Hunted

by Paul Eslinger

  “But you carry a strong one,” I said, pointing to Ara. “It’s been storing more power since I pulled it out from under that tree.”

  “I can’t fight with it,” Ara protested. “Not unless you want me to sew a cocoon around someone.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” I said with a chuckle, visualizing Ara’s Aunt Nathania sewn into a sleeping fur with only her head sticking out. The thought helped me relax and then I had an idea.

  I looked at both of my friends. “Do you like people bossing you around?” I held up my hands when Ara began to speak and plunged ahead. “Do you like it when someone tries to hurt you or tries to get you to do something to hurt yourself?”

  “No,” said Ara.

  Trey shook his head.

  I continued to talk, using my hands. “All three of us are carrying stones with magical powers. I propose a little contest. Let’s see who can be the first one to find a way to eliminate the compulsion to go the other way.”

  “That’s no contest,” Ara scoffed. “You’re the only one who can use much magical power.”

  “And, I’ve been using that power to try to hide us, to make us unnoticed.” I waved one hand in the direction of Falkirk. “It’s not working, is it?”

  Ara rubbed her upper lip with her thumb and forefinger. “Hmm.”

  “Maybe, not,” Trey added.

  “Let’s go find the boat,” I said and pushed between them.

  About midmorning, we approached a rocky ridge that ended with sheer cliffs at the edge of the river. Trey was walking in front and he soon came to a stop and pointed to jagged boulders and two immense fallen trees. “We can’t walk through by the edge of the river. We’ll have to double back and climb the hill.”

  “Okay,” I grumped, but I agreed with his observation. Walking along the trail had been relatively easy. Climbing steep hillsides was hard work.

  Trey led the way along a much smaller game trail that led up a wide draw. Finally, he came to a stop and pointed back toward the river along a steep grassy slope. “I think we’re high enough. We can walk that way.”

  The first hundred paces weren’t bad even though my moccasins kept trying to roll under my feet. Then, the thick grass gave way to sparse ground cover. The dirt changed to sand and small rocks, but they were different than any I had ever seen. They slid under my steps, and soon, my moccasins were full of sand and little rocks.

  “Wait a minute,” I called. The other two didn’t seem to be having as much of a problem walking as I did. “I need to clean out my moccasins.”

  I picked up a small pebble from the pile of sand and rocks I emptied from my first moccasin. I squeezed it between my thumb and forefinger, without using any magic, and it crumbled into dust and much smaller pieces.

  “Are you coming?” Trey called.

  “Yes, yes,” I called back and quickly emptied my other moccasin.

  Before long, we started down again and the walking became easier. Soon we reached the bottom of the next canyon that contained a small trickle of a stream.

  Ara stopped at the edge of the stream and pointed down a streak of bright orange color on the bottom. “Look at that,” she exclaimed. Steam rose from the water, almost as if it was heating in a pot over a fire.

  Trey squatted beside her and dipped the tip of his finger in the water. He snatched his hand back and blew on his finger. “It’s hot.”

  “That’s strange,” I said as I turned to look up the valley. “The water in the spring by our house was warm enough it didn’t usually freeze in the winter, but it wasn’t this hot.”

  Ara moved to one side and jumped to another big rock on the far side of the stream. “We need to keep going,” she said.

  “Just a moment,” I responded as I started a magical scan. To my surprise, there was vastly more magic under the ground here than any other place. Was it connected with the hot water? Was it causing the hot water? Was the hot water causing it?

  “Are you coming?” Ara called.

  “Yep,” I replied. I had a lot more to think about.

  Noon had already come and gone by the time we reached the grove of cedar trees. The leaves were flatter than those on the cedars near home, with thin narrow leaves in opposite pairs and seed cones smaller than the tip of my little finger. Some of the trees were so large Trey and I couldn’t span their trunks when we stood side by side with outstretched arms.

  Ara skipped ahead on the thick layer of dried needles as we reached the upriver side of the grove. “I see a dock,” she called excitedly.

  I rushed ahead, with Trey right behind me, and we emerged into the sunlight at the same time. The wooden dock was smaller than the dock around the sawmill at Glendale, but it was at least ten paces long.

  “Where’s the boat?” Ara asked as I looked around. She pointed across the river, which was probably a hundred paces wide, to another dock. There wasn’t a boat there, either

  Trey slipped beside us and walked out on the dock. Moments later, he called out. “I see the boat.”

  “Where?” I called, following him onto the dock. It felt solid underfoot.

  “Down there,” he said, pointing into the water. The tip of the boat poked up out of the water, held in place with a leather strap. The other end of the boat was under water.

  Ara glanced up at Trey and me, and then spun in a slow circle, studying the sky. “I don’t see Sorcha,” she said, sounding disappointed.

  I wanted to give up and go sit in the shade under one of the huge trees, but that wouldn’t help us get to the Pig’s Ear Tavern. Finally, I shrugged and pointed at the shore. “Let’s set the packs down over there and then pull the boat out.”

  The boat was awkward and heavy with water, so it took all three of us several minutes to pull it out and lay it upside down on the dock. “That’s the problem,” Ara said as she pointed to a hole in the bottom of the boat.

