Aethersmith (Book 2) (70 page)

* * * * * * * *

Jinzan’s head was filled with more maps than he ever would
have believed possible when he was a boy. He knew the reefs of every major port
in Tellurak, tradeways on land and sea. He knew the terrain of Koriah and its
nations: the goblin and ogre homelands, Megrenn, Ghelk, and Kadrin. He had
committed maps of Safschan, Narrack, Gar-Danel, Painu, and what little was
known of Elok to memory. Despite few maps ever being made of the place, Jinzan
even suspected he knew the layout of the secretive kingdom of Azzat, given that
it was Acardia in Tellurak.

All his knowledge was put to the test when rivers and
mountains faded from view, and he saw nothing but aether as he transferred
himself to the large cluster of humanoid Sources gathered outside Illard’s
Glen.

The startled troops nearly attacked him before he identified
himself and took command. He allowed the major in charge of the smallish force
of seven hundred to retain his functional command over his men’s deployment,
but Jinzan was the one who would order the attack. He had plans to make before
he did so.

Surveying the city from a hill not so far from where he had
camped with G’thk’s goblins a season or so earlier, he found it to be rather
better repaired than he expected. The walls looked good as new; the only sign
of work having been done was the different color of the new stonework. On a
hunch, Jinzan looked at the wall in the aether. He had seen it briefly as he
arrived from his transference spell, but he had been concentrating on finding
his troops, not on the city. The wall shone with aether.
How many sorcerers
does Kadrin have that they can rebuild that whole wall, complete with wards, in
so short a time?

The assault force had not brought any cannons. They had
traveled lightly, thinking to find the city still crippled from the goblin
attack Jinzan had taken part in. Instead they found a city more formidable,
perhaps, than the one that Jinzan and his goblin allies had sacked last autumn.

“No matter the wall. It slows us; it will not stop us,”
Jinzan called out for all his troops to hear. Whatever reservations he might
have about what the improved fortifications boded, he could afford nothing but
utter confidence in front of the common soldiers.

“Haru bedaessi leoki kwatuan gelora.”
With a supreme
effort of aether, Jinzan tore loose a chunk of rock from the hillside the size
of a small inn. His Source burned with the effort, but he hurled the boulder.
The Megrenn swordsmen who watched in awe as the rock had slowly lifted airborne
now cheered wildly as it smashed into the wall of Illard’s Glen.

In the charge that followed, Jinzan hung back, neither out
of reluctance nor fear, but simple age. The men all about him were young and
fit. Jinzan conserved his breath for spellcasting, keeping up a swift walk, and
not worrying about pacing his men.

Archers from the walls fired down at them. It seemed that
their numbers were not great, but Kadrin had re-garrisoned the city at least.
Shaken by the knowledge that incredible magic was at work—and not on their side
in this battle—the defenders seemed demoralized. There were no catapults
raining gravel, horseshoes, or the like down on them, nor were their spells
being cast back at them from the city.

As the Megrenn swordsmen neared the breach in the wall,
Kadrin spearmen rushed to fill the gap. There were also a few … creatures.

Jinzan had not seen their like before. Human in general
shape, but thicker and stockier, perhaps twice as wide at the shoulder. He saw
no armor on the creatures unless it covered them so completely as to resemble
greyish-brown skin. Unlike their human counterparts, these few standing amid
their defensive lines carried hammers.
The stone folk—the daruu. Kadrin must
have bargained with them to have rebuilt their walls so fast. These may just be
stoneworkers, not warriors.

Jinzan’s cautious optimism about the occupation of the stone
folk mixed in with Illard’s Glen’s defenders was short lived. As soon as the
two forces engaged, he saw that these were not simple laborers. While the
Megrenn swordsmen batted aside spear-tips to press their Kadrin foes, the
hammer-wielding daruu batted whole soldiers aside. Jinzan knew he needed to
lend his aid at the wall. He quickened his pace, and ran through in his mind
the spells he knew that he could use with his own men in close combat with his
targets.

