Protector of the Small Quartet

by Tamora Pierce

  More knights visited in May, watching the new squires in the practice courts, eating supper with Lord Wyldon as they looked over prospects. Kel had noticed them the year before, but had not much cared who had come. This year they would take people she knew. Lord Imrah of Legann, a bald, pockmarked man with a hawk’s-beak nose and pale, intelligent eyes, chose Prince Roald as his squire, to everyone’s surprise. In the past the heir had always served his father; it seemed King Jonathan meant to do this as differently as he did everything else.

  Kel also got to see her second oldest brother, Inness, who visited for a few days, before he rode north to the Scanran border. He took Cleon with him. Zahir was chosen as squire by the king. Joren went east with Paxton of Nond. Garvey and Vinson, as well as five other new squires, remained in the palace while Lord Wyldon took the pages out to their summer camp.

  seven

  HILL COUNTRY

  The year before, the pages had camped in the Royal Forest. This year the training master took them south and east, into the hilly country that lay between Lake Tirragen and the River Drell. Part of Kel’s sparrow company, eighteen birds in all, came along while the rest stayed at the palace. No one raised an eyebrow at the small birds’ presence: they had followed Kel the previous summer and had proved useful.

  In addition to Sergeant Ezeko, the two Shang warriors, Hakuin Seastone and Eda Bell, rode with them. Kel had the idea that Eda, the Shang Wildcat, was her chaperon, just as she had been the year before. When she mentioned it to the older woman, the Wildcat laughed. “Maybe I just want to get out of the palace for two months,” she said. “I’m a hillwoman, you know. Born and raised just south of Malven, till I ran off to the Shangs.” She grinned, showing teeth like small white pearls. “I’m my lord Wyldon’s local expert.”

  On their first morning away, Kel woke at her usual hour, before sunrise. Picking her way among blanketed forms in search of the latrine, she froze. Jump was curled up beside Lord Wyldon. As if he knew she was goggling at him, the dog opened one eye, wagged his tail twice, and closed his eye again. Kel cursed him silently all the way to the latrine. What if Lord Wyldon suspected the dog was a pet, not just a friendly stray? Instead of her glaive exercises she did some of the unarmed combat dances, combinations of punches, kicks, and rolls. They helped her burn off part of her fear that somehow Lord Wyldon would know Jump was hers and take the dog away.

  At breakfast Neal was the first of her group to notice Lord Wyldon’s companion. He choked.

  “Queenscove, what is the matter with you?” asked Eda Bell.

  Neal managed to point. “Dog.”

  Lord Wyldon looked at the companion to whom he’d been feeding strips of bacon. “This fellow’s been hanging about the yards for months,” he said calmly. “Evidently he’s taken a liking to us. With Daine in residence, it seems few animals are shy about expressing themselves.”

  “Horses too,” said Sergeant Ezeko. “Only reason I think my Dragonfly doesn’t talk to me is because she thinks I’m not smart enough to understand her.”

  “I can’t believe our dog’s toadying to the Stump,” Neal whispered to Kel and Owen as they washed dishes. “I thought Jump was better than that.”

  “I don’t know,” Kel remarked slowly. “It’s hard to hate anyone who likes dogs as much as my lord does.”

  “Jump’s smart. He knows if Lord Wyldon thinks he came to see him, he won’t send him back,” Owen pointed out. “He would if Jump looked to be following one of us.”

  Whatever the dog’s thoughts, he kept up as easily as the sparrows while the pages and teachers rode south. The trees of the Olorun Valley gave way to broad green fields, then to drier country. The riders skirted the edge of the Great Southern Desert, turning east. The Bazhir lived in the desert and made it their own. In the southeastern hill country, people had warred with the Bazhir for generations. Sometimes they chose to get extra income by raiding into Tusaine and Tyra as well.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Lord Wyldon said when the subject of hillmen arose over their third night’s campfire. “According to the local army commander, the area we’re visiting has been scoured of bandits. You’ll have to prove your courage against bears, hill lions, and the like.”

