The Sorcerer's Vengeance: Book 4 of the Sorcerer's Path (10 page)

When she was just a few hundred feet up, only scant seconds from safety, she lost all control of her muscles. Her head and tail slumped and the force of the wind pushed her limp wings uselessly behind her. Unimaginable sorrow filled her as she thought of her precious little one alone, slowly starving to death in their dark cave. The poison had set in so thoroughly that she did not even feel the impact of the sand when she struck. Darkness consumed her and a final tear traced its way down along the fine golden scales down her lifeless cheek.

***

Azerick and Horse approached the closed gates of Langdon’s crossing two days after parting company with Maude and the others. It was midday but the gates were firmly barred and attentive guards trained several loaded and cocked crossbows on his casually moving form as he neared the secured gates.

“Halt!” One of the guards commanded from atop the wall. “State your name, home, and purpose in Langdon’s Crossing!”

Azerick shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand as he looked up at the obviously nervous guards.

“Azerick of North Haven. I am here to rest the night, get a drink, and purchase supplies for my travels,” Azerick replied.

“Will you be traveling back to North Haven on the morrow then?”

“My business lies south for the moment, guardsman, but yes, I intend to leave on the morrow.”

The guard conversed with an unseen man behind the wall and below him then looked back up as one half of the gate began swinging inward.

“Come forth then but be warned, misconduct will not be tolerated and will be dealt with swiftly and harshly,” the guard cautioned the sorcerer as he walked Horse through the gate.

“Can you direct me to a butcher, a baker, and an inn please,” Azerick asked pleasantly.

“The butcher is at the far northwest end of town near the stockyards. The baker is near the center of town along the main street and is just a block down from the
High Hopes
inn. It’s one of the better inns in town and tell the innkeeper Charles sent ya.”

Azerick gave Charles the guard an informal salute and headed for the butcher’s first. He smelled the stockyards long before he saw them and quickly located the butcher’s shop at the west end of the stockyards.

A small bell rang when Azerick pushed open the door and stepped towards the empty counter. A few moments later, a heavyset man wearing a bloodstained white apron and wiping his hands clean on a towel walked in from the back where he had obviously been carving up some deceased animal that would soon grace a successful man’s plate.

“Good day to you, young sir,” the butcher greeted him. “How can I help you?”

“I would like to purchase a large quantity of meat to take with me on my travels south,” Azerick replied.

“So you’ll be wanting all cured meat then I presume?”

Azerick thought for a moment then shook his head. “Wrap up twenty pounds of your choicest cuts of beef and another fifty pounds of smoked or cured meats for traveling.”

“You want sausages mixed in with that as well or just smoked beef and ham?”

“Sausages please.”

“It’ll take me a few minutes to get the fresh cuts, sir,” the butcher said even friendlier.

“Take your time, master butcher,” Azerick replied patiently.

Fifteen minutes later the butcher returned from the back with stacks of wrapped meats and smoked beef, ham, and cured sausages on a metal cart. He displayed the fresh cuts of meat to Azerick before wrapping them tightly in clean, waxed linen and stacking them on the countertop. He placed the cured meats in four course linen bags and set them next to the wrapped parcels of steaks.

“That’ll be ten gold crowns or danarus and seventeen silver swords or serpents depending on if you’re paying in Valarian or Sumaran coin,” the butcher announced almost nervously because of the high price.

Not many people in Langdon’s Crossing could have afforded such an order and the butcher was not accustomed to charging individual customers so much. Normally orders of that magnitude were made by ship’s cooks and caravan masters. Ship captains would come in and order whole sides of beef for not much more than that but that was for resale in another city. Plus last year’s raid was still putting a pinch on most of the economy, particularly butcher’s and millers since they got hit the worst.

Azerick calmly counted out eleven gold crowns and told the butcher to keep the change. The butcher thanked him warmly then watched in amazement as Azerick placed the entire order into a bag not much bigger than the sack that contained two of the large smoked hams and the sack did not even appear full when he easily carried the seventy pounds of meat out the door. Azerick doubted he would consume half the store of food before he returned to North Haven, but his near stranding in the middle of the desert convinced him that there was no reason to take any chances.

