6
Gathering supplies was easy—Sardelle told the people who asked that she was doing it for Zirkander—even if all of the snowshoes had clearly been designed for men much larger than she. Getting out of the fort… that would be harder. There were more soldiers shoveling snow away from the mine entrances than there were standing watch on the ramparts, but there were still eyes in the towers overlooking the main gate, a big iron gate with hinges that squealed like a dying pig when opened.
That’s probably intentional. To let everyone know when someone is trying to sneak out.
I’m sure I can quiet them. And unlock them. It’s walking out under the noses of those guards that will be hard to do without being seen.
Seen and caught. You’re not the most agile person on snowshoes.
Thank you, Jaxi.
Remember the ice dragon sculpting competition? Where you knocked over the table, along with all of the entries?
No.
Truly? I can refresh your memory if you wish, send the details of—
Not necessary. Sardelle stood at the corner of the administration building, watching as Zirkander and his team headed out. They wore snowshoes, carried trekking poles, and wore their weapons on their backs along with stuffed packs—they must believe they might have to spend the night out there.
Sardelle thought about trying to slip in at the end, but even with the snowfall, there was no way those alert soldiers wouldn’t notice her. The gate clanged shut. She would give them ten minutes before following, long enough to walk away from the fort and enter the trees. Long enough for the men on watch to return to whatever card or dice games they might be playing.
They’re not. They’re standing by the windows attentively.
Truly?
Yes. They’re depressingly faithful to their duties. Maybe they want to look good for the colonel.
Sardelle flexed her fingers inside her mittens and let her own senses drift toward the towers. One man stood in each of the ones closest to the gates. They were the main people she needed to worry about. She could either distract them or tweak their thoughts, so they wouldn’t remember seeing her. That would require a delicate touch, though, and it would be difficult to do to two people at a time, not to mention the sketchy morality.
Just give them rashes.
That thought did cross my mind. But perhaps something less painful this time. Sardelle closed her eyes and examined the interiors of the towers. Both had stairs spiraling up to wooden floors at the top where the soldiers stood. The lower level of each tower held a big cast iron stove with neat stacks of firewood under the stairs. A little smoke might do for one, but for two? Too much of a coincidence. In the left tower, a hint of life other than that of the soldier’s made her investigate between the floorboards. A family of rats staying warm for the winter. Perhaps they would enjoy a little exercise.
You’re not a sorcerer, you’re a prankster.
Sardelle snorted. You say that as if you don’t approve. I’m sure you’re down there, roasting some chestnuts to snack on while you watch this.
Possibly.
Sardelle closed the flue on the stove first. She waited until the soldier in that tower started crinkling his nose before sending the rats out from beneath the floor in the second. Soon, a family of six was scampering around the soldier’s legs. He cursed and tried swatting at them with his sword before hunting around for a broom. In the other tower, the guard was jogging down the stairs to investigate the stove.
“Time to go,” she murmured, and glanced around the courtyard to make sure there wasn’t anyone inside looking her way. The snow, which was falling more heavily than ever, made it hard to tell. So long as it made things hard for other people too.
She strode across the packed snow, waved a hand to disengage the lock on the gate, and muffled the squeak of the hinges. After closing it behind her, she strode onto the trail Zirkander’s team had left, her snowshoes tucked under her arm. Even with the unwieldy things attached to their boots, the soldiers had sunk down several inches in the fresh powder. Autumn calendar date or not, there had to be at least three feet already snuggled up to the fortress walls.
A quick check showed that the soldier in the stove tower had figured out the flue was the problem. His comrade was still chasing rats, but he would be back at his post shortly. Even with the trail broken, Sardelle floundered in the deep snow as she tried to reach the trees before witnesses showed up. The fortress occupied the only level land in the tiny valley, and she was already angling down a slope. Maybe she should have put her snowshoes on in the courtyard, but that would have been hard to explain if someone spotted her.
Half running and half floundering and flailing, Sardelle reached the first of the trees. She put several more of the ancient evergreens behind her before stopping to put on the snowshoes. She readjusted her pack and wiped sweat from her brow.
“I’ve gone a hundred meters, and I’m already thinking about a nap.”
Hm? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening. Watching your friend run around after the rats is indeed entertaining.
The most excitement you’ve seen in three hundred years?
Sadly so. The world is dreadfully boring when you’re not awake.
I’ll take that as a compliment.
A cold wind whistled across the hillside, whipping at Sardelle’s damp skin. She pulled her cap low over her eyes and wrapped her scarf up to her nose, then pushed away from the tree and headed down the trail. The soldiers would probably walk faster than she could, even breaking the trail. She didn’t want to catch up with them anyway—explaining her presence and why she had disobeyed Zirkander wouldn’t be fun. All she wanted was to be close enough to help if the sorcerer she had sensed attacked the team.
Are you sure you want to help against someone who might be a distant relative?
If he’s Cofah, he’s no relative of mine.
Not technically true. Their ancestors are the same as yours, back from the dragon-riding days when mages were flying around the world and colonizing it as easily as… well, as easily as they can do today in their airships, I suppose.
