“If not for that truth,” Carey said, “We would give you the antidote right now and send you on your way. We’ll find Willand eventually, and frankly, you’re a pain in the ass.”
Dayna frowned. “He really is. And we really will. So... your choice, Benlan. If you want to live, you need our help—and we have to be around to give it to you. You might want to do what you can to make that happen. Or, you know... just go away now.”
Benlan scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fine! All right! Yes—! Guides, give me a chance to think!”
No one spoke as he stared back up the trail—back the way he’d come, and toward the wizards he’d once called comrades. “You’re certain about this? We’ll be there before the day is over.”
“We’re certain,” Carey said with finality.
Benlan mustered one final dark look. “Don’t blame me for the consequences.”
Before the day is over.
Jaime didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.
Benlan led them up the trail; in short order he took a barely perceptible track that traced the side of a hill. Soon after, Katrie’s mount stopped short in front of Jaime—and Katrie shot a single, sharp word over her shoulder.
“Rider!”
“There—” Ander stood in his stirrups behind Jaime, looking down over the hill.
She finally spotted a dark bay horse slipping and stumbling down a steep trail in the hillside ahead of them, disappearing and reappearing from behind trees. Even from here Jaime could see how the rider bounced off-balance in the saddle. And yet... there was something faintly familiar about him.
A man she would forever see etched in her memories, holding a gun on Jess.
Ernie.
“Where’s he going?” she asked, more to herself than anyone else.
Dayna heard her nonetheless. “It doesn’t matter where he’s going—what matters is that we’ve got to get him!”
“Forget him,” Ander said, loud enough to carry to the front of the line. “He’s nobody; he doesn’t even have magic. The peacekeepers can take care of him later.”
“Are you kidding?” Jaime twisted in her saddle to send him an incredulous look. “Ernie’s the key to this whole thing! Let him go, and the whole thing could start all over again!”
“She’s right.” Dayna watched the horse as it drew farther away, becoming more easily hidden by trees. “Someone’s got to go after him.” Jaime could hear the longing in her voice. This was the man who had shot Eric—Dayna’s closest friend—and a man she’d already tried to kill once... even if she hadn’t known what she was doing at the time.
“Not you,” Carey said from the front of the line, as if he, too, knew what Dayna was thinking. “Me. You don’t need me as guide anymore, and I’m not much use in a fight. But I can out-ride that son of a bitch on my worst day.”
“But when you catch him—” Jaime protested. There’d be a fight—and it would be a dirty one.
Jess glanced back. “He won’t be alone.”
“Jess—” Carey started.
“Just go, dammit!” Dayna snapped. “He may ride like a sack of potatoes, but you still have to catch him before he hits a turn-off!”
Jaime could tell from the set of Jess’s shoulders that she wouldn’t change her mind. So, apparently, could Carey. With no more protest, he turned his horse off the trail and cut across the hill, striking out for Ernie’s path.
Jess turned her horse off the trail to follow, giving the mare plenty of rein—knowing the animal’s needs in this footing with an insight no one else could ever match. Ahead of her, Carey rode like part of his horse, light and supple and following every lunging effort.
“So much for Ernie,” Dayna said—but her defiant expression told Jaime she was less than certain.
More than that. She’s scared.
As well she might be, abruptly finding herself at the head of the shrunken party, the weight of their success settling firmly on her shoulders. But she took a breath and found her assurance. “Let’s get moving.”
Jaime wished she could so easily do the same. But she’d caught a glimpse of Benlan’s expression, and thought she saw something new there. Something no longer quite so resigned.
She hoped she was imagining it.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dayna was faking it.
Suddenly out in front, on a horse she could ride only because it was such a tractable and smooth-gaited animal, she no longer had anything to buffer herself from what lay ahead—and the fact that she had drawn her friends into this danger right along with her.
You had reasons for doing this, and they’re still good reasons.
