Lord Of The Freeborn (Book 7) (9 page)
Read Lord Of The Freeborn (Book 7) Online
Authors: Ron Collins
“That’s a good reason,” Garrick replied. “Dorfort has always been more worthy of your regard than I am.”
Silence roared between them.
Garrick fought the elements of Hezarin’s life force, and the wall of need he felt building over the city. There were injured in Dorfort’s streets. There was pain. He felt it all, and rubbed his hands together absently as he steeled himself against the turmoil it caused inside his mind.
“What have you become?” Darien said.
Garrick shrugged.
“I am who I always have been.”
“It’s untoward to pretend, Garrick.”
He was right. Darien had always been able to see under his skin better than Garrick could himself.
“I am god-touched,” he said, accepting that term in ways he hadn’t before. “But I am still a man. No different from you in any way that matters.”
Lord Ellesadil cleared his throat to draw attention. He held his damaged arm against his ribcage, but still managed to place his weapon back into its sheath. He looked at Garrick.
Around them, the city burned.
“I think we should gather our wits.” He looked at Darien. “I suggest you gather the guard and take action to stop the blaze.”
“No,” Darien said.
Ellesadil started, unfamiliar with such disobedience.
“I cannot direct your guard,” Darien said.
“What?” Ellesadil cried.
“I nearly took your life, Lord. I’ve disgraced myself.”
“I’ll hear nothing of that. You
saved
my life. There is no man alive who could have done better in my service. You belong in Dorfort.” Ellesadil paused and found just the right inflection. “In fact, I’ve needed a commander of my guard since your father passed, Darien. I’ll accept none other than you.”
Darien paused, his expression torn.
Ellesadil glanced at Garrick.
“What do you think, Lord of the Freeborn?”
Garrick was suddenly jealous. Darien had a home, a place to be. His entire life had been about Dorfort, and now he would be tied to the city in the most meaningful way he could imagine.
“I think the J’ravi name will sound good in that post again.”
Chapter 18
Will ran to Garrick, then. The boy threw his arms around Garrick’s shoulders, an act that showed exactly how much Will had grown over the past year. When Garrick had first taken the boy in, Will’s hug would have been around the waist.
“Garrick, sir! I knew you would come back!”
He was shivering.
“You need to get inside where it’s warm,” he said, running his hand over Will’s head.
“I’m all right,” Will said.
A current of Hezarin’s life force swelled toward the boy. Garrick pushed it away, and concentrated. Will was in that awkward age where he needed true guidance, not the second-hand mentoring Garrick had been providing so far.
“I’ll take Will inside,” Ellesadil replied, rubbing his arms now against the cold. “We both need to get out of the elements, and I could use his help to gather the guard and announce my new captain.”
“Thank you,” Garrick said.
“Come along,” Ellesadil said to Will.
Will gave only a perfunctory argument as Ellesadil put a hand on his shoulder and led him inside, leaving Garrick alone with Darien. The two of them watched Ellesadil and the boy disappear through the doorway.
The sounds of voices grew in the nighttime.
Garrick looked at his friend.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply.
A neutral smirk crossed Darien’s bearded face. “We’re fine.”
Garrick looked to the wall and felt the pressure of Dorfort’s panic rising outside. “I think you have a city to save.”
“You mean, we have a city to save, right?”
Garrick clenched his eyes shut against the pressure and listened as Hezarin’s power roiled inside him. He thought his head might explode. He could use her energy to save lives tonight. He could use it to heal. But he didn’t know if he could trust it. He didn’t know if he could trust himself. What would happen if he drained himself too far after he has absorbed a planewalker? Would his hunger’s pendulum swing back even further than it had in the past? And if it did, could he stop at merely the destruction of Dorfort?
He shook his head. “If I stay here now, I fear the city will suffer.”
“The people need you.”
“No, Darien. They need you.”
Darien took in the devastation that was the government center—the dead guardsmen and mages, the destroyed walls, and the burnt buildings.
“Look around, Garrick. It will take months to make these repairs,” he said. “You, and the Torean order, need to stay in Dorfort.”
Garrick shook his head again, harder this time.
“If this has taught me one thing, it’s that I cannot lead the Freeborn.”
The sounds of the people rose over the roar of burning fire. In the distance, the guard was beginning to form. “Commander J’ravi!” one man yelled.
Darien stepped forward to stand firmly before Garrick.
“Perhaps you are right. Perhaps the city would be better off without you. Perhaps it doesn’t need you. But
I
need you, Garrick. And I need you now. I know what you can do, and I’ll take my chances. I need you to go into my city and heal its wounded. They are innocents, Garrick. They didn’t deserve this.”
Garrick raised his gaze to meet Darien’s and saw the inner fire he had felt many months ago in Arderveer. His friend’s gaze was firm and direct. It was personal.
“All right. I will do my best, though I don’t know if you understand what you are asking.”
“And the Freeborn?”
“Give them to Amanda. She is young, but she is strong and inventive. She’ll hold the core together.”
Darien nodded. “That is probably the wisest course.”
“Whatever you do, it cannot be Reynard.”
“I understand.”
Behind them, the guard began to form.
“That’s it, then,” Darien said. “We have more to discuss, but first let’s get Dorfort under some semblance of control.”
“Agreed,” Garrick said.
Darien turned to face his guards.
Epilogue
Garrick strode toward the gaping hole in the wall. Beyond that wall he would find a city strewn with death and destruction, a city filled with people in need. He felt them already, bleeding, burning, crying out in the nighttime. The life force inside him yearned to be unleashed.
As he walked he thought three things.
First, that he was proud of Darien. His friend was a good man, battered and bruised, but a man who knew who he was.
Second, he thought about Will.
And third, he thought about Braxidane and Hezarin, and All of Existence
He had felt his destiny while he was in Existence. He had seen the future of the plane, and the future of all planes as long as they were open to the daliances of the planewalkers. That thought twisted through him in ways worse than Braxidane’s hunger ever could.
He belonged to Adruin. It had given him its energy. He had fed off its life force. He felt the entire plane as if it was under his skin, whole and vital and important. Perhaps, unlike Darien who yearned for the comfort of Dorfort, he had never felt completely attuned to any one place on Adruin because he belonged to the entirety of this world.
Perhaps.
But he knew one thing that no one else knew. He felt it embedded deep in the power he held inside him now.
The people of Adruin would never be free as long as the planewalkers were free to use them as their playthings. These people who lie dead and dying would be alive and well now if it were not for Hezarin, and Hezarin would not have come here if it were not for Braxidane. What other machinations had combined to create this play? Garrick could not begin to guess. But he had seen All of Existence. He understood that life there was a collection of shifting paths that lead to nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
He sighed then, feeling what he knew would not be the final shudder of Hezarin’s life force.
The planewalkers would come for him. That’s what Braxidane had told him.
That much was true, he thought to himself as he came to the wall and surveyed the city proper.
“Fine,” he said out loud. “Let them come.”
* * * * *
This is the end of
Lord of the Freeborn
, but the story of Garrick’s struggles with Braxidane and the planewalkers continues in
Lords of Existence
, due to be published in February, 2015!
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The Saga of the God-Touched Mage includes:
Glamour of the God-Touched
Trail of the Torean
Target of the Orders
Gathering of the God-Touched
Pawn of the Planewalker
Changing of the Guard
Lord of the Freeborn
Lords of Existence
APPENDIX
* * * * *
Map of the Plane of Adruin
image by Ron Collins
Acknowledgements