The Eighth Warden Bk. 03 Ch. 01-02

Book 3: Warrior-mage Corec and his companions have discovered the secret of the wardens and found a clue that may lead them to the ruins of the ancient city of Tir Yadar, but questions still remain. Now, they must sail across the sea to a distant land, meeting new friends while being hunted by mysterious forces.

[Be sure to read Books 1 and 2 first.]

Prologue

The woman who called herself Mara gazed into the steaming washbasin at an image of a blonde girl in a snowstorm. When footsteps sounded behind her, she banished the vision and turned to greet her husband.

Otho looked upon her body with desire in his eyes. "What did I ever do to deserve you?" he asked, pulling her to him with a smile and kissing her forehead.

Mara laughed. "I don't know, so you'd better come up with something soon."

He grinned down at her. "Perhaps we should take a real bath, and you can give me a chance to come up with something right now."

"Then we'd miss Tullia's party. Go get dressed. I'll be out soon."

With good-natured grumbling, Otho left the bathing chamber. Mara stared after him for a moment, her smile slipping. She'd enjoyed her time with him, but her current self was rapidly approaching thirty-five years of age, and she hated seeing herself grow old. It would be time for her to go soon, leaving behind another grieving husband.

They'd met fifteen years earlier, when she was posing as one of her own priestesses. She'd just created the new body after spending several years away from the mortal realm, mourning her previous self's husband. Devlin had only been a farmer, but he'd also been a good man, and his death from infection had been difficult for her. He'd been too young, and their time together had been much too short. Mara's previous self hadn't been a priestess, so it was against the rules to save him. She'd left their newborn daughter behind with their closest neighbors and vanished into the woods, shedding her mortal self.

When she'd returned as Mara three years later, Otho had been the first man to greet her in the temple, and it hadn't taken long to seduce him. He'd been new to lovemaking, but he was an apt pupil and learned quickly. A month later, he'd proposed, and Mara, a priestess who'd had no other identity besides her name, had become a member of Valara's high society.

It was the life she was accustomed to, but she still missed her little farm cabin with Devlin.

She sighed. She would miss Otho too, but unlike Devlin, he was alive and young enough to marry again. With his wealth and position in the city, he wouldn't have any problem finding another wife. Mara would have to hold back her jealousy, but she'd done that before. And soon, she'd find another lover for herself, and would eventually stop missing her old life. With a few notable exceptions, she'd always been good at choosing new men.

A shadow grew over the room and a deep voice sounded in her head, interrupting her musing.

Arodisis, the voice said.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed. "I can't talk! My husband's in the next room!"

Your human toy can't hear me. I need to know where you stand. Whose side are you on?

"I'm not on anyone's side," she said, keeping her voice low. "What you're doing is dangerous. What she's doing is dangerous."

I've changed the ritual. I can prevent another Burning, but if you're not with me, you'll be left behind with the others. If you join me, you can rule at my side.

She quickly cast a ward against listening, then raised her voice. "If you want me, then tell me why Zachal died that day. Was it because he was the only human among us? Or was it because he was sharing my bed?"

You're accusing me of killing one of our own? Pallisur asked, avoiding the question—just as he had in the past.

"Herasis lived, and she was new. She had no idea what she was doing. Irisis lived. Why did Zachal die?"

I won't dignify that with a response.

"Then I'll keep my own counsel, as I always have."

A lack of a decision is still a decision. You've made your choice.

Pallisur's presence faded from the room, and Arodisis composed herself. Herasis and Pallisur were spending all their efforts on their secret plans and machinations, while never seeing the truth that was right in front of them. Events wouldn't happen the way they expected. Nor would they happen the way Arodisis expected—there was too much interference to see clearly, too much manipulation of potential futures.

She summoned the vision of the blonde girl again. What would her role be? Would she prevent any of the less desirable outcomes? By herself, that wasn't likely, but she wasn't the only pawn in the game.

The vision faded and Arodisis became Mara once more.

She'd have to dress quickly or she'd be late to the party.

###

Chapter 1

Corec paced back and forth in the front hall of the High Guard administration building. The troopers posted as guards hadn't allowed him to proceed any farther.

