War of Wizards (11 page)

Markal reached the top. Three figures stood looking east: the king, Pasha Boroah, and Hoffan, the mountain lord. The wind shifted, bringing the briny scent of the sea, and it caught their cloaks and sent them flapping. They glanced at Markal as he came to stand by their side.

Veyre stretched below and in the distance, still several miles off. It rose on the edge of a gray, restless sea that sent breakers crashing against the rocky spit of land that sheltered the bay and the sea wall. The city was massive, five miles long where it met the coast and two miles wide, protected on one side by city walls rivaling those of Balsalom or Arvada, and by the sea on the other.

As large as the city was, the black ziggurat at its heart dominated. It was one layer on top of another, almost pyramid shaped as it climbed. The uppermost level was a tower that stood on one edge and gave the entire structure an unbalanced look. According to captives, a second wall surrounded the citadel compound itself and was built of the same black bricks, but Markal couldn’t see it from this vantage.

A dark feeling washed over Markal, as if someone or something had turned its malevolent gaze in their direction. No, he realized, it was the Dark Citadel itself. It gave off an energy, a black magic concentrated and radiating outward like the tendrils of some tumorous growth.

“Well, friends,” Whelan said. “What do you think? Can we take it?”

“There’s no army to stop us from laying siege,” Hoffan said.

Markal eyed the burned fields and destroyed villages that dotted the plains between their encampment west of the city and the walls themselves. The destruction hadn’t been Whelan’s doing, but the dark wizard scorching the landscape ahead of the invading army.

“And once we’ve surrounded the city, what then?” Markal said.

Whelan shrugged. “Attack with siege weapons, attempt to scale the walls. Turn your magic against the city, see if you can break the dark wizard’s hold on the Veyrians’ minds.”

“I don’t know where to begin such a thing.”

“We can mine the walls,” Hoffan said. “We have the men and the tools.”

Whelan nodded and glanced at Markal. “And magic to soften the ground.”

Pasha Boroah cleared his throat. “Has anyone seen the dragon?”

“Not since yesterday,” Markal said. “It might be in the city, waiting for us. Or it might be hunting the griffin riders west of here.”

“There’s smoke rising from the citadel,” Boroah said. “Perhaps they’re feeding it for battle.”

Pasha Boroah was a Selphan with a blue turban and bushy sideburns that connected to his mustache. He stroked his whiskers when he was thinking, which he seemed to do a good deal of. Whelan had privately told Markal that Boroah was overly cautious in battle, but what the pasha lacked in initiative, he made up for with his steady nerve. His men were disciplined marchers and held their ranks in the thick of battle. The long miles marching eastward had trimmed Boroah’s once-ample waist and thinned his face until the wrinkles cut his skin like dry washes on a drought-blasted desert plain.

“I don’t suppose there’s been any sign of those buzzard riders,” Hoffan said. He toyed with a dagger, spinning it around in his meaty palm and sliding it in and out of its sheath. “Let them face that monster if they dare. I sure as hell don’t want to.”

“The griffin riders don’t lack courage,” Boroah said, “it’s numbers they lack. How many do we expect?”

“Fewer than before,” Markal said. “Maybe a hundred, if we’re fortunate. And after they fight the dragon, there will be fewer still.”

“So long as they kill the thing,” Boroah said.

Markal’s eyes caught movement at the Dark Citadel, and he squinted. There had been figures moving around the top of the uppermost tower, and now something was falling from it, as if men were pitching bundles over the edge.

“What is that?” Markal pointed. “There, at the top of the Dark Citadel. What are they throwing down?”

Whelan frowned. “My eyes aren’t that strong.”

“Markal seems to have forgotten that he’s a wizard,” Hoffan said. “Next thing, he’ll ask us to flap our arms, take a flight over the city, and have a look.”

“Sure,” Markal said, “and while you’re flying around, maybe you can have a go at the dragon yourself.”

Hoffan chuckled. “You’re missing that bird fellow, what’s his name? Narud?”

It was true, Markal could use Narud’s assistance, but there had been no sign of the other wizard since Marrabat. Narud was supposedly keeping an eye on Chantmer, but Markal wished he were here. He might be able to infiltrate Veyre and do some spying.

Whatever they were throwing from the Dark Citadel, they kept at it for several minutes, with a new bundle falling every few seconds until they stopped.

