Quinn poured water over the wound and then wrapped it with a strip of cloth he had cut from Mansel’s discarded sleeve. He tied the knot on top of the wound, binding it as tightly as he could.
“Ouch,” Mansel said. “Do you have to tie it so tight?”
“Best way to stop the bleeding,” Quinn said. “We’ll get you a salve at the next village we come to. Let’s get going.”
They rode away from the scene of the fight, Quinn leading the outlaw leader’s horse and leaving the bodies laying in the road. Orin was already going through his fallen companions’ pockets for valuables. The sight made Mansel queasy. It was one thing to kill a man in a fight, he thought to himself, but picking over the dead like vultures was disgusting.
“Zollin and I were ambushed by outlaws on the road to Orrock,” Mansel said. “We overcame them and had one prisoner. He was wounded, though, and we finished him. Do you think that was wrong?”
“I don’t judge situations I wasn’t a part of,” Quinn said. “If you felt like killing the man was the best thing to do, then it probably was.”
“I don’t feel bad about it,” Mansel said. “I’m just surprised that you let that bastard back there live. I would have killed him.”
“I don’t like killing. I really don’t like conflict at all. It eats away at me. Peace of mind is a valuable thing at my age and I have enough to worry about. Between you and Zollin, I’ll be lucky not to wind up in an early grave.”
Mansel laughed and nodded his head. “I can see that,” he said.
Chapter 4
“What did he want?” Brianna asked once they were on their way out of Orrock. They had walked through the city proper and retrieved their horses from the livery barn where Zollin had stashed them a few days before. Soll, the stable owner, had seen to them and even had them saddled and ready. Brianna had been overjoyed to see Lilly once again. The mare had neighed when she saw Brianna, pricking up her ears and leaning her head out as far as she could over the door of her stall. Now they were riding through the outskirts of Orrock at a leisurely pace.
“You mean King Felix?” Zollin said.
“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“I don’t know,” Zollin said. “He said a lot of things that seemed innocent enough, but I got the impression he was trying to lay claim to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he seems to think that the other kingdoms are going to demand that I leave Yelsia.”
“What? Why?” Brianna asked, her voice rising with concern.
“According to King Felix, the Master of the Torr has called a Council of Kings. My bet is that he’s trying to force me to join the Torr.”
“Can he do that?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know that anyone but a King could call a council of the Five Kingdoms, but the Torr must have a lot of power. Felix implied that he would use the army to protect me, but I don’t see how the royal army can fight off the armies of the four other kingdoms.”
“They couldn’t,” Brianna said. “Unless they had a wizard fighting with them.”
“Exactly! He tried to sound concerned and protective, but it came across as really possessive.”
“Like all he really cared about was being the first kingdom to have a wizard in over a century?”
“Yes,” Zollin said.
They rode for a while in silence after that. The sun was bright and the weather was warm. They saw fields where farmers labored and watched as children ran and played around the homesteads they passed. These cheerful scenes were mixed with the sight of refugees making their way to Orrock. Some were camped by the roadside, their clothes dirty and tattered, their meager possessions guarded by desperate people with fearful eyes. Others were traveling, most were walking and some pushed wheelbarrows or pulled small carts. The refugee children looked tired and scared.
As they traveled, the realization of their task set in, like a heavy burden on Zollin’s and Brianna’s backs. They talked less and observed more. Their cheerful demeanors soon turned more serious.
“How do you fight a dragon?” Brianna asked.
“I don’t know.”
“So, what do you plan to do?”
“I plan to find Kelvich and figure something out.”
“You fought the dragon before,” Brianna said. “What did you do?”
“I just tried to survive,” Zollin confessed.
“But you won,” she reasoned.
“I think I got lucky. The dragon swung its tail at me and I dodged it. The tail smashed into the Gateway Inn, and I saw that it was hurt. I was able to knock the building down on the dragon’s tail. It was luck really.”
