Hunted

by Paul Eslinger

  “And blackberries,” Trey added. “There are several large bushes close to where the next small brook crosses the road.”

  “Sounds good,” Ara agreed. “I hope you have a skillet. I brought a plate, cup, and bowl and a few cooking utensils, but not a skillet.”

  We discussed eating rather than magic until we reached the road. I looked both ways before pointing across. My magical search hadn’t found anyone, but I knew it sometimes failed, so I used my eyes the same way I had always done. “We’ll cross here and walk in the grass on the far side.”

  “There’s a fresh set of tracks made by one traveler,” Trey commented as all three of us hopped from rock to rock to cross the road.

  After reaching the far edge, I looked back and saw what Trey was talking about. It had rained since the last large group of people had passed and only one person had passed since then. Given the stride length, the person was tall. The fact they walked in the middle of the road indicated they were not trying to hide. “The Hunter?” I asked.

  “What do you think?” Trey asked roughly.

  I ignored his irritation and replied smoothly. “I think it is, but a few people can fool the magical checks.”

  He squatted and looked more closely at the prints. “This person was wearing boots, and has longer legs than me.”

  “Not running?” Ara asked, joining Trey in the examination.

  “No.” Trey pointed at the tracks. “This person was walking heel-to-toe. The tracks would be deeper around the toes if he was running.”

  “Oh,” Ara said and nodded agreement.

  Trey continued the explanation. “We saw the tracks the Hunter left when he was running from the Vassago. The size and shape of the boot match with those prints. I think it was the same person.”

  We didn’t see anyone and I was relieved when we left the road a few hundred paces later and moved into a side canyon with a stream small enough to jump across. Once the road was out of sight, we used a game trail and walked for another thousand paces until we found a small secluded place among large granite blocks at the base of a small cliff.

  After stashing the packs out of sight, Ara picked blackberries from nearby vines, Trey gathered dry limbs for a fire, and I located and quickly dispatched two fat rabbits using my sling. Ara was standing near the packs, still holding two plates heaped with huge blackberries, when I arrived with the skinned rabbits.

  She set the plates on a flat rock, wiped blackberry juice from her lips with the back of her hand, and faced me with her hands on her hips. She sounded worried, “I didn’t bring any matches.”

  “We can make do without them,” I said as Trey approached and tossed an armful of dry limbs on the ground.

  She shook her head. “I’m not eating raw rabbit.”

  “We’ll make a smokeless fire,” I assured her as I draped the rabbits over the stub of a limb on a nearby fir tree.

  “I’m waiting,” she said, sounding doubtful.

  Working together, Trey and I brushed aside fallen pine and fir needles and exposed a small patch of bare dirt so the fire didn’t travel along the old detritus and set the forest aflame. He handed me a dry branch with a hint of mirth in the corners of his mouth and a twinkle in his eye.

  I looked at the branch, thinking I could quickly reduce it to a pile of shavings using the drawknife in my pack. Then, a new thought took root. Earlier in the day, I had the sorceress cut down trees using a magical axe. Maybe I could use a magical drawknife without retrieving the metal drawknife from my pack. I laid the limb on the ground before I reached for the magic, unsure how easy it would be to find it. My experience with trying to hide not far from here had consumed an immense amount of magic and nearly killed me.

  The magic was easy to touch and I decided to only use a trickle to make sure I didn’t overload my opal. A disbelieving snort from Ara made me focus on the task. I looked at the limb and took an easy swipe with the magical drawknife. A curl of wood so thin I could see through it peeled off and fell to one side. I swiped again, and a second curl joined the first. I heard Ara gasp as the next curl fell aside. I continued the strokes, faster and faster, and soon a pile of wood curls replaced the limb.

  Ara stepped close and looked at my hands. “You did something like this when you made me the crutch a couple of weeks ago, but that time you used a drawknife. Where’s the drawknife?”

