Hunted

by Paul Eslinger

  “Herding us south,” Trey said with a smug look.

  Zephyr’s head snapped around to look at Trey. He was so small he looked like a child against her massive bulk. “Why do you say that?” she asked.

  Trey lowered the rabbit leg he was chewing on but he didn’t look intimidated. “Humans train dogs to herd cows, sheep and goats. They do it the same way these wolves are doing.”

  Interested in the interaction between Zephyr and Trey, I started to monitor her emotional state. She only indicated interest.

  Trey leaned forward with an intense look and waved the rabbit leg in Zephyr’s direction. “It’s interesting that dogs only herd animals when they can see or smell them. How do the other wolves know where we are?”

  I watched caution and stubbornness move through Zephyr’s mind but there wasn’t a hint of surprise. Did that mean she knew how the other wolves were tracking us? My magical squirrel was still standing guard at the edge of the rocks. Could you use magic to track someone else? I could track someone, actually everyone except a dragon, out to about a day’s walk. However, could you do it with just one person for a longer distance? If so, how? A magical bird?

  Trey rubbed his left eyebrow with the knuckle of his thumb as he watched Zephyr. He gave a small shrug as he continued. “You know how they are doing it, don’t you?”

  The burst of surprise in Zephyr’s mind changed to wariness but she didn’t answer. Not expecting her to answer, I decided to poke a little at the same topic. “Can you show me how to do the same thing?”

  A quick change in Zephyr’s emotions proved the compulsions against revealing magical techniques was back in full force. I didn’t give her a chance to speak as I continued, “How did that Effigia find us? If it could find us, why didn’t it find the dragon or one of the other wolves?”

  A hint of fear mixed with a huge dose of satisfaction in Zephyr’s mind as she rose to a standing position. “We talk too much. Let’s get moving.”

  I reached for my bow and pack without asking another question. That foul creature had almost killed us, Zephyr included, and I could understand the fear. However, what had caused her feeling of satisfaction? Obviously, something Zephyr wanted to occur had happened and she was pleased with the outcome. Very pleased. What was it?

  Chapter 14 – Fourth Stone

  Zephyr’s statement that there weren’t any mountains between Glendale and Falkirk was true, but the King’s Road followed the best route through rough country. At times, Trey and I walked close to the road, and even on it for short stretches when steep hills crowded the road against the river. The rumors Trey had overheard in Glendale suggested a convoy of workers was coming upriver and we didn’t want to meet them, so we used the road as little as possible.

  In the middle of the morning, Trey and I took a short rest break on a clump of rocks overlooking the road. Zephyr traveled much faster than we did, so she ranged over the hills and up and down the side canyons while Trey and I concentrated on moving south.

  Trey looked up and down the road and cast an eye towards the sky. “We didn’t practice techniques for turning aside arrows last night.”

  “No,” I agreed, “but we did turn aside something more dangerous.”

  “You turned it aside without any help from me,” Trey said with a shiver even though it was warm enough we were both sweating. “I just huddled there trying to get warm. I couldn’t think of anything to do.”

  Satisfaction that I could do something they couldn’t felt good, but then I started thinking more deeply. What if we met more of the evil creatures? We would be safer if Trey and Zephyr could help in our defense. What else did Zephyr know about the Effigia? Why would she withhold the information? “This morning was interesting,” I mused, partly to myself and partly to Trey. “Did you notice when Zephyr didn’t want to talk about how that Effigia found us?”

  “Yes,” Trey said, running his fingers through his hair. “I was even more surprised when she talked about ancient history.”

  “She talks more when I have our magical defenses at maximum strength.”

  Trey looked surprised and then he nodded in understanding. His tone was sour. “There is something big going on and she is feeding us little pieces of information like we are children. Bread crumbs…”

  “That Effigia was huge,” I agreed as memories of the enormous wingspan jumped into sharp focus. “Or, at least it seemed huge. With magic, you can never tell.”

  “Oh, yes, but that wasn’t what I was thinking. I’ve never seen a wolf or dragon until this week. Now, we just happen to meet a huge flying creature that uses magic.” Trey paused and stroked his chin. “None of that was happening before. What changed?”

  I was fresh out of ideas, and that was frustrating. “I don’t know,” I grumped.

  Trey’s teeth flashed in the sun as he gave a big grin. “I don’t either, but it gives us a challenge that will take a while to solve.”

  “You and Ara like strategy games,” I answered. “Me? I like it when the information lines up in easy patterns.”

  “We’re learning as we go,” Trey said cheerfully. “For example, can you make that fire again? It was blue rather than orange. And can you teach me how to do it?”

  “I know how to do it, but not I’m sure I can do it all the time.”

  Trey frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I used magic from all three opals last night when I was making the fire. I’m not sure I can do it with just one opal, or even with two.”

  “Hmm.” Trey looked down at his twiddling thumbs before looking up at me. “That means two things. First, you need to practice. Second, we need to get you a more powerful opal.”