“Can’t we do something like that again? Maybe lay a trap for it?”
“We can try, it’s actually a good idea. But we’ll need to do more than hurt it. We’ve got to kill it or it will just keep destroying villages.”
“It seems impossible,” Brianna said, letting a little bit of the desperation she was feeling show in her voice.
“We’ll figure it out,” Zollin said, realizing he needed to change the subject and get her mind on something positive.
“Hey,” he said cheerfully, “they’re selling fresh strawberries.” He pointed at a little wooden stand where a farmer was selling some of his crop to the people traveling past his farm. “I say we take a break and get some.”
“Okay,” Brianna said, but she still sounded fearful.
Zollin guided his horse to a tall tree that was casting its cool shadow across the farmer’s neatly kept lawn. He swung out of the saddle and looped his horse’s reins around a low hanging limb, then took hold of Lilly’s bridle so that Brianna could slide off her horse. Brianna was wearing leather riding pants with extra padding on the backside. She had on dark leather boots that rose up her leg and ended just below her knee. Her shirt was linen and she had a riding cloak folded neatly behind her saddle.
“You look stunning,” Zollin said.
Brianna frowned and said, “Stop it. I know what you’re trying to do.”
“What?” Zollin said innocently.
“You’re trying to cheer me up, but it won’t work.”
“I didn’t know you needed cheering up,” Zollin replied.
“Buy me some strawberries.”
“Okay,” Zollin said with a smile.
They walked over to the farmer, who greeted them with enthusiasm. He had several early summer crops for sale. There were radishes and heads of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and peppers, but it was the sweet smell of strawberries that was the center of the farmer’s display. He had the sweet fruit in small clay bowls.
Zollin bought three bowls, paying with the King’s silver, and they moved back to the large tree. They sat and ate in companionable silence, the strawberries gushing sweet juice with every bite. When they finished, they washed the juice from their hands and faces at a well that sat near the little farm house.
“Why don’t we try out your new bow?” Zollin suggested.
“What? Here?”
“Sure, why not? I’ll set up a target for you.”
He walked toward the large field behind the farmhouse. There were rows and rows of vegetables planted neatly and growing in an orderly fashion, but nothing that would serve as a suitable backstop for Brianna’s arrows. There was, however, a large pile of brush. If Brianna shot arrows into the thicket, they would be lost in the maze of limbs and dry foliage. Still, the raw materials were there and it only took Zollin a few moments to rearrange the brush into a solid mass. He imagined the brush becoming an arched wall of light wood and the pile began to vibrate. Soon the brush swirled as the atoms rearranged themselves.
Seeing Zollin work filled Brianna with a sense of pride and excitement. She remembered when he had first revealed his power to her in a back alley of their hometown, Tranaugh Shire. She had known instinctively on that day that her future was linked to the carpenter’s son, who she barely knew at the time. Now she couldn’t imagine h
er life without Zollin. It wasn’t just his power that drew her to him, it was his kindness, the strength of his resolve to be a good man, and his passion for magic.
“What do you think?” Zollin asked when he finished the backstop.
He had added a round target made of straw, and now he was feeling the familiar sense of fatigue that working his magic gave him. It was not as acute as in the past. He could tap into the well of magic that was deep inside of him and flowed through his body like a flaming wind. And he could feel the strength growing day by day, but tapping into that vast reserve gave him an almost manic sense of power, and he did his best to do most things from the overflow of that reservoir that he had discovered almost a year ago in Tranaugh Shire.
“It’s spectacular,” Brianna said, beaming. “I’ll get my bow and the arrows you made me.”
Zollin took a long drink from the metal cup that was next to the well. The water in their skins would be lukewarm, but the water from the well was cool and refreshing. He felt his strength returning as he drank, and when Brianna returned from their horses she had his bag of supplies, including some hard bread and bacon. He ate the tough but flavorful meat while she strung the bow.
“The draw weight doesn’t seem to be very strong,” she said.
