Lord Esteril rose and bowed. Something inside him seemed to break at that moment. “Lord Azaar, if you will take my advice, do not go near the Serpent Tower with your army. Although it pains me to say it, I do not think you will find that Lord Ilmarec will fight as honourably as you and he has access to a weapon the like of which we never dreamed of in the old days.”
“Thank you for your council, sir. I will certainly give it due weight in my deliberations.”
“By your leave, Lord Azaar, I would like to make preparations for my departure.”
“By all means,” said Azaar. Esteril bowed and left.
Azaar turned to Sardec. “It seems the situation in Kharadrea is more complicated than I thought.”
“It would seem so, sir.”
“It does not surprise me. Things are rarely simple, particularly not when ambitious Terrarchs sense an opportunity for self-advancement.”
“You mean Lord Esteril, sir.”
“He certainly sought glory attacking us, but he is not who I mean. I was thinking of Lord Ilmarec.”
“The Serpent Tower is said to be impregnable, sir.”
“I have every reason to agree with that assessment.”
“What can we do about it, sir? If Ilmarec really has Queen Kathea and intends to side with the Dark Empire, this war is over before it has even started.”
“I think our first order of business should be to find out what Lord Ilmarec’s intentions really are. Don’t you Lieutenant?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Excellent, I knew you would be the officer for the job.”
Chapter Seven
Lady Asea strode down to the stream. Rik and his comrades accompanied her. Her bodyguard, Karim, silent as a shadow, drifted along behind them. Asea inspected the bodies that remained in the water waiting to be dragged away and burned. The pyres had already been built behind them, and Rik could hear the regimental chaplains chanting the words of the ceremony.
Asea paused for a minute and contemplated the carnage. “Do you have any idea where you saw the Serpent Man statue?” she asked eventually.
“I reckon I could find it, milady,” said Weasel. “We left a track a blind man could follow when we blundered away from the river last night.”
“Lead on then,” she said.
Weasel found the riverbank where they had struggled ashore, and the bushes they had trampled as they walked away. Rik was not sure a blind man could have followed their tracks, but Weasel certainly could.
“Best be careful, milady,” Weasel said as they continued along the track. “There may be enemy around here who fled the battle. They’d see us as a nice juicy target.”
Asea simply tapped the hilt of the wand that was holstered on her belt. “If they do, they may be surprised.”
“As you say, milady.”
“May we ask why you are interested in this Serpent Man site, Lady Asea?” Rik asked. All three of them were dying to know, but he seemed to be the only one with the nerve to raise the question.
“I am interested in anything to do with these creatures. They are said to have died out in this part of the world millennia ago.”
“Could there be ghosts, milady?” the Barbarian asked. He seemed tongue-tied, quite in contrast to his normal manner of speech.
“Perhaps. There are strange sorcerous currents in this area and tau is strong and tainted here.”
Rik was not at all reassured by even the possibility of some ancient and doubtless infernal being involved in last night’s encounter. Enough of his temple orphanage upbringing remained to occasionally make him fear for his soul.
They emerged beside the shores of the circular lake. Asea looked at it thoughtfully.
“Is this artificial?” Rik asked. “It looks more like a carp pond than a lake. Like someone made it, but it’s so big.” He realised something else now that he looked at it in the daylight. “The edges are so steep it is almost like a crater.”
Asea said, “Legend has it that an ancient fortress of the Serpent Men stood on this spot.”
“What happened to it?” Rik asked.
“No one knows. It may be only a legend. Certainly there is no sign of it now. We’d best get on if we are going to find this statue of yours…”
“This is the place,” said Weasel as they entered a grove. The woods were dense around them, cutting off a good deal of the sunlight. Rik noticed now that the rise on which the statue of the Serpent Man stood actually had brickwork emerging from it. There appeared to be other humps and bumps around them, hinting at more buried buildings, or perhaps something else. It reminded him of a necropolis.
“The Scaled Lords dwelt here, mistress,” Karim said. “The statue is of one of the Nest Guardian caste although one larger and heavier than any guardian I ever encountered.”
All three Foragers had turned to study the bodyguard. So the rumours were true and Karim was indeed from the Southern continent.
“Are they dangerous?” Rik asked.
“A Nest Guardian’s jaws can tear off a man’s arm with one bite. They are as deadly with their blades as Ninth Element Swordmaster.”
“Well that certainly improved my understanding of the situation,” muttered Weasel.
“A Ninth Element Swordmaster?” the Barbarian asked. He looked bemused.
“I am only of the Seventh Element,” said Karim, as if that explained everything. “Very few humans reach even that far.”
“What Karim is saying is that you were lucky you did not encounter one in the flesh,” said Lady Asea. “It might have been more than a match for even three such stalwart warriors as yourselves.”
Rik looked for traces of sarcasm in that remark but could not find any. It seemed Asea was sincere, at least as far as he could judge.
“The question is, what is this site?”
“I cannot say, mistress,” said Karim.
“I reckon I could have taken it,” whispered the Barbarian to Rik. Rik just nodded. His whole attention was focused on Asea and Karim. The pair had access to lore that was not common even among the thieves of Sorrow, who liked to think themselves well informed on every esoteric subject under the sun.
Asea inspected the pattern of the mosaic they had seen the night before. She questioned them about what they had witnessed in a way that made Rik feel very uncomfortable. After a while she produced a blue crystal from her purse. She moved around the area muttering in a manner that made the hairs on the back of Rik’s neck rise.
The crystal glowed faintly, and as it did so, the look on Asea’s face became more thoughtful. It seemed they had indeed found something of interest to the sorceress, although he did not dare ask what. They spent the next several hours watching her pace out the dimensions of the site, and all of them were grateful when she ordered them to rejoin the army just as the sun started to head down on the horizon. This was not a place any of them wanted to be in after dark.
They found a message waiting when they returned to camp. The Lord Azaar requested the Lady Asea’s presence at his tent urgently.
Sardec watched Lady Asea sweep into the command pavilion, beautiful even in her armour. The rest of the high officers looked at her appreciatively, even thin-faced, precise Colonel Xeno, who Sardec knew disliked her intensely. He felt self-conscious here among all these older more experienced officers and two of the First and wondered at his presence.
“Your presence gladdens me, Lady,” said Azaar then tapped the map on the table in front of him with a knuckle. “I would appreciate any insights your wisdom might give us with our current problem.”
He proceeded to explain what Esteril had said about Ilmarec, and about the weapon of green light, and then pointed to the map.
“As you can see, Morven controls access to the Mor River at this point. Command of that is essential if we are to proceed further north towards Orodruine's old capital at Halim. We need it for transport and we need it for supply.”