The Draykon Series Books 1-3

Chapter Eight-2

‘Pitren Warvel,’ he introduced himself, offering Eva a courteous bow. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet the High Summoner.’

She inclined her head in response. ‘How terribly formal. Do call me Lady Glostrum.’

She detected a faint twinkle of amusement in his eyes as he straightened up. Good.

‘Of course, your ladyship. Please call me Tren.’

‘Tren?’

He shrugged. ‘It is a nickname as good as any.’

‘Fair enough. Shall we depart? It’s going to be a long day.’

Eva released Rikbeek. The gwaystrel flew up in a straight line, disappearing into the darkness. She knew he would keep pace with them, scanning their surroundings in organised circles. Gwaystrels were talented scouts; they could fly tirelessly for long distances on their webby black wings, and since they observed with sound and hearing rather than with their eyes, it was difficult to hide from them. This one was trained to warn Eva in a variety of ways if he encountered trouble.

Tren watched intently as Rikbeek disappeared into the trees. ‘Is that a gwaystrel? I thought nobody could catch those things anymore.’

‘Mere chance,’ she said. ‘I was larking about in the Lowers - unattended, of course - during my irresponsible twenties. Rikbeek all but flew into my face. He’d damaged a wing somehow. By the time he was fit to fly, we had made friends.’ She paused. ‘As much as is possible for that little monster.’

Tren lifted his brows. ‘Nice story. I’m twenty-five, by the way.’

‘Oh? Well, never mind. I’m sure you’re mature for your age.’

‘Tremendously.’

‘Well, we’ll see. Let’s get to work.’

Their quota was the southwest sector of the city and forest, marked clearly on the hand-drawn map that Roys carried. Eva had deliberately kept one of the most able summoners with her, knowing that they would be entering territory where the whurthag had been recently sighted. The group mounted up on the outskirts of the city, taking to nivvenback to explore the forest. They travelled for some time in near silence, each intent on the search. Eva kept her mind on Rikbeek, scanning his thoughts from time to time and listening for his signals. None came.

Eva loved the forest at this time of year. The glostrel trees were in leaf, their pale foliage stark against the dark shapes of their trunks and branches. Interspersed with these were the black irignol trees, ever leafless, but decked with gleaming lichens. Moonlight filtered down through the branches, dappling the dark forest floor with patches of silvery light. The atmosphere was tranquil, calm; Eva found it hard to believe that something as terrifying as a whurthag may be stalking through the trees not far away.

Rikbeek’s call came at last, startling her out of her appreciative reverie. It was the same sound he’d made when he had found Meesa’s body. Eva reined in her nivven, motioning to the others to do the same. She dismounted, moving slowly and quietly. She followed Rikbeek’s call a few paces to the south, Tren and Roys falling in behind her. The two guards circled out to the sides, keeping steadily up to pace with Eva.

Catching up with Rikbeek, she stopped. The gwaystrel circled madly high above her head, repeating his high, thin call every few seconds. Eva narrowed her eyes, scanning the undergrowth.

‘There,’ whispered Tren. She followed his pointing finger. Oh yes, there it was. A moving patch of inky shadow, stealthy as death, eyes gleaming pale and cold in the gloom. Eva gathered herself mentally, bearing down on the whurthag with the full force of her willpower. She had to master it before it was fully aware of them, before it gathered itself to resist. She sensed Roys joining her will to Eva’s, doubling the strength of the attack. Together they seized the beast’s will in an iron grip, subduing its desire to fight.

They hadn’t been fast enough. The whurthag fought, straining to tear free. It loosed itself enough to strike; Roys hissed with pain as its claws raked across her legs, but she bore down all the harder, using her anger and pain to compel it to obey. Nonetheless the whurthag twisted and snarled, a sound terrible enough that Eva almost lost her grip. She could feel the thing working itself loose, twisting out of her control with slippery ease.

‘Tren,’ she said tightly. ‘Gate.’

He complied. It was as though he tore a hole in the night; moonlight leaked through from somewhere else, chilly and too bright and etched with metallic blue. A cold wind blew through the portal, raising the hairs on Eva’s arms. She gritted her teeth, bearing down ferociously on the whurthag, willing it to step in the direction of the gate.

It didn’t move.

