Changing Of The Guard (Book 6) Read online

  “Damn them,” she said. “Damn them all.”

  She leaped back into the flow.

  Another anomaly slid past her.

  A long passage loomed ahead, and she narrowed her profile, putting more energy into her run so she could build enough speed to shoot the gap. Sparks flared, and streaks of green and crimson wrapped around her, fading to dull turquoise. Electric fingers of neon broke over her skin as she careened through Existence.

  Then she slowed, drawing herself into a protective orb and letting the current carry her away again until the rage subsided and she could hear herself think.

  Hezarin breathed. She was satisfied. Content.

  Her entire being tingled with exertion.

  She flexed her outer shell and smiled at the thin edge of pain the movement brought her.

  Refreshed and of better mind, she flashed the color of a sigh and thought more clearly about Braxidane. Her brother had sent Garrick to Rastella, and Garrick had destroyed her hold on that plane. She should punish Braxidane for that directly, but as much as she enjoyed the prospect of that idea, as much as she yearned to see his expression fade as she ground him into the flow, Hezarin knew that Joint Authority would never let her destroy her brother.

  A planewalker could live forever, and yet they had nothing of their own. They were, in effect, no more than vessels for life force—controllers at their best. Once the construct that made up a planewalker was gone, it was gone forever. Given this most reasonable justification, the council of Joint Authority tended to view simple trespasses against each other as acceptable, but killing another planewalker was the greatest crime she could commit.

  Worse, her brother was a master politician, linked in a hundred places she knew of and probably a thousand more she didn’t. Killing Braxidane would mean trouble, and given how the network was growing more sensitive each day, it could even lead to total war throughout All of Existence.

  She flared the orange of deep thought and the aroma of a smile, as she trailed a filament restfully behind, using it as a leisurely rudder as the flow carried her along. She couldn’t kill Braxidane, but Garrick was another matter. Hezarin knew how to do it, too. Ettril Dor-Entfar, the High Superior of a sect of mages who flew her banner on Garrick’s plane, had reported that Braxidane’s god-touched had a weakness, a connection to a stable boy that Garrick had saved from a droll life.

  She could use the boy.

  And she could use Ettril Dor-Entfar, too. The mage had been smug as he reported his kidnapping the boy, as if his previous failures could be washed away with this single act of cunning.

  Hezarin rolled into her node, and relaxed.

  She reached a thin rivulet of red out through the multiple layers of Existence until she touched the gateway to Adruin. Braxidane had braced the entryway, but had obviously not felt confident enough to completely block it.

  She would make him pay for that weakness.

  A moment later, she had wrapped mage work around the life force of Ettril Dor-Entfar, pleased to find the sorcerer’s essence already tied to the stable boy’s. Perhaps the mage actually was a cut above the rest.

  When she was done, she retreated to her node.

  She found herself dancing and singing to herself as she hashed out her plans. She couldn’t wait to see Braxidane’s anger. Just the thought of his expression made her feel better now than she had in a long while.

  When she was ready, she flared with crimson power, lifted Braxidane’s barrier, and slipped into the plane.

  She had a debt to call, and there was no time to waste.

  Chapter 5

  Ettril Dor-Entfar planted his walking staff into the soft ground of the hillside and hauled himself up another step. The plan to attack the Freeborn called for surprise, and that meant leaving the horses behind and climbing to his position on foot. So now his legs felt like putty and his hand was cramping around the staff so badly that it felt about as twisted as the wood itself.

  The night was overcast, which was good for tactics, but made him anxious. As much as he wanted to ignore the fact that he was getting old, his eyesight just wasn’t as good as it once was and the bitter wind had a damp aspect that hurt his lungs in ways he was sure he had once been able to ignore. His only blessing was the blanket of silence he had cast earlier, a magic that swallowed the rustling of his footsteps and allowed him to grunt, groan, and otherwise complain as he picked his way up the wooded hill.

  The other roles required even more physical activity, though. Otherwise he would have wondered if Neuma was trying to cause his heart to go bad.