Her friends weren’t naive. They knew what the outlaws could do, had seen what Willand was willing to do. No one talked much about Arlen, but she knew they thought of him.
The raw magic will work.
It would work, and she wouldn’t lose control, either. She’d proven it well enough, even if no one truly suspected just how often she used it. Even if they thought they’d schooled it out of her.
Wrong.
And what if they see you coming? What if some changed guard tears your throat out, and leaves the others to the outlaws?
“What if we do nothing and all end up as sheep, anyway?” she muttered, loudly enough so Katrie, riding behind her, said, “What?”
“Nothing,” Dayna answered. She let her reins drape so Fahrvergnügen could pick out her pace—the horse was doing it anyway, no point in fooling herself—and twisted to look at Benlan, clutching leather to keep her saddle-sore body steady.
Benlan stared back up at her, his sleepy-looking eyes more sullen than cowed.
She didn’t like it.
She put on the faking-it Dayna face and said, “Thinking bad thoughts, are you, Benlan?”
“What’s the problem?” he asked. “I’m doing what you asked. And I expect you to hold to your promise to help me.”
“Why did you leave them in the first place? Why take that risk, after what they did to Renia?” Even if you did think withdrawal wasn’t that bad.
He looked like as if he might fire off a sarcastic reply, but instead he hesitated, navigating a rough spot. Finally he said, “The work wasn’t supposed to be about hurting or threatening people. I got sick of it. I’m not the only one, but the others figure they’re in too deep to back out now—they’ve done too much.”
“And you haven’t?”
He scowled, stumbling again. His soft footwear gave him little protection against the jutting roots and rocks of the trail, and his face had gone grey with exhaustion. “What do you want, some big confession? Go to Hell, lady. Pick the deepest one while you’re at it.”
She didn’t. “You had no idea, did you? What you were getting into.”
“He should know what he’s getting into now,” Katrie observed. “For instance, the way he’ll be tied to a very visible tree outside their hold, just waiting for whoever makes it out of that place. It’ll either be us, and we’ll be happy with him, or it’ll be them, and they probably won’t like him very much.”
He stubbed his toe, staggered, and finally recovered his equilibrium. “Ah, dammit,” he muttered. “Look, you don’t have much of a chance. They’re all on mage lure, right? And there’s four of them—Emmy and Strovan and old Ludy... and Jenci. Watch out for Jenci.”
“Strongarms?”
“A couple,” Benlan said. “I’m not sure how good they are—they’re certainly not civilized. We just changed over a few territorial animals and made our territory theirs. It was all we had time to do before things got out of hand.”
“What about Willand?”
His gaze flickered away from her, out to the woods and back again. “She’s there,” he said, and something in his voice was subtly different. “I just hate to think about her.”
Dayna frowned, trying to interpret the change in him, but Katrie didn’t hesitate. She leaned over to grab the back of Benlan’s shirt, nearly jerking
him off his feet. “You’re a terrible liar,” she said. “And you can still talk through a broken nose.”
“You wouldn’t, you Guides-damned bitch!” Benlan jerked away, slapping at her hands. “I won’t betray Willand. I won’t! She’ll kill me—!”
Dayna was surprised that Katrie could dismount so quickly, moving seamlessly to grab the front of Benlan’s tunic, jerk him off the ground, and bounce her fist off his face. He clapped his hand to his nose, keening a string of pained curses.
“See?” she said, standing with one hand on her knife. “You can still talk with a broken nose.”
“Remind me to keep you on my side.” Ander took his feet from his stirrups and stretched his legs in a study of indifference, though his bright blue eyes watched Katrie with new respect. Jaime met Dayna’s gaze, her expression tight but resolute, and nodded slightly. She, too, wanted to know about Willand.
So that was all Dayna said to Benlan, once he seemed able to hear. “Willand, Benlan. Whatever you’re hiding, out with it.”
He shot her a glance of hatred through tearing eyes, but kept his mouth shut.
