Delver Magic Book I: Sanctum's Breach

by Jeff Ianniello

  Before the stone hit the ground, the shag spun and fixed its glance directly upon Ryson's position. It stood taller than it had before, its shoulders pulled back. The thick hands opened wide, the fingers trembled with apparent anger.

  Through his spyscope, Ryson watched the shag's indecisive expression roar into an angry sneer. Its yellow eyes never left the ridge where Ryson crouched motionless, even when the stone finally hit its mark.

  "So it can spot movement pretty quickly," Ryson whispered, his lips did not move. He watched the monster with a growing understanding of the developing situation. "It knows something is here, but it's not sure what. That means it can see fairly well, but it's better at spotting motion than at focusing over great distances. It's going to wait for me to move first so it can figure out what it's up against. Let's see if I can't use that to make sure Holli gets to the trees with no trouble."

  Ryson remained absolutely still, as did the shag. The furry monster could sense Ryson's presence, but it waited for the delver to move before it would make an advance. For now, it had the location of its quarry. It was apparently willing to let the prey make the first move, hoping and expecting it to be a critical mistake.

  The delver waited with monumental patience. He felt no urge to run, no anxiety over being watched so intently by the shag. He was accomplishing his mission, for if the shag remained in his sights it could not be chasing Holli or the algors. He allowed the day to pass with the two of them locked in this battle of inactivity. He judged the elapsing time by watching the shadows extend. When the sun reached a point halfway between noon day high and sunset, he decided it was time to end the stalemate.

  Certainly by now, Holli and the others were safely within the trees and heading toward the heart of Dark Spruce Forest. All that was left was to secure his own safety and all would be well.

  The obvious option was to escape toward freedom as quickly as possible. He could leave the shag behind by running off at top speed. Considering his own abilities, he believed he would be halfway to the forest before the shag could make a decision. Being a delver, however, Ryson considered other alternatives, options he chose to pursue.

  There was so much to left to learn of this creature, so many questions left unanswered. Ryson had only observed a fraction of the shag's tracking and hunting abilities. If he would face this new world with shags and goblins, if this was what the re-emergence of the magic dictated, he would need greater knowledge of each new dark creature in order to survive as a delver. With a shag in sight and upon his preferred terrain, he could not let the opportunity pass by.

  With his own decision cast, Ryson leapt upward and darted over the hilltop behind him and out of sight of the shag. He did not continue down the slope. Instead, he dropped to the ground upon his chest. He kept his spyscope in his hand. He waited. One breath. Two breaths. Stomach to the ground, he slithered back over the peak and brought himself into view of the shag's position.

  Nothing. The shag had moved, and moved quickly.

  "So it can make a snap decision when it has to," Ryson noted.

  Turning his head slowly, Ryson scanned the ground closer to the base of the hill. The shag moved furiously at full speed. It covered ground in amazing time. Two thick, hairy legs pummeled the ground ferociously as they propelled the shag forward.

  "I can outrun it, but I can't fool with it," Ryson gave the creature its due. "If I get cute, it might actually catch me." The delver watched for but a split second more as it assessed the shag's direction. "It's circling the hill and expects me down there. I shouldn't disappoint it."

  Again, Ryson leapt over the hilltop but this time with the intention of running all the way down. With fluid yet powerful strides of his own, the delver plowed downward. Ryson forced his eyes open as wide as possible and increased his peripheral vision to a greater range. He reached the hill's base, crossed a small gorge which rested in front of a second and taller hill, and started up that slope just as the shag rounded the first hillside and came into his view.

  The delver allowed for one quick glance up the hillside he ascended. In that moment, he noted all potential hazards and the quickest path to the top. With that image painted crisply in his mind, he slowed his speed and turned his head over his shoulder to watch the pursuit of the shag.

  Ryson watched with interest to see its next decision. Would it follow him up this hill or try yet again to intercept by cutting around the base?

  The shag showed no reluctance this time at following the delver's path directly. It must have believed its speed superior and it bounded upward directly behind the delver.

  The creature has confidence in its speed, Ryson thought. If it didn't think it would catch me, it wouldn't follow and waste so much energy.

  The shag handled the incline of the hill without the slightest difficulty. If anything, moving on a slope, even an ascending slope, added to the creature's speed and dexterity. The uneven ground aided the shag's movements, movements which were designed for even the taller slopes of mountains. A tractable joint at the creature's hip actually allowed the shag to proportion the extension of each leg to adjust for the slope of any hill or mountain, an attribute duly noted by the delver. Level ground rendered this sliding joint rather useless, but slopes in any direction allowed for full utilization and an advantage over those with fixed hip joints.

  Ryson, however, ran at a pace which matched the shag's exactly. Their current pace was perhaps slightly more than half Ryson's top speed. It was a pace Ryson could maintain for long periods without any true stress, and the creature could not gain even a step as they rose to the top of this second hill.

  Ryson charged over this hilltop. His head swirled to allow for another quick scan of the back slope. The descent offered a few obstacles, a patch of loose rocks, a few areas of tall weeds, but nothing to be overly concerned about.