  The woman was dangerous, but she was also brilliant.

  A terrifying combination.

  He held onto the front of his robe and climbed the last steps to the ridge.

  The Freeborn camped in the depression below.

  He cast a brief spell to sense where everyone was, and found ten Torean mages, and, of course, their citizen leader. One man was on guard. Ettril could also sense Fil, Hirl-enat, and Neuma as well as the lower mages who had accompanied them, each in their proper places. He smiled, enjoying the essence of a well-made plan.

  Seeing everything was in place, he set gates and reached into the plane of magic. He let the flow trickle at first, chanting in a low whisper. Magic collected about him in tendrils of darkness that rose from the dead leaves. As they thickened, his voice became a steady hum. Soon the night grew so dense he could no longer see the sleeping Freeborn.

  He smiled and lowered his voice.

  His work was finished.

  Now it was up to the rest.

  It had been a very long day, and the nighttime didn’t promise to be any more comfortable.

  Darien was tired.

  The mages were testy and hungry.

  By the time he set the guard rotation the sky was dark, and the wind had become a biting wail. He retired to his bedroll and built a small fire of his own. As he ate his cold dinner he thought of Garrick and Sunathri, and of how they had met for the first time in a clearing of wood not much different from this one. Life is full of twists and turns.

  Was this what he wanted? To lead people who despised him?

  Who did he have to call his own now?

  No one, he realized. He had only himself and his father, who was ill and fading even as Darien sat here in the cold woods.

  Darien settled into his bedroll, feeling deeply alone and wondering if he would be able to sleep at all, but the events of the day had worn on him, and he drifted off almost as soon as he lay down.

  Darien raced on his horse, sword blazing in the sun.

  His warriors hacked at the Koradictine line. Sorcery and thick wood smoke swirled overhead. Men grunted, women screamed, and mages spoke spells.

  The enemy was a dark sea of battleaxes that gleamed like black death. He rode his charger forward. Blades flashed, and men died. He was cut. Blood ran down his leg. For every opponent he destroyed, two more took their place. And still the Koradictine army pressed on, voices rising in triumph. He was drowning, drowning in a sea he could no longer deal with.

  “Retreat!” he commanded, raising his sword.

  “Retreat!”

  Darien sat bolt upright, waking to the bloody smell of Koradictine magic he had grown to know too well. Darkness cloaked the camp, but he could never mistake that odor. He had smelled the reek of it in the depths of Arderveer and again on the battlefields of God’s Tower.

  Footsteps came from the forest.

  Jason groaned: “What? Arh—”

  Darien’s fire had faded to embers, but his sword was there, glinting reddish with its magical touch. He grasped the weapon and stood. The darkness was so thick that even light from the blade could not cut it. The sound of breaking branches came from somewhere outside the ring of camp.

  The odor of curdled blood grew stifling.

  “Wake up,” Darien called, but his voice seemed dull and dead. He found the man beside him. “Carvil?” he said, pushing the man’s shoulder with his fo
ot as he peered more deeply into inky darkness.

  Carvil stirred and then, seeing Darien’s drawn sword, he snapped awake.

  “Wake up!” Darien yelled this time. “Koradictines! Wake up!”

  Incarnadine magic came from three points around the perimeter. A blast caught Ragan as he stood. The Torean fell heavily and did not move again.

  Carvil spoke halting magic.

  Darien gripped his blade tightly and raced toward the place where the spell work had originated. The ground was freezing to his bare feet, but he ignored the cold as he fought the magical mire of blackness that wrapped itself around him. He lurched forward, but it was like wading through a swamp. He hacked at the nighttime and felt the mire loosen, but a moment later it flowed back and he was again fighting the muck.

  A mage stood behind a row of thorn bushes, casting.

  Darien leaped over the brush and swung his blade. The mage cast a bolt of energy that caught him on the thigh and burned like acid. Darien screamed and pulled his leg back, but his blade found its full purchase and split the Koradictine nearly in two.

