Aoth sighed. “Why? Because it’s your job?”
As Khouryn bowed, he took stock of Tarhun. Viewed in bright sunlight, patches of the vanquisher’s hide were mottled and a paler green than the rest. That was particularly true around the square gold studs, which the red saurian’s fire had likely heated until they themselves were burning hot. But the eyes above the piercings were intact, and the hulking dragonborn stood straight and tall. He looked ready to lead an army once again.
“The healers gave me a great deal of attention,” Tarhun said. It startled Khouryn, who’d tried to make his appraisal without staring. “Too much, perhaps, considering that other warriors lay maimed and dying.”
Khouryn shrugged. “You’re the leader.”
“True. A leader who had difficulty walking abroad until recently. So I need my officers to tell me how the preparations are going.”
“Well. We’re just about ready to march.”
“I understand that you want to take the Platinum Cadre along.”
“I don’t want it. Medrash does. And Balasar too, I think, though he doesn’t say it outright. But they can’t turn them into cavalry. We don’t have enough war-horses for warriors in disgrace to rate mounts. So I get stuck using them as spearmen.”
Tarhun peered at him. “Are you implying you don’t trust them?”
“I trust them to be free of Tiamat’s influence. Because Medrash says he purged them, and I trust him. Do I trust them to stand their ground and follow orders when things get ugly? I don’t know. But then you never really know about that, do you?”
The vanquisher smiled. “No, you don’t. Not when the swords slide out of their scabbards and the arrows start flying. You’re all right, Khouryn Skulldark, and Tymanther owes you a debt. There’s a permanent place for you here, if you care to claim it.”
Khouryn smiled. “Thank you. I appreciate the offer for the honor that it is. But the Brotherhood of the Griffon is my home.” At least until the day came, if it ever did, when he could return to East Rift to stay.
“Majesty!” a voice called. “If you’re ready for us, we’re ready for you.”
Khouryn and Tarhun turned toward the pit, a raw wound in the earth amid the grass and splashes of red and purple wildflowers. Staves, wands, or orbs in hand, an assortment of wizards stood around the edges. To Khouryn’s knowledgeable eye, the majority didn’t look like battle mages. They were too diffident, too vague and abstracted, or just too old and rickety, stooped and gaunt with folds of loose hide hanging. But dragonborn didn’t produce an abundance of arcanists, and the vanquisher had mobilized all there were to deal with the current crisis.
“All right, Kriv. Tell me what’s going to happen,” Tarhun said.
The mage who’d spoken before stepped forth from his fellows. He had bronze hide with black freckles, yellow eyes, a single onyx ring in his left nostril, and a hexagonal brass medallion engraved with a triangle affixed to the center of his forehead. He carried one of Nala’s green globes in his upturned hand.
“At one point,” Kriv said, “some of my more … imaginative colleagues hypothesized that the talismans actually create the reptilian creatures from the raw stuff of primordial chaos. Even though the sheer force required would be prohibitive. And now that we’ve had the opportunity to conduct a proper examination of some functional orbs, it’s clear that they merely transport beasts that already exist in our world from one point in space to another.”
Tarhun nodded. “Go on.”
“The difference,” said Kriv, “is of practical significance. Because it’s possible for countermagic to prevent such an effect.”
“You mean, to stop the orbs from working,” the vanquisher said.
“Yes.”
“I like it,” Khouryn said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t have to fight any of the brutes. If they’re already alive in the world someplace, the place is probably Black Ash Plain. But if the giants don’t know that they need to march them to the battlefield, we may not have to contend with many. And in any case, the shamans won’t be able to make them pop out of nowhere and surprise us.”
Kriv smiled. “That was our thought. So, with Your Majesty’s permission, we intend to conduct an experiment in two parts. First, to make sure we truly do understand the operation of the talisman, I’ll summon a saurian. Then I’ll attempt to summon another, and my fellow arcanists will thwart me.”
“Do it,” Tarhun said.
Kriv walked to the edge of the pit, peered down at the bottom, raised the orb so its green curves caught the sunlight, and chanted words of power. The other wizards, Tarhun, and Khouryn moved up to look into the hole as well.
A feeling of pressure built up in the air. It made Khouryn’s skin itch and the pulp in his teeth throb in time with the beating of his heart. In one place and another, individual blades of grass grew long, forked, and writhed in a way that reminded him of Nala.
The chant ended on a rising note, and the sense of pressure vanished abruptly. But nothing appeared at the bottom of the pit.
Tarhun whirled. Khouryn didn’t know what had alarmed the monarch, but he figured he’d better spin around too, and snatch for the urgrosh on his back.
Three green kobolds crouched before them. No-not kobolds, for though they at first glance resembled them, they were inhaling in the characteristic manner of creatures readying breath weapons.
Somehow, Tarhun spat his first. The crackling, twisting spear of lightning stabbed one creature in the chest.
Khouryn charged another. It spewed, and he twisted aside. The fumes from the sizzling glob stung his eyes as it passed, but did no actual harm.
He sprang, struck, and his axe crunched into the saurian warrior’s skull. He sensed a threat on his flank, wrenched his weapon free, and pivoted. But he needn’t have bothered.
Like all the preeminent folk in Tymanther, Tarhun mostly fought with a greatsword. It was a symbol of his rank. It was also a weapon that was damnably hard to ready quickly when a warrior wore it sheathed across his back. Yet somehow the vanquisher had managed to draw it, and he cut into the last saurian’s torso with one precise little chop.
A moment of silence followed.
Kriv said, “That was … regrettable. But one has to allow for a degree of error when testing new magic.”
Tarhun grinned. “If one wanted to make sure one wasn’t charged with attempted regicide, one might have allowed for it by digging a bigger pit.” Kriv’s eyes widened. “Please. I’m joking. It’s all right. After my injuries, I needed to test myself, and you gave me the opportunity.”
Khouryn said, “I take it you can call the saurians, but not control them.”
“Correct,” the wizard said. “Since we decided the best tactic is to suppress the summoning, analyzing the other aspect of the talisman’s power didn’t seem as crucial.”
“Fair enough,” Tarhun said. He gave his sword a one-handed shake and flicked gore from the blade. “So let’s see you do it.”
“Of course, Majesty. I’m, uh, reasonably confident I can center the effect in the pit this time around.”
He raised the globe and recited as before. But after a moment, one of his fellows started chanting too. Then another joined in, and then another, their voices weaving a complex contrapuntal pattern.
A whine sounded beneath the measured insistence of the voices. Khouryn felt momentarily dizzy. Two more stunted reptilian warriors flickered in and out of view at the bottom of the hole, present one moment, gone the next.
Then Kriv cried out, dropped the orb, and reeled backward. Khouryn grabbed him and kept him from falling on his rump.
“Uh, thank you.” Kriv clumsily tried to get his feet back underneath him. Khouryn held onto him until he succeeded. “I’m all right now.”
Tarhun peered at him. “Are you certain, my friend? You have a nosebleed.”
Kriv brushed his hand across his snout, bumping his piercing in the process, then peered at the streak of blood on his index finger. “So I see. I have a pounding headache too.”