He'd been waiting for over an hour when Sarette arrived, coming from the direction of the military court. She was alone and dressed in civilian clothing now, no longer wearing her uniform or her gambeson-style padded overcoat with its rank insignia on the collar. She did, however, have her chainmail and padded doublet rolled up in a bundle under her arm.

"I didn't realize you were here," she said, seeing him.

"I know you didn't want us to come, but someone had to be here in case you needed us to give evidence."

She sighed. "It's fine. I was worried my parents would be here, and I wanted to focus on the hearing first before I tell them I'm leaving Snow Crown. If they saw you, they'd want to talk, and I just wasn't ready to deal with that yet. But then I found out no one outside the High Guard would be allowed in, so I convinced them to stay home."

"Yes, I learned that too after I got here. What happened in there?"

"Pretty much what I was hoping would happen, I guess. Gregor has his commission back. While he technically outranks me, scouts are usually considered to be outside the chain of command, and I was the one in charge of the expedition. I was the one who made the decisions that the High Guard is unhappy with."

"Decisions that saved lives," Corec pointed out. It had been Sarette who'd convinced the refugees from Jol's Brook to flee to the ruins of Tir Navis in South Valley to take shelter from the snow beasts, and it had been Sarette who'd signaled the High Guard's secret watchtowers for help when supplies had run low. Those seemed to be the two main issues that the High Guard was concerned about.

"I know, but that'll require a full trial. If that ass of a captain had..." Sarette trailed off.

Captain Mikhal, who'd led the patrol that brought the supplies, was also the man who'd relieved Sarette and Gregor of their duties. He'd refused to take statements from the refugees about what had happened to them, and he'd refused to allow any of them to come to Snow Crown as witnesses.

He'd also attempted to force the refugees to return home on their own, so that the rest of the expedition could head back to Snow Crown immediately, but Corec had insisted on accompanying them back to Jol's Brook. The Council of Elders had already given Corec and his friends permission to travel within the mountains and visit the ruins, and had charged Sarette and Gregor with accompanying them. Since Mikhal had relieved the two soldiers of their responsibilities, he was forced to take on those duties himself, which meant his patrol was stuck accompanying the group back to Jol's Brook. Corec had kept everyone at the village—or what was left of it—for an extra five days, mostly to ensure the refugees were able to obtain enough supplies from neighboring villages and farms to last through the winter, but also partly to annoy Mikhal.

"What happens next?" Corec asked.

"I'm still relieved of duty pending a full investigation, but they've agreed that the trial can take place when I return to Snow Crown. In the meantime, I can't draw pay or act as a member of the High Guard, but I haven't been discharged and I'm not guilty of any crimes. A legist will come around to the inn tomorrow to take everyone's statements so the rest of you don't have to come back to Snow Crown with me."

"Why don't we just stay for the trial?"

"That could take months, between the trial itself and waiting for statements to come back from Jol's Brook." She smirked. "General Rodon insisted that Captain Mikhal's patrol will accompany the legist to the village. Mikhal won't like that, but the general wasn't happy when Gregor pointed out that he refused our request to take the refugees' statements while we were there."

"This Rodon was on your side, then?"

Sarette shrugged uncomfortably. "It wasn't so much that there were different sides, but the judges have to follow the laws and procedures. They weren't willing to say it out loud, but I got the impression I'd be cleared of any wrongdoing if the story is confirmed. Well, not entirely—I still broke the law. I'll probably be discharged, but with honor."

Corec nodded, understanding the distinction. The Knights of Pallisur he'd trained with were organized differently than the stormborn High Guard, but he was familiar with Larso's army since the knights were expected to lead units during times of war. The High Guard seemed to be a more advanced version of the Larsonian army. There were no knights or nobles in stormborn society, so the High Guard had a full command structure of its own, with rules to ensure everything ran smoothly regardless of circumstances.

An older man came into the room then, dressed in a style reminiscent of the High Guard's winter uniform but in darker colors and without any rank insignia. He greeted Sarette in the stormborn language, then glanced at Corec and switched to trade tongue.

