“I feel like a hunted rabbit every time I step into the open,” Nathaliey said. “I can’t wait until we get to the old road.”
Markal glanced at her. “There may or may not be griffins in the high passes, but if Wolfram is right, the road is infested with giants and marauders.”
#
Markal waited until the company was pressing through the thickest part of the forested mountainside before he told Wolfram that he wanted to make another search for Bronwyn. The Blackshield captain called for a rest, and Markal and Nathaliey retired some distance from the company so they could have solitude to practice their magic. A few minutes later they were seated across from each other on a cushion of pine needles, with only the sound of birdsong and a trickle of water from a nearby stream to break the silence.
“We’ve seen very few signs,” Markal said. “I think we’re losing ground.”
“If the marauders are too far ahead, the seeker won’t reach,” Nathaliey said.
“I don’t think it’s come to that yet, but we can’t keep sweeping in a circle, either.” He’d been thinking about this since morning. “From here, the enemy either needs to drop into the plains south of Aristonia, or start climbing toward the old road. If they descend to the plains, we’ll lose them anyway.”
“Toward the mountains is where Wolfram has his horses and the other paladins,” she said. “You don’t suppose Bronwyn wants to kill them and steal their mounts to keep her brother from crossing back into Eriscoba?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Wolfram seemed confident she wouldn’t be able to find where they’re hidden. Could be she’s just trying to reach the road herself.”
“And invade Eriscoba with all of fifteen marauders? Doesn’t seem likely.”
Yet Markal was sure Bronwyn had come this way. They’d searched before leaving the stone circle, and spotted the former paladin and the surviving gray marauders picking their way south on foot. Three more searches over the subsequent days had turned up nothing, but this morning they’d stumbled over the remains of a campfire, the ash still warm.
Nathaliey spoke the incantation, and an invisible eye formed overhead. Markal attached his perspective to the object as it floated up from the trees and moved south. The seeker was naturally drawn to movement, and they passed above a black bear foraging for berries, and then a partially constructed stone tower atop a rocky ledge, where four slender figures were building an aerie while their griffin mounts squabbled over a deer carcass. That was useful to know; even if Markal and Nathaliey didn’t find the marauders, they’d at least veer lower on the mountainside when going that way, so as not to alert more griffin riders of their presence.
The seeker moved in jerky movements, covering a good deal of ground at once, and then slowing to hover as Nathaliey regathered her will to push it into motion again. They moved over cliffs, deep gorges, rushing mountain streams, and thick woods.
“Keep going south,” he murmured. “The road should be just ahead of us.”
“The seeker is fading. I can’t carry it much farther or it will break apart entirely. Surely they haven’t reached this far south. They were only a few miles ahead when we spotted the campfire. Maybe they’re taking cover from griffins, like we are.”
“Didn’t the seeker hesitate a little ways back?” he asked.
“Just past the griffin aerie, you mean? I was trying to get control again, that’s all.”
“No, I felt something. Bring it back this way a little, but send it lower to the ground.”
Markal’s eyes were closed to follow the seeker, and he sensed Nathaliey’s doubt, rather than saw it on her face. As she brought the seeker closer to their position, her control improved, and its vision sharpened. Suddenly, the seeker came to a halt above a stony hillside, where only patches of scrubby brush had taken root. One of the larger rocks moved, and then he saw that many of them were not rocks at all, but people lying flat against the ground with their cloaks drawn up about them. He counted eight, but several of the other rocks might have been people as well.
They seemed to have solved two mysteries at once. First, that the marauders were indeed going toward the old road, rather than dropping into the lowlands. And second, the enemy was making better time than the paladins because they had the ability to cross open terrain without fear of attack from the air, thanks to their cloaks. Whenever Bronwyn spotted griffins, she and her men could flatten themselves and hide, as they were doing now.