  I leaned forward for a closer look. The splintered edges of a hole as big as both of my clenched fists were brighter than the rest of the wood.

  Trey motioned at the hole. “Someone did that on purpose.”

  “Not long ago,” I added.

  “Can you fix it?” Ara asked.

  “Just need a piece of wood,” Trey answered. He looked around, studying the nearby forest. “We have several dead trees to choose from.”

  “I’m no good with wood,” I protested as Ara looked at me.

  “Quit whining and get your hatchet and drawknife,” Trey said with a disapproving look. “I’ll pick out a limb we can work on.”

  Trey measured the size of the hole with his outstretched fingers and accepted the tools when I handed them to him. He brushed aside my helping hand and started by cutting off a short stubby limb. I surreptitiously added a little magical help to his hatchet strokes and he quickly finished the cut.

  Cedar has a straight grain and the wood split nicely when Trey applied the hatchet to the end grain of the wood. He grabbed the drawknife and started smoothing the wood. I assisted quietly for a few strokes and then quit when his hands moved faster and faster. Moments later, he finished smoothing the wide edges and then turned the piece up on the side. Square corners appeared, as if by magic, and then I realized he was actually using magic.

  Without saying a word, he carried the piece of wood to the boat and used the tip of my knife to trace around the edge of it. Wood scraps clattered down on the dock while he used the knife to cut out the splintered wood as easily if he were using a hot knife to cut through rendered lard.

  He fit the piece of wood into place before speaking. “We need something to keep it from coming loose.”

  “I don’t have a drill,” I said and stood, trying to think. “We can use pitch around the edges. That should keep it in place while we are in the water.”

  Ara followed me as I headed for a tree that looked like it had broken in
a windstorm. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder in Trey’s direction and spoke quietly. “Father was good working with wood, but not that good. Did Trey use magic?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure he realizes he did.” I used the point of my knife to cut globs of pitch free from the damaged tree. “We’ll use this to make the seam waterproof.”

  “Do you feel anything different?” she asked.

  “What?” I asked and glanced at her. The glob of pitch slid off my knife and stuck to the back of my arm. My lips puckered as I pinched the glob between my thumb and finger and pulled it off. The stickiness didn’t go away.

  “I think I shut off the source of the feeling that made us think we were walking the wrong way. I couldn’t feel it earlier, but I felt it about the time we found the boat. I wanted it to go away, thought about the magic in the sapphire, and then the feeling went away.”

  I stopped and thought quickly. The feeling had endured all morning without varying in strength and I had finally quit thinking about it. Now, nothing pulled me in the direction of Falkirk. I patted Ara gently on the shoulder. “That’s wonderful. We all learned something today.” She stood there with a smile and didn’t pull away from my touch like she had done many times in the past.

  The boat was back in the water, not leaking around the patch, when Sorcha finally appeared high in the southeastern sky. She glided down and landed on the edge of the dock, much closer to us than ever before. She wasn’t small, but she was shorter than I am when she folded her wings. Instead of changing to human form, she gestured at the boat with one forehand tipped by long black claws.

  I had floated on logs many times but I had never been in a boat, so I was cautious and apprehensive. The boat tipped when Ara climbed in, so I grabbed the edge and held it firmly with one hand while clinging to a post with the other. Ara stored the packs when Trey handed them to her and then he climbed aboard. I followed him, moving slowly and trying to step in the middle, but the boat still felt like it could capsize at any moment.

  My two enchanted pumas appeared on the dock and approached the boat, eyes darting back and forth. The boat didn’t even rock when they hopped in and sat one at each end. Their stiff tails and twitching whiskers indicated they didn’t like the boat any better than I did.

  Sorcha didn’t seem to see the magical guardians. She pulled the leather tether holding the boat off the post and dropped it on the dock. She grabbed it with one long-toed foot before it slithered off into the water. Rather than kicking off into a steep climb into the sky, she rose slowly in the air, briskly flapping her wings.

  Her beating wings buffeted us with wind as she slowly crossed the river, pulling the boat along with the tether still grasped by one foot. Halfway across, the bottom of the boat scraped on a rock and water started to seep in around the patch. I knelt on the bottom near the patch. More water came in as I watched.

  Concerned, I reached for magic and tried to heat the pitch enough I could push it into the widening crack with my thumb. The boat rocked in the waves as we skirted below another rock protruding from the water and I instinctively pushed harder. The entire patch slid aside and water gushed into the boat.

  “Watch out!” Ara shouted pulling her feet up on the bench.

  There wasn’t anything to use for a patch, so I lunged forward, turned around, and sat on the hole. Water sloshed back and forth in the boat but stopped coming in. Ara and Trey laughed and perched on the two benches, holding our packs. I was frustrated and thoroughly soaked by the time we reached the other side.

  Instead of looping the tether around a post on the dock, Sorcha flapped her wings harder and pulled the nose of the boat up on the sloping bank. The boat quit rocking and I started to breathe easier. However, I gasped and pushed up quickly when my butt scraped on gravel.

