Alone among the dozen or so weavers Vannek had met, Syrik had a warrior’s physique. He was broad shouldered and deep chested, with massive legs and thick arms. If he didn’t spend so much time studying spell work, he’d probably be even bigger. Almost all Naor mages were mocked, even if they were feared. The most powerful were only disparaged behind their backs. No one, though, ridiculed Syrik, in part because he was born from one of Mazakan’s lesser sons, and thus had some blood of greatness in him, but also because he could land a solid punch if you crossed him. He’d been pulled unwillingly into the company of mages during his twelfth year, soon after he had personally slain an adult wyvern—what their enemies called ko’aye—in the most elite rite of passage available to aspiring men.
By ancient traditions, children who had visions or other weird behaviors were turned over to the mages, no matter their birthright. Syrik had kept his oddities secret for longer than most, but Vannek’s eldest brother, Chargan, had eventually noted Syrik’s magical taint in his aura and secured a confession. Thus the young man had been forced into training and, outside of occasional forays, his hunting days were now over.
Vannek had grown up surrounded by cousins and sons and daughters of other lordlings and chieftains and kings. Syrik had been a favorite. He was blessed with strength and speed but didn’t make a show of it. And he possessed a rare ability to laugh at himself when he made mistakes. Vannek had no idea how he’d developed that particular quirk, for his father had been a brash and sullen braggart and his mother inconsequential.
When Vannek was eight, he had sometimes wondered if Syrik, only two years older, might make a good husband. One who would listen, and maybe be kind, and not take too many other wives. But then Vannek had been declared a man, and he could no longer look on men in a womanly way.
Sometimes Syrik still looked on him as though he were a woman, and he did so today as he finished drawing the sigils over the horse trough. There was an appraising look in his dark eyes, a warmth that there should not have been when looking upon another man.
Such looks from Syrik made Vannek uncomfortable, and yet he never quite managed to dismiss the mage from his service, in part because he valued Syrik’s meticulous work ethic. Any other senior magician would have his apprentices draw the sigils, but Syrik wanted them created just so, even if he had to bend and strain and even crawl into position to carve them perfectly before standing back to nod in satisfaction.
At Vannek’s waved assent, Syrik motioned apprentices and slaves into place. None were Alantran slaves, who couldn’t be trusted. These were men from other tribes. They hobbled the horses and then slew them, one by one, while their stablemates whinnied in fear and rolled their eyes and stamped in their stalls until their own turn came.
Vannek disliked killing the beasts; the plow horses would have been useful for years yet. He hated the blood, too, and the sight of the butchered animals being dragged away, and the reek of their terror, but there was no help for it. The ritual required blood.
Just as the chanting from the five kneeling apprentices was really beginning to irk, Syrik raised a hand. “Enough.” The barn went quiet. The apprentices stepped back, their foreheads running with sweat.
“Place the stool,” Syric said. “And be gone.”
“Yes, master,” the lead apprentice replied, breathing heavily. He stepped over to where one of the burly slaves waited with a battered, three-legged stool, accepted it from the man, then set it into the trough, filled to the brim with steaming blood.
The slaves and apprentices left them alone, closing the barn door. It didn’t keep out all the noise from beyond, for someone was shouting orders for a unit practicing drills, and it didn’t restrain sunlight pouring in through windows and slats, but there was the suggestion of privacy.
“Are you ready?” Vannek asked.
“Cousin, I am yours.”
He didn’t like how Syrik said that, but Vannek nodded. “Begin.”
The mage raised thick fingers and then swept them through the air, almost as if he wove invisible cloth. Sweat beaded his brow, too, as his lips parted to show strong white teeth. Vannek noticed again that he took pains with his beard and hair, trimming and combing them carefully.
At Syrik’s command, long tendrils of glistening crimson liquid snaked up from the trough. Vannek felt his skin chill at the ugly sight. No matter how much time he’d had to spend near sorcery, he’d never grown used to its unnatural manifestations.
