Trail Of The Torean (Book 2) (12 page)

Garrick nodded and drained the last of his skin.

A few hundred paces before them, a wide swath of the ground rose up like the lid of a box.

Ten men appeared, walking side-by-side and rising up from the sand with metered gait—their heads appearing first, then their shoulders, arms, trunks, and legs. They wore loose-fitting garb that matched the colors of the desert sand. Swords hung from their sides.

The power of their life forces burned hot enough to stand out above the furnace of the desert sand. They were disciplined men, lean and certain of themselves, men at home in a place where even weeds survived only by stealing water from the rocks around them.

“I was right,” Garrick said. “Those creatures were most certainly guardians.”

“Yes,” Darien said. “Let’s hope these are more inclined to talk.”

The men came to a halt. A leader strode forward, hand firmly on his sword. His robe blew in the wind. Garrick’s hunger welled in the brief silence between them. He expected to find an air of superiority etched in the man’s gaze, but instead, the leader’s expression carried only simple confidence.

“I am Commander Koric, Desert Knight of Arderveer. State your business.”

“We’re looking for Takril,” Garrick replied.

“That is a hunt. Not business.”

“We’re here to collect a package from him, and return it to the viceroy of Caledena,” Darien replied.

“What proof do you have of this?”

“Speak to Takril, and you’ll have your proof.”

“That is not good enough.”

Garrick dug into his pouch and removed the box Padiglio had given him.

“This carries the seal of Caledena,” Garrick said. “The city’s viceroy gave it to us to hold the item he has contracted for.”

The commander took the box, removed the lid, and turned it upside down then right side up.

“I see nothing special about this box.”

“An ornate carrier would cry out for theft,” Garrick replied.

“What will it carry?”

Garrick scowled. “Would Takril tell you the details of
his
business deals?”

The commander snapped the lid shut and handed it back to Garrick.

“We’ll take you to him. But Takril requires all visitors leave their weapons in the entry chamber. I’ll need your blades.”

“I think not,” Darien said.

“Then you can start your long walk back to Caledena now.”

Garrick handed his sword to Koric.

Darien still hesitated.

“My sword was given to me by my father,” he said to the commander. “I need your word for its safekeeping.”

“Your father’s sword will be taken to the arsenal room. You may retrieve it—and your horses—upon completion of your discussions.”

Darien did not appear convinced, but having no other option, he detached his sheathed sword from his belt and handed it to the desert knight.

Koric gave the blades to a second guard, who tucked them away.

“Follow me,” Koric said.

The men surrounded them as they moved to the entryway, Garrick and Darien leading their horses. The tunnel sloped downward, and was wide enough and tall enough that the horses could easily pass.

Kalomar twitched his ears.

“It’s all right, boy,” Garrick said, running his hand over his mount’s neck.

But Garrick felt it, too.

The coolness that came from the tunnel was more than the chill of the air. Its walls were lit by magelight that filled coarse sconces chiseled into the walls themselves. The pathway spiraled deeper into the ground, scarred from pickaxes and shovels. The musty odor of human stink grew stronger as they descended, the aura of despondency was like a curtain of mist that lay against Garrick’s hunger.

He felt pain here. He felt deep hopelessness.

These tunnels had been hewn at the cost of human lives.

The passage opened into a hallway that stretched into darkness. Echoes of voices and clanging tools spoke of its vast length. A conveyor with belts of hide looping over bearings placed several feet apart ran along the wall and into the distance. Long handles protruded from several rollers.

“What are those for?” Garrick asked.

“They move supplies down the corridor,” Koric replied as he led them down the hall.

The aura of despair grew even greater as they went. It seemed to plead with his hunger, urging Braxidane’s magic to breathe it in, and in that single act, release it. They walked further, and the tunnel grew colder as they progressed. They came to a cavern filled with slaves, dirty and thin, who were, one by one, filling empty sacks from barrels of powder then placing them in piles next to the conveyor.

His hunger welled up, then. Hunger that tasted of honey and smelled of … clouds … smelled of fresh ozone over a field after a lightning storm … smelled of …

He gritted his teeth.

Garrick could take the pain away from these slaves.

He could reach out … he could …

He stopped himself. No, he thought. No. He remembered the decimation he had left in Sjesko. To drain himself now and go on a rampage in the depths of Takril’s city would be a nightmare of incredible proportion.

The commander ordered a desert knight to take the horses. “Treat them well,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

Koric led them to an oval cavern lit by magelight that came from an iron apparatus attached to the ceiling. A wide shaft fell away into the center of the floor. It was a gaping black maw that dropped into darkness and gave Garrick a sense of vertigo.

A lift stood to one side, chains and ropes running in grooved slots beside the platform.

A pair of slaves operated the winches and brakes and other mechanisms that would raise and lower it.

They stepped onto the cart, and Koric called down. The platform lurched and the mechanisms squealed as they descended into the darkness.

Garrick gazed upward.

“That’s a lot of rock up there, isn’t it?” Koric said to him.

It didn’t make him feel any better.

“Interesting place,” Darien said.

“We like it,” Koric replied.

“I didn’t see many guards.”

The commander’s smile was cold.

“You’re wondering why the slaves don’t run?”

“Yes.”

“We have more security here than is easily visible, my friend. And the penalty of running is convincing enough to keep them in place all by itself. Usually, anyway.”

The platform descended past an opening in the shaft that reeked of human waste, and that drew Garrick’s hunger even harder. It was a slave pit, he realized, which made sense when he thought about it.

