He passed the paper to the Druid. She took it, unfolded it, and read its few words before passing it to Paxon. “Where is this Horn of Honor?” she asked. “What is it?”
“It’s a monument to fallen soldiers that sits in the Federation burial grounds, out on the bluff above the city.”
“Have you secured it?”
“The moment I received this note. What difference does it make to you? You’re not invited to the party.”
Avelene shook her head. “You should let this invitation go unanswered. You should step aside and let Paxon and me handle it. We’re better equipped to deal with Arcannen.”
“Step aside? For one man? I should have taken the Red Slash back to Arbrox and squashed him like a bug in the first place! I wasted my time on those hunters. Now get out of here!”
Avelene never moved. “Do you know what he intends? Because we do. He intends to wipe your Red Slash off the map.”
Usurient stared at her. “That’s ridiculous.”
“He has a boy with him who has command of a very powerful magic called the wishsong. He can affect anything if he decides to use it. We think Arcannen holds you responsible for the deaths at Arbrox, and he intends to avenge those who died by eliminating their killers.”
“Soldiers, not killers,” he corrected her. “And what he intends and what he can accomplish are two entirely different things. He is an enemy of the Federation, and I have been charged with bringing him to the proper authorities to answer for his crimes. Or, if he decides to make a fight of it, to be sure he doesn’t ever do so again.”
“I repeat,” Avelene said, “let us take care of this. If he thought you had any chance of stopping him—even with your entire command backing you—he would never have come here and offered you this challenge. He is very dangerous. Much more so than you think. We have faced and fought him twice now, Paxon and I. So let us use our skills and experience to stop him. Don’t risk your soldiers.”
The Red Slash Commander hesitated, and Paxon could tell he was bothered by what she said. He had enough experience with the sorcerer to know that Arcannen was nobody’s fool and not given to rash behavior. He would have a plan. But then his demeanor changed, his anger resurfacing to sweep aside all other emotions and bury every consideration but one—putting an end to his enemy once and for all.
“Tell you what. You go back to mixing potions and sacrificing lizards and I will go back to soldiering.” His eyes were suddenly empty and dangerous. “Now get out of here. I don’t want you underfoot when things become unpleasant.”
Avelene straightened; her slender form was rigid as she glanced at Paxon. Then she looked back at Usurient. “You are making a mistake, Commander.”
“Yes, well, it’s my mistake to make and answer for. I’m prepared to do both. But you’re not going to be satisfied with my answer, are you? You’re not going to accept it.” He shook his head. “Wait here.”
He walked to the door and called out. Seconds later an entire squad of soldiers had crowded into the room, all of them carrying weapons, all of these weapons pointed at Paxon and Avelene. The Highlander gave no thought to drawing his sword. It was pointless to think of fighting where there was nothing to be gained by doing so.
“Take them to the guardhouse and lock them inside,” Usurient ordered. “Relieve this one”—he pointed to Paxon—“of his blade before you do. If they try to escape, stop them. An hour after sunrise, you may release them.”
He gave them a critical look. “I don’t trust you. Or Druids in general, for that matter. You constantly interfere in things that don’t concern you. You might try to interfere in this. You have that look about you. So, yes, I’ve changed my mind about letting you leave. I need to be assured that you won’t get underfoot. And, yes—before you question it—I can do this. You may have diplomatic immunity from our beloved Prime Minister—as I suspect you do—but it doesn’t extend to this base and my command. Here, there is only one law, and it’s mine. Now good-bye.”
They took Paxon’s sword, and then he and Avelene were escorted back outside on a short walk to a solid stone-and-iron structure that could hardly be mistaken for anything but a prison. They were led inside and placed in one of the cells, a cramped space empty of everything but a cot and a chamber pot. A heavily barred window let in light through a two-foot-square hole. The soldiers backed out carefully, closing the heavy iron door behind them and sliding the crossbar into place.
