The Emerald Crown (The Red Sword Trilogy Book 3) Page 8

  The marauders reached the highway, but didn’t stop at any of the castles or encampments. Instead, they followed the road west toward the mountains. It was then that I fell behind because I could hardly run down the highway during daylight, with all the wagon trains, chained slaves, Veyrian soldiers, and merchants.

  I was eventually spotted and fled into the woods, where I hid until night before continuing my pursuit. The trail was still easy to follow, but I’d fallen well behind. For the next few days, I pursued during the night, retreated from the road during the day to sleep, and continued my hunt the next evening. I was getting farther and farther behind, but surely they’d stop soon. Why would they carry our friends all the way to the mountains?

  I was on the western border of Aristonia when I smelled Alyssa and Stephan leaving the road. The scent carried along a farm road, crossed a shallow stream, and cut over a hill topped by an overgrown, abandoned apple orchard. The acolytes had separated from the marauders, who followed behind. It seemed our friends had escaped and made a run for it, with the enemy in pursuit. Or so I thought.

  If I could only reach the acolytes before the marauders, I could change back into human form, cast magic on the three of us, and we’d slip away, concealed, before the enemy caught us.

  I was anxious, moving too quickly, and had grown careless. A sharp scent that reminded me of the gardens drew my attention. There, coming from between two apple trees, was a smell that could only be the acolytes themselves. It was dark, but I saw shapes. My friends!

  It was only a pile of cloaks, tunics, and leggings—the acolytes’ clothing. I nosed it, confused.

  I didn’t see or smell the trap until it was too late. The ground gave way beneath me, and I flailed at the air with a started howl. A wolf pit. I landed at the bottom, with loose branches, sticks, and leaves raining down on me. If the enemy had put sharpened stakes at the bottom, I’d have been done for.

  But they didn’t want to kill me, only take me prisoner. Two marauders appeared above, together with the dark acolyte—her name is Jasmeen. She has a dark heart and a wicked soul.

  Jasmeen stood above the pit, hands on her hips. “Narud. I knew it was you. I felt you coming. How easy to turn the tables—the master promised as much, and it has come true just as he prophesied.”

  I stared up at her, snarling, wondering how she had got ahead of me. She hadn’t left with the marauders, she’d fled with Toth and Zartosht. But Chantmer and I spent weeks hunting the dark acolytes in the palace and the city, and this wasn’t the first time she’d bested me.

  “You came looking for your friends, but it’s too late.” Another cruel smile. “They’re still alive—but breaking. Alyssa is with us already, and Stephan will soon follow. And now we have you, a so-called wizard. A prize for my master. We’ll have your obedience, too.”

  The marauders had ropes, and Jasmeen placed her hands together to bring up sorcery. Whatever they were planning, I wanted nothing to do with it.

  I took a mighty leap from the bottom of the pit. I couldn’t get my paws up, but I got my snout above the surface and snapped my teeth on Jasmeen’s ankle. I dragged her into the wolf pit, intent on tearing out her throat.

  And then my body went limp, and I collapsed. Someone had tossed a rope around my muzzle—an enchanted rope—and it had me paralyzed. Jasmeen attacked me with her fists and knees, until someone hauled her off me. I turned back into a man.

  They trussed me and dragged me out of the pit, and then they put me in a wagon with bars at the door. My legs were free, but they’d bound my hands behind my back. The wagon smelled of piss and vomit and blood. There, curled up in dirty straw in the corner, was Stephan. Naked and bleeding, and whispering for water for his cracked lips. No sign of Alyssa. What had they done to her?

  Peering through the bars into the early light of dawn, I saw that we were on the Tothian Way, passing through a stretch of burned farmland and gutted villages on the border of Aristonia.

  I made my way to Stephan’s side. “It’s me, Narud.”

  He stared at me through crusted eyes. “You’re naked. And your hands . . . does that mean they…?”

  “Where are they taking us? Where is Alyssa?”

  “She’s one of them now. I will be soon, too. And now, you.”

  “Talk sense. Where is she? Where have they taken her?”

