Hunted

by Paul Eslinger

  “I think so, too,” I replied.

  “You know what that means, don’t you?” Ara said as she turned to face me.

  “What?”

  Ara gestured at the sky. “She must spend almost all of her time as a dragon. She is so concerned about us she is willing to take significant risks to help us stay away from the Hunter. Why?”

  Chapter 29 – Ambush

  Trey hunched his shoulders under his pack and started walking along the edge of the road after the dragon disappeared in a bank of low white clouds. He cleared his throat, looked at Ara, and spoke softly, “There’s one thing we haven’t told you about Sorcha.”

  “Probably a lot of things,” Ara said gently. “What is it?”

  “She’s my great-grandmother.”

  “What?” Ara exclaimed. Her eyebrows arched and she skipped a couple of steps. “Are you sure? When did you find out? You never talked about your grandparents before. Did you say your great-grandmother? How did you find out?”

  “Whoa,” I said, waving my hands. “Slow down and let us answer your questions one at a time.”

  Ara spun around, walked backward, and tucked her thumbs under the straps of her packs. Her eyebrows bunched together and she spoke louder than before. “I suppose you knew that a long time ago.”

  “No,” Trey interrupted, causing Ara to swing around and look at him. “I once heard my parents talking to each other about a woman named Sorcha. They said she was an invalid most of the time, with occasional short periods of recovery. They didn’t say anything about her being a magical shape-shifter. We saw the dragon flying around us several times over the last few days, but she didn’t land and talk to us until half an hour before we got to your aunt’s farm yesterday.”

  “Did your parents know you were listening?” Ara asked intently.

  “No, but why do you ask?”

  Ara waved her hands as if the answer was obvious, but she didn’t sound irritated when she answered. “Sometimes people talk intending to be overheard. Other times, they talk quietly intending to keep a secret. The purposes can be quite different.”

  After a while, a field of potatoes came into view. Ara had smelled smoke from fires before I had, but we had been able to see a small plume of smoke for some time. I called out, “Time to change the subject. We’re getting close to the village.”

  Ara didn’t even glance at me when she continued using magical speech, “No one will hear if we talk to each other this way.”

  “True,” I replied, surprised how easily Ara seemed to be adapting to the new way of doing things. “However, Father often berated me for not noticing things happening around me. We should focus on the people we meet. We can talk to each other later.”

  Even though Ara didn’t respond, Trey gave a short, “Okay.”

  Soon we were walking between fields of oats, corn, onions, garlic, cabbage, squash, and potatoes. Even though they were well-tended, they were much smaller than the fields around Glendale. Two men working in one field paused and waved when we came into sight. Their cheerful calls of greeting were a welcome difference from the responses of the fearful farmers living near Glendale.

  The village came into sight when we rounded the next bend in the road. It consisted of four houses and what looked like one common building. All of them used log walls rather than planks. Even though the river was larger here than in Glendale, and the village was close to the river bank, there wasn’t any sawmill.

  Ara pointed to a large section of log lying at the edge of the road when we approached the buildings. “This village is called Torwood.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked as the sound of children’s voices floated out from between the houses. Then, I saw what she must have already seen, indicating she was more observant than I was. Someone had squared off the side of the log and chiseled the letters for ‘Torwood’ deep into the wood.

  The door of the biggest building stood open and Trey mounted the long steps leading to the porch with quick steps. The weathered wood floor sounded solid under his feet. He pointed to a wooden bench running the entire length of the porch, except in front of the door. “Leave the packs and bows out here. I’ll watch them instead of going in.”

  “Welcome, travelers,” called a grey-haired woman sitting in a rocking chair not far from the door when Ara and I entered. Her fingers flew as she knitted a sock. “Can I get you something?”

  Ara sniffed the air. “I smell fresh bread,” she said. “Do you have two loaves for sale?”

  “I do.” The woman carefully set aside her knitting and rose stiffly to her feet. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “Some oats and hard cheese suitable for traveling,” I said and then grimaced when Ara threw me a quelling look. Apparently, I was suited for washing pans and eating utensils, but not for ordering food. I shoved aside the unsettling thought and looked around the one-room store as Ara continued to talk with the woman.

  Most of the items hanging from hooks on the walls or sitting on the sparse shelves were small and suited tasks encountered by someone traveling. In addition to food, there were arrows, knives, hatchets, and traps for small animals. In the corner were a few pieces of leather and even a couple of cloth blankets. I was still examining the items when Ara broke into my study, “I need money.”

  “Sure,” I replied and turned in her direction while stifling the impulse to use her name. Even I was alert enough to realize no one had used a name since we arrived.

  I looked at the small stack of items on the counter after paying the woman, thinking about how we would distribute them among the packs. Even though Ara was willing to carry her share, I didn’t want to put anything else in her pack.

  Trey touched my arm and jerked his head toward the end of the porch when Ara and I emerged. “Let’s fill the packs on the end of the bench.”

