The Sorcerer's Vengeance: Book 4 of the Sorcerer's Path (8 page)

If Azerick could have seen through the glossy black helm, he would have seen the general’s face pale as he quietly replied. “He failed. He had the armor but he still failed.”

“That’s right, General, he failed. Do you know how he failed?”

Azerick saw the general shake his head in the negative.

“Lord Bertrand and his men were lined up on the south bank of the Crook River at Ballinger’s Bridge. King Archibald arrayed his own troops on the north bank of the river before Bertrand could get his men across uncontested. Now Archibald knew he could not defeat Bertrand and his soldiers and Bertrand knew that he could not get his men across the contested bridge without suffering horrendous losses, if at all. His intent was to march his forces to a wide natural ford several leagues downstream, but that would take days of marching and Archibald’s troops could reach it just as fast as he could and he would still be forced to fight at a disadvantage though not nearly as great as crossing the bridge. Are you still following me, General?” Azerick asked his captive audience. “The most important part is coming up.”

“Yeah, I’m listening to your drivel!” Baneford yelled up at the arrogant young spell caster.

General Baneford had never shown fear in the face of an enemy and he would certainly not do so in front of this whelp, but something in the young wizard’s voice and demeanor greatly unnerved him. Coupled with the fact that he was stuck in a hole and completely unable to anything about it was beyond maddening.

“Archibald knew he could punish Bertrand’s troops at the ford but he could not defeat them. So against all common sense, King Archibald strode out onto the center of the bridge and challenged Bertrand to single combat with undisputed rule of the realm as the prize. Lord Bertrand laughed all the way to the center of the bridge where he gladly accepted Archibald’s foolish challenge. Most people were quite aware of the power of the armor that Dundalor had crafted; its history still fresh in most people’s minds.

“In an even more bizarre move, Archibald stripped off all of his armor except for his breastplate and gauntlets, loudly proclaiming that Bertrand was a pathetic usurper who relied on magical armor to see him too victory because he was too weak and too stupid to achieve it by his own strength and wits.

Bertrand was furious and attacked Archibald before he was even set to begin the battle. But Archibald was a master swordsman and narrowly deflected the cowardly attack and quickly set himself to receive Bertrand in a test of arms. Lord Bertrand, thoroughly incensed, thought to use the greater strength his armor provided him to overwhelm the king’s skill. He also had no fear of being struck because he knew that Archibald’s blade could never harm him.

“Now Bertrand’s tactic would have worked just as it had several times before in his many battles, but Archibald was canny and was just as aware of Bertrand’s advantages. The battle raged fiercely. It was several minutes into the fight, both men were near the rail of the bridge, their sword hilts locked together as Bertrand’s magical strength was slowly shoving Archibald to his knees when the king looked up into the eye slits of the black helmed warrior and smiled. With a surge of strength, the valiant king shoved with all his might and sent them both over the rail and into the muddy waters of the river below.”

General Baneford continued to look up at the young sorcerer’s recitation, seemingly compelled to hang on his every word, and swallowed nervously as he looked upon the young man’s smile, the very smile he imagined that King Archibald wore just before he threw them both into the frigid river.

“I think you see where this is going, General. Archibald quickly shed his breastplate and gauntlets and swam to the distant shore. Bertrand was not seen again until Archibald’s men managed to dredge his corpse out of the river several days later. The king knew that the armor was too dangerous to leave intact so he had his most trusted wizards scatter the pieces throughout the realm. Now tell me, General, how long can you hold your breath?” Azerick asked, his smile sliding from his face to be replaced with a cold look of unchallengeable purpose.

Azerick raised his staff and a dwarven rune for stone and water flared. The solid granite at General Baneford’s feet suddenly lost all cohesion and flowed over the tops of his boots.

“What do you want from me!” he shouted, suddenly feeling more vulnerable and helpless than he ever had in his life.

“I told you what I want, General. It is a very simple request really.”

