Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (15 page)

Outside, the market place was lit with lamps hung outside every doorway. Iron fire-baskets warded off night’s chill, as ale, wine and white brandy were sold from the open windows of every inn. Peddlers offered trinkets for sale while hucksters extolled the virtues of any number of taverns and brothels. Sharp-eyed tricksters sought the drunk or gullible, offering a few trios of runes cast on an empty barrel top, just for a friendly wager.

‘Lord Halferan!’ Baron Dalthran stepped out of an alley.

Corrain noted the guardsman a few paces behind him. A swift glance reassured him that neither man’s hand rested on a blade so Corrain held off reaching for his own sword. ‘Fair festival, my lord.’

Baron Dalthran took an unsteady step forward. ‘We’ll look to you for recompense when the Relshazri beggar us all.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Corrain was wrong-footed by this attack.

‘How much of the corsairs’ loot did those wizards help you bring home, you and Lord Tallat’s men?’ Dalthran demanded. ‘And Licanin and Antathele?’

‘There was no booty,’ Corrain assured him. ‘We didn’t think we’d get back alive, still less have time to stuff our pockets. Ask Lord Tallat if you don’t believe me or Licanin or Antathele.’

‘You think they will admit to such ill-gotten gains?’ Dalthran spat. ‘Did you think that you wouldn’t be called on to surrender such plunder? Those corsairs raided up and down the Caladhrian coast, thieving from countless fiefdoms. Every barony deserves reparations.’

Corrain reminded himself of the folly of debating with drunks. Besides, Dalthran was doubtless only repeating other barons’ gossip. He was too idle and blinkered to have thought of this unprompted.

‘I have no notion what happened to the corsairs’ loot. I can tell you that we have none of it, nor ever sought it, and I’ll swear to that on any altar you propose.’

‘Do you think anyone will believe you?’ Dalthran’s finger wavered in the air before he jabbed at Corrain’s shoulder. ‘We will send our own messengers to the Archmage to find out how much treasure you’re hiding, and curses on your law forbidding dealings with wizardry. Don’t imagine we don’t see your reasons for shunning Hadrumal’s mages. You simply want to hide your own thievery.’

Corrain looked past the nobleman to Dalthran’s guardsman. ‘Take him to his bed. When he sobers up, tell him how I dealt with insults in my days as Halferan’s captain. He can count himself lucky I respect my new rank and those worthy of it.’

He turned away, not checking his stride when he heard a yelp from Dalthran suggesting that the guardsman had forcibly restrained his inebriated lord.

Corrain was already composing the message he must now send to Lady Zurenne, brief and miniscule on a slip of onionskin paper to be rolled tight and stowed in the silver cylinder fastened to a courier dove’s leg. She needed to know of this new rumour of undeserved riches in Halferan’s strong room, to go with their hoard of wizardly gold. Though that tale was somewhat more inconveniently true, or at least it had been before rebuilding the manor and restoring the demesne had seen most of Planir’s coin spent.

He would have to wait until morning before loosing one of the handful of Halferan-hatched birds which Sergeant Reven was so diligently tending in his bedroom. Still, he could send messengers tonight to warn the lords of Tallat, Antathele and Licanin of these accusations, if he could find anyone sober enough to reliably carry a discreet note.

Would Dalthran repeat his claims before the whole parliament? Would some other lord who might be listened to more readily? Corrain decided to send notes to the barons of Myrist, Saldiray and Taine as well, to warn them of such potential distraction when debate on this new law resumed.

At least no one had yet levelled the accusation which Corrain feared most. He didn’t relish having to stand up in front of the entire parliament and swear to a blatant lie, even if he no longer feared divine retribution.

That secret should be safe though, held close between the two of them. No one else could possibly know that Planir had demanded Corrain’s endeavours to pass this law as the final price for his wizards’ assistance in saving Halferan.

No one would believe that the Archmage wanted to see Caladhrian law forbidding the suborning of magecraft in warfare, still less that Planir hoped to see similar decrees signed and sealed by every mainland realm and dominion.

Corrain had readily agreed to do whatever he could to convince Caladhria’s parliament. He wanted all accounts settled with Hadrumal, so he need have nothing more to do with any other wizard, not even a mild-faced maiden like Madam Jilseth.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

The residence of Mellitha Esterlin, Relshaz

Winter Solstice Festival, 3rd Night

J
ILSETH DREW A
deep breath and wove her translocation. Kerrit was dead but she must set aside her grief and anger for the moment. Unrestrained emotion provoked untamed magic. Every mageborn newly come to Hadrumal, homesick, fearful or defiant, was warned of the dire consequences when wizards gave way to unbridled passion. Those inclined to scoff were sent to read the chilling letters and journals detailing the stomach-churning destruction which followed.

As pure white light enveloped her, she considered what she would say to Mellitha and Velindre about Despin’s attempted theft. What would Planir—

Sapphire magelight dazzled her. Jilseth lost any sense of elemental earth, the very foundation of her magecraft. She was buffeted by elemental air as brutal as a hurricane. Fire escaped her mastery next and the punishing winds scorched her like furnace blasts.

