that Aesperus asked you to retrieve?”
The swordmage nodded. “Yes, we’ve got it.” He glanced out the window; the evening was already well on. “I’ll go out on the Highfells and summon him tomorrow night. We’re tired from days of hard travel, and I want to be well rested and clearheaded when we speak again, just in case there’s some misunderstanding. But right now I need a hot meal and a few hours of sleep in a warm bed before I do anything else.”
“That much I think we can provide,” Kara said with a smile. “It’s good to have you back, Geran. All three of you, in truth. It seems that every time I turn around there’s something else that needs the Hulmaster’s attention, and while you’ve been away, that’s been me.”
“How are things proceeding here?” Geran asked. “Any more trouble with spies or assassins from Hulburg?”
“Some trouble with spies. We’ve caught a few of Rhovann’s creatures lurking about. And I suspect that some of the drivers and provisioners in Thentia are paid to report on what they see of our encampment or hear from our soldiers.”
That didn’t surprise Geran. There were simply too many keen-eyed folk in and around Thentia who wouldn’t think twice about taking a few coins to tell stories. He hadn’t really imagined that he’d be able to keep all their preparations secret from Marstel and Rhovann. “Will we be ready to march when we planned?”
Kara hesitated. “We’re as ready as we can be, I suppose. Another month of drilling and stockpiling supplies wouldn’t hurt, but it would sorely stretch our treasury and we’d lose some of our sellswords. But there’s troubling news from Hulburg. I’ve heard reports that Marstel’s struck a bargain with the Warlock Knights. He’s granted the Vaasans a trading concession, and it’s rumored that strong companies of armsmen will soon arrive from Vaasa to reinforce his Council Guard.”
“The Warlock Knights?” Geran muttered. The Vaasans had allied themselves with the Bloody Skull orcs a year previous. He’d briefly dueled a Warlock Knight in the Battle of Lendon’s Dike, trading blows with the human sorcerer before the tide of battle had swept them apart. And there’d been plenty of stories of Vaasan magic playing a crucial role in the orcs’ attack on the town of Glister at the northern margin of Thar. The Warlock Knights had disappeared quickly enough once the threat of the Bloody Skull horde had been smashed, and as far as Geran knew they’d played no role in the Black Moon troubles or the Cinderfist unrest … or had they? Had his traitorous cousin Sergen sold out Hulburg to the Vaasans after he’d failed to sell out the town to the merchant lords of Melvaunt and Mulmaster? “What’s their concern in this?”
“If you’re asking for my guess, I’d say that they put the Cyricists up to their mischief with the Cinderfists,” Kara answered. “Before we were driven out of Hulburg, I’d turned up a few hints that the priests of Cyric were paid in Vaasan gold, but I never caught them at it. The Black Moon troubles drew all of my attention. What exactly they hope to gain from meddling in Hulburg, I couldn’t say.”
“How many Vaasans are coming? When will they arrive?”
Kara shook her head. “I’ve got scouts ringing the Highfells and the moorland now. They haven’t run across any Vaasans yet, but then again, the Galena passes are still snowed in and likely to stay that way for another month or more. I doubt we’ll see any large numbers of Vaasan soldiers in Hulburg before the end of Tarsakh, at the earliest. Even then, it would be a hard crossing.”
“That is another argument for striking at Marstel soon,” Sarth observed. “It would seem better to attack before Vaasan soldiers reinforce the Council Guard.”
As if we needed another reason to move with haste, Geran reflected. He didn’t like the idea of the Vaasans choosing sides, but he couldn’t see that it changed the essential facts of their situation. Every day that went by with Marstel in control of Hulburg was another day for the usurper to tighten his grip on his stolen realm, another day for Rhovann to devise arcane defenses and create deadly new soldiers, another day for the foreign mercenaries and brigands to plunder the honest folk of the town. “We should see to it that High Lord Vasil knows what we know about the Vaasan meddling,” he mused aloud. “Thentia won’t want to see another power gaining influence in Hulburg. It might buy us some additional help.”
“I’ll have Master Quillon speak to his counterpart in the high lord’s palace,” Kara said. “Now, for more important matters … what in the world did you do to end up in the coronal’s dungeons? Other than you, Geran, of course I expected you to be imprisoned. I want to know how Hamil and Sarth got on Ilsevele’s bad side.”
“You
That night, he slept soundly for what seemed the first time in months. The following day was bright, clear, cold, and windy-a typically raw early spring day in the Moonsea. Geran spent it doing his best to catch up with scores of important details and decisions that Kara and her officers had settled on during his absence, but ultimately he simply concurred with everything that had been done already. He saw no reason to second-guess a decision arrived at over hours of dedicated thought with his own quick impressions, and he knew that his next task waited for him on the Highfells after sundown.
Late in the day, Geran took an hour to refresh his wardings and arm himself with the most powerful spells he could manage. A little before sunset, he rode up to the Highfells again, with Kara, Sarth, and Hamil at his side. The howling wind drove the moorgrass first one way and then another, an invisible serpent writhing and hissing its way across the landscape. The four riders huddled closer within their heavy cloaks against the biting cold and the sheer wild loneliness of the empty hills.
An hour’s ride brought them to the line of barrows on the broad hillside where they’d met the King in Copper before. “This is the spot,” Hamil said. He shivered. “The sooner this is over, the better.”
Geran nodded. He closed his eyes, searching for the words to summon the lich, and began to recite:
The wind grew stronger as he spoke, seeming to snatch away his words even before he spoke them. A chill began to gather in his bones, and he shivered; he could feel the King in Copper’s presence. In the barrow’s entrance, windblown mist began to stream and sink into the low doorway, pooling like water poured into a basin. From the gathering mist, the tattered robes and tarnished crown of Aesperus took form. An evil green light kindled in his black eye sockets, and his yellowed bones with their copper rivets took shape within his robes of black. Despite himself, Geran retreated a couple of steps; Sarth and Hamil did likewise.
“Have you brought the rest of my book?” the lich hissed.
“Aye, I have it,” Geran replied. “I wouldn’t have summoned you without completing my part of our bargain, King Aesperus.” He drew the scroll tube from Myth Drannor from under his cloak, opened it, and carefully drew out the old parchment within. The wind, which had been howling with such bitter fury only a few moments before, had fallen still with the lich’s arrival. With a conscious act of will he forced his feet forward and extended the pages to the lich.
Aesperus took them with surprising care, immediately turning his attention to the parchment in his bony hands. His jawbone worked silently as he read, examining the prize. “Ahhh, so I thought,” he murmured to himself. “At last the ritual can be completed …” The lich’s voice trailed off as he eagerly read on, studying the ancient pages with his eyes burning brighter.
Hamil gave Geran a sharp glance.
“Is that everything you expected us to find, King Aesperus?” Geran asked.
The lich ignored him, reading further. Geran felt his companions’ eyes on him, but he forced himself to keep his peace a little longer. He did not want to annoy the King in Copper, of that much he was certain. He waited until the lich raised one hand and began to chant in his horrible, cracking voice. For a moment Geran feared that Aesperus was simply going to enact whatever spell had been interrupted four hundred years earlier, or teleport away without another word … but instead the pages glowed briefly with a violet light, and vanished. “The
