Calling On Fire (Book 1) (48 page)

“Your proposal?” Erizen asked. It was obvious that he would require some convincing.

“They want Moloch gone. You want Moloch gone. Your goals align. There is much you could do to help them indirectly. Intelligence, mostly. You undoubtedly have valuable,
current
information on Moloch. Your involvement could be minimal, risks even fewer. But the potential benefits…vast. You and I both know it.”

“Gret—” Erizen began, still not favorably inclined, but Sergeant Warthog cut him short with a slight shake of her head and a lifted hand.

“That was not the proposal,” she said. “That was simply…something to consider. Later. The proposal is this: Go with them, work with them against this enemy of yours. Do a little more damage than originally planned; be the old Erizen again. Challenge yourself. Then you’ll get a real look at those two, and you can consider what else I have told you.” Now she stopped, and now she awaited his response with folded hands.

“Oh, mah Gretchen,” Erizen drawled heavily. “Run away with me? I could make you young and beautiful again, and we would be madly in love.”

Sergeant Warthog laughed harshly. She didn’t actually know if he was serious or not, but it didn’t matter—her answer was the same either way. “Your ego assumes much,” she replied. “But then, it always does. Now, my proposal?”

“Will you marry me?” Erizen drawled. Now he was definitely joking. She drummed her fingers on the table once, pointedly, making him laugh. It was the only answer that she dignified the “proposal” with.

“For all the physical youth I have retained, it cannot make me feel so alive as you can. You invigorate me, Gretchen. How could I deny you? Whistle for your puppies, and we can discuss our plans.” Erizen was smiling sardonically, at ease again. Ignoring the condescension, Sergeant Warthog raised a hand to summon Toman and Esset back to the table.

“Well! It appears we shall be working together,” Erizen drawled at them once they were within earshot. Esset scowled and shot the sergeant a look, which she ignored. Toman didn’t show his emotions. Erizen immediately commandeered the conversation again.

“Your dear sergeant has persuaded me to come along on our little venture to Atli’s treasury. Now, I can’t have anything connecting us to pull this off, so I will simply have to meet you there. I can give you directions, of course. So, here’s the general plan: meet in the city beside the castle, wait for nightfall, depart for castle, break in, get our prizes, go our separate ways—like I said, I can’t have any known ties to you. We’ll meet back at my castle so I can give you your share of the loot. All the breaking in and planning of the theft, I will leave to you. Pretend I’m not there. Do not count on my skills—plan only around your own. Think of me as a bonus.” He smirked at them. “Agreed? Swell. Now, I shall be on my way—pressing engagements and all that.”

Erizen held out his hand to shake. Esset automatically reached for it, hesitated, then braced himself and shook it. Like the first time, Erizen used the contact to send the jolt of information to Esset, everything they’d need to know for the mission.

Erizen rose smoothly as Esset tried to regain his bearings. “Ta!” Erizen bade them as he sailed out the door, and it was only another two seconds before Esset was scowling again.

“Okay, this should go without saying,” Sergeant Warthog said. “But stick to the mission. No taking down any more members of Moloch’s council. It could alert him to the threat you pose or goad him or the other lords into hunting you actively. Besides, with the setup they have, odds are any replacement will be as bad or worse than the one you kill.”

“Of course,” Toman said. Esset nodded his agreement, although he was inwardly wishing he could wipe out the lot of them—Erizen included.

“I know you’re not happy about this, but his help has become vital to your success,” Sergeant Warthog said, eliciting surprised expressions from both of them.

“How so?” Esset asked.

“Moloch has a Greymaker.”

Hard flying brought Toman and Esset back to the kingdoms governed by the dark mage lords swiftly. Now the sun was beneath the horizon and darkness encroached on the landscape. A couple hours earlier, Toman and Esset had switched from the conspicuous summoned birds to massive stone creatures animated by Toman so they could fly invisibly by night.

A faint smudge on the horizon marked a town, and Esset signaled Toman to fly closer.

“Town. We’ll be inside Atli’s kingdom by now, shall we take a look?” Esset shouted. Toman simply nodded.

The evening was overcast, helping to hide them in the sky. Their stone mounts would be a bit more noticeable if they flew close enough to see ground activity clearly, but seeing one of Atli’s towns would be informative, and it would be worth the risk.

They soared high above the small huddle of buildings clustered in the middle of sprawling farms. Wisps of smoke trailed from chimneys, but the buildings were small and in poor repair and there was very little activity, even though darkness hadn’t fully fallen yet. Toman spied three uniformed soldiers patrolling even in this small a town.

Toman pointed at one house, and he and Esset swooped down to take a closer look. Finally, a resident: a woman in a tattered dress pumped water from a well next to a house. Toman and Esset hovered above the building to study her; she looked healthy, if a bit thin.

The woman suddenly jumped and looked over her shoulder, and for a moment, Toman thought she’d sensed them there. But no, she wasn’t looking up; she shrank in on herself as a soldier walked up to her with a predatory smile on his face. They spoke, but they were too far away to hear.

