Hunted

by Paul Eslinger

  Small step followed small step as I sought secure places for my feet between rocks slippery with moss. My arms churned like windmills a couple of times when one foot slipped, but I stayed on my feet. Even though Trey was shorter than me, and the water rose higher on his legs, he was more sure-footed and didn’t slip.

  We had just passed the middle when I saw something dark streak toward us from upstream. I jerked around to look and then ducked reflexively when an osprey clenching a long fish in its claws flashed by us at about shoulder level. My duck was low enough the dangling fish missed my head, but I squatted far enough that the water came up to my waist.

  I lunged upright, water flying in every direction, but couldn’t keep my balance. I bounced off of Trey and staggered downriver with the current, bruising my bare feet on rocks as I tried to keep from falling and ending up in the foaming rapids below the ford.

  Trey screamed inarticulately while I was still trying to get a firm footing. He had fallen after I bumped into him and the water swept him over the edge of the ford into the rapids. He went out of sight under the white foam for a moment and then appeared, half draped over a log. He flailed with his arms and hooked them over the stub of a limb, close to the location the dead man had been when Ara and I crossed the stream a couple of weeks earlier. “Help,” he screamed as the water slammed against his body, washing in waves over his shoulders.

  The current was so strong there wasn’t any way I could get out to Trey. I wasn’t strong enough to pull him from the raging torrent, even if I could get close. If only I could use the magic to help. My head spun with ideas, and then I thought about the failed attempt to make him float. I dug my toes deep in the gravel and small rocks on the stream bed, stretched out one hand toward Trey, and tapped into the strong magic around us.

  Magic poured into me and I reached for Trey with a pair of magical hands. Instead of floating, I wanted him to fly. For a moment, nothing happened and then Trey started to lose his grip on the log. I tried one more time and Trey rose up out of the river, with water trailing off his body and legs.

  I gasped in surprise and pivoted, still tapping the magic. Trey rose to about three times my height above the water and I pushed him through the air toward a flat spot on the top of the far bank. He screamed once in the air and then collapsed on the ground coughing when I let him go. I splashed across the ford toward him, picking up speed as the water grew shallower.

  Trey rolled over and sat up when I arrived. He coughed a couple more times and then sputtered, “Thanks.”

  The automatic response Mother had tried to beat into me came to my lips as I sank down cross-legged on the ground, “You’re welcome.” I felt weak, but it was the weakness of relief rather than the weakness that came from using magic the wrong way.

  “I thought I was dead,” Trey said with a shiver.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “A little cold,” he replied and ran his hands down his shirt. Water dripped from every part of his clothing. “I have dry clothes in my pack.”

  “Good,” I said, still feeling shaken from the entire happening. This was the second time something bad had happened at this ford. Was it just bad luck, or was something else at work here?

  Trey chuckled and motioned at the still suspended packs. “Set them down, Rueben. I want to get my dry clothes.”

  The packs drifted lower when I backed down on the amount of magic. On long winter days when we were house-bound, Mother had occasionally told Ara and me stories about magicians, but they had always used hand motions and incantations or spells when using magic. The real thing was strangely different. I just thought about what I wanted, reached for the waiting power, and it happened. However, the thought had to match the action. Maybe that was the purpose of the incantation.

  I pulled a cup from my pack as Trey dug in his pack for his clothes. I headed towards the edge of the river holding the cup when Trey started taking off the wet clothes. After slowly drinking three cups of water, I turned back and watched Trey reach for the wet clothes he had tossed on a rock.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, remembering that I had once used magic to warm myself after taking a bath in cold water.

  “What?” he asked, turning to look at me.

  “Spread them out flat,” I said, pointing toward the wet clothes. “I can make dirt fall off them, maybe I can make the water do the same thing.”

  Once again, I pulled in extra power and focused on the clothes. To my immense satisfaction, the water rose from them like steam from a hot bowl of soup. Moments later, the color of the clothing changed back to what it had been while it was dry.

  “That’s neat,” Trey said and reached for his shirt. He held it up and looked at it. “It’s warm, but no warmer than a shirt we put in front of the fireplace to dry during cold weather.”

  He folded the clothes, tucked them in his pack, and then got out his cup. We went back to the edge of the water again. He was drinking his second cup of water before I realized I was hungry. The strong magic provided extra strength, but not water and food, and I felt tired when I finally released it. I climbed the bank and fumbled in my pack with trembling fingers. The piece of hard cheese on the top of the small food bag tasted wonderful. I gnawed on it and then washed the delicious crumbs down with cold river water. It took more food than I had planned to eat in three days to satisfy the gnawing hunger. Trey matched me bite for bite.

  Finally, I placed the bag holding the remaining food back in my pack. Using magic was making me ravenously hungry. Was that the only thing it was doing?

  Chapter 7 – Opal Distribution

  When Trey and I finished eating, the clouds were larger and closer than before. The billowing white tops shaded over to dark grey on the bottom. If this was a normal storm, rain wouldn’t arrive until the middle of the night, but it would rain until morning.