  A wide-mouthed grin enveloped his face - a delver's true dream; pure exhilaration. Not only was he defining and categorizing the abilities of a mountain shag, he was now locked in a thrilling competition. This was as much a test for his own abilities as it was a learning experience. He would not be content in simply outdistancing the shag. There was more to be gained here, a greater opportunity at stake. The charging shag afforded him the chance to pit his greatest skills and cunning against a mysterious monster with unique abilities of its own.

  For safety sake, however, Ryson would influence the decisions of the shag; he would impose his own restrictions on the options afforded to the monster. The shag might believe that it determined the pace and direction of the chase, indeed Ryson hoped it would, but it was the delver who would decide where they would go and how they would proceed.

  The shag fell mindlessly into the delver's will. It moved as much on anger as it did on instinct. It growled and roared as it raced behind the quick moving delver. It showed only minor ability for tactics and strategy as Ryson dictated more and more of the struggle.

  If the delver felt the shag slowing, Ryson reduced his own pace. The gap between them closed and the shag would experience renewed energy at the prospect of ending the chase. With but a snap of his boots, Ryson would extend the gap once more. Thus, the chase continued over several hills. Influenced highly by Ryson's maneuvers, the shag at times followed directly behind, otherwise it circled around the base of a hill trying to cut off its intended victim. On such occasions, Ryson answered with different tactics. Stopping at the top to challenge the shag to ascend or changing directions and descending over the same path he used to climb, he would then wait to see how the shag would react. Ryson monitored the shag's apparent willingness to follow over certain obstacles as well as its tolerance for frustration. The shag showed mostly perseverance, almost stubbornness, even as the chase lingered.

  Ryson marveled at the shag's endurance. No signs of heavy breath, no signs of muscle fatigue. Accept for a few fleeting moments of indecision as to how to follow, the shag maintained its pounding stride.

  The delver forced the chase no
rthward, towards higher elevations. All the while he kept his own strength and ability in check. Hiding the full extent of his own endowments, disguising what he could truly do, he forced the shag to reveal every secret of its own.

  By the time they were charging across long valleys thick with vegetation, Ryson acquired a wealth of information. He understood that a shag's abilities would vary in degree from individual to individual, but there were certain attributes he now understood with great consciousness.

  As the pursuit continued, Ryson noted they were closing upon the Fuge River. The benefits of the chase dwindled as the delver found little else in the way of useful information. The thought of river rogues made the delver realize that the risks were now growing. In gleaning all that there was to know from this particular shag, it was time to end the contest.

  At first he maintained his present speed. He chose a tall hill to his right and ascended with his eyes forward. He no longer bothered to watch his pursuer. Upon crossing over the summit and out of sight of the shag, he propelled himself at top speed. A blur of motion cut down the green hillside. At the base of the hill, he made a half turn, again to his right. He was now heading southeast and back in the general direction of Dark Spruce. He rounded the base of yet another hill as he gave one last backwards glance at the shag. It was just now reaching the summit of the last hill. Its head was turned in the opposite direction. If it caught Ryson's final burst of speed, it could do nothing about it. The delver was finished with this chase and beyond the shag's grasp.

  Chapter 18

  The roaring fire snapped and crackled, brittle dry twigs and branches bursting non-rhythmically. Waist-high flames speared out and up in broken, jagged lines. They reached upward, higher and higher, beating back the darkness of the overhead sky. Ryson was careful to set the blaze in a clearing with no branches overhead, thus the glow simply extended upwards, gently erasing the darkness above with nothing to reflect it back to the waiting ground.

  Ryson located this particular clearing beneath the slope of a hill which extended to the edge of Dark Spruce Forest. The hills died off to the east as heavy, thick pines graced the lower flatlands with abundance. This was one of the last hills in the area and the surrounding smattering of large pines and deciduous trees basked in the pounding radiance of the tall flames.

  Flickering, dazzling firelight illuminated everything within a radius of twenty maybe thirty paces. The blaze blocked out the light from shimmering stars and cast a brightness around the camp which nearly matched the light of dawn. Such a fire could be seen for miles, and such was the delver's intent.

  Ryson huddled but a few steps from the base of the flames. He rested prone on the ground with his head on a soft piece of sod and without a blanket. The nights remained cool, even during the advent of the growing season. The fire, however, provided more than sufficient heat. It was fed with large amounts of quick-burning, dry wood. Another pile of long dead logs stood off to the side, far enough from the blaze to ensure safety from sailing red-hot embers, large enough to feed the blaze for the entire night.

  Ryson only stirred from his spot when the fire threatened to lose its brilliance. If the flames dwindled, even slightly, he rose from his makeshift bed and carried himself begrudgingly to the stack of wood. He cradled a stack of timber in his arms, far more than sufficient to keep the flames alive, and carried them to the blaze. He dumped them unceremoniously into the fire and returned to the ground and his pillow of grass.

  He showed no signs of outward agitation, did not peer into the darkness in any direction. He simply moved about his camp as if he was alone, even though he knew he was not.

