Dragon's Tongue (The Demon Bound) (10 page)

“Lie still,” Fenelon said, putting a hand to Alaric’s shoulder to make certain the younger mage obeyed. “That doesn’t look good…”

Alaric started to agree. Sargeant MacRae barked an order to let “the lad” breathe. He tore a bit of his own shirt and pressed it to the wound. All Alaric could do after that was grit his teeth and wince. He sensed other mageborn had gathered in the courtyard. Everyone fussed and bickered about what should be done.

“We’ll follow it,” one said.

“Not me…You can go after it if you like, thank you very much.”

“Let’s put the wards further out.”

“That takes too much effort and you know it. Besides, there a small void in the corner that won’t hold…”

“Come on lads,” Sargeant MacRae said, ignoring the mageborn as he nodded to his men. “Let’s get this lad into the infirmary.”

Before Alaric could protest, a number of Keltorans were lifting him as gently as one carried a baby.

Horns, why me?
Alaric thought. What had the monster wanted with him? It was certainly the same one that had crept past the wards inside his psaltery, but didn’t it have what it wanted? Why in the name of Cernunnos did it want to kill him?

A flicker of demon essence touched the edge of Alaric’s perception. He looked just before the human gurney bore him under the second gate and into the protection of the wards. Floating above, he saw a smoldering cloud letting off hints of steam, and two eyes narrowed in silent rage glared at him before the mist vanished, melding itself into the grey sky.

ELEVEN

A demon having a fit was said to be the most terrifying sight mortalborn and mageborn alike could ever behold. Vagner became the perfect example of that as he ranted and raged above the clouds in his true form. Fire! White fire! By the deepest pits, he should have expected the young mageborn to know that much simple magic. Of course, the bard would have known how to defend himself. Vagner should have been ready for such an assault. Never trust anything to chance. Mageborn were full of surprises.

It was good fortune there had been a large public well just over the wall, though the washerwomen Vagner disturbed as he plunged into its cooling depths would hardly have agreed. White fire was dangerous to demon flesh, though it would have taken much more than that single blast to kill Vagner. Had the demon not been so familiar with the outer area around Dun Gealach—had he not fled when he did—he would have suffered serious damage.

Such generosity on the part of fate was the last thing on Vagner’s mind. He wanted revenge for this humiliation, and he would have it in time.

For now though, the young bard was safe inside those warded walls, and Vagner still had enough fury in him to scorch the land to a desert. With a roar, he flew northward, searching for something—anything—on which to spill this wrath.

He found a small farmstead on the moors, the perfect place to spill his anger. Sheep fled as Vagner increased the hideousness of his visage as well as his size. He dove on the panicky herds. Humans came running only to flee when they saw the monster in their midst. A few bravely took pitchforks to the fiend who snatched up their livestock and tore off the heads to drain the blood from their necks before gobbling them down.

Vagner was in no mood for their company. He swept them aside with tail and claws. One man fell dead when the poisonous black ichor from Vagner’s tail barb drove into his chest. Others tried uselessly to defend his corpse, only to be knocked away. Vagner snagged one man and bit off his head. The demon was too furious to care what the consequences of this slaughter would be. These puny mortals would be too fraught with fear and grief to even remember what had attacked them…

The cold that suddenly burned into Vagner’s limbs brought some vague sense of sensibility back. He knew immediately that what he felt was the raw thread that bound his essence to that of the bloodmage. The sweet string of Vagner’s True Name was being plucked harshly by Tane Doran’s rough hand.

By the darkest pits of the Void, Vagner knew he should have cloaked his rage. Too late now. Tane Doran knew, and his summons was filled with the threat of hideous pain. Vagner had no choice but to cease his tantrum. He dropped the body he clutched in one claw and lunged skyward to answer that dreadful call.

Tane Doran was more than a little angry, the demon winced and reflected. This was not going to be a pleasant encounter.

