World-Ripper War (Mad Tinker Chronicles Book 3) (8 page)

Zayne took the offered hand and shook it. Sanson was a swindler and a thug as circumstances demanded, but he was also a wise man. Dealing with Captain Denrik Zayne made thieves and pirates rich men; crossing him was most often fatal. “Agreed.”

“Your boy don’t say much,” said Jimmony. “He a mute?”

The corner of Zayne’s mouth twitched. “You have a problem if he is?”

Jimmony leaned away and shook his head.

“He didn’t mean nothin’, Zayne,” Sanson said. “Jimmony won’t be at the meet tonight.” He turned to his companion. “Will ya?” Jimmony shook his head.

“I’m not,” said Jadon. “I am my father’s apprentice. I watch. I listen. Speaking out of turn is for fools.”

Sanson snickered and Jimmony shot the lad a hate-filled look. At sixteen, Jadon had the height of a man, but none of the muscle or the weathered look in the face that comes with age at sea. Denrik wondered how long it would be before Jadon found himself being challenged when he spoke his mind to small-minded men.

The two ship-selling pirates took their leave and left Jadon and Denrik Zayne alone together over a pair of untouched ales. Denrik reseated himself so that he was across the booth from the boy.

“What do you think of them? Tell me,” Denrik said. He leaned over the table.

“Jimmony would kill you for the coin, but not the ill-won fame,” Jadon said, his manner that of a schoolboy asked to recite a lesson. “He would blame someone else, to keep his head in the retribution that would follow. Sanson blusters, but he’s afraid of you. He’s dealing honestly, at least with you. Possibly not with Jimmony or his other associates. You’ll get your ship, and they’ll get their money. Jimmony won’t be there at the exchange; Sanson won’t dare renege on that promise, but Jimmony will get his cut, and they’ll smooth things over between them.”

“Nothing’s ever smooth with Jimmony,” Denrik said. “That’s why I put him off my ship. But go on.”

“Of more import are the girls from Korr,” said Jadon. “They contacted Anzik last night. They are eager to learn magic, and finally sound as if they have taken your warning about the Kadrin warlock to heart. It seems the rumors of the destruction of Tinker’s Island were true, and that the twin of Danilaesis Solaran was the hero of the Mad Tinker’s retreat. His actions and methods during that conflict have peeled back yet another layer for Madlin Errol to see who she truly has in her employ.”

“Do they have a plan?”

“Not as such. But they have it within them to concoct one. The machine holds great promise, and I’m sure their innate cleverness will avail them.”

“Excellent! This is even better news than a new ship.”

“Have you thought of a name for it, father?”

“I think I have: the
False Profit
.”

Chapter 7

“Yes, I read it. They got me entirely wrong.” –Rashan Solaran, commenting on his biography, The Diplomacy of Fire and Steel

Steel rang against steel, the sound echoing from the stone buildings walling off the practice yard. Two pairs of booted feet scuffed the dirt, angling for position. Danilaesis wore his hair tied back, but through his exertions, strands had fallen loose to be plastered by sweat to the skin of his face. He locked gazes with a squire his own age, waiting for his opponent’s next move. There was a fire there that Danilaesis rarely saw aimed his way, a determination to fight back, to stand up to him, but on a more basic level it was the best way to anticipate the squire’s next attack.

Danilaesis feinted low, and the squire dropped his sword to catch the attack. Before he could even make his real thrust, the squire had already seen through the feint and countered as Danilaesis drew back his sword. Stumbling back, Danilaesis flailed his sword, catching the squire an awkward blow to the mail protecting his forearm, but he took a hit for his trouble. The blunted sword tip caught Danilaesis squarely in the sternum, driving him from his feet. Had it not been for the shielding spell—his only concession to magic for the match—he might have been gravely wounded, blunted tip or not.

The sky filled Danilaesis’s vision, going black briefly as his head struck the dirt. Clouds wandered by, breaking up the expanse of pale blue. The practice yard had gone silent, leaving him hearing the sound of his own lungs sucking in air to replace what had been driven from them. A face appeared, blotting out the clouds. The squire. A gauntleted hand extended down toward him.

Danilaesis accepted the help to his feet with a nod of thanks. “Your name?” he asked between breaths. It was the first squire who had bested him in a season.

“Gallaen.”

Danilaesis looked Gallaen over. They were of similar size and build though admittedly Gallaen was the brawnier of the two. Despite wearing full armor, the squire had shown remarkable agility and reflexes.

“How’d you pull off that trick?”

“Wasn’t a trick, warlock,” Gallaen replied. “Been watching you every chance I’ve got.”