  The suggestion seemed unusual and Trey’s intent face indicated something had happened out of the ordinary. I headed toward the end of the porch with most of the new items in my arms. Ara followed with the rest and then went back for her pack.

  Trey followed us to the far end of the porch and set his pack on the wooden bench. He untied the flaps and motioned at the open top. His magical words came across clearly, “Please fill my pack. I want to listen.”

  Working with Ara, I divided the items and put them in the packs. The bread went into Ara’s pack but all the heavier items went to Trey and me. Trey still had his head cocked sideways when we finished loading and securing the packs.

  Children’s voices grew louder and then two children, probably ages three and five, darted around the end of the building. The smallest one stopped, stared at us with wide eyes, and then darted back around the building when Ara called out a cheerful, “Hello.”

  Moments later, Trey shifted and reached for his pack. “I’m ready to go,” he said quietly.

  Hills loomed close to the edge of the river and there weren’t any fields south of town. Before long, we were past the place where anyone could hear our voices. I was impatient to hear what Trey had been doing and brought the subject up when he didn’t talk. “What did you hear?”

  “I’ll tell you about it. But first, did you scan everyone in town?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “There were only about twenty people and they had typical emotions. Some were happy, a few were content, three were quite irritated, and one out by the barns was upset about something. None of the emotion was directed towards us.”

  “That’s good,” Trey replied. “What about the old man in the back of the store?”

  I shrugged and adjusted my pack to a more comfortable position. We were each carrying our own packs so no one would see a string of packs floating along in our wake and ask awkward questions. “He was there, but I think he was napping.”

  Trey gave a vague gesture of agreement. “I heard him snoring when we arrived. He woke up
when Ara asked you for money.”

  “I didn’t hear the snores,” Ara said, sounding intrigued.

  Trey started to answer, but I beat him to it. “Trey has the magical gift of hearing. I can do it a little, but he’s a lot better than I am.”

  “Hmm,” Ara said in the manner that indicated she had learned about something new and she would work on being able to do it better than anyone else.

  Trey continued, “The old man pulled the woman into a back room as soon as we went outside. He started asking questions about us.”

  “About what we bought?” Ara asked.

  “No. I would have expected him to do that. Instead, he asked our descriptions and names.”

  “Oomph,” I said, rubbing my chin. I had forgotten to wear a fake beard when we visited the village.

  Trey glanced at us, and his eyes narrowed when he saw me rubbing my bare chin. “You know how it is when you listen to a conversation between strangers and you don’t know enough about them to understand half of what they are talking about?”

  “Uh,” I said, “yes.”

  Ara gave me a disgusted look and spoke to Trey. “Of course. It was that way every time we visited the market in Glendale.”

  “I didn’t fully understand the purpose of the conversation,” Trey continued. “However, the woman did berate the old man and told him not to talk to another man. The other man apparently doesn’t live in Torwood and the woman doesn’t trust him. Neither of them mentioned his name.”

  “Oh,” I moaned with a sinking feeling.

  “That means we have to walk faster and stay ahead of him,” Ara commented with a shudder. She shifted her pack and looked at me. “Are we far enough from anyone else that you can carry the packs? We can make a lot better time if you do.”

  After a brief magical scan that didn’t show anyone close, I took all the packs and hoisted them in the air. We headed off, walking quickly. We walked for most of an hour and then took a break to get a drink. We soon started moving again. None of us wanted to walk on a full stomach, so we merely nibbled on snacks of bread, cheese and dried meat.

  Just before sundown, Ara started lagging. She wiped beads of sweat off her forehead and her cheeks and her eyes looked sunken. “I’m getting tired, when are we going to stop?”

  I spoke before looking at Trey. “In another three hours or so. We’ll stop before Celina sets.”

  “I’m tired, too,” Trey said dully.

  I stretched out one hand towards each one in a beckoning gesture. “Step closer.”

  “Okay,” Ara said and moved closer. “Why?”

  “I’ve used magic to heal you. I can also help you have more energy, even though we will have to eat more food later because of it,” I said as I reached for more strong magic. We had passed through a region after leaving Torwood where it was more difficult to reach the magic, but that wasn’t a problem here. Healing energy flowed through me into each of them and I diverted a little into my own body.

  Ara straightened and waved both hands in excitement. “Wow. I’m not tired anymore.”

  “Thanks,” Trey said with a grin.

  “You’re welcome,” I said and gestured along the road. “Let’s keep walking.”

  We hadn’t walked much farther before I started to think about the process Trey used for listening. “Hey Trey,” I called. “Did you feel tired after listening to that conversation back in Torwood?”

  “No,” he replied. “Why should I be tired?”

  “I used to get really tired when I used magic from my own body. You should have gotten tired if you did that.”

  “No,” he reiterated. “I get tired when I am walking, but I didn’t get tired because I was listening.”

  Ara broke into the conversation. “What magic did you use?”

  “What do you mean?” Trey asked.