  “In the pack. I did this using magic,” I said with a huge feeling of satisfaction because I had accomplished something new.

  “That’s incredible,” Ara said. “But, what about using flint and a steel?”

  “He doesn’t need one,” Trey said as he gathered up wood shavings and heaped them on a small pile of dried grass and evergreen needles.

  I remembered what I had done when starting a fire earlier. Moments later, a small spot of flame flared at the base of the kindling. I created a small swirl of air to dissipate the smoke. We ate blackberries while we fed fuel to the fire. Soon there would be enough coals to cook the rabbits.

  We had picked the bones clean and the sun was low in the western sky when Ara gave a gasp and pointed up in the sky. “What’s that?” she asked, sounding frightened.

  I stood and spun around, looking in the direction she pointed. The golden dot high in the sky quickly grew larger and soon I could see the familiar shape of a dragon. “That’s Sorcha,” I said.

  “A dragon,” Ara breathed in disbelief.

  To my surprise, Sorcha landed on a boulder just up the canyon from us and hopped down on the other side, out of our sight. Moments later, a tall grey-haired woman clad in a cloak belted at the waist walked out from behind the boulder and approached the fire.

  “Welcome back, Sorcha, I’m glad you’re wearing clothes this time,” I said, watching Ara out of the corner of my eyes. Ara seemed speechless, but that rare occurrence wouldn’t last very long.

  “Thank you, Reuben,” Sorcha answered. Her tone was smoother than when we had talked to her previously. “Good to see you again, Trey,” she added.

  “H-H-Hello,” Ara stammered. “Are you a dragon? Did you really change shapes?”

  “You must be Ara,” Sorcha said and extended her had in greeting. “I’m human at the moment, but I usually use a dragon form.”

  “Why? How can you change shapes? Is it easy to do? Can many people do the same thing? Can…” Ara let the torrent of words dry up as she finally grasped Sorcha’s hand.

  “I’ll let Reuben tell you—” Sorcha bit off the rest of the sentence and stared at Ara. “I can see why Reuben went back to get you.”

  Ara shrugged, looking perplexed. “He’s my big brother. We take care of each other.”

  “Actually, he’s not your brother,” Sorcha said still grasping Ara’s hand. “You have to go back for six generations before you share common relatives.”

  “How do you know that?” Ara blurted.

  “That’s not as important as the fact you’re wearing the blue sapphire the magician Talindra used to wear.” Sorcha finally dropped Ara’s hand and looked at Reuben. Her words tinkled like broken icicles. “You visited the fight scene on Jude’s Road.”

  Surprised by the icy statement, I shrugged and offered up the truth. “We saw the entire fight from the crest of the nearest hill.”

  Sorcha’s eyes grew wide and then she turned her back on us. I started to speak but Ara waved her hand in the way she always did when I needed to keep quiet. I decided to take her advice and listen instead.

  Finally, Sorcha turned and faced us again. Her face looked calm without any sign of the previous surprise, but her expression was different than her words. “You surprise me again, young Rueben. You have learned more magic in the last few weeks than I ever imagined possible.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, “but part of it comes from simply trying to stay alive.”

  “Many others have tried to stay a
live, and failed.” She pressed her lips together in a thin line. “I saw the broken limbs pulled back from Talindra’s body. Someone had been there.”

  “That was me,” I admitted. “Why didn’t the Vassago take the sapphire? Talindra used a lot of magic fighting the Vassago and I think she drew the magic from the sapphire.”

  Sorcha shook her head. “The Vassago is blind to the magic. It probably didn’t see it.”

  “That makes no sense,” I blurted and then continued just as quickly. “Then, how does the Vassago find a magician?”

  Sorcha held up both hands in a gesture of uncertainty or frustration. “I don’t know, and neither does anyone else.”

  “That’s not really helpful,” Ara said and then tapped her chest with her fingertips. “What can you tell us about the blue rock—the sapphire?”

