Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 84

After weeks of searching, Adessa finally found the wizard commander. Maxim had been quiet, hiding, keeping a low profile, but the morazeth doubted he would grow complacent. Neither had she.

Maxim surely must know that she would continue to follow him to the end of the world and the end of time. He was smart and powerful, but sometimes he was also a fool, and Adessa was no fool.

Over the long and hard pursuit, she realized that what had started out as a simple hunt was much more than that. This was an actual war between her and the wizard commander, with battles, tactics, and an ultimate goal.

She had lost his track for twenty days, but she kept moving down the river, sure that was where Maxim would go. In certain ways, he had little imagination, and he had no more knowledge of the river’s geography than she had. They both knew the Killraven eventually widened into the estuary, then spilled into the great sea. She simply needed to find him.

With such mastery of the gift, Maxim could have claimed a place to hide, even created a small protective shroud to hide himself from time, and if he just waited long enough, Adessa would never track him down.

But the wizard commander was arrogant and lazy. Although he had grown impatient with Ildakar’s hedonistic extravagances, he was not a rugged man, and he preferred his comforts. That was why Adessa knew he would find some other town, a cozy shelter where he could force someone to take care of him, as he had done at Tarada.

As she approached a river town named Gant’s Ford, she decided to inquire about him there. In her distinctive black leather wrap and with countless protective runes branded on her bare skin, Adessa would be too memorable, and she didn’t want to be recognized, didn’t want word to reach Maxim, if he was indeed here.

She watched and waited, keeping to the reeds at the riverside as she observed the traffic coming into Gant’s Ford. As dusk turned to deep purple, a lone man wearing a patched hooded cloak paddled past her in a canoe. A wicker basket filled with crawfish was balanced in the back of the canoe.

Adessa was already standing in the water, knee deep. As he approached, not seeing her in the twilight shadows, she waded out into the current and pounced on him as he paddled by. The man yelped as if afraid she were a swamp dragon attacking him, but she was worse than a swamp dragon.

Adessa dragged the man out of the canoe and into the water, wrestling him. She punched the nerve cluster on the back of his neck, rendering him helpless. Immobile, he looked terrified as she dragged him into the mud and reeds. There, she stripped off his hooded cloak, knowing it would be a good disguise she could use. She hung it on some tall reeds, then bent over him.

He shivered. “Who are you? I have nothing for you to steal.”

“I am not a bandit,” she said. “But I am the one who’s asking questions.”

He squirmed and choked, and she was losing patience. Holding him down in the soft mud, she removed the black handle of her agile knife and poked the sharp, stubby point into his thigh. It was a minor wound, but when she released the magic, agony careened through his body.

He arched his back and cried out, but his scream was swallowed up in the palm of her hand clamped over his mouth.

She let the surge of pain continue for a moment, then yanked the agile knife out. “I can do more of that, and I can do it all night, unless you tell me what I need to know.”

His body shuddered with sobs. Tears ran down his face. “Y-You haven’t even asked anything yet!”

She described Maxim, explained that he would have been a stranger only recently arrived in the vicinity. The canoe man was so desperate he would have told her anything she wanted to hear, though Adessa also knew how to identify lies. Fortunately, he had indeed seen someone who might have been Maxim.

“He comes into town every two days or so. He lives up in the hills. I think … I think the Farrier family took him in. Farrier is a woodcutter, and they have a cottage, but I haven’t seen them in weeks.”

She leaned closer. “What does this man do when he comes into town?”

“He … he eats. He drinks ale at the tavern. He listens. He is a friendly sort, but strange, won’t tell anyone where he’s from.”

Adessa imagined that Maxim was simply biding his time, building alliances and making plans. “This has been most helpful, but I can’t allow any word of my presence to whisper out.”

His eyes widened, and she killed him as quickly and painlessly as she could, then rolled his body into the reeds, where a swamp dragon would find him soon enough and dispose of the evidence. She made a small cook fire and ate a meal of the crawfish in his basket. Then she developed her plan.

Disguising herself in the cloak, Adessa glided into town, listening, watching for Maxim to appear. While she waited in Gant’s Ford, she learned as much as she could about his habits, the frequency of his visits. She learned the location of the Farriers’ stone cottage in the hills above the river, a small home surrounded by tall spruce. She stole a long, sturdy rope that she calculated she would need.

Yes, she could have challenged the wizard commander right there in the open, but she’d done that before and he had escaped from her each time. No, she would have to trap him, ambush him, and kill him.

As a morazeth, she preferred a straight-up, face-to-face fight against an enemy. Maxim was a powerful foe, and Adessa didn’t want to squander the powerful blood magic that still burned within her. She would have a final confrontation with him, and she would use up all of that power to defeat him.

But she had to be smart. Adessa did not dismiss the threat posed by the wizard commander. Maybe she couldn’t outmatch him in a direct battle with magic, but she could be more clever than he was.

Although Maxim was in hiding, he was neither a loner nor self-sufficient, and he often liked to sit in a tavern, complain about the local ale and the food, and play dicing games. She learned that he was likely to come into town that evening because the river inn was serving their catfish pie, one of his favorite meals. Adessa didn’t ask too many questions. She already had the answers she needed, and she already had her rope.

She waited discreetly until dusk, when she saw a man come into town and head directly for the inn. With just a glance she knew it was Maxim, and he walked without a care in the world. He worked his charm, grinning, adding a glamour spell so that people welcomed him, while she remained in the shadows.

