Wrath of Lions (47 page)

The bearded youngster in the tattered doublet cleared his throat.

“Master Turock?”

The garishly dressed spellcaster bent backward, glancing over his shoulder. He was an odd-looking man, with a carefully maintained
mustache and pointed beard. His face was intense, his smile not humorous in the least, and his blue eyes did not seem to register the three Wardens.

“What is it?” he asked in that same playful tone. “Can’t you see we’re toasting Karak’s hairy cocks out there at the moment?”

He turned around again and started uttering more words of magic.

“Um,” Bartholomew said, “help arrived from Mordeina. I thought you might like to know.”

The red-haired man whirled back around, and this time he
did
see Ahaesarus, Olympus, and Judah. His eyes widened, his smile grew broader, and he made a sweeping bow.

“Oh my, Wardens of Ashhur, come to assist us in our troubles.” He stood up and slapped Bartholomew on the shoulder. “Can you believe it, lad? My wife’s mother actually proved her worth for once.” He turned to the Wardens. “So Olympus and Judah I know, but who are you, with those golden locks and that severe—oh yes,
severe
—stare?”

The man laughed, even as the continuing sounds of death came pouring in through the window. Ahaesarus felt completely at a loss.

“Ahaesarus, Master Warden of Paradise,” he replied.

“Oh, I
have
met you! You visited when Martin was named kingling, yes?”

Ahaesarus nodded. “I did, though I do not remember you, and I feel that I would if I had been given the privilege of meeting you.”

“I do tend to be memorable. It’s a trait I like to encourage.”

An arrow flew through the window just then, so close that it lifted Turock’s hat from his head. Arrow and cap struck the stone wall, the arrow snapping in two. The redhead stared in horror at his now ruined hat, and for the first time since Ahaesarus’s arrival, he actually seemed angry.

“Fuckers!” he screamed, heading back to the window. As he began barking his magical phrases, lightning leapt from his fingertips.
“Bartholomew, bring them back downstairs,” he snapped over his shoulder. “We’ll be done here soon. Now go!”

“We have some questions—” began Judah.

“Can’t you see we’re busy? Get out!”

Ahaesarus glanced at his fellow Wardens, who shrugged. He returned the gesture.

“We will aid your fight as best we can,” he told Bartholomew on their way back down the stairwell. “Tell us where the need is greatest, and we will defend you with our lives.”

The young man exhaled deeply. “I thank you for that.” An explosion sounded, and Bartholomew flinched. There was sweat running down his brow despite the night’s chill. “And I must apologize for Turock’s…er, pointedness. He’s under a bit of stress at the moment.”

“Do not worry yourself over it,” said Ahaesarus. “We will work this all out after the battle is over.”

They reemerged into a night filled with fire, arrows, and pained cries. Bartholomew pointed the way, and the three Wardens spent the next two hours hefting sacks of freshly fletched arrows from inside the tower, bringing waterskins to the fighting men, and tending to wounded soldiers. Whenever he looked to the river, Ahaesarus could make out little beyond fire, billowing black smoke, and piles of corpses at the edge of the river, some dragged into the water by its harsh current. Ahaesarus could only hazard a guess as to their enemy’s numbers. Whenever a soldier bearing the sigil of Karak on his armor rushed through the fire, he was either struck down or carried away by the river.

Ahaesarus felt utterly useless as he ran from menial task to menial task, constantly dodging incoming projectiles, no easy task given his large size. A part of him realized he was putting his life in danger for absolutely nothing. The citizens of Drake, led by Turock’s spellcasters, had the situation fully under control.

Do not fall into that trap,
he told himself as he handed a fresh waterskin to a short, blond, robed man.
You told Isabel you would do whatever it took. At the moment, this is what it takes.