A feed store was logically built just a short ways further up the road so Azerick bought Horse a twenty pound sack of molasses-soaked oats for the road and a five pound bag for when he stabled him at the inn. He headed for the middle of the town and saw evidence of the attack that they had suffered a few months back on some of the buildings. He found the bakery without a problem. It was one of the few buildings that had a large brick chimney rising over the rooftops.

Azerick purchased several loaves of bread and added them to the magical bag. He spied the inn on the corner of the next street over and as he and Horse drew near, he saw how the
High Hopes
got its name. The inn was rough-looking like most of the sun-beaten, sandblasted buildings, but bright paint covered the cracked wood in an attempt to make it look fancier than it really was. Azerick likened it to an ugly woman in a beautiful dress. It may get her a dance or two at the ball but no one was going to take her home.

A stableboy rushed out to take Horse’s reins as Azerick rode down the wide alley next to the inn towards the stable built behind it. He handed over the reins, Horse’s small bag of oats, and a silver piece with instructions to thoroughly wash and brush him down and feed him half the bag of oats now and the rest first thing in the morning.

The inside of the inn raised Azerick’s opinion of the establishment a notch or two. Being protected from the elements, the paint on the walls was a single smooth coat as opposed to the multiple layers of repeated touch-ups on the outside.

“Good afternoon, sir, what can I get you?” a slender man with a huge moustache asked as Azerick stepped towards the bar.

“Do you have beer?” Azerick asked.

“Yep, afraid it costs a bit more than the ale but it’s a good brew,” the innkeeper answered.

“I’ll take a beer, a bath, and a room before dinner in that order,” Azerick told the innkeeper, not surprised that the beer was more expensive.

Beer cost more to brew due to the different type of yeast used to ferment it and the hops that flavored it, particularly in the southern region of the kingdom. Azerick preferred the lighter flavor opposed to the thicker and often bitter ales.

He paid extra to have a tub taken to his room and filled instead of using the common bath. He wanted to lie and soak without interruption until his skin turned as pruned as an old man. Azerick laughed as he soaked as an image of Allister came unbidden to his mind. He found that he missed his friends and his students.

These sentimental emotions were new to him and he did not quite know what to make of them. He had wrapped himself in the security of solitude like a suit of armor. Only Delinda had managed to breach that armor since he lost his home and family and it had left him vulnerable and nearly destroyed him. Taking Ellyssa in was a calculated risk to secure a home away from others where he could avoid most everyone and focus on his studies and her training. Then the floodgates opened and he was surrounded by a multitude of people. He found that allowing his friends and people who cared about him close to him was a source of strength as well. It provided purpose beyond simple survival and the will to fight for something greater than himself.

He started when he realized that he had fallen asleep. The room was heavily shadowed as the very last of the sun’s light dipped below the horizon.

Well, I have certainly achieved an acceptable level of wrinkles,
Azerick thought to himself as he looked at his craggy skin.

Azerick enjoyed a decent and properly prepared meal; a good change from the trail food even if the food had come from his own larder. He was no chef and despite the quality of food he had brought, it was still not as good as a meal prepared in a proper kitchen by a skilled cook.

The evening crowd was loud and boisterous, made up mostly of cattle drivers and other hardworking, dusty folks, but the spirit was good natured and filled with camaraderie instead of hostility bordering on violence as in many of the lower class bars in rough towns.

The innkeeper was not lying about the quality of his brew. It was quite good and Azerick weathered the audible assault on his ears and enjoyed several glasses before retreating to his bed, feeling the effects of the beer but not to the point of it being uncomfortable or debilitating. After that night with Rusty, he had vowed never to drink nearly that much again.

