“It doesn’t matter now. It’s gone.”
The captain tried to shake the rain off. “I don’t see how it could’ve even gotten up in the air! Not with that belly wound!”
“How much do you know about gargoyles?”
“Good point.”
They were startled by a heavy thud just a few yards from them. The two turned, Bakal’s blade ready and Tyros with a spell on his lips.
The mangled form of the gargoyle lay sprawled in the street. Tyros swallowed. Although suffering a gaping wound, it had clearly made it to a considerable altitude before succumbing. The results of the drop were not at all appetizing.
“You can forget about questioning him,” Bakal remarked.
Despite the horrific condition of the gargoyle’s corpse, Tyros approached the still form, his mind racing. “What do they want of me? If only I could have questioned it.”
The drenched soldier joined him. “You might be asking the wrong question, boy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I came out just after you, mage. I got a little curious about your intended love there and thought I’d join the pair of you before you made too big of an ass of yourself.”
“Your point, Bakal?”
“My point, mage,” the graying warrior returned, poking a thick finger in the spellcaster’s chest, “is that the gargoyle landed with his back facing you. He wasn’t after you. See?”
“Not after me?” Tyros replayed the moments prior to the leathery beast’s appearance in his mind. “He was after her?”
“That would be my guess. Your hot blood got in his way.”
Tyros looked in the direction that the woman had gone. If she had heard the struggle, she had chosen to ignore it, and in such weather it would be impossible to find her now.
“I don’t know about you, mage, but I’m heading back to the inn. I need to dry my outsides and wet my insides while I think what reason these gargoyles have for trying first to snatch you and then a cleric of a god like Bran!”
“Bran?”
“The woodland god, boy! You know, Branchala.…”
Chapter 4
Castle in the Sky
General Cadrio had spent many a night on the battlefield, sleeping to the mournful moans of wounded and dying men. Yet here in the silent walls of Atriun, a sense of unease had assailed him all night. The lanky commander didn’t blame the castle for his restlessness; that fault lay with Valkyn. Few people other than Ariakas or the Blue Lady had ever unsettled the vulpine-visaged soldier as much as the deathly cheerful spellcaster did.
Now, dressed and impatient, Cadrio departed his chambers. Two sentries outside his door stood at attention. Even in the sanctum of a so-called ally, Cadrio took no chances.
“The pig was just here, sir,” one guard informed him, meaning Lemual. “You left orders not to be disturbed before this hour, so I sent him away, General.”
“You did quite right, Syl.” Cadrio’s alert eyes took in his surroundings. “And what did that poor excuse of a cleric want?”
“To tell you that the wizard wants to see you in the courtyard.”
“The courtyard?” The general had expected to finally see what lurked below the castle. “Curious.”
His guards flanking him, Cadrio made his way to the courtyard, wondering what Valkyn had in mind. The commander wore his helmet but kept the visor up. Outside, the rest of his men awaited him, weapons at attention. They filed into place as their general passed, creating a small but efficient fighting force ready to react at his command.
As they emerged into the courtyard, Cadrio noted Valkyn at work on a tripod with two small gems at the top. The wizard was being aided by two gargoyles, which had to be Crag and Stone. The pair reminded him that there were other creatures about, probably watching his group from above.
“Valkyn! Another delay?” He had the satisfaction of seeing that his arrival had slightly startled the robed figure. Good! Let Valkyn see how it felt.
The wizard, of course, recovered quickly. “By no means! You are just in time, my general.” He turned his attention to the gargoyles. “This is ready now. Take it out to the spot marked. Position it carefully. Understand?”
The pair nodded. Crag tried to shove Stone aside and take hold of the device, but the other gargoyle would have none of it, snapping at his larger counterpart. The two might have fought, but Valkyn suddenly reached into the confines of his robe and pulled out a dark red wand with a small golden sphere made of crystal set at the end. Stone saw the wand first and immediately subsided. Crag, intent on his rival, yelped in sudden pain as the bearded mage touched one of his wings with the sphere.
“I will brook no more of this. Go!”
Chastised, the two gargoyles quickly lifted the device.
“Gently! Gently!”
Now more cautious, Crag and Stone fluttered into the air, the tripod between them. Cadrio watched the creatures vanish over the wall, curious as to the item’s function but determined not to ask.
“Always fighting with one another,” Valkyn remarked. “They can be like children.”
Children? These monsters? The general recognized deadly rivals. Those atop the castle were a different band than those lurking in the wooded garden. Only the wizard’s power kept the groups at bay, but Cadrio wondered if that would someday prove insufficient. As with so many things, Valkyn played a risky game when it came to mastery of the creatures.
“Lemual should be done soon, I think, and then we can all ride out to the safety point and begin.”
Interest replaced concern. “You’re certain you can deliver what you promised? You can give me the weapon I need?”
Energetic blue eyes gazed his way in amusement. “I would stake my life on it, my general … and I do, don’t I?”
Some of Cadrio’s men shifted uneasily, all too familiar with their commander’s preferred method for punishing failure. No doubt they imagined Valkyn’s head on a pike. “We’re allies, Valkyn, a precious commodity in this war.”
“The war is over, my general. This is for our own personal gain. My research and your empire …”
The statement led General Cadrio to ask a question that had nagged him since Valkyn had first materialized in his tent shortly after the emperor’s death. “Why me, mage? I know why I agreed to this alliance, but why did you choose me? You could’ve sided with the Blue Lady, Kitiara.” Cadrio imagined her lithe body, a tool used to entice so many to her banner. “She would have rewarded you handsomely … in more than riches.”
Valkyn’s countenance momentarily darkened. “I’ve no interest in such pleasures, General. My work is my life now.”
“But still-”
“I chose you, Cadrio, because you once served another general, however briefly. Do you know the name Culthairai?”
Culthairai. It rang a distant bell. A region as obscure as Atriun, overrun early in the war. He had served under a general born in Culthairai … a General Krynos, a giant of a man at about seven feet. Ambitious, once thought to be the next Dragon Highlord, Krynos and nearly all his command had been wiped out by a singularly effective plague rumored to have been spread by a dying Solamnic knight. “You speak of Krynos?”
“You survived. He did not.”
Cadrio remembered his good fortune. “Ariakas needed to fill a position left by the death of another general. Krynos had recommended me before. I left with three men. The next I heard, he and most of his force had fallen.”
“My brother, had he lived, would have been my choice, General Cadrio. I’ve decided that you, who knew his ways, will do.”
Krynos’s brother … Cadrio could see some of the dead general’s manner in the wizard. What sort of land had Culthairai been that it would groom for the world such a pair?
Valkyn clasped his gloved hands together, his tone once more exuberant. He seemed to switch emotions readily, either a sign of madness-in the soldier’s opinion, common among wizards-or a hint that the faces he wore were all masks. “And here comes Lemual! We can begin!”