“Study your enemy and learn his ways,” Danilaesis quoted. “You’ve been reading
The Diplomacy of Fire and Steel
.”

“Your uncle was a great source of wisdom, warlock.”

Danilaesis picked up his sword from where he’d dropped it when knocked senseless. “Can’t say that enough. You’re going to go far, Gallaen. I’ll see to that. Just keep following my uncle’s way, and you will be a great asset to the empire. Now, let’s have it again.”

Gallaen settled into a fencing stance and Danilaesis mirrored him. Hoots and cheers of encouragement rang in from the edges of the practice yard, where the other squires had retreated to watch. It was supposed to have been the time of morning when the squires paired off for sparring—and Danilaesis should have been listening to lectures on spells he could perform backward in his sleep—but all duties were being shirked for the occasion.

The two combatants circled one another. There was no feeling out process; they had dispensed with that in the first bout. Now it was time to look for openings, to pick apart pacing and footwork to find an off-balance moment, or to create one. Danilaesis broke the standoff with a feint of a feint. He made a quick, tentative thrust, but followed immediately behind it with another with full intent behind it. Gallaen caught himself halfway before reacting fully to avail himself of the opening after Danilaesis’s first strike. The squire backed away a step and turned aside the young warlock’s sword. Danilaesis used the angle of that parry to loop his sword around for a swing that made Gallaen’s next parry as difficult as possible. Three more strikes, and Danilaesis had pulled Gallaen’s defenses apart, forcing the squire to backpedal and sling wild blows to keep the warlock’s blunted sword from connecting.

With a determination borne of the fear of imminent defeat, Gallaen stepped into Danilaesis’s reach and caught the warlock’s sword near the hilt of his own. He had no leverage to disarm Danilaesis but had caught him with enough of a surprise where the warlock could not free his blade without allowing Gallaen a clear strike. The two swords scraped against one another, subtle tricks of leverage and weight balancing the blades as each tried to separate them only when they could find an advantage. Each took his off hand to bear, pressing for all he was worth.

When the locked blades worked above shoulder height, Gallaen changed tactics. He shifted his footing and brought a knee up into Danilaesis’s midsection. The young warlock saw the blow coming and took his off hand from the hilt of his sword. He did not stop the blow but locked his hand under Gallaen’s knee; the armored plate over that knee drove the breath from Danilaesis, but little else. Using two feet against Gallaen’s one, Danilaesis overbalanced the squire and the two lads fell heavily to the dirt. The impact knocked the locked blades apart, and Danilaesis clouted Gallaen with the hilt of his sword.

“What are you playing at?” a crotchety voice shouted from the edge of the practice yard. Danilaesis knew even before he looked up that it belonged to his grandfather. Fun was at an end for the day, it seemed.

Danilaesis climbed off his defeated opponent and offered the stunned squire his hand in aid. Only when Gallaen was on his feet and gave a nod to confirm he was unharmed did Danilaesis respond. “What does it look like I’m doing? Putting good use to my time. The better I am with a sword, the less aether I’ll need in battle.”

Axterion ventured into the dusty confines of the practice yard of the School of Arms. He looked out of place in his black silk finery, chased in red and gold embroidery indicating his place at the height of the Imperial Circle. Stripped down to an undershirt and riding pants, Danilaesis looked perhaps too poor to fit in among the armored squires. He rested the flat of his sword over his shoulder and waited for his grandfather to approach to closer than shouting distance.

“How many times are you going to defy me and skip classes?” Axterion said. His furrowed brow now only bore the slightest flecks of grey when once they had been mottled grey and white.

Danilaesis wiped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve and shrugged. “I hadn’t planned to keep count. If they were teaching anything interesting or useful, I’d stay. But I have an empire to protect, and I won’t get any better at it muttering along with those dolts as they learn spells I could work silently when I was five summers.”

“So, you think you’re too good for spell lessons?” Axterion asked, his voice rising singsong, in the classic baiting of a verbal trap. He was so predictable at times.

“Those lessons? Of course,” Danilaesis replied. “You think you can convince me to go back by beating me in another draw? By slipping some trickery by me that proves you can cast those dusty librarian’s spells better than I can? You can only even draw aether because of that potion I gave you, you ungrateful old codger.”

“Ungrateful? You think I’m ungrateful? I’m doing you the best favor I know, forcing a proper education into that porous skull of yours by any means at my disposal. It’s like being on a sinking ship, me scooping water out in buckets, and you scooping it right back in. It’s maddening. You’d think you wanted to be an imbecile with no skills but war and killing.”