"Sorry it took me so long," he said. "I was just telling Rodon about a new ice-fishing spot I found."

"Corec," Sarette said, "this is my Uncle Vartus. He's the one that trained me as a stormrunner."

The man nodded. "Our family has produced a lot of stormrunners over the years. It doesn't hurt to remind them of that. Sarette tells me you're a warden?"

"I am," Corec said. It still felt odd to claim a title he knew so little about, and that most people had never heard of. It was as if he was pretending to be something he wasn't.

"What does that mean, exactly? All I've heard are all children's stories, and yet that's apparently enough for the Council of Elders to go out of their way to help you."

"It wasn't like that, Vartus," Sarette said. "All they asked for was permission to visit South Valley. The Council agreed and sent a scout to make sure they didn't get lost. That's all that happened."

"Then how did you get involved?"

"I don't think that had anything to do with Corec being a warden. It was the oracle who insisted that I go."

Vartus harrumphed. "Galina? Did she say why?"

"No."

Corec said, "I'll answer any questions you have, but I don't know much about wardens myself. I haven't been one for very long."

"If you're new to it, then how do you expect to help Sarette with her training? You're not a stormrunner yourself."

Corec exchanged a glance with Sarette. "That's not how it works," he said. "All I know is that the binding spell is supposed to strengthen someone's magic." He thought back to how Yelena had worded it. "No, I didn't say that right. It improves their potential, whatever that means. I don't have any control over it—I can't turn her into a stormrunner. All we can do is wait and see what happens. If she needs training, that's something she'll have to take care of herself."

"I've already been trained," Sarette told her uncle. "Now I just need to take what you taught me and learn how to do it for real. And the binding spell is working! You heard what I said in there about fighting the snow beasts. I couldn't have done that before."

"Unless it just took you longer than normal to master your skills," Vartus said, his eyes narrowing.

"If that was possible, you wouldn't have released me from my training in the first place."

Vartus was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Fine, but we should at least test you again to see what's changed, if anything."

"I can't spend two days riding out to Runner's Summit and back!" Sarette protested.

"We'll do it here in town at my lodge. Tomorrow. I imagine you'll be busy with your parents tonight."

She sighed. "I've got to tell them about delaying the trial, and about leaving Snow Crown. They're not going to be happy."

A young woman that Corec recognized stopped in front of the group. Her name was Yana, and she ran errands for the historians at the Museum of the Before—or at least that was how the name translated into the trade tongue. The group was dedicated to learning as much as possible about the ruins in the southern part of the Storm Heights.

Yana gave him a small bow. "Warden Corec, Magister Nadza requests your presence. She would like your help with the sword."

#

The museum was located at the eastern end of a group of buildings that the stormborn referred to as a civil academy, which was a companion to the military academy Sarette had attended. The civil academy taught historians, engineers, and other professions that the stormborn felt required more training than a traditional apprenticeship would provide. Corec had never heard of the concept before, but according to Bobo, there was a similar school in Matagor.

It would have taken over an hour to walk there, so Corec and Yana hired a carriage. When they arrived, Yana led him through the front entrance, which opened up into a public room lined with objects taken from earlier expeditions to the South Valley ruins. The most impressive were the statues of various animals, most of which were made of marble, bronze, or the strange metal the Ancients used that didn't rust or tarnish. Oddly, no statues had been found of the people themselves.

The rest of the room was filled with pottery covered with geometric shapes, which was the only other art form that had survived the centuries.

Corec followed Yana past a row of vases and into a corridor with different weapons hanging from the walls, the most common being staff-spears in the same style the stormborn used. Some of the weapons were still in good shape while others were barely recognizable.

The corridor led to a room filled with glass display cases, each one presenting a weapon made from the special metal, still in perfect condition.

A side door took them to Magister Nadza's workroom, which she used for examining and documenting the artifacts that would be displayed in the museum. The room had two long, narrow tables. The one on the left, where Corec had left the sword he'd found in the ruins, was now covered with heavy blankets. The other table held the spoon Sarette had found, along with the half dozen rusted weapons they'd discovered near the sword. Two young men were diligently attempting to clean off the rust without causing further damage.

