Lord Of The Freeborn (Book 7) Page 2

  The aroma of magic grew headstrong as the planewalker stepped into the room.

  Yes.

  There could be value in this one.

  Neuma’s skin tingled as mist from the braziers crawled across the floor to caress the hem of Hezarin’s scarlet robe. Hezarin was the most beautiful woman she had ever set eyes upon. She was tall and thin. Her chestnut colored hair fell past her shoulders in loose curls, and her eyes were the green of spearmint.

  “You think I needed your aid to step upon this plane?” Hezarin said.

  Neuma’s jaw worked, but no sound came forward.

  “My Mistress,” she said, finally finding words. “I merely wished to support you.”

  Hezarin’s eyes sparkled. “Come now, Neuma. You can be more direct than that.”

  Neuma cleared her throat. “I … I feel I can best serve you by building the Koradictine order back to its prominence, back to the power it once was.”

  “That’s better.”

  A delighted smile came across Hezarin’s lips. Her voice became a cat’s purr. Hezarin moved like a phantom, gliding through the misty remnants of spell work to stand before Neuma, coiling her arm around the mage’s waist to pull Neuma’s body against hers.

  “No secrets between us, right?” she said.

  “Quite right, Lordess.” Neuma bowed her head slightly, trying to contain her reaction to the pressure of Hezarin’s touch. “No secrets.”

  “For my part,” Hezarin said, gazing down at her, “my first revelation will be, perhaps my finest.”

  Neuma’s eyes grew wide and her throat cottony as Hezarin bent to kiss her.

  “Certainly,” Neuma murmured before their lips touched, “it will be the most anticipated.”

  Chapter 3

  Garrick arrived at Darien’s chambers only to find Will standing there, clutching a collection of papers under one arm and balancing a thick stack of notebooks in the other. The boy had grown over the months, but his eyes were still his most startling feature. They glistened at him now, wide with worry.

  “Where is he?” Garrick said.

  “Master Darien is gone, sir.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He left the city last night. Reynard told me to gather up his notes.”

  “Gather his notes?”

  “He said he wanted to see what Darien was up to.”

  Garrick gave a grunt. “As if Darien ever held much back.”

  He looked around the chamber and saw the ornamental robes and gilded dagger that Ellesadil had given Darien during celebrations of their victory at God’s Tower. The robe was precisely folded, and sitting on the dresser. The blade, wrapped in its scabbard, lay primly over it. This brought him worries. These were ritualistic symbols, and Darien came from a family that cherished such things.

  “Leave the notes here,” Garrick said.

  Will hesitated.

  “Tell Reynard that if he wants to see Darien’s notes he can make arrangements for us to do it together.”

  “Yes, sir, Master Garrick,” Will said, putting the scrolls and manuals down.

  Garrick considered correcting Will’s use of “sir” and “master” once again, but in this case it seemed somehow appropriate.

  “Shall I go,” Will said. “I still have stable work for the morning.”

  “Yes,” Garrick replied. “You should go.”

  Will scampered away, and Garrick took a moment to walk around the empty chambers.

  It felt cold here, cold beyond the chill of winter. The room felt of emptiness, of the hollow shiver of abandonment he had known so well growing up in the streets.

  Darien had taken his demotion hard.

  Of course he had.

  His friend had wanted to make a difference, wanted so badly to lead his people to the greatness that he saw in them. But Garrick saw a truth about his friend now that he had not seen earlier. Darien was a leader, but he was no politician. He could achieve things that others found too big to comprehend—could make priorities and snap decisions on a battlefield, for example, and could lead armies to victory where others might find themselves buried in quagmires. But Darien was young and he was overly exuberant. He had no patience.

  He was, Garrick thought, perhaps, like his father before him.

  The idea made Garrick think. He turned to examine the room once again. Yes, Darien had taken the sword his father had given him.

  Another bad sign.

  He may still be able to find Darien, though—at least he thought he could. Even on a horse, Darien couldn’t have gotten too far with only a few hours of travel. With the sensation of his life force pulsing through him now, and with the life bond the two of them had shared since the moment Garrick had saved his friend from devastation at Arderveer, he was almost certain he could reach out and touch Darien no matter where he was.

  Garrick sat in a hard-backed chair and relaxed as he opened a link to the plane of magic. Sweet magestuff pooled inside him. He felt it swirling, felt the movement of every hair on his arms as they rose to the power that grew in the room. He sensed people in the streets, Daventry’s anger at a new cook in the kitchen, a fisherman worried about his nets hanging in the icy weather, a blacksmith pumping bellows to bring heat to fires that cooled too quickly in the winter chill.

  Garrick focused to the west, then north, but felt no pattern that reminded him of Darien. He turned his attention eastward, though, and a smile crawled across his face. He felt Darien in that direction, his heart beating warmly inside layers of protective skins. Eastward, toward the Rock Thorn Mountains where Thale, Darien’s brother, had fallen to minions of the Minotaur king several years before.

  It made so much sense when he thought about it.

  Garrick twisted his magic, pulling a cover over himself and creating the image of a gate opening into Existence. He stepped forward, drawing more energy around him, slipping into a flow that roared with sizzling furor. Then he focused on Darien, saw where he was, and felt the area around him.

