Dangerous Waters (49 page)

‘We have no wizards willing to help us.’ Corrain curbed an impulse to curse Archmage Planir to any god who might be listening. ‘So we offer handsome rewards to any of Solura’s mages brave—’ he hastily checked himself. ‘Any willing to use their skills to defend our innocent women and children against these shoeless barbarians.’

He forced a desperate smile, lest that stupid slip of the tongue had inadvertently insulted the Soluran wizards. They didn’t look overly impressed; certainly not this older man with the lines of age and experience creasing his amiable face, sandy hair thinning to invisibility at his crown.

The younger mage was as yet largely untested, judging by his fresh complexion. Corrain would have called him little more than a boy. All the same, he had faced that Mandarkin onslaught without flinching, Corrain reminded himself, and wielded deadly magic without hesitation.

He couldn’t guess at the woman wizard’s age, not until she came closer. She was short in stature, solid in build, crop headed with her face scarred by childhood illness. Dressed like the men-at-arms in boots and breeches, a drab jerkin and cloak, she stood aloof from this conversation, scowling at the two Mandarkin captives.

One was the only survivor of the slaughter wrought by the burning blades. There could be no question that the younger man had kindled that spell and Corrain guessed that the older wizard had sought to stifle the Mandarkin mage. That enchanted wind sweeping up the soil had come from the same direction as he had.

The other prisoner was the one whose feet had been tangled in the ensorcelled grass. Corrain wondered who’d woven that spell. The woman? What else could she do? What else had she done? He had no clear idea which wizard might have worked those other magics to blind and silence the Mandarkin mage.

He looked at the two surviving henchmen. Like their dead comrades, both had been stripped naked. Kneeling on the grass, they cowered in abject terror if a Soluran swordsman so much as glanced in their direction.

The Soluran men-at-arms were busy dividing up anything of value found among the Mandarkin’s possessions. Whatever they didn’t want was casually slung into the fire kindled by the greybeard’s magic.

They’d wasted no time heating water to wash the scrapes and gashes suffered by the two men-at-arms who’d survived the fight in the glade. Several of the grey-bearded mage’s swordsmen had offered pungent salves to their comrades and herbs carefully tied in muslin were steeping in the hot water.

Corrain approved. Even if they weren’t serious enough to be considered wounds, such injuries could fester nevertheless and cost a man a finger or a hand.

No one was offering succour to either Mandarkin captive, even though both men’s oozing wounds were already attracting flies. The one who’d tried to cut his feet free had slashed right through his boots to the ankle bone beneath.

The woman wizard said something sardonic. Corrain looked at Kusint. ‘Can you speak for me if they don’t understand?’

‘We understand you, man of the coast.’ The greybeard’s Tormalin was impeccable, his expression reserved. ‘I have made several journeys to Col.’

‘We have all mastered your Old Empire’s tongue.’ The younger man looked down his long nose at Corrain. ‘For the purposes of scholarship.’

Maybe so, but the woman wizard spoke in scathing Soluran. She was examining some papers taken from one of the dead Mandarkin’s gear.

‘There are assuredly wizards in Col,’ the greybeard observed, ‘just as there are in Hadrumal. Why do you not seek help closer to home?’

‘Have you ever visited Hadrumal?’ Corrain asked, as casually as he could.

‘No.’ The greybeard was unconcerned. ‘Our Order has ties to Col’s university, so I travelled there to study in my youth.’

Corrain breathed a little more easily. ‘Then you’ll know Col for a peaceable city.’ There would be the usual street brawls and guild skirmishes but the patchwork realm of Ensaimin hadn’t seen marching armies in ten generations. ‘Mages there have never been tested in warfare. We seek wizards with proven proficiency in battle to defeat these barbarians once and for all.’

He smiled, trying to mask the tension tight across his shoulders. Kusint had insisted that Soluran wizards weren’t bound by the Archmage’s edict. This conversation could become markedly more complicated if they knew of its existence.

The greybeard merely nodded, considering this. ‘I see your reasoning.’

The younger mage looked askance at Corrain before addressing the older man. ‘Orul? Why should we turn our backs on Mandarkin malice for people we do not even know?’

Did the elder mage outrank the younger man? Corrain had no idea. He could see the greybeard, Orul, had no answer for the younger wizard. He quickly offered one himself. If honour was no incentive, there was always coin. In the end, most things came down to coin.