Markal told Nathaliey to search the sky, expecting to see griffins overhead, but there was nothing. So why weren’t the marauders moving? The seeker dropped lower to study the enemy warriors more carefully, and that’s when one of the marauders threw off her cloak and looked directly at the seeker. It was Bronwyn. She clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes, and her thoughts were almost audible.
I see you. I know you’re spying on me.
Nathaliey broke apart the seeker and let out her breath slowly as the two of them stood and brushed off pine needles.
“That was . . . unexpected,” Nathaliey said. “A seeker’s vision isn’t supposed to flow both ways.”
“It did this time.”
“Yes, apparently.”
They returned to the paladins, who were anxious to resume their march. Markal told Wolfram what they’d spotted. The captain listened thoughtfully, and didn’t seem thrown off that his sister had detected their presence and knew they were following.
“It’s a trade I’m willing to make,” he said. “Once we reach Lucas’s band, we’ll have mounts and more paladins with which to fight. Any battle on the road will be to our advantage. We’ll catch Bronwyn in the mountain passes and put an end to her.”
#
It was well after dark when Wolfram led them, stumbling and exhausted, into his hidden encampment not far from the old road, which had been abandoned by all but the hardiest bandits and large groups of armed men, thanks to giants infesting the passes. Towering cliffs rose on three sides of the narrow box canyon, leaving only a narrow slit for the stars overhead, but the canyon walls very nearly concealed them from overhead and left them invulnerable to ambush from below at the same time.
Before traveling north to the stone ring, Wolfram had left roughly twenty paladins to guard his horses and supplies, and their lieutenant was a barrel-chested man named Sir Lucas, with a red beard shot with gray, and a patch over his right eye. There were relieved greetings all around, and Lucas’s paladins set about putting up tents and bringing out food for the newcomers.
Markal and Nathaliey took their place at one of the campfires, and cold, weary paladins settled in all around with coughs and groans and murmured relief. Food and drink soon materialized. The rest were already eating by the time Wolfram settled in from inspecting the camp. He took a round of flatbread and a piece of cheese on a wooden plate, and took a swig from a wineskin as it went around the fire.
Lucas approached a minute later and sat down by the captain, but not without first fixing his good eye on Markal and Nathaliey with a suspicious gaze that gradually faded as Wolfram explained who they were and summarized the fight at the stone circle. Lucas expressed dismay to hear of Bronwyn’s dark transformation, then reported in turn.
He’d stayed hidden this past week, even when a scout reported a dozen marauders coming up the old road to cross west into Eriscoba. He’d very nearly led his company after them in an attempt to ambush the marauders from behind, but it was a good thing he hadn’t, as a much larger group of enemies was following in their wake. This was another company of marauders, plus some three hundred Veyrian soldiers on foot.
“I hated to let the devils go through unimpeded,” Lucas said. “I wanted to ignore orders and give them a fight.”
“Twenty paladins against three hundred men?” Markal said doubtfully.
“We’re mounted, and they were on foot,” Lucas said. “We’d have killed or scattered the lot of them.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Markal said. “Veyrians are
brave enough in battle.”
“Like leaves to the wind,” Lucas said, and slammed a fist into his palm. “But the marauders are another matter. There were twenty in the second company.”
Wolfram looked troubled. “Twelve ahead and twenty behind. And three hundred regular soldiers on foot.”
“Plus Bronwyn’s fifteen,” Markal said.
“My scouts didn’t see her pass,” Lucas said. “I had a man watching the road all day, and he reported nothing.”
“If she came through after dark, you’d have never spotted her,” Markal said. “Not if she didn’t want you to.”
“That makes fifty marauders, give or take,” Lucas said. “Plus three hundred foot soldiers. It’s enough to cause trouble, but they can’t take the whole of Eriscoba with it.”
“Could be they intend to grab a toehold long enough for a full army to come in behind them,” Wolfram said. “What do you think, wizard? Does the invasion come here, in the south?”
“I don’t think so,” Markal began carefully. “Toth already holds the northern passes, and his army there numbers in the thousands, not hundreds. Plus tens of thousands of slaves, and a new highway to carry supplies quickly from across the khalifates.”
