Richard Byers - The Spectral Blaze

“Yes,” the dragon said. “And I’ll confer with my lieutenants at dawn.” His tail sweeping through patches of flame, he turned and stalked away.

Aoth waited a while to speak, and even then, he kept his voice low. Wyrms had sharp ears. “The dead were more… enthusiastic than we expected.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And Gaedynn hasn’t come back. I’ll go check on him and the others. Cover for me if you have to.”

With the uneven gait of a creature whose front and hind legs were formed quite differently, Jet trotted to a spot where no branches would block his assent. Then he ran, sprang, lashed his wings, and soared upward.

Jhesrhi turned her attention to the fires that she and Tchazzar had kindled. Like any sellsword, she had little compunction about destroying other people’s property to achieve an objective. Still, there was no reason the village should lose every tree once the mock attack-except that it hadn’t turned out to be mock, had it?-was over.

She puffed on her staff as she’d blow out a candle. Its corona of flame and her mantle of fire blinked out together. Then, her voice like a lullaby, she crooned to the fires consuming trees and fallen branches, calming them and coaxing them to dwindle. The staff helped but grumbled without words.

Aoth’s stomach rumbled and Tchazzar shot him a glare.

“I’m sorry, Majesty,” said Aoth. “I haven’t eaten since supper. I’ve been busy strengthening the camp’s defenses.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. On his flight into the Sky Riders, he’d met Gaedynn coming back and so hadn’t needed to travel all the way to the spot where Meralaine and Alasklerbanbastos-curse him!-had summoned the dead.

“I’m glad someone is,” Tchazzar said. “However belatedly.” He shifted his glare to Shala.

Seated at the foot of the trestle table, the ridged scar on her square jaw just visible in the wan dawn light that penetrated the silk wall of the pavilion, Shala took a moment to answer. Maybe because she had to suppress the retort that first sprang to mind.

“With all respect, Majesty,” Shala said, “may I point out that the camp itself was not attacked, and its defenses did not prove inadequate? It was you, wandering beyond the perimeter with only a single wizard to guard you, who drew an attack.”

“Are you scolding me?” Tchazzar asked.

“Of course not, Majesty,” she replied. But her voice was cold, and Tchazzar didn’t look placated.

Aoth had come to respect Shala even if she did in some measure share the general Chessentan prejudice against mages, Jhesrhi and himself included. So he decided to intervene before the exchange grew any more acrimonious.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “clearly nobody is or should be blaming anyone else for anything because none of us expected trouble last night. Why would we? The war’s over. Chessenta and Threskel are truly one kingdom at last. Our focus now should be figuring out who attacked you.”

“I agree,” Jhesrhi said. Tchazzar had seated her at his right hand, in the place that properly belonged to Shala.

“So do I,” said Hasos. A tall, muscular man with a long-nosed, aristocratic face, he looked like the very personification of the Chessentan martial ideal and had in fact proved to be a competent commander within his limits. “And I say we start our search right here in this tent.” He turned a cold eye on Kassur Jedea.

The scrawny, grizzled wizard-king took a breath. “Majesty,” he said, “you will recall that I was never absolute master of Threskel, with no overlord set above me, and so I took no harm from your victory. To the contrary. I was overjoyed to escape the rule of an undead thing and pledge my fealty to a god incarnate.”

“Or perhaps,” Tchazzar said, “you merely feigned happiness to convince me to lower my guard. Then you struck at me in the hope of becoming the supreme lord of this miserable kingdom at last.”

“No,” said Aoth. “I’ve had people keeping an eye on him throughout the procession, yesterday and last night included. He was never out of view long enough to conjure up dozens of spirits.”

“And how would they have moved unnoticed from his tent to the orchard if he had?” Jhesrhi said. “I think, Majesty, that if we’re going to look for enemies who might plausibly attack you inside Threskel, and use the undead as their agents, we should begin with the obvious.”

Tchazzar frowned. “Alasklerbanbastos is gone, and I made sure he can never return.”

“I know,” said Aoth, “but Jaxanaedegor is still with us. I understand that you and he made common cause to destroy the dracolich. But now that you’ve succeeded, it’s hard to see why the truce would hold. After all, the creature is what he is.”

Which was to say, everything that Tchazzar had come to loathe and fear, as well as an opponent in the Great Game.

Still, the Red Dragon looked skeptical. “He seemed content with my promise to let him rule Mount Thulbane and its environs without interference.”

“But lacking any trace of honor himself, would such a treacherous creature trust anyone else to keep such a pledge?” Aoth replied. “Especially when you gave it under what amounted to duress, and Mount Thulbane, like the rest of Threskel, is indisputably yours by right.”

“Possibly not,” Tchazzar said. “Yet as best we could judge, the undead didn’t come from the north. They came from the direction of the Sky Riders.”

“And you and I know there are terrible things hiding in those hills,” Jhesrhi said. “But they don’t generally come out to trouble the lands beyond. I think it would take a powerful creature at one with darkness and undeath, a being like a vampire dragon, to call them forth.”

“Perhaps,” said Tchazzar, “perhaps.”

“If Jaxanaedegor has turned against you,” said Aoth, “then we need to consider the implications. The other dragons who betrayed Alasklerbanbastos were following his lead, not yours. The raiders out of Murghom left off harrying Chessenta because he arranged it, not any of us. It’s possible that we’re going to have to contend with all those foes again as well.”

Tchazzar fingered the round medallion-gold set with the red gems called Tempus’s tears-he wore around his neck. “What, then, do my advisers recommend?”

Hasos, who, bless him, always preferred defending to attacking, spoke up at once. “Majesty, we can’t turn our backs on Threskel if the kingdom isn’t truly pacified. I fear the invasion of Tymanther will have to wait.”

“That’s out of the question!” Tchazzar snapped.

Inwardly Aoth cursed.

You knew he wouldn’t like it, said Jet. He’d been eavesdropping on the palaver through his psychic bond with his master, and he was using it to speak mind to mind. Whoever humbles Medrash’s people, or wipes them out altogether, will score a lot of points in the dragons’ game.

But everyone says Tchazzar was a great commander in his day, Aoth replied. Like it or not, he should still see the sense in it.

“Majesty,” he said aloud, “as you’ve probably noticed, Lord Hasos and I almost never agree. We do now. It would be unwise to march south while a threat remains within your own borders.”

Tchazzar scowled at him. “Back in Luthcheq, you were friends with the dragonborn from the embassy. You advocated for them from the day you arrived.”

Careful! said Jet. But Aoth had never allowed himself to flinch in the face of Tchazzar’s displeasure, and he figured that if he backed down, it would only lend weight to the dragon’s suspicions.

“It’s true,” he said, “I liked Sir Medrash and Sir Balasar. Why not? They’re brave warriors. But it didn’t influence the way I did my job, then or now. That job being to give you good intelligence and good advice, and then to go kill whomever you tell me to.”