Gmork could feel where his two newest pets were hiding in the hall outside Calephas's laboratory. Both of them were sore and cramped but they did not dwell on this. So close to them now, their master could almost feel their desire to burst from the hidden alcoves to prostrate themselves at his feet and adore him. But their adoration was fixed by a firm obedience that all his pets quickly learned. They did not move a muscle when he passed them by, and moved as few as they could when they breathed.
He did not like going to the baron's laboratory. Even creatures that were part dragon awakened in him a deep loathing. He did not show this to the baron whose own blood was so foul to Gmork now that he would not even deign to feed it to any of his pets had he the chance. But in this he had no choice.
The boy who'd vexed him the previous night was chained naked to the wall and looked delirious; his head bobbed back and forth as if he were lost in a thick fog. Calephas stood with crossed arms scowling at the boy while the tiger Weaker slouched in one corner like a marionette with its strings cut.
Calephas glanced briefly at him as he entered. "What do you want?"
"The Resistance has been more active than we realized. They've created this." He offered the bottle with the yellow powder to Calephas.
The baron stared unmoving for a moment before finally taking the bottle and turning to his work table. He set out several smaller flasks as well as prongs and knives. "What is it?"
"I have seen no magic on it, but it smells foul and it burned one of my pups when it got wet." Calephas grunted but said nothing as he took out the cork and sniffed. "A spell keeps it from making you retch."
"Weaken the spell so I can smell this. " Gmork did so, but only a little. Calephas bent over the opened bottle and breathed in quickly. His blue eyes widened and he held the bottle as far from his face as he could. "Good enough." Gmork's tail wagged once as he restored the spell.
Calephas took a small clay dish and emptied the contents of the bottle onto it. He then stirred through the yellow powder with one of his knives, noting the flecks of sparkling white that were mixed throughout. He sighed at first and then a moment later chuckled.
"This," he said, pushing a square clump of the yellow powder around with the end of his knife, "is Sulfur, commonly called brimstone. It is relatively harmless in this form. But it does produce a very foul stench. It isn't uncommon but it can be tricky to keep. It seems that there is another alchemist in Fjellvidden."
Gmork had heard of it before; Nasoj had dabbled in alchemy as well at one point. "Would water make it burn?"
"Not unless you made vitriol first," Calephas replied with a shake of his head. He then slid the knife beneath one of the gleaming white particulates and frowned. "This I have never seen before." He scooped the particle up with the knife and then dumped it into a bowl filled with water. It sizzled and darted back and forth through the water, burning with a fiery light for only a second before there was nothing left but a thin trail of smoke.
Calephas's lips pulled back in a grin. "Very impressive. The Resistance has a very clever alchemist."
Gmork winced as he saw what the single particle could do. It was little surprise that a face full of them had sorely wounded one of his pups. "Will ice do the same?"
"Probably. Make some and I will test."
He scowled at the baron briefly, but stretched out one hand, and with a subtle twist of his fingers and claws, made the water in the bowl freeze solid. The bowl cracked with a popping sound. Calephas took another of the white particles and dropped it onto the top of the ice. It sizzled and bored down through the ice, a bright vibrant light that burned their eyes.
"Very interesting," Calephas mused and rubbed his chin with his free hand. "I wonder..." He poured another bowl full of water, and then took a larger scoop of the Sulfur with the white particles and dumped then in. The flash and billow of putrid smoke that erupted from the bowl was instantaneous. Calephas and Gmork both jumped back, the former waving his hands in front of him and laughing. "What a delightful little weapon they've made! You don't dare get them wet. What were they carrying these in?"
"Little earthenware jars. I do not know how many they might have. Yet."
Calephas poured the rest of the powder back into the bottle and stoppered it again. He took another bottle from his shelf and poured a little bit of the contents onto the plate. It had a strong acrid odor, but did not react as explosively as water had. "If you find this alchemist, capture him and bring him alive. I would be very interested in learning his secrets."
"I make no promises," Gmork said with a slight curl to his jowls. "Have your fun." He turned and left the foul chamber as quickly as he could.
Pharcellus the young dragon of the mountains woke when he felt the sun warming his human face. His muscles were weary and his back still ached from the tear in his wing. His dreams had been of chasing a younger brother through the sky, but they vanished with those rays of light dancing through the pine needles as the warbling of birds welcomed Spring's tenuous warmth.
The dragon stretched carefully and climbed out of his bed of stone and moss, blinking until everything came into focus. A soft dew covered the ground, and the air smelled sweet and fresh. Not too far to the south he could hear the thundering rumble of the river. He neither heard nor smelled any sign of Gmork or his pups.
He chided himself for sleeping as long as he had. Pharcellus had only intended to sleep for a few hours, and here it was already morning and the day was fast advancing. He was still several miles from Fjellvidden and on the wrong bank of the Arabas. With his wing torn he couldn't even fly, which meant he'd have to run the whole way back. Who knew how long Calephas or Gmork would leave his younger brother alive.
Pharcellus could well imagine the look of dismay in his mother's countenance, the way her head would hang low on her dangling neck, her wings folded back, tail stilled, and her claws digging through stone in silent draconic melancholy, if he returned to tell her that Lindsey had been killed because he hadn't been there to save him.
He took a moment to stretch his legs as he listened to the forest. Apart from the call of the birds and the roar of the river, he could hear a distant tremble of needles as a herd of deer moved past somewhere to the north, as well as the little claws of squirrel and rabbit as they made their way through the diverse foliage scouring for food. There was nothing else.
How he wished he could find another dragon to help, but it would just be up to him and whatever help the birds could find. Pharcellus took a deep breath, and orienting himself, started to run westward through the forest, not caring if he left a trail this time.