‘Roys…’

Roys tightened her grip, gasping with the effort. Eva had bitten her lip; blood trickled down her chin, tasting sharp in her mouth. The whurthag bunched its muscles and tried to leap in her direction. Fighting panic - why in the Seven would anyone willingly summon such a creature?! - she fought hard, streaming images of danger and peril into the mind of the whurthag. Feeling it falter, she followed that with impressions of safety beyond the gate, the comfort of the home den. It’s probably not remotely susceptible to such things, she thought desperately, but then the whurthag weakened, gave up the fight. Inch by inch she and Roys forced it towards Tren’s gate. It stalked through, and the gate closed around it, silently swallowing the whurthag’s night-black form.

Eva stood motionless for a long time, breathing hard. She felt completely drained, and still rather terrified. She’d never known a fight like that to control any beast, and she was one of the strongest of the summoners.

Roys recovered first. She blinked as if waking up, moved about stiffly. ‘Tricky,’ she said laconically, bending over her injured leg. The flesh was striped with scratches but they bled only sluggishly. ‘It’s not deep,’ Roys confirmed, waving Eva away.

‘You were lucky,’ Eva said, remembering the ferocious sweep of the whurthag’s claws. She looked at Tren. He too was looking pale and shaken. She wondered whether it was the effort of holding the gate open that had tired him out, or the strain of being far too close to an only barely restrained whurthag.

‘All well?’ she asked him.

He nodded, smiled wryly. ‘You ladies clearly had the hard work. I’m fine.’

‘Good work, ladies,’ said one of the guards. ‘We’d better check for its handler. We’ll stay close.’ Eva nodded and the two of them melted into the trees, weapons drawn.

Eva tilted her head to one side, wincing at a sharp pain in her neck. How tense she must’ve been. How long had the job taken? The moon was still strong overhead, but it could easily have been an hour. Eva sat carefully in the grass while the guards were gone, welcoming a chance at a brief rest before the ride home.

The search didn’t take long. The guards soon returned, weapons sheathed.

‘No sign of any handlers,’ said the talkative one - Havely, Eva recalled. She had never caught the other guard’s name, and he hadn’t spoken a word throughout their journey.

No handler was chilling news. It suggested that the whurthag had already broken free of its master summoner’s control. They had caught it barely in time. She shivered.

‘We’d better go back and call the others in,’ she said. They collected the nivvens and mounted up, all three shaky and exhausted. The ride back to Glour City was slow.

Three of the teams were already assembled when they arrived back at Summoner House. Eva frowned. They should have continued the search until the whurthag was confirmed as found - or until the search was called off. Why were they here?

‘We found and banished the whurthag,’ she said, dismounting with none of her usual easy grace. ‘It’s gone.’

‘So did we,’ said Alys Spirin, one of her foremost summoners.

‘And so did we,’ said another.

‘We all did.’

Eva blinked, confused. ‘What.’

‘There was only supposed to be one,’ said Roys.

‘Apparently not,’ said Alys. ‘The count’s up to four so far. No idea yet what the other teams have found.’

Eva’s heart sank. ‘All banished?’

‘Yes.’

Eva nodded, her eyes threatening to close with weariness. The other summoners were in little better shape; several sat with their heads in their hands, others were actually lying on the floor.

‘Any losses?’

‘None,’ said Alys, ‘but a few injuries. Trace is in the worst shape. He’s at the medical halls now.’

Eva nodded again, feeling deeply thankful. ‘Right, well. If there were four, there could be any number still at large. The search isn’t over.’

‘There’s one other thing.’ One of Angstrun’s sorcerers stepped forward, a man with hair as pale as Eva’s own.

‘Yes?’

‘We found three rogue gates out in the forest.’

Tren looked round at that. ‘Three rogue gates open at once?’

The sorcerer nodded, his face grim. ‘Maybe more.’

‘That’s unheard of.’

Eva was shocked, too. Rogue gates were a problem no one had yet managed to solve; they opened and closed apparently according to their own rules. The only way to deal with them was to close them as quickly as possible when they were found. Part of Angstrun’s job was to organise regular patrols of the city and forest by sorcerers who could close them up quickly and efficiently.

But they were relatively rare. Barely one rogue gate was discovered per moon. Three in one day?

She passed her hands over her face, rubbing her tired eyes. ‘I can see it’s going to be a long day.’

Eva and her summoners worked past moonset and well beyond, relentlessly searching the forests of Glour until they were, to all appearances, empty of further dangers. The total number of whurthags discovered rose to seven. Each one was found at a distance from the city precincts, crouched in the shadows as if awaiting something. Eva found it remarkable that they had not attacked the city again. Why were these here?

