“Hey, you, come here.” Russet called a woman over from where she was huddled in a door stoop.

  Quazar considered that he should start using proper title, if only because knowing a king lives, in the past, had been hope enough to keep a kingdom from breaking.

  “Kneel before your king, dear,” Quazar said, and gave Russet a look that he hoped showed him that he was watching. The Royal Order of Wizards was there to keep the king in line, as much as they were to study their craft off of the kingdom’s coin. He and Russet had discussed the purposes of certain councils and figureheads before. Russet knew to act kingly; at least Quazar hoped he did. The two seamen with them had lust in their eyes, and the girl approaching was beautiful, if skittish and filthy.

  “Where are all the men?” Russet asked after she curtsied. “Where are the Trigon camps?”

  “The men are east, about half a day’s ride on a horse.” She looked at the four Zythians and their unicorn mounts, and her eyes grew dreamy. Russet frowned. “Is that where the Trigon are?”

  “I don’t know what that thing is.” She shrugged, still eyeing the Zythians as if they were water and she was dying of thirst. “My pappy slit his own throat before they could do that to him.” She pointed three times, indicating the three dots on the face of one of the nearby Trigon corpses. “They guard it well because it is turning our men into their dummies.”

  After a moment, Russet waved her away, as if dismissing her. Quazar saw that the idea of something turning Parydonians into Trigon fighters rankled Russet as much as it did him.

  “Start preparing spells, old man,” Russet said to him. “If we can kill the thing turning men, we can end it fast.” He looked at the Zythians for support. The Zyths were eager.

  “If we are swift enough, we can just ride in and destroy it,” one of the Zyths said.

  “We have surprise,” another said. “They won’t be expecting Zythians here.”

  Quazar realized that this sort of thing defined a king’s whole era. And as king, and being the best trained, Russet was honor bound to try it.

  “We have those they haven’t turned as well,” Russet added. “They will fight for me. The ones in the pens yet to be turned.”

  “Yes, they will.” Quazar suddenly felt the surge of hope they were all riding. If the thing that entranced their fighters into service was there, and they killed it, it would be a devastating blow.

  They gathered more weapons and supplies as they went. One kanga was sent to Dyntalla with handwritten orders from Russet to abandon the mainland and bring the men to Orendyn, and to leave the women and children on Zyth as they went. A troop of human messengers were sent on commandeered haulkattens up to Highlake. Up there, they would be isolated from all of the kingdom if they didn’t flee swiftly.

  Of course, Quazar gave these orders through the ether with spells to the wizards of the Royal Order who remained, but only Orphas of Highlake, who had been near to death the last time he’d seen him, replied. No one in Dyntalla answered, which, due to the distance, didn’t surprise him, but left an empty feeling in his gut nonetheless.

  They pushed the paces of the horses, leaving the kanga to take a leisurely gait and save energy for what was to come, but then they topped a ridge and the scene unfolding in the massive valley below caused Quazar to retch again. He did so quickly and disregarded the ill feeling, for rage was consuming his every fiber. After a few heartbeats, though, fear crept down over that boiling anger like a bitter winter shadow.

  Hundreds and hundreds of men and women were in crowded pens, like sheep, and being directed with pokes and prods by the black-clad, blue-eyed Trigon fighters.

  Quazar saw the huge black dragon, and the Trigon wizard in the blue cloak standing near it. Vanx had described them well. What was so disturbing as to drain the courage from him like an uncorked barrel, was the blue-glowing, mannish thing that was jabbing the people who were next in the line that led from the pens. He could only describe it as a being so full of magic that it was exuding the stuff, and such was the way of that much magic, it could shift forms freely. It was intimidating the line of approaching good folk with its ability, and it was doing so gleefully.

  Over and over again, the thing changed shapes. Each new victim was given a different visage to gaze upon as they were put under the Trigon Daze. Some saw demons, some saw loved ones, but all of them saw power beyond their imagining. It was moving them through, too. Twenty or thirty humans were turned in the moments they watched. It was as if the creature had to show the people they were nothing before making them so. Quazar shivered, for it was unbelievable to see that much power under one entity’s control.