Their master bid them search the woods to the south of the castle, and so the three faithful dogs did just that. They sniffed through the trees, exploring the varied folds of hills and absorbing all the odors that accumulated and were released by the Spring thaw. Hard earth and stone met their paws, but their noses uncovered a wealth of knowledge that fascinated them, but for the most part was uninteresting to their master.
And if their master wasn't interested in it, neither were they.
Eventually, after an hour's search, they began to hear the sounds of something moving through the stream that flowed past. They turned their heads, ears lifted to catch the sound, eyes fixed with canine intensity, tails stiff. And then, certain of what they heard, the three hunting dogs loped at a stately pace beneath the brush and through the hills, being very careful not to make any noise and to keep downwind from their quarry.
The hills sloped down to a little gully through which flowed a stream flush with snow melt. Little dirt tracks passed back and forth showing where the forest animals trod on their way to the water. Pines and firs clustered about and sheltered the river, their boughs stretching with a million green slivers, some thick and others thin and flimsy. Beneath that verdant expanse and through the cascading ripples falling from stone to stone down the gully came a small group of humans just as their master had predicted.
The three dogs stepped back into the hillside where they would be very difficult to spot and just watched as they'd been instructed. Eight men, mostly seasoned men with long beards held in braids, and one woman passed through the river. Their pace was quick but measured, and apart from the light splashing, they made no noise nor gave any other indication of their presence. Their scent which blew across the dog's black noses was also muted as if they had recently washed.
They each thought on this, noting the bows, hand axes, and short swords they carried in as much detail as they could see. They could not smell any food about them, so knew that they had gone into the woods without provisions.
Master wanted them to watch without being noticed. This fact became all important to the dogs when the humans were finally close enough to pass by their hiding place. The dogs crept backward on their paws until they were sheltered within a cairn of stone. The humans kept looking over their shoulders but otherwise gave no sign that they knew the dogs were there.
Once the humans were out of view, the dogs wagged their tails and loped to another vantage point from which to watch. Their master was going to bee so happy with them.
On returning to his listening room, Gmork bade his eldest join his two youngest pups in slumber while he remained before his hundredfold baubles and listened to the multitudinous voices of his pets. Most had nothing to say to him, even those living in Fjellvidden whom he had conscripted to keep watch for the Resistance. That shipwright had gone down to the mill after his pups returned to keep an eye on the road for the rumored men of the tundra but had seen nothing, not even a fleeing merchant. Usually they were the first to flee when the soldiers began knocking on doors and dragging people to the castle.
Once all three of his pups were sleeping in the pile of furs in various guises of human and beast, Gmork allowed himself the luxury of sparing a few minutes to study the one who until last night had been kept chained in the dungeons. He crept on all fours, allowing fur to blossom all across his back, neck, and arms, while his snout stretched out to its full length. Gmork sniffed the sleeping beast coated in patches of fur with a half-grown snout and soft fur coating his otherwise human cheeks.
The first thing he noted was that the wounds he'd suffered to his face had healed completely. Gmork was glad to see it; he hated seeing his pups wounded. The other thing he noticed was that the lines of stress and confusion that had always been present before were completely gone. There was no confusion in him anymore; this pup knew who his father was, knew that he loved his father, and knew to obey his father. This pup had finally accepted that he was a beast.
Or so it appeared at least. Gmork peered deeper into his spirit, noting the confluence of magical energies that wound ever more tightly inside him. Unlike his previous ventures into the magical nature of his pup, this time the lines of energy yielded easily to his entrance. They knew him know, and knew that his presence amongst his pup's perplexing power was permitted. His will stretched forth and wound through those lines, gently coaxing them and soothing them as they coursed round and round their central core.
With only a little bit of effort, there was some residual resistance to his delving so far, he was able to unwrap the tangle of cords that hid the closed fist at the center of his pup's being. He felt his own flesh shudder with the surprisingly taxing exertion, before he glimpsed it. The hand, once clean and purely human, was now coated completely in black fur, while the hard callused flesh beneath was a dark cream in hue. Claws, pointed and thick tipped each finger as the beastly hand remained fixed and immobile, hiding whatever might be inside from all view.
Gmork stroked the hand with his will, brushing down the fur along its back with soft kisses. Yet the hand did not relax even after several long minutes of his contact. What could his pup be hiding there? Was it some level of his personality that he had not yet surrendered? Gmork would have to watch him very carefully in the weeks to come to make sure that his acquiescence to Gmork was true and complete. Even a sliver of defiance could be dangerous.
If not for the Resistance so active and troublesome, he would have spent a few hours stroking that clenched fist. Eventually he knew it would open and he could be fully certain of his pup's complete adoption. His transformation into a pup of Gmork would be wholly complete then. But he could not afford such time now and had to trust in his pup's love. What few things his eldest had said of him about their foray into the city delighted him.
Gmork had been right. This one would be a ruthless and devoted son to his father.
Contended for the moment, he withdrew from his pup and gently stroked one paw down his fur-coated back once. A triangular ear twitched and he pressed more protectively against the still human boy whom Gmork had only begun to adopt. The great wolf mage of Fjellvidden smiled with all of his jowls to see it.
No amount of defiance and no spell would ever make this one human again. He would always be Gmork's pup now.
Satisfied, Gmork returned to listening to his many pets spread throughout Arabarb. His mind wandered on their words, thoughts as varied as the stars of the night. After so many long years of listening he had attuned himself to picking out the thoughts he wished and drawing them closer for deeper consideration. For many minutes he heard nothing, minutes that trickled past like water washing through his toes. But, after what seemed a very long time, he finally heard something worth listening to.
His three little hunting dogs had seen the humans in the woods. Gmork smiled as their thoughts betrayed the Resistance. Nine humans, eight men and one woman, armed modestly but still armed. Heading east through the stream to the south.
There couldn't be so few could there? Surely there must be others or they would never have risked revealing themselves. Even an assault on the eastern gate would fail with so few. Did they trust in their little powder to give them an advantage?