  The wagon creaked to a stop, the door swung open, and a marauder grabbed me and dragged me out. He threw my back against the wagon and seized my throat. Another marauder appeared, holding a glass vial with a viscous yellow liquid in it. Jasmeen stood to one side, shadow bleeding from her hands. She chanted an oily incantation in the old tongue as they tried to force the liquid down my throat.

  I struggled and flailed, but marauders have unnatural strength, and the need to breathe when a man has his hand on your throat is hard to overcome. The liquid was bitter, and burned the lips and tongue like a Marrabatti chili pepper. Some of it went down. Jasmeen watched with a triumphant expression.

  “An elixir of thrall?” I said. “You think that will work on me?”

  Jasmeen gestured, and Alyssa came up behind her. The whites of her eyes had turned yellow, and her lips were pale. They’d dressed her in gray robes, but her hands looked bony where they emerged from the sleeves, as if her flesh had wasted away. It had only been a few days since they’d taken her.

  “Alyssa is a slave of King Toth,” Jasmeen said. “His dark acolyte. Her mind is gone, her free will burned out. She is like a ravager, a tool, and nothing more. Stephan will turn soon, too. And then you.”

  “I can resist the elixir indefinitely,” I said. “You won’t compel me to do anything.”

  “You are a wizard, and you might resist, perhaps as long as a fortnight, but starved, delirious, you will be too weak to hold out forever.” Hatred twisted her features. “The king has instructed me to make you an offer. Join us now, freely. Keep your will, and join as a servant, not a slave. Equal with Zartosht, with Vashti, with me.”

  “Utter madness. I walk the Crimson Path.”

  She gestured at Alyssa, who stood blank faced and yellow eyed behind her. “Your friend said the same thing.” Jasmeen nodded at the marauders. “Give him more elixir.”

  More of it went down my throat this time, but it all came up again minutes later, when they put me back in the wagon with Stephan. My tongue and lips burned, my stomach cramped violently, and I was sick again.

  Stephan crawled over to me. “Vomiting doesn’t help. You’ll go to sleep eventually, and then you’ll have nightmares. When you wake, everything will look gray. You’ll see wights. It’s madness.”

  “Food? Water?”

  “A little water, but no food. They say we’ll never eat again.”

  I eyed him doubtfully. “Even marauders need to eat.”

  “But dark acolytes don’t. They pull their sustenance from the bodies of those they torture. And eventually, they don’t need water, either. They draw it from the air.”

  I turned this over in my head, this bending of the natural world. Would I be able to resist forever? Or at least until they grew tired of me and cut my throat? That would be preferable to going yellow eyed and dead like Alyssa. But it would be challenging enough without resisting while my belly was empty and my lips cracked with thirst.

  “I won’t turn,” I said. “By the Brothers, it will never happen.”

  “That’s what Alyssa said, too. She was stronger than me—when I first faced the nightmares and felt the shadows, I thought I was doomed. She told me to fight, to keep fighting. But I still have my mind, and she is gone. Something changed last night, and she went over to their side just before they captured you.”

  The wagon was on the move again. Riders overtook us, regular Veyrian mounted troops. A few minutes later, we passed a long row of chained slaves trudging west with downcast eyes. They were mostly from the khalifates, but among them were dark-skinned slaves from the sultanates, barbarians with their pale skin, easily burned in the baki
ng sun, and a variety of people from other lands, with other skin colors, hair, and accents. Aristonians, too. Hundreds of them.

  I pulled away from the bars and scooted around until my back—and my bound hands—faced Stephan. “Untie me.”

  “You can’t cast magic in here. I already tried. There’s some sort of sorcerous shield enveloping us.”

  “I don’t believe it. Untie me.”

  “They’ll punish you.”

  “Let them.”

  “They’ll punish me.”

  I glanced over my shoulder, surprised by his craven tone. Was it only the light, or did his eyes have a yellowish gleam? Maybe that wasn’t cowardice in his tone. Maybe he was turning.