  Sour thoughts about the two powerful opals we had already found ran through my mind. One was useless powder and the other one was gone. Other than one opal still buried deep in the hill near my old house, and another one in Glendale, I didn’t know where any others were. “That won’t be easy.”

  Trey hopped down from the rock and rotated in a circle with his arms outstretched. “We’re in a place totally new to both of us. Have you even looked for additional magical opals?”

  “Uh,” I said, feeling stupid. I was still using a trickle of magic from deep under the surrounding hills so I pulled in more power and looked for additional opals. Although there were a few pinpricks of concentrated magic close by, nothing was nearly as large as the Guldur Stone in Glendale.

  “Well?” Trey demanded.

  I pointed south along the river. “There may be two or three small ones on the far edge of the next hill.”

  Trey beckoned with one hand. “Good. Let’s be going.”

  “Now you’re talking like Zephyr,” I grumbled as I slid off the rock and hoisted the packs. “I could have used a longer rest break.”

  “Think about what you just said,” Trey said, already moving along the game trail we were following. He looked back with a gleam in his eyes and an upward twitch to his lips.

  I hurried to catch up. “What do you mean?” I demanded.

  He held up one hand with three fingers extended. “How many stones did you use at the same time last night?”

  “Three,” I said while making a shooing gesture. “I don’t need the little hints.”

  Trey folded a finger under his thumb but left two fingers pointing up. “Between you and me, we have two stones. What could you do if you had an entire pouch full of small stones?”

  “Oh,” I muttered. “More might help. That makes sense.”

  “Of course, it does,” he said cheerfully.

  The distance to the hill was deceptive and the sun was past the zenith of the sky before Trey and I reached the general location where I had sensed possible additional opals. I did another quick survey that found only one possibility close by. I pointed to my right. “Up along that little creek close to the biggest cottonwoo
ds.”

  We followed a game trail that wound around elderberries and rabbit brush for a while. A band of darker plants grew around a small seep of water issuing from a sloped bank. The water ran along the trail, so we hopped from rock to rock across patches of muddy ground. Finally, I stopped and pointed at a small gravel bar at the edge of the creek.

  “Just like at your house,” Trey said. Dust puffed up from under his feet when he scrambled down the small embankment and jumped out onto the gravel.

  I lowered the packs to the leaf-covered ground beside an elderberry bush and joined Trey on the gravel bar. Most gravel bars contained smooth stones, but these were different and sharp edges from many of the stones poked my moccasins. The bottoms were already starting to wear thin even though we had a long way to travel.

  Trey looked around and then at me. “Where should I dig?”

  “Get a couple of sticks for digging while I make a final check,” I suggested. To my surprise, the magical glow of the new stone was in the edge of the bank rather than buried in the gravel.

  Digging took a while, even when we retrieved the hammers and chisels from the pack. It was hard work, but I kept digging because the stone seemed to grow stronger as we got closer. We had a hole as deep as the length of my arm before I pushed aside Trey’s hands. “We’re about there. Let me finish.”

  Water running down the trail trickled over the edge of the bank and both of my arms were muddy to the elbow when my fingers finally touched the new stone. I knew I had the right one because magic coursed through it as soon as I made contact. I pulled it out and shook off the mud. It was bigger than the stones we already had, the size of a quail’s egg rather than large peas.

  I suddenly realized I had learned a lot of magic since finding the last stone. Why hadn’t I used magic to dig this one out, or help us when we dug? Chagrinned, rather than dipping the opal into the creek to clean it, I concentrated and removed the dirt from my hands and the new opal at the same time. It looked the same as the other opals we were carrying.

  “Nice stone,” Zephyr commented from the bank upstream of us.

  Trey jumped in astonishment, but I just smiled. I had vowed to myself that she would never approach again without me knowing she was coming. I had checked for her position every time we had paused while digging.

  “It is,” I said and held it higher between my thumb and forefinger so Zephyr could see it. “Nothing like the two we dug from the hill behind my house, but more powerful than the others we are carrying.”

  “We need to keep moving,” Zephyr admonished.

  I quickly wrapped the new opal in a small piece of leather and tucked it in my pouch beside the other one before nodding at Zephyr. “We’re ready.”

  “Not yet,” Trey yelped. “I need to wash my hands.”

  “Just hold them out,” I said. Moments later, I had cleaned the dirt from his hands, arms and clothing. I glanced at his tangled hair and added a magical comb to my wish list. In the meantime, I started storing more magic in the new stone.

  All three of us walked down the trail to the edge of the King’s Road and turned south again. Trey looked both directions and studied the wagon tracks and footprints on the rutted dirt road before glancing at me. “Where are the other wolves?”

  “About an hour behind us,” I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder. “They took a break while we were digging, but they move faster through the forest.” A new idea struck as Trey glanced back nervously. What was the chance the wolves were following me, or Trey, for that matter, rather than Zephyr? She had claimed the other wolves couldn’t see her using magical searches, and if that were true… I didn’t like the implications.

  The sun had sunk close toward the western horizon when Trey and I took another break from walking. We were tired and hungry even though I had given Trey a magical boost of energy about noon. Zephyr was half an hour’s walk from us, but I contacted her anyway. “Do you have a plan for where we are staying tonight?”

