20

  Out in the village of Longshore, quite near the dark of the moon:

  A bucket of icy-cold water brought Nalderick gasping and coughing back to consciousness. He woke in the firelit night to find himself sprawled on the muddy ground, surrounded by furious mortals. He hurt all over, having been viciously kicked, stomped and battered in place of his well-meaning friends.

  Derrick’s jaw felt dislocated. He was missing a few more teeth, one eye had swelled shut, and his nose was broken, but Kia… his eagle… was still somehow moving inside of his dirty tunic. Still alive, no thanks to the pitiless gods.

  “Awake?” somebody growled, prodding Derrick’s side with a booted foot. “Good! Ain’t right, executin’ no unconscious man. They can’t feel it.”

  Derrick was jerked to his feet by a tall, burly guardsman. Their captain, to judge by the marks on his collar. And, no… this wasn’t a nightmare or fever-dream. Through all of those scowling faces, the former elf could see his four wounded friends and the cindered remains of Longshore’s main warehouse.

  The building had burned clear down to its stone foundation, taking with it most of the town’s winter food supplies. Some of the nearby houses and structures were partly burned, too, including the village shrine. It was just past midwinter. These people were doomed, and they meant to kill Derrick before they all starved to death.

  He was hauled roughly around, his arms bound so tightly behind him with wire that he lost all sensation in both hands. The innkeeper threw a rope over a nearby lamppost, while somebody else fetched a wooden crate and plunked it down at the lamppost’s stone base.

  Shouting curses and threats, the crowd forced Derrick over and lifted him onto that splintery box. It creaked alarmingly under his weight, though he was too dizzy from blood loss and wounds to stand up very well. A noose was dropped over his head from behind, then pulled choking-tight, drawing his battered head sharply upward.

  “Don’ break, Lud Derrick!” shrilled Trixie, rising halfway out of the bloodied snow. “Don’ give them rotters no satisfaction!”

  Then someone stomped the old woman silent again. The rope end was tied off to something heavy. Next, the villagers set the crate beneath Derrick on fire, using flint and steel, because they were mortal and had little magic. The sodden wood was slow to catch, even with plenty of tinder. Finally, though, the crate began burning. Red-orange flames rose up to lick at his feet and legs, but jerking them upward put all of his weight on that scraping-tight noose.

  No use pleading. He’d known what was coming, and he’d done it, anyway. Derrick heard shouts, cheering and curses… was struck by stones and rivers of urine. The blood pounded loud in his head. Kicked the box away reflexively, then strangled and writhed as fire leapt up from below and Kia screamed in his tunic.

  His vision had shrunk to a red-lined tunnel when magical light flared, less than five feet away. Someone had come, but Derrick could no longer focus. Too near death. Too much pain.

  The villagers reacted, though, turning to face this new threat. It was Valerian and Filimar, who’d tracked a junior-league trophy cup to arrive in smoldering Longshore, just in time for Nalderick’s execution. With them were Hallan and Miri, shocked speechless. Not so, Filimar.

  “I say, bit dramatic, isn’t it?” drawled the young elf-lord. “Surely, he can’t have cheated that badly at dice.”

  Filimar smiled, but the expression never came near to his narrowed, icy blue eyes. Valerian wasted no time with jokes. Reflexively, he drew all the fire into himself, gaining manna and saving their bulging-eyed, purple-faced teammate. Filimar’s negligent gesture unbound and then levitated Nalderick, relieving the pressure and letting him breathe again. The dark-haired young elf also drew Handy, his sword. The blade whistled out of its sheath, reflecting embers, stark faces and moonlight.

  “I would demand an explanation, vermin, except that I really don’t care to hear your tedious pleas,” purred Filimar, stalking lazily forward.

  The villagers tried to flee, but Filno raised a vortex of thundering rock and skeletal unicorns. That clattering wall hemmed them in, trapping the mortals with a smiling, furious murderer. Valerian used a spell to cut Nalderick down, then lunged to intercept Filimar. Only, something was wrong with Miri. Suddenly wide-eyed and shaking, his apprentice seemed to be locked in some terrible vision brought on by fire and torment and screams. Red-haired Hallan was just as bad off, apparently recalling something gut-clenching terrible.

  “Slow time,” snapped Val, who remembered the Snowmont of another past… then Five Points… and couldn’t just leave them trapped in their nightmares. First crouching down to face the young half-drow, he touched her shoulder, saying,

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Miri, Hallan, return from your wandering. As we leave childhood, events from other lives cross over, some of them truly awful. It is a very hard thing, and I would that you were older when you began to see… but this isn’t Snowmont, nor Falcon’s past. We haven’t been captured by slavers or lost those we love. My oath to you, young ones, you’re safe.”

  Hallan gulped and nodded, dashing at his eyes with one arm. He’d brought a standard-issue navy sword, and gripped its hilt white-knuckle tight, fighting to drive away unwanted memory; all at once, no longer a kid.

  Miri looked up at Valerian, then tilted her head to press the side of her face to the back of his hand.

  “You… have been very kind, very good, and the curse is beginning to break,” she whispered, meaning (he thought) Derrick’s judgement. Sniffling loudly, his small apprentice went on to say. “I don’t want… I can’t go back to…”

  Valerian traced a sigil in the frosty air between Miri and Hallan, leaving a glowing mark that sank into both shaken youngsters. Forax, it was: Dragon Strength.