Gmork took a deep breath and continued to listen. His dogs would follow them. There was nothing more for him to do just yet. He would wait. And as he did, his tail swept out the floor with his agitation.
Lindsey had no way of knowing how long it had been since he'd been given the dragon potion and the poison. Calephas kept an hourglass on his worktable that he'd flipped twice already, but from his vantage point near the floor he couldn't tell if the device was the right size to properly measure an hour. The Baron paced back and forth, obviously loathe to leave the room as he watched his experiment unfold. Weaker stood in one corner with head bowed, though he gave the boy shadowed glances from time to time.
They only spoke to him once and that after Calephas turned the hourglass the first time. The Baron had scrutinized him as if he were livestock for a moment before saying, "Weaker, remove his gag. We don't want him vomiting in it and drowning before the potion has taken effect." And then, those eyes met the boy's and scowled deeply. "If he says one word, bite his tongue out."
Lindsey kept as still as he could while the tiger undid the bindings around his mouth. Weaker's expression was placid, eyes glimmering distantly but they said nothing to the boy. When he had finished his task, the tiger Keeper returned to his place in the corner as obedient as ever.
What relief Lindsey had in being able to move his jaws against was short-lived. His headache proceeded from the back of his skull to the front like a fist slowly enclosing and squeezing. It thrummed like a distant drum signaling the approach of an army. To hide from the pain, Lindsey would close his eyes and shut out all of the world. At first this seemed to help, but the poison was moving quickly through his system, and soon the more he closed his eyes, the dizzier he felt. And the dizzier he felt, the more unsettled his stomach and the queasier his bowels.
So he let his eyelids droop but did not close them. That kept his balance better even if it made his headache worse. But that was infinitely preferable to bathing his thighs in a gooey pile of shit.
Despite the headache and the nausea that assaulted him in sullen waves as the minutes drained past, Lindsey was able to snatch thoughts in between. His body felt warm and suffused with a strange energy. Every pinprick of hair tingled as if he'd spent an hour petting a cat. His toes curled and uncurled with the inchoate sensation of pins and needles. And the wounds on his wrists, once sore and red, no longer hurt and when he managed to turn his head without spinning the world, he saw that they did not look as vicious as he remembered them.
Still, to the baron's obvious impatience, Lindsey showed no sign of turning into a dragon. His flesh and body remained stubbornly that of a human child. Lindsey wondered if perhaps the potion was working far too slowly. Perhaps the Curses of Metamor were interfering; their nature was a mystery to nearly everyone and Jessica's mastery was late in coming and only because of what the Marquis with the power of Marzac at his beck and call had done to him four months past. Did even Nasoj truly understand them anymore? Lindsey doubted it.
And even though his headache made thinking clearly difficult, he was aware enough to observe Gmork's reluctant and irritated entrance with the bottle of yellow powder. He listened as carefully as he could while remaining as listless as the poison made him. It took all of his will power not to flinch when he saw the bright flames erupt from the bowl of water or the block of ice. The only thing he knew that could burn in water was the Whalish Fire, but he also knew that secret would never be revealed. What then was this?
After Gmork left, Calephas studied the powder by mixing it with a few other compounds but nothing quite as dramatic happened. But the baron's curiosity could not hold him forever and soon he returned to scowling with rabid indignation at the boy who was not turning into a dragon.
For Lindsey the baron's irritation was a pleasant contrast to the misery the poison caused. He didn't want to die, but he'd rather that than give Calephas the power to make himself a dragon.
Still, if it were possible to deny Calephas what he wished and still survive, Lindsey found the idea of becoming a dragon himself rather pleasing. He recalled all of those glances that Pharcellus had given him when he'd spoken of being brothers as a ruse to sneak through Arabarb and into Fjellvidden. Pharcellus had known, and very much wished to tell him. Perhaps once this was all over, his older brother could teach him how to fly. Perhaps his older brother could introduce him to their mother.
Lindsey's heart clenched for a moment as he thought of the mother he'd never known. He imagined her looking similar to Pharcellus, with purple scales along her ridge and highlighting the otherwise gray hue, and also bigger and more alluring. He wondered what she would say to him but couldn't form any words through the Arsenic drumbeat.
And the poison seemed to take a new turn with him as the minutes trickled away into insensibility. Everything he saw grew blurry and illumined by strange lights whispering and passing through the air. Lindsey blinked to clear his sight, but the strange light, a sullen blue and pink at first, flared even brighter and more insistent. Soon he saw a plethora of strands passing every which way in a tangled weave, moving through them, being dragged back and forth as Calephas paced impatiently. Lindsey saw that they were moving through the baron and coursing up and down his body. And there was a dark smear clutching to the insides of Weaker that seemed to absorb all of the strange light coming to him.
Was this merely the effects of the poison? Or was it something more?
Lindsey lowered his eyes and stared at his juvenile legs. His little feet, callused with small toes already crooked from wearing boots, showed no outward sign of distress. The strange dreamy cords that were flowing this way and that in a crazed tangle also reached into him, coursing through his legs and disappearing into a dark mass that seemed very much like Weaker's own. Only, Lindsey could see that there was a more filmy layer wrapped around that darkness like a glove would a hand. Only this outer surface slipped like oil, back into the dark blob, through it, and back out again, as if they were both ultimately the same thing.
Peering more intently, his mind throbbing with the exertion, he could see that there was a glimmering light hidden with that encompassing black mass. What was he looking at? Lindsey tried to clear his thoughts as he let his head roll back against the wall. Those lines wrapped about everything, but most things they simply passed through as if they were nothing. Calephas and Weaker moved when they did without truly disturbing those lines. Cords. Some force that he had never imagined had been there.
