A Snoop Without Magic, page 36
“Don’t I do good work?” Desmon said, grinning. “Only I could bring the Wistallians and the Norlankians together.”
“Not without a lot of wheedling and bribery,” Glory said. “It wasn’t easy.”
“I’m glad they are here,” Sam said. He looked at Glory. “I am about out of pollen magic, so the ward-making is up to you.”
“Saving it up for the big boom?” Desmon said.
“If it comes to that,” Sam said. He found a gap in Emmy’s armor and scratched behind her ear.
“A few more minutes,” Faddon said.
He motioned behind him, and a pair of coaches showed up with a roof between them.
“Wards first,” Faddon said.
Another warder assigned to Faddon and Glory walked underneath the roof toward the gate. Rocks and burning sacks of oil pounded on the roof, but the pair were protected all the way to the gate. The wards were set, and they had to withdraw slowly since the horses had to back up.
“Archers!” Faddon said.
A volley of arrows was launched against the gate, blowing the wards. The gates fell forward, revealing a barricade of sorts.
“I will do one ward,” Sam said. He borrowed a crossbow and put a potent ward on the bolt and fired. The barricade explosion dwarfed the wards on the gate. The way was open, and the rebels stormed the palace.
Sam was restrained by Dickey. “We will go in once we control the gate and the walls,” Dickey said.
They waited for five or ten minutes that seemed like seconds before the soldiers flooded in. Red flags began to wave over the walls.
“Now.”
Sam, Emmy, and Desmon stalked into the palace courtyard. Dickey and Faddon went in a different direction. They worked their way through sporadic fighting, but without the Royal Guards, there weren’t many defenders. General Torrent must have taken most of the forces in Baskin with him.
“Is there a back entrance to the palace?” Desmon said to a guard running in the opposite direction.
“Back entrance. They are all warded. Stay away from them,” the guard said. “There are few defenders left behind me. There is a door through that little gate.”
They walked into a pleasant garden, made a little less pleasant by three bodies of Court forces. They walked to the door and saw three green wards covering the space between the door and the door frame.
“I don’t need my pollen magic to eliminate these,” Sam said as he pulled out two gold coins and went to work. “Two layers,” Sam said.
In a few minutes, the doors were open, and they deactivated two wards on the floor. “Step where I step,” Sam said as he walked three paces toward the front of the palace before there were no additional wards.
They ran upstairs and towards the conference room where Sam had slid all the way to ground level. The palace was empty.
“Find someone, Emmy.” Sam didn’t know if Emmy understood him, but the dog started sniffing. She stood in front of a closet barking.
Sam checked for wards before Desmon opened the door. A servant cringed, arms covering her head. “Don’t kill me!”
“Where is Lord Instep?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, shivering from fear.
“Did he have quarters in the palace?”
She nodded.
“Take us there.”
They fought two men in the virtually empty palace on the way to Instep’s apartment. The door was open. Sam looked around for wards, but couldn’t find any. The Court of Nobles seemed to have fled the place in a panic.
Sam ran into the bedroom and flung open Instep’s wardrobe. “Are these his clothes?” he asked the servant.
“I suppose so,” the woman said.
Sam found a wrinkled shirt. Instep would have worn this, so he put it to Emmy’s nose. “Find him.”
Emmy turned and sniffed at the entrance to his apartment and ran down the corridor. She stopped before stepping on a ward. Sam deactivated it. Emmy invariably halted before wards, and finally, she stopped, pawing at the door on the main level.
“Do you know where this leads?” Desmon asked.
“Not me. Let’s get more men.” He looked at Emmy. “Stay.”
The two men ran to the entrance, with Sam deactivating wards along the way. Forty men were milling about the courtyard. Sam called to Glory, Dickey, and Faddon.
“No one inside except a few stragglers and servants finding refuge. Emmy has found something.”
Soon all the men bunched up at the door.
