The Gambler's Fortune (Einarinn 3) (45 page)

“The kings of Solura have been rightly concerned at the potential dangers of rogue magic. No mage may have more than one apprentice of less than four years’ standing at any one time and he remains responsible for the conduct of all apprentices for life, whether they stay with him or look for advowson elsewhere.”

“Advowson?” Sorgrad was listening with more than a pretense of interest.

Gilmarten leaned his elbows on the table. “The most proficient of mages are retained by a Lord to work for the good of his fiefdom. Though, of course, a Lord is subject to severe penalties under royal law, if he misuses his wizard’s skills. Every other mage within the offender’s order can be set against him if need be.”

Usara looked up. “What is the significance of an order?”

“An order denotes the lineage of apprenticeship,” explained Gilmarten readily. “I am of the fifth order of Eade. Eade was a noted wizard admired by many. His apprentices were therefore styled the first order, those that they taught the second, their pupils in turn the third, and so forth.”

I had no interest in this and stepped in when the Soluran took a breath. “You and Usara will have plenty to talk about on the way to Hadrumal then. We’ll travel through the Great Forest with you, Darni, but after that you’ll have to manage on your own. The roads down to Col should be safe enough once the harvest’s underway. No bandit with any sense works the roads when they’re choked with wagons, even if he does see pullets ripe for plucking going by.” I smiled sweetly at Usara.

“You’ll be heading east, I think you said?” Darni wasn’t about to rise to my bait. “You’d better take care in Dalasor. There’ll be mercenaries raiding north out of Lescar at this season.”

“If they’re any good, we’ll probably know them.” ’Gren was unconcerned. “If not, it’ll be easy enough to leave them grinning up at the thistle roots.”

Darni turned his attention from the middle distance. “You’ve spent time in Lescar? Who with?”

“Wynald’s war band, the Brewer’s Boys, Arkady the Red…” Sorgrad ticked them off on one hand and frowned.

“Strong-arm’s Corps and the Ast Maulers,” supplied ’Gren with an air of happy recollection.

“When were you with Arkady?” inquired Darni suspiciously.

“We were at Seye Bridge, if that’s what you’re asking.” Sorgrad sat upright in his corner.

“On what side?” Darni similarly braced for action.

I looked for my quickest route to an exit; there was no room in here for bystanders as well as a brawl.

“Both,” grinned Sorgrad.

Darni’s sudden laugh was deafening in the low-ceilinged room. “I’d better pay for the ale then.”

With a free drink in his hand, ’Gren would rather swap tales of mayhem and booty than see if he could punch Darni’s teeth out through the back of his neck, so I relaxed on that score. Darni began explaining his own circuits of the endless circles of Lescar’s civil wars so I caught Sorgrad’s eye and jerked my head minutely toward the door. We needed to talk and since Usara had pointedly shifted his stool around to exclude me from his conversation with Gilmarten, this looked like the ideal time.

I drained my ale and stood up. “Time for the necessary.” Once outside I sat on a bench in the sunshine and closed my eyes. A shadow fell across me and I squinted up to see Sorgrad silhouetted against the bright sky. “So are you serious about going east or did you just want to knock Sandy onto the back foot?”

“Now that we know Sheltya really do have the knowledge we want, I’d say we try Gidesta.” He sat beside me.

“That woman throwing her weight about in Hachalfess won’t bother sending word that far.” Sorgrad looked grim.

“You really think she’ll be doing that this side of the Gap?” I was still not convinced.

“Oh, most certainly,” Sorgrad assured me. “That’s why we had no choice but to come back down to the lowlands. We’d have got no more help, not even shelter, once the word had gone around that we were to be shunned.” He smiled. “You didn’t think I was just doing it on Sandy’s say-so, did you?”

“Hah!” I vented my irritation loudly. “He’s been playing a double game all along. Do you suppose a wizard ever deals honestly? I was hoping he’d be able to make use of this for me.” I held out a little knife, the kind for paring nails or cutting string. Its scabbard was worn and tattered, the loop of leather at its top stretched and torn. You would have to look closely to even see that it had been cut through.

“That’s what you got off the Sheltya woman?” Sorgrad took it and studied it. “It’s been a while since you and ’Gren worked jostle and cut but you haven’t lost your touch, have you?”

“What was it he said to her anyway?”