  Sorcery lit the area with yellow and orange strobes.

  Darien saw the full story in those flares.

  Koradictines ringed the area, casting in alternating volleys, cutting down Torean mages as they slept or as they emerged from their bedrolls.

  Darien ran to the next sorcerer. He raised his weapon high, catching the mage in mid-spell. Without waiting, Darien continued on.

  The forest lit up in flames, and a Torean screamed from somewhere.

  Darien’s mind was lost in the battle. Pain stabbed his leg at each step, and his feet were now numb. Footsteps crashed through the forest from all directions at once. His blade found another mage, and he raced on.

  Time passed without passing until he realized the only sounds around him were those of his own rushing about, of sticks breaking under his cold feet, and of his blade hacking at brush and dark haze.

  He stopped and listened.

  The air smelled of ammonia, carbon, and burnt wood.

  Men lay on the ground.

  He went to the first. Logan. His chest was burned nearly through. His eyes bulged in a dead stare. Next was Trentor, who lay face-down on the ground near the embers of their fire. He had lost an arm and lay in a pool of liquid darkness that gleamed slick and crimson. Darien rolled him over and saw that Trentor, too, was dead.

  True panic came to him, then.

  His glance flittered over the shadows and trees that merged with the darkness, unable to stop in any one place. A chill that had nothing to do with the cold crossed his spine. His toes ached in sudden proximity to the fire, and pain scrubbed his thigh.

  A faint voice moaned.

  Carvil.

  Darien hobbled to his side.

  The man’s stomach glistened with blood in the darkness, but he was alive. Barely.

  “Come on,” Darien said. “Let me draw you nearer the fire.”

  “Don’t touch me,” Carvil muttered. His breathing was shallow.

  “I’ve got to get you warmed.”

  Carvil swallowed, then looked at Darien with accusing eyes. “I hope … you’re satisfied.” He closed his eyes. With that, the last Torean wizard in Darien’s party died.

  Chapter 6

  “That was fine work, Ettril,” a voice came from nearby.

  Etrill's heart jumped, but he was too tired to react. Instead, he slowly turned to find a large porcupine with pins as long as daggers staring at him. It had glistening black eyes. Heat rolled off its body in waves that, for just an instant, made Ettril want to warm his hands in it.

  “Who are you?” Ettril said.

  He regained his wits and clenched his hands around his staff.

  “Don’t bother with your magic, wizard. We’ve met before. I’m concerned you don’t recall me.”

  Ettril peered at the creature and saw a familiarity in the way the porcupine’s gaze glittered, and he sensed the aroma of power that now seemed so ingrained in her aura that he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t sensed it before.

  “Hezarin,” he said, giving a shallow nod of the head as his bow. “It is good to see you again, Milady.”

  “Let’s do without the pleasantries. Given the way you botched the entire exercise with Jormar, I’m almost certain you do not think it is good to see me again.”

  “Surely you can see Jormar’s loss was not my fault,” Ettril said. “The Lectodinian god-touched caused our problems, and the Torean mage was lucky.”

  Hezarin’s quills ruffled. Her eyes drew to beads, and a fire’s heat rose from her belly. “There is no such thing as luck, Ettril. Only deeds. You failed to deliver your end. Your order has lost my god-touched on this plane. You are the lord superior here, are you not?”

  He took a firmer position with his feet and squared his shoulders. No matter how tired he was, he would not take this kind of abuse like a mouse.

  “That I am,” he said. “What can I do to repair this failure?”

  The porcupine smiled. “That’s better,” she said. “I have need of you elsewhere.”

  “Then I will go.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  Magic rose then. Ettril’s mind twisted and his feet lifted, or perhaps it was the ground that folded itself and fell away. He could not tell. But when his trip was complete, the high superior of the Koradictine order was no longer standing, and no longer in the wood.

  He was, in fact, no longer on the plane of Adruin.