More rogue gates had been found, and closed. One further report had troubled Eva: one of her teams claimed to have found an unusual type of reptile in swampy northern Glour. With blue scales, long snout and horns, it was no species commonly seen in the marshes. It had probably come through one of the rogue gates, but Eva wondered.

When she was at last free to retire to her home, it was nearly moonset. She slept the long, deep, dreamless sleep of the exhausted, waking at last long after moonrise on the following day. She cursed when she realised the time, expecting to find a heap of messages urgently requiring her attention. In fact, there were only two: one from her second-in-command confirming that no further whurthag sightings had been recorded, and one from Vale, announcing his intention to visit around moonset.

He arrived a little early, looking almost as tired as Eva had been. She ordered dinner and had some cayluch sent in, thinking he looked in need of a hot drink. He sank into the sofa beside her, cupping his hands around the mug.

‘What’s the news?’ Eva allowed herself to lean against his shoulder, unusually grateful for the company.

He sighed deeply. ‘There’ve been some jewellery thefts in Orstwych, and one death. All sounds far too similar. I sent a couple of the boys out there for more details. Word is Glinnery’s having some trouble, too.’

‘Same kind?’

‘More or less. A civilian injury, probably whurthag inflicted, but no deaths yet. I’ve sent enquiries about any jewellery thefts going on.’

A chilling thought occurred to Eva. ‘Civilian injuries? Who?’

‘I don’t have any names yet.’

Eva had sent a warning to Ynara Sanfaer at her first opportunity. She hoped her friend had received the note in time to act on it. If all of this chaos was over the istore, then her daughter was in more danger than anyone. She shifted restlessly, wishing there was some way she could find out.

‘Anything from Irbel? Nimdre?’

‘Working on it.’ He smiled tiredly at her, and she smiled back.

‘Sorry.’

Vale’s smiled faded. ‘I saw Angstrun earlier. He’s out for blood. You heard about the Night Cloak?’

‘Mm. I was at the Guardian’s Office when the news came. He wasn’t happy.’

‘I imagine not.’

‘Does he know who did it?’

‘Think so. He said one of his men’s missing. Wants my help tracking him down.’ Vale sighed. ‘We’ll deal with it, of course, but I don’t know how. I’ve already sent most of my best men out picking up leads all over the Darklands, and I’ve called in my contacts in the Daylands too. We’re a bit short-handed to be sending out man hunts.’

Eva allowed her head to rest on Vale’s broad shoulder. ‘I know the problem. I’ve got to keep teams of summoners out on patrol for the foreseeable future. They need to be in groups of at least two, preferably three, to deal with the whurthags safely. The guild’s stretched thin already. And we’re leeching sorcerers out of Angstrun’s forces to pull the gates open.’

She felt Vale turn his head to look down at her. He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer.

‘I wonder if it’s significant that these events are taking all of Glour’s best out of the city and scattering them to the winds,’ said Eva. ‘I fear it must be.’

‘Possible.’

‘I mean, those whurthags weren’t out for anyone in particular. They were just standing there.’ A new idea occurred to her and she sat up slightly. ‘Eyde. If we marked on a map where all the whurthags were found, I wonder if we would find a pattern.’

‘I’m surprised you haven’t done that already.’

She sighed. ‘Sorry, Eyde. I was so tired yesterday I could barely remember my own name. I’ll get to it first thing after moonrise tomorrow.’

He placed a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Don’t blame yourself, Eva my darling. It’s been a long week for all of us.’

‘Not much of an excuse, that,’ she said absently. Her thoughts were busy, drawing links and mapping connections. ‘Has Angstrun pulled the Night Cloak back yet?’

‘No. He said there’s a delegation on the way from Glinnery, and they want the changes explored before it’s rectified. Seems they’ve got a theory they want testing.’

‘Oh?’

‘Something to do with the istore, unsurprisingly.’

‘Mm,’ said Eva. ‘Not at all surprising.’ She remembered the little Sanfaer girl’s words back at the Darklands Market. There is a cave, near to where I live. It’s in the walls. Eva wondered whether the Sanfaer family happened to live near the border to Glour.

Vale was silent for several minutes. She rested comfortably against him, reflecting that married life might not be so bad if it included such companionableness.

As if reading her mind, Vale looked down at her and smiled. ‘I fear our marriage plans will have to wait a little, in the midst of this mess. I’m sorry for that.’ She said nothing. He squeezed her waist slightly, kissing the top of her head again. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she replied.