Dragon Blood

"Stay back," commanded Oreg from the far side of the room, near the open doorway, and the men who'd drawn their weapons as Tisala attacked halted where they were. "If you touch it, your flesh may well rot way as quickly as his is. Let Ward and me deal with it."

"What is it?" I asked Oreg, but it was Orvidin who answered, his face gray and drawn.

"A golem," he said, spitting on the floor to ward off evil spirits, a habit that leads the Oranstonians to call us Shavig barbarians. "I haven't seen one of these since my father offended the Acholy

"Perhaps," said Oreg, who'd circled the thing and took his place beside me, staring all the while at the remains of the stable master, which finally finished the food on the floor and started to slither forward with legs dragging behind it.

"Garranon?" The thing sounded bewildered, but its advance was steady, if slow. "The king said I shouldn't have let you go. Did I do wrong?"

Tisala lifted her sword again, but Oreg waved her off.

"Fire, Ward. Not the kind you use to light the kitchen fire, but what you did at Silver Fells."

What I'd done at Silver Fells was to call down Siphern, God of Justice, to carry away the souls of the villagers slaughtered by the Vorsag. Not something I'd repeated often enough to know how to do it at a moment's notice.

I tried calling the god as I flung my magic at the stable master. Flames leapt off the animated corpse as if it had been doused in brandy, but I knew that nothing had answered my call.

Alight with the fire eating away at the flesh that remained on the skeleton, the creature hesitated. It shook its head and muttered—this time in a broken whisper. "Hungry," it said.

Tisala stepped in and thrust her sword past the flames and through the blackened head where it slid through the temple and into the eye and stuck there. It was a metal-handled sword and she had to let go as my magic-fueled flames shot up it as if it were a branch of wood.

The golem shifted away from Garranon for the first time. It looked right at Tisala with its good eye.

"Hungry," it said.

"Jakoven's lost control of it," said Oreg, adding his fire to mine, but it continued after Tisala. Tisala backed down the aisle way, keeping her face toward the thing. The golem, far from being affected by the sword sticking out of its skull or our fire, moved faster until Tisala was trotting backward as Oreg and I followed.

The crowd of Shavig nobles swirled in tension, barely held in check by Oreg's command. I caught a glimpse of Rosem's firm wrestling grip holding Kellen back, and I blessed him for it. All that was needed was for Jakoven's plaything to run amok amongst all the Shavig nobles. There was none—except maybe Charva, the wizard, who even stood a chance against it.

Orvidin, who'd managed to get one of the decorative pole arms off the wall, pushed through the crowd and shoved the pike under the crawling stable master and flipped it on its back. It twisted around as quickly as a snake and began to stalk Orvidin.

"Gods," muttered Garranon beside me—I'd thought he'd stayed sensibly behind on the dais.

"Valsilva," Garranon called, trying to attract the creature's attention.

Floor coverings smoldered near the burning monster. A spilled mug of ale poured fire like water down the side of a table.

"Ward, that's not working!" snapped Oreg though his magic poured through me to aid my efforts.

I called out to Siphern and reached—Hurog, not Siphern answered my call.

Power flooded into me and had not I immediately sent it away it would have reduced me to ash the way it consumed the poor thing that had once been a man. Still frantically dumping the magic I doused the fires in the hall.

"Oreg!" I called and, bless him, he saw what was happening. His hands closed over my shoulders and he began to absorb the magic I had no good place left to send.

The power stopped as quickly as it had come, leaving my limbs as weak as water. The smell of rotting flesh was gone, leaving only a sour smoky smell and a strange quiet that Orvidin broke.

"Siphern bless him," he said, leaning on the old pike. He spat on the floor again. "I knew Valsilva."

"Jakoven sent him all the way from Estian," said Oreg. "To give a message to Garranon—and kill him if possible. A punishment for saving Ward's brother."

Kellen pushed forward looking angry and ruffled, followed by Rosem, who had seen to it that Hurog's hope of salvation had not thrown himself onto the first of Jakoven's monsters. I owed Rosem.

Garranon looked at the ashes that were left on the floor and swallowed hard. "He was a good man," he said, then turned on his heel and left the room.

The anger left Kellen's face as swiftly as a slate wiped by a cloth. "I'll go talk to him," he said. "He might listen to me. Ward, talk with your wizard and be ready to tell me what just happened before we, any of us, seek our beds tonight."

Kellen followed Garranon and I silently wished him luck.

Oreg released my shoulders with an absent pat and said, "I don't need to consult—I know what this is."

"Golem," I said. "But why didn't a normal fire kill it?"

"Not a golem," said Oreg. "At first I thought so, too, but it breathed—did you notice? A golem is, by definition, nonliving. It was a geas."

"A geas that could cause a man to walk all the way from Estian and cast aside barred doors in the process?" said Charva the wizard. He sounded tired and I realized that some of the power Oreg had fed me had been Charva's. "He sounded like Jakoven. Geas doesn't provide for that."

Oreg smiled, "If you'll excuse me for disagreeing with you—I'll tell you that geas can do all of this, if there is sufficient power behind the spell. And right now, Jakoven has sufficient power to lay waste to cities if he chooses."

So Jakoven has managed to activate the Bane, I thought, chills shaking down my spine.

"So you say," said Porshall, a western landholder I didn't know well. He seldom came to Councils, as his lands were in disputed territory and he needed to protect them. "I say that the timing of this attack was interesting."

"Are you accusing my nephew of this?" said Duraugh with icy politeness.

Porshall held his hands out as if to forestall offense. "I merely observe that as your nephew has so clearly demonstrated, he is a wizard. And that, if any Shavigman here was harboring thoughts of supporting Jakoven, this demonstration would cement their support of Kellen."

Orvidin, still playing with his pike, let out a bellow of laughter before saying, "Only someone who didn't know Ward could even think that. Half the problem we've had with the pup in the Council is that he's too honest … No, that's not quite the word." He narrowed his eyes at me. "Too honorable. He'll lie if it furthers his aim, but his aim, and his means, never lie in foul waters. He might create an illusion of a dragon, but you'd not catch this pup hurting an i

Porshall abruptly shook his head. "I still say—"

"Enough," said Charva. "This was no magic of Ward's. Those of you without magic will have to take my word that Ward's magic has an unmistakable signature—and this was done by someone else. Jakoven is the most likely source." The wizard looked around the room. "I'd pay attention to this, all of you. If we don't stop Jakoven, the stable master's fate might be kinder than anything we face."