by Spurrier, Jo
Power pulsed through his blood like strong drink. It burned in the palms of his hands and his fingertips, and it took Isidro a moment to make sure he had it under control. It was intoxicating — at once the cold air seemed irrelevant, and the night was brighter, as though the power sharpened his sight.
Isidro stood. ‘Back to the others,’ he murmured. ‘Quickly, we don’t have much time.’
Back in the tiny chamber, the women were already awake. ‘Kell’s here,’ Isidro said. ‘He must have ridden all night and all day, but he’s here now, possibly nearby.’
Mira gasped aloud, and pressed the heel of her hand against her mouth for silence.
‘Why?’ Delphine demanded, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. ‘What does he want?’
‘I got a glimpse into his mind,’ Isidro said. ‘He’s here for me, I think. To punish Sierra.’
‘If he made it here so quickly then so can she,’ Cam said. ‘Can’t we seal ourselves in and hide until she gets here?’
Isidro shook his head. ‘There’s no way to keep him off for long enough. In any case, it’s me he wants, not any of you. Sierra gave me power to shield against him, and so it’s possible he doesn’t even know you’re here. There’s only one thing we can do. The three of you stay here, where Delphine can keep you hidden. I’ll go out and lead him away.’
‘The hells you will,’ Cam snarled. ‘I’m going with you.’
‘Cam, don’t be a fool! You escaped from him once; you won’t get a chance to do it again. And besides, we can’t leave the women undefended. Mira’s never fought in a true battle and Delphine doesn’t know how to survive out here, and with soldiers heading our way, too … They’ll need you, Cam.’
Delphine drew herself up. ‘I agree, Cam would be useless against Kell, but he’s right that you shouldn’t go alone. I might be able to help —’
‘Delphine, no,’ Isidro said. ‘You’re powerful enough to be a threat, but that only means he’ll kill you at once. Cam and Mira will need you more. Cam can watch for danger, but he’s only one man and there could be hundreds of soldiers on Kell’s heels. They’ll need you to hide and protect them. I can promise you that Mesentreian soldiers won’t be any kinder to their captives than the Akharian men were.’
‘Isidro, this is suicide,’ Cam said.
‘I’m not so sure,’ Isidro replied. ‘Kell won’t kill me outright — there’s no satisfaction in that. He has to make Sierra watch, that’s the whole point.’ He felt preternaturally calm. Back in his father’s lodge, he’d heard a man speak of being attacked by a bear, and he’d described a feeling very like this. There came a time when struggle was only a waste of strength — all one could do was accept the situation as it was, and wait and hope for an opportunity to survive. ‘I can handle this, Cam. I have an idea. Delphi, those stones you made —’
She reached for her bag and spilled them out over her blanket. ‘I’ll keep a few back but you have the rest,’ she said. ‘Take the blasters. Be careful of the decoys, if you drop one into a pile of dry grass they can start fires, but I don’t suppose that’s much of a danger with all this rain. The quieteners will help if you need to make more enchantments, otherwise he’ll sense you working. Here, have the empty stones as well, they might be useful …’ She piled them all back into the pouch, although she kept some of the dampeners back for herself. Then, she picked up the last stone, the swollen double pyramid that housed the Tiger-in-the-Reeds enchantment.
When she held it out to him, Isidro pulled away. ‘Delphi, no — you’ll need it.’
‘Take it,’ she said, pressing it into his hand. ‘I’ve got time to make another, that’s why I’m keeping these.’ She waved at the dampeners. ‘We’ll be alright, Isidro. I can’t fight him, but I can keep us all hidden, I promise you that.’ Delphine held his head in her hands and kissed him. When she pulled away there were tears in her eyes.
‘Black Sun watch over you, Isidro,’ Mira said.
‘Mira, when you meet up with Ardamon again —’
‘I’ll make sure Delphine has a place with us,’ Mira said. ‘If that’s what she wants.’
‘Do you have everything you need?’ Cam asked Isidro as he arranged the stones in the folds of his sash.
‘Best give me a blanket and a raincoat and a bit of food if you can spare it,’ Isidro said. ‘A water-skin, too. Otherwise he might come looking for the place I’d made camp.’