In the ensuing silence, the Druid and the Highlander faced each other.
“They don’t really think they can keep us in here, do they?” Paxon asked.
Avelene gave him a look. “Who knows what they think? What they think doesn’t matter. Only what we think matters.”
“Well, I think we can walk out of here anytime we want,” he said.
“But that isn’t the trick, is it?”
“No? Then what is?”
“The trick is to leave without them knowing it.”
He nodded. “That stands to reason. Unfortunately, I don’t happen to know that trick.”
She gave him a wink. “I do.”
—
The Horn of Honor was a huge stone monolith engraved with the names of those soldiers stationed in Sterne who had perished committing particularly memorable acts while in service to the Federation army. The memorial stood at the far end of a broad plateau that overlooked the city proper and the broad sweep of the Prowl River directly below. The plateau itself served as the resting place for all of Sterne’s Federation soldiers, whether or not their names were engraved on the Horn, if at some point they had been stationed in the city. All were memorialized by small squares of white marble that bore their names and beneath which their cremated remains were preserved in tiny boxes.
This night, the plateau was filled with members of the Red Slash. They stood in loose formation all across the bluff, gathered by squads and brigades, filling the open spaces between the stone markers, surrounding the Horn on all sides. The entire command was present, save for those few left behind to maintain a presence within the barracks.
At their front, standing just apart and facing toward the head of the roadway that led upward to the bluff, was Dallen Usurient, resplendent in his scarlet dress uniform, his posture erect and rigid, his hands clasped behind his back to conceal the handheld flash rip he was hiding within the sleeve of his great coat. He wanted to appear unafraid at the prospect of a confrontation with Arcannen while at the same time remaining prepared for it. By now word of what they were doing and on whom they were waiting had spread through the ranks. A few, perhaps more, would be frightened, if only by the rumors they had heard. So he must do what he could to keep his soldiers calm; he must set a good example.
He glanced around briefly, taking in the spectacle of the entire Red Slash standing ready to fight. They bore weapons of every sort—blades and crossbows, spears and darts, flash rips and rail slings—strapped and sheathed or drawn and held ready, a formidable challenge to any enemy. They provided a spellbinding sight, a tableau worthy of an elite fighting unit. Torches burned at the perimeter of the burial ground, their uneven spray of firelight casting shadows in all directions, layering the landscape with intricate patterns. The faces of his soldiers glowed red and yellow; some were colored almost brown by the flames. It gave them an otherworldly look, an alien appearance that brought a shiver to his spine.
Where are you now, Arcannen Rai? How will you react to this when you come face-to-face with it?
He was anxious to find out, eager for the first time since he had received the other’s note, confident that whatever the sorcerer sought to do by arranging this confrontation would end badly for its instigator. This would be no Arbrox. This would not be a repeat of what had happened to Mallich and his men. No amount of games and tricks would fool this many experienced men and women into reacting foolishly. No type of magic would cause them to turn and run.
No, it would end here. It would end with Arcannen’s long-overdue death a
nd the slow disintegration of his corpse after it had been hung from the city walls.
He was looking forward to it. He was anxious to watch it happen.
He started at sudden movement on the roadway before him. Shadows appeared. Three figures, faceless black forms, emerged from the night. The firelight illuminated them with its inquisitive flicker as they approached and revealed their features.
Dallen Usurient smiled.
Arcannen Rai was here.
TWENTY-SIX
Reyn Frosch was feeling the first twinges of fear as he climbed the road leading to the bluff where a blaze of torchlight lit up the whole of the sky in an eerie orange-and-yellow glow. At first, it was difficult to determine what was happening, the light flickering and dancing across its black backdrop, erasing the softer glow of moon and stars and revealing in garish color the wisps of cloud that hung overhead in the windless air like strange elongated birds. It was only when he came closer to the end of his journey that he could discern the light’s source, and then glimpse the heads and spear points of the Red Slash soldiers revealed in a sea of shifting shadows like sea creatures risen from the deep.