~

They kept telling Alaric he was fortunate the cut ranging up and down his left leg was the work of mere rocks and not demon claws. He, however, did not see how those ragged gashes could be fortunate. They hurt, and that pain was made all the more obvious by Mistress Miranda Ni Tobin, the chief healer of Dun Gealach’s infirmary, whose probing fingers and instruments were finding their way into the smallest crevices of his tortured flesh. “Wheesht,” the woman would say each time Alaric yelped and jerked. “The sooner I get this filth out, lad, the sooner I can stitch this and heal it…”

Alaric wanted to tell Mistress Miranda what to do with her bedside manner. The men who carried him into the surgery had treated him more gently than this tall, auburn-haired creature with the thick streaks of white running from each of her temples to blend with the long braid that ranged down her back. She was handsome too in a raw sort of way, usually when she ceased to scowl at him for moving again. In a moment of impatience, she finally gestured to a couple of the men, and silently, they seized Alaric’s limbs and shoulders to subdue him so the healer could finish her work.

“Blessed brother, I’ve ne’er seen a grown man behave as such a wee bairn,” Mistress Miranda groused and probed yet again, causing Alaric to nearly bite his tongue. “Ye’ve a bit of stane lodged doon in here which I must remove first. I canna wait to see what happens when I take needle and thread to ye, lad…”

Needle and thread?
Oh, Horns!
Alaric thought. He’d been stitched once before, when he tore his arm climbing in the barns and slipped, and he remembered all too well how much it had hurt. At least, the village healer at Gordslea Hold had given Alaric wine to dull the pain. This barbaric Keltoran she-wolf had yet to show him any such courtesy. He bit his tongue and tasted blood as her small ivory probe hooked something that raked a raw nerve before drawing away.

“There,” she said. “That be the last of it, lad, and you’re none the worse for the experience, I’ll wager. Bless the Brother, I’ll have ye stitched up proper now, and back on yer feet in no time. You’ll hardly ken there was anything more than a wee scratch before I’m through…”

Alaric merely gasped, relaxing for the brief interval. He could feel pain tears in the corners of his eyes and gliding across his cheeks which were flushed with embarrassment. If the men noticed, they said nothing, though he felt the one holding his right hand give him a reassuring squeeze, and when he looked up, the brawny face of Sargeant MacRae offered a wink and a smile.

Mistress Miranda quickly returned with one of her assistants. Her stoic look appraised Alaric, and she shook her head. “This ‘twill nae do,” she said, clucking. “Lilly, fetch the poppy wine. Otherwise, I’ll ne’er get the work done proper.”

One of the lasses who had hovered in the background to assist now hurried away. Poppy wine. That sounded good in Alaric’s estimation. Perhaps there was a kind bone in the woman’s braw, narrow body after all.

The lass called Lilly swiftly returned with a small mug. Alaric was released and assisted upright. In that moment, he got a glimpse of the surgery, wryly noticing Fenelon was not in the room. Mistress Miranda clucked and helped Alaric with the mug. The sweet nectar of the poppy wine glided down his throat and rolled warmth through him. And under its sudden and pleasant haze, Alaric realized he could hear Fenelon having words with someone in the next room.

“I told you…” That sounded like Turlough.

“Aye, you told me, and you know I would gladly have obeyed, but this was an emergency,” Fenelon said. “What was I supposed to do. Let the demon eat him?”

“And just why did the demon go after your new apprentice,” Turlough huffed. “Or is there something you haven’t told me? Could it be, the demon is his familiar after all?”

“No!” Fenelon said.

“Lie down, lad,” Mistress Miranda said firmly.

The mug had been taken from Alaric’s hand, and he was feeling a bit more at ease…maybe too much so because when she released him, he dropped hard, and had there not been others to catch his head before it banged the surgery table…It was getting harder to feel his body now. The needle was going in and out as the healer continued her work, but now Alaric didn’t care. He fought instead to train his hearing on the argument.