  Book 2: Lectodinian Uprising

  Chapter 1

  It was early morning, and a crisp wind blew against the closed shutters of Zutrian Esta’s laboratory. Winter was coming early to the mountains this year. The leaves had already turned, their edges grown russet and crimson in the red rays of the sun, their bodies curling inward as they fell to the ground. The window sills gave a staccato rattle, drawing Zutrian’s concentration from an elixir that bubbled with green froth.

  Zutrian grumbled.

  Being high superior of the Lectodinian order meant there was never enough time. He had woken early in an attempt to enjoy the craft of his spell work, but he was having difficulty concentrating, and his elixir was bubbling too strongly.

  The window rattled again.

  Salt.

  He needed salt to control the process.

  Zutrian went to a row of shelves and slid a glass pane back. He remembered a time when his mother would stand over the cooking pot, sipping from the ladle and deciding whether to add sage, cinnamon, or whatever bit of magic she thought would make the broth interesting. She would have made a good mage, he thought as he returned to the potion.

  He dribbled a pinch into the mixture.

  The potion calmed into a translucent emerald soup.

  Zutrian nodded absently and opened his link to the plane of magic, letting the proper portion of magestuff seep into the mixture. A sliver of blue appeared in the cup, then dissolved into the base.

  Yes.

  Potion magic was like watching a grandchild, he thought. He never got to do it enough.

  A pounding came from the door.

  Zutrian scowled and straightened. “Enter,” he said.

  Arasia, a chambermaid, entered with a tray. She was young, and her hair was tied in a utilitarian bun at the back of her neck. “Your breakfast, Superior.”

  A man loomed behind her like a buzzard in the doorway.

  “The sun isn’t even up, yet,” he said to Halsten.

  “What, sir?” the maid replied.

  “I’m sorry, Arasia, I wasn’t speaking to you. Thank you for bringing me breakfast.”

  “You’re quite welcome, sir. You’ve got to eat better.”

  “I’ll try.”

  The chambermaid put the tray down at his table. As she left, Halsten slipped into the room. The echo of his boots on the flagstone seemed to ring in the day.

  Zutrian pulled back the corner of the linen covering his food. The aroma of apple-scented oa
ts made his stomach come alive. He cupped the bowl in one hand, letting heat seep into his fingers as he took a seat on the hard-backed chair, upholstered in the earthy style of Badwall’s western culture.

  “I need your council, Superior,” Halsten said.

  “I assumed as much.”

  “Your edict that we remain undetected is causing problems.”

  “Hmmm?” Zutrian spooned his first bite of breakfast.

  Halsten drew near, wrapping his hand over the back of another chair, hesitating as if waiting for the superior to add something.

  Zutrian merely chewed and beckoned him to continue.

  “There is a village to the north, sir. Jayalla, I think it’s called. If we run the training exercises I have planned, then the village will certainly be alerted to our presence.”

  “So, what do you recommend?”

  “I suggest a nighttime raid, sir. Something quick, that removes the village from the map in total.”

  “I see,” Zutrian said. He scooped another bite of his cereal, but left it in his spoon. “And what do we do with the people?”

  “I’m sure we can sell them to Rickard.”

  “Rickard is in the farthest northlands.”

  “True.”

  “Winter is coming. Do you want to trek through the northlands in ice and snow?”

  “I think we could do this quickly enough to avoid weather.”

  Avoid weather, certainly, Zutrian thought. At least the mages could. Displacing an entire village in the winter months would, however, result in more deaths during the ensuing march than occurred in the raid itself.

  “And how do you suggest we handle the scouts and rangers?”

  “Superior?”

  “The scouts and rangers, Halsten.” Zutrian’s temper rose despite himself. His stomach knotted as he left the cereal to cool on a low table. “I didn’t choose this place as our stronghold by accident, you know? I know this land. I know its people. I know how it smells and how it tastes. If we wipe an entire village from the face of the plane, the land will attack back. Rangers will note its disappearance, and they will talk. Stories will pass through towns and seep throughout the plane as sure as vines grow in the forest.”