Sourcethief (Book 3) (44 page)

"This one is going to be fun. We've moved up in
the world it seems. Just about everyone in there had a musket, a pistol, or
armor like mine," she said.

"Tezuan?" Brannis asked.

"Looks like some are, at least. The others are
at least mercenaries with a high opinion of themselves." Soria reached
under her hood and untied the mask. She pulled the hood off of her cloak and
shook out her hair.

"Might not be a bad time to replenish the
aether in my armor," Brannis suggested.

"And in my half-spear," Rakashi added.
"I hate black powder—it’s a coward's weapon."

"Even Tanner?" Soria asked, reminding him
of Tanner's new pistol.

"Fine, a coward's weapon, or a child's."

"What about the defenses? Did you find where
they are keeping Abbiley and Tomas?" Brannis asked.

"Yeah, and I have a plan to get them out."
Soria took a coil of rope that had been slung over her shoulder, and threw it
to the ground between Brannis and Rakashi. "They're in the topmost floor,
in adjoining rooms. I'll climb up and get them while you two cause enough of a
diversion to buy me time."

"What sort of diversion?" Brannis asked.

"A Raynesdark sort of diversion," Soria
replied.

The
Dhakoun
drifted over the streets of
Weiselton like a circling vulture, except that, unlike the vulture, it killed
its own prey before feasting. The initial attack had included a sweep of the
city gates, and Jinzan had left some of his apprentices by each to hold them
against the anticipated stampede of frightened peasants.

Jinzan stood at the ship's bow, leaning out and over
the edge to catch sight of fleeing Kadrins and draw out their Sources. It was a
harvest more than an assault, a recruitment effort for an army that conscripted
even children and the infirm. Jinzan ached from the passing of such vast
amounts of aether through his own Source, even with the aid of the Staff of
Gehlen.

"Bring us hard about," Jinzan rasped. He
spoke seldom enough that his voice was growing stale from disuse. He had no
need to speak the orders aloud. His crew of dead Kadrins did not understand
Megrenn anyway, and obeyed the thoughts behind the words. "Prepare for
another pass, by the eastern gate."

A mumbling gibberish of arcane words from the ship's
dead sorcerer resulted in a tailwind along their new course.
Cannot even
speak the spell properly, but they can work their magics anyway. I must teach a
new one though, perhaps one of the apprentices—that Kadrin corpse will not last
much longer
. The rigging pulled taut, and a creak of protesting timbers
accompanied their turn.

"Master, look to the south!" One of the
few remaining apprentices aboard had called out above the winds and screams
from the terrified and dying below.
"Master," you call me? I
should be "Captain" here. And that is starboard on a ship, you
land-dwelling clod. It is even south south-west, if you must use compass points
.
Jinzan's mental rant passed quickly as he deigned to heed the ill-worded
warning. There was another airship approaching.

"Belay my previous order," Jinzan said,
voice hardly strong enough to carry over the ambient aeronautical noise, barely
more than a hoarse whisper. "Mr. Holyoake, run out the guns!" Of
course, there were no cannons aboard the Kadrin ship, and only a few twinborn
who would even know what to do with such an order. Just seeing an enemy ship though,
was enough to spark memories of happier times in another world, in a sea made
of water instead of air.

The ship changed headings yet again, swerving and
waggling in the air until the crew had sorted them out on a course to pass the
rival airship. The captain of the other vessel seemed of a like mind, and the
two ships came together like jousters on the tournament ground.

Jinzan kept his position at the bow, growing nervous
that the ships might collide, so close did their headings appear.
Would they
ram us? Near certain death for all on both sides?
Jinzan had the
Dhakoun
turn a few degrees to port at the last moment.

Jinzan held the Staff of Gehlen out, reaching to
grasp the Sources aboard the Kadrin ship. Accustomed to far different battles
at sea, he found himself astonished at the speed with which the two ships
passed. He had nothing like the time needed to wrench free the mortal aether
within his victims. Jinzan turned to watch the Kadrin ship recede in his view,
but noticed something else more urgent.

The other ship's sorcerer had been better prepared
for a brief pass. Flames ate at the
Dhakoun's
rigging and sails, where a
spread of firebolts must have struck them. The dead crew carried on, oblivious.
The apprentices had no ready answer either, looking to their master for succor.

