by Linda McNabb
‘Look out!’ someone yelled behind her. She rose and turned at the same time, and heard the whiz of an arrow as it flew towards her. A movement at her side showed the real target was another of the thugs emerging by the tree next to her.
‘No!’
This time she recognised the voice as Seth. As she turned towards Seth the man reached her and pulled her in the path of the arrow. Seth’s form blurred and she assumed it was a trick of her eyes. The next second she expected the arrow to strike her and she tensed. The ground was hard as she fell. Several more arrows whistled in her direction and she lay still, confused and wondering if she had been hit.
‘Are you alright?’
A hand grabbed her arm and she was pulled to her feet. She wiped her hands down her arms and torso, but found no sign of an arrow. How had it missed her? She looked at the man at her feet. An arrow protruded from his right arm and he lay motionless on the ground. Next to him was Seth.
‘Seth!
For the second time in less than half an hour Rem found herself kneeling beside Seth. This time he didn’t look at her with unfocused eyes. His eyes were closed and he lay limp and unresponsive. There were two arrows in his arm. His skin was cold and clammy to her touch and Rem withdrew her hand slowly. She didn’t feel sad, she didn’t feel angry. She didn’t feel anything at all.
‘Why did you shoot him?’ she demanded as she stood up. She felt her anger rising as she looked at the calm faces of the two strangers.
‘Why did you bring a wizard amongst us?’ Tal snapped back. ‘They deserve what they get.’
‘A wizard?’ Rem queried. She stared at the other men lying prone at the side of the road. They all lay in oddly relaxed poses with their eyes shut, just like Seth. She had never thought about it before but somehow she had expected their eyes to be open. She glanced at Tal and saw the young girl did not seem bothered in the slightest. This was a very different place indeed. ‘Seth’s not a wizard.’
‘So how did he vanish from over there and appear here a second later?’ Tal asked, pointing to where Seth had stood by the wagon.
‘It will hold them for a few hours,’ Asher said, walking up to one and pushing at him with a booted foot.
‘A few hours?’ Rem queried as she looked up sharply at Asher. ‘Do you mean Seth’s not dead?’
‘I said we had something better than swords,’ Tal said as she carefully wrapped up a small bottle and tucked it into a leather pouch. ‘We do not want their deaths on our hands, even a wizard. This is made from the flowers that flourish by the water lands. It is our main defence against intruders, either two-legged or four-legged.’
**
‘They will sleep for many hours, usually long enough for us to move them somewhere else,’ Asher added. ‘It is a potent flower that mimics death. More than one person has been accidentally buried because of it!’
Asher walked over to the spot where Seth had been standing a minute ago and stared at the blackened ground and dead shrubs by the side of the road. It was a perfect circle of death.
‘And you’re sure that he’s not a wizard,’ Asher asked, still looking unconvinced.
‘He’s definitely not a wizard,’ Eagan assured the man.
‘But I’d like to know how he managed to jump like that. It was something far more powerful than simple magic.’
Simple magic? Eagan had never thought to describe magic as simple. He wondered if it had something to do with Seth’s unusual gift.
‘If his wizard friend ever comes out of his staff I’m going to ask him.’
Eagan’s gaze moved to the staff that had fallen to the ground next to the circle of death. It was battered and broken and could easily have been mistaken for an old tree branch if it were not for the gem at the top. Eagan walked the short distance and scooped up the staff.
‘One arrow would have been enough then,’ Asher said, as he removed two fine-tipped arrows from Seth’s arm. ‘Two or more are needed to take a wizard down.’
Asher wiped the arrows on a patch of moss at the side of the road then tucked them back into his quiver. Tal returned from collecting the rest of the arrows and repeated the process with them.
‘Put him in the wagon. He might wake in an hour or two with a bit of luck,’ Tal suggested.
Rem raised one eyebrow and wandered back to the wagon. She clearly had no intention of helping and it looked as if her anger at Seth had returned.
