The Seer King: Book One of the Seer King Trilogy (67 page)

One storm-tossed night, the story went, nearby peasants heard screams from the fortress, screams far louder than any human throat should be able to produce. A few of the bravest chanced peering into the night, and saw all of the citadel’s lights flash bright and then go out as if they were a single candle snuffed by a giant hand.

The next day, no one came out of the citadel, and that night it remained dark. So it went for a week until one courageous young man chanced climbing the ramps to the entrance, and found its iron gates blasted open, as if a giant hand had ripped them away.

He entered, and found no sign of any of the priests. Nor was there any indication of what had happened, neither bloodstain nor corpse to be found.

The stronghold sat vacant for almost a century, then an outlaw baron took and held it, and once more the valley paid a bitter price for “protection.” Three generations of this family held the fortress, each lord more baneful than the last.

Finally, Chardin Sher’s father mounted an expedition against the current baron and, by deceit, gained entrance. The baron was taken, tried for his crimes, and quartered below the citadel. His women and children were reduced to commoners and sold as slaves. Perhaps the fortress should have been left empty, or even razed to the bare rocks. But it was not Chardin Sher’s father and then his son made it their last refuge, adding to its defenses.

Now it was surrounded by the Numantian Army. There were three choices: to reduce it by sorcery; to attempt to storm it; or starve out Chardin Sher, his magicians, and his retainers.

Tenedos tried magic first, and his assembled magi used the natural force of the season to send storm after storm against the towers. The magicians within, led by Mikael Yanthlus, not only used defensive spells to lessen the effect, but sent their own conjurations against the soldiers below.

The normal spells of apprehension, fear, and such were accompanied with incantations intended to bring sicknesses and plagues on us, fortunately countered by Tenedos’s magicians before more than a handful of victims were stricken.

The storm spells were cast again and again, and then it seemed they took on a life of their own. It was awesome to watch the dark bulk of the citadel against the night as winds screamed against it and lightning slashed from the skies, thunder rocking the valley.

It was awesome — and harder on us in some ways than on those inside, for at least they had shelter. We had nothing but canvas, and the winds laughed at our tents and ripped them to shreds. The fields were sodden muck, and the fanners fled the wrath of the Numantians.

One night was marked by bolt after bolt, and it seemed certain the fortress would be, must be, broken and shattered to the smallest stone as it stood against the night, its bulk sheathed with white light. But when the dawn mist blew away it still stood, seemingly untouched. Then someone noticed a narrow crack down one side. We tried to feel hopeful, but if that was the best Tenedos’s wizardry could produce it would be a very long siege.

Two days later, Tenedos summoned me. He was not living under canvas, but had taken over a guildhall in the nearest town. I found him there, and was about to jest about how comfortable our leaders chose to live, but clamped my mouth shut, seeing how drawn and gray his features were. He looked far worse than any horseman or private, and I realized this war of spells was as exhausting on him as hand-to-hand fighting would be for me.

I asked his health, and he said he was well, and then inquired as to mine, as to how Marán was doing, was she managing all right, and so forth. He took me into his own chamber, and told me to sit down while he made tea.

He brewed a fragrant, warm concoction, and let it steep. I drew in the smell, and felt the long chill in my bones from living rough for so long dissipate a little. He poured me a cup, and offered a tin of sweets that must have just been sent him by Rasenna.

I took one, just as a small alarm bell tinkled in my mind. I attempted to turn it into a joke, saying that, no doubt, with all this buildup I was about to be asked to do something completely insane, such as storm the fortress single-handed.

“Just so, Damastes,” Tenedos said, and there was not an ounce of humor on his face or in his voice.

“Sir?”

“May I sit down?” This was unusual, my commander hardly needing my permission for anything. I nodded. He poured himself some of the tea, then let it sit and grow cold, ignored, while he considered his words.

“Damastes, we must destroy Chardin Sher. There can be no truce, no surrender except unconditional, or he’ll try to usurp our rulers again.”

“Of course.”