General Baneford sighed in frustration. He hated to tell this wizard or demon or whatever the hell he was anything, but he had never actually pledged any sort of loyalty to the black tower wizard as he had Ulric. He had fulfilled the spirit of their bargain to the best of his ability. Perhaps if he gave him the black tower he would not continue to pry.

“I don’t know who sent the assassin, but I do know the Rook is affiliated with the black tower wizards who are the same ones that asked me to get them the armor,” the general told Azerick truthfully.

Black tower wizards. A great deal was starting to make sense to him now. The black tower wizards were an order of wizards bent on reclaiming the power they once wielded in the realm. Even the king treaded lightly where the black wizards were concerned. The slow but inevitable attrition of wizards that were able to attain truly powerful levels of magic eventually allowed the good people of Valaria to cast them out of the kingdom. They rebuilt their great black tower in a city a few days ride southeast of Langdon’s Crossing in Sumara.

The Rook was affiliated with the black tower who had his father attempt to smuggle a piece of the armor into the kingdom. He gets caught and the tower sends the Rook to silence him. But why did the Rook come after him? He had nothing to do with the armor or the politics behind its acquisition.

The attack on Miranda was no mere hold up. Could it have been a kidnapping and was it linked to all of this? The bandits had failed because of him. It was possible someone had sent the Rook in retaliation. Whatever the reason, it appeared that someone in the black tower would have answers.

“Tell me about Darius Giles and his murder.”

“I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“He was a prisoner in Southport. He had one of the pieces that I assume you recovered somehow,” Azerick explained. “Someone killed him in his cell. I am surmising it was the work of the Rook as well.”

“I don’t know anything about that. I haven’t stepped foot in Southport in nearly eight years. I was told to recover the gauntlets from some king’s men around that time and that was a hundred miles from Southport. Now get me out of this blasted hole or leave so my men may retrieve me, we had a deal!”

“I am well aware of our deal, General. I am a man of my word, are you?” Azerick asked.

General Baneford shed his ebony and gold helm. “I am a man of my word, wizard.”

“I will free you but you must order your men to stand down and leave us all in peace. You will take your men wherever you please but you will not trouble Valaria and her people any longer,” Azerick commanded.

“I will do as you say. Now get me out of here,” General Baneford insisted.

“First you must remove the armor—all of it,” Azerick told the general.

The general’s eyes went wide at the order, but with a huff and a curse he tore at the priceless artifact and shed it like an old skin. He was soon standing on top of the jumbled mass of armor in his sweat-stained padded doublet, glaring up at the audacious young man that had him at his mercy. Azerick lowered the end of his staff into the hole and struggled to pull the larger man up and out.

Once the general was clear, Azerick raised his staff then pointed it down at the bottom of the pit. The armor clanged loudly in the as it fell another twenty feet when the ground below it suddenly disappeared. Azerick repeated the spell and the armor fell another twenty feet. Twice more Azerick caused the pit to deepen until the armor was nearly a hundred feet below the surface. His efforts were quickly tiring him but he was not finished yet.

As General Baneford looked on in a sort of fascination, a dozen runes flared brightly on the sorcerer’s staff. Runes of stone and fire blazed so brightly that it made the light from the wall of flames appear no more than a candle next to a forest fire. As the general’s eyes blinked away the glowing dwarven runes swimming in his overwhelmed vision, he saw an orange glow radiating up from the bottom of the deep pit. And as he watched he saw that it was growing nearer.

It reminded the general of a piece of steel heated white hot, ready to be forged by a blacksmith. As the glow reached the surface, General Baneford finally recognized it for what it was. Magma, the molten rock he had heard sailors and scholars describe that shot from mountains and fissures on some far away islands near the southern tip of Lazuul. Azerick was bathed in sweat and it was not from the heat of the lava that was slowly bubbling up to the surface like some glowing, boiling brew from a witch’s cauldron.

Once the nearly white-hot magma reached the surface, Azerick stopped its rise and allowed it to simmer. He did not know if the molten stone would destroy the armor, but anyone that sought to retrieve it was going to have a very difficult time digging it out. When he could sustain the magma no more, he released the flow of power he was pouring into the stone from both his staff and himself. As the molten rock began solidifying, Azerick cast a few spells of his own below the surface of the rock. The wards would make the stone all around highly resistant to mundane pickaxes and hammers as well as magical detection and destruction.

