Iron and Blood (8 page)

Tyvian fished in his pockets and brought out the two thunder-­orbs. “I've got these.”

Myreon scowled. “It won't work on them—­they're warded!”

“Then I won't throw it
at
them. Gods, am I the
only
one who displays any ingenuity in these matters?”

The bellows of the mark-­slaves got closer, and Myreon cursed. “They must have a seekwand.”

“Kalsaaris lack the know-­how,” Tyvian corrected. “They've just got enhanced senses—­like bloodhounds. Let's move.”

They kept running, this time toward the edge of the market itself. “Where's that gnoll of yours when you need her?” Myreon gasped. Her pace was slowing.

Tyvian grabbed her by the collar and dragged her into an alley just outside the market, his sore shoulder groaning in pain. “You need to get out of the saddle more often, Myreon. You're soft.”

Myreon leaned back against the wall, hands on her knees as she struggled to catch her breath. “I'm . . . usually . . . the one doing the chasing. This . . . is a different experience altogether.”

The mark-­slaves voices came echoing up the street—­they were closing in.

Myreon turned and looked at the back of the alley—­a narrow passage between two brick buildings led through to a street on the other side. “Here—­this way!”

“Not so fast!” Tyvian pulled Myreon back and threw the two thunder-­orbs at the gap. They exploded in spectacular fashion, causing the corners of the two buildings to collapse into a pile of impassible rubble.

Myreon stared at their blocked escape, aghast. “What . . . why did you
do
that?”

The mark-­slaves appeared at the entrance to the alley, their faces grim. Tyvian looked at them and sighed. “I'm sorry, Myreon, but my plan calls for us to be captured.”

“Plan?”

“Well, yes—­I always have a plan.” Tyvian nodded. “You'll be delighted to know that your regaining the ability to cast spells will be most useful to its successful execution.”

Myreon shook her head, backing away from the tattooed brutes as they came ever closer. “You
purposely
led us to this alley. I can't believe it!”

“I know this sounds ridiculous, but you're going to have to trust me,” Tyvian said, getting down on his knees. “Oh, and I'd curl into a ball if I were you—­I'm pretty sure we're in for some savage kicking.”

N
obody noticed the column of mageglass-­clad soldiers marching through the Stair Market. The fact that it was snowing rather harder now, the flakes drifting down in heavy clumps that hit the cobblestones with an audible
thwick
and gradually building, was part of the reason. Another reason was that most of the merchants, knowing a heavy snowstorm when they saw one, were packing up shop and heading indoors, so there were fewer eyes on the street anyway. But the main reason that the column of twenty armored men went unnoticed was because they were, all of them, concealed with sorceries so powerful that few wizards outside of Saldor could have even dared attempt them.

The Aura of the Ordinary was a personal favorite of Master Defender Ultan Tarlyth—­something of a specialty of his, actually. The spell was a mixture of the orderly power of the Dweomer and the calming, soothing power of the Lumen, making those who were under its protection appear essentially, totally unremarkable and disinteresting. Back in the war, Tarlyth, as a young mage, had used this same spell to ambush a whole supply train of Sahand's army before the battle of Calassa. In his most arrogant moments he liked to tell himself that he was at least partially responsible for the Mad Prince's final defeat.

The spell was difficult to maintain, though, particularly in a place as full of suspicious eyes as Freegate. At the front of the column, a heavy gray cloak thrown over his mirrored armor, Tarlyth held his staff aloft, focusing as much of his attention as he could on maintaining the Aura as his Defenders marched in orderly fashion toward Top Street. To those they passed, they all appeared to be nothing more than a disorganized crowd of cloaked men moving in the same general direction—­nothing to arouse more than a brief flicker of interest from even the most suspicious. The price of that, however, was Tarlyth's hands nearly freezing with the icy power of the Dweomer and huge yawns battling their way up through his chest from the soothing Lumenal energy filling his body. A nap before a warm fire sounded like the absolute most wonderful thing in the world to his old bones at that very moment. Dammit, he thought, were I only a younger man.

