by Cindy Dees
The second elf shrugged. “He sees things on occasion. Professes that it comes from being dragon touched. He’s surprisingly accurate, though.”
In the name of the Lady, please let Moto be wrong this time. But the sick feeling in her gullet proclaimed her wish a lie. That was prophecy she’d just heard. And it bore the unmistakable ring of truth.
“We’d best be going now, my la—” Cicero broke off. “We’d best be going.”
Moto roused beside her and shook his entire body like a dog emerging from a river. He snapped, “What are you standing around staring at? Let’s go!”
“Someone comes,” Moto announced urgently. “Hide!”
Raina looked toward the door in alarm and recognized the broad-shouldered profile. Her father.
“What are you doing out here at this hour, Daughter?”
“I needed a moment alone to think.” She glanced about surreptitiously, and the two elves seemed to have melted into the shadows.
“What could possibly weigh heavy upon the mind of my lovely daughter on her sixteenth birthday?” her father asked with humor in his voice.
Her heart wrenched at the word “daughter.” If only. She blurted, “Do you know what the Mages of Alchizzadon really do?”
He frowned. “They study rare magics. Now and again one passes through this way and is generous enough to share a bit of it with our family.”
She snorted. That was one way of describing it. “Have you ever heard of a legend of an ancient mage who was supposed to marry one of our ancestors?”
“No.” Her father looked genuinely ignorant of the legend. He was a man of deep honor; she could not imagine that he would lie to her.
“The mage fell into a stasis and could not be roused, and our family is supposed to keep a bride waiting for him in case he ever does wake?” she tried.
“That sounds like rather a waste of time and resources,” he commented. “If the fellow did not wake fairly quickly after he went to sleep, he would have starved to death soon enough, would he not?”
“So you know nothing of a scheme by the Mages of Alchizzadon to breed a woman to be his wife and using our family as bloodstock?”
“We are not cattle, Raina. We are an established and noble family. What you speak of is ridiculous.”
“Tell me this, Father. Have you any memory of taking a forgetting poison? Not long after you and Mother were married?”
He chuckled. “Well now. That would be the point of a forgetting poison, wouldn’t it? No one remembers taking one. They forget doing so.”
Frustration roiled through her. The mages had covered their tracks too well. Her father, like Justin, would flatly refuse to believe any accusations she made, on the grounds of their extreme absurdity.
“There you are!” a deep voice announced in satisfaction from behind them. “I knew you’d make a run for it, and sooner rather than later.”
Raina and her father whirled to face the bulk of Kadir, effectively blocking the barn door.
“You’re more like your mother than she will admit,” Kadir continued. “Stubborn to a fault, both of you.”
“I can attest to that,” her father said, commiserating. As if he liked this monster in blue robes!
Raina considered the alleyway behind her. It was a long sprint to the midden door, but mayhap she could make it before Kadir struck her with that strange magical energy that clung to him.
“Don’t try it,” Kadir warned. “I had the midden door nailed shut a little while ago. Raina, why do you fight your mother on this? It is a great honor to be trained by my order.”
Trained? Trained? “Is that the story you will put forth to cover kidnapping me?” she demanded angrily.
“What is this?” her father asked in confusion. “Raina is to be trained by you? Why do you call it kidnapping, Daughter? Do you not wish to study with the greatest mages in the land?”
“No,” she answered forcefully. “I do not!”
Kadir intervened. “Your refusal to cooperate here compels me to remove you to Alchizzadon by force, if necessary.”
A second shadow appeared in the doorway. It was the younger mage, who announced, “The rod, sir.”
“Here now,” her father said strongly. “No one is forcing her to go where she does not want to.”
Kadir took the small stick held out to him and commenced incanting in that ancient tongue of theirs. Something about creating a link. A journey taking no time, beginning and end as one.
