The Fellowship of Bander- The Complete Trilogy Boxed Set, page 1
part #1 of Bander Series
The Fellowship of Bander
The Complete Trilogy
Randy Nargi
Contents
Download a Map of Harion
Book 1: A Conspiracy of Shadows
I. A Killing in the Air
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
II. Through the Portal
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
III. Chains of Vengeance
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
IV. Onslaught
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
V. The Riddle of the Cage
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
VI. Apocalypse
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
VII. The Looming
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Epilogue
Book 2: In Terror’s Thrall
Prologue
I. Awakening
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
II. The Fate of Eresthar
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
III. The Widow
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
IV. Game Of Death
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
V. Turnabout
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
VI. When The World Breaks
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Book 3: Revenge of the Battle Mage
I. The Fury of Silbra Dal
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
II. Lost and Found
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
III. The Gathering Storm
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
IV. Unmasked
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
V. The Fortress
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
VI. Epilogue
Chapter 45
Well Met!
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Acknowledgments
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Book 1: A Conspiracy of Shadows
Part I
A Killing in the Air
Prologue
TOBIN LEROTH JOLTED AWAKE. A rough cloth sack was bound tightly around his face and neck, obscuring his vision. He tasted blood in his mouth. His arms and legs were restrained somehow. And his head ached from hanging upside-down.
He shifted his weight and tested his bonds. They were solid. His skin pressed against the cool metal and his worst fears were one step closer to being confirmed.
Tobin Leroth cleared his mind, began breathing deeply, and tried to tap into the magical energy around him.
Nothing.
It was as he dreaded. The shackles that held him were made of relorcan, a rare metal, yet exceptionally effective in disrupting the flow of magical energy.
“He stirs,” a voice said. Not deep. Not threatening. Just matter-of-fact. With a hint of rangelands accent.
“Time?” Another voice. Only one word was spoken, but it was with authority.
“The crowds are just leaving the north entrance.”
“Well, he woke just in time, I’d say. Make the preparations.”
An intense pain jabbed into his gut, horribly burning his insides.
Acid.
A moment later his arms and legs jerked together, like a stag being trussed for slaughter. His body lifted up and swung in the air, back and forth.
He considered briefly making a plea for his life but dismissed the thought. It wouldn’t do any good.
“They’ve reached the statue,” a third voice said. This voice was lighter, younger.
“Keep clear. On my mark.”
Tobin Leroth heard the men shuffle away. A cool breeze blew through the sack and he felt the salt air on his face. He cleared his mind once more. Not to attempt to invoke magic, but to make peace with the universe.
“Now,” the authoritative voice commanded.
Tobin Leroth’s body jerked savagely and he was wracked with intense pain, like every bone in his body was being crushed.
The last sensation he felt was his body flying through the air.
Chapter 1
A FORTNIGHT LATER, BANDER WALKED THROUGH THE FOREST ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF THE MATHAM WOOD WEST OF LHAWSTER. He had been on the road for nearly a month and was down to his last few coins. Not that he spent a lot during his travels. He lived very simply these days. And he lived to walk.
After two decades as the Imperial Investigator in Rundlun, Bander had enough of city walls. So when he mustered out of the Imperial Ministry of the Axe three years ago at the rank of Red Shoulder Captain, Bander decided he’d spend the rest of his days wandering Harion—from Waterside to Laketon to Lhawster to Kreed’s Keep to the Steading to Rundlun to Hamwick and then back to Waterside. It was a loop that ran several thousand miles and took him well over a year to complete, but Bander treasured every step.
He did, however, prefer to travel unencumbered—and that meant caching coins outside of each major city he visited. It wasn’t that Bander was concerned about robbers and highwaymen—it was more that he didn’t want to pay the tax levied on gold being transported into each city.
Bander made sure he was alone, then sought out a particular hollowed log next to a boulder as tall as he was. Hoping there was nothing inside that might sink its fangs into his fingers, Bander reached into the log. He felt a braided cord and tugged it, extracting an oilskin pouch from its hiding place. Inside were enough regmarks to keep him in food, drink, and amusement for the week he would be in Lhawster.
Or at least that’s what he expected to be in the pouch.
Instead, there were a dozen rocks. And a flat slab of crystal twice the size of his hand.
Bander tucked the crystal into his pack, then gripped his short staff and scanned the area. He didn’t believe that whoever stole his cache would be stupid enough to remain in the vicinity, but he needed some time to calm himself so that he could assess the situation.
He spiraled out a few hundred yards from the log, looking for tracks. Bander wasn’t a ranger by any means—not even an amateur one—but he’d become more familiar with signs of the forest since he began his wandering. But there were no telltale broken branches, no bits of cloth, no boot prints that he could detect.
The wind began to pick up and the clouds swirled above his head. Bander gathered his pack and the pouch and angled back towards the trade road to Lhawster. It was close to noon and the city was probably a couple of miles away. As he walked, it dawned on Bander that he now had a bit of a problem.
His few remaining coins would not last long in Lhawster. Maybe a day’s worth of food and lodging. He wondered if the crystal had any value. It was certainly left for a reason. Perhaps to tr
He stopped by a boulder, sat down, and removed the crystal from his pack. It was a slab as thick as his thumb, sliced from a much larger piece, and polished on one face. The sun filtered by the darkening clouds caused the crystal to act as a poor mirror, but still, Bander could see his own weathered face in the stone: grey-streaked beard, thick eyebrows, and steel-grey eyes.