  Sorcha gestured at the surrounding rocks. “Can we sit while we talk? I get tired quite quickly while standing.”

  “Of course,” I said and pointed at a log that was about the right height for sitting.

  Trey leaped closer and extended his arm. “Can I help you, Sorcha?”

  “Thank you, Trey,” she replied and took his arm in the manner a princess might take the arm of her escort at a ball.

  When we were all seated, Sorcha made eye contact with each of us. “I’ll tell you a little about the sapphires, but first, let me explain why I landed. First, the throat of a dragon is good for bugling, but it doesn’t work well for normal talking. Second, the Hunter expects you, or someone else, to follow him. He has already set a trap at the next small village. He will set more traps between here and Falkirk. He is better at setting traps than anyone else I know.”

  Chapter 26 – New Connection

  Even though I had often used my sling for hunting, Father had taught me many ways to trap small animals. I had vivid memories of small creatures struggling in the traps, and I didn’t want to play the part of the animal for the Hunter. Maybe we could reach our destination by taking a different route. I pointed towards the west. “Can we cross the mountains rather than go down to Falkirk and up the Danzig River valley?”

  Sorcha’s long grey hair swirled about her shoulders as she shook her head. “The mountain trails are treacherous and there aren’t any paths over the highest passes. You would have to climb on snow and ice and no one has ever crossed that way.”

  “Zephyr says a wolf can cross the mountains on trails north of my old house,” I countered out of curiosity. “I think four of them did that recently.”

  After a quick intake of breath, Sorcha nodded. “There is a path in that region that wolves can take, but they can jump much farther than a human. I’m impressed you knew four wolves took that path.”

  Half embarrassed, I pointed at Trey. “It wasn’t just me. Trey has the gift of distant magical hearing and he is much better at it than I am. He heard them first. I simply guessed their approach route.”

  “Good observation,” Sorcha said approvingly.

  Ara leaned forward, clutching the sapphire through a fold of her dress with one hand. “Tell us more about the sapphires.”

  “You’re right in that Talindra drew magic from the sapphire,” Sorcha said as she focused her attention on Ara. “There are four magical sapphires and we can trace them all the way back to the time when people first settled in the region around what we now call Falkirk.”

  I thought about what I had read from the old history book in my pack and spoke up as soon as Sorcha paused. “A man named Mashda led three other men and their wives through the Brizo River Valley and settled there.”

  “You’re right, again,” Sorcha said with an encouraging nod. “The four women were named Almedha, Chamylla, Lythienne, and Talindra.”

  “Talindra? The woman who died today couldn’t have been the same woman who made that long-ago trip,” Ara protested.

  “She wasn’t, but she was a direct descendant of the original Talindra and she was already more than eighty years old. The four women who made the trip each carried a sapphire. Without the sapphires, they probably would not have survived the trip. Women who wear the sapphires enjoy greatly extended lifetimes, but they eventually age and die. The sapphires then pass to their granddaughters or even to their great-great-granddaughters. The woman receiving the sapphire always takes the name of the donor.”

  “What else can you tell us about the sapphires?” I asked.

  Ara cut in before Sorcha could answer. “Do you have to be a magician to use it, or for it to be useful for you? We watched Talindra fight a Vassago using it, but she died…”

  Sorcha spread out her hands as if warming them over the remaining coals of the fire. “We don’t know much about the magical sapphires other than their existence. For several generations, Almedha, Chamylla, Etienne, and Talindra have formed a tight group around the King and they don’t talk to others about the sapphires.”

  “Where does the magical power stored in the sapphires come from?” I asked, curious about how much Sorcha really knew even though she had protested lack of knowledge. I saw Trey nod in agreement after I asked the question.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Sorcha replied with a shrug. “Possibly the owner finds a way to store some power over time. The women who own the sapphires rarely use much magic. A trickle here and a trickle there is enough to get your way if you are devious enough.”

