Knights Magi (Book 4) (22 page)

He advanced.  A feint, then another, with the dagger, and then that big sword was swinging for Tyndal’s head.  Galdan had stopped toying with him.  He was making for a kill with deadly determination.

Just as he had slashed at Tyndal’s right arm with the dagger successfully enough to open up a four-inch slice in his upper arm, Slasher slipped the tiniest bit in his grip – but enough to let him know that the next strike would push right through his guard and likely take off his head. 

A thrill like lightning soared through him as he anticipated the blow . . . but it never came.  Instead Galdan’s right shoulder was being jerked back, and suddenly his knife-arm had swung wide to counterbalance.

Tyndal didn’t stop to think.  He drove Slasher’s point through the center of the man’s unarmored chest using every bit of strength and leverage he could marshal.  He could feel the slender blade pierce through his sternum and bury itself eight inches into his chest, right through his heart, and feel the man shudder his death throes, his sword and dagger clattering from his fingers.  Tyndal nearly lost Slasher’s hilt as the old Ancient tumbled from the roof.

Only then did Tyndal whirl around to the other side of the beam, where Kaffin was fighting furiously, his scimitar recovered.  Who he was fighting was the surprise – Rondal had arrived, his crappy mageblade in hand, and he was barely holding on against the vicious student.  One reason was the box he held under his left arm, leaving him only one to defend against Kaffin’s onslaught.

“I’ve got the box!” Rondal screamed.

Tyndal didn’t think, once again – he launched himself off of the beam and collided shoulder-to-shoulder with Kaffin, sending him sprawling.  He rolled and came up on one knee, scimitar in hand, ready to strike, but he was a dozen feet away.  And now he was facing two knights magi, not one. 

His ally dead, his scheme revealed, his real identity unmasked, Kaffin scowled and with a wordless shout of defiance he activated a Shadowmagic spell that obscured the area with a thick smoke.  When the boys could see again, he was gone.

“Track him,” Tyndal said, breathlessly. 

“I’ll . . . try,” Rondal agreed, pushing the small stone box at Tyndal.  The boy tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.  He searched for a latch.

“It’s spellbound,” Rondal said, weakly, as he prepared a tracking spell.

“So how do I open it?”

“It’s going to be tricky,” Rondal said.  “I think it’s best if –”

Tyndal didn’t wait for his fellow apprentice’s advice.  He hurled the box against the side of the chimney with all of his might.  It smashed and shattered, the hinges wrecked by the impact.  A small black silk bag was inside.

“Or you could just do that,” Rondal finished.

“I’m going after him,” Tyndal said, as he felt the surge of power from his stone.  It was a heady feeling, like drinking a quart of spirits all at once.  He didn’t enjoy it, though – he wanted Kaffin’s head, and was willing to chase him all the way back to Farise to get it.

Both boys cast tracking spells, but between the two of them they had not the knowledge to counter Kaffin’s Shadowmagic.  As the minutes dragged on, they became more and more convinced that the other boy was fleeing.

“He’s got to be beyond the campus walls, now,” Rondal finally said.  “But which direction?”

“Trygg alone knows.  Trygg and Herus,” he said, referring to the god of thieves and travelers.  “How did you know?”

Rondal looked guilty.  “I didn’t . . . I just knew that big idiot wasn’t his accomplice.  I was wrong,” he confessed, looking at his feet.  “It was clear in the first five minutes that he wasn’t aware of anything that Kaffin was doing apart from regular dormitory foolishness.  I didn’t know who the accomplice was, so I figured you’d need my help.”

“Estasia—” Tyndal began.

“She’s dead,” Rondal pronounced, mournfully.  “I passed her body on the way over – it was quicker walking through the courtyard than through the towers.  Her . . . her neck was broken,” he said, in a whisper.  “She didn’t survive.”

“She . . . damn them,” Tyndal said, realizing that his friend was gone.  “Damn them!  Damn that rat to nine hells and more!”

“You got your stone back,” reminded Rondal. 

“So?  Estasia’s dead!” Tyndal shouted.  “They killed her!  That godsdamned rat pushed her right off the building, as easy as breaking a dove’s neck!”