But others had. Lindsey blinked as he remembered one of the many conversations that had ensued in the long journey to Marzac. The hawk Jessica, the skunk Kayla, and the Binoq Abafouq, had been discussing at length the varieties of magic with which they were familiar. How well he could remember that evening all huddled in tents in one of the forests of Pyralis. Andares, Charles and Jerome had been scouting the perimeter of their camp. Habakkuk and Qan-af-årael had been quietly talking on the other side of the fire. Guernef reclined with his wings pulled in close, while Abafouq laid against his side. Jessica and Kayla sat nearby while Lindsey polished his axe and listened to them.
Despite the many differences they had encountered, all of them had described in more detail than Lindsey had liked at the time, what that magic had looked like. They always spoke of an endless flow of strands of strange energy that passed through all living things, and sometimes even those things that were not alive as they were. Was that not what he saw now? And Jessica had described the Curses as a darkness clinging to each Keeper. Is that not what he spied in Weaker and himself?
But if he was now glimpsing magical energies, did that not mean that the potion had worked? Was not he, Lindsey, now a dragon?
Lindsey hoped it was true, but how could it be if he was still resolutely human in body?
He stared at Calephas and wondered the same thing as he. Why wasn't he changing?
The long road descending out of the hills south of Fjellvidden followed the course of the river flush with snow melt. About three miles from the city it cross the tributary to avoid the jagged terrain that kept Fjellvidden protected on its southern flank. The jumble of rocks and steep hills persisted for half a mile before flattening out into the long slope that was cut through by streams and rivulets during the Spring. It was not impassible to determined men, but to the usual traveler the road on the western bank was easier and already cleared.
It was this same road that only a few days before Elizabaeg had come with Lindsey and Pharcellus hiding in the secret cache in her wagon. Now, Gerhard and the men of the southern mountains galloped down the road as quickly as they could that they might reach Fjellviddne in time to help save their friends. Quoddy had tried to ride by perching on the horn of Gerhard's saddle, but his webbed feet and the bouncing gait made it impossible for him to keep a tight grip so he flew overhead, keeping below the line of trees, but always following the road.
The men of the tundra proved themselves versatile even in the forests as not even Quoddy saw them or suspected they were there when they sprang out of the bushes and trees just before the bridge with snarling dogs at their sides and bows and axes in their hands. Gerhard and his men drew up quickly, their weapons in their hands even before their horses managed to stop within the circle of men and dogs. Harald lifted his hands to ready a spell. Dark eyes brown and blue scowled across the short distance as the dozen riders surveyed the dozen and a half men on foot and their two dozen dogs.
The tension evaporated a moment later when out of the trees burst a black bird with orange beak cawing one word full of excitement and delight, "Quoddy!"
The gull turned in the air and cawed his joy too, "Machias! You made it!"
As the seabirds danced around each other in the air, the southern and northern men of Arabarb gazed at them and then at each other with long, slow exhalations. Weapons lowered one by one, and the hard-set chiseled lines bent into comradely smiles.
"So they have a way into the eastern gate," Gerhard said thoughtfully after Ture and Thuring regaled him with Elizabaeg's impromptu plan. "It will be hours before we can reach them. The day will be mostly gone by then."
Ture nodded with a sullen frown as they forged their way through the jagged rocks and tight passages of the eastern flank of the river. The crevices through which they had to squeeze were not so small that the horses couldn't manage them, but they balked and had to be coaxed through by the riders leading them and tugging from time to time on the reins. A few could only be brought through by offering them food.
The dogs had no such trouble, and several of the tundra men navigated along the tops of the boulders with their four-legged companions to make sure that they could not be ambushed. But their northward progress was slow and it obviously grated on Gerhard and the other southerners.
"We'll be through this soon," Ture replied with a wave of one hand as he walked ahead of him, squeezing his swarthy frame through the walls of rock that rose overhead twice their height, topped and pock-marked by tufts of grass and creeping brush. Moss and loose stones crunched under their boots and the horses hooves. "Another half-hour at best," he added optimistically. "From there we have a clear road to Fjellvidden and neither the monster or the mage will be any the wiser."
"You said his pups chased you out of the mill," Quoddy pointed out. The two birds stood next to each other on Gerhard's saddle, eying the cliff walls warily, but glad to rest their wings. "Won't they know we're coming?"
"Perhaps," Thuring said from behind them. The tall, grizzled tundra man had one of the travois slung across his shoulders as if it were nothing more than an axe. "But they won't know how many of us are coming, or from what direction."
"I'm worried about running into the pups," Gerhard said with a grunt as his steed dug in his hooves before an especially tight passage through the stone. He tugged on the reins a couple of times before the steed attempted the passage with trembling hide. His wide belly brushed the stone on one side but he had a hand's span on the other. "How many does he have?"
"Four that we know of," Ture said as he started up a slope through the rocks. The passage widened and they could see a cluster of trees ahead. They were leaving this cleft behind and would soon enter another. "That dragon killed one of them yesterday, but the one that attacked us at the bridge was unfamiliar. I think he has a new pup."
"So four," Gerhard said with a sigh. "And Jarl only had the one jar of powder left?" Ture nodded and Gerhard scowled more deeply. "They are probably already hunting Elizabaeg down. They may have already killed them."
"Maybe," Quoddy admitted, but both gull and puffin began to shake their heads. "I don't think so. Elizabaeg will find a way."
"We need to help them somehow. Is there any way we can get to them quicker?" Machias asked.
"Not likely," Thuring grunted as his eyes followed the trees, noting the others in their party moving through the brush and wood as the stones broke clear before rising up again a short distance ahead. "I say we get those dumb dogs to follow us instead."
"How?"
"Attack Fjellvidden from the west. If they are going to attack from the east, then we should attack from the west."
"But nine aren't enough to seize the castle," Ture objected.
"That's all your going to get." Thuring's gruff voice deepened as he added, "We aren't going to get to them before the pups do. So we need those pups and all of that mage's eyes on us. If we do that, then maybe nine can seize the castle."