  A moment later he stepped from the twisted passages of Existence, and found himself …

  … standing calf-deep in snow. The woods around him was full of brittle, ice-layered trees that had shorn their leaves a month before, their branches standing firm, but curling up in the cold air like fingers of empty hands. Darien’s horse plodded away from Garrick, its head bent downward on a snowbound path, its breath billowing in gray clouds.

  “Where are you going, my friend?”

  Startled, Darien drew his sword.

  “Garrick,” he finally said.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Darien let the blade slide back into its sheath. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know where you’re going.”

  “East.”

  “That is not a destination.

  Darien gave nothing but an impatient glare. An awkward silence rose amid the falling snow.

  “Don’t be an arse, Darien. We need you in Dorfort.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not patronizing you. The Freeborn need you.”

  “The Freeborn made it absurdly clear they do not need me.

  “All right. I need you. Ellesadil is evicting us. I need someone he trusts.”

  Darien pursed his lips.

  “Here is my advice to you, Garrick. Take the Freeborn anywhere. It doesn’t matter where, as long as it is as far from Dorfort as you can get. This way, when the order dissolves, it will not create problems for anyone else.”

  “Sunathri was able to keep things together,” Garrick said.

  “Sunathri was special.”

  “You were able to manage them well enough at God’s Tower.”

  Darien smiled. It was not the wide grin of confidence Garrick had seen so often during their travels, nor was it the grim grin of victory he had seen at God’s Tower.

  “You really are incredible,” Darien replied.

  The two stood in silence as snow fell.

 
; “It’s not my fault that I’m like this,” Garrick finally said, speaking words he thought they both needed to hear.

  “What’s that?”

  “I didn’t ask to be god-touched. It’s not my fault they want me rather than you.”

  “That—right there—is your problem,” Darien said.

  “My problem?”

  “People won’t hate you for your powers, Garrick. At least most won’t. They’ll hate you for your lack of conviction. They’ll hate you because you have this … thing … about you that you could use for so much good, but you’re so tied up in your own undergarments that you can’t even move your bowels without thinking about it for a week first.”

  “I get that you’re hurt,” Garrick said.

  Darien shook his head.

  “Look at yourself, Garrick. You’re standing in the middle of a snowstorm with nothing but a pair of leather breeches and a linen tunic between you and this freezing cold, a freezing cold that, I remind you, would put a normal man to the cough—yet you look as comfortable as if you’re standing before a fire in your chambers.”

  Garrick shrugged.

  “You were right to take the Freeborn, Garrick. Is that what you needed to hear? They need a man of your powers.”

  “You have not lost me.”

  Darien drew a breath and looked to the east.

  “Go away, Garrick.”

  “You know I can bring you back whether you want me to or not.”

  “Is that what Sunathri would have done?”

  Garrick’s throat constricted.

  Snow fell in larger flakes. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Darien was supposed to forgive Garrick, and say it was fine that Garrick had taken his place. And Darien was supposed to return with him. But he thought about Darien’s words.

  Is that what Sunathri would have done?

  Suni had let Garrick walk free when he chose to leave the Freeborn. In fact, she had made her point by forcing him to walk away from the order rather than be the one to walk away herself. But she had lived with his decision.

  He knew what he had to do.

  “You can always come back,” Garrick said.

  “That sounds familiar, too.”

  “Patience has been proven to work at times.”

  Darien nodded, then turned his horse away. “Don’t wait too long for me, Garrick,” he said over his shoulder. “It could get very lonely.”

  “That’s a chance I’ll take,” Garrick said.

  Then he stood silently as Darien disappeared into a cloud of blowing snow.

  Chapter 4

  Hezarin stretched.

  She was lying in Neuma’s bed, looking at the map she had cast upon the wall. She felt the heat of the Koradictine’s body curled in a ball beside her. The map showed the path their caravan would trace across the continent over the next few weeks, ending at Dorfort, a city built at the junction of a river and a lake.

  She would have preferred to just walk into the city herself until she found Garrick. There were advantages to ripping through a town—it made a point that few could miss—but she agreed it wouldn’t be hard to find the Freeborn leader, and she agreed that Neuma’s plan was better overall, though of course, Neuma didn’t yet know how Hezarin intended to extend the approach.

  There would be a time for that later.

  She would savor everything so much more with Neuma involved, though. And by traveling across the continent together, they would be able to place leaders in important locations and they could learn of areas that were dissatisfied with Ellesadil and his lazy approach to managing commerce. Dissatisfaction, she had found, was the root of all change.

  And she wanted change, sweet, chaotic change, across all of Braxidane’s plane. She wanted to break Adruin, then watch as her brother attempted to avoid the fallout.

  Hezarin watched the sheets rise with Neuma’s breathing.

  The mage had proven to be sharp and efficient. Her magic was bold. Hezarin had not seen such ambition at any time in her memory. She wondered if anything would have been different at God’s Tower if she had selected Neuma as her Koradictine champion rather than Jormar.

