Rift in the Races (20 page)

Altin spun back in time to see the Queen lop off the head of the great brute she was fighting, only just in time to be confronted by the next, the one who’d been freed to attack her by the ice lance of the shaman the elf had just killed. The warrior orc was fast enough that it had had time to come up behind her and drag her off her horse.

It howled as it grabbed her, the lightning enchantments on her armor sending electricity up and down its arm, burning it even as it threw her to the ground. She landed hard, and the impact knocked her sword from her hand. She could not retrieve it before having to twist quickly out of her attacker’s grip and roll away, getting clear only just in time to avoid the first cut of its massive scimitar. A second cut glanced off her golden armor as she came to her feet, drawing a spark of electricity, and she jumped back out of the way of a third. She circled carefully, and Altin wondered why she wasn’t at least drawing her dagger. She was grinning at the brute, circling warily. It lunged at her, and she batted the blow aside with the back of her gauntlet, taking the opportunity to direct a kick to the inside of its left knee.

It staggered back, howling, and she dove for her sword, grasping it and rolling to her feet again. The orc came back, limping and clearly furious. It swung its scimitar at her in a long angled cut, but she blocked it deftly with her giant sword. No sound came from hers, but the clang from the scimitar was loud enough for both, the sound of a hammer on an anvil more than the meeting of two blades.

Back and forth the two of them hacked at each other as Shadesbreath blinked in and out of sight, mopping up the remaining orc combatants with efficiency that would have been disturbing to watch if Altin had had the time.

Then, ducking a furious backhand swing from the seven-foot orc, the War Queen plunged her sword through the center of the orc’s massive breastplate. She drove it straight through as if the armor were sodden parchment, the metal grinding and squealing protest as her enchanted blade made tin of all that carefully tempered steel.

Altin could see the orc’s eyes widen through the visor, incredulous at the impossible-seeming turn of events. The Queen drove the blade through its body nearly to the hilt. She stared up into its unbelieving face, watching it die through the space in its visor. When it was dead, she spit into that darkness before pushing its body off her sword with her foot. The corpse collapsed almost silently into the grass.

And then they were alone.

The Queen’s mouth was moving rapidly as she turned back to see who was left of her command team, a rain of curses fit to make a pirate blush, no doubt. Perhaps it was fortunate the effects of the silence spell were still in place.

Altin turned to see Tytamon coming toward him, leaning on Pernie for support. His already misshapen leg was burned horribly. Altin didn’t need to read the lines of his face to know he was in agony.

The Queen retrieved her horse and offered it to him, which he tried to refuse. She made an imperious face that forced him to comply. They then made their way together toward the embroiled keep, the rest of them on foot.

One thing Altin knew for certain was that he now hated that infernal silence spell. Since when had a rabble of orcs been able to cast it so effectively and so fast? Silence had rules. There were obstacles to casting it pinned to concepts like “willing subjects” and all sorts of other things. Silence was subtle magic, complex illusion that required casting discipline. It wasn’t brute force magic like fire and ice. Orcs weren’t subtle or disciplined, so what was going on?

Something new, that’s what, he told himself silently. Something was different with these orcs. The silence spell. The well-fitted and polished armor. The sheer audacity of the attack on Calico Castle. There had been a substantial shift in something somewhere. Some new discovery on their part, an awakening of some kind, an ambition perhaps. Whatever it was, it needed to be found out.

The way down to the keep was slow, made so by the need to accommodate the wounded that they bore. The clang of steel and the thud of blunt weaponry grew louder with each step, instruments of war accompanying the death song of orcish roars and the shouts of bloodlusting human warriors. Still none of the group could speak.

It wasn’t until a massive explosion announced the failure of the sixth and final ward that they realized the silence spell had worn off—the startled gasp the explosion evoked from most of them serving as the evidence that they could finally speak again. Tytamon wasted no time commenting on its absence.

“Those savages will be able to hold that tower for a long time if we don’t get them out now,” he said. Pain contorted his features as he looked across the courtyard to where a press of soldiers was trying to get through the broken doors into the central hall and, surely, to the base of his tower. From the sound of it, there was already quite a fight going on inside. Tytamon knew immediately they’d need to gain access a different way. “We’ll need to teleport people inside. Get behind them while they’re not looking for it.”

“Nobody’s been in that tower in years except for you and me,” said Altin. “And you’re in no shape to cast. It will take too long to send enough people in by myself. They’ll already be fortified.”

“The elf can get in,” said the Queen. “You can send in Andru and a few of my best men. And yourself, of course. Hold the stairwell until I find Mason and Pingermash. They’re both teleporters with sight. They’ll find you and bring in the rest.”

“I’ll go,” said Pernie.

“No,” said Altin. His voice was sharp, his tone final, as if he’d suddenly realized what kind of danger the girl was in. “You are going to Aderbury’s house and stay with Hether for a while. I should have done it before.” He didn’t have time to watch after her, and this was no place for her to be, so close to the fighting. He’d hoped it would have been over by this time, and he’d certainly had no intentions of bringing her into the middle of a pitched battle again.

“I won’t,” she said, crossing her arms. “I can fight.”

“You’re not going to fight. You’re a child.” He reached for her, but she stepped away.

“I’m not going,” she said. “You can’t make me.”

“You are going. And you’re going now.” He made a second attempt to grab her, but she wrenched her arm away.

“Pernie, please. This is no place for a little girl.”

“Child,” interceded the Queen. “Do as you are told. I am the Queen. I order it.”

“No,” she snapped.

She started to back away, but Tytamon grabbed her. “Pernie,” he said, his voice calm. “Listen to them.”

Pernie vanished. She simply disappeared.

Tytamon’s gray brows rose querulously as he examined his empty hand.