Tarlyth kept it up, however, and for several reasons. The primary need for the Aura was political—­Freegate didn't want the Defenders in, and the Arcanostrum didn't want to aggravate Freegate. The city was sitting on one of the Western Alliance's most important trade routes, and the governments of Galaspin, Eretheria, and even Saldor would throw an apoplectic fit if a rash action by the Defenders caused Freegate to impose punitive tariffs. Though Tarlyth himself didn't find tariffs all that upsetting, he
did
enjoy his job and position within the Defender organization, and he didn't want to jeopardize it lightly. In all honesty, he shouldn't even be here.

That, of course, brought up the second reason: Tarlyth was and had been a member of the Sorcerous League for over a decade now. He initially joined with the exclusive intent of spying on them for Saldor and the Defenders, but as the years had taken their toll on his once-­robust body and he found himself ever more restricted from field operations, his attitude toward the organization had changed. With the Arcanostrum of Saldor, even in this modern, progressive age, sorcerous research and expanding the uses of the High Arts was consistently met with skepticism, wariness, and reluctance. Tests had to be performed; there had to be approval from committees of the various colleges; funding had to be secured. The process could take years unless you had the political connections that Tarlyth lacked. He wasn't a research mage, anyway—­he was a Defender, a practical user of the Art, not some skinny-­wrist bookworm holed up in a laboratory.

The odds of Saldor finding a way to restore his youth while he was still alive were slim to none. There was always cherille, but the stuff could cost more per bottle than half a year's stipend. He was the son of a blacksmith, not some wealthy noble-­born mage with his family's estate to help support him. No, Tarlyth knew that if he intended to become the young, virile ox of a man he had been in his youth, the Sorcerous League was the only way to do it.

They
got things done. Irresponsibly sometimes, ineffectively often, but they went out and did it. They took risks. They invested in their members. They encouraged innovation and, what's more, shared results. Sahand aside, he had come to think of it as less a secret cabal of evil wizards and more of an exclusive club of like-­minded, forward-­thinking men and women devoted to the advancement of the Art. The fact that the Arcanostrum disavowed its existence merely reinforced for Tarlyth where his loyalties
ought
to lie. Saldor sought to control, while the League sought to
liberate
.

By the time the Defenders reached Top Street, the snow was coming down in sheets. Tarlyth let the Aura drop and planted his staff on the cobblestones as his men fanned out up and down the rows of expensive homes and elaborate hotels. Closing his eyes, he hummed to himself a slow, building tune—­wordless and slightly off-­key. The music brought Lumenal energies seeping from the houses' cheery decorations and caused the slumbering seeds of nearby flower beds to coalesce into an Augury of Distress. Tarlyth could feel tugging on his soul from a hundred different directions—­manifestations of ­people's needs and wants, their troubles and secret calls for aid. He could feel babies crying like gentle tickles across his stomach; he could feel the sickening pangs of a drunk or ink-­thrall in need of their next drink or dip; he could feel the thrumming beat of someone seeking something lost. Tarlyth blotted them out—­what he needed to find was someone in need of rescue.

It only took him a moment to isolate it—­like a screeching, painful abrasion across the chest and back, the feel of someone trapped against their will, hoping to be free. It had to be Myreon. “Sergeant!”

The Sergeant Defender stepped to the Master's side. “Sir!”

Tarlyth nodded down the street. “The seventh house on the left, penthouse flat; go with speed, but be careful. Reldamar is to be taken alive.”

The sergeant saluted and called his men to him. They lit their firepikes, activated their wards and guards, and moved at a quick, efficient double-­time to the base of the tastefully appointed grounds of a three-­story apartment complex. When they had the place surrounded, Tarlyth scanned the building for traps or hexes—­it was clean. Just some warding on one of the rooms in the penthouse; that was, presumably, where they'd find Myreon. He gave the sergeant the go-­ahead.

The assault was quick and disciplined. Four blew open the front door with thunder-­orbs and stormed the front stairs, supported by another five who began a floor-­by-­floor search. Another group of five activated their lightfoot charms and scaled the side of the building as though it were a ladder, making it to the roof and in through the skylights at about the same time as the front-­door party were storming the penthouse. The remaining men secured the exits, making sure no one could get out without going through them. Tarlyth keyed his helmet to hear what his men heard—­a simple enchantment placed on the mageglass helms of all staff-­bearing Defenders.