Jinzan struggled a moment to flip through the
catalogue of old spells he knew, things he knew before the wonders of Loramar's
magic had supplanted them. The Grand Necromancer's cache of wisdom held such
elegant simplicity, power beyond imagining, written in primal snips of what
must have been the language the gods used in creating men. The old, tired ways
of his Academy learning felt childish by comparison, but dealt with matters of
elemental energy and materials, problems closer at hand than the loftier study
of immortality.

"
Pukai feldenok ixnoi
," Jinzan
whispered. He watched the fires, reaching out to each and pinching his fingers.
One by one, they snuffed out. He felt a smile within him that settled among the
muscles of his face.

"Full about," he ordered, chuckling with a
dry wheeze as the crew struggled with the damaged rigging, ropes snapped and
dangling loose in places. The
Dhakoun
protested, but obeyed. The Kadrin
ship had already turned about, nimbler in the air with a living crew and
undamaged ship.

You wish to fight with fire,
then? Very well.
Jinzan watched the ships hurtling toward one another once more, and tried to
gauge his timing. It was a blunt calculation, more to ease the tax upon his
Source than any real limit to the power the staff bestowed upon him. He was
more greatly concerned about being late than early, and he had plenty of aether
stored for what he planned.

"
Omiku draxo tojifu retakinu hakto
,"
Jinzan shouted, lending all the voice he had in his anger. He raised his arms,
high in the air, beckoning the bowels of the earth to issue forth his wrath.

The ground below cracked and parted. A great gout of
molten rock erupted from the streets of Weiselton, directly in the path of the
Kadrin ship. The
Dhakoun
swung about in an effort to avoid the
spattering fires and bits of melted stone that splashed around the pillar of
destruction. The Kadrin ship had no time to react. It was a smoking, fiery hulk
of timbers the instant it hit the volcanic mass in its path. It crashed into
the city, spreading fires among the buildings that promised to put half the
city to flames.

The ship's sudden turn had Jinzan grasping for the
safety of the riggings, despite not just anticipating it, but having given the
order. The spell had drained him more than he had expected. He stumbled across
the deck to the nearest crewman, and sucked the dead man's Source dry. The
corpse collapsed, inanimate once more. Jinzan felt better immediately.

The spell he had used was not from Loramar's tomb,
nor anything that had been taught at the Academy. Rather, it was a spell that
proper young students ought never to have seen. It was, however, the type of
spell that an ambitious and talented young Megrenn patriot would seek out, even
if he found it beyond his power at the time.

Jinzan scanned the skies, watching as they filled
with smoke and seeking signs of any other aerial opposition.

Finding none, he resumed his work of harvesting an
army of the dead.

* * * * * * *
*

It was a coward's run, headlong, panting for breath,
with nary a thought backward except to verify that life-ending peril was indeed
still at hand. Each glance over his shoulder showed Tharyn Lurien sights he had
hoped he would never see. His pursuers were dead—garishly, sloppily, freshly
dead. They still wore Kadrin uniforms and wielded Kadrin-issued spears. The
nearest to him, which he saw all too clearly each time he turned, bore
claw-like scratches down its face, and an eye that had been torn loose, but not
off.

Eight of them had fled the walls of Weiselton. Seven
made it as far as the first farms tucked in between the city and the forest.
Five still ran as they stumbled through the underbrush.

Tharyn spared just enough time to fumble at his belt
for a pouch that held a palm-sized turtle shell. The markings on it were faded
red paint, chipped and flaking, but the runes were whole enough. He held it
with both hands, and blew a ragged gasp through it as he kept his legs
scrambling beneath him. The shell let forth a sound like a sheep trying to
bleat out a tavern song. A few paces further along, Tharyn slowed, and tried
again. The painted runes glowed.

Brrrruuuuuuuuu!

He did not bother to stow the magical horn, but
neither did he drop it. Tharyn gained some measure of hope as he saw the undead
soldiers struggling with the gnarled and root-clutched forest floor. Never did
they end their chase, but each pratfall gained the weary refugees precious
distance.

A thrashing in the forest ahead gave pause to four
of the runners, but Tharyn's heart leapt. "Help us! Please!" he
called out, voice hoarse but available on limited muster. He spoke not his own
tongue, nor any other human language, but that of the ogres who called the
forest their land.