  Hezarin looked back at the map, smiling as she slipped out of bed.

  She would obliterate the entire city at the end of the world, would rain fire upon it like she had commanded Ettril to do in Nestafar. When she was done, the Freeborn would be broken, Dorfort would be ruined, and Garrick would be dead.

  Yes, Hezarin thought, the trek across the land was worth it.

  Neuma lay curled in a ball with her back to Hezarin. What was she supposed to do now? Her plans had been detailed, but had not included falling into Hezarin’s bed. Her mind raced with heady essence, and her body burned with a leaden ache that helped her know for certain the past few days weren’t just a vivid dream. This thing with Hezarin complicated things, though. It left her feeling out of control, that despite the depth of her preparation, she really had no plan.

  She did not enjoy being without a plan.

  Was she safe? What if Hezarin had used her? Had Neuma merely exposed herself to the whims of a Lordess who would later toss her aside? The idea hurt as it scrubbed against the warmth of last night’s ecstasy. This was all so new to her. Did she love the planewalker? Was that why the idea of betrayal hurt so badly?

  Did Hezarin feel the same?

  Was this coupling more than mere godsplay to her?

  And, more important: would it happen again?

  She felt Hezarin move, but she was afraid to roll over. She wanted to know the answers to these questions, but realized the truth could destroy her. So she lay still, controlling her breathing as best she could, and felt Hezarin slide from the bed to begin preparations for her day.

  “You slept well,” Hezarin said.

  Neuma, knowing her facade was up, rolled over to see Hezarin at her ramshackle dresser, running a comb through her hair. The sight of a planewalker taking such mundane action just added to the moment’s incongruity.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling with languid satisfaction. “I slept very well.”

  “It’s time to begin our travels,” Hezarin said.

  The tone of the planewalker’s voice made Neuma’s belly sink. Hezarin was already focused on the plan.

  Her plan, she corrected herself with a touch of anger. It was embarrassing to know she had let a single night’s fling change her focus. Her plan, she thought. It was Neuma’s plan to confront Garrick and his Freeborn mages directly in his hometown of Dorfort, but to do so from a traditional march across the map—avoiding the more natural, hence well defended, bay harbor of the Blue Lake. Neuma would lead them in, creating a disturbance and destroying as much of the Dorfort resistance as necessary, then Hezarin would deal with Garrick directly.

  It was a good plan, this scheme of hers, as far as it went.

  It would take longer to march across land, but once there the chance for surprise would be invaluable.

  “Yes,” she said, putting her feet to the ground. “They will be long days.”

  “And,” Hezarin said, speaking with a soft tone that came from deep in her throat, “perhaps a few long nights, too, right?”

  Neuma felt a grin cross her face, and an odd, thrilling warmth spread throughout other areas of her body.

  Chapter 5

  “I wish you would just let me do it my way,” Reynard said.

  Garrick pushed his bread away, unable to keep from glaring at the Freeborn. Reynard said these words so often, they seemed etched inside Garrick’s mind.

  Reynard sat across from him, dabbing at his lips with the edge of a napkin. The aroma of butter and porridge lingered over their table. The hum of voices filled the Inn, which was bustling with activity because the Dandy Mare was outside taking on load and preparing to depart later today. The docks of Dorfort were never quiet, but they burst with energy at every arrival and departure.

  This was supposed to be a simple breakfast, a way for Garrick and Reynard to get toge
ther and to be seen working in public. Garrick had directed the Freeborn to do most of their living out among the people of the city in order to create bonds of familiarity. It had worked—to some extent. At least no one had been maimed or had died in the process. But right now he would give years of his life to be able to throw something at Reynard.

  He kept his voice down with great effort.

  “We need a plan that holds water. And it can’t be something you just dream up and start giving directions for. We need everyone to agree. If Sunathri and Darien were here, you know that’s what we would be talking about.”

  “You have to stop bringing her up,” Reynard replied. “She’s gone.”

  “I bring her up because her way worked.”

  Reynard pursed his lips. He, too, was clearly restraining himself due to the public nature of their location.

  “We should just head to the Red Marshes,” Reynard said. “We can live there in isolation while we get the Freeborn into better status.”

  “That is your pet idea, Reynard. Not a plan. What do we need to do to arrive at a plan that everyone agrees with?”

  Reynard sighed. “That will never happen.”

  “But we can get close. Close enough, anyway. I’ve seen it. Sunathri and—”

  “Please.” Reynard held a hand up. “Sunathri and Darien, Sunathri and Darien … I swear I hear that phrase in my sleep.”

  Garrick clenched his jaw. A stab of Braxidane’s hunger reached a cold tendril through his thoughts. It was painful, but it was a glorious pain, a pain that made him shiver. The hunger seemed to reach out to the sweet rush of life force he felt moving throughout the room, it snaked its way across beating hearts and rode the warm streams of blood flowing within. Garrick could taste their lives with a thick, stifling sensation that started at the back of his throat. It made him want, made him crave. But he could handle that now. To the greatest degree, anyway. Unclenching his muscles and swallowing down the darkness inside him, he pushed the hunger into the recesses of his being and returned his thoughts to the present.