Sorgrad chuckled. “He asked if she had any sisters. Said a woman with her kind of spirit gives a man more horn than a billy goat in rut.” He handed me back the knife. “So what did you think Sandy would do with it?”

“Listen in on her conversations, track her to some other Sheltya, I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Mages and magic are nothing but trouble,” Sorgrad reminded me. “Let’s roll for a new start in Gidesta. We can hand over what we find to this Messire of yours and he can have the pleasure of haggling with Planir.”

I sighed. “Do you think we will find anything back east? I feel I’ve wasted half a year chasing Eldritch-men in the shadows and got nothing to show for it.”

“It’s long odds but those pay off best.” But Sorgrad’s face betrayed his own doubts now that it was just the two of us alone. “If we can track down anyone who knows anything of Sheltya or their lore, I’ll do anything short of selling my arse to pin them down. I owe them a bad turn. I’ve lived with being driven from my home as a boy but Maewelin can drown me before I let them forbid me the whole of the mountains like that.”

I looked around at his grim tone but he startled me with a smile. “More importantly, I’d forgotten how tedious the Soluran borders can be.” He gestured at the sleepy little town, drowsing in the midday heat as it nestled beneath the overbearing walls of the castle. “Once he’s spent a few days reminiscing with that Darni, ’Gren’s going to be all fired up to get back to Lescar and some real action. We can’t do that without your Messire settling accounts with Draximal for us, can we?”

“No, that’s true enough.” The reminder that more people than me needed a decent pay-off from this game stiffened my wavering resolve. I groaned loudly with frustration all the same. “I would say this feels like slipping back two paces for every one you take, but given how far we’ve walked it’s more like a hundred leagues against ten!”

Sorgrad put an encouraging arm around my shoulders. “It’s only good-looking princelings in ballads who trot off down the nearest track and find gold waiting in a heap at the end of it. There’d be no fun if the game was all that easy.”

“I could stand a little less fun just at the moment,” I said dryly.

“If you want boredom, then you’re in the right place,” he replied critically. “Solura’s known for it, like its wool.”

“And its horses.” I sat up straighter. “If we’re taking the high road back, we’ll wear out some iron shoes rather than anymore boot leather. Usara should still have plenty of Planir’s coin and I’ll bet Darni isn’t traveling on copper and good will. The Archmage can buy us some horses, don’t you agree?”

“I’d say it’s the least he can do,” agreed Sorgrad. “How about we go and talk to this Guard commander and find out who does Lord Pastiss’ horse-trading? I don’t see any need to worry Sandy with anything more than the bill.”

Which would also needle Darni, who fancied himself a judge of horseflesh. I got to my feet and turned my face determinedly to the next stage of this seemingly endless chase.

The Great West Road,

2nd of Aft-Summer

Eresken moved cautiously through the sun-dappled woodlands. The spicy fragrance of spruce and fir in the heights gave way down here to a damper, earthy aroma, rich in the warm, motionless air beneath trees thickly cloaked in summer greenery. Distaste distracted him. The evergreens hadn’t been so bad; similar trees grew in the more sheltered valleys of home, even if to scarcely a fifth the height. The lowland forests had looked truly beautiful from a distance, clothed in their delicate swathes of fragile green. Close to the trees were positively ugly, each one grown randomly in all directions, marked by vine and damaged by weather, new growth warped by the scarring. Eresken lowered himself slowly to kneel behind the thick bole of a misshapen tree, the nubby bark moist with moss.

Teiriol joined him, taking pains not to stir the leaf litter of countless autumns beneath his heavy boots. “What do you see?” The younger man’s face was set with anticipation.

Eresken pointed, the pale skin of his hand now tanned and scratched. “This is where we will hit them, my friend.”

Teiriol frowned. “On the open highway?”

Eresken laid a hand on Teiriol’s mailed shoulder, part reassurance, part mute warning. “I will make sure there are no witnesses. If anyone comes upon us, I will use Sheltya skills to simply wipe the recollection from their minds.”

“When do you think they will be here?” Teiriol looked up in vain for the sun, hidden by the dense canopy of leaves. There was an unhappy note in his voice.

“Very soon,” promised Eresken. “And it is imperative that these all die, you do understand that?”