“You frightened half the city, throwing fire spells around like that,” Turlough went on. “I warned you that if I felt your essence and a fire spell in the same place…”

“Oh, will you shut up and listen to me!” Fenelon retorted, and rage was clearly filling his voice. “I didn’t start the bloody fire fight! I was using magebolts and lightning. It was the demon who cast the first fire spells, and Alaric himself who cast the second. I only resorted to fire after that because nothing else seemed to deter the monster. If you don’t believe me, ask the guards who were assisting me…ask Alaric.”

“Oh, I shall,” Turlough said. “If even one of them tells me otherwise…”

“And I did not frighten half the city,” Fenelon continued. “Just a few old washerwomen who were not hurt in the least. Now would you rather I had let the demon finish us off and go raging about the city?”

“I would have used more lightning,” Turlough said. “I would have blasted the beast into collops—or better still, I would have found a way to imprison it so I could prove once and for all your new apprentice is truly in league with the monster…”

Alaric felt his heart lurch.
He still blames me!
Horns!

“I really do hope that poor Etienne never hears how you have just besmirched her fine reputation by implying her truth touch spell was wrong…” Fenelon said. “Why like as not, she would pack her possessions and leave Dun Gealach for good…and take with her that vast store of native spell casting from her homeland you so crave, all because you dared to distrust her skill.”

“You insolent…I can predict exactly how she would hear such a tale, can’t I?” Turlough growled. “You have stooped to some low and mean pranks in your day, Fenelon, and I suppose this should come as no surprise to me.”

“But it would not be a lie, Uncle,” Fenelon said. “And if you insist on falsely accusing Alaric of consorting with this demon again, I fear I would have no other recourse but to share the whole affair with her.”

“Really,” Turlough said, sounding triumphant. “And what if I were to ban you so you could never step foot in Dun Gealach ever again? I could do it now, and she would never know. I could tell her your research of this matter has taken you elsewhere.”

“Interesting challenge, Uncle. You could indeed keep me out of Dun Gealach and away from Etienne for a time, but in my vast experience, magic has no power to stop a mere piece of paper delivered in the hands of a mortalborn messenger and bearing the seal of the King himself…or have you forgotten that I have many friends in the palace where you do not?” There was grim triumph ringing with Fenelon’s words. “Once Etienne got such a message, I suspect she would leave this place so fast, you’d barely feel the wind of her passing. And I shall enjoy hearing how you convinced the rest of the council her departure was not your fault. Too bad I won’t be there to see it, but I’m sure I’ll hear all about it from any of a number of the mageborn who will be here long after my departure, considering how many of them are friends of my father, grandfather and great grandfather. In fact, there are still a large number of mageborn on the council who were much opposed to putting you in charge when your own brother, who was much in favor, declined. Or do you plan to ban the entire council and tell the King that you alone rule magic in his realm?”

“You…what do you want?”

“I want you to back off, old man, and leave me to do what I do best,” Fenelon said. “You and I both know perfectly well I am the only mageborn here who is capable of handling this matter with any real satisfaction.”

“You are an arrogant knave, and I curse the day you were born to our illustrious line…”

“Well?” Fenelon said, apparently ignoring the insult.

Silence briefly filled the air. Alaric frowned, sensing a crackle of magic. Then the door to the surgery opened, and Fenelon stepped quietly into the room. His face was set in a hard mask broken by just a hint of a ragged smile.

“There now,” Mistress Miranda suddenly said, startling Alaric. “All neat and new. Now, lad, just close your eyes, and I’ll give you a healing so you’ll be up and about on that leg in no time.”

Alaric sighed and did as she asked. He felt her hands settle on his leg, but it was as though the touch were not really there. Softly she began to speak. “Blessed Brother, hear my plea…”

The rest of the chant was lost to him. A cool sensation flooded his leg, removing the last remnants of the pain. But Alaric’s mind was set on other things.

Turlough still believes I brought the demon here.
Horns.