“Fetru oglo daxgak sevdu wenlu,”
Jinzan mumbled,
having decided on one that he could aim finely enough for his purposes.
Lightning forked from the Staff of Gehlen as Jinzan managed to use it to
conduct much of the needed aether, sparing his Source the full force of
channeling that much power.

The first daruu hit by the bolt was felled instantly, smoke
rising from his flesh. As the lightning continued onward, raking across the
line of defenders, human and daruu alike, it became clear that the stone folk
lived up to the stories of their hardiness. Though every human struck by
Jinzan’s spell was slain, only the first of the daruu, hit by the very
strongest of the blast, was fatally wounded. The others looked the worse for it
but fought on. Fortunately the advantage of numbers gained by the loss of the
Kadrin spearmen allowed Jinzan’s swordmen to overwhelm the remaining daruu.

The defense was paltry beyond what had hastened to the
stricken wall’s defenses. Reinforcements from other parts of the city continued
to arrive, but in no numbers to hope to drive back the Megrenn force.

The ground beneath Jinzan’s feet began to rumble. He could
sense the aether without having to switch his vision over to see it. His head
snapped to one side, then the other, searching for any sign of Kadrin
sorcerers. Instead, huddled behind a chunk of the boulder he had hurled to
sunder the city wall, was another of the daruu. This one was unarmed, and was
on his hands and knees, head bowed. Jinzan did not have to be able to hear the
spell-words to know that it was likely the aethersmith who had carved the
wall’s new wards.

Before he had a chance to applaud himself for the deduction,
Jinzan found that claws of rock were rising from the earth all about him.
Jinzan rushed to draw aether to counter the threat as the tips of the claws
grew taller than his head. They reached up and over him, began curling around
and down to interlock, and crush the life from him with a stony embrace. Jinzan
had not the time to form a proper spell; he kept his mind as calm as he could,
and sent a blast of aether all about himself.

Rock rained down across the vicinity of the breached wall as
the stone claws exploded. Kadrin and Megrenn alike dodged the debris or were
injured by it—the rock did not care. The one who commanded the rock looked up
from his spell, pale eyes glaring with a hatred that transcended language.
Jinzan saw that a yellowish gem was embedded in the daruu's forehead. It had to
mean something, but Jinzan knew next to nothing of the stone folk’s culture.
With neither word nor gesture, the daruu aethersmith sank into the ground as if
it were quicksand.

I cannot let him escape me.
The risk of suffering
ambush attacks from beneath the ground worried Jinzan, for he knew not the
limits of the stoneman’s power. To head off any such worries, he repeated the
spell from the hilltop, tearing loose a small section of Illard’s Glen from the
rest. Presumably, Jinzan thought, it held the stoneman as well.

Jinzan raised the chunk of earth as high as he might have
been able to throw a small rock, then brought it back down … hard. He drove the
section of ground into … more ground, as hard as he could. He waited a few
moments, ignoring the rout that was going on all about him as he focused on making
certain that his foe was no longer a threat. When those moments passed without
incident, he sifted through the shattered rock until he found the daruu's body,
telekinetically lifting it free, and laying it out on the street.

He looked from the daruu to the Staff of Gehlen in his
hands. Whomever he had just killed was likely well respected among the stone
folk. Though he knew little of their ways, their reverence of stonework was
their hallmark. Unless the stone folk were fools, they would know that Megrenn
had been responsible for the death of their workers—and their aethersmith.

Allies … Kadrin has never before taken allies. It is
likely that these were just hirelings, paid blood-price for a quick repair of
the city wall. Now, though … whether Kadrin gained an ally, we have likely made
an enemy today.

Jinzan returned leadership of the invasion force to its
former commander. Drawing once more on the vast power of the staff, he
transferred himself back to Zorren.

* * * * * * * *

Jinzan’s journey back was much easier. He had returned home
via that same spell several times, and had begun to learn the look of Zorren in
the aether. His sphere popped back into existence in a little-used courtyard
off to the seaward side of the Council building. The double-doors leading
inside were left open, unguarded. Jinzan clutched the Staff of Gehlen tightly
in his hands, put on his guard by the unusual desertion of even so
insignificant a post as a back garden.