Cam swiftly put together a bundle and tied it with a leather cord to hang across Isidro’s back. ‘Fires Below, you haven’t even got a sword …’
‘Couldn’t use it if I did,’ Isidro said.
‘Which way are you going?’ Cam asked. ‘I’ll see you out of the cave.’
There was no time for any further farewells. With the bundle secure across his back, Isidro slipped out past the shield with Cam at his heels. At the mouth of the cave, he paused.
‘Tell Sierra,’ Cam said, ‘if she doesn’t pull you out of this fire, I’ll never forgive her.’
‘I’d never tell her such a lie,’ Isidro said. ‘You know she’ll do all she can. Cam, promise me you’ll look after Delphine.’
‘Of course I will.’ Cam folded his arms across his chest. ‘Go on, then. Good luck. Give him hells.’
Isidro gave his brother a left-handed salute, and even managed a grin. Then he turned and strode off into the darkness.
Chapter 17
Sierra’s power left him feeling rested and full of energy. From the mouth of the cave Isidro turned south, stretching his stride to cover ground swiftly.
Kell had a bad leg. Sierra had told him the tale of it, but her information was third-hand at best — it was the apprentice before Rasten who had driven a knife into Kell’s knee. Everyone knew Kell walked with a cane, but now Isidro was beginning to wonder if his disability had been exaggerated. Kell had, after all, just spent a night and day riding through bad weather to reach Isidro while Sierra was too far away to interfere.
He would be exhausted after the ride, and Isidro was in no mind to make the chase an easy one. As he walked he went over everything he knew about this part of the ranges, trying to recall every snippet he’d heard from Ardamon’s scouts and Cam’s descriptions.
Then, between one instant and the next, Isidro found himself back in Kell’s tent, naked and kneeling on a bed of prickling spruce. His hands were bound behind his back, the tail of the rope thrown over a beam overhead and pulled so tight it threatened to wrench his shoulders from their sockets. Rasten stood over him, a glowing poker in his hand …
But Sierra’s power still burned and crackled in his veins. Isidro concentrated on his right hand, trying to flex his fingers. With a great effort, they moved — only a fraction of an inch, but the effort set his wrist and arm aching. The illusion spun from memory and nightmare shattered, leaving him on the dark and windswept hillside once again.
Isidro smiled grimly to himself and strode on.
When the next attack came he was braced for it. This time it wasn’t him in chains — it was Sierra. Chained in the stocks, her lithe form was contorted into such a strained position that he ached to think of it. Dozens of shining steel needles pierced her skin while blood oozed and dripped from the wounds onto the stone floor. Rasten stood behind her, naked, panting and glistening with sweat while she moaned and gasped beneath him.
She enjoyed it, Kell whispered inside his skull. Just as you did, slut.
Isidro ignored all that. It may well have been a true memory, or Kell could have picked it out of his nightmares. Either way, it was irrelevant, and instead of letting it trouble him Isidro concentrated on the thread of power that had slipped into his mind while he was unaware. Kell was following him, hobbling along a narrow deer-track. The tip of his cane stuck in the mud with each step, and Kell had created a tiny mage-light to let him see where he put his feet.
Isidro flexed his fingers again. The ache in his arm rose to a throb, but as before the pain gave him something to focus on and block out the un
welcome images.
Kell was following him. Somehow, the old man could use the connection to hone in on him like a hunting dog following a scent.
Isidro pressed a hand against the stones tucked into his jacket. Was it possible to injure Kell? Could he deal enough damage to weaken him so Sierra and Rasten could finish him off? He didn’t dare dream that he would be able to kill him, not with a handful of enchantments as his only weapon. If it were that easy the Akharians would have rid the world of him months ago. Wounding him, however, would be the next best thing, even if it meant Isidro himself might not survive the night.
It would never work if he doled out the stones one by one. Singly, they simply weren’t powerful enough to do that kind of damage. They would do more good used en masse, and as he mulled it over he thought he knew the perfect place to use them.
On the other side of this hill the track picked a precarious path across a rock-strewn slope, twisting between outcrops and boulders. It had taken him and Mira nearly an hour to coax the hobbling horses across that scrambling stretch.