“What did you do?” Altin asked.

“I didn’t do anything,” he replied.

“An orc trick?” asked the Queen.

“I think not,” said the old mage. “If I were a betting man, I’d say our little Pernie’s magic has begun to manifest.”

Altin took only a moment to catch up. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s it exactly. That explains what happened out there in the field. And earlier this morning too.” Were the situation not so dire, he might have laughed. “Go figure. She’s a teleporter.”

“Just what she always wanted. To be like you.”

“Well, she got her wish. And timed for scarab tide.” His gaze took in the scene around them, making his meaning clear.

“Indeed. And now we have to figure out where she went.”

A moment later, the shrill screams that came from within Tytamon’s tower gave them the answer they were looking for. From the sound of it, and the way it diminished, and resumed, then diminished again, they could tell she was running up the stairs that wound up toward Tytamon’s library, study and upper rooms.

“Dragon’s teeth,” swore the ancient mage. “She went inside.”

The Queen looked across the courtyard and saw where Lieutenant Andru and his men were cutting down the last handful of orcs trying to escape over the west wall. She whistled for him, a shrill sound of her own, and one that turned the lieutenant’s head as if by the yank of a puppeteer’s string.

Seeing Her Majesty inside the walls, he barked orders to his men, then rode across the flagstones to where she stood.

“Lieutenant, go with Sir Altin and get the girl.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” He started to move, but seeing the knot of warriors stuck battling at the wide door he stopped, realizing they had no obvious way inside.

“They likely haven’t broken the seal on my chamber door,” Tytamon said to Altin. “I set one ward before I joined the fight. Start there in case they’ve broken into the library floors.
Caya aught hehngan Mengin sor
.”

“Yes, master,” Altin said, recognizing the words for a magic lock.

“My assassin will assist as well,” the Queen added.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Altin, glad for the help. Lieutenant Andru wrinkled up his nose.

“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?”

“No, Your Majesty. It’s just that …,” he paused to indicate the royal assassin with a sideways glance, but the elf was already gone.

“Get moving,” said the Queen. “Go get the girl, and get her to safety. I’ll find Mason and Pingermash, and with luck this whole thing will be over in twenty minutes.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

With that, Altin began the spell that would take him and the cavalryman up to the door leading out of Tytamon’s study. Shadesbreath was waiting for them when they arrived—which shouldn’t have been possible.

Chapter 12

A
ltin had to spend a few moments calming himself enough to remember the words Tytamon had given him to disarm the magically trapped door. He couldn’t speak for the lieutenant or the assassin, but he knew that he personally had no interest in being fried by the furious electrical storm enchanted into that lock. The fact that they moved up the steps and put the curve of the stairwell wall between themselves and Altin as he worked suggested their sentiments on that front.

He closed his eyes and let his mind open to the mana stream, immersed himself in the tempest of purplish and black luminosity that was both everywhere and nowhere around them. He saw the whirl of magic around the door, like a hundred glowing rings, thread-thin and rotating at varying degrees of tilt, each one a trap set to break at the slightest intrusion into that enchanted lock. Be it by key, pick or pickaxe, any attempt to open that lock without first unwinding the coils of magic energy would unleash the spell. Lungs would blister, blood would boil and flesh would burn, victims dying in agony as they steamed to death from the inside, fatally and fully cooked. The stench alone would take months to dissipate.

Very carefully Altin spoke the words, “
Caya aught hehngan Mengin sor
.” As he did, he reached with his mind to pull at one of the mana rings. It burst like a tiny bubble at his touch, vaporizing into little shimmering particles of purple dust that only he could see. It actually startled him, so braced was he for the pulse of electricity that would mark a fatal mistake. He nearly lost concentration on the spell as he cringed inwardly, which at this point would have been fatal as well.

“
Caya aught hehngan Mengin sor
,” he repeated and burst another ring. Shortly thereafter, he had them all gone. He released the spell and found that his forehead ran with sweat. He wiped it away with his sleeve, noting the spots where the moisture darkened the material. That would have added to the steam cloud, he thought.

“I despise meddling with Tytamon’s magic,” he told his companions as they came down the stairs upon learning of his success. “You have no idea how full circularity complicates this sort of thing.”

“I have an idea from the sounds of those screams down there that the child needs our help,” said the young lieutenant.

“Right,” said Altin.

They were waiting for him to open the door, he knew. He gingerly reached for the door and opened it, unable to suppress the dreading shrivel that came upon his face.

No one died.

Lieutenant Andru and the elf charged down the stairs immediately. Pernie’s cries came louder now as the sounds of her flight up the stairs continued. Altin followed quickly in their wake, relieved to see as he passed through the next floor down that there were no orcs rifling through Tytamon’s most important books. The elf and the cavalryman were already moving past this floor to the next; he could tell by the sound of the next door down hitting the stone wall, flung open as they charged through. Pernie’s cries became even more audible with another barrier out of the way.

Altin chased after his two companions as best he could, but both of them were far fitter and more athletic than he was.

Another door hit the wall down below as he entered the second of Tytamon’s vast seven-floor library. Again he was relieved to see that there were no orcs pillaging any of the ancient magic works. The fact that they’d figured out how to cast a silence spell so quickly and effectively was bad enough, as was their ability to orchestrate combat teleportation with invisibility in place. They certainly didn’t need any of the secrets they could unlock from within the pages of all these books.

He ran on after his cohorts, his feet skipping stairs and his right hand stiff-arming the wall as he rounded the endless curve of the descent. Through all the lower library floors it was the same: no sign of orc encroachment. That was good. The Queen’s soldiers must have gotten in ahead of the orcs after all and held them back, or at least come in close enough behind to keep them busy down below.