  “The woman, Talindra, used a lot of power from the sapphire while fighting the Vassago,” I said. “She lost the fight, but she hurt the Vassago when she dropped the last tree. There were several large spots of blood on it. Apparently, it healed the wounds before it left.”

  Sorcha shifted forward with a strange expression on her face. “Talindra wounded the Vassago? I’ve never heard of one of them being hurt before.”

  “It looked hurt,” Trey said. “It stood there for a long time after the tree fell before it flew off. There were several red patches on the body and wings. One of the wings drooped for a moment after it extended it fully.”

  Ara fluttered both hands in the air and her voice sounded small. “Let’s not talk about that horrible thing.”

  “Hmm. It can be hurt,” Sorcha muttered to herself so low I barely heard her say the words.

  I stopped to think about what Sorcha had just said. She had thought the Vassago were invincible, and maybe she suffered from the same problem of negative thoughts that I did. However, if it was possible to hurt a Vassago, then it would be possible to kill one of them. I hadn’t seen any blood before the last tree fell, so the injuries had come at the end of the fight. I was still trying to make sense of the new information when Ara spoke again.

  “Do you have to be a magician to use the power in the sapphire?”

  “I don’t know,” Sorcha said. Her voice was still smooth but her expression showed unease or frustration. “I felt the power in the sapphire when I touched your hand, but I couldn’t access it.”

  I stifled the urge to boast when Trey shook his head. He was sitting where Sorcha couldn’t see him.

  Ara filled the short silence with another question. “How do you change between being a dragon and a woman? Who else can do the same thing?”

  “Over the last twenty centuries, a few others have learned to take dragon form. None of them can shift back to human form.”

  “Really?” Ara shifted forward with a look of intense interest. “Do you do it by yourself, or do others help you?”

  Sorcha sighed but continued talking. “I do it by myself. I believe the others did it with the help of other magicians.”

  “Is it the same way with wolves?” Trey asked.

  Sorcha nodded slowly in agreement but didn’t say anything. Her breathing sounded labored and her eyelids drooped. She seemed to be getting tired.

  “How did you do it by yourself?” Ara persisted. “Is it difficult if you know what to do?”

  “I
was dying,” Sorcha said as she rose slowly to her feet. She swayed slightly and Trey jumped to her side and extended a supporting hand.

  “Thank you,” Sorcha said, clasping Trey’s offered arm before looking at Ara. “Magic works when it is aligned with your wishes and desires, but there is a very fine line between success and failure. You have to let the magic take care of the details.”

  She took a deep breath and looked down at Trey. “I am getting tired. Please help me walk over to the pack I left behind the boulder.”

  Ara and I stood and watched as Trey escorted Sorcha behind the big boulder. Moments later, he came back in sight and then rejoined us. Almost immediately, now in dragon form, Sorcha jumped to the top of the boulder and then took off with an explosive flap of her wings.

  Ara pivoted to watch Sorcha fly and spoke without looking at us. “Trey, or you Reuben, why was she getting tired? We were sitting down, just talking, not doing anything.”

  “She can’t live long while in human form. She needed to shift back to dragon form.”

  “Do you believe that?” I asked, using Trey’s advice to disbelieve everything someone else said to him.

  Trey shrugged and gestured at the sky. “She seemed much weaker than when she arrived. Maybe she is telling the truth–about that.”

  I looked down at the others when Sorcha passed out of sight around the end of a hill. “Well, what did we learn?” I made the mental shift to note-taking mode that helped me remember facts about magic.

  Trey held up one forefinger. “We expected the Hunter to be devious and watch his back trail. We now know he has already set the first trap.”

  Ara held up two fingers. “Sorcha knows a lot about our family history she isn’t divulging. She knows more about the sapphires than she told us.”

  “Knowing about them and knowing how to use them are different things,” I added. “She didn’t know a Vassago could be hurt, or by implication, could be killed.”