“I know,” Rondal said, crouching on the rooftop.

“Damn it!” fumed Tyndal, his blood filled with rage.  “Damn them!”

“She’s dead,” Rondal repeated.

“Damn them!” Tyndal shouted, his voice filling the night.

“She was so . . . so nice,” Rondal said, tears in his eyes.

“She was a brilliant mage,” Tyndal said, “and they just . . . killed her!”

“I know!” Rondal shouted.  “I had my stone and all the power in the world, but I wasn’t there, and I couldn’t have saved her from that – not like that.  I’m not that good.”

“Damn them!” Tyndal said, walking to the edge of the roof.  With magesight the courtyard was as clear as day.  He could only see her legs, but they weren’t arrayed as human legs should properly work.  He felt sick.  “Damn them!” he whispered, tears in his own eyes.

“It’s not your fault,” Rondal said, helpfully.

“I know!” snarled Tyndal.  “You’re the one who thought it was Stanal!  You sent her up here with me and that murderer, instead of coming yourself!”

“I know!” Rondal said, miserably.

“You were the one who put her up here!”

“I know!” Rondal howled, angrily.  “You think I don’t know that?”

Tyndal stopped, realizing how unfair he was being to his fellow apprentice.  “Rondal, I’m—”

“Just leave me alone!” he shouted, his voice breaking harshly through the tears.  “I know what I did!”  He fled the roof, his mageblade falling limply from his hand as he ran.

Tyndal knelt to retrieve the blade, and noted the glint of something else.  He summoned a magelight and looked more carefully.

Kaffin’s Rat Tail, fallen and lost in shadow.  He picked it up and turned the evil little blade over in his hands.  It was long, nine inches, a third of it hilt, in the shape of a stylized rat.  The point was sharp to the touch.  It would have eviscerated him, had it landed.

Tyndal stared at the blade a long time before he left the roof.  He was feeling a lot of things – the loss of his friend, the sting of betrayal, the guilt over rubbing Rondal’s nose in their mutual error. 

But then they hadn’t realized what they were facing – who they were facing.  Oriil Pratt’s nephew, hidden in plain sight.  Studying to take his uncle’s place, and wage war on the Duchies.  On the Kingdom – that was the only reasonable way one would take revenge.

“They want a war?” Tyndal said, softly to himself and the gods.  “By Duin’s axe, they will get a war!”

*
                            *                            *             

The night was filled with reports and briefings s they filled in the He
ad Master about the plot, and the staff disposed of the two dead bodies.  A search was made for Kaffin of Gyre at once, but the student had not returned to his room. 

The next morning, after a precious few hours of sleep, they told the entire tale to the Head Master and the faculty council in chambers.  Tyndal thought the Masters were more mortified about the theft, and the death of a student  than about its ramifications.  To have such a crime in Inarion’s sacred halls . . . and against such a powerful lord . . . they were beside themselves with apologies.

Master Minalan had been more thoughtful, and more appreciative of the meaning of the attack.  The Brotherhood of the Rat had been an unknown factor in the new kingdom, he’d told Tyndal the previous night, after he’d reported the events to him mind-to-mind.  Now they knew where they stood, and against whom they stood. 

Their master had been particularly intrigued over the idea that Orril Pratt had relatives.  The way he responded, however, it didn’t bode well. 

Tyndal and Rondal were excused from examinations for the day, as the bodies of Estasia and Ancient Galdan were dealt with.  They ran into each other at lunch, however, both of them sitting at the same table, listlessly picking at their food.  The ‘girls’ table’ was nearly empty, the few female students there weeping openly.

“Kaffin said that they were talking about marrying us,” Tyndal said, eventually, just to break the silence.  “When we got here, they were all talking about what good prospects we’d be.”

“I’m sure Estasia wasn’t—”

“She was,” Tyndal said, dully.  “I thought she’d be above that sort of thing, too, but . . . she all but admitted it.”

“Well,” Rondal said, which is what Tyndal noticed he said when he couldn’t think of anything else to say.  “I guess I couldn’t blame her.  She didn’t know us yet.”