“You remember what you are to do?” Arcannen whispered out of the side of his mouth.
The boy nodded, unable to speak.
“You can do this, can’t you? You can be strong enough when it’s needed?”
Again, his nod.
Although Lariana was walking next to him, she did not reach to take his hand when he silently willed her to do so. He felt overwhelmed by what waited, even before being able to take its exact measure. But when he saw the whole of it—five hundred soldiers crowded together across the heights, their faces lit by the torchlight in strange colors and their weapons on fire with the reflection of the flames—he felt all the strength go out of him and his courage turn to water.
“What a glorious sight!” the sorcerer whispered.
Reyn wanted to turn around immediately. What chance did they stand against so many? The soldiers seemed to be everywhere, these men and women of the Red Slash. They filled the burial ground with their dark presence. This was suicide. Yet he kept walking, kept his feet moving, knowing there was no choice but to go forward. Any deviation now would doom both Lariana and himself. Neither would survive Arcannen’s wrath. They had been clearly seen by now, the eyes of the hundreds turned on them, and he could imagine the affront—the disdain!—these men and women felt at this foolish challenge. Three against hundreds! It was a fool’s chance. It was ridiculous. The outcome was a foregone conclusion.
Yet Arcannen seemed not the least disturbed. If Reyn did as he was told, the sorcerer insisted, all would be settled before the sun had fully risen. Already, the boy could see glimmerings of first light in the distance, beyond the bluff and the firelight, illuminating the ragged outline of the mountains east. He closed his eyes momentarily against what he was feeling, the prospect of his fate a dark shadow descending upon him like the sky falling.
He knew what he was expected to do. Arcannen had explained it to him as they walked, his voice kept low and soft so that only the two of them could hear. Lariana was not permitted to listen in, and Reyn had been given no chance to confide in her. His part in this effort was crucial, the requirements of his magic’s use enormous. But Arcannen assured him that such use had been made before, and that his heritage of the magic made him equal to the task.
“You are no less able than those who came before you. You are no less endowed with their power. Use it as I have told you. Bind these creatures and hold them fast; do not waver in your strength, do not give thought to what you witness afterward. Do this, and your future is assured.”
By which he meant that although Reyn would live, his life henceforth would belong to his mentor. What he was not saying was that the boy would never be free of the legacy he would forge by his magic’s dark use; he would be a killer of men and women, forever bound to a history he would write in blood and death this night. He and Lariana would have each other, but only on Arcannen’s terms and only until their usefulness was at an end. Then they would be cast aside, broken and hollowed out, emptied of everything good and decent.
He would not stand for it, he told himself, enraged. He would not allow it to happen.
Yet here he was, atop the bluff, walking toward the man in the scarlet dress uniform. The Commander of the Red Slash struck a dominant pose as he watched them approach, his expressionless face revealing nothing. But his eyes spoke for him. There was no kindness in those eyes, no hint of pity or forgiveness, no trace of compassion. He would let them come until they were close enough to be dangerous, and then he would crush them as a man’s foot would a scattering of ants.
“Begin,” Arcannen whispered suddenly.
Without stopping to think about it, Reyn summoned the wishsong, his voice soft and unsteady in its modulation as he brought his magic to life. He did not attempt to employ it yet; he had been instructed to wait on that. Instead, he was to cause it to build within him. He was to gather and hold it at the ready, and, when directed to do so, to employ it against these men and women in the way Arcannen had instructed.
But already he was having trouble. His efforts were forced and his willingness to act was compromised. The magic spread through his body in jagged lurches, an uneven and uncomfortable presence. He pushed ahead, but he could tell it was a broken, fragmented summoning and would likely fail him when it mattered.
“Dallen Usurient!” Arcannen called out to the man in scarlet.
“You should never have come!” replied the other.
“You should never have murdered the people in Arbrox! If you had shown even the least compassion, I would not be here.”
