Mhurren passed through the gate and turned aside into the stairs that led up to the keep’s eastern tower. These chambers had been given over to the Vaasan warlocks who remained with him to provide his army with its newly found battle magic. Human guards in fine black mail bowed to Mhurren when he approached. “I am not to be disturbed,” he told them.
“Yes, Warlord,” the guards answered. They grounded their halberds to the floor.
At the topmost floor of the tower, Mhurren came to a door, struck it twice in deference to the human custom, and entered. “Avrun!” he said in Vaasan. “I need your speaking magic.”
A fair-haired Vaasan sat behind a small desk, poring through a thick tome. He looked up at Mhurren, slowly stood, and offered a shallow bow behind a cool smile. “Of course, Warlord. I presume this is in reference to the return of your envoys from Hulburg?”
“I want you to tell Terov that the Hulburgans killed my messengers. I march against Hulburg tomorrow at sunset with all my strength. I mean to raze Hulburg, kill all its men, and take its women and children for thralls. The harmach will rue this day before long, I promise you.”
The Vaasan wizard nodded. “Give me ten minutes to prepare the magic, Warlord.”
Mhurren waved his hand in assent, and the human quickly and efficiently began to make ready his ritual. From shelves along the wall he took a variety of arcane implements-tall candlesticks of wrought iron topped with fat yellow candles, jars filled with strange liquids, a skull made of some reddish crystal. He arranged the candlesticks in a five-pointed star, lit the tapers with a magic word, and sprinkled drops from the jars around the candlesticks. He sat down cross-legged on the floor in the center of the candles and used another minor spell to suspend the crystal skull in the air over his shoulder. Finally Avrun opened his heavy tome and read a long passage of some sinister gibberish while Mhurren paced anxiously outside the circle.
The wizard finished with his chants and made a small gesture to the floating skull. The rosy crystal began to glow with a ruddy light. “Kardhel Terov,” he intoned. “This is Avrun, speaking for Mhurren. Hulburg slew his envoys and sent back their heads. Mhurren marches tomorrow night to attack and raze Hulburg.”
Mhurren shuddered at the crawling sense of sorcery filling the small room. For a long moment nothing more happened, and the orc chief wondered if the spell had somehow failed. But then Avrun grunted and straightened, and the crystal skull began to speak. “I am Terov,” it said. “March on Hulburg, crush their defenses, but spare the town until I arrive. I need it. You will be well satisfied with the ransom they pay.”
“Ransom is fine, but Harmach Grigor must die for the insult he gave me!” Mhurren snapped. “I warn you, Terov, it will have to be a rich prize indeed if I find Hulburg helpless before my horde!”
The candles around the Vaasan mage abruptly guttered out, and the small crystal skull sank down in the air. Avrun reached up and deftly caught it in his hand and shook himself slightly before climbing to his feet. “I am sorry, Warlord, but the magic of the sending ritual only allows me to send a single message and receive a single answer. Fellthane Terov did not hear the last thing you said. It would take me some time to make ready another one.”
Mhurren growled and waved his hand. “No matter. I heard all that I needed to hear. The rest can wait for now.”
“Shall I have my Warlock Knights make ready to march?” Avrun asked.
“If you have been told to remain close to me, then you will,” Mhurren answered him. “I go to Hulburg to put my steel at the harmach’s throat. And then we will see what ransom he can pay that will satisfy me.”
NINETEEN
28 Ches, the Year of the Ageless One
Early on the morning after the duel with Urdinger, Harmach Grigor surprised Geran with a sharp rap at his chamber door. Geran had just finished his morning exercises and was preparing to refresh his arcane wards and spells, but he set aside his tome and stood when the old lord limped into the room, leaning on his cane. Grigor glanced at the spellbook. “You’re more of a student now than you once were,” he observed. “You had little interest in arcane matters when you were a younger man, but I see that you’ve learned much in the years you’ve been away from home.”
“I didn’t know it myself until I went to Myth Drannor,” Geran answered. “I learned Elvish there and studied under an elf bladesinger named Daried Selsherryn. My swordplay caught his eye, but he saw that I also had a talent for magic that I’d never suspected.” He closed his spellbook. “What can I do for you, Uncle Grigor?”
“I hope you will forgive the interruption, but Sergen came to see me shortly after sunrise this morning. He presented a demand from House Veruna and the Merchant Council for your immediate arrest on charges of murder.”
Geran snorted in disgust. “The forms might not have been strictly observed, but it was a duel, not a murder,” he said. He’d told Grigor, Kara, and Hamil about his encounter with the Veruna captain the previous evening, expecting that his uncle and his cousin would be appalled by his rashness. To his surprise, Grigor simply heard out his account of events and then asked him to remain at Griffonwatch until the consequences of the duel sorted themselves out. The fact that the harmach was standing in his room seemed to suggest that those were already upon him. “I fought Urdinger fairly-he struck first, by the way-and the other Veruna men stayed out of it. There were many witnesses.”
“Oh, I believe you, Geran. I told Sergen as much. He argued that until the circumstances of the duel had been verified by the council’s inquest, you should be remanded to the Council Watch and held. I said that I’d arrange for a fair and independent inquiry, but that you’d remain at liberty until it was concluded-not that I expected any fair inquest to incriminate you if the accounts I’d heard were accurate.” The harmach paced over to the window-seat in Geran’s room and leaned against the padded bench. “At that point Sergen insisted that you’d proven yourself a murderous scofflaw several times over, and that you were singlehandedly ruining our family fortunes by ignoring Veruna’s rights and protections under the laws of concession.”
“Ruining our fortunes or his?” Geran muttered darkly. He looked over to his uncle. “What did you say?”
“I told him that his generous interpretation of the laws of concession did not take precedence over the harmach’s interpretation of the rest of the harmach’s laws, and that as far as I knew, I was still Harmach of Hulburg. I’m afraid Sergen left after that.”
“I’m not surprised. The Verunas missed their chance at me on the Highfells and then again yesterday, so they sent Sergen to persuade you to arrest me for them.” Geran remembered Veruna’s mercenaries wrecking Mirya’s store, and his mouth tightened. It was bad enough that foreigners had such contempt for the harmach that they believed they could simply lay the town under tribute and plunder it in the guise of trade laws. But his stepcousin was clearly doing everything in his power to ensure their success. The question was, why? Sergen must have been bought completely-or smitten, perhaps-by Darsi Veruna, since he was so faithfully working in her interests… but something about that struck Geran as not quite right. Sergen had always been keenly aware of his own self-interest, even as a boy. It wasn’t like him to faithfully work at anything he didn’t want for himself. Which meant that Sergen wasn’t seeing to Veruna’s interests by keeping his Merchant Council out of the way of the foreign costers. He was likely seeing to his own. Perhaps the Verunas were working for Sergen instead of the other way around. “That must be it,” Geran murmured aloud.
“Some new thought has struck you, I see.” Grigor set his hands atop the head of his cane. “What is it, Geran?”