‘Does he have to ride in the back?’ Waide asked, also ignoring Tal’s suggestion to move Seth. ‘He doesn’t know where Caden is so he’s no help to us after all.’
Eagan frowned as he watched the two youths moving away without picking Seth up. He glared at Rem like an angry parent. ‘You do realise that he put himself in the way of an arrow that was meant for you?’
‘It’s just sleep potion,’ Rem said with a small pout.
‘He didn’t know that,’ Tal pointed out.
Rem rolled her eyes and looked at Waide. ‘If I’m helping him, then so are you.’
Eagan shook his head a little. Were all youths so stubborn?
In a few minutes the wagon was turned around and they were all set to continue their journey. The would-be ambushers had all been propped up against trees and looked odd as they slumbered.
‘Is it okay to just leave them here in the forest?’ Eagan asked. He didn’t approve of their occupation but neither did he want them left to be attacked while they slept.
‘There are no wild animals around here,’ Asher assured him. ‘They’re big men, so they’ll be awake in an hour at the most.’
Eagan would like to have argued the first point. Night-shadows were definitely a wild animal as far as he was concerned. The wagon rolled on into the slightly gloomy interior of the forest. Asher, Tal and Eagan were on the front seat of the wagon, leaving Rem and Waide in the back with the sleeping Seth. Both of them looked unimpressed by the seating arrangements but Eagan ignored them. Seth had done something good and he was annoyed that they couldn’t give him the credit he was due.
The forest was large and Eagan looked around more than a few times to see if they were being watched. If there was one ambush then why not another? Asher, however, didn’t seem worried in the slightest. In fact he was even whistling and Eagan wanted to point out that it was only signalling their arrival to any prospective rogues in the trees ahead. But he said nothing.
‘Darius, can you go ahead and keep a look out?’ he muttered. He wished, not for the first time, that Darius could hear his thoughts instead of speaking but he knew that too would have some major drawbacks.
‘Sure, it beats being near that miserable lot in the back,’ Darius agreed.
And so the wizard floated several dozen paces ahead of the horse and Eagan relaxed and watched the trees go by. It really was a very pretty forest, and under other circumstances he would have enjoyed the journey.
After an hour he glanced back at Seth, he was still pale and if Eagan hadn’t known better he would have been sure the boy was dead. The black dragon tattoo on his forehead stood out in stark contrast to his skin and his head rocked back and forth with the motion of the wagon. Asher saw Eagan checking Seth and shrugged.
‘He’ll stir in a few minutes. It varies a little from person to person and he’s quite young so it’s likely to have a longer effect on him.’
Eagan nodded and turned back to watch the seemingly endless forest go by. After another few minutes he checked again, then another half an hour later. After three hours in the forest even Asher had stopped suggesting it would be ‘just a few more minutes’.
‘He looks worse than he did when it happened,’ Waide commented, putting one hand to Seth’s cheek. ‘Are we sure he’s alive?’
Asher pulled he wagon to a stop in the middle of the dirt road. They hadn’t seen another traveller, apart from the thugs, during their journey so Eagan supposed it wasn’t going to cause problems. Tal climbed into the back and knelt next to Seth; she felt his pulse, touched his clammy-looking s
kin and lifted one of his eyelids. She sat back on her heels to look at Seth with a critical eye.
‘Well, he’s definitely still alive, but the potion doesn’t appear to be wearing off, in fact I’d say it was increasing in strength.’
Asher looked around sharply at that and Eagan could tell by the frown that this was not what he expected.
‘Some people have a more severe reaction and sleep for up to a day, but it’s very rare,’ Asher said, trying to sound reassuring. Eagan would have felt a bit more comforted if the man’s eyes hadn’t given away his true feelings. There was something he wasn’t sharing and by Tal’s tight-lipped expression she knew what it was.
‘So he’ll wake up tomorrow morning?’ Rem asked, and the edge of her anger at Seth seemed to have softened.