“Emmy has served me well in the past, uncovering secret exits. We need to get through here and pursue Instep,” Sam said.
He carefully inspected the door and had recovered enough to place a small ward at each hinge.
“Stand aside,” Sam said, motioning the onlookers back. “It might be warded on the other side.”
He borrowed a crossbow and put a bolt in it, and from an overturned table shot it at the door. The explosion boomed in the corridor, pushing Sam and the table against the opposite wall. A gaping hole stood where the door was. The table was prickly with splinters. A few men were injured but most survived with minor injuries.
The door looked like it was a closet, but the blast blew the back out and part of the floor. The guards made quick work of the table that acted as a shield for Sam and put it over the gap in the floor.
“Not so fast!” Sam said. “There are likely more wards along the way. It seems that everyone ends up doing similar things. This happened in Carolank and in Port Hassin in Wollia.”
Sam headed down first, carrying a lantern, with Emmy and Glory following behind. He decommissioned three wards on the stairs, but that seemed to be the last of them. Emmy bounded a bit, so Sam gave her another whiff of Instep’s shirt and away she ran.
The rebel force strung out in a line, stopping from time to time when Emmy paused to sniff. They came to a large storage room. Another door was warded, and Glory and Sam made quick work of that, but Emmy sniffed and turned back, running to another door.
“This one isn’t warded. So the other door is a false trail,” Dickey said. “Lead on.”
“Get back. It might be warded on the other side,” Sam said.
Glory created the ward that blew the door out. This time the men gave the blast a wide berth. The door fell apart.
“I learned my lesson from the last one,” Sam said.
An arrow flew out of the opening. Sam borrowed the crossbow again and had Glory put a ward on the bolt. He shot into the darkness.
The explosion lit up the room for a minute, but the soldiers began to descend, ready to fight. They were in another large room. A grate covered an opening to the sewer. The rebel group faced the Court’s force that was as large as theirs, not counting nobles sprinkled through the forces.
The fighting was brutal. Sam cut men down right and left. He spotted Instep cowering against the wall.
“Stop your men and give up,” Bentwick said from behind Sam. Emmy barked at the man.
“Never!” He took a vial out of his coat and tossed it down his throat. Instep didn’t last long. Dickey made sure the man was dead.
“Lord Instep is dead!” Bentwick shouted. “Throw down your weapons!”
In a moment, swords clattered on the damp stone floor. The fight was over, the rebellion had defeated the Court of Nobles, but Sam wondered what was happening in the rest of Toraltia. He wondered if the nobles were still anxious to take the country over, but from the defeated looks on the nobles' faces, including Instep’s two cronies, Sam was pretty certain he had just witnessed the end.
An hour later, Harrison arrived at the palace.
“You mean he didn’t even give you a fight?” Harrison said as he gazed at Lord Instep’s body being hauled out from the palace basement. “His death simplifies our task.”
“Which is?” Dickey asked.
“Re-establishing law and order in Toraltia. We will have to set aside the king, of course, giving him some kind of ceremonial role, but I’m afraid that won’t be for long,” Harrison said.
“What about Hander Pot?” Sam said.
“He will be tried and likely hanged,” Harrison said. “The man can’t be forgiven for what he did, I am sad to say.”
Sam nodded. He had to have a conversation with Hander Pot before that happened.
Chapter Forty-Three
~
A cool breeze ruffled Winnie’s dress as she and Sam stood on a parapet on the fifth floor of the palace. Sam scratched Emmy’s head as they looked out at the rooftops of Baskin.
“It was an impressive coronation,” Winnie said. “I thought Harrison would award you with a title and lands or something.”
Sam laughed. “I’ve already gotten plenty from Harrison, King Harrison,” he said. “I am officially no longer an exile. Effian Walk has been retired, I hope forever, and I can now look forward to living a more stable life.”
“You like stability?”