“And yet here you are, and you will shortly be the worse for it!”
Arcannen stopped, the boy and the girl at his side. They were perhaps fifty feet away from Usurient, and there were soldiers spread out on either side of them now, all watching closely, their weapons held ready. They would have been told not to act except on command, Usurient confident in their strength and certain of their readiness to act when it was necessary. Arcannen had told the boy he could depend on this.
“It is his pride in his soldiers that will lead him to his death,” the sorcerer had said. “His fall will be of his own doing.”
Reyn continued to build his magic, feeling it spread through him from toes to fingertips until the aura of its still-inaudible sound cloaked him with its vibration. Still, he struggled with holding it together, with smoothing it out and keeping it pure. Still, he fought to ready it for the use he had been told to make of it.
And still, it neither responded nor felt quite as it should.
“If he were to strike us down the moment he saw us, he could save himself,” Arcannen had said to the boy. “But he will not do that. First, he will demonstrate his superiority—to himself and his soldiers and us. He will command the stage as an actor in this play before he brings down the curtain. He will revel in his sense of power. He is obsessed with his need to reassure himself that he remains supreme and that I am vulnerable to him. He will want to make that evident before he acts. Watch closely.”
Now, with the light cast by the torches just beginning to fade along the edges as the sunrise slowly brightened in the east and chased a reluctant night’s darkness westward, Dallen Usurient brought out the handheld flash rip he had been hiding behind his back and pointed it at the sorcerer.
“You are a fool, Arcannen, to believe you could harm me here. Did you truly expect I would come alone? You have overstepped yourself this time. You have thrown caution to the winds of chance and hope, and neither has the power to save you.”
“Do you think so?” Arcannen sounded interested. “Is that really true?”
“I think that and much more. What you thought you could accomplish by coming to me like this…”
Lariana stepped closer to Reyn. She reached over and took his hand in her own. Immediately Reyn felt the wishsong grow stronger within him
. Just her touch was enough to steady him, to fuel his confidence and dispel his hesitation. His doubts and fears faded; his certainty in himself blossomed in the space of a heartbeat.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“…with no other protection than this boy and girl, no weapons save a magic that has limits even for you…”
“Now!” Arcannen breathed at the boy.
Reyn released his magic in a rush, allowing it to spread outward in all directions from where the three stood clustered together at the forefront of the Red Slash command—an expulsion of barely audible sound that passed through the air like the gentle brush of a morning breeze and filled the empty spaces between the soldiers before enfolding them and sliding into their ears like whispers, acting on their bodies in ways of which they were not immediately aware.
“…remains a mystery to me, one that I expect I will never unravel, even after you are dead and gone and become no more than a fading memory…”
He stopped talking abruptly and his expression changed, revealing that he had sensed finally that something was terribly wrong. His voice faltered, his words turning guttural and vague and the hand that gripped the flash rip slowly lowering to his side.
All across the burial grounds and to the edges of the bluff, an eerie silence descended.
—
Avelene burned away the locking bar on their cell door and pushed it open. The halls within the blockhouse stood empty and silent, the darkness so complete that almost nothing of either one of them was visible to the other. She took the Highlander’s arm and led him to the building door, his guide through the deep gloom. While he could see nothing, he could hear well enough, and there was a noticeable decrease in the sounds of movements and voices without.
Holding him by his shoulders, Avelene moved him to one side of the door and placed in his hand the hilt of his sword, which she had somehow managed to retrieve. Just in case, she whispered, her lips placed next to his ear. His eyes had begun to adjust, and he could see the slow, rhythmic movement of her hands, barely visible in the darkness, sliding over the closed door. When she was finished, nothing had changed. The door remained closed; the lock was still intact. He waited for her explanation, but she said nothing. Instead, she brushed him up one side and down the other, bringing together handfuls of air and dust, her movements suggesting that she was covering them from view.