“First floor—­clear!”

“Second floor—­clear!”

“Third floor—­ Oof! Contact, contact! Isolate!”
Tarlyth heard a few explosions and the flash of a firepike or two—­sounds of struggle. The voices came thrumming through the helmet in a jumble.
“Man down! One hostile, heading downstairs!”

“We got him!”

More flashes from firepikes, a few more thumps and groans, then,
“Got him! Grab his arms! Watch it!”

“Third floor—­clear!”

The Sergeant Defender appeared at the front door. He had a bloody nose. “Sir, you can come up now.”

Tarlyth smiled—­so much for Tyvian Reldamar. Myreon's rescue operation was providing the perfect opportunity to apprehend him for the League; if he could have, he would award the girl a medal for her contribution. The secrets the Iron Ring possessed could be a major breakthrough in the ultimate goal of every League member—­Rhadnost's Elixir.

Tarlyth found Reldamar on a landing between the third and second floor, flat on his face, a fur cape pulled over his head. Two Defenders were sitting on him—­one on his back, one on his legs. His hands were being cuffed behind him. Tarlyth leaned down, looking at Reldamar's hands.

There was no ring.

Tarlyth felt his spine tingle. With a rapid flick of his hand, he ripped the cape off the downed man with a simple spell. Looking up at him he saw the bearded, bloodied, filthy face of not Reldamar, but of Hacklar Jaevis. “What the . . .
Jaevis?
”

The Illini spat blood on the floor. “Why do you interfere with Jaevis? We are allies.”

“Dammit!” Tarlyth groaned, skipping over the man and running to the third floor, ignoring the sharp pains of his arthritic joints as he pushed them. He found one Defender down, a knife in his stomach, being tended to by his fellows, and another two with obvious wounds. The flat—­once finely appointed, no doubt—­was a smoldering wreck after ten Defenders and one Illini bounty hunter fought a brief, desperate battle here with all the magical weaponry at their disposal. Tarlyth darted past them to where two more defenders were trying to open the locks on the warded room. “Blow it open!” he barked.

One defender pulled back his mirrored visor. “Sir, Magus Alafarr could be in—­”

“Blow it!”

The two men didn't hesitate. They fell back from the door, drew antispell and thunder-­orbs from their bandoliers, and threw one after the other. The door's wards winked out a split second before it was obliterated in a thunderous explosion of Fey energy. Tarlyth was through the door before the smoke cleared. There, tied to a chair, was a leathery old Kalsaari with a tattooed body. His dark eyes were wide with panic—­this was the source of the need for rescue Tarlyth had sensed, drawing him and his Defenders right here. “Kroth's bloody teeth!” he swore.

How could Reldamar have known they were coming? Where else could he be? How was it possible Reldamar could have anticipated this? Had Myreon been compromised? Had one of Tarlyth's contacts betrayed him? He stomped from the warded room and kicked over an end table. “Dammit!”

“Sir! We found something!” A Defender called him into the dining room. When Tarlyth came in, he found the men puzzling over an envelope on a luxurious mageglass table.

Tarlyth snatched it up; it was addressed to “Commanding Officer, Defenders of the Balance Standing in my Dining Room.” Tarlyth tore it open with a snarl.

Dear Sir or Madam,

Welcome to my humble abode. I have no doubt it is somewhat more humble now than before, since I am well aware of just how little care your organization gives to the furniture and, say, doors that appoint a would-­be detainee's living quarters. In any event, I bid you to make yourself at home. There is a pretty good bottle of wine in the cupboard over the washbasin in the kitchen (just for you—­I wouldn't waste it on the blunt palates of those thugs you employ).

As you probably have noticed by now, I am not at home. I don't anticipate coming back anytime soon, so don't get your hopes up. No, you should know that by the time you are likely to read this, I and your dear friend, Myreon Alafarr, have fallen into custody of one Angharad tin'Theliara Hanim, who no doubt wishes some kind of terrible fate upon us. Don't hold it against her—­she's Kalsaari, after all.