Sam smiled. “To an extent. I have my jewelry enterprise and my partnership with Tru. We agreed to follow through on the agreement we made before his wife died. I hate to say it, but the agreement is much more solid with Tru’s wife not involved.”
“What about your dueling?”
“It was a lot of work. I don’t know if I will go through it again. I won’t participate if tournament rules aren’t enforced, that is for certain. Dickey and I also agreed to work together as consulting snoops. When he first mentioned it, I thought he was joking. He thinks with his brains and my expertise with pollen we will be in great demand, especially now that his brother-in-law is the king of Toraltia.”
Winnie looked out at the city. She shivered a little. Sam put his arm around her.
“For warmth,” Sam said.
“Of course. I like warmth,” Winnie said, leaning into him.
“There is one last item that might be of interest to you.”
“Which is?”
“I had a long conversation with Hander Pot before he was executed. He agreed to sell me Red Marine Shipping. It is in a bit of a shambles due to the Court of Nobles canceling royal business, but his staff has maintained control of the company’s ships and kept up their relationships with international merchants. I talked to Captain Darter since she had often carried cargo for Hander Pot. She will help us get the ships in shape that went idle when the Court of Nobles re-assigned Hander to the south.”
“You did all that?” Winnie said.
Sam nodded. “I redeemed my last letter of credit, and it more than covered the purchase. Hander felt the need to provide for his family at the end, and he went to the gallows knowing they would survive in comfort.”
“You are such a noble person.”
“Not noble,” Sam said. “Please don’t call me noble.”
“Where will you get all the time?”
Sam laughed. “I’ll make time. See why I don’t think I’ll return to the dueling platform? I have one other move to make…”
“Which is?”
“Well, you, of course. We talked about having an import-export business. You could run it, and I could use my contacts to make it work. I talked to the staff, and they would be happy to train you, and Captain Darter is staying in port to give you a captain’s view of what a good merchant is. Are you interested in a partnership?”
Winnie turned and put her hands on Sam’s chest. “I’m interested in any partnership you offer.” She closed her eyes and pursed her lips.
Sam looked at her, hardly believing she was in his arms, with all the bad things behind them. She opened her eyes for a moment and furrowed her brow before Sam dipped his head, and hopefully, met her expectations.
If you liked A Scholar Without Magic, please leave a review wherever you bought it.
Excerpt of the first book in the Wizard’s Helper Series
~
Chapter One
~
J ack Winder waggled the old practice sword at four of his friends. “I go to fight in battle,” he laughed as he looked at the point of the blade, “but I don’t know whom I’ll be fighting, do you?”
They all shook their heads, and one of his friends fought a mock duel with Jack as they made their way through the woods outside of Raker Falls, the village where they had all grown up. They reached the clearing where most of the mock duels took place, practicing for the village guard. Most village boys had to spend six months in the guard in their eighteenth year, and they fought pre-arranged duels, often after dinner.
Jack was close to joining the guard unless he could find a job other than being his father’s apprentice. His swordsmanship wasn’t particularly adept, since he had recently come into his final growth spurt, putting him half-a-head taller than the tallest of his friends, but he knew where the pointy end was, and that was all the guard needed.
He began to warm up, joking around to make his friends laugh.
“Jack Winder?” A voice called out his name from across the clearing. It sounded like a twelve-year-old, and the boy was just a bit taller than one. He wore a leather breastplate and a dented metal helm. Although the guard encouraged protection, most of the Raker Falls boys disdained the use of armor of any kind, although Jack always wore gloves to protect his hands, at his father’s insistence.
“You are beholding his golden face as you speak,” Jack said, with a lopsided grin on his face. “Any specific rules?” he asked.
The armored boy paused. “Rules?”
Everyone stopped when a young girl stepped into the clearing. “I am your opponent’s second,” the girl said, “and your opponent’s sister.”
Jack put his fists on his hips and looked at the armored boy. “Is this your first duel?”