She didn’t need to hear any more. He was opening a portal, no doubt back to Alchizzadon. The younger mage took a threatening step toward her, and the tableau exploded into violent action all at once. Her father’s sword slithered out of its sheath. Two slim elven shapes charged out of the shadows at the younger mage. She bolted toward Kadir, or more accurately toward the exit at his back.
Her father shouted, “Nay! You shall not remove her from this place!”
The air around Kadir wavered as the portal started to form. The mage dived for Raina. She dived for the door. Her father dived for them both.
Magic flashed beside her and Moto cried out as the younger mage blasted him with some kind of spell that froze his entire body in place, paralyzed mid-swing of his sword.
A fast-moving object slammed into Kadir, knocking the large mage almost completely off his feet—her father, bellowing a war cry as he attacked.
Kadir staggered from the impact of her father smashing into him just as Raina drew abreast of him. The mage flung his arms toward her, seeking to snag her as she ducked low. Cicero yelled something incomprehensible—a warning, mayhap—and swung his sword forward over her shoulder to block the mage from grabbing her.
She snatched the rod out of Kadir’s hand in hopes of disrupting the portal and dived for the floor, using her momentum to roll past the robed mage. A mighty explosion slammed into her, knocking her flat and sending a jolt of searing pain up her arm. The bolt of magic sank into her entire body, making her tingle painfully from head to foot. It threw Kadir and her father backward, slamming them into the open barn door. Something heavy landed on top of her and she hit her head on the ground hard enough to knock her a bit silly.
Everything went dark and silent.
A tangy smell of crushed leaves and bruised moss filled her nostrils. The weight rolled off of her abruptly, and she scrambled to her feet. She tensed to make a mad dash across the bailey for the portcullis—
But there was no bailey around her. No keep. No Kadir. No fight. She still gripped the rod in her hand, and it was warm. Pulsing slightly.
Just trees and more trees ringing a small, beautiful clearing bathed in cool moonlight. What was this passing strange place?
She turned to stare at Cicero, who half-crouched with his sword drawn, his gaze darting every which way in search of threats. He was real enough, apparently.
“Uhh, Raina? Where are we?”
She answered him slowly, “I have no idea.”
CHAPTER
7
A faint haze of gas, smelling of rotten eggs, floated in the air around Will for an instant. And then fear tore through his mind, ripping away all reason, all thought beyond one. Flee this place. The terror was incredible and irresistible. He spun and took off running with every ounce of strength in his being. Must get away.
Branches tore at him and he charged on heedlessly, the spurs of terror buried deep in his sides. He ran and ran, beyond pain, beyond breath, straining with his entire being to flee.
As suddenly as it started, the fear stopped. It drained away in the blink of an eye. And in the next blink, Will understood what had happened to him. His mother had struck him with fear gas poison. Of course, she was an alchemist, too. The sarcasm was sour in his mind.
He turned around with the intent to go back to his parents’ aid. And they would be in … what direction? He was deep in a thicket, surrounded by heavy underbrush. He did not recognize this place at all. He scrambled clear of the bramble patch, clutching his now-shredded
clothing closer. Pain began to register. On his face and hands. He was covered in bloody scratches.
As he tried to jog off in what he thought was the direction he’d come from, his limbs refused to cooperate. His legs trembled with exhaustion and his lungs burned like he’d breathed fire. He cursed his mother and her twice-cursed fear gas as he stumbled to a halt. His gut told him he wasn’t going in the right direction anyway. He angled to his left and moved off again. No, that didn’t feel right, either. He turned in a full circle and no direction at all felt right. Like it or not, he was well and truly lost.
Will paused to think. As he recalled, the effects of gas poisons generally lasted on the order of five minutes or so. By the time he ran back from whence he’d come, which was likely to take a fair bit longer than five minutes the way he felt now, the fight would be long over. Not to mention, he had not the slightest idea which direction to go. For all he knew, he would plunge even deeper into the forest.
The wise thing would be to hunker down until dawn, get his directional bearings, and make his way back to Hickory Hollow.