Gerhard stroked his chin with his free hand and smiled ever so faintly. "What exactly did you have in mind?"
As promised, the course of the slender river turned sharply south while the northern bank was framed by a high wall of stone with little fissures bored through that they could easily climb up. Brigsne and Luvig went first while the other seven kept a watch on the river behind them. For the last hour they had all felt a distinct chill in their bones and half of them complained of a conviction that they were being watched. But they could smell no pursuit and heard nothing in the forest around that they wouldn't expect. Would not the many animals, the bids, and the creeping things have all gone into hiding if Gmork's pups were near?
"There's nothing up here," Luvig called down the slender chimney. "Hurry."
Elizabaeg went next, scrambling up the slope, hands long used to labor gripping the many stones and roots clutching the sides of the rock face. The others followed behind her. Within a minute all of them had reached the top of the promontory. The hillside was shaded with large fir except for a few places were the stones emerged from the soil and allowed a little sunlight to penetrate. The ground rose somewhat to the north and east fell away quickly to the west.
"We should be east of the castle now," Luvig said as he gestured at the land. "If we follow the ridge here we should see it soon."
Elizabaeg nodded her head and soon the nine of them continued their travels, wary eyes ever behind them and to the west. The slope leveled off after about ten minutes and continued through a thick maze of pine, elm and fir. The forest music that they had all grown familiar continued its comforting song. The chirping of birds and scampering vermin claws suggested that all was right with the world.
Yet that only made them ore uneasy as they looked over their shoulders and hefted what few weapons they did have. Luvig kept one of his potent jars in his free hand at all times, wiry frame darting between the underbrush as if one of Gmork's pups were hiding within each bush. Elizabaeg kept her focus on the path ahead, a narrow elk track that kept to the ridge, only by keeping her mind on her son Lhindesaeg whose life they would save.
She would see him again. This she assured herself with each step.
Their hike took them another half-hour, at which point the sun was shining high in the sky and they could see it clearly through the breaks in the tangle of branches and pine needles. The ridge shallowed until the ground on their left rose up in a steady slope to meet the elk track. The forest also thinned on their right. Their legs were sore from the long hike and run that they'd been on since the dawn, but their hearts leaped when they glimpsed the castle walls through a break in the trees.
They wasted no time in finding rocks and trees behind which they could hide. Elizabaeg peered out around a boulder that hunched down the slop like an elbow. Along the eastern curtain walls she could several a quartet of Lutin soldiers looking bored. Beyond them she saw that the western walls were guarded by Calephas's soldiers. The eastern gate was closed and barred but they could see no sign of who guarded it.
She slipped back behind the rock and turned to the others. They waited with sullen looks. "So far Gwythyr's friend seems to have told the truth." She gestured at the Lutins guarding the eastern walls.
"So what do we do?" Brigsne asked. "There's only nine of us."
Elizabaeg sucked her lip for a moment and sighed. "We wait. At least for a little while."
His expression darkened like his black hair. "And if those pups find us?"
"Then we make for the gate. It's not a long run."
"There's nowhere else to run to," Luvig pointed out with a sweep of his hands. "There's nothing else here but the forest."
Elizabaeg nodded and brushed her hair back behind her head, before rolling over onto the rock to watch the castle walls. "Then we are committed to this. Let's just give the others a little more time."
Her friends grunted as they settled down to wait.
Gmork was especially pleased with the Keeper dogs as they had done precisely what he'd wanted them to do. They were moving through the forest and reporting everything they saw and heard from the Resistance. He growled in delicious amusement when the three dogs flagellated themselves as unworthy servants whenever they couldn't quite hear what the humans were saying and didn't dare move closer without risking revealing their presence. They each professed with plaintive brow-beating that they were failures for their beloved master because they didn't know how to move as silently as they should through the brush, or that their hearing wasn't as astute as it should be as if they could refine it by desire alone.
Nevertheless, they shadowed the nine fools as they made their way along the ridge-line to the east of the castle. Gmork was very familiar with those woods as he and his pups hunted there for most of their food. As much as he insisted that his pups eat human flesh, it was a very small portion of their diet. Hunting on all fours like a true beast was essential to cement his pups together as a pack. They must depend on each other and consider each other the only things worthy of regard. It was the twist by which mages of good will could be turned into ruthless beasts eager to please their father. His eyes briefly alighted upon his latest whelp nestled against the tanner's apprentice on the pile of furs. How he longed to complete his transformation; but the Resistance had to be crushed first.
The dogs were able to get close to the nine idiots seeking to challenge him once they stopped at a familiar cairn of rocks and trees overlooking the sward between castle and wood and eastern road leading to the Lutin-held bridge. They heard voices speaking quietly, but had not been able to arrive in time to convey them to their beloved master, and for this reason they proceeded with their customary self-abasement.
Still, that these nine had managed to move through the woods without being challenged by his second and third pups was disturbing to him. Where had they gone? It was one weakness of the conversion process; unlike his pets whose will he stole into his brass baubles, he could not listen to his children's thoughts. Wherever they had gone they would seek to do their father's will, but until they revealed themselves, Gmork had no idea where they might be.
He still hoped they would track down these nine interlopers and slaughter them. But he could not rely on it. His nostrils flared as he allowed his snout to grow and stretch to its full extent. Lips thinned and pulled taut against his fangs used to gnawing raw flesh and crunching bones. His frame hulked with sprouting fur as he rose to a crouch and turned to his pups. He had a thought to wake them and send them out to kill those fools but he stopped and decided against it. Calephas's potion may be finished, and he would not allow that man to escape with the secret to transforming a man into a dragon. The monster now had a weapon to use against his children; he needed both of them when that time came. If the nine were doing nothing but waiting, so too could he.
Still, Gmork turned to the single door leading out of his Listening Room and quietly opened the door. Standing outside were a pair of Lutin guards carrying awl pikes. The one standing on the right was decorated with more bones, but not as many as Yajgaj had. This one he knew to by Khilaj, Yajgaj's second amongst the Lutins in the castle. He would have to do.