Katrie leaned close to him—taller than he was, stronger than he was, and her mettle perfectly clear. “No time to think of lies, you little bastard. Start talking by the time I count to three or I find something else to break. One—”
“She’s out!” Benlan blurted, spitting blood from his nosebleed. “At her cabin! Guides, she’ll kill me!”
“Her cabin?” Jaime said.
“She’s too good for the rest of us.” His words turned bitter. “Says we distract her. She has a cabin—” Probably without thinking, he waved his hand in the general direction from which they’d come.
Jaime understood first. “That’s where Ernie was headed!” she blurted out, her voice filled with certainty—and with horror at that certainty. “We just sent Carey and Jess straight at Willand!”
Dayna felt the words like a physical blow. “Maybe they caught up to him before the cabin... .”
Benlan shook his head—and thought better of it, covering his nose with a protective hand. His words were muffled. “It’s not far.”
“And you just let them ride right off to her,” Katrie said, anger filling her voice, making her stern features even harder. “You know what she’ll do to them!” She stepped in closer, and he scrabbled back from her cold glare.
Dayna found herself as dazed as Benlan. Carey and Jess... straight at Willand.
“It looks like I have a job to do after all.” Jaime patted the crossbow pistol that sat atop her saddlebags, and turned her horse around.
“Jaime!” Dayna protested. Not Jaime!
What had Dayna told them all when they started this little adventure? No muss, no fuss... no true danger. Just the raw magic, doing its thing...
“Look,” Jaime said, far too sensibly. “I’ve got the shieldstone, I’ve got the antidote, and I’m not half bad with the handbow. I don’t even have to get close to them.”
This was a half-truth. The regular quarrels might have some accuracy at a distance. The ones Ander had rigged with the hollow-tipped darts did not. “Jaime,” Dayna said again, helplessly, and felt the odd sensation of decisions slipping through her hands, of things going totally awry...
“This one was meant for me,” Jaime said. And she nudged her horse onward, trotting back the way they’d come.
~~~~~
Once Jess struck Ernie’s trail, the ride turned easier, and she rocked in the saddle as her mare tucked her haunches and went to work, descending the hill as quickly as possible with Carey right behind her.
Ernie quickly came into sight, but gave no sign that he heard them—and no wonder, given the noise of his own progress: the clatter of hoof on trail rock and the slap of leaves against human and horseflesh, the gentle grunts of a horse at work.
The steep trail bottomed out, following the curving base of the hill. Narrow though it was, there remained plenty of space for two experienced courier horses to turn loose a little speed.
They’d closed most of the ground by the time Ernie realized he was no longer alone. He hunched over his horse, whipping it forward with his reins—picking up speed until Jess’s mare was in full gallop beneath her.
It was folly to run like this on a trail she didn’t know. But neither she nor Carey slowed.
Suddenly the trail opened up into a clearing. It held a cabin—
And it held Willand.
Jess pulled the mare up hard, setting her back on her haunches to reverse direction so suddenly that they dug furrows in the dirt; Carey’s horse fought his attempt to do the same, rearing before they turned to follow.
Jess’s mare sprinted away. Leaves slapped at her face, branches whipped against her legs—she couldn’t think fast enough to duck, to weave... she was body in motion, riding through the woods on a narrow path with tree trunks brushing her calves and her back tingling like a giant target.
In a moment they’d be safe enough, they could stop to think—
A giant cracking sound cut the air. The mare startled sideways to bounce off a tree with a grunt, barely missing Jess’s leg.
Branches snapped and cracked; wood scraped against wood—the dying throes of a tree. Jess turned the mare in tight circles, afraid to move until she located the tree—and then, somewhere, it hit the ground in rush of breaking limbs, bounced, and settled.
That’s when she realized she was alone.
“Carey!” she called, not thinking until she’d done it that she was only shouting her location to Willand, and then not caring. “Care-ey!”
Silence. And then her answer, the faint staccato hoofbeats of a horse approaching at a gallop. Relief washed over her—until the riderless gelding came into sight, crashing off into the woods to evade her.