“Tell your men to put away their weapons and I will lower the flames,” Azerick told the general, leaning heavily upon his staff.

General Baneford strode as close as he could to the wall of flames and shouted to his men on the other side.

“Captains, can you hear me?”

“Aye, sir, we hear you. Have you slain the wizard?” one of his officers shouted back.

General Baneford thought a moment before answering. “We have reached an accord. Sheath your weapons. There will be no further battles here today.”

The moment Azerick dropped the flames Baneford’s men began threading their way through the stone spikes and converged upon their commander.

“Sir, what happened?” they all asked, eyes wide at the unarmored general.

“I was defeated, men. I was defeated fairly by a craftier foe and my own hubris. Remember the lesson this night, gentlemen. No matter how powerful you think you are, no matter how unassailable you believe your position may be; a clever man can defeat you. And if you let your pride rule your actions, you have just given him the key to do it.”

General Baneford stepped past his men and approached Azerick who walked over to Maude, touched the stone bars that trapped her, and turned them to dust. Borik and Malek moved quickly but warily to Maude’s side as Azerick released the spell on them.

“Maude, I hope you will accept my apology for deceiving you. I had to convince the general and his men that I was somebody else with entirely different motives, and I felt the best way to do that were subterfuge against all involved,” said Azerick, his voice heavy with fatigue.

Maude glared then sheathed her sword. “I despise deception, but in this case I suppose the ends justify the means. Fortunately I am in a joyous mood since we found the companion we all thought lost.”

Maude turned away and lowered the crow’s cage that held the disheveled elf. Malek shattered the lock that held the cage closed with his hammer, not wasting the time to ask anyone to use the key that someone most certainly possessed. Maude reached in and pulled Tarth out of the cage and laid him gently onto the ground. Tarth reached towards Maude with a trembling hand and croaked something she could not make out.

“Borik, get him some water, quickly!” Maude commanded.

The dwarf ran forward with a full skin and shoved it into the elf’s hand. Tarth focused his gaze on the life-giving water skin, shook his head angrily and contemptuously tossed it aside.

“I don’t understand what you want, Tarth,” Maude said and lowered her head towards the elf’s parched lips.

“H-hairbrush!” Tarth rasped.

General Baneford walked over to the visibly exhausted young sorcerer.

“My offer still stands. I could really use a man like you,” the general told Azerick, his respect for him evident.

“Sorry, General, I have other responsibilities and some tasks I need to take care of. Sorry I had to destroy your armor, but I could not allow it to fall into anyone’s hands. Too many good people have already died because of its existence,” Azerick replied.

“I’d wager it would be more accurate to say you have some people to take to task,” Baneford chuckled. “To be honest with you, I’m not sorry to see it go. I too have seen too many good men’s lives thrown away for something that would just make people miserable, although it does put me in a bind with those black tower wizards. They already paid me to recover and hand it over to them and I’m not sure I could talk my men into returning what we were given.”

Azerick smiled wanly at the general. “I would not worry too much about the black tower wizards for long, General. Keep your men on the move and they will have a difficult time finding you. They are going to have far bigger problems to deal with before long.”

“Coming from any other man that would sound like overconfident boasting,” General Baneford said and extended his hand. “Good hunting and good luck.”

Azerick gripped the general’s proffered hand. “Good luck to you as well, General. You seem to be a decent man. I do not know how you got caught up in this sorted business but I hope you find what you are looking for.”

“What I’m looking for is some peace and freedom for me and my men, but that will likely only come after a great deal fighting.”

“That is one of the few things worth fighting for, General. It is the very reason I am here now and doing what I must do,” Azerick replied then turned away and made his way towards Maude and the others.

Maude was brushing the elf’s hair while she made him drink some water. Azerick received some cold looks but none were overtly hostile.