"Master Gmork," Khilaj said with a bow of his head, long, pointed ears twitching with each syllable. "What you want?"
Gmork let his lips curl back across his fangs. "There are nine humans in the woods to the east. Make sure the eastern gate is well guarded and that there are archers on the eastern battlements. If they foolishly attempt to assault the gate let them cross the road, but then cut them down. I want none of them to escape."
Khilaj nodded his head and grinned with pronounced yellow tusks. "They all die as master Gmork say."
He growled at them under his breath until the two Lutins rushed down the hall to see that it was done. It was a good thing that Lutins had no love for humans. It was about the only reason they could be trusted to do anything.
Satisfied that those nine fools would never be even a glimmer of a threat, Gmork returned to his stones to listen and wait.
His shoulder ached but that couldn't stop Pharcellus from running. He ducked and wove through the trees and around rocks and through brief glades. His feet barely brushed the hard loam and the glistening stone as he rushed as fast as his human guise would allow him. To his left the sun strode upward in the sky. The clouds had dispersed and now a vast blue sky spread from east to west. He longed to soar through such an expanse but the pain stabbed more deeply each time he thought of it.
The terrain had a general downward slope and Pharcellus saw many signs of animal habitation, and the occasional abandoned woodcutter or trapper's lodge. Most of these had been sacked with their walls punched through and their doors torn down. Some of them had even been burned and were now just pillars of crumbling stone that had once framed a home. His heart burned with the memory of what had been done to Lindsey's home.
The minutes passed as swiftly as he ran. His eyes kept a close watch on everything around him, noting the angle of the sun in the sky, ever rising and rising until midday gleamed with a pleasant warmth. But it was not to the sun that his eyes constantly strayed, but to the southern bank of the river which he saw through the trees from time to time. He longed to glimpse Fjellvidden and the castle but all he ever seemed to see was more forest.
When the sun climbed almost to its apex, he finally, through a breach in the woods opening into a small meadow, glimpsed the stone bridge spanning the river, and beyond it, the high walls of the castle. Pharcellus smiled as he quickened his pace and then tripped over a cord leaping suddenly from the ground. He grunted and gasped for breath as he smashed into a thicket that proved to be a disguised net. A pair of small shapes threw the net over his head and he twisted this way and that before he felt the sharp points of spears poking into his side.
Pharcellus stopped moving as the net tangled around his arms and legs and against his face, pulling painfully at the short beard he sported. Six Lutins emerged from the woods as if exuded from the trees like sap. Their faces beamed with ravenous triumph. "Stupid man," the nearest of them said as he jabbed Pharcellus in the side with his spear. "You have meat on you. We enjoy you for dinner. Unless the mage wants you."
Pharcellus grunted and pulling on the net, managed to get to his feet. But the Lutins were at his side and back, with one in front. "You come with us now," the lead green-skinned vermin said with a throaty chuckle. They prodded him and lead him toward the bridge a short distance ahead. The dragon in disguise grimaced but allowed himself to be led. As he walked and worked out the soreness in his muscles he wondered whether that stone bridge would carry his weight.
After the fourth time flipping the hourglass Calephas finally threw his hands into the air and stamped his feet. "Why aren't you changing?" he asked, snarling at the boy, his normally pallid blue eyes ribald with fire. "All the other boys showed signs by now, and they didn't have your blood. Why aren't you changing?"
Lindsey felt sick and his body was trembling, but he did his best not to give the man any satisfaction. Rather he kept trying to study the spells he knew he was seeing. The one at the outermost layer must be the one that was keeping him a child; somehow he could almost see Jessica's feathers brushing over its surface as if she were constantly stroking him to keep the boyhood curse in place. The Curse itself was a dark thing exactly as the hawk and the other mages he knew had described it. But there was a brilliance beneath it that he could only catch glimmers of. All he knew for sure was that it was not Jessica's spell.
Calephas ran his hands over his face and neck as he glowered. After several long seconds, he snapped his fingers and Weaker lifted his face from its empty contemplation of the floor. "Fetch a sample of his blood."
The tiger strode to the worktable and picked up a small empty bowl, the turned straight for Lindsey. The boy lifted his head, breathing as slowly and as deeply as he could. The world swam around him and his bowels threatened to turn over. The tiger's hot breath washed across his face, as one hand gripped his arm. A sharp stab with his thumb claw and a bit of blood poured free and into the bowl. Lindsey was too weak even to moan in pain.
Yet, despite the haze produced by his pounding headache and nausea, Lindsey could see that his blood looked darker than it should. Calephas's fierce scowl seemed mollified a little when Weaker brought the bowl back to the table and set it down. The baron took several bottles of fluid and powder from the shelf over his worktable and laid them out. Lindsey's wound continued to bleed, trickling down his arm and across his chest, but within a few seconds the flow slowed to a dribble.
"There's one possibility," Calephas murmured to himself as he opened first one bottle, then the next. He sprinkled some powder into the blood, then poured in a little liquid and mixed the two together. Lindsey couldn't see what was happening in the bowl, but from the way that the man's face slackened and slowly turned into a sadistic grin he knew something had to be happening.
Calephas swirled the bowl around in one hand after adding the last dash of powder and then let out a long sigh. "Finally." He set the bowl down and beckoned Weaker to bring his chest of decanters. Lindsey rolled his head back to watch. Taking the plainer bottles and a funnel, he poured the dark fluid into each one until they were filled. The potion appeared to glow with a strange crimson light.
Once all three delicately crafted bottles were filled, the liquid making the eyes of the dragon in each neck glimmer with a warm radiance, Calephas sealed the chest and set it on the worktable at his side. "Dragon's blood can tolerate Arsenic in a way that human blood cannot. It is the only reason that you are still alive my little boy."