The rising strands of blood twisted into ropes that quickly shaped a complex framework. In a few minutes a scaffolding took shape, over which recognizable forms grew distinct: a torso, a head, a mass below that which was flowing and vaguely fishtail-like until it was revealed as the bottom of a robe.
The head shape then became overlaid with more specific features, and long strands of the blood hung down to either side of the head. In only a few moments more, Vannek looked upon a sculpture of his oldest brother, Chargan, fashioned in liquid scarlet and reeking of fresh death. His image seemed to float upon an invisible chair, a few inches over the stool. The one time they had dispensed with the stool, Chargan had looked almost comical when he materialized, so Syrik had ever after insisted on its use.
The mage stepped back and leaned against a post in the barn, breathing heavily. His hands dropped shaking to his sides.
Chargan blinked bloody eyes and spoke, his voice heavy and somewhat distorted, as if with mucous. “Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?” he asked. “I expected an update sooner.”
“The city’s secure now,” Vannek said quickly. “But there were complications. An alten killed one of our dragons.”
Chargan stiffened in his seat, somewhere far away. “How did he manage that?”
Interesting that his brother assumed the alten was male, even when there were many formidable women warriors amongst their enemies. Still, in this instance Chargan was correct, at least according to the Alantran prisoners. “It’s a new alten, named Rylin. He rode a wyvern against our forces during the assault on the city, and he managed to take out the driver.”
Chargan’s bloodied face frowned. “What are you doing to catch him?”
“He’s escaped. And another alten tricked his way out of the city with a thousand Alantrans. We don’t know which one that was, although some think it was the same one.”
Chargan’s mouth widened, displaying a crimson gap. “How did they get so many prisoners out?”
“They were clever. But our brother was negligent,” Vannek summarized.
“How surprising,” Chargan said with distaste.
Vannek glanced back at Syrik. By the Sacred Three, the mage had best hold his tongue, for he had heard enough of their scheming over the last months to doom him and Chargan both. Syrik’s eyes were slitted, for the spell required much concentration.
“It’s worse than any of that,” Vannek told Chargan at last. “That same alten was responsible for killing both the dragon lord Zhintin and his assistant Talkus. So that’s our three best dragon masters gone. The other dragon masters were far more exhausted than expected. We were unable to send them on to Grandfather. Perhaps tomorrow—”
“There’s no need,” Chargan said, darkly.
“What do you mean?”
“Grandfather’s dead.” Chargan delivered the news with deadpan calm. No grief could be expected, for Grandfather had been fierce and terrible. Their devotion to him had arisen from fear and awe and not from any especially close bond. Still, one might as well say that the ground had dropped away, so certain was his presence in their lives.
Vannek gasped in wonder. “How did it happen?”
“It’s not just him. Most of his army died with him. The Altenerai ensorcelled a huge oxen herd into charging late at night, while the soldiers slept. They were expecting the arrival of some oxen for supplies and were less cautious than they should have been when they heard hoofbeats.”
“The oxen killed Grandfather?”
“N’lahr killed Grandfather. The oxen destroyed our army.”
Vannek sucked in a breath. “I told you he lived! I spotted him in The Fragments only a week and a half ago! With Kyrkenall!”
“Yes.” That’s all Chargan said. There was no apology for laughing at Vannek, or mocking him. “Well, you were right. Are you happy now?”
“No.” Vannek would have been more pleased with an apology, but he knew better than to suggest one. “What does this mean?”
“It means I’ll have my hands full keeping things together until we can take Darassus.”
“You still mean to do that?”
The bloody image’s teeth gleamed. “By the Three! Yes!”
“But you’re coming here first, aren’t you?”
Chargan laughed. “No. If I actually turn up near Alantris, Koregan will take command.” He continued venomously: “This is my army. And I am going to lead it to victory.”
