The Sorcerer's Vengeance: Book 4 of the Sorcerer's Path (16 page)

Hati raced skyward, her powerful chest and back muscles shoving her wings down against the resisting, invisible air. She reached a comfortable height of a few thousand feet and glided upon the warm currents that helped keep her aloft without expending hardly any energy of her own and sank her powerful beak into the still warm flesh of her meal.

I don’t have a beak!
Hati’s mind told her.

We once did,
her heart replied.
Beak or mouth, it does not matter. What is important is flying and the hunt.
We will fly and we will hunt again. Nothing else is important.

Hati liked her heart. It had the right answers. Nothing was important but the hunt, and she would hunt again soon.

Zagrat retired to his chambers in the underground caverns he made his home, fortress, and laboratory. The human girl’s transformation had exhausted him more than any other with the exception of Grogan’s creation. He had instilled a great deal of his own magic in making her into what he needed. Attaching the wings, muscles, even the heart was not overly difficult for him these days. He marveled at how far he had come over the years. Today was the first time he had successfully transferred the heart of an animal into a human.

But all those were just parts, simply connecting tubes and arteries and enspelling them to take root inside their new host. All those crafts were still insufficient to give Hati the power of true flight. He made her new muscles and made the existing muscles stronger, but he still had to cast several permanent spells into her to make her perfect.

He had studied the flight of birds for years and his early experiments taught him that flight was a very difficult feat. The human body simply was not balanced properly for it. Even the largest wings would not lift the muscle and solid bones of a human, and the muscles required to work them would have to be massive to the point of uselessness.

Overcoming such obstacles had taxed him severely. He was not a strong hobgoblin, not like the warriors of his people. Not even like the average citizen of his people. He was thin and frail amongst a people known for their strength and bullishness. He preferred books to swords and brains over brawn. It was such that led him to study under the tribe’s former shaman, the shaman he had slain when he felt he learned what he could from his living mind and body. Zagrat had learned so much more from him after he had killed him.

A nagging thrumming seemed to echo through the chamber although there was no sound. He could feel the disturbing vibrations resonating through his pallid, ochre flesh and into his bones. The shaman crossed his room and stared into the large black pool of water that occupied the far side of the chamber. Ripples spread out from the center in ever-widening concentric circles as if something disturbed its dark surface. And something did and the source of the disturbance disturbed him as well.

“Yes, master,” Zagrat whispered to the pool.

A shadowy, spectral image appeared in the pool’s dark surface. Red pinpoints of light shone brightly under a deep burgundy hood where eyes should have been. Even through the reflection of the pool, the shaman could feel the terror, freezing cold, and pure evil emanating from the creature, yes creature, for although it was once a man it surrendered its humanity long ago.

“Have you been ignoring my summons, Zagrat?” Varnath asked.

“No, master, I have been very busy building warriors for your conquest,” Zagrat replied.

“Excellent. How many have you constructed today?” the image asked hollowly.

Sweat beaded upon the shaman’s brow. “Just one master, but—,”

“One! You are supposed to be building me an army, Zagrat. One is not an army!”

“But, master, it is a most splendid specimen, the finest I have ever created! With what I learned I can make you a unit of fighters that could not be matched, given time,” Zagrat hastily tried to explain.

“I am not interested in your toys, shaman. You are spending too much time on your personal projects. I need an army; an army that cannot be simply turned away by Solarian’s cursed Chosen, or mindless minions that can be hacked apart by the greenest of conscripts. I have plenty of those at my disposal already. The earth is filled with them. I am sufficiently pleased with your ragmen so get busy!”

The image faded away as the black water boiled and steamed; a clear indication of his master’s displeasure. Zagrat paced his room. Varnath did not understand how important his work was, how important the things he learned today with the Hati construct. With time, he could make an entire company of flying warriors, firing bows or dropping incendiary pots upon enemy ranks with impunity. Just the reconnaissance value alone would be invaluable. But the lich lord was not going to give him the time he needed. Oh well, he would have time after the slaughter and conquest of the southern lands and his very own castle to work in without interruption.