Calephas took the little bowl of blood he'd mixed with various powders and unguents. He turned to Lindsey and tipped the bowl over so that a vibrant purple fluid touched by silver spilled forth to pool on the ground. There was no splatter at all even though Calephas poured it from chest height. "Your blood is pure. Your blood is that of a dragon. My potion worked."
He tossed the bowl aside, even as Weaker handed Calephas his buckler. The baron secured it and drew the steel half a foot before slamming it back down into the scabbard. "My potions will need a little more time to brew, but by this time tomorrow, I will be a dragon at last. And I have you to thank for it.
"And you are doubtlessly wondering why you still look human." Calephas's smile widened even as he gestured for Weaker to pick up the chest. The tiger obeyed with lowered muzzle and slouched shoulders. "Have you forgotten your father's tale already? Your mother, your real mother, cast a spell on you when you just hatched to keep you human. My potions cannot change that; and so human you remain. And in a very short while, even with dragon blood, the Arsenic will surely kill you in a very, very painful way."
Caelphas peered out into the hallway and then glanced back at him. "I promised to kill you, but I think I'll let your mother do that instead. And if she doesn't, Gmork will. Good bye."
Before the baron could step outside, Lindsey marshaled his tongue and his last reserves of strength to shout. He didn't know why he said what he said, but the words would not be denied. "You are a wicked, wicked man!" His eyes flashed once to the tiger before returning to the baron. "But there is one more wicked than you, Calephas. One more!"
The baron smirked, and then without another word was gone. The tiger carrying his chest followed after him the obedient slave, turning only once to growl at the boy before disappearing through the doorway. Lindsey tried to scream it once more but his throat had nothing left to give.
Soldiers milled through the streets of Fjellvidden in groups of four and six, while the townsfolk stayed indoors as much as they could. Whenever Calephas's troops were out in force it was always best not to draw attention to oneself. Already rumors of what they had done at Strom's paddocks and at Ture's tannery were spreading by whispers and hand gestures through homes, trades, and quiet shops. Many peered out windows afraid of what they would see next. Gmork's pets peered out their windows to watch in delight as the city stayed hidden away.
With so many of the soldiers on patrol looking for innocents to harass, it took them longer than it should have to respond to the cries of alarm from the southwestern walls. Out of the forest to the south streamed nearly two dozen men and that many large dos, brandishing axes and spears, with another six carrying bows already drawn. Their shouts of rage echoed across the sward as they hurtled like madmen against the wooden barricades. Arrows flew through the air, followed quickly by a handful of javelins. Of the half-dozen soldiers standing on the wall when the cry went up, only two survived the first volley and that by crouching behind the battlements and shouting madly for help.
Jarl was grateful that he was amongst the first wave. Thuring had given him a javelin and his struck one of the soldiers through the shoulder. He'd hoped to fell the man, but that honor went to one of the tunrda men whose arrow pierced the soldier's chest. As the axemen hacked and tore into the wooden wall, Jarl kept his knives ready for when they would make a breach. The dogs barked and circled madly, their cacophony drowning out all other speech.
More men raced up to the top of the barricades, while Thuring and three other lobbed grappling hooks. They connected with a satisfying chunk. Jarl glanced from the wall to the woods and grimaced impatiently. In combat, a few seconds were an eternity. But the eternity came to an abrupt end when a whoosh of air echoed from the edge of the forest and an arc of green light shot up through the sky, crossed the meadow, and descended with like a fist into the wall.
The brilliant light splashed over the wooden barrier, soaking into the woods and fading away. Immediately, the wood, solid and fastened firmly together, began to fester and rot, opening gaping holes and embrittling the entire wall.
Jarl jumped out of the way as did the other men as Thuring and the other three yanked hard, digging their boots into the ground and pulling back. The wood cracked and snapped where Harald's spell had struck it. The men atop the barricade screamed as it collapsed beneath them. One of them cried in anguish as he futilely pushed his hands at the spar slowly impaling his middle. The rest were hacked to pieces by the axemen.
The city wall breached, they and the dogs rushed in to meet Calephas's soldiers rushing to the defense. Jarl gripped his knives and charged in to find his first kill.
He snarled at the timing. Just as the his newest pets relayed Calephas's words of triumph to him, his pets in the city cried out in anguish and fear at the attack on the city. At first he decided to ignore the attack and let Calephas's army repel it as they were supposed to do, but when his pets wailed of the magical blast that had destroyed the fortifications, he knew it could not be ignored.
Who were these interlopers and how did they come by a mage? He glanced at the boy curled into the corner, his eyes and lips twitching in a dream. It was clear that he had not adopted all those with magical talent in this land. Perhaps in a few hours he would have another child.
Still, there was no time to waste. He rested his heavy hands, thick with fur, on his eldest and his soon to be assassin and stirred them from their slumber. "Arise, my pups." They blinked their eyes until they were crisp and golden clear. His eldest quickly shifted into a mostly man-shaped form, complimented by wolf's ears, a naked tail, thin quivering lips, and a suggestion of a snout. The other, he whom Gmork would soon fully have mastered, was still mostly beast and as he rose gently licked the young boy across the cheek before turning to his father and assuming a more human guise.
"Calephas has succeeded in creating a potion to turn himself into a dragon," Gmork said when their eyes were upon him. His eldest growled and allowed a little snout to press from his face. "He must die now. Go and kill him. And kill his stupid tiger too. And that boy who he's been experimenting on. Kill them and then return here. The Resistance is attacking the city and I need to protect it."
Both of his pups nodded and strode from the room purposefully. Once they were gone, Gmork took one last look at the boy still sleeping, then closed the door and sealed it with a ward so that his newest child would not be disturbed or in a fit of clarity escape. In his most human guise he strode the empty hall heading for the western battlements to see for himself this attack on Fjellvidden and the mage who aided it.