I know, Jaxi, but the Cofah were trying to take over our homeland three centuries ago, and that doesn’t seem to have changed. Whoever is out there isn’t anyone I have anything in common with.
Except magic. Would a day come when she would grow so lonely for her own kind, for those she could speak openly with about the mental arts, that she might seek out sorcerers on other continents, continents that had either never suffered a purge or could boast more survivors from that time period? If so, it wasn’t today. She certainly wasn’t going to stand aside and let Zirkander get hurt. He was… she didn’t know what he was to her exactly, but she knew she didn’t want to see him wounded—or worse.
Sardelle waited for a snarky comment, but Jaxi must have been distracted. Maybe she was trying to scout the mountain ahead to see if the airship had indeed crashed—with a sorcerer inside—or if it had escaped into the ether. Sardelle paid more attention to the forest around her, to the towering evergreens stretching toward the sky, the boughs heavy with fresh snow. Now and then an overburdened branch would drop its load, and the noise would make her jump. There were few other noises out there. Whatever animals lived in the hills had probably gone to ground when the avalanche roared through the mountains.
The path leveled, giving her legs a break—remaining upright while walking across an ever-steepening slope was not an easy task—but it turned to head through a narrow canyon too. She eyed the craggy gray walls and the high perches overhead, wondering if there were any mountain lions about. Because she was looking in that direction, she missed the movement behind a tree to the left of the canyon entrance.
A dark figure jumped out and grabbed her before she could so much as think of defense. An arm wrapped around her waist, tugging her off-balance, and she tumbled against…
“Colonel Zirkander,” she gasped, glad she had identified him before her wits had returned
and she had launched some attack that would be hard to explain later.
The grip around her waist loosened, though he didn’t let her go. “It is you. I didn’t think it could be… how’d you get out?”
“Just waited for a moment when nobody was looking.”
“I’m going to have to talk to those gate guards.” Zirkander released her and propped her back upright on the trail—the snowshoes did make it difficult to maintain one’s balance. He touched her pack. “You came prepared.”
Sardelle decided not to remind him that she had grown up in the area, not when she had been caught mentioning a town that no longer existed. “Are you going to send me back?”
Zirkander looked back along the trail. If he said yes, turned her around, and swatted her on the backside to get her moving, what choice would she have but to do so?
“No. We’ve already encountered tracks out here.”
“Human tracks?”
He nodded. “A couple of men went most of the way to the fort, presumably to see if the avalanche swallowed us whole or not.”
“That means the ship did land then.”
“Or crash. Come on. We’ll find out.” He headed into the little canyon.
“Thank you.”
“And along the way, you can tell me why you’re so eager to come along.” Zirkander gave her a long look over his shoulder. “I doubt there are any archaeological dig sites out here.”
Sardelle stumbled. She almost asked what made him think she was here as an archeologist, but she caught herself. If he thought she was some academic here to poke through stones, let him. That was a lot better than being a prisoner. Of course, she had already installed her forged record. It was only a matter of time before that captain stumbled across it.
Just worry about the now, Jaxi suggested. And be wary of what’s ahead. For all we know, that sorcerer could be one of the ones padding about out here.
Good point.
They passed through the canyon without being jumped on by mountain lions, and a fit, young soldier veered out of the trees to join them on the opposite side. A nametag on his parka read Oster.
“Sir?” He looked at Sardelle.
“Our shadow,” Zirkander said.
“She’s coming?”
“She seems to be of that opinion.”
Oster stared at the colonel, but didn’t question him. Sardelle wondered if people would start to, behind his back if not to his face, because of her. She was still dressed in prisoner garb, if with a few extra layers she had piled on for this trek. Even if she had helped with the avalanche retrieval, the soldiers wouldn’t necessarily trust her. She hoped the fact that Zirkander seemed to wouldn’t make trouble for him.
“You find any more tracks, Corporal?” Zirkander asked.
“No, sir. The two sets over there walked out to the fort and then walked back the same way. They didn’t have snowshoes, so it’s possible we’ll catch them if we hurry.”
“Tell the sergeant to go ahead then. I’ll catch up. You young warriors would probably like me out of the way for any fighting that comes up anyway.”
The corporal hesitated. “We wouldn’t want you getting sniped or—” he glanced at Sardelle, “—anything else, either, sir.”
“I’ll be fine.” Zirkander pulled out the rifle strapped across his pack and held it in front of him. “I’m a fair shot, I’m told.”
“Yes, sir.” Oster saluted, then jogged down the trail ahead of them.
“I didn’t know you could jog in snowshoes,” Sardelle said.
“It takes practice.”
She wagered Zirkander could have kept up with the younger men and was staying back because of her. She didn’t know how she felt about that.
Like a burden?
Not until you mentioned it. Thanks, Jaxi.