Nathaliey leaned around him to join the conversation. “He already has his toehold in Estmor, doesn’t he?”
Wolfram nodded. “Right where his highway comes down from the passes. He flooded the land, killing hundreds with flooding and disease, and enslaved or drove out the rest. Enemy troops hold the castle, but the kings, earls, and the like have bottled them up with an army.”
“How about here, in the south?” Markal asked. “Which lands are on the other side of the mountains?”
“Mostly freehold farms. Some towns left impoverished since the road closed. A barony that collapsed after marauders sacked its keep and killed the baroness. It wasn’t far from there that my sister took the red sword.”
“Did you say you’d got it back?” Lucas asked.
“We’ve got it,” Wolfram said, “but I don’t dare to use it. Not if it’s turned against us, like our friends here say.”
“It seems to me that the enemy has done well attacking from both the new road and the old,” Markal said. “He’s got a castle in your lands to the north, and left the hill country to the south lawless and infested with bandits.”
“Only near the mountains,” Wolfram said. “Go twenty, thirty miles west from the hill country and you’ll find everything in order.”
“But now they’re making a serious push with marauders and foot soldiers,” Markal said. “The marauders will raid and kill and force the Blackshields to chase them across the land while the Veyrian troops burn fields and sack the towns and villages.”
Wolfram glanced at Lucas, and the two men shared a troubled look at this assessment.
Markal continued. “And then, when the kingdoms near Estmor try to raise more troops for the main fight, the lands to the rear will refuse because they’re pinned down with an invasion of their own.”
“My sister is the key to all of this,” Wolfram said. “With fifty marauders under her command, she’ll be difficult to defeat.”
“We’d better catch her before she gets through the mountains,” Markal said. “But then what?”
Wolfram sounded more decisive. “Once we finish her, we’ll take the fight to the main invasion force and wipe them out.”
Markal glanced around the camp. “You’ve got sixty, seventy paladins in fighting condition. Before you’ve bloodied yourself against Bronwyn’s company. And then you expect to destroy a small army of marauders and foot soldiers?”
“This isn’t the entirety of my forces,” Wolfram said. “Not even the half of it. We’ve doubled our numbers since Bronwyn left, and the ones who’ve joined the Blackshields are more dedicated, better warriors on the whole than the ones we left behind.
“I’ve got another hundred and twenty paladins gathering near Arvada,” he continued. “When we get through the mountains, I’ll send a rider to fetch the rest of my forces, and we’ll end the threat once and for all.”
“All right,” Markal said. “But when you’ve destroyed Bronwyn and defeated the diversionary attack, the enemy will still be pressing through the mountains to the north. What then?”
Wolfram lifted his chin, and a passion Markal hadn’t seen before burned on his face until he looked like Bronwyn when she’d been standing on the bridge over Blossom Creek, sword in hand, facing down an army of wights. Just like his sister before, a holy warrior facing evil.
“And then, with victory at our backs and triumph on our tongues, we ride through Eriscoba, sweeping up all who would join us. Kings, knights, peasants with spears—all will join our army. We will meet these decadent eastern warriors and heap their dead upon the field of battle.”
Firelight reflected in Wolfram’s eyes as he turned his gaze on the companions from the Crimson Path. “And you, my friends, will stand at the head of our army, calling down the power of the Brother Gods to sweep this necromancer from the face of the earth.”
Chapter Eighteen
Nathaliey was still yawning and blinking back sleep early the next morning when they reached the old road. They’d given her a horse, but it carried supplies, and she was on foot, leaning against the animal for support as they both plodded along. She missed her old horse, and couldn’t help but wonder how it was faring in the hands of the marauders. But this was a good animal, with stamina enough to carry a burden, while still being strong and swift enough to carry a rider into battle.