But then, when had he ever been wise?
Adrick always said to know his way before he moved. At the thought of his friend and mentor, grief and rage burned his eyes. Will swiped at his face and forced himself to concentrate. Look first, he could hear Adrick admonish. The trees were too thick in this spot to use the stars to navigate. Listen second. He went perfectly still, holding his breath as he closed his eyes and focused all his energy on his ears.
The forest creatures were still, no doubt as a result of his noisy charge through the wood. Off to his left, he thought he might just hear the sounds of battle. But it was at the very edge of his hearing. Ahh, to have his mother’s ears—
Assuming she was not dead. Which both head and heart told him to be a foolish assumption. Grief welled up again, and yet again he forced it down. He must survive, now. Find his parents. Save them if possible.
He wandered toward the sounds until he lost track of time and began to believe he had imagined them. He kept expecting to come to some place or thing he recognized. A particular tree or stream or even a path. But he managed to miss every last landmark he might have used to orient himself.
He thought he heard a new noise. Froze. Turned his head side to side to ascertain the exact direction of the ever so faint sound. That way. Roots grabbed at his feet and stones hidden under dead leaves waited to turn his ankles as he raced forward.
He took note of a tree well ahead and one close behind. When he reached the tree ahead, he used the tree behind him to sight ahead once more as Adrick had shown him to do. It was how a woodsman kept to a course and did not end up wandering in circles.
He sighted forward twice more before he noted that the trees thinned ahead into a wide clearing. Praise the Lady. Finally, he could check the stars and know what direction he traveled. But a few more steps brought him to an abrupt halt. That was no clearing. It was the Southwatch Path, the forest cut well back from it.
This road was nearly two miles beyond Hickory Hollow! He’d run at least twice as far under the effects of the fear gas as he had guessed. No wonder he’d been lost. Did he dare step out of the tree cover and follow the road back to the hollow? It would be by far the fastest way back to his parents and the other villagers. But the open path would also expose him to any Boki patrols roaming the area. Would the Boki be so bold as to march right down this road? Indecision rooted his feet to the ground.
He could not stand here all night. He might as well check out the road. Crouching low, he crept forward to peer out at the path.
A destroyed wagon lay on its side, three cloth-covered lumps that could only be bodies scattered around it. He checked carefully up and down the road for movement. Nothing. If Boki had done this, they were no longer in sight.
But he did not trust the orcs not to use the wagon as bait to draw in more victims. He backed into the forest a bit and quickly plucked twigs from the trees, tucking them into his clothing randomly as Adrick had taught him. He scooped up handfuls of dead leaves and sprinkled them over himself liberally, too, the bits sticking to his leather jacket. Streaks of mud upon his already-dirtied face and a few handfuls of grass in his collar and he was ready.
He eased out of the tree line on his belly, slithering like a snake toward the wagon. Down into a swale and back up out of it, then the dirt path loomed inches from his nose. Still no movement from the forest. Carefully, he rose to a crouch in the shadow of the wagon. Still no attack.
He straightened cautiously and approached the first body, a human in leather armor and gauntlets—likely a guard of some kind. He nudged the man with his foot. No response. He nudged harder. Glassy, staring eyes looked up at him, and he recoiled. Poor sod looked dead.
Will moved on to the next body, another guard judging by his garb. He rolled the fellow onto his back. A gaping hole in the man’s chest made it pretty clear this one was dead as well.
Will moved around the wagon and saw two more bodies on the ground. Both attired in white trimmed in red. Members of the Heart? He moved toward the first healer, and this fellow, too, was bloody and unresponsive. Must be dead.
Will turned to the last victim. A young girl of an age with him, pale and beautiful with long dark braids and still, exotic features. He touched her cheek. Warm. Alive, thank the Lady—
With a banshee scream, the girl lurched upright. He scrambled backward and landed on his behind as she leaped to her feet in panic. “Murderer!” she yelled, charging him. Her right hand glowed menacingly.