Mammoth humanoids emerged, their painted skins
blending them in against the forestscape until they were just a few paces
distant. Like men stretched and pulled, they bore a human shape, if not one
most folk would consider pretty. Gaunt and muscular, their ribs showed where
hair and sinew did not cover them. Their skulls were wider and rounder than
those of humans. The warm season kept them clad in little more than rags that
dangled about their waistlines, and a few trinkets worn as decoration. Their
weapons were carved tree trunks, shaped with the likenesses of fearsome beasts,
both real and fantastical. There were handholds cut in the titanic clubs, meant
to be wielded with both hands by creatures strong enough to crush a man's skull
between pinched fingers.

The other Kadrin refugees cried out in terror, but
Tharyn shouted them a warning: "Get down!" Frightened and confused,
the others obeyed, diving headlong into the brush before the onrushing ogres.

A score or more dead soldiers outnumbered the three
ogres who came to Tharyn's call, but numbers had never been the ogres' worry. The
dead flew in pieces from the ogres' sweeping swings, battering rams whipping
through the air like swords. If any Kadrin among them had been trained in
tactics against ogres, the knowledge seemed not to have persisted beyond death.

Tharyn helped put fire to the twitching legs, arms,
and heads, which gamely kept trying to fight, even when separated from their
bodies. The ogres accepted the aid of the Kadrin sorcerer without a word. When
he was finished, and the piled remains lay still and smoldering and the ogres
took over. They laid aside their weapons and knelt. With calloused hands twice
the size of a man's foot, they patted the earth, occasionally pausing to spit.
They were either cleansing the land or trying to protect it against the spread
of fire—Tharyn did not know which.

"Thank you," Tharyn told the eldest among
them, after the ogres finished their task and stood.

"You gave your word," the elder ogre said.
He took hold of a string of beads that dangled from his waist, held it toward
Tharyn, and shook it. "Four and ten times the moon has filled and emptied.
You kept your word. War Bringer has not come back."

"Yes, the truce works for both sides,"
Tharyn agreed. "I keep my word."

The ogre narrowed his eyes for a moment, then
nodded.

"If you allow, I must work magic. I need to
warn others of the dead warriors," Tharyn said. The ogre language had no
word for "undead."

With no pause for consideration, the ogre nodded
again, granting the request.

"
Haunu chixixa gefetio daelu
,"
Tharyn chanted, then held a finger aloft, and waited until a bird alighted upon
it. The little thrush shook its feathers as Tharyn whispered his message. Then
the bird flew off into the canopy as it began a mission at the magic's
compulsion.

"Your warning goes," the elder ogre noted.
"Now it is treaty time. No ogres leave the forest; no humans enter."

"Yes, very well, we—"

Tharyn's words were lost as the elder ogre's club
flattened him to the forest floor. The other four who had survived the reborn
dead followed shortly thereafter, their screams ripped from lungs worn dry by
running.

* * * * * * *
*

Kyrus opened the door of his bedroom, eyes still
gummed with the remnants of sleep, to find one of the palace guards waiting for
him. The man had been provided a chair and table (from one of the vacant
sitting rooms by the look of the upholstery), and he was eating from a tray of
tea and pastries. The guard clambered out of his chair, transferring a
half-eaten sweet tart to the tray in the process.

"Good morning, Sir Brannis."

"I suppose that was my morning feast you were
enjoying a moment ago?" Kyrus asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Um, no sir. I've been here since before dawn,
waiting. The kitchen sent this up hours ago. Tea's even cold, check for
yourself." Kyrus did not reply, but merely waited for the guard to sort
himself out. The man was dense as dragon bone, but took the hint eventually.
"Oh, the warlock wanted to see you in the Map Room, soon as you were up
... which you are now."

Kyrus eyed the man crossways.
Too little sleep, I
suppose
. "Warlock Rashan, what was his mood like when last you saw
him?"

"Fine spirits, sir. You might even call him
giddy."

Kyrus stole a scone and a cup of cold tea, heating
the latter as he walked.
Giddy? Oh, that bodes ill
. For a man whose
hobbies involved blood and the sacking of cities, giddiness was hardly a cause
for comfort.
Azzat probably decided to invade us. No one else seems keen on
fighting anymore
. Of course, Kyrus knew that was not entirely true. Jinzan
Fehr was taking on the role of Loramar and hero to all who opposed Kadrin.
Likely, Rashan had some news along that vein.