  It was not the shag returning to his trail. He had left it a great distance back in the hills to the north. Certainly by now, that particular monster was either on the trail of some new prey or seeking shelter from the night. No, this was not a shag, not the one he had escaped and not a second one seeking a claim to this territory. It was something that followed with different techniques, different intentions, something that knew more about the delvers abilities and took the precaution to cloak itself in the distance.

  It was the same presence which he sensed before he parted with Holli and the algors, the presence that only the delver's keen senses could distinguish. This set of eyes was still upon him. It remained with him even as he and the mountain shag began their chase through the hills. It lagged behind as the encounter progressed, but Ryson always felt the nagging existence of the watchful eyes. It was when Ryson turned away from the shag and sped to freedom, ending that particular chase once and for all that the delver truly honed in on the second follower. Ryson's sudden moves and speed must have surprised the distant pursuer, caught it out of position and unprepared. Ryson extracted a full taste of the scent from the air. It was a scent he knew, the scent of a human.

  He could have vanished from these eyes as easily as he broke free from the pursuit of the shag. His rising and undying questions over the matter, however, kept him from making any such move. The shag apparently followed because it felt its territory was being invaded or it was interested in obtaining a meal. As for this new twist, there was no easy explanation for a human on his trail. The revelation added to the curious nature of the situation.

  As he had allowed the shag to remain within reach in order to learn the secrets of the monster, he considered doing more of the same. He had debated the issue as he made his path more east than south. He would not head into the heart of Dark Spruce, for it was not necessary for him to return to the elf camp. His destination now was back to Connel. He intended to travel through the thinner northern branch of the forest, cutting due east and making a trail directly to Burbon. There he could obtain an ale, listen for news, perhaps even enjoy a meal of fresh bread and warm stew before speeding on to Connel.

  Through the end of the day as the sun waned in the western sky, he had maintained a pace which would allow the human to continue his or her pursuit. He did nothing to draw the human in closer and made no attempt to become the pursuer. While he could have caught any human so close to him, he doubted he would have any questions answered if he made such a move. Normally, humans became belligerent to the point of hostile when chased and caught.

  As the first true signs of the thickening forest came within his sight, he could not restrain his growing curiosity. Not only was he being followed, he was being tracked by an expert. With his curiosity rising, he developed his own plan to force the mysterious tracker out of position.

  At the setting of the sun, Ryson had chosen his campsite. It was not out of fear of losing his way, or losing the human which brought his travel to a halt. And it was not fatigue. But Ryson was tired, tired of feeling the shadow behind him, tired of moving on without learning anything more. It was time to tempt the human, time to force a mistake. He would reel the follower in by using his own apparent carelessness as bait.

  The brightness of the fire illuminated a large patch of land, but it added to the darkness of the forest and the hills which lay beyond its own range. Fire, large flames especially nearby, hampered a delver's night vision as easily as if he looked directly into the sun. Thus, the border between light and dark was as distinct as a line in the sand, and anyone or anything could be hiding behind that curtain of darkness.

  As obscurity crept deeper in with the night, Ryson relied more and more upon his ears and his nose. His eyes were shut anyway as he feigned sleep. He only stirred when his body felt the warmth of the fire weaken ever so slightly. It was then he would make his routine amble to the makeshift wood pile. As he walked, he grunted and rubbed his back, gave signs of weariness and muscle fatigue. He would take this innocent opportunity, however, to smell the air, gain a new fix on the human, who was indeed drawing closer, moving in to take advantage of the delver's apparent recklessness.

  With his last trip to feed the blaze, Ryson could not keep the hair on his neck from rising. The human was at the edge of the darkness, behind the trunk of a fairly large oak, waiting and watc
hing as quiet and as motionless as the dust on the rocks. Ryson knew as well as the follower that there was no turning back now. The human was in a position to advance not to retreat. Any such change would give away the edge of surprise, and the human had been too careful for Ryson to consider that a possible alternative.

  If this human was half as good as Ryson believed, he would wait for Ryson to return to the ground into a defenseless position, perhaps wait a few more moments, and then make his move. As Ryson dropped log after log into the consuming fire, he fought back the urge to look directly toward the spot where the human waited. He paused but a moment to rub his hands in front of the flames, a move he had made several times before, a move that would not alarm the human. With a casual turn, he stepped back to the sod pillow, dropped to the ground and spread out facing the fire. He closed his eyes and waited like a coiled spring.

  The twang of a bow string pierced the night sounds of the crackling fire and the musical crickets. Before Ryson heard the cutting swish of the arrow through the air, he had tumbled to his left and rolled to his feet. The arrow plunged into the ground where his right leg had been stretched. His hand automatically encircled the handle of the Sword of Decree, but he left it sheathed. He did not know how the glowing blade would react to the firelight but he wished to keep its powers a secret until absolutely necessary.

  He barked out orders with anger and determination. "Come into the light. The darkness won't help you. I know exactly where you are and I don't have to see you to know if you move. I can dodge your arrows all night without seeing them. If you try to run, I'll catch you. I'm a delver and you won't be able to escape."

  "I know who ya are." Evan Chase spat as he walked into the flickering, wavering light. A second arrow remained in his bow string, the string pulled back slightly. "I don't intend on runnin'."