A blast of magic shot wide of his head and smashed randomly into the bottom of the overturned wagon. Another blast flew into the grass beyond the road.
“I’m not … I mean no harm … I but checked for survivors!…,” he cried out.
“To loot us? Thief!” She whipped a short sword out of her belt and swung furiously at him.
He plastered himself flat on the ground to avoid a beheading at the hands of this crazy girl. She all but knocked herself off her feet, overbalancing after the wild swipe at him. He rolled and jumped to his feet.
She shouted, “You dare take advantage of our misfortune? Attacking the Heart is an Imperial crime punishable by death!”
She must have thought he was a Boki. “Will you quit shouting at me?” he finally shouted back. “I am trying to help—”
The blast of magic hit him squarely in the chest with a burst of heat and a tingling across his skin. He looked down in horror expecting to see a bloody hole in his chest. But he was surprisingly intact. This girl was completely crazy!
He opened his mouth to declare that very thing—but no sound came out. Stunned, he tried again. Nothing. He tried to force a shout past whatever blocked his throat—
—The wench had silenced him.
Furious, he glared at her. He stripped off the Boki belt and tabard and threw the necklace of teeth and bones to the ground, and then pointed at his throat.
“Not a chance!” she retorted. “Came back to loot us and finish me off, did you? What is the matter? You didn’t steal enough supplies the first time?” She swung the short sword in his direction, but he dodged the blade easily. His father was ten times that fast with a broomstick.
Still, Will had no desire to find out what other, more lethal magics she might have in her arsenal. He danced backward away from her clumsy attack, holding his hands well away from his sides to show her he was unarmed and meant her no harm.
She flew at him like an angry sparrow defending her nest from a hawk, wisps of dark hair flying across her furious, frightened face. He twisted and dodged her completely unskilled swordplay until the whole thing began to strike him as rather hilarious.
Perhaps it was the grin upon his face or maybe his failure to attack in kind, but one or both finally seemed to penetrate her panic. The sword wavered. Lowered to her side. The angry glow about her right hand dimmed somewhat. The wildness drained from her huge, dark, entirely mesmerizing eyes as she stared a
t him.
He pointed once more at his throat.
“Oh, it’ll wear off soon enough,” she groused. “It has been almost five minutes already.”
Sure enough, the tightness around his throat began to ease, and in a few moments he was able to ask cautiously, “Did orcs attack you?”
She nodded at that, then added in a rush, “I could not believe it when they charged out of the forest. What on Urth are orcs doing in this area?”
“It’s a long story and I do not know the half of it,” he replied grimly. “Do you have any healing for your companions?”
She shook her head miserably. “I know some healing spells, but I cannot renew a life, yet.” She added defensively, “It’s a difficult spell to master.”
“What happened?”
“I was tired and the prala—the brother—told me to take a nap. I was sleeping when the orcs charged out of the woods. They knocked the wagon over. I must have hit my head and kind of panicked—”
From what Will had seen of her wild reaction to him there’d been no “kind of” about it. She’d completely gone to pieces.
“—I tried to help, but the orcs were so big and strong…” She began to cry as she spoke, her story interrupted by sobbing breaths. “So many of them … and not just orcs. Goblins and monsters … our guards were killed so fast … the prala tried to fight with magic, but he’s a healer, not a combat caster … I didn’t know what to do … then something hit me on the side of my head.” She buried her face in her hands, unable to continue.
But he got the gist of it. Awkwardly, Will stepped forward and put his arms around her slender frame. She threw herself against him, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. He stiffened in surprise and patted at her back ineffectually as she sobbed into his shirt. How long was she going to be doing this?
Clueless as to how to proceed—his mother had never devolved into emotional displays—he stood there for what seemed like a week of Sundays.
Eventually, the girl raised her head and stepped away from him. “Thank you,” she murmured.