Sardelle extended her senses around them as she walked—she hadn’t been paying attention earlier, and Zirkander had snuck up on her with embarrassing ease. It wouldn’t do to let anyone else approach. They were tramping down a slope toward a canyon, this one much larger than the other they had passed through. Large enough to hold a crashed airship. Something out there tickled the edge of her senses. Several people, and someone… The sorcerer? Working some magic? He or she didn’t seem aware of her, but she pulled back anyway. The magic user seemed busy, but since she had sensed him probing the fortress, he might feel her presence as well.
She wanted to warn Zirkander, not only that the crashed ship and several people were at the other end of the canyon, but about the other sorcerer as well. How, though? She focused on the back of his head, wishing she could will whatever prejudices he had against magic users away. An impossibility, alas. She shook her head. She would have to simply try to help the soldiers when they encountered the airship crew.
Zirkander lifted a hand. “Wait here, please.”
He removed his snowshoes, leaned his rifle against a cliff, and scrambled up the rock, the edges and crevices slick with ice and snow. She gaped as he went up forty feet, as if there were a rope there to assist him. Yes, he definitely could have kept up with the young soldiers.
At the top, he crouched, his back to a boulder, and peered toward the valley. The snow had slowed to a few intermittent flurries. “Yes, I thought I smelled smoke. They’re here.” He clenched his fist. “It doesn’t look like they smashed into any trees, but there was definitely some damage done on the way down.”
“You really want that ship, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Zirkander crawled back down, not quite as quickly as he had gone up, but he landed in the snow beside her without falling or appearing in danger of falling at any point. “Some astute bartender would doubtlessly pin this desire back to my childhood days when my father refused to buy a model airship for me.”
Astute bartender? Is that what passed for a therapist in the army? “Why wouldn’t he buy it for you?”
Zirkander strapped his snowshoes back on as he answered. “He said he didn’t want to encourage me—I was already flight mad by five or six—but Mom said we didn’t have the money for silly toys. I decided to make one of my own. Out of sticks. It was more of an air-raft.” He nodded his readiness and started down the trail again.
“I’m sure it was cute,” Sardelle said.
A shot fired in the distance. Zirkander cursed and started jogging. Sardelle did her best to keep up. More shots were fired, all from the direction of that canyon, and she thought he would tear off without her. But he glanced back, saw she was falling behind, and stopped to wait. His hand was clenched about his rifle, and he reminded her of a sled dog, straining at the traces, eager to charge off down the trail.
“You don’t have to wait for me,” Sardelle said. “I’ll catch up. Or maybe hang back and stay out of trouble.”
“Oddly, I don’t believe you.”
Good. She wanted him where she could keep an eye on him anyway. She would try to watch over the other soldiers as well, but Zirkander was… her best hope of freeing Jaxi.
Uh huh. I’m the reason you’re trailing him across the mountain and through a blizzard.
Sardelle waved at the scattering of snowflakes. This hardly constitutes a blizzard.
Give it time. You should see the clouds coming in your direction.
She grimaced. Yet more news that would be useful to share with the others, but which she couldn’t.
She extended her senses again, trying to get a feel for the situation ahead, to help their soldiers if she could. There were people at the other end of the canyon, but some had scattered. At this distance, she couldn’t be certain if they were Zirkander’s people or men from the ship. Oster was the only one she recognized. He was farther back, closer to her and Zirkander.
Trees and uneven terrain had forced the trail to twist and wind before it reached the mouth of the canyon, but they were finally entering it. A minute or two had passed since the last shot fired. She sensed…
“They’re leaving.” Sardelle clapped a hand over her mouth
, worried she had given away something she shouldn’t have been able to tell from her position.
But Zirkander nodded. “I see it.”
The trees made it difficult to see much of anything, but ah, she needed to look up instead of ahead. That massive balloon was clearing the canopy. If she had damaged it once, maybe she could again, although the number of people she sensed on it was high. Over two dozen. Maybe more.
“She’s not nearly as wounded as I had hoped,” Zirkander said.
No, a sorcerer could make short work of repairs.
A few people moved about on the deck, beneath the shadow of the balloon. From Sardelle’s angle, she could only see those closest to the railing, but she squinted, hoping to catch sight of the magic user, wanting a look at her opponent. What she saw was someone with a spyglass, standing next to someone with a rifle, looking down at them.
“Look out,” she whispered, backing toward a tree—or trying. The oversized snowshoes tangled beneath her feet, and she tumbled to the ground in the middle of the trail, in clear sight for those on the ship.
A shot fired, and she flung an arm out, forming an invisible barrier in the air around her. A clunk-clang sounded, another bullet being chambered, and a second shot fired on the heels of the first. Belatedly, Sardelle realized it was Zirkander shooting, not those on the ship. In fact, one man had already disappeared from sight. The second, clutching his chest, toppled backward, falling from her view.
Zirkander leaned toward her, and she dropped her shield before he bumped into it. He picked her up and carried her behind a couple of thick trees before setting her on her feet.
“Thanks,” Sardelle said. “I forgot I was wearing these clunky things.”
“They’re definitely awkward.” He was standing beside her protectively, his arm around her back, but his gaze was toward the sky. Carried on the currents, the ship had already drifted out of view.
Beginnings: Five Heroic Fantasy Adventure Novels Page 93