The cross-river skirmish lasted only another hour or so. Come sunrise, the barrage of arrows from the other side slowed to a trickle. When it finally stopped, Turock left the tower and joined his men on the shore. The flames were petering out, and the smoke on the Tinderlands side of the Gihon had cleared as well, revealing a mess of bodies splayed out on the rocky, uneven ground, some still bleeding out, others burnt beyond recognition. Ahaesarus guessed the enemy had lost at least fifty men, though it was difficult to tell given how many had been carried away by the current. Only three of Drake’s defenders had perished. An eerie quiet came over the defenders, whose fatigue showed in the huge black circles that had formed under their eyes. Soon the men were wading in the shallow edges of the river, extracting snagged corpses and carting them north along the bank, dumping them in a massive, stone-rimmed firepit. As Ahaesarus helped remove the bodies, he noticed they were small, even for humans, as if they were underdeveloped. The fires were lit, the bodies burned, and the near constant chill that had pervaded the evening gave way to oppressive heat.

When they arrived back at the tower, Ahaesarus left Olympus and Judah and approached the Turock, whose jibes and carefree attitude seemed to have vanished. His entire demeanor had changed from when he was in the thick of battle. Turock squinted against the glare of the steadily rising sun and winced. More than anything, he looked exhausted, both mentally and physically. It was as if leaving his nest in the sky had caused the world to fall directly on his shoulders.

“You won the battle,” Ahaesarus said, hefting his huge stone ax onto his shoulder, the weapon having gone unused the entire night. “Why such sullenness?”

Turock craned his neck to look up at him, his eyes glossy, but a rustling from behind drew his attention before he could answer Ahaesarus’s question. The other Wardens were loping over the concealing hill, a group of thirty or so young men and women trailing behind.

Turock rose up on his toes and patted Ahaesarus on the shoulder. “I know you have questions, Master Warden, but right now I’m rather useless. I need sleep.” He lazily rolled his head in the direction of the camp. “You could no doubt use some as well. Have Bartholomew show you where. Come back to the tower at noon, and I will answer any questions you have.”

Bartholomew directed the Wardens to an ample thatch of empty land on the northwestern edge of the camp. Sleep did not come easily for Ahaesarus, even though the crude tent where he rested blocked out much of the daylight. His mind was awash with images of a burning night sky, the whistle of arrows soaring through the air, and the screams of the dead and dying, both seen and unseen. He felt shame burn in his chest when he realized just how frightened he’d been. For months he had been nothing but a glorified carpenter, organizing the people of Mordeina in the construction of the wall. Before that, he’d been a tutor to a princeling. Up until a few hours ago, the coming war had been just as much a fiction to him as it had been to the humans of Paradise. Once within the chaos of a battle, he’d almost reacted exactly as he had back on Algrahar: freezing up in terror and allowing the oncoming hordes to do their worst.

And the previous night had been relatively bloodless, battling a concealed opponent with little to no chance of a close encounter. The gods only knew how he would react when he experienced
true
combat.

Certain that sleep would not come, he rose and paced around the camp in an attempt to tamp down his worries. He stopped to visit some of the women who were roasting salted grayhorn meat
and cabbage stew over their cookfires as their children milled about. The camp was indeed large; there were at least two thousand people residing here, and the conditions were crowded.

Come noon, Ahaesarus returned to the tower. His body ached and his mind swam from lack of sleep, and when he climbed the rounded staircase, it felt as though he were moving through water. He was winded by the time he reached the roost. Pushing the hatch open, he saw that two people awaited him—Turock and a familiar-looking petite woman with fiery red hair and fine freckled skin. She wore a modest cotton blouse and had flowers in her hair. For his part, Turock wore the same violet robes he’d had on previously, wrinkled as though he’d slept in them. Without his hat, his hair was a wild mess of reddish-blond curls. Even his beard seemed unruly. The pair was a study of mirror opposites. They sat on a bench in front of a rounded table that had not been there the previous night.

“Abigail DuTaureau, I presume,” Ahaesarus said, bowing to the woman before taking the only other seat at the table.

“It’s Escheton now. I haven’t been a DuTaureau for twenty-three years.”

“Twenty-three
long
years,” said Turock, a bit of color in his cheeks and a gleam in his eyes.

“Many apologies, my lady, I meant no disrespect,” said Ahaesarus. “I have seen your mother day in and day out for nearly a year, so the name and face are etched in my mind.”

“No disrespect taken.”

Turock scoffed. “By you, maybe.”

“Shush, dear.”

“Hush yourself.”

Turock leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on Abigail’s dainty, upturned nose. Ahaesarus was baffled by them both, Turock in particular. This was a man who had been fighting a battle against forces that hoped to obliterate him and everyone else in Drake mere hours ago.