“The slaves live in the upper levels so they can work on the surface when they need to,” Koric said as they descended farther. “The desert knights and others needed for basic operations inhabit the mid-caves, and our citizens live in the depths of the city below.”

They came to a segment where a scintillating reflection came from the walls.

“What is that?” Garrick asked.

“Razor needles,” Koric said. “Keeps people from scaling their way down to the city.”

They would serve the opposite purpose, too, Garrick decided. No one would easily climb in or out of Arderveer through this shaft.

The lift came to a halt and the hollow sound of moving water echoed from below. The shaft probably led to a deep river that served as a well. Arderveer truly was a fully hidden city.

Koric led them off the lift and into the barracks chamber of the desert knights, a cavern filled with cots and footlockers and men and women, some napping, some gaming, and others working on some personal regimen. One segment of the quarters was a common armory. Rows of swords, whips, and pikes rested there against the stone wall.

Desert knights passed through the hall with no wasted movement. Their closeness was a force in itself—these were driven people, disciplined and energetic. Garrick’s hunger tracked the position of each, and knew their movements as they were made.

His skin burned with invisible flames.

He could taste them. Feel them. They were so close. So very close.

“Your knights are busy,” Darien said.

“The Lord has other visitors today.”

“Do I want to know who?”

The commander smirked.

They came to a doorway that was spanned by a pane of translucent blue light.

Koric laid his hand against a polished rock in the wall, and the light faded to reveal a stairwell. He escorted them farther downward until they came to an oval receiving room filled with a long conference table and many padded chairs. The floor here radiated warmth that Garrick found comforting.

“I will inform the lord you have arrived,” Koric said. “There is water in the decanter.”

Then he left.

Darien went directly to the water.

Garrick sat down heavily, suddenly very tired. Holding Braxidane’s magic in check was costing him most dearly.

Darien brought him a cup.

He drank and shivered as the liquid seeped into his body.

The chamber was large, maybe fifty feet in its longest direction. Half the wall was natural rock, smooth and polished with a ferrous tint of red. The rest was a mural of images.

Darien strolled around it, examining a glass case that displayed silver trinkets, and taking in the carved plaques that decorated one curved wall.

It was a scene on that wall that caught Garrick’s eye.

A unicorn being carried away by a blue dragon.

The flavor of his nightmare came back—hard, and real, so real he had an image of the Lectodinian judge’s falling hand.

The door squealed.

Commander Koric stepped in.

“Gentlemen, I give you Lord Takril of Arderveer.”

Chapter 19

Two great tents withstood the desert winds, each surrounded by camps of mages who wore either blood red or ocean blue. Yorl Maggore, the leader of the Koradictine contingent, entered the tent dyed the color of blood and threw himself onto a chair in one corner. He was sweating heavily under his hooded robe.

“The sun is nearly unbearable,” he said to the boy assigned to attend to him.

The boy gave a motion that was half nod and half cower.

The Desert of Dust was scorpion territory, a dry wasteland marked by sunbaked stones as tall as buildings and with surfaces worn to a fine polish by the furnace of blistering winds. Coarse grasses and thorny brush clung to breaks in the ground. Sand rode the wind like razor blades, ripping into any swath of flesh left uncovered. It was a harsh and dangerous place, a land where nothing seemed to live—and yet a land where a thousand eyes were always following.

He hated it.

The other tent housed his Lectodinian counterpart, newly arrived from the wilderness surrounding Whitestone.

Small shelters, lean-tos, and other constructs were spread across the parched land between them, filled with mercenary soldiers, and with two very
different
groups of mages—both of whom had been mustered rapidly and forced to endure double-time marches in order to come together in this land of hellish heat.

Yorl’s own Koradictines had originated from the Badwall Canyons, farther north. It was the first time the orders had put so many mages together.

Hell of a place to do it, Yorl thought.

It was his job to make this group fight as one.

It would not be easy.

They had been together only long enough to put up the tents, but already he had administered to half a dozen scrapes between lesser mages and the mercenary swords. That’s what you get when you push people like this, he thought. And when you buy blades at the lowest wage.

He adjusted his loose-fitting robe.

The tent smelled of baked fabric.

A wobbly nightstand in one corner held a cup of lukewarm tea. Like everything else in this pit, the tea tasted of sand.

He had laid maps of the desert lands across a low table, though they would do him no good—Arderveer itself was underground and the sand above constantly shifted. Landmarks disappeared as soon as they were noted here in the desert. He had marked the maps with indicators that showed the locations of the Lectodinian mages and the mages of his own order. At least that much he could control.

A soft knock came from the outside.

“Enter,” he said.

It was Cara, the lead mage of the Lectodinian contingent. She stepped through the open flap of his tent.

As far as he could tell, she was only of middling power, so he assumed she had arrived at her position through the application of her obvious physical charms rather than through any rigorous study or other such achievement. He found this perfectly acceptable, of course. If she weren’t Lectodinian, Yorl would probably take her for himself. But, alas, Lectodinian she was.

“The slaves have been offered to Takril,” Cara said. “And the offer has been taken.”

“That is the best news of the day.”

The first part of the plan was simple—give Takril the bait made of slaves collected up in earlier raids, then, when the city opened to receive that gift, the orders would drive a wedge deep into the bowels of Takril’s defenses. Cara’s news said Takril had taken the bait, so Yorl could now focus on the mission’s second objective.

“Have you heard anything of the Torean?” he asked.