‘The gold and silver we offer could buy a great many books and scrolls from Col’s printers and copy-houses, or pay for board and lodging to enable a long visit to their libraries, or to Vanam,’ he added, recalling Ensaimin’s other great centre of learning.

The woman wizard swiftly rebuked the fresh-faced wizard as she threw the Mandarkin captives’ papers into the fire. Her spit of disgust followed them into the flames. Was that some comment on what she’d been reading or on his proposal?

Either way, Corrain chose not to let it pass. Even if she wouldn’t talk to them, she’d clearly understood his words.

‘Forgive me, my lady wizard. Have I offended you?’

She made him wait while she folded a vellum map back into precise folds.

‘You could have lost us Espilan.’ Her gesture indicated the younger mage. ‘You assuredly cost us our prey.’ Her speech was more formal, more old-fashioned than Orul’s.

‘This looks like a good haul to me.’ Stung, Corrain nodded across the clearing. The Mandarkin dead lay where they’d been discarded. Six of the Solurans were digging what he presumed was a pit for their corpses. The fallen Solurans had both been decently shrouded and laid beneath a shady tree.

‘These vermin?’ The woman wizard glared. ‘They know nothing. We wanted their master. Why else do you suppose Espilan was strolling in the sunshine like a cock bird flaunting his feathers? To lure him in! If you two skulking in the bushes had not delayed Orul, we would have caught him too.’ She looked at the greybeard. ‘You should have told your men to shoot them and been done with any doubt.’

‘Selista!’ The older wizard snapped angrily in Soluran. The language sounded ideally suited to argument, all harsh sounds and curt words.

Corrain sorely wanted to know what they were saying, but this was hardly an opportune time to ask Kusint.

Orul, the greybeard, broke off as loud rustling stirred the undergrowth. Every Soluran man-at-arms was instantly on his feet, bow or blade ready. Corrain turned, his hand on his sword hilt.

A cheery shout sailed through the greenery. Was that the Forest tongue? Kusint muttered an oath under his breath. ‘It’s Deor.’

Corrain saw that the Forest man was leading both their horses. Very well. They would deal with him in due course.

‘What were the wizards saying?’ he quickly asked Kusint while the Solurans were greeting the Forest man and asking him questions of their own. The woman wizard was unfolding that map to show something to Deor.

‘The woman insists they cannot shirk their duties,’ Kusint explained. ‘She says they must pursue the Mandarkin mage at once, while he’s weary with no swordsmen to back him.’

He nodded at Orul. ‘He says they’ve time in hand for that and the two of them can manage one Mandarkin between them. The lad deserves a chance to travel and to study. I don’t think their Order of Fornet has much coin for such things,’ he added quietly.

Deor and the woman wizard, Selista, were approaching. The Forest man hummed a cheery tune under his breath.

A sneer curled Selista’s lip. ‘I have also travelled to Col. I know that southern mages revere their Archmage. Will he approve of our wizardry coming to Caladhria?’

‘Naturally.’ Corrain feigned all the confidence he could muster. ‘He knows the Aldabreshin for the vermin they are.’

Deor said something to Selista and Kusint choked on an exclamation.

Selista looked at Corrain. ‘You lie, man of the coast.’ She spoke with absolute conviction.

‘What—’ Corrain knew he must look like he’d been slapped in the face. He scrambled to recover lost ground. ‘No. The edict—’

‘Some coast lord’s decree means nothing.’ Selista cut him off with a gesture. ‘Deor says you lie. That’s an end to it.’

‘How can he say such a thing?’ Corrain’s outrage was barely blunted by the truth of the accusation. The Forest man’s smirk infuriated him.

Deor addressed himself to Kusint, his words swift and fluid. Corrain was unnerved to see the Forest youth turn pale as milk, his freckles a vivid rash. Before he could speak, Deor explained.

‘You know little of the Mountain Men, Caladhrian traveller, as you proved earlier. You do not know that they have magic of their own? Not wizardry.’ He acknowledged Selista’s skills with a self-effacing smile. ‘This is a different art, drawing on the aether that links all living things.’

His tone hardened. ‘The
sheltya
of the uplands share such enchantments with us in the Forest. My skills are humble indeed compared to theirs but I can hear untruth in a man’s word, as plain as a cracked note from a flute.’

‘Artifice, I believe you call it,’ Selista added.

Corrain swallowed. Artifice. Aetheric magic. That’s what Kusint had called it, when he’d explained how the Lescari rebels had outwitted their dukes.