  They finally made camp just north of a tributary of the Drell, the River Hasteren. By then they’d been riding for ten days and were glad to stop for a while. Kel was particularly careful to look after Peachblossom. The heat was hard on the big gelding, though she couldn’t say if it affected his mood. Peachblossom was always grumpy.

  They camped by a small pond that was cupped between hills and fed by a lively stream. Last year there had been a wooden building for shelter for the pages and a stable for their mounts, though Kel and Eda had slept in the open. This year everyone either put up tents or slept under open sky. Even those who chose to sleep without shelter had to prove to Lord Wyldon they could set up their tents quickly and well. Kel had three tries before the training master was satisfied. Neal had ten.

  “I hate tents,” he grumbled as they went to gather firewood. “They smell funny and they weigh too much. I’d rather sleep under a tree.”

  “You may change your mind when dark comes,” replied Kel, amused. “That’s when the bugs will realize they don’t have to go to the inn to dine.”

  They remained in that spot for a week. Game was scarce there. Lord Wyldon said he wanted to teach them, not spend teaching hours trying to feed them. They rode for a day and built a new camp.

  The next morning Lord Wyldon sent groups out in different directions to map terrain and to hunt for supper, each with a senior page in command. Kel was in Faleron’s company, along with Neal, Prosper of Tameran, Merric, Owen, and Seaver. Faleron, Merric, Neal, and Owen carried longbows; Kel and the others brought spears. If worse came to worst, they agreed, they could try spear-fishing in the broad creek they followed. Jump came, sniffing along the ground. The sparrows spread out as humans and dog hiked, looking for new and tasty seeds in the brush.

  The creek led them into a small, twisting valley edged on one side by sandstone cliffs. “Oh, Kel, look,” piped Owen, “a height my lord hasn’t made you climb!”

  “From your lips to the gods’ ears, silly—hush!” Kel told her friend, cuffing him gently on the shoulder.

  “Hush,” ordered Faleron. “You want to scare off all the game?”

  Being quiet as they headed into the valley saved their lives. Three hundred yards along, when they rounded a bend in the cliff wall, the pages found a raider camp. Had they been making noise, the outlaws would have been ready. As it was, Faleron gestured frantically for the pages to back up, but too late. A mangy dog howled the alarm; Jump snarled in answer. The hillmen, who’d been napping, scrambled to their feet.

  “Run!” yelled Faleron.

  They were a hundred feet down the valley when they heard the pounding of hooves. The bandits rode into view on ugly, rugged horses who looked every bit as mean as their masters. They swept out and around the pages, cutting off their escape route. Jump raced into the fray. He leaped and fastened his jaws on a rider’s arm, his weight pulling the man from the saddle. The horse reared, panicked by its master’s fall. Two men swerved to avoid them and collided, going down in a tangle of screaming horses. The sparrows arrived, chattering in rage as they flew into the raiders’ faces, attacking their eyes.

  “Jump, come!” screamed Kel. “Faleron, orders?”

  Faleron stared at the riders; his eyes flicked from those on the right to those on the left, uncertain. Kel turned to Neal as the oldest. He was as bewildered as Faleron. Kel looked at the others. Merric, Seaver, and Owen were staring at her.

  They had to act—the hillmen were closing in. “Neal, Prosper!” she yelled, naming the two with magical Gifts. “Blind ’em, hide us, confuse ’em, now! Bows! One shot, aim for the horses, then fall behind the spears!”

  She got her spear up and leveled it at the enemy as Neal blinked and shed his paralysis. Green fire poured from his hands, spreadin
g in streams through the air. It bent and rippled, veiling the pages enough that the enemy couldn’t see them to target them. Prosper, their other mage, stared blankly at his spear. Kel grabbed it and yelled, “Now!”

  Light flared in front of Prosper, white edged with blue. It would blind anyone looking at him, or the people near him, briefly. “Bows,” shouted Kel again as Jump scrambled through the dust to reach her.

  Faleron, Merric, and Owen set arrows to their strings and loosed as Kel glanced behind them. There was the cliff wall, just twenty feet to their rear. “Fall back to the cliff, bows and mages first, then spears!” she cried. “Who’s got the horn?”

  “Me,” said Faleron, coughing from the dust. He took a swig from his water bottle, spat, and blew the alarm call, then set another arrow on his bowstring.