“I do not know if the army can stand up to a long siege, quite frankly. We have no training, nor, with our new policies, the supply train that would allow us to keep Chardin Sher’s fortress invested. Nor do we have the engines for such a battle, and it would be several months to build or have them built and transported to the faraway area.

“I know it is my army, and they obey me absolutely, but I fear if we just sit here the Rule of Ten will find a backbone somewhere, and begin meddling once more.”

“We can hardly take that bastion by storm,” I pointed out.

“No,” Tenedos agreed. “Nor, although you did not hear it from me, will magic work. I have more power than Mikael Yanthlus, and with my magicians far greater strengths than he and his staff can ever produce. The problem is all he need do is defend, which takes less energy than to attack. The best my mightiest incantations could produce, and this was calling in debts owed creatures of other worlds, was that storm that managed to chip the citadel’s paint.

“Pfah! I like this but little.”

“So somehow I am going to be the solution to everyone’s problems,” I said.

“I was serious, Damastes. Let me explain. There is something dark, something evil, about that fortress, as you know if you’ve heard anything of its history. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I have managed to contact this thing, this power, and woo it to do my bidding. You may not ask what its price is, but it is terrible, but not to be paid for some time to come, fortunately.

“But this thing, force, demon, whatever it is, desired something else before it agreed to the bargain.

“If it is to act as I wish against Chardin Sher, I must be willing to prove my sincerity, or maybe commitment is a better word.” Tenedos sat silently for a moment, then went on. “A certain service must be performed by someone I love, a service that could mean that person’s life, or the force will not grant my wish.”

“So I’m to be a hostage?”

“More. You must enter the fortress and, on the floor of its innermost courtyard, draw a symbol and pour a potion out Then the bargain is sealed.”

“I assume I die in the process?”

“Not necessarily,” Tenedos said, but he looked very unsure. “If you manage to make entrance, do what you’re required, you could well have time enough to escape if you’re not discovered.”

“And what are the chances of
that,
” I said, feeling my guts cold within me. “As a matter of fact, how do I know that this demon or whatever it is will keep its bargain?”

“I’ll be truthful. There is a chance of betrayal, but a very slight one. As for you being able to escape, I’ll give you all the sorcerous guards I can provide.”

“How am I to enter the citadel? Can you change me into a bird? Or, considering the nature of that place, a bat might be more appropriate.”

“Of course not.” He took me by the arm, and led me to a window and opened its shutter. The winter wind howled around us, but neither of us paid mind, as we stared up at the brooding mass not many miles distant As Tenedos pointed, I’d already guessed his idea. It was not utterly impossible, just highly so.

Tenedos closed the shutters.

“I shall not press you for an answer, Damastes, my friend, and you now know how highly I prize that title, for you are the only one who is acceptable to my partner-to-be. You don’t even have to tell me no. If I don’t hear from you within a day or so, well, then, we’ll find another way to winkle Chardin Sher out.”

I only half-heard him. I opened the shutters, and looked up once more at the fortress. I was reminded what I’d been taught from when I was a child, that a leader’s duty is to lead from the front, and then I remembered a proverb I’d heard somewhere, that duty is hard as iron, but death is light as a feather.

Easy words, hard meaning. My mind turned to Marán, and I thought wistfully of her. I desperately wanted to say no to this absurd idea, but could not. Nor could I agree to it. I wondered if our child had been born whole if I’d cling to life so desperately, something a soldier must not do.

I banged the shutters to, and turned to the seer.

“You needn’t wait for a reply. I’ll go.”

A slow smile moved across his face.

“Do you know, Damastes, I never doubted that you would say yes? That’s why it took me two full days to find the courage to ask you.”

• • •

The way in was, of course, up that lightning-cut crack in the walls. Once atop the walls, all that would be necessary was to evade the sentries on the battlements, make my way down the wall, across unknown obstacles, perform Tenedos’s task, and then somehow be able to escape with my head more or less attached to where it was most comfortable.

On the way I also planned to end war, disease, and famine with my free hand.

I decided I’d need three other fools to accompany me.

