Garrick found comforting.
“I will inform the lord you have arrived,” Koric said. “There is water in the decanter.”
Then he left.
Darien went directly to the water.
Garrick sat down heavily, suddenly very tired. Holding Braxidane’s magic in check was costing him most dearly.
Darien brought him a cup.
He drank and shivered as the liquid seeped into his body.
The chamber was large, maybe fifty feet in its longest direction. Half the wall was natural rock, smooth and polished with a ferrous tint of red. The rest was a mural of images.
Darien strolled around it, examining a glass case that displayed silver trinkets, and taking in the carved plaques that decorated one curved wall.
It was a scene on that wall that caught Garrick’s eye.
A unicorn being carried away by a blue dragon.
The flavor of his nightmare came back—hard, and real, so real he had an image of the Lectodinian judge’s falling hand.
The door squealed.
Commander Koric stepped in.
“Gentlemen, I give you Lord Takril of Arderveer.”
Chapter 19
Two great tents withstood the desert winds, each surrounded by camps of mages who wore either blood red or ocean blue. Yorl Maggore, the leader of the Koradictine contingent, entered the tent dyed the color of blood and threw himself onto a chair in one corner. He was sweating heavily under his hooded robe.
“The sun is nearly unbearable,” he said to the boy assigned to attend to him.
The boy gave a motion that was half nod and half cower.
The Desert of Dust was scorpion territory, a dry wasteland marked by sunbaked stones as tall as buildings and with surfaces worn to a fine polish by the furnace of blistering winds. Coarse grasses and thorny brush clung to breaks in the ground. Sand rode the wind like razor blades, ripping into any swath of flesh left uncovered. It was a harsh and dangerous place, a land where nothing seemed to live—and yet a land where a thousand eyes were always following.
He hated it.
The other tent housed his Lectodinian counterpart, newly arrived from the wilderness surrounding Whitestone.
Small shelters, lean-tos, and other constructs were spread across the parched land between them, filled with mercenary soldiers, and with two very
different
groups of mages—both of whom had been mustered rapidly and forced to endure double-time marches in order to come together in this land of hellish heat.
Yorl’s own Koradictines had originated from the Badwall Canyons, farther north. It was the first time the orders had put so many mages together.
Hell of a place to do it, Yorl thought.
It was his job to make this group fight as one.
It would not be easy.
They had been together only long enough to put up the tents, but already he had administered to half a dozen scrapes between lesser mages and the mercenary swords. That’s what you get when you push people like this, he thought. And when you buy blades at the lowest wage.
He adjusted his loose-fitting robe.
The tent smelled of baked fabric.
A wobbly nightstand in one corner held a cup of lukewarm tea. Like everything else in this pit, the tea tasted of sand.
He had laid maps of the desert lands across a low table, though they would do him no good—Arderveer itself was underground and the sand above constantly shifted. Landmarks disappeared as soon as they were noted here in the desert. He had marked the maps with indicators that showed the locations of the Lectodinian mages and the mages of his own order. At least that much he could control.
A soft knock came from the outside.
“Enter,” he said.
It was Cara, the lead mage of the Lectodinian contingent. She stepped through the open flap of his tent.
As far as he could tell, she was only of middling power, so he assumed she had arrived at her position through the application of her obvious physical charms rather than through any rigorous study or other such achievement. He found this perfectly acceptable, of course. If she weren’t Lectodinian, Yorl
“I will inform the lord you have arrived,” Koric said. “There is water in the decanter.”
Then he left.
Darien went directly to the water.
Garrick sat down heavily, suddenly very tired. Holding Braxidane’s magic in check was costing him most dearly.
Darien brought him a cup.
He drank and shivered as the liquid seeped into his body.
The chamber was large, maybe fifty feet in its longest direction. Half the wall was natural rock, smooth and polished with a ferrous tint of red. The rest was a mural of images.
Darien strolled around it, examining a glass case that displayed silver trinkets, and taking in the carved plaques that decorated one curved wall.
It was a scene on that wall that caught Garrick’s eye.
A unicorn being carried away by a blue dragon.
The flavor of his nightmare came back—hard, and real, so real he had an image of the Lectodinian judge’s falling hand.
The door squealed.
Commander Koric stepped in.
“Gentlemen, I give you Lord Takril of Arderveer.”
Chapter 19
Two great tents withstood the desert winds, each surrounded by camps of mages who wore either blood red or ocean blue. Yorl Maggore, the leader of the Koradictine contingent, entered the tent dyed the color of blood and threw himself onto a chair in one corner. He was sweating heavily under his hooded robe.
“The sun is nearly unbearable,” he said to the boy assigned to attend to him.
The boy gave a motion that was half nod and half cower.
The Desert of Dust was scorpion territory, a dry wasteland marked by sunbaked stones as tall as buildings and with surfaces worn to a fine polish by the furnace of blistering winds. Coarse grasses and thorny brush clung to breaks in the ground. Sand rode the wind like razor blades, ripping into any swath of flesh left uncovered. It was a harsh and dangerous place, a land where nothing seemed to live—and yet a land where a thousand eyes were always following.
He hated it.
The other tent housed his Lectodinian counterpart, newly arrived from the wilderness surrounding Whitestone.
Small shelters, lean-tos, and other constructs were spread across the parched land between them, filled with mercenary soldiers, and with two very
different
groups of mages—both of whom had been mustered rapidly and forced to endure double-time marches in order to come together in this land of hellish heat.
Yorl’s own Koradictines had originated from the Badwall Canyons, farther north. It was the first time the orders had put so many mages together.
Hell of a place to do it, Yorl thought.
It was his job to make this group fight as one.
It would not be easy.
They had been together only long enough to put up the tents, but already he had administered to half a dozen scrapes between lesser mages and the mercenary swords. That’s what you get when you push people like this, he thought. And when you buy blades at the lowest wage.
He adjusted his loose-fitting robe.
The tent smelled of baked fabric.
A wobbly nightstand in one corner held a cup of lukewarm tea. Like everything else in this pit, the tea tasted of sand.
He had laid maps of the desert lands across a low table, though they would do him no good—Arderveer itself was underground and the sand above constantly shifted. Landmarks disappeared as soon as they were noted here in the desert. He had marked the maps with indicators that showed the locations of the Lectodinian mages and the mages of his own order. At least that much he could control.
A soft knock came from the outside.
“Enter,” he said.
It was Cara, the lead mage of the Lectodinian contingent. She stepped through the open flap of his tent.
As far as he could tell, she was only of middling power, so he assumed she had arrived at her position through the application of her obvious physical charms rather than through any rigorous study or other such achievement. He found this perfectly acceptable, of course. If she weren’t Lectodinian, Yorl
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