CHAPTER
8

Azerick and Sandy stood atop a low rise looking out across the sands to the distant town of Rapture that sat growing like a malignant tumor a mile to the southeast.

“I want you to stay near this dune as much as possible,” Azerick told Sandy. “I do not know how long I will be, but if—when—I return I will look for you here.”

“Ok, I’ll wait here. Are those goats I see over there?” Sandy asked looking at a large number of black specks a short ways outside of Rapture.

Azerick squinted into the distance but his eyes were nowhere near as keen as the little predator’s. “Probably, but you need to stay away from them. I will leave you with food so there is no need for you to risk getting into trouble with the people here. Remember, these are mostly very bad people, some of the worst that humans have produced.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll keep away from the humans and hide under the sand,” Sandy answered, rolling her big eyes.

Azerick pulled most of the remaining smoked and salted meats from the magic bag, wrapped them in an ordinary linen sack, and left it for Sandy along with a couple of water skins. The herd of goats was near a fairly large oasis with plenty of water if she ran out and got desperate.

With one last suspicious look at Sandy, Azerick rode Horse down the hill and towards Rapture. The town was even more decayed and ramshackle than Azerick had imagined and the smell rivaled that of the stockyards at Langdon’s Crossing. Most of the buildings were crudely fashioned from whatever materials could be carted in from more civilized locations or salvaged. Barely-clothed, filthy, swarthy-skinned children ran amok, looking wilder than the dog packs with which they shared the streets.

  The great black tower loomed over the town. Fashioned from the blackest stone, it was several stories taller than Azerick’s own tower in North Haven and twice as big around. It was the only building he had yet seen that did not have hard-eyed men loitering around its walls and was not surrounded by trash.

Azerick chose a tavern near the tower that had a stable. A tough-looking youth with a split lip and a black eye shuffled lazily out to take Horse’s reins. Before the lad took Horse away, Azerick pulled the magic bag out of his saddlebag and pulled out the large bag of oats. He returned the sack to the saddlebag, strapped it down tight, and cast a simple locking spell onto the buckles that would keep anyone from being able to open it.

“Feed him a double handful of oats twice a day, brush him down, and make sure his water is fresh. Do not try to get into the bags. You cannot and I will know if you try. He and all my gear had best be here when I return,” Azerick told the youth firmly and handed him a gold coin.

Azerick held up a second coin. “You will get this when I return and you have followed my instructions to the letter. If I find you have not…” Azerick left the threat hanging and stalked off into the tavern.

He kept his staff close at hand, which brought some covetous looks his way from the rough-looking men and few women in the bar as he took a seat at one of the rickety tables facing the door. Dressed in his dark clothes and black cloak probably made him resemble one of the black tower wizards well enough that no one felt overly compelled to challenge him for the obviously valuable weapon.

He sat at his table sipping at the swill they served for ale and pondering how best to approach the tower and its occupants. He had not yet determined precisely what course of action he was going to take. Azerick knew that he was a formidable spell caster given his level of experience, particularly wielding the staff, but he was under few illusions that he could take on an entire enclave of wizards that likely boasted at least a few archmages, several adepts, and an untold number of lesser wizards.

He thought about lying in wait and ambushing one of them and extracting the information he wanted, but that plan was wrought with several pitfalls. Assuming he could capture one of the leading wizards without getting himself killed or bringing on the wrath of the entire enclave, he could not be sure that the one he captured would have the information he sought.

Perhaps he could infiltrate the tower as a student or colleague. He could casually ask questions and search for answers once he was inside. Azerick drummed his fingers on the rough and cracked tabletop. Those thoughts had barely crossed his mind when two young men dressed in black robes strode into the bar with the self-assured arrogance that announced them as untouchable.