  Beyond the shifting haze of green and white lights that veiled them, Kel saw the hillmen draw back a little. Four of their number were down, maybe dead—three in the pileup Jump had caused, one with an arrow in his throat. Others were rubbing their eyes, flailing at the attacking sparrows, or squinting as they tried to see the pages’ exact location. Most were still mounted, except for one man who’d jumped clear of his arrow-shot horse. All were wary.

  A pair of bony and scarred dogs crept forward, bellies to the ground. The magic veils affected them less. Jump snarled a challenge.

  “Stay with me,” Kel ordered him softly. To her unmoving friends she hissed, “Fall back! Bows and mages first. Get against the cliff—archers, be ready to shoot!”

  This time they obeyed, Faleron pausing only long enough to blow the alarm call again. Kel whispered, “You’ll take command?” when he lowered the horn.

  Faleron shook his head. “You’ve got the cool head, Kel,” he replied, then fell back with the other archers, Neal, and Prosper. Once they reached the cliff, Kel and Seaver backed up, spears lowered. Spears would keep the bandits at a distance if they chose to ride blindly through the magic; Kel’s archers could shoot easily if they were rushed. She doubted the stalemate could last, however. Through fading magic she saw that the hillmen were stringing the bows they had grabbed in the rush. Once they learned the magical barriers couldn’t stop arrows, the pages were in trouble.

  “Neal and Prosper, magic again. Hold it awhile!” she whispered.

  Green streamers rolled out of Neal, growing wider, forming scarves that moved in the air. Prosper again released a white blaze; how he kept the pages from being as blinded as the raiders Kel had no idea. From their lessons in the use of visible magic, she knew that he and Neal had obscured the area around them for about sixty feet. She could see that the squinting raiders had shifted to form a half-circle around them at a distance of about seventy feet. For all the enemy knew, the pages could be anywhere behind that curtain of moving light.

  Her brain raced: When would help come? Were they even within hearing distance of the camp? They had lost track of how far they had gone.

  “Kel, we’re at the cliff!” hissed Owen.

  She looked back. Now they had protection at their backs, but it was not much. Peering through the fiery shields again, Kel counted twenty-three raiders and gnawed her lip. The odds were bad. What she wouldn’t give for mages other than a healer and a light bringer! But they were what she had. She didn’t like to think how much of Neal’s and Prosper’s strength was going into those screens.

  Luckily for the pages, the raiders had no leader to coordinate their attacks and make them more dangerous. Just as good, they seemed to have no mages.

  “Archers, get ready,” she said calmly. Now she and Seaver were at the cliff. Beyond the magics she heard the bandits arguing their next move. Somewhere nearby she heard the low growl of the raider dogs and the sparrows’ furious chatter. She sent a quick prayer up that her small friends wouldn’t get hurt.

  Her people needed cover for more than just their backs, now, while they had a moment to look for it. She scanned the ground to her left. All that lay between them and the bend in the valley where this had started was tumbles of small rocks lower than her waist.

  No help there, she thought grimly. She looked right, beyond Faleron, and blinked. Was that a trail?

  Her eyes followed a narrow track as it rose along the cliff face. It looked to be a goat trail, too narrow for horses. About forty-five feet up, she saw a dark opening in the stone—a cave, perhaps, a hollow at least. Something more than they had here. The trail went past the cave, but that wasn’t a problem. They could hold both ends of the track from there, even if the raiders came down it from above.

  She swallowed hard. To defend it, they would have to get to it. They would have to climb.

  Kel was thinking at lightning speed. How to do this? If help didn’t come soon, someone would get hurt—the odds were too great. They would need a healer then. Neal had to stop wasting magic to hide them from view.

  All her thought came in a moment. “Faleron,” she whispered, and pointed to the trail. Everyone looked; Faleron nodded. “Just to that cave. You first, then Neal. Neal, soon as you’re there, switch to archery. You’re going to need your Gift.” He opened his mouth to argue; Kel looked at Merric. “You next, then Seaver, Prosper, then Owen. Archers, cover us. Prosper, ease off the continuous light. When a lot of them move in, give ’em a light-burst, but only then.” She glanced at the enemy through the veils of light; she saw three of them venture forward. “Now go! I’ll bring up the rear!”