  “I take the past from you both until you chose to perceive it… but I must do something, quickly, before Filno lays waste to the town and puts all its folk to the sword. Here,”

  With a another magical gesture, Valerian first enchanted Hallan’s blade, then pulled a small looking-glass out of a faerie pocket.

  “Protection,” he said to the boy, and “disguise,” to the girl. “This weapon will always strike true and return to your side, Hallan, as you once handed the fated sword to me, at need. As for this glass, Miri… I made two, during one of my endless recycles. You have only to look and then speak what you wish to see, Apprentice, to transform yourself,” he told her. “Mind, though: the sword must be wielded in honor, and your change is only cosmetic. You might give yourself a fine set of gills, but without a proper enchantment, you’ll still drown in water. Take these gifts, in return for your courage and aid in the past.”

  His apprentice accepted the mirror, looking… doubtful? A little afraid? She peered at herself in its shimmering surface, murmuring a few quiet words. And then, just like that, while Hallan cut at the air with a blade of power, the small girl became an elf in semblance, with bronze skin, tawny eyes and a river of night-black hair.

  Valerian smiled at Miri.

  “You make a lovely she-elf,” he said. Then, glancing across at Filimar’s slowly descending blade, “I need to stop that drekker before he incites a war with the mainland. Stay with Hallan, Miri. Hal, defend her.”

  The girl looked over at Hallan, who seemed suddenly fierce and bold.

  “Hal is very pretty,” she observed, “but Captain Varric is grown. He is much stronger and handsome than Hallan. He is the one that I want.”

  “Awake to the past, and now with a roving eye,” snorted Val, pinching the tip of her slender nose.

  “Stay with your guardian,” he repeated, springing back to his feet before something happened that couldn’t be healed.

  Valerian pivoted. Then, cutting the time-spell off with a gesture, he ported across six feet of slushy ground to intercept Filno. Hurled the mirror’s twin at Derrick as he went, growling,

  “Figure it out!”

  Didn’t wait to see what the cursed prince would do with the thing, or even if he’d been able to catch it at all. Just seized Filimar bodily, flipped him upside down and then ported again, thrusting Filno head-first into one of the few remaining snowbanks.

  Crunch!

  Filimar still had hold of his sword, but Val pinned his wrist down with a heavy boot and plenty of conjured up weight.

  “No, you don’t!” snapped Valerian, shoving Filimar down even harder. “We’re here to help Derrick, not to make matters worse!”

  Those mortals were still penned by Filimar’s glowing and swirling, rock-storm shield. They tried to flee, but were herded repeatedly back to center, driven by shrieking skeletal unicorns. The mortals were loose-gut terrified but utterly trapped. Valerian scanned the crowd, then addressed a woman who looked like the village priestess, or maybe its reeve.

  “It seems that there’s been a misunderstanding,” he told her, as Hallan and Miri rushed forward. “You were about to hang our friend. Explain.”

  The white-haired woman inched forward and bowed, setting her beads and trinkets to rattling.

  “Milord,” she whispered. “’Ee confessed settin’ our warehouse on fire n’ burnin’ up all our food ‘cept what’s in the shops n’ the root-cellars. Fish don’t come t’ the surface much this time o’ year. We’re gonna die, Milord, or hafta set babes an’ old uns out t’ freeze, so’s the strongest can make it t’ spring.”

  “Seed corn’s gone,” muttered a fellow who looked like a guard. “Nuthin’ left t’ plant, come thaw, ‘cause yer friend set a fire n’ then robbed our station… Milord.”

  Val inhaled sharply, turning his head a little to stare at Nalderick. The… still mortal… prince was cradling a small, injured bird, not even paying attention.

  “We can restore their food, can’t we, lord mage?” asked Hallan, catching the edge of Val’s sleeve.

  “Given time and sufficient manna, aye, that we can,” admitted Valerian, committing himself to another few weeks of subjective study. Drek!

  Then Filimar burst free of his grip and that mucky snow, seething with rage. The raven-haired elf dropped his sword to shove Val, snarling,

  “You dare to humble me in front of these… insects… these… talking apes?”

  Valerian scowled. Tense, weary and dangerously close to losing his own temper, he was in no mood to soothe Filimar. Sparks and small flames lit up and twirled in the air all around him, lighting the villager’s terrified faces. Fire in front, and a roaring landslide behind. Somebody fainted, in back.

  “To prevent a massacre? Aye, that, and more, Filno! I’d have shoved you into their drekking privy!”

  Filimar’s hand shot out, palm downward. His sword sprang out of the snow and into the younger elf’s grip.

  “Have at thee, then, traitor… mortal-lover! I swear that I’ll deal with thee and then bury this filthy place!” The ground shook at his word, for Filimar was an earth-mover, like all his Arvendahl kin.

  Valerian took a pace backward, summoning the shining Blade of the Tarandahls. He couldn’t refuse a fair fight. Not and stay bonded to Firelord. But…

  “Filno,” he reasoned. “It’s not…”

  “No! Not Filno! Not to you, Valerian! This is too much, and I shall not have it! On my honor and Arvendahl blood, defend yourself, northerner! You shall pay for this slight, aye, with all of your folk, to the last generation and mewling whelp!”

  And then, a white dragon turned up, dropping out of the sky like a thunderbolt, wreathed in blizzard, lightning and ice.