  What was this thing?

  Some in the lines just stood and took a quick poke of the three pronged staff the glowing shapeshifter was jabbing them with, while others put up a fight. It used its vast power to sweep these rebellious humans up into the air, and hold them steady, as it made a different face and then stuck them just the same.

  “There is a lookout turning,” one of the Zythians whispered. “Get down.”

  “What is it?” another of them asked when they all huddled back below the ridge.

  “It looked like a man, but it was shifting slightly, as if it could take whatever form it wanted to take.”

  “Yes, that is what I saw,” Quazar confirmed. “I can sense its power; this is something greater than mankind.”

  “There is nothing greater than Zythiankind, wizard.” The Zythian clasped Quazar on the shoulder. “Not even that.”

  After a few moments, they all peeked back over the ridge.

  The black dragon’s scales reflected the shapeshifter’s glow in a purple hue. The wyrm lowered its head and let the Trigon wizard mount it. Suddenly, a few score of the smaller dragons were swarming into a ball in the sky.

  “See, wizard.” The other Zythian looked to the sky, where the ball of evil-winged death parted to let the black wyrm and its rider take the center of their swarm. Then the whole group started shimmering and was gone. “The Goddess has sent them away from us. She smiles, and has hope that we will kill that thing and stop the heart of the enemy.”

  With that, two Zythians and King Russet, riding the third kanga, bolted off toward the thing at an uncanny speed. The king’s haulkatten-mounted guards were bounding down after them. Quazar and the other Zythian shared a haulkatten and followed at a short distance and a slower pace.

  Quazar had never been as scared as he was at that moment. He wasn’t afraid for himself, or for King Russet. He was afraid for all of them: the Zythians, the fae in Saint Elm’s Deep. All of humanity could fall before such a thing, and they didn’t even know what it was yet. All he knew was that it was a hundredfold more powerful than anything he’d ever imagined, and the one he was sworn to protect was racing toward it on a kanga with his sword drawn.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Three

  I’m off to make a fool of a fool,

  And a fool of a king as well.

  I might lose my head to the Kingsman’s ax,

  but with a kings wits who can tell?

  – The King of Fools

  “We are out of silver,” Thorn said to Vanx.

  “Have them stop taking cuttings, then.” Vanx huffed out a sigh of frustration. He was starting to think he’d figured wrong. “My kinsmen, and hopefully Russet, will return shortly. We should get rings ready for them. I know Darbon and the Zyths have some silver. In Orendyn, they’d fight to give Darbon their daughters. But we need the stuff here.” Vanx turned to the elf, who was currently mounted in Poops’s saddle, and frowned. “How about the leaves? Are they attaching to the shafts well? Are they sharp?”

  “They are, bu—”

  Suddenly, the sky roared out as if in pain, and Vanx saw a swirling orb of black wings and dull, blue-glowing eyes appearing over the valley. “Get our best archers. One strike with a Heart Tree leaf arrow should undaze them.”

  “We’ve only made a few hundred.” Thorn didn’t sound as optimistic as Vanx.

  “Then let Moonsy’s troop have them all, Thorn,” Vanx snapped. “Explain it to them! You’re the general.” Vanx sent Poops off to find Moonsy, nearly slinging Thorn from his saddle. Then, using the crystal he’d restrung, and was now keeping around his neck again, he called for the whole of his host to attack.

  War was upon them.

  Vanx used something he’d found in the Hoar Witch’s stash, a staff that sent a thunderclap of hot energy out at the forming swarm. The explosion happened just as the spell that carried the enemy here subsided. Only half a dozen of them were affected, but those were decimated by the concussion. Their shredded bits and pieces sprayed out over the rest of their group. Vanx thought it was a proper welcome, for he and the fae were even more deadly than the Zythians.