"Warden, thank you for coming so quickly," Nadza said. The elderly woman was wearing nondescript work clothes and had her gray hair pulled back in a severe bun. She tugged the blankets off the table, revealing the sword. "Can I trouble you to do something with this?"

The greatsword still lay exactly as Corec had left it, but the blade now glowed with an intense green light that was almost painful to look at.

"What happened?" he asked, shielding his eyes.

"It just started doing that this morning, for no reason that I could determine. When it got too bright, I had to cover it up."

"What do you want me to do?"

She tossed her hands up in frustration. "Move it! Please! Get it out of my workroom. Even before it started doing this, nobody could use the table for fear of getting too close. No one can touch it. We've tried cloth and leather wrappings. We've tried pushing it with wooden sticks and metal poles, but the instant anything touches it, it stings us. If we attempt to move the table, the same thing happens. I had a wizard try to lift it with magic—we needed healers for him, and he was nowhere near it."

"Where do you want it?"

"The display case won't be ready for another two days. Can you put it in that storage closet behind you until then?"

Corec lifted the weapon by the hilt. Green sparks danced along the length of the blade before disappearing, and the bright light faded to the pale green glow he was used to. Each time he handled the sword, the sparks vanished more quickly than before.

"You really want it in the closet?" he asked. It seemed disrespectful, somehow.

"Better than leaving it out where someone can hurt themselves," Nadza said. "How do you carry it so easily? One of my students managed to grab the hilt with both hands, but he could barely budge it. We needed the healers for him, too. He said it must weigh close to two hundred pounds."

Corec furrowed his brow. "Two hundred? It can't be any more than eight pounds. It's heavier than I'm used to, but not out of the ordinary for a blade this size."

"Curious," Nadza said with a speculative frown. "The pain isn't its only defense mechanism, then."

She opened the door to the storage closet, then backed well out of Corec's way as he carried it inside. The shelves were filled with shards of broken pottery and various other odds and ends that Nadza had apparently deemed not worthy of public display. He leaned the sword up against the wall. When he let go of the hilt, the pale green glow disappeared, as it always did. He left it there and closed the door behind him.

"I'll probably still be here in two days," he said. "When the display case is ready, do you want me to come back and move it again?"

"Yes, please," Nadza said. "Otherwise, my closet will be as useless as the table was. I suppose we'll need to add some sort of cloth draping to the case, if the sword is going to start glowing so brightly at random times. This is more trouble than I'd hoped, but it's still a major find. I wish we knew more about it. You said there were plaques for each weapon?"

"Yes, but they were rusted over. We couldn't read them."

"If the words were etched into the metal rather than painted on, there are ways to clean them. I'll have to send someone to the ruins to retrieve them all. Let me see..." She thumbed through a stack of papers. "Yes, one of the scholars you took with you sketched out where each of the weapons was placed on the wall. We should be able to match the plaques to the correct items."

"That was Ellerie, the nilvasta woman. It was her idea to visit the ruins."

"Hmm...she was reasonably thorough for someone I didn't train myself. Not many elves visit Snow Crown. I'd like to have her as one of my students."

Corec chuckled. "I'll pass that along, but I think she's planning to leave with us."

Just then, a high-pitched screeching noise came from the direction of the closet, and green light showed around the edges of the door. Nadza and her students all covered their ears and hunched over.

"What's that?" Nadza shouted over the noise.

Corec opened the door and found the sword glowing as brightly as before. When he grasped the hilt, the screeching ended and the light faded back to its normal levels. There were no sparks this time.

Everyone in the room stared at him in shock as they tentatively moved their hands away from their ears.

"Has it ever done that before?" Nadza asked.

"No. It always glows when I draw it—just a little bit, like it is now—but that's all. I've been practicing with it every day since my own sword broke, and it's always seemed like a normal blade other than that."

"I don't know much about enchanted weapons," Nadza said. "There aren't many in Snow Crown, and this is the only one we've ever retrieved from the ruins. Could it be that only a warden can touch it?"