He slept deeply and contentedly, waking only after the sun was fully over the horizon. He dressed in his freshly washed clothes, ate a quick breakfast, and bought two small kegs of beer to take with him before retrieving Horse and riding back out into the hot desert to demand answers and possibly justice from an entire enclave of wizards not known for their friendly welcome or pleasant treatment of unexpected guests.

***

Ulric marched his men towards the east wall of Groveswood to “liberate” the wealthy nobles from the clutches of the raiders that had been looting and terrorizing its prestigious citizens for the better part of the day. Groveswood had a large guard force that did an excellent job of keeping the thieves and commoners out of the town, but they were poorly equipped to take on five hundred mounted mercenaries who lived for battle and mayhem.

Ulric sent a messenger into the city to inform Kayne that he would be driving him out that night and to have his men prepared to depart with their substantial plunder. Once the night fully arrived, Ulric led his men through the lightly guarded gates. Kayne’s men held the gates not to keep Ulric out but to keep any citizen of Groveswood from fleeing the town and sending for help until they were ready for them to do so.

  The battle at the gates was quick and Ulric rode at the head as his army as they raged through the streets “battling” the invaders wherever they found them and routing them out of the west gate of the town. Within an hour, not a single raider remained inside the town’s walls. The “dead and wounded” were taken away in the duke’s wagons where Ulric promised to dispose of the corpses and captives alike so that they would not sully the pristine air of Groveswood any longer.

The mayor lauded Duke Ulric as well as bestowing the town’s highest honor upon him for their deliverance from the hands of the invaders. Ulric nearly choked stifling the laughter that threatened to overcome his amusement at the irony of the award.

The pillaging had not been bloodless but it had been acceptably controlled. As per Ulric’s directive, Kayne and his men killed only a small number of the lesser citizens, those merchants with minimal political influence that he had denoted as expendable. There was more than enough degradation, humiliation, brutalization, and assault to help properly enrage the citizens and bend their favor and gratitude towards the duke.

Duke Ulric found Kayne and his men at the agreed upon campsite, well off the traveled roads where anyone would chance upon them. Once again, Ulric failed to spot the sentries that he knew Kayne had posted at several points leading up to the campsite. He found Kayne and his officers still tallying and recording the wealth of treasures that had been carted off by the wagonload during the night. Once he had an accurate accounting, Kayne would then distribute the plunder among his men as their contract and pay dictated with the bulk of it going to Kayne himself.

“It looks like you fared quite well, Kayne,” Ulric called out as he approached with his men.

Kayne handed the ledger book and quill to one of his trusted men and strode towards the duke, smiling brightly.

“Aye, we certainly did. May I presume that you fared equally well in your own way as well?” Kayne asked, smiling up at the mounted duke with his hands on his hips.

“You may, Kayne, you most certainly may. I must congratulate you once again on you and your men’s excellent performance. You are going to make me have to change my rather poor opinion of mercenaries,” Ulric said pleasantly as he dismounted.

Kayne chortled loudly. “Don’t do that, Ulric. No other mercenaries are Hell’s Legion. Stick with your first opinion it will serve you better in the long run. Care to share the next step in your grand plan, Duke?”

“Now is the time to call up your infantry and support personnel. Coming from the south, they should have no problem marching as far north as Southport even in the winter unless you know a place further south that will be warmer to sit out the remainder of the cold season. It would have to be out of the way enough to minimize accidental discovery but close enough to move north on short notice.”

Kayne rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “There are canyons in the Bloodstone Mountains where I could hide them. They could reach Southport in two weeks at the latest. When do you plan to use them?”

“Jarvin has sent out three armies to secure the roads between the four major regions. I had hoped to trap at least one of them between our two forces and destroy them within the month, but I fear I risk tipping my hand too soon. I will have to march on North Haven afterward and put her to siege immediately after we crush Jarvin’s army, and I do not relish the thought of besieging that city in the winter. I expect to bring her down within a matter of weeks if not days, but it would be foolish to risk getting stuck outside the walls during their horrendous winters.”