  The blue-cloaked leader just hovered in the center of his living spherical shield of stunted wyrms and dazed riders. His mount was an acid-spewing monster, Vanx knew, for he’d seen a few black dragons up close on Dragon Isle. The Trigon wizard licked something bloody and yellow off of his lips and smiled at the taste. He pointed at Vanx then, and blasted a stream of that terrible blue goo at him.

  To Vanx’s surprise, it turned into a dusty white powder before it even got close to him. Glancing around, Vanx saw that a trio of spell-casting pixies were shielding him from atop the palace roof. Other fae were arriving, some that he could see, but even more he knew he couldn’t.

  One of the wyrms flew too low, and a tree branch shot up and pulled it down into the forest. A flare of blue, and then the rustling of branches came. Then there was a terrible scream as the creature was wrapped around and squeezed to death.

  “Fire!” the wizard in the blue cloak screamed, and then the battle took a turn. Once the wyrm riders started casting balls of fire down at the forest, it looked as if they would lose for sure. Even still, Vanx knew the Heart Tree itself was covered by a dome of Zythian creation, and it wasn’t in direct danger. He knew it felt the pain of the fire around it, though, for Vanx felt it, too, through the ring he’d wrapped around his finger back on Zyth.

  The first arrow shot up out of the trees in the distance and missed, but it was just to gauge the arc and distance. Vanx was glad he could see it wasn’t silver-tipped. The next few arrows were silver. These struck true, and the wyrms they hit were suddenly undazed. In those moments of confusion, regular, razor-sharp shafts filled them, and they fell from the sky.

  Vanx focused on the Trigon wizard. He saw that the bastard was surprised at the way the fae and their weapons affected them. The rage that grew in his eyes was clear, and the streaks of fiery magic that shot from them grazed Vanx, just before he was shoved out of their way by someone, or something.

  Gallarael had saved him, but at what cost? She was lying there, in her feline form, perfectly still. She had steam rising from her superheated body. Vanx used the staff he’d found and sent three more bursts of explosive magic into different areas of sky directly around the blue-cloaked son of a bitch who had just fried Gal.

  The dragon he was riding had the natural ability to avoid Vanx’s magic directly, but both dragon and rider were splattered with the blood of their own, so much so that the wizard’s robe looked purple now instead of blue.

  Vanx bore fear into the Trigon wizard, and he felt his message reach its destination. He saw it when the wizard stared back at him.

  Luckily, Thorn was coming up from the Shadowmane and dragged the Glaive of Gladiolus across Gallarael’s leg as he went past. He was leading another troop of archers himself.

  Vanx figured Gal would have gone back to human form for good after the Glaive healed her, but she hadn’t. She didn’t change back to human at all. After a few moments of being ushered out of the way by elves, Vanx saw her rise to four legs, and shake it off. When her eyes met his, she started his way. She was more panther than anything. He was glad for her, but unsure what she was anymore.

  They needed Russet and the silver that Darbon’s group was collecting. Enough of the lesser wyrms had been killed, and their fires and spells extinguished so easily, that the blood-drenched dragon rider was now calling them all back in. Before all of his flyers even made it, they swirled into a ball and disappeared, just as they’d come, leaving behind a forest full of cheering fae and a handful of the smaller wyrms.

  The lesser dragons were quickly downed and destroyed, and the fae screamed victory.

  Vanx swallowed hard. They were unaware that this was just the beginning.

  It made Vanx sad, for of the futures he’d seen in the mirror, this victory had seemed far more like winning a war than what it really was. He swallowed hard, for they might have just won a battle, but the war itself hadn’t even begun.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Four

  I’m off to make a fool of a fool,

  and a fool of the kingdom too.

  I might lose my head to the Kingsman’s ax,

  but I’ll try and fool him too.