  “In the name of Memnet the Great and by the authority of the Crimson Path, I order you to untie my hands, Stephan, Acolyte of the Order.”

  Stephan gave a great shudder, and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. There was yellow around the rims. But when he looked back, his gaze was a little more clear, and he seemed more steady. He obeyed. Soon, my hands were free, and I was rubbing circulation into them while turning over my options for escape.

  I put my hands on the door. Strips of iron reinforced it from the exterior, but apart from that, it was just wood. A simple spell would tear it apart, no harder than blasting a stump out of the ground in the garden. I’d cast a concealing spell on the pair of us first, turn the door to kindling, and we’d make a run for it. The only question was to do it now, or wait until night, when darkness would offer protection, but we’d be farther west into the hill country, and farther from home.

  I explained my plan to Stephan. “If we leave, it means abandoning Alyssa. I hate the thought of that. But if she’s turned, there’s nothing we can do for her anyway.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’ll never get through the door.”

  “I told you—it’s only wood. I have mastery over wood.”

  Stephan shook his head miserably. “I know that spell—it’s one of the few I can manage without someone feeding me the incantation. I tried it already.”

  “You did?”

  “I don’t have your power, of course I don’t. But look at the door. Do you see any damage at all? Narud, touch it. Feel it. You’ll see what I mean. The sorcerer himself covered this wagon with wards.”

  I put my hand on the wood and brought up a small spell to feel through the wood, to see what might be blocking my escape. If not the door, I could break through the walls, or through the floorboards, to drop onto the road and let the wagon pass over top of us. Magical tendrils probed the wood, and there found the enemy’s sorcery. I pulled back with a startled cry of pain. Every nerve in my hand and arm jangled with pain.

  “You see what I mean,” Stephan said. “We are doomed.”

  “Don’t talk that way. We’re not doomed.”

  I may not have been able to blast my way out with magic, but as I tapped at the walls and pulled up the straw to feel for a rotten board, for loose nails, something else occurred to me. The wagon was solidly built, but if I were strong enough, I could simply knock the door from its hinges. A human couldn’t do it, but what about a large beast?

  I settled on a bear. That was an animal I knew well enough from my encounters with Wilford on the forest path of the gardens. Wait until nightfall, change to a bear, and smash our way free through brute strength.

  I settled in to wait out the day. The wagon bumped along at a steady pace, now part of a general flow of traffic to the west. King Toth had barely subdued the eastern plains and was already gathering the might of the khalifates to hurl against the barbarian lands on the other side of the Dragon’s Spine. His road, once built, was indestructible, laid down with sorcery and bound with the pain, suffering, and death of thousands. And he felt compelled to extend it to the ends of the earth.

  Stephan fell into a deep slumber, and when he woke in the afternoon, began muttering incoherently. The yellow had spread from the rims of his eyes toward the center, and when I shook him, he said something about serving the master, and it wasn’t Memnet the Great he was talking about. Alarmed, I explained my new plan.

  “Leave me, Narud. I’m lost.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “He’s in my head. He compels me to obey. When Jasmeen returns, I’ll have no will to resist.”

  Once Stephan was free, I told myself, he would recover his wits. Once they were no longer pouring that sorcerous elixir down his gullet. And once free, I’d speed his recovery with magic of my own. But I had to get him out of the cage, or he would truly be lost. Even worse, I was no longer convinced of my own ability to resist. Not forever.

  It wasn’t yet night, but nearly dusk, which was close enough.

  I closed my eyes to think about a bear, and pictured Wilford as I’d last seen him. Black fur, brown muzzle. Thirty-five stone of brute muscle. Wilford could tear that door from its hinges, then brawl his way clear of the enemy forces to flee into the surrounding countryside, with Stephan following. Stay free just until dark; that was all I had to do.

  But I couldn’t get it, couldn’t capture the essence of a bear like I had with a wolfhound. The first time I made that transition, Memnet gave me a bit of wolfhound’s fur, told me to hold it to my nose and smell it. If only I had a little bit of Wilford’s fur with me. Without it, I couldn’t get enough bear to be sure of completing the transformation.