  They could see the horsemen who had found the courage to advance through Neal’s fading light-veils. Owen coolly shot at one. The arrow lodged in his mount’s shoulder and the pain-stricken animal reared, trying to shake off its rider. As the man fought for control, colliding with his neighbors, the pages raced for the trail and began to climb. Prosper held on to his magic as Kel had bid him, waiting for the bandits to approach. Halfway up the slope, first Merric, then Owen, got off fresh shots.

  Kel looked at the trail, gulped, then ordered, “Jump, come.” She backed up, keeping both spears lowered and ready.

  The two raider dogs were closing in, hackles up. Jump snarled, then attacked the bigger dog. “Jump!” Kel cried, running to save him. She felt, rather than saw, the second dog leap for her. Lashing out with the spear’s butt, she caught the animal lengthwise, knocking it ten feet into a tumble of stones.

  She heard yelling and looked up. Three raiders galloped straight at her, swords raised. Two arrows took the one farthest to the right. Sparrows swirled around the middle bandit, darting at his eyes. He screamed, clapping his hands to his face; without direction, his horse spun, panicked.

  Kel focused on the man bearing down on her. She barely noted a fresh light-burst or the arrows shot by the archers on the narrow path, which forced the other bandits to keep back. The enemy coming at her raised a short, curved sword. She saw he would be unable to touch her until he was directly alongside. Kel dropped her extra spear out of her way, making sure she wouldn’t trip on it. She brought her other spear point-down by her right calf, holding it in the glaive position broom-sweeps-clean. The hillman was almost on her, just five yards, now two—

  She stepped forward, to the right of the charging raider, and brought the spear up in a firm, sweeping movement. The leaf-shaped blade, razor-sharp, cut deep into the man’s leg before Kel had to dodge the downward sweep of his sword. The man turned his horse and came back at Kel. This time she drove her spear through his belly, where it lodged. Kel scooped up her other spear just as an arrow streaked over her head. Suddenly she felt a track of numbness, then of sharp pain, as a second arrow grazed her outer thigh.

  “Drat,” she said, wincing. She yelled, “Jump, come!”

  Jump, his foe dead, raced up the narrow path. Kel followed, spear out, as more bandits galloped forward. She was ten feet up when they reached the cliff and saw they could not ride after her. One raised his bow, sighting on Kel with a rotted-tooth grin.

  White light blazed around her: Prosper’s work. The men at the foot of the trail threw up their hands to sh
ield their eyes. Kel backed up, sweating and trembling over the height, not the graze on her thigh. She couldn’t watch her feet, as she did when she had to climb stairs. She had to focus on the men at the bottom of the trail, which meant seeing how narrow the path was, and how far she would fall before she hit the ground. That distance only got larger as she carefully sidled upward.

  Two raiders dismounted. They meant to follow: their swords were out, their eyes locked on her. She halted and turned to block the trail. Hands steady, she lowered her spear. Her Yamani training helped her to barely contain her fear of the drop just inches from her right foot. Jump walked between her spread legs to stand before her, growling. His muzzle was crimson with blood, a sight guaranteed to make the men think twice.

  Then Kel’s sparrows arrived, attacking the foe. The bandits yelled and backed off, trying to protect their faces.

  “Jump, go now,” Kel ordered. The dog ran between her legs and on up the trail. Kel pulled her right foot back from the drop, sweat running down her face. If I don’t move, they’ll shoot me full of arrows right here, and then I’ll really fall, she told herself. She turned to sidle up the trail, her back against the rock, her eyes on her feet. Two more bursts of light kept the bandits milling and half blind.

  Kel didn’t even know she’d reached their refuge until the boys pulled her inside. The sparrows followed, chattering as they found perches on the pages. Off the path, Kel’s head cleared. She looked at her friends. Merric was down, an arrow in his left shoulder. Neal crouched beside him, stopping the flow of blood from the wound with his magic.

  “What happened?” she asked Faleron.

  “They got him when he shot at the ones that were coming after you,” he replied, white-faced.