  – The King of Fools

  Quazar knew Russet had ridden kangas when visiting Flotsam on several occasions, and the young man was well trained in adaptation, as much as anything. But the ease with which he rode the two-legged creature amazed him. Keeping pace, in fact leading the Zythians, the three went charging down through a lane formed by two huge groups of people yet to be dazed. The row of guards in the middle were cut down faster than they could turn, and Russet was screaming, “I’m your king! Fight with your king!”

  Two blue-armored fighters stepped in front of his kanga, and he waited until the kanga used its unihorn to deflect the blade of the one on the left before he removed the head of the other.

  On his back swing, he slashed the left Trigon fighter’s back wide open.

  The next one started to blast at King Russet, but an arrow fired from the Zythian right behind him sprouted in the attacker’s eye socket, causing his pulse of gooey blue liquid to go astray and splatter a dozen people breaking loose of their captivity.

  The idea of it made Quazar wince, but it looked as if Russet had a real chance, so their lives weren’t wasted. Other men came busting out of the pens behind their king. They were screaming and angry, and had the momentum of rage and a little surprise behind them. It wasn’t long before the few remaining Trigon guards were tackled and subdued.

  Quazar’s heart leapt with hope. The noise the men were making in the pens caused the terrible thing to look right past Russet’s group. They were inside its protection now, and about to strike.

  It turned chaotic then, and Quazar started casting shieldings overhead of the king and the two Zyths. The Zythian beside him copied his spell perfectly, and a whole group of Parydonians from the pen were protected from above. As soon as they realized this, they started fighting their way toward their king even harder.

  Russet was getting close and just about to streak by and hopefully decapitate the creature. The boy was good enough with a blade to kill ogres and school gargans, so Quazar didn’t doubt him, he just held little hope. Still, Russet was about to attempt the deed. Quazar had never respected the fortitude of anyone more. He was watching a king risk all for his people, even though he could be safe and sound in Saint Elm’s Deep instead.

  He found he wasn’t even breathing.

  Quazar wondered if a sword would even harm it, and then it didn’t matter anymore, for the mass of energy leapt from where it had been squatted down jabbing people, right before Russet swung his sword. It changed into the form of a great blue dragon as it rose, leaving Russet looking as angry as ever. It glided toward the approaching people, and in one great blast of lightning-like, liquid spew, it eradicated eight-score humans as if they were nothing. Then it turned, banking on wings a hundred paces from tip to tip, and came right at Quazar and the Zythian.

  It’s own stunted wyrms had fled the sky immediately around it, but behind them all, the swirling ball of dragons that had recently left with the big black returned. They were bloody and wounded, and only a third in number.

  The blue shape-shifted dragon’s eyes were glowing, and it cast some sort of spell over those remaining in the pens as it came, then it turned and met the blood-soaked, blue-cloaked rider’s dragon in the sky.

  In a matter of seconds, the black dragon’s neck was in the great blue’s jaws, and they were on the ground. After a moment, the blue let the black up. The cloaked rider got to his feet and stood there, his head hung in what might have been shame.

  Quazar was relieved to see that King Russet and the two Zythians were riding over the scorched corpses of the people they’d just freed. By the look of it, Vanx, or maybe the Zythians, had won another battle, and the thing in control of it all was none too pleased.

  Quazar prepared the spell that would take them to Orendyn, where they would pick up Darbon and all the silver they could gather. It looked like the stuff had worked on the enemy, and this was just the beginning.

  As if to confirm Quazar’s thoughts, two other wizards in blue cloaks shimmered into the scene, one on each side of the bloody man with his head down.

  So, this was the Trigon. What was the thing controlling them?

  He could only wonder.

  The blue dragon shifted swiftly into a man’s form again, and slapped the wizard who had apparently failed him. The words couldn’t be heard over the screams of the humans left. They were in a different sort of daze than the others; none of them had been stuck with the trident yet, but they were entranced. It was clear the omni-powerful thing was angry and giving harsh orders to the Trigon wizards. Then it leapt into the sky and disappeared completely.

 

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