  “Master,” Stephan whispered. He squatted in the corner with his knees pulled to his chest. His eyes were yellow. “I am ready to serve you now.” He stared at me with a baleful gaze. “Turn, Narud. Turn and serve the necromancer.”

  I stared in alarm. It was already too late for him. And soon it would be too late for me, too. Nothing would get me out of here.

  It was then that I heard something moving in the wagon. I pushed aside the filthy straw and caught a mouse. The little thing fought and struggled, but I cupped it gently in my hands until it calmed. I glanced at Stephan—no longer to be trusted—then lifted the mouse to where I could whisper in its ear.

  “My friend. My little friend. I need your help to escape this place. It is a prison for me, and I must borrow your essence to free myself.”

  It sat very still, warm and fragile in my palms, heart beating rapidly. Its life force moved swiftly, as one finds in all such small creatures. Yet it seemed to understand, and when I placed it on my leg so I could expose my palms, it didn’t flee in terror. The words came to my lips.

  Moments later, I was a mouse. It was time to escape.

  Chapter Nine

  “So you just crawled through the bars of the door and went on your way?” Markal asked.

  The two companions were drawing nearer to the gardens, and it would soon be time to complete the journey on foot. They seemed safe from pursuit, but Markal had kept a wary eye on the road behind the turnip wagon while Narud told his story. The farmer up front kept trudging alongside his horse, unaware that he was carrying two wizards who didn’t have a shekel between them to pay for the ride.

  “You have to think like a mouse, Markal. Would a mouse have crawled up the door where he could be spotted? What mouse would do that when there was a perfectly good hole in the floorboards?”

  “You never said there was a hole. You said the floor was sound.”

  Narud gave him a look. He wore a pair of trousers they’d pinched before leaving the village of Woods Crossing, but was still bare from the waist up, and scratched at the tufts of black hair growing on his chest.

  “The floor was too sound for a human to break through. For a mouse, even the smallest holes are gateways. I slipped out and dropped onto the road, suffered a few near misses from boots and hooves, and reached safe ground by the side of the highway.”

  Markal picked up a turnip, brushed off a dirty spot, took a bite, and grimaced. Raw turnip. Narud gave him a look.

  “I’m hungry,” Markal said with a shrug. “Go on. You obviously didn’t get away that easily, or you wouldn’t have that burn on the i
nside of your arm.”

  Markal had cast some magic on the wound, and it was nothing but a fading pink spot now, but Alyssa had inflicted damage in her attack, if that’s who had truly done it; Narud hadn’t reached that part of his story yet.

  “I could have held the mouse form all night, but when you’re that small you have other things to worry about. Before I knew it, not one but two foxes were after me, chasing me here and there, and I was barely off the highway.

  “I changed back into human form just as one of the foxes pounced on me. He was rather surprised, let me tell you. That chased off the foxes, but the enemy detected me at once. Then Jasmeen was hunting me, together with Alyssa and several marauders. And Stephan. Our old friend is with them now. I changed forms again. I had a series of near misses, some of them taking place while I was a wolfhound, some as a human.

  “Once, I holed up for three days in a dry wash where bandits had stashed food and goods, while I waited for my trail to go stale. But Alyssa and Stephan have my scent—they can track me better than any of the other dark acolytes, and I fled for my life.” Narud pointed to the pink burn mark on his arm. “That’s when Alyssa gave me this. It was the last time she’ll ever hurt me.”

  “How can you be sure?” Markal asked. “Unless you think the master can turn her, you might have to face them both again.”

  “Stephan, maybe. Not Alyssa.” Narud’s voice sounded a grim note. “I killed her, Markal. Broke her bones and split her skull.”

  Markal was taken aback. “Well . . . you had no choice. I hope you don’t blame yourself.”

  Narud looked away. Markal was curious about Narud’s final flight toward Woods Crossing, and wondered if the wizard faced lingering effects from the elixir of thrall, but Narud seemed to be finished with the telling. In any event, they were approaching the crossroads west of the gardens.