The thought of having six pups again made his lips curl in a broad smile.
Elizabaeg lifted her head and listened when the sounds of distant cries and the ring of steel and splintering wood came to them. The others all looked at each other in confusion, but not daring to speak, even to ask each other what they thought it might mean.
After the initial shock, she looked at the castle walls and noted the way the Lutins standing guard atop the eastern wall had all turned to look at something behind them. And then, there was a torrent of screams and the sound of some terrific crash. Elizabaeg felt her heart lift in excitement and fear. There was a battle in Fjellvidden. Had the populace risen up in revolt? Had Machias brought the tundra men only to be caught by the guards? Had Jarl and Ture made it back only to suffer the same fate?
Still, no matter what was happening, all eyes were on the west. Elizabaeg sucked in her breath and turned to the other eight hiding in the small dell in the woods. "This may be our chance. If Gwythyr's Lutin was telling the truth, we can get into the castle now. If not, then they are distracted and we'll be able to escape. Is everyone ready?"
"Let's kill that son of a bitch," Brigsne scowled through his black beard as his hands tightened around his axe.
She wondered which of their two enemies he referred to but ask. As one, the nine of them rose from where they hid and rushed through the trees, still taking care not to break too many branches or to dislodge any stones, until they passed onto the sward clinging to the declivity and across the old dirt road leading to the bridge. The sun warmed them as they ran, the walls of the castle rising up before them a silent edifice decrepit and fierce.
Atop the walls one of the Lutin guards turned his head from the sounds of battle in the west, a yellow eye noted them, and then he turned back to watch the fighting. Elizabaeg gritted her teeth in hope at that sign as Brigsne and a trio of the larger men ran past them to reach the heavy iron door. When they were only a few paces away, the doors began to groan inward, revealing a torchlit hall with eight Lutins standing guard and a familiar human soldier holding back one of the doors.
"Is this all?" the Lutin closest to them asked as he surveyed them with a careful eye. Around his neck was a necklace of human finger bones, and he carried a quartet of wicked looking bone knives at his belt. He did not flinch in the sight of humans twice his height, but stood tall like their equal.
Brigsne and the other men glowered at him, weapons ready to strike. "More than enough for your kind," he snapped with a growl.
The Lutin smiled around his short slightly yellowed tusks. "Blood Harrow not fight you now. Come inside."
The other Lutins all backed up down the hallway at his command though their eyes watched the ten humans warily. The human at the door, Gwythyr, clasped hands with several of the men and Elizabaeg as they passed through before shutting the door behind them. "It is good to see you. We can hear the sounds of battle in the city."
"Do you know what's going on?" Elizabaeg asked.
He shook his head. "I've been waiting here for you. Calephas has your boy in his laboratory; I don't know what he's doing to him, but no one who goes there ever comes back."
She tensed and forced herself to take a quick breath before asking. "What of the mage?"
"In his listening room with two of his pups. The other two he sent into the city."
"We saw them," Brigsne replied with a wicked smile. "Luvig here made sure they weren't a threat."
The lead Lutin's eyes narrowed at that news and he stepped closer. "How did you do that?"
The young man slipped his pack around his shoulders and undid the drawstring. "I have little jars with a very volatile mixture. The scent is so foul it will make them run away, so don't open them until you have to." He carefully removed the palm-sized earthenware jars from his pack and began handing them out to a few of the other men. The lead Lutin also held out his hand and after a bit of hesitation, Luvig passed him one too. "Don't get them wet or on fire. It will be very bad for whoever does."
The Lutin turned the jar from side to side in his hand and grinned so that his thin lips split across sharp teeth. "Clever man. I take this one."
"Where do we go from here?" Brigsne asked with a grunt.
"I am going for my son and Calephas," Elizabaeg said without doubt. "Gwythyr will lead me there. The rest of you go to the armory as we agreed and secure the castle. Then we corner and kill Gmork. Agreed?"
The lead Lutin turned and gestured to another decorated with human bones. "Khilaj will lead you to the armory. The way is clear. I go keep Gmork busy."
"By yourself?" Brigsne snorted in amusement. "He'll crush you in a heartbeat."
The Lutin eyed him with hungry amusement. "Yajgaj no fool. But you he make lick his boots before introducing you to his belly. No human can touch him. I am a Lutin and his gaoler. He will let me get close."
"You had best be right," Elizabaeg said as she hefted one of the jars. "This is our only chance to kill them both."
The Lutin Yajgaj gazed at the woman with a strange glint in his eyes and countenance, before adding in a softer voice, "Your Alfwig is in the dungeons. I have loosed his chains and given him armor and his sword. Now I must go."
Elizabaeg stared in shock at the Lutin and held out her hand to ask more but Yajgaj slipped through the other Lutins and disappeared down the corridor and out of sight. "How... how did he know?" Elizabaeg asked the others standing around her, but they all shrugged or shook their heads.
"No time for this," Khilaj, the other Lutin commander said with a nasty glint in his eyes. "You want armory, come with me. They not wait for family." So saying, he and the other Lutins started down the corridor. Elizabaeg sucked in her breath and gestured for the rest to do the same.
Gwythyr stepped beside her, feeling rather awkward, while the rest moved swiftly and quietly down the castle halls. He stammered a moment before asking, "Are you all right?"
She pressed one hand to her face and made sure that she wasn't crying. Her husband was alive! But how did that Lutin know who either he or she was? She shook her head back and forth to shake those questions form her mind. There was no time to worry about such things. She had a son to rescue and a blackguard to kill. "I'm fine. Let's go."
Gwythyr gestured down the corridor and the first turn to the right. "It's this way."
Out in the woods a trio of dogs howled in anguish and thought furiously to their master about the nine humans who had entered the castle by the eastern gate. They whined with all their heart of their fear for their master. But there was no one left in the Listen Room who could hear them.