  “We need to get moving,” Trey said as he tucked the rest of his food into his pack and tied the flap shut.

  “I agree,” I said and made an upwards flick of my finger. The packs obediently drifted up above my head. “Can you run?” I asked.

  He lifted one foot off the ground and shook it back and forth. “I’m not stiff and I don’t feel tired. I can run.”

  We alternated between walking and trotting and didn’t meet anyone else on the road. Both Trey and I were tired when we approached the first farm outside Glendale late in the afternoon.

  A flash of white in a grove of trees to the right of the road caught my attention. Zephyr stood there with her ears erect looking in our direction. I assumed it was Zephyr because I had made another check every half hour or so to ensure she was close by. Even though we had heard the howls earlier in the day, I had never seen another wolf.

  “Come this way,” Zephyr called.

  I gestured in her direction and veered off the road, taking great care not to leave any footprints. Trey nodded and followed me, stepping where I had stepped.

  The wolf continued to watch as we walked closer. She waited to speak again until we were close enough for normal human conversation and there was a hint of mirth in her magical voice. “What? No questions?”

  “I’ve saved up enough questions to overflow a dam,” I responded. “Why did you have us come this way?”

  “Several farmers are working on a late cutting of hay. There are four work crews close to the road.”

  I couldn’t resist pushing back a little. “You don’t think we should just walk by and say hello, then?”

  “Most Hunters use local informants,” Zephyr replied and then turned away from the road. “Many people will talk if given a small coin. Especially if they are talking about travelers they don’t personally know.”

  She led us along a game trail used by deer, given the sprinkling of offal and the hoof prints. There were also wolf prints leading towards us, and they were the correct size for Zephyr. “Did you scout out
a detour?” I asked.

  “Using the word detour implies you have a destination,” Zephyr said sourly. “The word travel does not define a destination.”

  My anger surged, not at Zephyr, but at the entire situation. Maybe Ara wasn’t my blood-sister, but I felt responsible for her safety. Her Aunt Yedda and Uncle Inigo seemed to be nice people but they weren’t used to dealing with killers. We had grown up in the same house and our bond was close, especially in the last few days. I barely kept from snarling, knowing I couldn’t do anything about killers either. “I’m going to check on Ara before I decide anything else.”

  “She will be safer if the Hunters think you have gone somewhere else. They will probably leave a spy behind but they will try to find your trail to be sure.”

  I knew there was a mocking edge in my voice, but I didn’t care. “You’re playing the part of a teacher today, are you? Well, where do you suggest we go?”

  “Over the mountains,” Zephyr replied blandly, seemingly ignoring my tone.

  “There are mountains on every side of the kingdom,” Trey interjected.

  “Right,” I agreed. “That doesn’t define a destination. But…”

  The wolf glanced back over her shoulder as she continued to lead the way. “You didn’t finish your comment.”

  I purposely spoke aloud to include Trey in the reply, mostly because he would probably figure it out before long. “You could loosely define a destination as any place outside the region where the Council banished you.”

  “Council? What Council?” Trey asked. “And, what is this talk of being banished?”

  I looked back at Trey and promptly ran into a low hanging branch on a tree. I jerked my hand up and pushed the branch aside. “There are more magical wolves and some magical dragons. There is a Council of four wolves and two dragons who work to keep humans from using magic. Actually, to keep us from using strong magic. Zephyr helped me learn a little about using strong magic and they banished her for it.”

  “What’s she doing here then?” Trey asked.

  “She wanted a new magical stone badly enough to come back.”

  Zephyr gave a low growl and said, “Enough.”

  We walked in silence for a while. An earlier thought that Zephyr wasn’t telling me the entire story lodged in my mind. I needed to think, to puzzle it out, but I didn’t have enough information to draw good conclusions.

  Before long, Zephyr led us off the trail and onto the edge of a small hay field bordered by trees. A wood fence surrounded the mound of cut hay in the middle of the field and an open-sided shed, just a roof on poles, covered it. Zephyr nosed the simple latch on the wide gate. “We can stay here tonight. We will be dry when it rains.”

  “No hot food tonight,” Trey said. “I’m hungry again, really hungry.”

  Zephyr followed Trey through the gate when I held it open and then she jumped on a ledge of hay well back under the roof. She turned and faced us and licked her lips. “I could have brought you a rabbit, but I had already picked out this place to sleep and we shouldn’t make a fire near the hay.”

  “So, you ate two rabbits?” I asked, feeling irritated, and then frustrated with myself. I hadn’t planned ahead for dinner. Hard cheese and dried meat would dull our hunger, but fresh rabbit would have been better.

  I turned and exchanged glances with Trey, positive we were both thinking the same thing. He shrugged and gestured at the hay. The pack settled down between us before I flopped down on the soft hay, glad for the chance to rest my tired feet. The hay was from a new crop and the smell was fragrant rather than moldy.

  “Did you see the dragon today?” I asked Zephyr as I opened the flap on the pack covering my small bag of dried meat. The dragon had circled us four different times in the distance.

  “Of course,” she said with a snort.