  She pulled the necklace out of her blouse and clasped the sapphire in one hand. “I’ve decided wearing the sapphire lets me talk magically. I don’t get tired talking that way.”

  “I agree,” I said. “Trey only talks using magical words while he is carrying a magical opal. Ara does it using the magical sapphire. You’re getting the power from the stones, which means…”

  “Means what?” Ara demanded when my voice trailed off.

  “Which means you should be able to pull power from it to do other things.”

  “How do we do that?” Trey demanded.

  “Sorcha said you have to align the magic with your desires. That’s as good of explanation as any. I know from experience that you can’t do it if you try to force things to happen.”

  “What would we do with the magic?” Ara asked.

  “What are you already good at?” I asked.

  “I like to cook,” she replied and then paused. “I also like making things when I knit, I was already better at it than Mother was.”

  A little encouragement could go a long way, so I mentioned a new topic. “You also made good things from leather. The covers for my bow and the history book are very good, given you had no tools to work with.”

  “Sounds good,” Trey said. “I already know I can listen to distant sounds using magic.”

  “You are also a good hunter,” I said.

  “Not that good,” he said and looked at his bony wrists. “We were starving because I didn’t bring home enough game.”

  “The game wasn’t there to hunt,” I reminded him. “I’m starting to think something was driving it away. Certainly, we have seen enough game once we traveled about two hours from home.”

  Trey found a place for us to camp before Celina set and we all slept soundly until sunup. We passed through the next small village in the middle of the morning but didn’t stop to talk with anyone.

  We kept up the same grueling pace for the next two days. We walked, talked about trivial things and spent hours discussing magic. Trey harped at me so much about defending against the kind of magic we had seen used against the Vassago that I got irritated more than once. Early on the third day, we stopped in another small village to buy bread. While there, I talked to a garrulous man about road conditions while Ara learned that we were two short days of travel from Falkirk. Sorcha didn’t land and visit again, but we saw her form high in the sky at least once every morning and afternoon.

  Once back on the road, I motioned towards the west, where the previously white-capped mountains were much lower hills. “The Danzig River joins Quail River half a day’s walk this side of Falkirk. We don’t have to go all the way to Falkirk.”

  “Do we have to cross the river?” Ara asked with a shudder. Enough brooks and small streams had emptied into the river that it was three times the size it was at Glendale.

  “Yes,” I replied, understanding her feelings. “That old man mentioned the bridge across the river at Falkirk, but he also said there are several places between here and there that you can hire a man with a boat to cross the river.”

  “I’ve never been in a boat,” Ara said.

  “Neither have I,” I reminded her as I glanced in her direction.

  A flicker of movement in the deep shade cast by a grove of trees with unusually shaped leaves caught my attention and then an arrow whipped in our direction. Instinctively, I raised the magic shield and the arrow shattered on it just inches from Ara.

  Chapter 30 – Firefight

  A second arrow followed the first so quickly I knew there were at least two attackers. Without stopping to think, I shucked my pack and pulled my bow free. Ara screamed in fright as two more arrows shattered in quick succession against the magical shield I was holding.

  The shield had stopped six arrows by the time I could string the bow. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Trey raise his bow when I pulled the string back for my first shot. Although I knew approximately where the arrows were coming from, I hadn’t seen either assailant. I he
ld the shot as I reached out magically and felt for the assailants.

  Acid gathered in the pit of my stomach when I couldn’t determine where the assailants were. A magician had to be there, or at least, there was one nearby helping. I only had five arrows and I didn’t want to waste them, so I didn’t shoot. “Can you see anyone?” I shouted at Trey.

  He moved his bow back and forth with little jerks, but he hadn’t yet loosed an arrow. He shouted back, “Under those trees, but I can’t see them good enough to get a shot.”

  Movement in the tall trees flanking the road caught my attention. One of them started to tilt in our direction. Without knowing how I did it, I pulled magic from the sapphire, strengthened the shield over us, and pushed back on the moving tree. The tree didn’t move aside but it slid down the edge of the shield and slammed into the road in front of us. I choked on the dust and joined Trey and Ara as they crouched behind the log.

  Anger beyond anything I had ever felt coursed through my body. These people would stop at nothing to kill us, and they had started the ambush by shooting at a defenseless girl. I deliberately lowered my bow and moved the arrow over into my hand still clutched around the bow. I raised the other hand shoulder height and clenched my fist as if holding a large axe. My hand slashed through the air so fast my shoulder muscles hurt. A tall tree started leaning towards where the arrows had come from.

  Before the tree was halfway to the ground, limbs flew sideways out of the shrubs where the arrows had come from. “Shield,” I yelped and brought my bow up again. Both Trey and I got a shot off before the falling tree reached full speed.

  I pushed as hard as I could on the speeding arrow and it hit the shield before the tree slammed down. To my surprise, Trey’s arrow arrived as quickly as mine did. The shield stopped the arrows, but they hung there in midair rather than shattering against a hard target. The tree slammed down and for a moment we couldn’t see anything through the cloud of broken limbs and dust.