Nobody replied for a few seconds and the pause was obvious to everyone.
‘We’ll be in town before nightfall and we’ll take a room at one of the lodges to make him comfortable,’ Asher said then nodded at Tal to re-join him and he turned to resume their journey. There were no more questions asked and no other information was offered.
‘His wizard-friend has finally come out of the staff,’ Darius said, appearing next to Eagan and indicating that the wizard in question was riding on the horse in front of them.
Eagan just nodded, hoping Darius would know to take that as a signal to continue. There was such a strained silence on and in the wagon that even a small mutter would be obvious.
‘He says that Seth never meant any harm to anyone. He got himself in trouble when the egg needed hatching and it all went wrong from there.’
Eagan felt sad. The boy had been destined for trouble since he was born.
‘He was trying to find Caden after the night-shadow stole him. Neras says he can barely feel Seth’s life energy now. He is worried that the boy is dying.’
Neras wasn’t the only one worried about that. Eagan knew Seth would always have a tough road ahead of him in life, but he deserved the chance to make the most of it.
Even Darius lapsed into silence and they finally emerged from the forest late in the afternoon. Waide had handed around some of the left-over food a few hours before but nobody ate much. The narrow road joined up with a wider main road and tall buildings could be seen in the distance.
‘That’s the overseer’s residence. The cats live there too, sort of,’ Asher said, breaking the silence. ‘It’s on the other side of Lake Dohl right next to The Gap.’
Eagan looked at the hazy, distant buildings. He had lived by The Gap most of his life and he had never thought that others might also look out over the chasm that divided the land from the exiled wizards of old.
‘We should arrive in Dohl just on nightfall.’ Asher didn’t look at Eagan when he spoke but his tone was a little distant as if he were focused on what plans he had. The rest of the journey was spent in a silence that nobody seemed eager to break.
Crest Lodge in Dohl was warm and comfortable, if a little basic, and the rooms were clean. Eagan distracted the owner while Asher carried Seth upstairs and put him in one of the two rooms they had taken.
‘And what time is breakfast served?’ Eagan asked, watching Darius in the corner of his vision. The wizard was floating quickly in and around every nook and cranny of the downstairs public bar. Only a few men sat drinking in dark corners and by the low tone of their voices and the abundance of sectioned off areas it looked to be a place where many deals were done.
‘No wizards around here,’ he said with relief and hunkered down in front of the roaring fire as if he could actually feel it.
‘Whenever you come down for it,’ the man replied with a shrug. He seemed uninterested in his guests now that he had received payment and walked away as he counted the coins and tested them between his teeth as if expecting to be given fakes.
‘Thank you, good sir, we’ll be down in the morning,’ Eagan said with a nod, but the man did not even pause and left the room via a set of battered wooden swinging doors.
By the time Eagan made his way up to the room Seth was already tucked up in one of the four narrow cot beds. Asher had turned him so that his face was towards the wall, and from the door it looked for all the world as if he was indeed just a young man taking a nap.
‘Thank you for your assistance,’ Eagan said as Asher and Tal went to leave. ‘Will we see you in the morning?’
‘Unlikely,’ Asher replied and looked a little embarrassed as his gaze slipped over to Seth. ‘We have a meeting at sunrise and will be leaving town shortly after with a fully-loaded wagon.’
‘Good luck finding your brother, Waide,’ Tal added.
And with that the two unusual travellers were gone.
Chapter Thirteen - City of Dohl
Eagan wasn’t sure if Rem was faking sleep but she retired to bed early and left him and Waide sitting in silence in the room. Noise from the public tavern downstairs drifted up the stairs and Eagan picked up his staff and looked at Waide.
‘If you’re not tired perhaps we could sit in the tavern. Would your mother object?’ Eagan frowned as he suggested the idea. Why was he only now starting to worry about what Waide’s mother might think? Two of her children were missing and she was probably going to be far less worried about watered-down ale than her sons returning unharmed.
‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ Waide said and leapt to his feet so quickly that he made the floorboards creak. Rem didn’t even twitch.
The tavern downstairs was far busier than when they arrived at dusk and Eagan had to search for two spare seats in the corner, furthest away from the roaring fire. Going by the expression on Waide’s face when he took his first sip of the ale, it was very weak.
‘Mother will be worried,’ Waide said, staring off across the room but not looking like he was seeing the dozens of people there.
‘We’ll find your brother,’ Eagan said with a lot more conviction than he actually felt.
‘What did Seth do to Caden?’ Waide asked, flicking his attention back to Eagan and staring at him in dim light from the small candle on the table.
‘I’m not sure he did anything apart from take him from Merra…’ Eagan answered hesitantly. He wasn’t sure what Waide meant but he had an idea where the conversation might be heading.
‘No, I mean why is Caden different? Why does he grow so fast and heal things and people around him? Seth did something to Caden when mother was carrying him, didn’t he?’
Eagan swallowed.
‘Well, this was a good idea,’ Darius said dryly and perched on the table next to Eagan. ‘Explain your way out of this one then.’
‘Do you think Seth will wake up soon?’ Waide asked when Eagan didn’t answer.
‘I’m sure he’ll recover,’ Eagan assured him. ‘He’ll be up and about tomorrow morning as if nothing happened.’
‘Good.’
Waide looked satisfied and Eagan felt a little relief. Perhaps there wasn’t so much animosity between the two after all.
‘Then I can knock him out again for hurting Caden.’
‘At least he’s honest about it,’ Darius said and it sounded like he was suppressing a laugh.
‘Seth didn’t mean any harm. He didn’t even know he was hurting Caden last winter…’ Eagan paused. He took a deep breath. It was time to own up. ‘It was my…’
‘Look, there’s Asher and Tal,’ Waide said pointing across the room. Clearly he had thought the conversation was over. Just as Waide was about to wave them over they stopped by a table occupied by three large men.
By the enthusiastic handshakes it was obvious that they knew each other and when two stools were produced from under the table it was also clear that they had been expected.
‘I’ll just stretch my legs,’ Darius said, pretending to walk slowly across the room.
Eagan didn’t really approve of the wizard’s nosy nature but it did come in handy at times. He had to admit that he was curious why Asher hadn’t said he was meeting people here.
The three men had already had more than a few drinks and one was singing loudly a few minutes later. Asher and Tal looked less than impressed.
Darius floated back and shook his head. ‘It looks like they’re some sort of thugs-for-hire but I can’t work out what they’re being hired for.’
After another half an hour all three men were singing and banging their mugs on the table. Someone bumped into one man and spilled their drink. In a blink of an eye there was a brawl in the middle of the room. Chairs, punches and bodies, were being thrown around the room.
Eagan drew Waide out of the way and the action was all over in a matter of minutes. The local guards swept in and dragged off a dozen people leaving the room with bruised people lying about, and broken furniture everywhere.
Asher and Tal were dusting themselves off and Tal looked disgusted as all three of the men were dragged out the door.
‘And now what are we supposed to do? Where are we going to get someone to help us?’
Asher hurried her out of the bar as another small fight started up and Eagan waited until they had gone before escorting Waide back to the safety of their room.
Eagan had never overslept in his entire life but the next morning he blinked his eyes open to see that it was well past dawn. Someone had thrown open the wooden shutters and the early summer sun shone straight in.
He sat up, a little too fast, and paused as his vision swam for a few seconds. He could see two of the beds were empty but the third was still occupied.
‘Seth did not wake.’
Eagan padded barefoot over to check on Seth but he was just the same as yesterday.
‘Is there a spell to fix this, and would we have enough left?’ Eagan asked, and for the first time he regretted all the small, non-essential spells that he had used over the last hundred years. Perhaps if he hadn’t used all that magic there would be hope here.