“Fire and steel; all else is vanity,” Danilaesis quoted.

“Mule snot! It was then, still is now,” Axterion replied. “Rashan was referring to efficiency in battle, not the practice of war to the exclusion of all else.”

“Shows how well
you
knew him.”

“I knew him forty winters longer than you, boy.”

“Fine. Then I
understood
him better. He talked to me when you weren’t around. He told me I was his proper heir after Iridan died. I just needed to get older and stronger, and he’d teach me. Well, after Brannis killed him, I figured it was my duty to justify his faith in me. I’m not going to fall like he did. There is no Brannis to betray me.”

An uncomfortable silence followed, each studying the other. Danilaesis had been much younger then; the details faded around the edges. But he remembered overhearing arguments between Rashan and Brannis; their disagreements stayed civil while in his earshot, but it was always Rashan advocating the path of war and Brannis seeking the clever way around.
Are
you
going to turn out to be my Brannis, grandfather?
He could only wonder if Axterion was thinking along the same lines.

“This is unseemly,” Axterion said. “Get yourself cleaned up and meet me in my office in the Tower of Contemplation.”

“So, no more classes today?” Danilaesis asked with a smirk.

Axterion grunted. “Like it would matter.” He strode away, a path opening in the gathered squires to allow him passage.

For being one of the most prestigious rooms in the empire, the office of High Sorcerer Axterion Solaran was slovenly. In part, it was due to the inordinate number of missives, reports, and correspondence that piled high on the desk and spilled onto spare chairs, bookshelves, and impromptu towers here and there on the floor. Mostly it was due to Axterion’s hesitance to allow anyone in to clean. Stacks of plates and teacups caked with remnants of past refreshments leaned against the wall nearest the door. They would be shooed out with a sorcerer’s foot when Axterion grew sick of seeing them or concerned about the stability of the uppermost reaches of the stack.

The clutter kept casual guests from lingering. Anyone who wanted a seat would have to vie with reports of Academy student progress and notes from field agents from the Megrenn border for a chair. Most who visited preferred to stand rather than risk the high sorcerer’s ire by damaging a page worth more than their life.

When Axterion arrived, he found his grandson already waiting for him. Danilaesis had washed and dressed, looking once more like a pompous little nobleman, rather than the scrappy squire that had been in the practice yard an hour earlier. Rather than worry over the value of the information of the contents of any of the chairs in the office, Danilaesis had thrown a stack from the desk atop one of the chair piles and taken its place.

“About time,” Danilaesis remarked upon Axterion’s entry. “When you said ‘get yourself cleaned up and meet me in my office,’ I had assumed you were in some sort of rush. I’d have stopped at the kitchens for a bite if I’d known. You want me to send for something? Sword work is hungry work.”

“Slap a hand over that beak of yours,” Axterion snapped. He glared at Danilaesis as he stepped past the boy and took his seat. “And get off my desk.”

Danilaesis held up his hands in mock innocence as he slipped down and stood across the massive oak desk from his grandfather. “You know, you’ll worry yourself to an early death. It’s bad for the heart, the Korrish say.”

Axterion snorted. “You think you can go about doing whatever you please, just because you’ve done me a favor? What good’s raising you done me? You still treat me like I’m a doddering old man, just hanging on to life by his toothless gums. You never took any of the advice I gave you.”

“Rashan’s was always better. And Brannis was the one who listened to me, not you.”

With a scowl, Axterion continued. “And now I hear from Empress Celia that you’re taking to barging into her chambers?”

“Well, you have to admit, I barge everywhere I go. It’s not like I’m especially welcome anywhere.” Dan tipped one of the chairs until the pages slid onto the floor, sweeping aside the last few that stuck to the felt cushion. With an air of exhaustion, he slumped into the seat he’d cleared and threw a leg over one of the arms.

Glancing down at the mess Danilaesis had made on the floor, Axterion nodded. “Yes, I can’t imagine why. What are you angling at?”

Danilaesis shrugged. “What did she tell you? I’m not sure it’s seemly to discuss what goes on inside the empress’s chambers.”

Axterion scowled, but caught himself and forced his features smooth. “No, even you wouldn’t dare.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Danilaesis asked. “You don’t think she’d rather me than that fat pig of an emperor we’ve got?”

“She’d twist your head in knots, boy. I don’t care how strong you think your Source is. It’s female magic, more powerful than anything those noble lasses and serving girls you drag into your bed can manage. And I’d advise you not to speak of Emperor Sommick in such a fashion. He may be a buffoon, a drunkard, and a glutton, but it’s rude to point it out.”