  Trey and I had talked about the dragon a lot, but neither of us knew anything about where dragons lived. “Why is she following us?” I asked.

  “She watches.”

  “We can both see that,” I said tartly. “You know something about her, including the fact she is female. I was just guessing on that. What can you tell us?”

  “I have heard about her. She lives in the mountains far to the west of here. That is all I can say.”

  The last few days had taught me that there were many secrets. “All you can say or all you want to say?”

  Zephyr licked her lips and looked away. Now curious, I tried to tell what she was thinking. I felt emotions rather than thoughts, but that had always been the case. Like Ara, she was a bundle of strong emotions, some of which warred against each other. She desperately wanted to talk, but an even stronger emotion kept her silent. I held back my intended sarcastic comment about her not being able to make up her mind. Could I use magic to keep people who saw me from talking about it? The Council had banished Zephyr. What had they done to her after confiscating her Guldur Stone?

  I checked the power levels in the opals and then changed the subject, knowing Zephyr wasn’t going to answer my last question. “We have three small magical stones. All of them are full of power. Do you want to carry one?”

  She raised her head from her paws and looked at me. “Yes.”

  Trey reached into his pocket. I glanced his way and waved my hand in negation. “Keep the one you already have.”

  The other two opals gleamed in the late evening sunlight when I tilted them out of the leather wrap into my palm. Momentarily mesmerized by the magical glow, I stared at the stones, thinking they would both be useful. However, I held them out towards Zephyr. “Which one do you want?”

  She froze with her eyes fixed on my hand. I felt for her emotions again and sensed two. Strong ones. One was an intense longing to hold and use the magical stone. The opposing sense of revulsion mixed with rejection was just as strong, or stronger. She hesitated for a long time and then spoke slowly, “The small one you found first.”

  I quickly wrapped the other stone in a small piece of leather and tucked it in a different compartment in my pouch than the one holding the metal throwing balls. I held the small one out in my palm, wondering what she would do. At the moment, her sense of desire was stronger than the feeling of revulsion. But the intensities of the feelings were see-sawing back and forth.

  Trey made a little sound of surprise when the stone lifted from my hand and floated over to where Zephyr lay. It moved past her face and over her shoulders before settling on the thick hair on the back of her neck. Long coarse guard hairs parted and the opal settled down against the short dense undercoat. The longer hair closed over it like thin fingers, writhed for a few moments, and then lay back down without revealing the presence of the opal.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  She sighed and once again put her chin down on her paws. “The stone is small, so I can carry it in a pouch of woven hair. Two enduring effects also help. First, I linked the stone to my body so it won’t fall off. Think of it as magical glue. Second, I use a little bit of magic that makes the hair in the region above the stone look like any other patch of hair.”

  I couldn’t make pouches from hair and I couldn’t sew leather nearly as well as Ara did, but I would make small deerskin pouches for the remaining opals as soon as possible so Trey and I wouldn’t lose them. Skin from a feral dragon would be better because Zephyr had said it helped collect magical power.

  “Can we do that?” Trey asked, staring at Zephyr with wide eyes. He kept one hand in the pocket with his opal and pointed at Zephyr with the other hand.

  “All intelligent wolves can do that,” Zephyr commented.

  “Thanks, but I’m not a wolf,” Trey protested.

  “No… You’re human.”

  Trey leaned forward with his eyes fixed on Zephyr. “What does that mean?” he demanded. “Isn’t it obvious I am human? What difference does it make?”

 
I heard Zephyr growl and decided to intervene. I put my hand on Trey’s shoulder and tried to explain. “A few humans can use magic from their own body, although it is weak. Father could do that. Humans can’t pull in strong magic and use it. Wolves use the opals to help them pull strong magic from deep in the ground. Apparently, they can’t use strong magic without the stones.”

  Trey spun to face me and stuck his rigid forefinger against my chest. His eyes were intense, spittle gathered in the corners of his mouth, and his voice was harsh. “Don’t lie to me! I should be dead but you used magic to heal my arrow wound. You make things float in the air and you gave me enough strength to run all day. You can use strong magic and you know it.”

  I heaved a long sigh. “With Zephyr’s help, I learned to do that. I’m different, a freak.”

  He shook his head. “You’re my friend, Reuben. You’re not a freak.”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to ignore the rush of emotion his words caused. “The King’s Hunters think I’m a freak, and you, too. Listen, we are both beginners at the use of magic. I’ve had a tad more experience than you, but within days or weeks, you may be stronger than me.”

  Trey sank back with a thoughtful look on his face. “Oh.”

  Every day brought new ideas about how I could use magic and I needed to start studying it rather than acting like a child. I pulled out one of the small metal balls and set it on my open hand. Zephyr had raised the opal and I could raise the pack. I should be able to… I forced my thoughts into a new, positive rather than negative, path. I would lift the ball using magic.

  I frowned in concentration and wished for the metal ball to hover in the air. It didn’t move. I reached for the strong magic, and found it easily enough, unlike when I had tried to reach the magic when Ara and I had stayed in another haystack not far from here. Maybe the new opal was helping. I tried again and the metal ball didn’t budge.