While Markal puzzled over this, Whelan made plans with Boroah and Hoffan for their final approach to the city walls. Suddenly, what looked like a dark cloud began to roll away from the ziggurat. It crossed the city walls and flowed above the burned fields beyond. What was that? It was too dark and low for a cloud.

“What the devil is that?” Whelan asked.

It was accelerating toward them, and Markal readied a spell to shield them. Too late. The cloud washed over the hill and hit the wizard and the three men standing with him. For an instant, there was a sensation like fingers in Markal’s mind, prying at him, like his soul would be tugged from his body. Then the cloud was gone, continuing down the hill toward Whelan’s armies encamped along the hillside and west on the Tothian Way.

Tents flapped where it passed, and those few men already up and moving doubled over, crying out and throwing their hands to their faces. Horses reared and whinnied. The shadow didn’t stop, but kept picking up speed until it was racing west. Soon, it disappeared altogether. The camp calmed.

Whelan, Hoffan, and Boroah were shaking their heads, confused, as if they’d suffered a knock to the head. The king seemed to recover first.

“I don’t know what that was,” Whelan said, “but I don’t think it was intended for us.”

Markal stared after it. “No. It was carrying something west. To some ally of the Dark Wizard. Who or what, I can’t imagine.”

As soon as the words came out, he thought of Balsalom, of the khalifa, and he could tell from the troubled look on his friend’s face that Whelan was thinking the same thing.

“Let’s go,” Whelan said curtly. “Let’s end this war.”

#

The Veyrian army had battled them for months, but they offered no opposition in the final march to the gates of the city. A few weeks ago, a joint attack by Pasha Ismail and a brutal company of ravagers had nearly broken King Whelan’s lines. Whelan himself had nearly fallen to the ravager captain, his own brother Roderick, the slain Knight Temperate brought back to life. That had been the last major battle, but the Veyrians had continued skirmishing. They sent raids to destroy supply caravans, and cavalry feints and thrusts to probe for weak places in Whelan’s lines.

But now, silence. No army marched from the gates of Veyre, no giants and mammoths came stomping into battle. No ravagers appeared to kill and maim. If not for the archers waiting silently atop the city walls, Markal would have thought the city abandoned.

Markal rode next to Whelan, ready to cast spells to protect the king should some unexpected threat appear. Otherwise, he felt strangely tranquil.

“After all this time,” Whelan said, “we’ve come to a complete reversal. We’re the ones in front of the gates, not cowering behind them.” His saddle creaked as he turned to Markal. “Do you think it’s a trap, or are they settling in for a siege?”

“I don’t know,” Markal admitted. “I am sure the dark wizard has tricks. There is the dragon, for one, and we felt Toth cast a spell from the Dark Citadel. Surely, he has more magic to throw at us. He is more than a match for my feeble skills.”

Whelan’s eyes fell to the rounded shape beneath Markal’s robe. “What about Memnet’s orb?”

“I’ve gathered as much magic as I can. But I need help. I need Narud. And Timothe and Philina from the Order. Even Darik could assist me.”

“Wherever the boy is, I’m sure he is doing his duty.”

“He’s a man now, not a boy,” Markal said. “But yes. He is.”

“He has come a long way, our young friend.” Whelan smiled. His face had been grim for so long, and it was a pleasant sight. “Do you remember the battle at Montcrag? He almost cut off his own leg. And the dumbfounded look when he climbed onto the griffin and held onto Daria for dear life?”

“A long way in a very short time.”

“The pieces were always there. We both saw his potential.”

It was Markal’s turn to smile. “More potential with magic than the sword, of course.”

Whelan’s eyebrow went up. “Oh, of course. Shame he doesn’t seem to care for the idea of celibacy as your order demands.”

“That’s ridiculous. We don’t demand celibacy.”

“Near enough. Have you ever married, ever had children?”

“Of course I have!”

“Recently?”

“It has been a few years,” Markal admitted.

“And by years, you mean generations.”

“In any event,” Markal said, “if we give him a choice, Darik won’t be following either of us. He was in love the moment he put his arms around Daria’s waist. She carried him to the clouds, and he never came back down.”