Though she wanted to lunge out and kill him there, Adessa controlled herself, knowing that would likely fail. Instead, she knew Maxim would be in town for several hours drinking his fill of ale, and she would use that to her advantage. She had just enough time to make her preparations.

In the gathering dark, Adessa slipped away from Gant’s Ford and into the hills, following the dirt path. Knowing where Maxim lived, she approached the dark and empty cottage that a woodcutter had built for his wife and three children. She found the whole family as statues in the yard, petrified in the act of fleeing. Adessa stared at them, reaffirmed in her determination to complete her mission. Thora had ordered her to kill the wizard commander, and she would take his head before the night was over.

She might have waited until Maxim was asleep, then broken into his home and fought him with all her strength, but that would have been messy and uncertain. She didn’t doubt he would have left wards all around the cottage. He would know if she was coming. No, she had to be more devious than that.

Moving swiftly, Adessa carried her rope and circled the cottage, through the spruce forest, searching for what she needed. To one side, she found a large heavy log that had toppled to the ground, which the woodcutter hadn’t yet chopped into firewood. Augmented by her blood magic and the rope, Adessa had enough strength to lift it into place, planning ahead.

When she had completed her preparations, Adessa discarded the stolen cloak she had used as her disguise and stood to fight in only her morazeth leather. When she faced Maxim, she wanted him to recognize her before she killed him. She tucked her dagger and short sword into her waistband. She would not need them, or the agile knife. In the darkness, the wind continued to stir the spruces, some of which creaked more loudly than others, as if groaning in pain.

She waited in the forest shadows for hours, until Maxim at last strolled back up the path, well satiated from his catfish pie and a tankard or two of ale. He whistled to himself, oblivious to any danger. Using his gift from a distance, he ignited the lamps inside the cottage, and light shone through the windows. He strolled up to the cottage.

Adessa stepped out of the shadows, placing herself in exactly the right position. The dark spruces were dense and close, swaying back and forth. Maxim stumbled to a halt, staring at her. “You are damned persistent.”

“I made a promise to kill you.”

She felt a rippling defensive shield he manifested in front of him, but the markings on her skin protected her against any magic he tried to use against her.

“This is Thora’s doing, isn’t it? Do you know if she is even still the sovrena?” He sniffed. “By now, I suspect that Ildakar has fallen, one way or another.” He quirked a smile. “I ended the petrification spell and freed the army of General Utros. And I saw an entire Norukai invasion fleet sailing up the river. Maybe you should have stayed to fight for the city instead of chasing me through the swamps?” He raised his eyebrows.

“I keep my promises.” She braced herself. The wind grew louder, the trees rushed and creaked.

“This is tedious,” Maxim said. “I do not fault your determination, but your power is no match for mine.”

“I trust in what I can do,” Adessa said. Leaving the short sword in its sheath at her side, she drew her dagger. “This knife is all I need to kill you.”

He had a maddening smile. “And how do you expect to accomplish that?”

Although wizards had powerful magic and numerous defenses, they could be killed in a normal manner, so long as they were taken by surprise. Adessa had the most tremendous surprise.

Raising the dagger, she kept her gaze locked on Maxim’s, and flung the blade to the side with perfect aim. The sharp knife sliced through the rope she had used to tie down one of the tall, supple spruce trees. Using her strength and the blood magic within her, she had bent and anchored the trees, and then fastened the heavy log, which hung on a cradle of the rope, dangling like a battering ram. The trees trembled like a strung bow, straining to be loosed, and Adessa’s thrown knife cut the rope.

The coiled energy within the bent spruces suddenly released, and the supple trees surged upward and released the suspended dead log. Maxim had just enough time to turn and see the log hurtling toward him like a ram powerful enough to smash the gates of Ildakar. He heard the thrash of pine boughs, the creak of ropes, the groan of wood. He had only an instant to raise a shield before the log slammed into his chest with such force it shattered his torso.

As the log swung back into its relaxed position on the ropes, Maxim lay sprawled on the ground in a pool of blood, his face filled with astonishment. His chest was crushed, his ribs were splintered like a thistle, but he was still alive, spasming, choking. Even with his great magic, though, the wizard commander couldn’t heal himself from this.

Adessa loomed over him and slid her short sword out of its scabbard. “Sovrena Thora commanded me to bring back your head, and it gives me great pleasure to do so.”

She touched her flat stomach, thought of the child that was no longer there, felt the shadow of Ian’s presence in her, and she convinced herself that the sacrifice had been acceptable. She’d had enough power to kill the wizard commander. Only that mattered.

Maxim lay gurgling, coughing blood. “I am a wizard … cannot kill me so … easily.”

“It was not easy, but I will kill you,” Adessa said.

His fingers curled, and light flickered in his hand as he tried to summon scraps of magic, but his chest was shattered, his life fading away. She had to hurry. “Oh no, Maxim, I am not going to let you simply die. I have to be the one to kill you.”

He groaned, tried to form words: “I will still … be…”

She hacked down on his neck, cutting through the muscles and neck bone, until she lifted his dripping head by the beautiful dark hair. When she killed Maxim, a rushing glow flowed out of his body and whipped through the now-still spruces. She felt a shudder in the magic as if some last threads of an ancient spell were finally severed, although nothing touched her rune-protected body.

Maxim was hers. She stared at his slack face, his dull and open eyes. She would deliver the trophy back to Ildakar, back to Thora. It would be a long, hard journey home, but with the wizard commander’s head, Adessa would have all the companionship she needed.