  “In another small cave,” she replied. “I’m already there.”

  “We’ll find you,” I said and then added another question based on her activities last night. “Are you providing food?”

  She gave the mental impression of licking her lips. “The quail were tasty. So tasty you will have to provide your own food. There are plenty of rabbits close by.”

  After noting her location again on the mental map I was building, I looked at Trey. “We have another half hour of walking.”

  “I was hoping for less,” he said and gave a sigh before picking up a dry twig that had fallen from the immense cedar tree providing shade from the sun. “But, should we be stopping if the wolves are only an hour behind us?”

  “I don’t know,” I grumbled. “They took a break while we dug. Maybe they’ll take a break while we eat.”

  “That means they know where we are, just like we know where they are,” Trey replied slowly. He paused and rolled the twig back and forth between his fingers several times before flipping the end of it against my arm.

  “What did you do that for?” I asked grumpily when he did it again.

  “You haven’t tried to create a defense against arrows. I thought I would start with something easier.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I retorted. “Let me do one more check for problems and then we’ll start walking. We can practice after we reach the campsite.”

  Glendale was just on the edge of the region I could see and I decided not to spend the extra effort to check individually on Ara. The wolves were the same distance behind us as before, so I decided to check what lay ahead. To my surprise, I felt multiple minds twice as far as the distance to Zephyr.

  I shot another thought to Zephyr. “There are fifteen people downriver from you and several of them feel like children.”

  Her mental voice sounded like my mother when I wasn’t paying attention at the proper time. “There are six very small villages, usually only two or three houses, between here and Falkirk. Travelers can sleep and eat there and buy grain for their horses.”

  “Oh. Thank you.”

  I stood and brushed dry grass and twigs off my trousers. “Let’s go. I just talked to Zephyr and we can discuss what she said while walking.”

  We walked along the edge of the road rather than climbing up and down hillsides. As a caution, we stopped briefly every few minutes so I could check for other travelers and keep tab on the wolves.

  During one stop, Trey pointed out an osprey delivering a small fish to hatchlings on a tree-top nest. “They look just like the ospreys living on the other side of Glendale.”

  “We’re only three days from home,” I replied. “Everything should look the same.”

  “There’s one thing different,” he said with an expansive wave of his arm. “We haven’t seen the dragon since first light this morning. I wonder why.”

  The evening sun had painted the underside of the high clouds orange and pink by the time Trey and I arrived at the campsite Zephyr had selected. Rabbits had been plentiful and Trey had won our little contest of who could get a rabbit first. However, I didn’t feel so bad because mine was larger than his.

  Zephyr was resting in a small heavily-wooded canyon a few hundred paces from the King’s Road. The fir and cedar trees hid most of the basalt outcrop on the northern slope and scrub maple obscured the entrance to a small cave. I hung the cleaned rabbits over a tree limb and peeked in the cave. This one was big enough for me to stand up straight and deep enough that shadows obscured the back wall. Dried dung was proof that animals occasionally used the cave, but none of the smells were fresh.

  The wolf lay in a patch of dry grass beside the cave entrance and watched as Trey and I prepared to start a fire next to a boulder that could shield the flames from the wind and travelers on the road. Her fur was lighter than the grass, but inattentive travelers might pass within a few paces without noticing
her. Trey positioned the kindling, a handful of dry grass, and dry needles from the cedar trees in place while I pulled the flint and steel from the pack.

  This was the second cave Zephyr had revealed this trip. Even though I liked traveling, I didn’t like the thought of sleeping in the open. Rain squalls would be unpleasant, but snowstorms might be fatal. I glanced at Zephyr and asked, “Are there a lot of caves?”

  She blew aside the grass draping over her feet with a snort. “Yes.”

  “I didn’t say that well,” I apologized. “Are there enough caves we can travel across the kingdom without sleeping in the open?”

  “Yes, if you travel in the foothills or the mountains.”

  Even though I had included him in the conversation, Trey interrupted, “I’m hungry. Let’s get the fire started.”

  I knelt beside the small stack of tinder and grasped the flint and steel as I also reached for more magic. A new thought made me pause before striking the steel in the flint. I wanted a fire, a normal fire, and the cooking fire last night had flared up instantly. This one should be a little smaller, and could I start the fire without using the flint and steel?

  My hands moved in the normal striking motion, but I kept the steel and flint far enough apart they didn’t touch. Nothing happened.

  Trey looked at me with a frown. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to start a fire,” I rasped. “Different from last night.”

  He sank back, raised both hands shoulder high and shrugged. “Do it your way.”

  “I’m learning. Teaching myself.” I stared at the kindling and tried to think. The fire needed to be hot, but only hot in one small space the size of one spark. After that, it would grow to normal size. I concentrated, pulled in more magic, and moved my hands again, imagining a spark coming to life. A small bead of orange flame appeared in the middle of the dry grass. Moments later, a tendril of blue smoke rose as the grass began to burn.

  “Amazing,” Trey squealed. “You don’t need the flint and steel.”