Jinzan peeked through the open door before proceeding
inside. He saw nothing unusual, except that he saw very little at all. There
ought to have been people about. The hour was not yet so late, and there was no
event in the city that would draw the functionaries from their posts—or the
guards for that matter.

Jinzan looked about and found nothing. Looking into the
aether, he saw folk gathered outside the front entrance of the building but
nothing in sight within. He wandered the foyer, looking for signs of what might
have driven everyone out of doors. He was nearly ready to go out, and ask among
the crowd, when he noticed the first body.

Crumpled on the first landing of the stairway up to the
first mezzanine level, one of the guards had been torn in half. Jinzan had just
come from a sight far more horrific. Bodies were strewn about Illard’s Glen
like a child’s dolls after a tantrum. The single dead guard knotted Jinzan’s
stomach.

I am the guardian of Megrenn
, Jinzan thought as he
approached the stairs, placing first one foot then another upon them as he
crept upward.
So long as I wield this staff, whatever may threaten Zorren
will ultimately fall to me. I cannot go out and show them that I am as fearful
as they are.

As he ascended the levels of the headquarters of Megrenn’s
High Council, Jinzan found more bodies. He began to imagine that a stripe-cat
had gone berserk, so savage was the carnage. Men were not merely killed but lay
in pieces, scattered down stairways and corridors. As he got higher, he began
to hear something as well. As first, he thought he imagined it, but as he
advanced, it became clear that it was singing. When he got to the landing
halfway up to the top level where the Council chamber was, he paused to listen
to a somewhat off-key tenor sing an old Megrenn folk song:

“Rains fall, marking the springtime,

Flowers bloom, colors so bright,

Fireflies herald the nighttime,

Dance in the meadows tonight.”

Jinzan knew the words, listening to a few more familiar
verses before gathering his nerve to finish his ascent. The stairs seemed
farther apart than Jinzan remembered them, his feet heavier; he forced them to
move.

The doors to the Council chamber were a shambles. One lay
near the top of the landing, forcing Jinzan to step over it. The other hung
askew, dangling by a single, battered hinge. The floor was slick with blood,
and littered with the bodies of men. Jinzan recognized a few as members of the
Interior Ministry.

Jinzan’s breath caught in his throat as he saw into the
Council chambers. It was a slaughterhouse, appearing as if everyone who had
been meeting with Councilor Feron and the Interior Ministry had been butchered,
along with a large contingent from the city guard and a number of regular
infantry. Jinzan could only imagine the scene that had befallen in his absence.

As for Feron Dar-Jak, the interior minister was impaled
through the chest, staked to the Council table by a wickedly serrated sword,
which had cracked the heavy stone table. Seated right next to the dead
Councilor, slouched across the arms of Jinzan’s own chair at the Council table,
and indolently popping grapes into his mouth from the Council’s refreshments,
was Rashan Solaran.

“About time you got here. I only know a few Megrenn songs. I
was going to have to start breaking in to Acardian sea chanties if you had
dallied much longer on those stairs,” Rashan called out casually, choosing to
speak in Kadrin now that he was done singing.

“You think yourself clever, demon?” Jinzan snapped, anger
helping him find a voice that had thickened, and clogged his throat just a
moment before.

“Not as clever as I thought myself before your cannons sank
my airship when I arrived. I would not have expected them to aim so well at an
airborne target,” Rashan replied.

“We learn quickly. One airship over the city was enough for
us. Two was brash and foolish, and now you will pay for that.”

“Oh, there was another one here?” Rashan mused aloud. “Hmm,
I suppose I must know which one
that
was.
Hah!
I shall certainly
hear of it when I return without mine, then.”

The demon seemed amused and completely at ease. Jinzan could
barely convince his reluctant legs to move, but he forced himself to advance.
Jinzan knew well the lessons of history. His forebears had parleyed with Rashan
Solaran to their own destruction. He was not about to concede the initiative.

“Kanethio mandraxae.”
Jinzan thrust the Staff of
Gehlen in Rashan’s direction, aiming a blast of aether his way. The blast tore
through the corpse of Councilor Feron and slammed into a shielding spell that
protected the demon.