Incredible though it sounded, Kusint had sworn those adept with this Artifice could send messages quick as thought to each other. The handful of Lescari exile rebels who’d studied the ancient aetheric lore at Vanam’s university had travelled with different contingents of Captain General Evord’s army and his allies inside Lescar. The dukes, their militias and mercenaries had been limited to communications relying on the speed of a flying dove or a galloping horse, so the rebels had secured a vital advantage.

Kusint had also said that this aetheric magic offered countless other enchantments. He’d mentioned these
sheltya,
who seemed to be something between priests and lawgivers among the Mountain Men, rumoured to have awesome powers enabling them to see right inside a malefactor’s head. This was a cursed inconvenient time to discover that was so. Corrain could see the truth of it in Deor’s smirk. He could even believe in some malign god’s intervention. Had he insulted Talagrin so thoroughly?

‘Be grateful that Deor heard the truth when you said you were no enemy to the Folk,’ Selista continued, merciless. ‘Else he’d have cut your throats with a bowstring before the next falsehood fell from your lips.’

‘I considered doing that regardless.’ Deor shrugged. ‘But I was curious to hear Caladhrian spoken in these woods and to see that you were accompanied by a man of the Blood. Keep wandering,’ he advised Kusint with ominous finality. ‘These trees cannot shelter those who have other kin to call on, not this year.’

‘You have your horses.’ Selista jerked her head towards their steeds idly grazing on some grass beneath the trees. ‘Be on your way, before we grow impatient with this delay.’

‘Head west and you cannot miss the river,’ Deor added.

‘What rights can you claim over these woods?’ Corrain demanded before rounding on Selista with a sneer to rival her own. ‘What rights have you to say where we may travel?’ He wasn’t about to scurry off like some whipped stable boy. ‘This isn’t Solura.’

‘No.’ The wizard woman looked back at him, hard-eyed. ‘So I need not answer to Lord Pastiss or to any Elder Mage of Fornet if I drown you where you stand.’

‘Enough!’

Orul had come up, unnoticed. He cut a hand down between Corrain and Selista. If the gesture meant nothing to the Caladhrian, it did to the magewoman. She coloured and stepped back, muttering something mutinous under her breath.

Corrain held his ground as she stalked off, Deor at her side.

‘Come.’ Orul cupped Corrain’s elbow with a firm hand and urged him towards their horses.

This time he didn’t resist. But he wasn’t about to give up. ‘Forgive me, but the Archmage’s edict doesn’t bind Soluran mages.’

‘What?’ Orul paused, puzzled.

‘Hadrumal’s Archmage cannot forbid Soluran magic in Caladhria.’ Corrain heard the desperation in his voice. He didn’t care.

‘I do not know what you mean. Hadrumal’s customs are no concern of ours.’

It didn’t take any Artifice to see that the greybeard was telling the truth.

‘Mandarkin is our enemy and we must catch that wizard before he recovers his magic, if we can take him alive.’ Orul looked at the Mandarkin corpses with regret.

‘These men and others are making caches of food throughout the forest,’ he explained earnestly. ‘We fear they are preparing the way for an army to cross the mountains in the autumn, to attack us from the shelter of the forest throughout the winter.’

He stooped to scrape a few lines on the parched turf. ‘Pastamar lies between the Mare’s Tail and the Great River of the East. Our guess is that Mandarkin’s tyrants seek to drive us out with fire and sword when the season is too harsh to sustain life without shelter and stores. Force enough Solurans back across to the westernmost bank in Usta and Wardor—’

He broke off to look at the Mandarkin captives. ‘As well as pursuing that fugitive wizard, we must take those two to Deor’s kinsman, whose greater Artifice can wrest the truth from them, whether or not they can be forced to speak willingly. The fallen cannot tell us what we need to know of their tyrant’s plans.’

Corrain seized on that. ‘There are mages in Hadrumal who can give the dead back their voices.’

That was no lie. The Archmage himself had said so and if Planir had been lying, Corrain was repeating what he’d heard in good faith. If Deor’s ears were flapping to catch any falsehood, let him see if his Artifice could untangle that.

For the blink of an eye, Corrain thought that Orul was tempted. Then the Soluran mage shook his head. ‘Hadrumal is too far away for any of us to reach with our skills and besides we would need the sanction of our Elders to seek such help. We cannot spend the time on such things. We must track down that Mandarkin before he can rest and recover his magic.’