Isidro spent precious time searching for the best place to lay his trap. He decided on a small gully where run-off from the evening’s rain still trickled and gurgled between boulders and some ice still lingered. One boulder jammed against an ancient tree-trunk created a dam of sorts, and there he buried nine of his twelve blasting-stones, and used a blank to set a simple trip-wire across the path. When all was ready he hurried on, and in his head he kept a silent count.
He was past two hundred when a roar like a thunderclap echoed over the hills. Isidro looked back as a flash of golden-brown light illuminated the night. The blast threw a haze of earth and moisture into the air, and the light set it glowing like fog around a lantern.
Isidro crouched down on the path, closing his eyes and emptying his mind as he searched for any sensation that might come from Kell.
The old man had been flung from the cliff face, but he’d shielded himself as he fell amid tumbling boulders, rubble and sodden earth. Isidro watched as Kell picked himself up with a curse, found his cane and summoned it to his hand with a thread of power. The cane was unbroken — it wasn’t even scratched — and as Kell laid his hand upon the knob Isidro felt power stirring within. It carried enchantments, then, perhaps from stones concealed within the wood.
Kell was bleeding from several places, and Isidro permitted himself a small, tight smile. So, the old man wasn’t invulnerable. It would take him more than a few minutes to find his way back to the path. Isidro had bought himself a little bit of time.
Isidro hurried on until he found a branch in the path, and took the more difficult of the two trails. Even with his useless right arm, he was faster and more nimble than Kell. A few hundred paces further, Isidro set another trap. He used two of his remaining stones, leaving himself one in reserve, and planted them in the soft earth just above the course of a stream. Then he pulled out one of Delphine’s decoys, set it going and then hid it in a dense knot of undergrowth big enough to hold a man of his size.
With the second trap laid Isidro crossed the stream, murmuring a quiet prayer of thanks to whoever had sewn the waterproof seams of his boots. He cut across country to the other, easier trail, but had been on it for only a short time when he saw Kell’s bobbing light heading through the bushes on the far side of the stream.
Isidro hunkered down against a rocky outcrop and pulled out the camouflage enchantment. He would wait until the blast was set off, and hurry out of sight while the noise and light hid any sign of his presence.
But as he crouched, waiting, Isidro wondered if there was truly any point in running further. He couldn’t deny that he was losing this chase. He was like a wounded deer running before the wolves.
Perhaps he should use one of Delphine’s dampeners and turn all the spare stones into blasters. He had enough blanks to bring the cliff down and crush him before Kell could ever reach him … but Kell had already proven he could survive that kind of trap. All it would do was remove Isidro from the fight and leave Kell free to do further harm.
Then, a peculiar thing happened beside the stream in the valley below. Isidro watched as the bobbing light that marked Kell’s position paused, and then he felt a rush of power as shields sprang up to encircle the clump of bushes holding the decoy. Branch by branch, Kell tore the greenery away. If anyone had been hiding in there, they would have been trapped with no escape as their concealment was torn away around them.
It took only a moment for Kell to discover he had been tricked. When he found the stone, Isidro heard him curse in frustration and then quash the enchantment like a bug in his fist. That release of power triggered the blasters, but this time Kell had his shields ready — the golden glow burst up at once.
This was his chance. Isidro ran, bent double, to the cover of a stand of young pines. Since his only asset now was speed, he hurried on, even while his mind set off in a different direction entirely.
Why had Kell taken such care picking through the undergrowth within the shield? He had been unaccountably gentle when one blast would have flattened the vegetation and stunned whoever was hiding within it. A few broken bones wouldn’t matter if all Kell intended was to torture his prize until Rasten and Sierra came near.
As he strode on and rain began to fall again, there seemed only one explanation. Kell wanted him alive, and not just alive but whole and unharmed, or at least as whole as he was now. Why?
The answer came to him at once. Bait.
Sierra had allowed herself to be taken back to the dungeons for the sole purpose of attempting to kill her old master — that must be clear to Kell now. Isidro knew she wouldn’t give up after all she’d sacrificed, but did Kell? Perhaps he thought the best way to draw her into battle again was if she knew the man she cared for was paying the price for what she’d done.