Teiriol nodded but gnawed at his lip. “Some of the men have been worrying about violating travelers, the truce is sacred—”

“Sacred to us, yes, but since when have lowlanders and wizards observed such honor?” Eresken’s smile was warm though his hand rested more heavily on Teiriol’s shoulder. “And now we know that the villains of Hadrumal are not only using their false magic to plant their power within the Forest, they are allying themselves with the mages of Solura. Remember what the bones of the sokes told Sheltya at Solstice?”

“The Solurans have always shown us good faith.” The doubts in Teiriol’s voice were strengthening. “They trust us to keep eastern passes closed to Mandarkin. What if they close the lower valleys to us, cut off our trade?”

Eresken gripped Teiriol’s shoulder until the pressure made him turn his head. “I don’t understand these wizards’ plots but we all heard how they are using sorcery to beguile the Suratimm, didn’t we? We must deal with this threat first, to keep the Forest dwellers out of our fight with the lowlanders in the Gap. Didn’t Jeirran explain?” Eresken’s green eyes stared unblinking into innocent blue.

“Yes, he did, of course.” Teiriol’s bemused expression cleared to reveal new determination. “And killing these wizards will warn off the rest. This way we keep our quarrel with the lowlanders a fair fight. Misaen will either prove the justice of our cause with victory or condemn us to the beaks of the ravens.” He sounded like a child reciting its letters by rote.

“This way, the fewest possible need die.” Eresken released his gaze and his grip, satisfaction smoothing his brow. It was time these mages learned a little humility. Their cursed ability to defile the elements had been murderous when they’d had a boat full of wizards to call on, but this would be different. “Get yourself and your men in position. You’ll know when to move.”

Teiriol made his stealthy way back up the hill and soft chinking noises betrayed the armored force easing themselves closer to the road. Eresken moved to a vantage point above a large boulder tangled with undergrowth in a thicket of smaller trees. He closed his eyes with a cruel smile. “Right, you redheaded bitch, a little humiliation before the death you owe me and mine.”

The clatter of hooves on the hard surface of the road struck echoes from the tree-lined sides of the defile. Eresken began to breathe deeply, words of enchantment a slowing rhythm on his lips. His eyes fluttered, rolling up in his head as the trance took him. That part of him that stayed aware hovered expectant in the back of his mind. Birdsong floated overhead, the sun was hot on his neck and the breeze stirred a fugitive scent of flowers. The peace was ripped apart by the terrified neighs of a horse, a scream was cut short and a cacophony of male curses came from several directions at once.

Eresken blinked and looked down at the chaos on the road where one man had been instantly thrown from his terrified horse. A feathered hat was trampled in the dust as the panicked animal believed itself assailed on all sides. That was the Soluran mage, Eresken noted with satisfaction. The wizard who’d come so foolishly spying in the uplands gave up the unequal struggle to calm his steed and kicked his feet free of the stirrups. Eresken bared his teeth and the animal shrieked, twisting away from unseen tormentors. Eresken cursed as the Soluran dragged the fallen mage from among thrashing, iron-edged hooves, saving his balding head at the cost of a deep gash to one thigh.

Where were Teiriol and his men? The only blond heads he could see were the two who had sold themselves to the false magicians. Both had abandoned their horses at the first hint of trouble and stood back to back in the center of the road, hands drawing the swords from their belts. Eresken hissed with disgust. They had not been so armed in the uplands. No matter, neither wore mail or breastplates to save their skins.

Where was the redheaded slut? He moved for a better view and nodded with cruel glee. She was struggling to stay in her saddle, fingers twisted in reins and mane as her maddened mount writhed and plunged, driven to madness by the terror raking its mind. The big man forced his own horse beside hers, mastering the animal with main force and sheer brutality. Bloody foam from the beast’s mouth spattered its chest and legs, eyes rolling white edged in its head.

“Vengeance later, whore,” Eresken promised silently before reciting the precepts of trance once more. Where was Teiriol?

Teiriol was hesitating in the gully beside the road while the horses shied and balked at unseen terrors. The doubts that seemed so foolish when he was with Eresken assailed him with redoubled force. Yes, he’d heard the arguments for a strike against the Forest. Jeirran had carried everyone along on the flood of his eloquence. Why was he no longer so certain? Teiriol felt suddenly wretched at the prospect of explaining himself to Keisyl. What would his mother say? How had he fallen for Jeirran’s blandishments?