But then Bander saw something else in the crystal. It almost looked like an image of stars in a night sky, swirling and blinking in and out.
And then another face stared at him—the face of a young woman.
She had light hair and light eyes and full lips pursed in a frown.
A single moment before the woman spoke, Bander understood what he was holding. A scrying crystal.
And it was worth much more than the gold in his pouch. In fact, it was worth ten times more than all the gold in all his pouches spread throughout Harion.
“Captain Bander of Rundlun,” the young woman intoned in a serious voice. “I am Silbra Dal of the White, representing the Guild at the Esoterium in Waterside. Your presence is requested here.”
Bander could hear her voice as clearly as if she were standing beside him.
“Waterside? Truly? You stole my gold. Why would I go to Waterside?”
Another voice from within the crystal answered. “Because I asked you to…”
It was a voice Bander recognized at once—even after more than a decade.
Through the crystal, a tall, gaunt woman stepped into view. She was still beautiful, but the years had drained the color from her hair and her complexion. It was Vala. She nodded at Bander once, then walked out of view like a ghost.
Silbra Dal instructed Bander to journey to Lhawster and make his way to the Gold Quarter. There he would seek out a mage named Harnotis Kodd.
SIX HOURS LATER BANDER FOUND THE WIZARD’S LAVISH ESTATE ON ADELWARD LANE AND WAS ADMITTED INTO THE COMPOUND BY A SILENT SERVANT. The man led Bander into a spacious reception room occupied by the mage.
Harnotis Kodd was fat and old, likely past his 60th year, but he had a cunning look in his eyes that was not diminished in any way by his age.
As per the young woman’s instructions, Bander gave Harnotis Kodd the scrying crystal and then accompanied him to a workroom in the back of the main house.
Without much ceremony, Harnotis Kodd created a portal to Waterside which Bander stepped through.
And just like that he was back in the city he left nearly seven weeks ago. Over a thousand miles traveled in less than a second.
Private portals were not cheap. Someone must have wanted him here very much.
The room that he found himself in was large and adorned with six stone pillars. By the looks of the pennants and tapestries on the wall, he was in some sort of royal hall—most likely in a wing of the Lord Governor’s mansion.
An echo of boots from behind him alerted Bander to someone entering the hall. He turned to see Vala.
He knew better than to try to embrace the tall warrior, so he contented himself with looking at her carefully—for the first time in many years.
In person, Vala’s long grey-silver hair and pale, lined face were much more pleasant than the image he saw in the scrying crystal. He noticed that she was wearing jewelry—rings in her ears and on her fingers as well as other bangles, necklaces, and baubles. She never used to wear anything ornamental, claiming that it might give an enemy something to grab on to. Now it appeared that she was either very confident in her combat abilities, or she just didn’t care.
While Bander was studying Vala, she was studying him. Finally, she broke the silence.
“Tobin Leroth is dead.”
Bander shut his eyes and sat down on a stone bench. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Tobin was an old friend, but he hadn’t seen the man for a decade or more.
Vala continued, “He was murdered. And not how you think—”
“Tell me everything. From the beginning.”
“We are still unsure about much of what happened, but here’s what we do know. On the morning of the fifteenth day of Lenting, someone abducted Tobin Leroth from his quarters, beat him, bound him in relorcan manacles, and strung him up on one of the old catapults on the Great Lawn outside the Lord Governor’s mansion. Then they shot him over a wall and into a crowd watching the Summer Finding Day parade.”
Bander took a deep breath.
“He was dead when he hit the ground,” Vala continued. “His face was so damaged it took us a half day to identify him. They had also spiked his innards with acid. Someone went through a lot of trouble to make sure he stayed dead. I had my men search the area around the catapult as well as Tobin’s quarters and his office in the Esoterium, but we didn’t find anything. The catapult itself was burned, so the mages weren’t able to pull any traces off of it.”
Bander asked Vala to repeat everything one more time. Then he sat in silence for several minutes. Thinking.
Finally, he said, “The manacles are what confuse me.”
Relorcan was a rare and expensive material. Constabularies in most cities and larger towns might have relorcan manacles, but smaller towns and hamlets typically were unable to afford them. They were certainly something you wouldn’t discard—even if you were making a statement with your murder.
“Given what he was working on, it’s not unreasonable to think Tobin Leroth had some well-financed enemies,” Vala said.
Bander didn’t say anything.
“We’ve been at it for weeks. I need your help with this.”
“The trail is too cold.”
“I know, there were delays. Bureaucracy. And you’re not an easy man to find.”
Bander nodded. He gave up investigation three years ago, but he couldn’t say no to this. He couldn’t say no to a friend.
“Show me where he lived.”
As they walked through the park-like grounds of the Palace District, Bander and Vala fell into a comfortable conversation. Bander had some vague recollection that Vala had served in the Guard, but now he learned that she was employed by Lord Governor Asryn as First Man—or in this case ‘First Woman’—of the Falward, Asryn’s secret police organization.
