Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

The ghul’s claws dug into the arms of her chair as she quivered with rage. The ornaments hanging from her circlet audibly jangled.

“You cover your sins with levity,” she said in a low, vicious whisper that sliced through the whispers and stilled their owners. “You would bring annihilation to our doorstep, even as we embraced you like one of our own! We’ve come to expect very little from your kind, Magus, but even for your duplicitous ilk, this is treachery most foul. Was the world above not enough for you?”

“Again, Lady Dazk,” Milo pressed with forced patience, “if you could tell me what you think I’ve done, maybe I could give an answer to the council.”

He looked at the other council members pleadingly.

“Will someone please tell me what wrong I’ve supposedly done?”

Milo had gotten a clear picture of the accusation from what he’d overheard outside their apartments and Dazk’s ravings, but he’d be damned if he’d start justifying and denying before anyone had leveled an accusation.

Lady Dazk made to continue her tirade, but another ghul spoke up, ignoring the needle-tipped glares received from Dazk and several other council members.

“These envoys bring word that on their way through the mountains, they spotted human airships,” the ghul said, her voice as thin and brittle as ancient papyrus. “It is the belief of many on this council that they are here as part of a forward force by a human army to secure the mountain because of intelligence you have passed to them.”

“Knew it was a mountain,” Ambrose muttered to himself before Dazk drowned him out with her sharp cry.

“They will not stop there, Lady Hrawn. They will invade our city!” the excitable council ghul cried, turning to look first at the right gallery and then the left. “They seek to pluck the heart out of the ghul people and the Underworld with one decisive strike, a strike that would not be possible without the magus’ treachery!”

Whispers rose again like angry vipers hissing, and Milo wondered how long he had before they fell upon him in a rending mob. His eyes wandered to Marid’s empty throne, and his heart froze as he realized Dazk had followed his gaze. She turned back to him, teeth glistening in a huge, murderous grin.

“The Bashlek is away on business,” she declared with mock solemnity. “It falls to the Nether Council to see to the defense of Ifreedahm in his absence.”

The smugness in her voice might have driven Milo to spit and curse, but the loaded galleries seemed ready to explode at any second. He had no intention of tempting that hair-trigger.

“Lady Hrawn,” Milo nearly shouted to be heard over the angry noise enfolding him, “I assume the airships that you are talking about are zeppelins, which are indeed used by the armies of the nation I serve, though they are not the only ones.”

Though odds are nine to ten it was the Germans, Milo thought to himself. He remembered the many times the skies over Dresden had seemed clogged with the trundling airborne behemoths.

“See, he does not deny it!” Dazk crowed even as Milo’s voice swam against the tidal surge of frothing ghuls.

“I am sure the Nether Council is aware there is a war, what my people call ‘the Great War,’ being waged on the surface, and the land above is no exception. Since I have not contacted anyone since being invited by the Bashlek, I imagine the zeppelins are reconnoitering enemy positions.”

“Our position is what he is talking about, no doubt,” Dazk persisted, her words flecked with venom.

“Ifreedahm is deep underground,” Milo snapped, his temper flaring as he turned to her. “What good would it do to bring large and expensive machines like zeppelins to scout out an area that you need to explore from the dirt down and not from the sky?”

Dazk let out a disgusted hacking sound.

“Again, such arrogance,” she hissed. “You think that just because we dwell underground, we know nothing of how humanity wages war, crawling across the surface like a ravening swarm? No doubt, they are plotting the routes for your forces to envelop the entire countryside. We may not wage war as wastefully as your kind, but we understand strategy well enough to know an invasion when we see it! ”

Milo had to admit that it was possible, but in his estimation, it was extremely unlikely.

First, not only was the Empire largely ignorant of the nation underground, but one of its secretive elements had gone to serious effort to ally with the ghuls. It seemed unlikely that such subterfuge and brokering would be wasted if the army blundered in with an invading force. It seemed far more plausible that they would try to extract as much information and sorcery from the ghuls as they could before attacking them.

Second, and perhaps far more importantly, was that the German Empire, even with the windfall of fresh men and materials from Eastern Europe, was stretched thin. Germany had been on the brink of surrender just before the Red Rebellions shattered the Russian Empire. So many desperate countries, preferring German autocracy to the mad bloodbath of the conflicting Russian claims, had been the infusion needed to forestall defeat. Yet, even with those reinforcements, even a lowly conscript like Milo had known that victory or even an armistice was a distant, foolish hope. With such an insecure position, why would the Empire make an enemy of those who, up to this point, had been a relative non-factor?

No, Milo decided with a shake of his head. This had to be something to do with the conventional war being fought above.

“Do you have anything more to say, Magus?” Lady Hrawn asked, sounding tired or perhaps very bored.

Milo realized that as he’d been weighing things in his mind, the Nether Council had sat stewing in the roiling whispers of the galleries. If the looks among the Council had been hungry before, they were ravenous now.

“My word might not mean much to you,” he