Toman felt sick as he watched the scene unfold, knowing that interfering would be a bad idea. The soldier moved in close, ignoring the woman’s fear and obvious desire to flee. When the soldier reached out to grope the woman, she shied away, eliciting an angry bark from the soldier. The soldier raised his hand to strike her when someone burst from the house. The man wasn’t large, and he didn’t try to fight the soldier, but he did put himself between the soldier and the woman and make placating gestures with his hands.

Toman’s hands clenched into fists when the soldier struck the man to the ground. The man didn’t try to fight back, even when the soldier kicked him while he was down. The woman fled into the house, and the soldier yelled but didn’t pursue. He kicked the villager one last time, then stalked away. Toman forced his breathing into an even pattern to keep himself from going after the soldier. As they continued to hover, the woman crept back out of the house and helped the man to his feet and back inside.

Toman finally tore his eyes away to look at his brother, realizing, belatedly, that he probably should have been paying more attention earlier. His brother’s impulsive streak could have gotten them in trouble there; sure enough, Esset was sitting stiff, his outrage displayed clearly on his face. Before he could decide to do something, Toman pulled the mounts up and left the village behind them; they’d seen all they needed to see. They knew what kind of ruler Atli was.

They landed in a small copse of trees as the sky began to lighten with the first rays of morning.

“You sure we can’t dethrone this guy?” Esset muttered as they dismounted.

“I know the feeling,” Toman replied, but they both knew they were moving forward as planned. They each pulled out their sleeping rolls and began spreading them on the ground.

“It does make Erizen look not so bad, though. At least his people had enough to eat. Both those villagers were thin,” Toman commented as he laid down in his bedroll.

“Hm,” was Esset’s only response. After a silence, he added, “But what about him giving Moloch a Greymaker?”

“That doesn’t rest easy,” Toman confessed. “But it does make sense.”

“How so?” Esset asked, disbelief and contempt in his tone.

“Erizen is playing a tricky game. He has to keep Moloch and the other dark lords convinced he’s on their side. Especially Moloch.
Not
giving him a Greymaker might have incited an attack.”

“Hm,” was Esset’s response again.

“Once Moloch is dead, let’s come back,” Toman said. “Then we can eradicate every single one of these monsters.”

“That I can agree with.”

“I thought you’d like that. So what are we up against here? Erizen gave you the information, not me,” Toman said.

“Well, I’ve got a bit of the layout of the castle and the town, and an estimate of Atli’s manpower, but not a ton else.” Esset cast about for a twig and started sketching in the dirt. “If you animate some stuff
here
, I’ll do some scouting to verify our intelligence. Then we sneak in. I won't summon anything unless we're found out, since my summons are a little…obtrusive. With Atli’s resources, it’s best if we get in and out before he knows we’re there. If we raise the alarm, there’s a chance we won’t get out, not with the number of mages he has under him.”

“Good to know,” Toman murmured, already considering what kinds of creatures he’d need to make.

“It’ll be risky,” Esset said.

Toman nodded.

“But if the sergeant says we need these amulets, we need them. We need every edge possible to defeat Moloch. He’s clever, and we need to anticipate as much as possible, because it’ll be the thing we don’t think of that he’ll exploit.”

Esset let out a huff of breath at Toman’s words.

“You’re right. Once Moloch’s done with, we can fix the rest of this.”

Their meeting place was a dingy little inn located in the city next to Atli’s castle. They reached it in the early morning and stayed sequestered in the tiny, dingy room all day, night, and day again, keeping a low profile.

“There’s no way Erizen would ever stoop so low as to spend a night in a place like this himself,” Esset complained, squishing a bug that was meandering across the floor.

“It is an unobtrusive kind of place to stay,” Toman said. “But I do imagine he’s getting a kick out of making us stay here.” Their confinement was wearing on them both as they waited for Erizen to arrive.

“To say the least. Your creations are waiting. Even scouting through my bat’s eyes has gotten old,” Esset said.

A tap sounded at the door. Esset rose to answer it, speaking as he walked. “You know, we could always go without him.” He opened the door, but no one was there.

“That would be rather inconsiderate of you. Especially since I’ve come all this way.” That was Erizen, of course, but Esset was a little confused before he realized that the man must have a way of turning himself invisible.

Not wanting to give Erizen any satisfaction for his ploy, Esset turned away from the empty doorway and grabbed his bag. “Fine, let’s go then. You’re just going to trail along behind us, invisible, then?” Esset asked. Something in his tone suggested that Erizen was a freeloader and a coward if he chose to do so. Toman, for his part, simply got up and headed for the open door.

“I may or may not intervene as needed,” Erizen said in a smug voice.

“That’s nice,” Esset said. He could tell Erizen’s general proximity from the sound of his voice and footsteps—apparently the spell only worked to obscure vision, not sound or the other senses. Which meant that any of his summons would easily be able to locate him, if necessary.

Good to know.