The first was Lance Karjan. I told him what the chances were, and he shrugged. “Sir, how many times since we met have we been dead an’ gone already? I’m gettin’ used t’ the idea by now. ‘Sides, if we get away wi’ it, which we ain’t gonna, it’ll be a tale that’ll buy me drink for the rest of my life.”

“If you’re going,” I said, “you’ll have to go as a lance-major. Bigger death benefits.” Karjan growled, then grinned. “You’ll take any ‘vantage, won’t you, sir?”

“I will.” He saluted. One.

I couldn’t simply tell my dominas I needed two more men, because I knew I’d be swamped with volunteers. While I considered how to do it, Karjan returned. Behind him was the bulk of Svalbard, that great silent brawler who I now was pleased to see wore the slashes of a lance-major.

“He’s goin', too,” Karjan told me.

“Lance Karjan told you what I’m going to attempt?”

“He did. Sir.”

“You’re aware there are
no
chances of surviving?”

“Don’t believe that. Sir.”

We stared at each other in silence. I was the first to break, knowing how useless it would be to say more.

“Very well. Leave your troop and move up here to my headquarters.”

“Thank you. Sir.” And the man was gone.

Two.

The third was Domina Bikaner, who insisted he by the gods had the right to go, being who he was and how long we’d soldiered together. I told him absolutely no. The Lancers needed him. He began to argue, and I had to order him to shut up and get out. I was considering who I should ask to finish the suicide team when General Yonge entered my tent without bothering to knock.

“I understand, my friend, that you are planning something completely foolish.”

“That’s about the best way to put it. How did you hear about it?”

“Never ask that of a man who was his village’s best chicken thief before he could walk more than five paces without falling. I want to know why you did not call on me?”

“Because you are a gods-damned general.”

Yonge spat on my tent floor, and lifted off his sash. His knife was suddenly in his hand, and the sash was cut in two pieces. He cast it down and ground his heel across it.

“Now I am just Yonge of the Hills.”

I swore at him, and he swore back at me. I told him he was being insolent, and he told me I had best watch my tongue, for a Kaiti would not allow anyone, not even a general, to talk like that. Especially if he was Numantian.

“You know I could call for the provosts, or tell Tenedos, and you’d be held in irons until I returned?”

“Do you think I would still be here by the time they arrived? Listen, you ox of a Cimabuan. I came to study honor, did I not?”

“Honor is not foolishness, dammit!”

“What idiot said that?”

My grin took me by surprise.

“As for that wizard, pah!” Yonge went on. “Do you think I obey him because I’m afraid? I do what I want when I want. For a while it amused me to lead soldiers, to try to teach poor lumbering farm boys how to move as if they were men of the crags. Now it amuses me to do something else.

“Now I plan to climb that fortress to see what is inside. Would you care to accompany me, Cimabuan?”

“How do you know I’m planning to climb it?”

“Because not even you are foolish enough to try tunneling.”

Tenedos would be livid, but:

Three.

• • •

Two generals and two lance-majors stood in sheeting rain at the foot of the nearly vertical wall of Chardin Sher’s last stronghold. Ten feet above us, the crack lightning had smashed into the fortress began.

The storm had raged, on and off, since noon of that day, alternating with periods of calm. It was partially regulated by thirty of Tenedos’s magicians, working from a post just behind our front lines. In my pack I carried a small, dark lantern, which I could use to signal the sages. One flash meant lift the storm, two meant bring it down. Three flashes would be sent when — or if — we reached the top of the wall. “I doubt if this will work exactly,” Tenedos had said. “But it’s worth the effort.” Also in the pack were gloves, sock-like covers to muffle my nailed boots if we succeeded in climbing to the ramparts, a flask of tea, three sealed oilskin pouches of spiced chicken, plus some jerked beef and hard candies to suck. The most important item was a quart flask full of the potion that would set off the spell. Beside it was a fat stick of reddish chalk-looking material. I’d spent four hours drawing and redrawing the figure I was to create inside the courtyard, with Tenedos hovering over me and correcting my mistakes, although both the figure and the symbols that were to accompany it made no sense to me. I asked Tenedos if the rain wouldn’t wash the chalk off the stones, and he told me it had a spell cast to prevent that from happening.