The pair brought a few hostile glares from some of the seedy patrons but most looked quickly away when the two wizards looked their direction. It did not take long at all before the young man with the magnificent staff drew their attention. One leaned towards his companion, speaking to him in hushed tones while looking between Azerick and the staff he held in the crook of his arm with most of its length concealed under the table.

The two stood up as one, confidently strode towards Azerick’s table, and sneered down at him contemptuously. One looked about Azerick’s age, the other a few years older and apparently the senior of the two.

“That is an awfully nice staff you have there,” the older of the two told Azerick, “much too nice for the likes of you. You steal it from your master?”

Azerick looked up at the speaker and replied flatly. “No, it was made for me by friends.”

“You are not from the black tower, we would know, but I can tell you are a mage. Trying to pass yourself off as a black tower wizard in this town is a crime punishable by death.”

“I am not trying to do any such thing, though I do have business I would discuss with the tower. One of the masters, not one of their lackeys,” Azerick told the speaker, leaving no doubt as to whom he was referring.

Both of the young men’s faces turned scarlet at the insult. “Are you looking to join the tower? Give me the staff and I will see that you get to meet one of my senior associates alive. Otherwise I will take them your dead corpse for to do with as they please.”

“Dead corpse? Your redundancy gives credence to your stupidity. I suggest you and your girlfriend leave me be while you still have lungs with which to draw breath,” Azerick warned them in a hard-edged voice that matched his glare.

“You dare insult and threaten wizards from the black tower within the tower’s very own shadow?” the overconfident young wizard shouted down at the still seated upstart.

 Azerick could hear the screech of chairs being pushed back by their occupants as they sought to remove themselves from the line of fire. Both young wizards’ hands darted into their pocket or pouches, no doubt reaching for a spell component to unleash their wrath upon the man that insulted them.

“No, I insult and threaten two foolish little apprentices who are too stupid to recognize one of their betters,” Azerick growled.

“I am an adept, you fool, and I will show you whom is who’s better!” the brash young wizard shouted in rage, spittle flying from his lips as he and his companion jerked their hands out from under their robes and began casting spells that would tear this upstart to shreds.

The moment the two wizards made their move, Azerick brought his legs up and shoved the table into the thighs of both wizards, causing them to stumble back and foul their castings. Free of the table, he leapt, spun his staff, and in one fluid movement, thrust the arcanum spear through the talkative wizard’s chest. Azerick sent a burst of energy through the staff so powerful that it blew a hole clean through the wizard’s torso large enough that Azerick could look through it and watch as the dead man’s heart slapped against the wall behind the bar close enough to the shocked bartender that it spattered his face in gore.

With his left hand, he released an invisible blast of force that sent the other wizard sprawling several yards across the floor, fetching up against the bar, and trying to draw breath. Before he was even able to take a full breath, fear helped propel the black tower wizard onto his feet and out the door, giving the lethal stranger a wide birth. Azerick did not attempt to stop him. He was a small fish in a much bigger pond and posed no threat to himself now.

Azerick looked about the room to ensure that nobody else was foolish or reckless enough to try and lash out at him. Nobody was. One did not survive long in Rapture who was not smart enough to know when they were clearly outmatched.

Well, I am certain that will get the attention of some of the tower masters,
Azerick thought to himself.
Probably more than I need right now,
and made his way slowly towards the door.

***

Krendall had just gathered up his traveling supplies and was crossing the spacious bottom floor of the black tower on his way out when a voice called out to him, a voice that made him hunch his shoulders in irritation.

Gods, it is like pulling the entrails from a living imp,
the wizard thought as he turned around to face the one that hailed him.

“Yes, Shakrill?”

The mage strode down the wide winding stairs towards the other wizard.

“Krendall, what is the status on Dundalor’s Armor? That general of yours has had plenty of time to recover it by now I think. You have practically delivered it into his hands. I fail to see why it is taking so long,” Shakrill demanded in her shrewish tone.