Turock noticed him staring and raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

Ahaesarus allowed himself to smile. “Simply marveling at your fortitude, my friend. You look like you slept quite well, while I found I could not sleep at all.”

With a wink, Turock pulled a small vial from one of his robe’s many pockets.

“Tricks of the trade,” he said. “A drop of this, and three hours of sleep feels like twelve.” He handed the vial to Ahaesarus. “Go ahead, Master Warden. Smell it. I’m sure you’ll recognize it.”

He uncorked the top and sniffed the liquid inside, then gave the spellcaster a confused glance.

“Nightwing root?” he asked. His left hand fingered the pouch that hung from a slender rope around his neck, containing the last of the root he had brought from Algrahar, a portion of which he had administered to Geris Felhorn in the hours after the healers had removed the wasting tumor from his neck. “How in Ashhur’s name did you come across this?”

Turock took the vial back from him.

“Easy answer: I didn’t. What you smell is similar, but not genuine. The Warden Assissi introduced the wonder of the root to me when I was quite young, before I headed out to find Errdroth Plentos, the elf who trained me. Worked great as a sleep aid, but he had very little. He only gave me a pinch, and I saved that pinch for years. One of the first things I did after Plentos died was attempt to uncover its secret properties. I discovered that ginger root is very similar, and by combining it with an extract of crim oil, I was able to approximate the formula. It’s not an exact copy, and gods forbid you take it if you feel any
real
pain, but the sleeping properties still work. Though you shouldn’t get too reliant on it, because eventually you’ll collapse and sleep for a good eighteen hours or so. Not that I, uh, know from experience.”

“Amazing,” said Ahaesarus.

“Not really,” the spellcaster replied with a shrug. “Simple trial and error.” He winked. “And a lot of luck. Some say I’m the luckiest man in all of Paradise, which is saying something.”

“Is that how you have been fighting off those attempting to cross the river?” asked Ahaesarus. “With luck?”

He had meant the statement as a joke, but Turock’s expression darkened.

“No, not luck. Lots of skill and hard work. And patience. Loads and loads of fucking patience.”

Abigail frowned at her husband.

“I apologize,” the Warden replied, bowing his head to the man. “I do not think before I speak at times.”

Turock brushed the comment aside. “Nonsense. Pride is one of my faults, and I just fell victim to it yet again. The thing is, these past months have been hell on us. We’re all exhausted and frightened, and we’ve been working ourselves to the bone, trying to defend what is ours.”

“I am curious, how did it come about?”

“How did what come about?”

Ahaesarus lifted his hand toward the three eastern-facing windows. “The fighting, the soldiers on the other side. I will be honest.…I know little of what has transpired here.”

Turock opened his mouth, but Abigail answered for him.

“It began over a year ago, when we still resided in the town. People were being taken in the night—men, women, and children alike. More than twenty went missing over the span of three weeks. We set up patrols, but they did nothing. We had no idea who was taking our townspeople, if anyone, until one morning we found a trail of blood that ended at the narrow gap where this tower is now located.

“We set up camp on the spot and brought everyone with us, deciding that with such close and open quarters no more would be taken, or at least the culprits would not go unseen. Turock originally
thought some wild beasts roaming in the Tinderlands might be at fault. But then strange things began to happen.”

Ahaesarus frowned, trying to guess what might have been taking them, but unable to think of a plausible reason.

“Strange things such as what?” asked Ahaesarus.

“No one who went riding outside our borders returned,” said Turock, his expression serious. “No birds from our rookeries every flew back. When the moon was high, we’d hear strange chanting from across the river, deep in the Tinderlands. To be honest, we felt under siege without having the slightest idea what was tormenting us. I began to build this tower so that sentries could keep watch at night, hoping it might grant us more sleep come nightfall.”

“We were lucky Turock had already been training many of our fellow citizens in the lessons Plentos had taught him,” Abigail said.

“More out of boredom than anything else,” Turock admitted.

Abigail continued: “We in the far north are an eager lot, and we make fantastic students. Having a legion of spellcasters, even amateur ones, helped us build this structure much faster than we ever could have otherwise.”