Page 8 of The Sorcerer's Alpha

“If you’re free,” the wizard said, clearly expecting that Marut was. Marut gave Bunny a pat and hoisted his waterskin. Surely the wizard could have picked anyone else.

The slope was steep enough to make Marut’s calves ache as he climbed. In places, they had to scramble on all fours, using their hands for purchase as a patch of scree threatened to slide away underfoot. The white chalk at the base of the hill gave way to tan rock above, all of it in thin banded layers. The hill wasn’t so high, but Marut was sweating by the time he reached the top and stepped out onto the narrow ridge that ran along the canyon wall.

The valley looked even more crowded from up here. He could see how soldiers were crammed into every side canyon and every hollow in the hills. A larger tent at the opposite end of the valley was presumably the colonel’s, hemmed in by carts and horses and useless guards standing around. Farther along the ridge, at either end of the valley, archers stood to serve as lookouts. What a mess of humanity, and for what? This forsaken corner of the earth had nothing to recommend it aside from solitude, and now it lacked even that. In every direction, as far as Marut could see, lay only bare hillsides, patches of beleaguered grass, and raptors soaring overhead, searching for prey.

The wizard, who had been bent over panting with his hands braced on his knees, finally straightened. “Do you know why we’re here?”

Marut shook his head. He didn’t suppose the wizard wanted him to guess.

“Neither do I.” The wizard began to walk along the narrow ridge, placing one foot carefully in front of the other like a child walking along the top of a wall, and Marut followed. “That seems odd, doesn’t it? That I was sent all this way, and still no one has told me why.”

“Odd,” Marut agreed.

“But I’ll tell you why the army is here.” Without warning, the wizard dropped into a crouch, and bent to press both palms flat to the soft mudrock of the ridge. Marut waited. The sky had lightened from its earlier flat cast, and banks of clouds differentiated themselves in various shades of gray. A nearby hawk stooped toward something hidden in the grass and rose again with its tiny prey struggling in its talons. After a few minutes, Marut crouched as well.

Whatever the wizard was communing with took a long time to speak to him. Eventually, he sat back on his heels, rubbing at his eyes, and said, “There’s gold.”

Marut raised his eyebrows. “Here?”

“The other ridge.” The wizard pointed across the valley. “There’s no chalk in that one. It’s some different type of rock. And there’s gold in it.”

“But how did they find it?” Marut asked. No one came this way aside from the occasional patrol making sure the Skopoy weren’t skulking around. Maybe a rare hunter venturing from Naina. No one lived here or ever had. Who would have even thought to look for gold?

“That’s a question I can’t answer.” The wizard turned and looked back down the slope the way they had come. “I suppose you’re going to tell me we have to return the same way we came up.”

“I wouldn’t dream of telling you such a thing,” Marut said, and the wizard gave him such a look of wryly amused delight, his mouth compressed to fight a smile, that Marut had to look away.

“All right,” the wizard said. “Let’s return.”

CHAPTER4

Sycamore kept his spine rigid and his hands clasped behind his back as he waited outside the colonel’s tent. He could feel the guards watching him, and he was determined to give them nothing to gossip about. They would do enough of that on their own without him fidgeting with his clothing or accidentally catching someone’s gaze. He stared straight ahead, eyes fixed on the white hillside. This colonel was impudent to keep him waiting, but he would say nothing about that, either. He was the king’s devoted servant and a channel for power, not a person.

He was kept waiting long enough that he considered breaking his own strict code of conduct by saying something sharply worded to one of the guards and then leaving. He was beginning to assemble a theory of what was happening in this camp, though, and alienating the colonel wouldn’t accomplish his overarching purpose, which was to serve his king and kingdom.

At last, a soldier dressed in finer clothing than those outside opened the tent flap and bowed to Sycamore. “My Lord Sorcerer. The colonel is pleased to meet with you.”

“Indeed,” Sycamore said.

The tent was much larger than the ones Sycamore and the scouts slept in. A central pole held the leather well above the ground, and there was room inside for a low bed and a folding camp table and chairs, indulgences Sycamore couldn’t fathom carting all the way to this wilderness. A week ago he would have said furniture was essential, but after the long ride out to the Kasauli, he thought bringing a full supply train was a show of excess. Who had authorized this? Sycamore knew many of the generals, albeit only in a social sense, and he knew which ones were fools. Several, unfortunately.

The colonel, seated at the table, frowned at Sycamore as he came in. “You’re the sorcerer?”

“So it seems,” Sycamore said.

“The king told me he was sending his best sorcerer. That’s you? You’re younger than I expected.” The man finally seemed to recall his manners and rose to his feet to bow. “My lord. Apologies for keeping you waiting.”

Sycamore waited a moment for some explanation. When none was offered, he said, “No one has told me why I was sent here.”

The colonel sat again and gestured to the chair opposite. He was an older man with abundant white hairs speckling his dark beard, his frame short and heavyset. Someone had told Sycamore his name, but he had already forgotten it. “It’s the Skopoy. I’m sure you’ve gathered.”

Obviously it was the Skopoy. Sycamore waited.

“They have new beasts. New—creatures.” The colonel gazed at the chart on the table—a map, Sycamore saw, of the badlands. “Enormous. Magical, it seems.”

So Sycamore was here to discern the nature of these creatures and, presumably, to dispel them. He laid one hand on the table and drew what impressions he could from the wood. Touched frequently by the colonel, it bore traces of his thoughts and emotions. He was worried about the creatures, but believed his battalion could quell them. He thought magic was frivolous charlatanry. He wished he had been sent to Bhilamala to defend against the Tihasoy instead of banished to these outermost reaches of the kingdom. He wasn’t a fool, but Sycamore would receive no help from him, although no hindrance, either.

“What can you tell me of them?” Sycamore asked.