David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

And the previous night had been relatively bloodless, battling a concealed opponent with little to no chance of a close encounter. The gods only knew how he would react when he experienced true combat.

Certain that sleep would not come, he rose and paced around the camp in an attempt to tamp down his worries. He stopped to visit some of the women who were roasting salted grayhorn meat and cabbage stew over their cookfires as their children milled about. The camp was indeed large; there were at least two thousand people residing here, and the conditions were crowded.

Come noon, Ahaesarus returned to the tower. His body ached and his mind swam from lack of sleep, and when he climbed the rounded staircase, it felt as though he were moving through water. He was winded by the time he reached the roost. Pushing the hatch open, he saw that two people awaited him-Turock and a familiar-looking petite woman with fiery red hair and fine freckled skin. She wore a modest cotton blouse and had flowers in her hair. For his part, Turock wore the same violet robes he’d had on previously, wrinkled as though he’d slept in them. Without his hat, his hair was a wild mess of reddish-blond curls. Even his beard seemed unruly. The pair was a study of mirror opposites. They sat on a bench in front of a rounded table that had not been there the previous night.

“Abigail DuTaureau, I presume,” Ahaesarus said, bowing to the woman before taking the only other seat at the table.

“It’s Escheton now. I haven’t been a DuTaureau for twenty-three years.”

“Twenty-three long years,” said Turock, a bit of color in his cheeks and a gleam in his eyes.

“Many apologies, my lady, I meant no disrespect,” said Ahaesarus. “I have seen your mother day in and day out for nearly a year, so the name and face are etched in my mind.”

“No disrespect taken.”

Turock scoffed. “By you, maybe.”

“Shush, dear.”

“Hush yourself.”

Turock leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on Abigail’s dainty, upturned nose. Ahaesarus was baffled by them both, Turock in particular. This was a man who had been fighting a battle against forces that hoped to obliterate him and everyone else in Drake mere hours ago.

Turock noticed him staring and raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

Ahaesarus allowed himself to smile. “Simply marveling at your fortitude, my friend. You look like you slept quite well, while I found I could not sleep at all.”

With a wink, Turock pulled a small vial from one of his robe’s many pockets.

“Tricks of the trade,” he said. “A drop of this, and three hours of sleep feels like twelve.” He handed the vial to Ahaesarus. “Go ahead, Master Warden. Smell it. I’m sure you’ll recognize it.”

He uncorked the top and sniffed the liquid inside, then gave the spellcaster a confused glance.

“Nightwing root?” he asked. His left hand fingered the pouch that hung from a slender rope around his neck, containing the last of the root he had brought from Algrahar, a portion of which he had administered to Geris Felhorn in the hours after the healers had removed the wasting tumor from his neck. “How in Ashhur’s name did you come across this?”

Turock took the vial back from him.

“Easy answer: I didn’t. What you smell is similar, but not genuine. The Warden Assissi introduced the wonder of the root to me when I was quite young, before I headed out to find Errdroth Plentos, the elf who trained me. Worked great as a sleep aid, but he had very little. He only gave me a pinch, and I saved that pinch for years. One of the first things I did after Plentos died was attempt to uncover its secret properties. I discovered that ginger root is very similar, and by combining it with an extract of crim oil, I was able to approximate the formula. It’s not an exact copy, and gods forbid you take it if you feel any real pain, but the sleeping properties still work. Though you shouldn’t get too reliant on it, because eventually you’ll collapse and sleep for a good eighteen hours or so. Not that I, uh, know from experience.”

“Amazing,” said Ahaesarus.

“Not really,” the spellcaster replied with a shrug. “Simple trial and error.” He winked. “And a lot of luck. Some say I’m the luckiest man in all of Paradise, which is saying something.”

“Is that how you have been fighting off those attempting to cross the river?” asked Ahaesarus. “With luck?”

He had meant the statement as a joke, but Turock’s expression darkened.

“No, not luck. Lots of skill and hard work. And patience. Loads and loads of fucking patience.”

Abigail frowned at her husband.

“I apologize,” the Warden replied, bowing his head to the man. “I do not think before I speak at times.”

Turock brushed the comment aside. “Nonsense. Pride is one of my faults, and I just fell victim to it yet again. The thing is, these past months have been hell on us. We’re all exhausted and frightened, and we’ve been working ourselves to the bone, trying to defend what is ours.”

“I am curious, how did it come about?”

“How did what come about?”

Ahaesarus lifted his hand toward the three eastern-facing windows. “The fighting, the soldiers on the other side. I will be honest.…I know little of what has transpired here.”

Turock opened his mouth, but Abigail answered for him.

“It began over a year ago, when we still resided in the town. People were being taken in the night-men, women, and children alike. More than twenty went missing over the span of three weeks. We set up patrols, but they did nothing. We had no idea who was taking our townspeople, if anyone, until one morning we found a trail of blood that ended at the narrow gap where this tower is now located.

“We set up camp on the spot and brought everyone with us, deciding that with such close and open quarters no more would be taken, or at least the culprits would not go unseen. Turock originally thought some wild beasts roaming in the Tinderlands might be at fault. But then strange things began to happen.”

Ahaesarus frowned, trying to guess what might have been taking them, but unable to think of a plausible reason.

“Strange things such as what?” asked Ahaesarus.

“No one who went riding outside our borders returned,” said Turock, his expression serious. “No birds from our rookeries every flew back. When the moon was high, we’d hear strange chanting from across the river, deep in the Tinderlands. To be honest, we felt under siege without having the slightest idea what was tormenting us. I began to build this tower so that sentries could keep watch at night, hoping it might grant us more sleep come nightfall.”

“We were lucky Turock had already been training many of our fellow citizens in the lessons Plentos had taught him,” Abigail said.

“More out of boredom than anything else,” Turock admitted.

Abigail continued: “We in the far north are an eager lot, and we make fantastic students. Having a legion of spellcasters, even amateur ones, helped us build this structure much faster than we ever could have otherwise.”

Ahaesarus could attest to that. He had seen firsthand how quickly the construction of Mordeina’s wall had progressed with the help of the four Drake spellcasters.

“But we still didn’t know what we were dealing with,” Turock said. “That is, until Jacob Eveningstar arrived with his elf lover, a Warden, and a young man…Roland, I think was his name. They promised to discover what plagued our village, then disappeared into the Tinderlands for over a week. Then the elf and Warden returned one night, chased by soldiers bearing the sigil of the lion. The elf died before we could put an end to the invaders, as did sixty of our own people. The First Man arrived the next evening with his apprentice. He killed the one hostage we had taken-Uther Crestwell, you know of him, right? — and then he had me create a portal to Safeway for him and his remaining party.” Turock chuckled. “It was the biggest portal I’ve ever made. Still don’t know how I pulled that off.”