Thank you,” Brannis said, “but we do not require—”

“Actually, Snead,” Iridan interrupted, “ if you could
be so good as to point my way to the Circle’s meeting place here in Pevett, I
would much like to confer with my colleagues.” And aside to Brannis, he confided,
“I would like to confirm that our warning was received, and send word ahead of
our impending arrival. Pevett has a speaking stone unless I am mistaken.”

“Very well,” Brannis said, “show my friend the way to
the Circle’s home in Pevett, and the rest of us will find ourselves
accommodations for the night. We are no dignitaries, merely soldiers who must
report back to Kadris with all practical haste. It would be unseemly to be
feted by your most gracious Lord Fenrigar when we have such pressing business. Please
pass our regards along to his lordship, and should he still require our
presence, we will of course oblige.”

Brannis had always been a natural at sidestepping
social occasions he did not care to become entangled in.

“Very well, sir. If you insist.” Snead seemed
nonplussed by their declining Lord Fenrigar’s hospitality. “If you head for the
dockside, you can find—”

“We shall manage fine on our own,” Rashan said. “I am
familiar with the town.”

It was the first Rashan had spoken since they arrived
at the gates. He had agreed to let Brannis, uniformed officer and knight of the
Kadrin Empire, smooth the introductions, but he clearly still viewed himself as
the one in charge. He urged his horse forward and past the rest of the group.
Brannis and the others fell in behind, and Iridan split off to go seek out the
local sorcerers. Brannis nodded a brief acknowledgment to Snead as they passed.

When they were well out of earshot of Snead, Rashan
spoke: “I have not been here in a long time, but while I suspect it may be
under new ownership, the Rockshore Inn and Tavern, or its successor, ought to
still be just a short walk from the dockside.

“I am curious, Brannis. If he had asked the rest of
our names, what would you have told him? The truth, and count on a general
ignorance of history to make it just slip by unnoticed? Would you have lied, or
better yet, would you have proudly announced you were bringing the great
Warlock Rashan back home with you?” Rashan chuckled, clearly enjoying pondering
what Brannis might have done.

“I suppose I could have let Snead decide. I cannot be
held accountable for a man’s education, nor for his lack of one. I think you
underestimate yourself, though, if you think your name forgotten. ‘Rashan’s
Bargain,’ remember? Perhaps he would not know the origin of the phrase, but the
name would have likely stuck in his ear, possibly enough to bother him into
inquiring further, if he did not know the tale already,” Brannis said.

For whatever reason, the way Rashan asked questions
worked its way past any thought of whether he should answer or not. He seemed
to take an interest in dissecting his own thought process aloud.

“Ahh, what an unfortunate association,” Rashan said.
“I know, I have heard the phrase enough times, even before leaving the Empire.
You have not seen a face go quite as red so quickly as when someone realizes
they have been overheard by the warlock whose name they have just used so
disparagingly. Believe what you will about me—and I know my reputation is as
bloody as it is well-earned—but I have never taken retribution for such casual
disrespect. I save my vitriol for my enemies, and I have no enemies among my
own people. I am their champion, their defender, their weapon. I am the bloody
right hand of their emperor, loyally cutting down whatever His Highness directs
me against. All I have done has been to carry out the emperor’s will, for good
or ill.”

Brannis noted that Rashan grew increasingly
impassioned as he spoke, clearly proud of his service in the emperor’s name.
The streets were busy, and among the noise of the crowd, no one was paying them
enough attention to bother eavesdropping, though anyone who had would have been
fascinated.

“So all the wars, all the conquests, it was all the
emperor’s idea?” Brannis asked.

“Emperors, plural. Mind you, Brannis, that I was far
from young at the Battle of Farren’s Plain. I served four emperors, each with
their own way of keeping the Empire. I first took the mantle of warlock during
the reign of Escelon the Fourth. He was old and knew his health was failing. He
told me that he wanted his empire secured before his son took the throne. He
had me drive back the goblins—likely ancestors of the ones you recently
encountered—from the northwest of the Empire and back up into the Granite
Talons Mountain Range. I took ships and sank the fleets of Gar-Danel that had
preyed on our merchants. I was preparing to launch a full-scale war against
Megrenn when Escelon died one night in his sleep.

“Tameron the First was his heir and did not see things
as his father did. He had me stop my planned invasion and focus my efforts on
building the strength of the Empire from within. He wanted me to train others
to be warlocks and to teach our sorcerers how to do battle—and I assure you
there is a difference.” Brannis nodded. “Under his long rule, Kadrin waged no
war of aggression, but twice fought off smaller foes who sought to steal small
stretches of land while we seemed passive. I also killed three of my own sons
trying to make warlocks out of them.” Rashan paused for a moment and sighed,
seeming to drift away mentally from the conversation for just a moment. “It
cannot be done so easily, you know. The talent is either there or it is not. It
was a hard thing to learn.

“After Tameron was Liead. Liead the Only, for he forbade
his ancestors from reusing his name. He and I were friends. I had educated him
as a boy, and he grew up as more like a son to me than to the emperor. He
shared my views and saw the Kadrin Empire for what it could be, and not what it
was. It was he who gave me wide latitude to expand the Empire wherever I could.
It was under his reign that my Megrenn invasion took place, whence my
appellation was earned, and when we added Tuermon, Ghelk, and Safschan to the
Empire. Loramar was Ghelkan, and his rise was a consequence of our conquest.
The First and Second Necromancer Wars were both fought during Liead’s time as
emperor.

“When Merenon the Second took the throne, I was well
entrenched as his main adviser, having been his father’s most trusted friend
for over sixty summers. He was a brilliant strategist; I made sure of that. It
was his idea to form the Red Riders,” Rashan said, sighing yet again, “and doom
so many of our young sorcerers to a life of battle against the dead. But his
idea was what saved us from Loramar. Well, saved Kadrin anyway; I suppose I
would have survived in any event.”

*
* * * * * * *

“So what you are saying is, you would almost have
preferred that I reveal you as the great and powerful Rashan, long-lost warlock
of the Empire and returning hero,” Brannis suggested. “Trying to stir the stew
a bit before our arrival in Kadrin, letting rumor be your herald?”

Rashan slit his eyes at Brannis. The boy was no fool.
Rashan had always preferred for his words to have two meanings when possible;
it was just more efficient. Most who heard him would only listen to the
obvious, the blustering of an old war-mule of a sorcerer, claiming to be
Warlock Rashan. He liked to discover who actually paid attention to why he
spoke, and not just the plain meaning of the words. Those who did were the ones
who were useful beyond carrying out orders; they were the thinkers who could
act on their own and succeed. The young knight’s motives were simple enough to
read, so he had no doubt of Brannis’s loyalty to the Empire, and being kin made
it even simpler. Yes, he would put Brannis to use.

“No, merely amusing myself at the possible scene it
might have caused. You are right, though: that man Snead may well have figured
it out, even if he would not have believed it,” Rashan said. “Besides, we are
not going to be sneaking up on anyone. They will know rather quickly when we
are to be arriving, and who you are supposedly bringing with you.”