Jilseth fought for composure. Panic would be the death of her. She realised that her wizardly strength was untouched. That was no great relief. Not when she had lost all ability to harness and channel such perilous power. No prentice-mistress or pupil-master had ever taught her how to handle this particular circumstance. How could she regain control of her magecraft when she was denied her own affinity? Despite her best efforts, dread threatened to choke her.

‘Jilseth!’

She heard Mellitha through the deafening roar and felt the soothing touch of elemental water. Coolness flowed between her wizard senses and the chaotic brutality of fire and air. In that moment of respite Jilseth sensed the elemental earth. Channelling her learning and strength, she anchored herself amid all four elements. The turmoil enveloping her paled into the white mist of translocation.

‘Jilseth!’ Mellitha grabbed her arm even before she felt solid ground beneath her feet.

‘What’s going on?’ They stood on the paving between the lawn and the white stone house’s gates. Jilseth was chilled to realise that she had lost any sense of where her disrupted spell might have carried her.

‘The local malcontents are no longer satisfied with hurling abuse.’ Velindre’s contempt was scathing as she drew a curtain of azure magelight along the top of the wall to shatter a volley of stones into a shower of gravel.

Jilseth realised that her translocation must have become entangled with Velindre’s warding spells. Ordinarily, she would have demanded her immediate attention. They must establish precisely what elemental conflicts had arisen as the spells clashed. Disseminating their conclusions through Hadrumal’s halls would be vital to warn other mages of such a hazard.

Such wizardly concerns would have to wait. The air crackled as though a thunderstorm were about to break over their heads. Inside the stables Jilseth heard a horse whinnying uneasily and the thud of hooves against wood.

Bricks hurled over the wall were reduced to dust by Velindre’s shimmering magic. Jilseth noted that these attackers had found far larger missiles than anything lobbed at Kerrit’s house. Her throat tightened painfully at the thought of the guiltless wizard’s death. ‘I must tell you—’

‘Do these fools imagine they can defeat our spells with such nonsense?’ Mellitha flung up her hands and emerald mist captured and quenched a blazing bottle.

‘They know that mages must tire eventually,’ Velindre said grimly.

A handful of bottles stuffed with burning rags followed the first. Mellitha’s magic reduced them to a rain of molten glass pattering harmlessly onto the paving.

‘Where is the Watch?’ she raged.

Jilseth found the customarily serene magewoman’s fury more disconcerting than this unprecedented attack.

‘Jilseth, scry beyond the wall. Find out what we are facing.’ Velindre repulsed another wave of broken masonry and cobblestones. Rage-filled shouts turned to choking and coughing as she sent the resulting cloud of dust to swirl around their attackers.

‘Find out why the cursed Watch aren’t here,’ Mellitha snapped.

‘Of course.’ Jilseth ran into the house.

Mellitha’s servants were gathered in the marble-floored hallway.

‘The mistress said—’

‘I’m sure.’ Jilseth didn’t wait to hear Mellitha’s instructions repeated. It was enough to know that the vulnerable were safely out of harm’s way.

Flinging the salon door open, she wrung water out of the air to fill the scrying bowl on the distant table. With Mellitha’s magecraft pervading the house, Jilseth barely had to brush against the element. She didn’t waste time with ink or oils, simply cupping her hands around the overflowing bowl. Emerald brightness banished every shadow to the far corners of the room

Usually the cool touch of pure silver soothed her. Now apprehension chilled Jilseth as she contemplated the scene in the scrying, as clear as if she walked, invisible and insubstantial, along the coping stones of the tall white wall.

This was no mob of drunken fools to be easily scared away. The crowd was ten deep in places. The street outside the gates was impassable and the path circling the house was choked with people.

Jilseth could see fearful men and women trying to fight their way free of this stifling throng. Some were plainly regretting whatever hatred or hysteria had swept them here, drink-fuelled ire cooling. A few had visible reason to leave; bleeding heads wounded by missiles falling short of their target.

None could get away. For every one trying to depart, a handful more arrived, their faces ugly with mindless viciousness. Shoving turned into scuffling, restrained only by the crushing lack of space to throw punches. More people struggled to escape the spreading fracas. Their frantic efforts only provoked more hostility from those thinking themselves attacked. Dagger blades flashed in the moonlight.

A tremor sent ripples across the scrying water. Jilseth snatched her hands from the bowl and dropped to one knee. As she pressed her hand against the floor, she felt the ominous disturbance more clearly.

Abandoning the silver bowl, her untended spell fading, Jilseth ran out of the salon and through the hall. She waved away the servants desperate to ask her questions, flinging a trivial cantrip ahead to open the door.

‘Mellitha! Velindre!’ She stood on the topmost step, a dart of air carrying her words to each magewoman’s ear.

‘What?’ Velindre crossed the thirty paces to her side in a single step.

More stones soared upwards only to disintegrate amid the blonde magewoman’s magic.

‘Where are they still getting these cobbles?’ Mellitha demanded, irate. ‘Have they stripped every street between here and the Rel?’

All the older woman’s attention was focused on the gates. Jilseth’s wizard sight showed her the water magic suffusing the sturdy barrier. Despite the assaults of sharp-edged stones, boots and belt-knives, Mellitha’s wizardry was repairing every splinter and crack, the wood as solid as though it flourished uncut in some distant coppice.