If so, Kell needed Isidro alive for as long as it took to lure Sierra into a trap. But she and Rasten were not far away — they could be on his heels in a day or so. Did Kell mean to engage her here?
It would be risky. Akharian legions, fresh from the parley with the Wolf Clan, were heading down from the north as well as from the west, the latter driving the survivors from the king’s army ahead of them. By the time Sierra and Rasten reached him, there would be enough men around to make facing her difficult. Kell was accustomed to having dozens of warm bodies available to raise power — would he really choose to face Sierra with just Isidro to feed from, when there might be hundreds around that she could draw upon?
He had misjudged Kell’s plans entirely. He wasn’t coming after Isidro to torture or kill him as punishment for Sierra’s rebellion — at least, not yet. He needed Isidro as a pawn in some longer-range plan. Kell needed to isolate her, but what could possibly induce her to follow him into a region so deserted she would be starved for power?
The answer was plain.
Isidro realised at that point that he’d been paying scant attention to the landscape around him. His blind feet had led him into a canyon where sheer, rain-washed walls rose above him and the stream below thundered with water draining off the surrounding hills.
It was as good a place as any. Isidro took out another decoy, activated it and threw it down. Since the last one had heralded a trap, it might give Kell pause, and buy Isidro a little more time to prepare. He walked on until he found an overhang that gave some shelter from the spitting rain. There, Isidro felt along his sash for his last remaining blasting-stone. The enchantment prickled against his fingertips, a peculiar sensation that mingled hot and cold. Then, he reached for Sierra.
She answered at once. Issey, where are you? What’s happening?
He told her briefly of the theory he’d devised. Sierra listened in silence, but he could feel her tension as she sat huddled on the floor of a makeshift tent. Do you need power? she asked.
I’m not sure it would do any good, Isidro told her. I just … I didn’t want you to worry.
She managed a laugh at that, but it was a s
ound without humour. Oh, Issey, I hope you’re right in this … but if not, I’ll be right here. Just say the word and I’ll give you all I have.
It’ll be alright, he told her, and in that moment he could almost believe it. I have an idea. He felt a wave of relief come from her at that, and wondered that she had such faith in him. He hardly felt as confident in the matter as she seemed to.
Then Kell came into view along the path, and there was no more time to talk.
Isidro went still as Kell paused beside the decoy. The old man was leaning heavily on his cane, but with one curt glance at Isidro he raised a hand and loosed a bolt of power to blast the pebbled bank where the buzzing stone lay. Its annoying hum winked out as the ground burst open in a spray of rock and earth.
Kell stomped forward, still limping heavily but heading straight for Isidro. ‘No point running any more, boy,’ Kell said, and despite the cold, the exertion and his weariness, his voice was strong and hard. His tone reminded Isidro somewhat of War-Leader Dremman’s.
‘No point at all,’ Isidro said as he reached for his lantern-stone. With a touch he set it glowing, and then held up the last blaster for Kell to see. The old man was close enough now that Isidro could read his expression — Kell’s eyes narrowed, but he did not slow his pace.
Not until Isidro popped the stone into his mouth and swallowed it.
With a lurch Kell flung a hand out and sent a cord of power to wrap around Isidro’s throat. It tightened like a garrotte, cutting off the flow of blood as well as air, but it was too late: the stone was gone. When Kell realised what had happened, he snarled a curse, and wrenched Isidro to his knees with the noose of energy.
Even as he fell to the sodden ground, Isidro felt the molten flood of power course through his limbs. Sierra said nothing, but he could feel her watching through his eyes.
‘You’d be wise not to make me angry, boy,’ Kell snarled as he hobbled closer. ‘It takes no great effort to make what has gone down come back up again.’
Isidro pressed a hand to his ribs. He could feel the stone prickling and tingling from within — a very strange and decidedly unpleasant sensation. ‘And what’s to say I won’t set the thing off if you try?’ he asked, gasping around the rope of power. ‘What use is a dead hostage in tempting Sierra to come to you?’