Horrified by this change in plan, Vannek struggled to frame an objection that didn’t sound oppositional, but Chargan went on as if convincing himself. “I will not aid Koregan in securing his rule. And think. Even if I was comfortable with our idiot brother in charge, so long as Darassus stands the fae will send warriors from their other realms to fight us in The Fragments. If we destroy Darassus, they’ll retreat to secure their own lands. Even with N’lahr returned from his grave.”
Vannek could withhold protest no longer. “That’s not certain, but if we push on to Darassus we’ll be too far extended. We can hold The Fragments. We don’t need Erymyr. The Fragments have more than enough land for us all. And the kings and warriors know how instrumental you’ve been—”
Chargan cut him off, sharply. “That won’t make me god king! I must slay their queen and break their walls to show I am the strongest. I have to do better than plan the victories for Koregan to take credit. If I’m to unite the clans under my rule I have to be a warlord. And when I rule,” Chargan’s chin rose in pride, “we will finally be secure. It won’t matter if I’m a ‘weak’ spell caster,” he said with a sneer, “or that you are a woman.”
“I am a man,” Vannek countered. He’d more than once had to follow those words with a duel to the death, but that kind of anger served no purpose here, so he deliberately relaxed his clenched fists.
“You haven’t the parts of one, and none of the kings truly believe those lies. But think; you can do as you please, once we’re in power. No one would dare question you under my rule, even if you did admit you were a woman.”
Chargan was arrogant and infuriating. But of his two brothers, Vannek vastly preferred him over the spoiled, boastful favorite son of the favored son, Koregan. Chargan was a stronger man, no matter that he was a mage, and a smarter one, and he would be a better king. And unlike Koregan, who saw Vannek as an embarrassment to be defended only to preserve his own dignity, Chargan actually valued Vannek’s abilities. They shared a measure of trust, a rare and valuable thing.
Chargan, noting the hesitation, spoke on, derisively. “Don’t tell me you think you can count on Koregan’s love to see you through?”
“You have my support. But what will I tell him? Koregan has to be informed of Grandfather’s death. And the other kings will challenge more when they learn you’re not coming.”
“Tell him that I’ve been delayed because of trouble with the dragons, my sister brother.”
Vannek frowned, for he hated being addressed that way. No one but his brothers would dare call him that, and it was in bad taste for them to do so. “He’s not going to like that. And the kings will think that means your sorcery is weak.”
Chargan laughed. His smile was satisfied and confident and ghastly, with his lips of blood. “All will be fine with the kings when they learn I was destroying Darassus. I’ve managed a new surprise that may even be better than dragons. And neither our brother or the fae are going to be able to stop me.”
“Cousins,” Syrik’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “The energy fades.…”
“No matter,” Chargan said. “We’ve touched on all that’s important.”
“But what should I say to Koregan?”
“Tell him to hold position. He has more than enough troops to do that. I’ll bring good news. Take care of Syrik for me.” He said the last with a smile, and then he was nothing but raining blood.
Vannek’s cheeks flushed with both anger and shame, and he stood glaring at the liquid-filled trough, roiling still from the influx of blood fallen from Chargan’s failed image.
When Vannek had mastered himself at last and turned to face the mage, he found Syrik calm but pale. He was breathing hard, but quietly, and his dark eyes seemed to bore into Vannek’s own.
Vannek stepped closer to Syrik. “You heard treasonous things today.”
“You need not fear me.”
“I don’t. I fear for you if word gets out.”
Syrik held Vannek’s eyes, and he wondered if his cousin worked a spell, for he felt flush and uncertain, rather than menacing as he’d intended.
The mage continued as though he hadn’t noticed. “My apprentices are loyal. They can be counted upon to serve with discretion and they hear nothing of your discussions.”
Vannek wasn’t sure what else to say. Finally, something other than threats, or words more dangerous, came to him. “I’ll relay that you’re to begin working with the dragons. I think it’s vital you learn to fly them. And soon.” Vannek turned on his heel.
Syrik’s voice was smooth, liquid. “I will be ready, when you are.”
He hadn’t said what he’d be ready for, and Vannek didn’t ask.