  The two pumas bounded out on the shore, scampered around the dragon, and disappeared under the closest trees. Ara climbed nimbly out of the boat with her pack on her back and mine in both arms. She stamped on the ground and looked back at us after spreading both feet out wide. “I’m glad to be on land again.”

  “So am I,” Trey added as he clambered out beside Ara. He looked at me with a face-splitting grin. “You look like a drowned rat.”

  Sorcha hop-glided behind a bushy cedar tree while I climb out of the boat and tried to rub the water from my clothes. Moments later, she reappeared in human form, coming in our direction.

  “Thank you,” Ara called out before Sorcha reached us. “This river is much bigger than the one over in Quail Valley.”

  “You’re welcome,” Sorcha said.

  Even though her words were light, they seemed forced. She had never spent very long with us, and today probably wouldn’t be any different. I jerked my thumb towards the boat and spoke quickly. “Someone punched a hole through the bottom of the boat. Trey fixed it while we were waiting for you.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her brows twitched enough I didn’t think she knew about the damage to the boat. She shook her head and pursed her lips, “That has never happened before. I’m glad we made it across. It doesn’t look like the patch held.”

  “It held until we hit a rock,” I said in defense of Trey.

  Trey made a dismissive gesture at the boat and then focused his attention on Sorcha. “How do we find the Pig’s Ear Tavern?”

  She pointed at the narrow rutted road leading away from the dock. “Follow that path out to the larger road and then go right, upriver. Walk for five days. Continue along the road for another hour after you pass the fourth village, which is named Larbert. You will find a small pile of granite that some people say looks like a pig. Just past the rock pile, go uphill to the left on a game trail. The trail is wide, but it is not a two-rut road. The Pig’s Ear Tavern stands at a game trail crossing along with nine houses.”

  Ara nodded in understanding and then asked her own question. “Did you see anyone following us?”

  Sorcha shook her head. “I’ve been busy elsewhere and didn’t have time to look. I’ll see you again after you get to Casselton.” She turned and walked slowly towards the trees without waiting to answer any more questions.

  Chapter 33 – Village Waif

  I used magic to dry my clothes, just like I had done for Ara. A touch of warmth undid the chill left by the cold water. We all donned our packs, but no one made a move toward the trail until Sorcha took off and dwindled from sight in the sky. “That was interesting,” Trey said as he swung his pack up on his shoulders.

  “What was interesting?” I asked.

  He waved his hands in two directions. “She came from the southeast and she is heading toward the northwest.”

  “What does that tell us?” I asked as we headed along the road walking side by side. The trees on this bank weren’t as immense as the ones on the far side of the river, but they were still giants. A few dozen steps later, twilight gathered around us as thick foliage chased away the sun.

  “Falkirk is down that way,” Ara said.

  “Right,” Trey agreed. “Also, those four wolves herded Zephyr in that direction.”

  Ara was walking on my left and she leaned forward to look around me at Trey. Her hair came loose from the leather thong and muffled her voice. “Are the wolves still around?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Ara pulled back her hair with one hand. “You can feel emotions from a long way off. Can’t you feel them?”

  “It only works for about the distance we can walk in a day,” I explained. “I know there’s one small village upriver from here, but Sorcha mentioned four. I can’t feel the others yet.”

  “How sick is Sorcha?” Ara asked. “I know you said she was so sick you couldn’t heal her, but is she weaker than before?”

  “Uh, maybe,” I said before I started to think.

  Trey responded without any hesitation, “She’s definitely weaker. She didn’t act weak
or sick the first time we met her on the edge of Glendale. That’s been about a week, and she seems weaker every time we talk.”

  I laid my hand on Ara’s arm. “Are you suggesting she is getting weaker because she has taken on human form several times in the last week?”

  “Yes,” Ara replied.

  “That makes sense,” Trey muttered.

  I scratched my head, trying to understand what was happening. “Why would she do that?”

  Ara nodded her head so vigorously her entire upper body shook. “That’s the right question. She’s talking with us and helping us in the process, but it is making her weak, maybe even dangerously weak. What is so important that she would do that?”

  “Family?” Trey asked. “I’m her great-grandson. Am I going to wake up in dragon form some morning?”

  “Forget that for a minute, Trey,” Ara shot back. “You told us about people who used to come asking how we were doing. She could have sent people to help us without her changing to human form.”

  We walked quietly for a while as an elusive thought slowly formed. Finally, it came into focus when I remembered Father’s emaciated face. “I know when this all started,” I said. “It all started after Father got sick.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” Ara said.

  “I think it does,” I responded. “Do you remember the stormy night I brought the turkey home just before Father died?”

  “Of course. We were really hungry.”

  “That was one of the first days I used magic for more than being a better shot with my sling. There was a terrible evil mind somewhere down around Glendale. Nightmare kind of evil.”

  “A Vassago?” Trey asked.

  “No. Not a Vassago and not an Effigia.” I tried to think clearly. “It was evil, but there wasn’t any chill. It was something different.”

  “Great,” Ara snorted. “More terrible creatures.”

  “I don’t understand what is happening,” I muttered. “We’ve talked to magical wolves and magical dragons, and we’ve seen Vassago, Effigia, and powerful human magicians in action. I’m beginning to think none of them understand all of what is happening.”