Jess whirled the tired mare and pushed her back at the cabin. There she found the downed tree—a massive trunk, completely blocking the path. Propped up by its crown and resting slantwise, it was high enough to be a significant obstacle, long enough to prevent a quick detour, thick enough to press against the ground.
Carey lay on the other side, ragdoll limp—and not alone. Willand was striding up to him, reaching for him—reaching for the spellstones around his neck. The shieldstone!
Jess’s fingers crept up to the same stone, hanging from her braid and ever-clinking behind her ear. With just such a shieldstone, she’d prevailed against Willand once before—she’d taken the woman by surprise, and overcome her before the wizard could call magic to her aid.
It could happen again.
Abruptly, Jess turned the mare, trotted quietly along the trail in a calm trot, and then swapped ends to pick up a quiet canter. Three calculated strides away from the tree, she legged the mare into bounding collection, giving her the power she’d need—and then one final, startling push—
The mare thrust upward, her ears flat back and her legs tucked tightly to her body. Jess flung the reins forward and clung, lurching as the mare’s belly bumped wood. They slid awkwardly over, breaking bark all the way. On landing the mare fell forward, stumbled, and staggered onward—out of balance and out of control—at Willand.
Willand sprang away from Carey, flinging her hand out as though to stop the thousand pounds of horseflesh heading her way. Jess—scrambling to regain her seat, clutching at the reins she’d all but lost—just barely realized what the wizard truly intended. What she was really doing.
Flaunting Carey’s spellstones. Holding them high in threat, the shieldstone among them, while dire magic gathered around her and the other hand readied to sling it at Carey.
Stop, or else.
Jess wrenched the mare’s head around. The horse slung her head, fighting the reins, foam and spit flying.
Willand stood her ground, the spellstones dangling; the mare jigged past while Jess tried to regain control with seat, easing the reins until the mare stretched down and snorted with ire, allowing herself to be turned.
Willand crooked a finger at Je
ss. One finger, one joint, bent by mere degrees.
Jess legged the mare forward.
“No,” said Willand. “Off.”
Ernie headed their way from the back of the cabin, on foot. Another figure stood just outside the cabin. Shammel. He’d gone north, all right.
“Off,” said Willand again, and pointed to the ground.
Slowly, Jess dismounted. She discovered her knees weren’t as steady as they should be.
And then Carey, his voice utterly weary, said, “Damn.”
Jess barely glanced at Willand for permission before she tossed the reins aside and threw herself on the ground beside Carey.
“All right?” she asked, her voice low.
“Perfect,” he said, catching her with his gaze to let her know he was all right, it was all right... they were all right. But Jess shook her head, not believing.
Slowly, painfully, Carey sat up. “Nothing broken,” he said, as though they weren’t arrayed at Willand’s feet. “Must have remembered to roll when I fell.”
“Try not to fall,” she advised him for the future, and then hugged him tightly.
“You two always were big on the touching scenes,” Ernie said. Jess pulled away from Carey to give him the full force of her glare, but he’d already turned his attention to Willand. “Damn, I hate horses. You people need to invent cars.”
“We people like the way things are,” Willand said. She looked down at Jess and Carey. “With some small exceptions, which are about to be eliminated.” She closed her eyes a moment—and when she opened them, they held disappointment. “You came alone. Too bad.”
Jess said nothing. The others were safe from detection, if only Willand didn’t look too hard... .
Ernie grinned at her, his eyes lighting with interest.
Jess hadn’t remembered much about him. She hadn’t remembered that his eyes were a pleasant and surprising blue, and that his features were bland, his stature somewhat beefy.
But she remembered that grin, and she hated it.
It must have shown in her face, because as he looked down on her, it only grew. “Gotcha, Jess, baby. Somebody’s got to pay for all I went through when you people brought me here. I decided it might as well be you.”
The Changespell Saga Page 55