“Yes, well. I suppose that was inevitable.” Whelan turned back in the saddle to stare at the Great Gate of Veyre. They came to a stop near the front of the army, which was drawing into ranks. “I am afraid that one way or another, Darik will be seriously wounded on that score.”

Markal didn’t know whether the king meant that Daria wouldn’t survive her battle against the dragon, or that once she did, she would return to the solitude of her mountain home, her thoughts bending away from the flatlander who had temporarily captured her heart. Markal shared the first fear, but was not so sure about the second. He had glimpsed the desires of Daria’s heart when she arrived in Marrabat. They were real and deep.

Markal scanned the battlefield. Pasha Boroah led his troops along the north side of the city, just beyond range of the archers, and they had nearly reached the ocean. Another force, this one led by two captains from the Free Kingdoms, moved south to hook around and block the south side. Whelan wouldn’t be able to maintain a complete blockade; the city could still be supplied by sea. But the seas were rough this time of year, as the Sea Brothers began their twice-annual battle. Few ships would brave the gales and the sudden squalls. By the time the storms diminished, Whelan’s armies would have seized the cities and farmland to the south to choke supplies that might come over the water.

But Whelan and Markal didn’t mean a long siege, they meant to break into Veyre and finish the war. A lengthy siege would be challenging to maintain. It was difficult to supply their own armies across the entire breadth of the khalifates. Balsalom was nearly exhausted, struggling to feed her own people, and over the last week, there had been few fresh supplies from the city or her allies. A handful of wagon trains were still coming through from the Free Kingdoms, but that was an even longer supply route, needing to travel through mountain passes and across the Desolation of Toth before reaching the khalifates.

It took about an hour to finish enveloping Veyre on the landward side. An armored company of Eriscoban knights gathered on Whelan’s left flank, and Hoffan’s rebuilt cavalry took the right. Several hundred pikemen under a pasha from Starnar set up in front of the king’s retinue to block the highway and provide a shield for the ballistae creaking up along the road behind teams of mules and sweating, cursing men. It would take a couple of hours until the first engines would be in place.

Next to arrive were three objects that looked like giant wooden beetles. They came creeping up the road, their feet made up of marching boots. A wall of men behind tower shields advanced in front of each of the beetles. They continued past Whelan toward the city, where they were greeted by a flurry of arrows from the defenders on the walls. Most fell short, but one flaming arrow struck the top of one of the beetles, where the wet blankets up top snuffed its fire.

When they were still at some distance from the walls, the three beetles and their protective shield walls fanned into three groups spaced roughly a hundred yards apart. Hoffan now brought his cavalry forward until they were roughly fifty yards behind the beetles, ready to charge in should the city gates open and the enemy march out.

“Will they really let us set up without opposition?” Whelan said with some wonder in his voice. “Why?”

The beetles now unfolded at the rear to open and reveal their true purpose, which could not have been a secret from the enemy. Men probed the ground with shovels and picks. One of the beetles shortly picked up again to look for softer ground, but the men in all three soon settled in to dig their mines. The dirt that came out was stacked in berms, and within an hour these dirt walls offered better protection for the diggers than the men of the shield wall, who now retreated to safety.

The protective berms in place, more men pressed forward to join the mining operations. They led mule teams dragging support beams for the tunnels and hauling wagonloads of sharpened stakes for a palisade to ring the operation.

During all of this preliminary effort, the arrows from the city walls had only killed a handful of men, all these from the shield walls. A few others suffered minor wounds. Otherwise, the work had begun with little disruption.

“I don’t know,” Markal said at last, in a long-delayed answer to the king’s earlier question. “The enemy is suspiciously calm. Is there something we don’t know?”

“Why not send the dragon?” Whelan asked. “We’d be hard pressed to drive it off before it burned our mines.”

“Is the dragon in the city? I couldn’t guarantee it, couldn’t even guarantee that the dark wizard is its master. Such a beast would not be easily tamed. Maybe it has broken free.”

“That sounds like wishful thinking.”

“It is,” Markal admitted, but he’d been nurturing this hope since they’d spotted the dragon’s monstrous shape silhouetted against the moon a few days earlier. “Maybe it fought the griffins again,” he added, “took a grievous wound, and can no longer be controlled. It could be as likely to attack the enemy as to attack us. The dark wizard then drove it off so it wouldn’t cause trouble.”