They were moving toward a gash between two of the largest peaks, and Nathaliey could clearly see where passing Veyrian troops had come through and trampled the grass sprouting up in the middle of the neglected, seldom-traveled road. Once she was more awake, she thought she’d grab Markal and they could push ahead to study boot and horse prints to confirm the number of marauders versus men on foot.
But they’d been on the old road for less than an hour when a scout came pounding back down the road, anxious to report to the captain. Nathaliey and Markal brought their horses up to listen as the scout warned Wolfram that a giant blocked the road where it forded the river.
“How big is it?” Wolfram asked. “Bigger or smaller than the other one?”
The scout shook his head. “Not sure—I only saw it from a distance.”
“We fought one of these creatures just before Bronwyn left,” Wolfram explained to Nathaliey and Markal. “Lost a woman in the fight, with five more paladins wounded. That giant was about twelve feet tall, but there are bigger ones out there, and this might be one of them. I hate to leave it on the road menacing travelers, but I’d rather not suffer any more losses, either.”
“Is there another ford?” Nathaliey asked. “Another way to cross?”
“Not generally, but the river was low a week ago when we came through. It might be possible to find another crossing downstream and hook around to rejoin the road above the ford. It would help to know how big the giant is and if we need to stay away from it.”
Wolfram looked at the young scout. “Ride on ahead, see if you can get a closer look without being spotted. Don’t approach too close or try to cross the river.”
“Yes, Captain.” The young man turned his horse around and made to ride off.
“Henry, wait,” Wolfram said, as if something had occurred to him. He studied the two companions from the order. “What about one of your magical eyes? Could you send it ahead and see what you find? That would keep my scout out of danger.”
“I’d rather not use a seeker,” Markal said. “If Bronwyn is in the area, she’ll see we’re drawing closer. And then she’ll realize we must have picked up horses to carry our gear.”
“What if we go in person and investigate under cloak of magic?” Nathaliey suggested. “That way Henry doesn’t have to get too close.”
Wolfram liked this option, and so Nathaliey and Markal took a pair of horses and rode up ahead of the company. Af
ter traveling with the Blackshields these last few days, she welcomed the chance to leave them behind for a stretch, to leave the noise and smell, and the feeling of being crowded among nearly seventy paladins and their mounts.
But mostly it was nice to be back in the saddle and giving her footsore body a chance to rest. The scout led them. A second scout was concealed in a copse of trees off the road about a mile forward from the main company, and he stuck his head out long enough to indicate clear riding ahead. That allowed the trio to pick up the pace.
“Here we are,” Henry said some time later. “Another few minutes and you’ll reach the ford.”
“Stay here with the horses,” Markal said as he and Nathaliey dismounted.
They continued without Henry, and once he was out of sight, they stopped long enough to cast a concealing spell. Markal did the incantation, accomplished with a few drops of blood. A strange shadow seemed to settle on Nathaliey’s surroundings as the magic altered her perceptions.
“You did that well,” she said.
“It’s the pendant. Gave me a hint of confidence at the right moment, and I didn’t bleed it all off.” Markal tugged on the chain around his neck and pulled the silver crescent moon out from beneath his shirt. He ran a finger along the curved inner surface. “Such a little charm—could it be that’s all I needed?”
“Well there goes my advantage,” she said. “You’ve got both knowledge and power now.”
It was said in a joking tone, but as they continued, she found that she really was bothered. Not that Markal had overcome his doubts—she was happy for him—but by what it meant about herself. Markal was a wizard, while she was still an apprentice, and whenever that made her feel glum, she reminded herself of his limitations. There were clear ways in which her talents exceeded his; if he was a wizard, some day she would be, too.
It was petty to want Markal to keep his doubts just so she’d feel better about herself. If a simple pendant could break his lack of faith, so much the better. But then she would have nothing to console herself with, nothing to distract her from her own delays in advancing within the order. If she ever got back to Aristonia, she told herself, she’d go to the palace library and study texts until she’d pounded every last incantation into her head.
The Black Shield (The Red Sword Book 2) Page 18