“I know,” Tyndal dismissed.  “It’s just interesting, I guess.  I didn’t think she really liked me all that much.  More your type of girl.”

“I don’t have a type of girl,” Rondal said, dejected. 

“You will,” Tyndal nodded.  “And when you do, she’ll be a lot like Estasia,” he
predicted.

“You think so?  Truly?” Rondal asked, hopefully.

“I do,” he nodded, sipping his wine.  He had pulled rank on the house steward and gotten a bottle, instead of pouring the weak ale the students were usually served.  The man didn’t argue when he saw the look in Tyndal’s eyes.  “Here,” he said, dumping out the water Rondal had poured and filling the cup with wine.  “Let’s drink to her memory.  And then drink to avenging her, someday.”

“And then?” Rondal asked, cautiously accepting the cup.

“And then we’ll keep drinking until it doesn’t hurt anymore,” he said, darkly.

Part Two:

RELAN COR

Relan Cor War College, Early Spring

Year One Of King Rard I’s Reign

Rondal

Rondal looked up at the foreboding fortress and a chill went up his spine. 

He suppressed the feeling of dread the edifice inspired, partially because he knew the place had been designed to inspire that feeling, and partially because he felt he deserved whatever horrors lay within.  The guilt over Estasia’s death had been a burden he could not escape.  The six-day journey from Inarion upriver to the War College had given him far too much time to dwell on his failure, and he arrived at the War College with a dark and heavy heart.

He was no stranger to death - no one who had walked out of Boval Vale could be.  He had seen dozens of the people he knew slaughtered by the gurvani.  Estasia’s death was different.  Even though he had known her only a few weeks, he had become very attached to her, his feelings far in excess of reason, considering the nature of their relationship.  But her death hurt more, somehow, than most he’d lost at Boval.

He was emotionally numb over the event.  He knew people died in war, and he’d seen it.  He’d participated, even.  But to have someone that young, someone he knew and liked suddenly just be . . . not there, and have another human, and someone else he’d known, be the cause, that had been a grim novelty.  One he wasn’t certain of how to recover from. 

He’d brooded about the tragedy for the entire journey, on barge and from the back of a rented horse.  He’d barely spoken on the way to Relan Cor.   He knew, intellectually, that it wasn’t his fault.  The sinister Brotherhood of the Rat had seen her as an obstacle, so they had removed her.  This was Relin Pratt’s fault, or Kaffin of Gyre as he styled himself.  He cursed the name, every time it sprang to mind.  Even though it wasn’t his hand who’d pushed her, it was the young shadowmage’s ambition that had motivated the hand that had.  Intellectually, he knew he was not at fault for her tragic, untimely death.

Emotionally . . . that was a different story.  He’d been given power beyond his years, yet he hadn’t the wisdom or insight to see the Brotherhood of the Rat’s plot for what it was . . . and Estasia had paid the price.  He had barely eaten, and his sleep was restless and fitful.  He felt numb, all the time, and was growing more resentful of his fellow apprentice, Tyndal, every day.  Tyndal’s accusations afterward hadn’t helped – Rondal was more than willing to blame himself for the tragedy at Inarion Academy.  But then to see how the haystack-headed moron dealt with it made him sick.

The young idiot had gotten blind drunk the day after Estasia’s death, and the next day he barely mentioned it.   He had plunged into his studies with an eagerness and determination that Rondal would have welcomed to see just days before .  After Estasia’s death, such devotion to mere academics just seemed disrespectful.  There was a plot afoot, and reading parchment when he should be seeking vengeance just seemed petty.

He felt he owed her that, after he’d been that unexpectedly intimate with her.  The spell the three had done together to locate Tyndal’s witchstone had been the first time he had worked closely with another mage one-on-one, outside of training.  It had been an intimacy he hadn’t expected, and the shock of suddenly losing that connection had stunned his psyche terribly. 

Rondal found he couldn’t study at Inarion anymore.  Every time he passed the spot where her body had fallen, outside of the North Tower under his window, he shuddered.  The endless feast of learning he had been so enthusiastic about devouring at Inarion had grown stale.  He could barely look at a book or scroll without thinking about Estasia.  And she had barely even acknowledged his presence.