The helm dipped, but then snapped up. “It is. We just moved to Raker Falls. First blood?”
That made Jack laugh. “No, sir,” he said. “A touch is more than good enough. Three out of five?”
The helm nodded, and the boy thrust out his sword. Jack noticed that the pose was perfect. This was no village boy’s initial address. The boy had had some training. Jack mimicked his opponent’s pose, making his friends laugh.
“I’ll say ‘start’,” the girl said.
The boy began to attack. It was all Jack could do but push his opponent’s blade aside. Parry, parry, parry, and more parry. Jack fought to keep from being cut to ribbons. The boy’s slashes and thrusts were precise, but they lacked strength. Jack wasn’t able to get in a touch, when the boy ran his blade across Jack’s knuckles.
“Touch!” the boy said excitedly.
Jack held up his hand and removed the scored glove to see the damage. A tiny line of red began to blossom at the top of two of Jack’s knuckles. He silently thanked his father for making him wear gloves. Jack made ready for the next onslaught. Right at the beginning, Jack struck the helm. “Touch!” he said.
The helmet wasn’t much protection, since the blow had dented in the forehead. He was surprised the boy hadn’t taken it off to adjust it. Jack suspected the boy might not be able to see through the right eyehole. The duel began again. Jack heard a bit of a high-pitched growl coming from the boy’s helmet.
He wasn’t prepared for the flurry of strokes from his opponent. Jack had to back-up. He stuck out his sword, pointing it at the boy’s chest to hold the onslaught off with his superior reach. The boy charged and ran right into Sam’s sword. It pierced through the thin leather breastplate and sank in. Jack’s opponent collapsed.
Jack dropped his sword, staring at the bloody tip.
“Pen!” the little sister cried. She looked at Jack with tears in her eyes. “What have you done?”
“Me?” Jack said. He looked back to see his friends running away.
He was left alone with the girl and her brother. “We have to take him to the healer.”
The girl shook her head. “The wizard is my uncle. He will heal her.”
Jack hardly heard the girl as he felt for a pulse and didn’t find one. He removed the boy’s helm. Long hair tucked into the top fell away. His heart sank as he removed the breastplate, revealing more of the girl. No wonder she wore armor. He didn’t have time for such thoughts. He lifted the little girl’s sister up.
“We’ll take her home. Where do you live?”
“Elm Manor,” the younger girl said.
Jack knew the name of the largest house in the village. A wealthy merchant from the capital had renovated the rundown place and recently moved in.
“I’ll take her there. You fetch the wizard.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded, then the girl disappeared into the woods, leaving Jack alone with the injured girl, who appeared to be dead. His stomach felt like a bottom of a dark pit. His life was ruined, even more than it already had been. He had been plopped in the village jail enough times for pranks and things, but murder? He might hang for that.
He picked up the girl. She was lighter in his arms than he had expected, and he began to walk as quickly as he could into the village. The journey wasn’t easy, especially since his friends had deserted him. By the time he made it to the village outskirts, his arms felt like they would fall off, but he kept to the outside pathways, so people wouldn’t see him.
The gate to the manor was shut. Jack had to yell and yell to get someone to open it up.
“What is a boy like you doing at our gate?” a woman said from a crack in the gate.
“There has been an accident,” Jack said. “This girl has been stabbed.” That was all he could think of saying. He couldn’t exactly say he had run her through with his sword and hoped to live through the next five minutes. “I sent her sister for the wizard.”
The woman put her hands to her mouth and moaned. A man pushed her aside and opened the gate.
“In,” he said. “Put her there,” he pointed to a long table in the courtyard.
Jack laid her down and stepped back. He realized his hands and front were covered in blood.
A man dressed in silk clothes entered the courtyard. “Penneta!” His eyes grew large. “What happened?”
Jack was about to open his mouth when the village wizard entered, followed by the little girl. The man was nearly as new to Raker Falls as the family he faced.