Zollin detected the note of worry in her voice and swallowed his food so that he could reassure her.
“It’s not, but the way the wood is shaped will make it shoot with more force than you would expect,” he said. “At least that’s what the merchant told me.”
“We’ll soon find out,” she said.
She was tying a bracer to her left arm to protect it from the bowstring. She had fashioned a glove for her right hand out of remnants of lambskin when she was working with the tailor in Brighton’s Gate. She pulled the glove on and tied the quiver around her narrow hips. Zollin thought she looked like a warrior goddess, but he remained silent. It had been a long time since he had seen her shoot. She had practiced through the winter at Brighton’s Gate, but Zollin had not been around to see her. He had been sequestered in the little cabin in the woods with Kelvich so that the townspeople would believe he was dead.
She stood with her left side facing the target. She placed an arrow against the string and drew the bow, pushing out with her left arm and pulling back with her right arm at the same time, until her thumb rested lightly against her cheek. Then suddenly the arrow was flying. They were thirty yards from the target and the arrow shot straight and true, slamming into the target with a quivering thud.
“Impressive,” Zollin said.
“This bow is amazing,” Brianna said. “I hardly felt any recoil or vibration at all. And the draw is so light, I feel like I could shoot it all day.”
“Do I know how to pick ’em or what?” Zollin said, but Brianna was already aiming another shot.
Zollin watched in silence after that. He had crafted two dozen arrows for her and she shot them all, her face glowing with satisfaction. After she shot the last arrow, she turned to him.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s amazing.”
“You’re amazing,” Zollin said. “Look at that target.”
The arrows were grouped in a tight bunch near the center and a little high.
“I have to aim a little low at this range. The arrows seem to leap up off the bowstring.”
“Is that bad?” Zollin asked.
“No, it isn’t bad. It’s incredible. I can’t believe how powerful the bow is.”
“Well, we better start working on hitting a moving target,” Zollin said. “Any ideas how we do that?”
“We could hunt,” she suggested.
“Would you like that?” he asked.
“Sure, I’ve always wanted to go hunting. My mother would never allow it though. Not that my father went very often. He got most of our meat from Todrek’s father, but he did occasionally go out. I think he enjoyed the solitude of it.”
“Well, alright. We can probably do that. There are pheasants in the fields. They won’t be very big, but they’ll be moving. Do you think you can hit one?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never tried. I’ve shot a Skellmarian, but they aren’t much different from a stationary target. They run straight at you.”
“Well, let’s go see what you can do.”
Brianna retrieved her arrows and replaced them in her quiver. They rode for a while after that, looking for a field that would suit their needs. Occasionally Zollin let his power flow out in search of a brood of pheasants. When he finally found a field with several groups of birds, they dismounted and led the horses. Zollin held the reins while Brianna walked several paces in front of him, an arrow ready to draw and shoot on her bow.
When the first flock of birds went up, she hesitated, trying to perfect her aim, and the birds were soon too far away. Zollin remained silent, he really didn’t have any advice to give her. She was already a much better shot with a bow than Zollin had ever been. He could have caught the birds in midair with his magic, or simply held them on the ground until he was close enough to pick them up, but they didn’t need the meat. This was more about giving Brianna experience with her new weapon, so he simply followed along quietly.
Brianna was concentrating. She mentally chided herself for waiting too long to shoot. She knew she would have to draw and shoot on instinct rather than taking careful aim. She steeled her resolve and kept moving. The next brood took flight with a flutter of wings and squeaking calls, but Brianna was ready. Her bow rose up and the arrow drew back in one fluid motion. As soon as her thumb touched her cheek she released. The arrow shot forward, almost too quick to follow. It flew over the little group of birds and soared into the sky before falling and burying itself halfway into the ground.
“Damn!” she said loudly as she watched the birds escape. “I can do better than that,” she said to herself.
Zollin once again remained silent. They moved on toward where her arrow had fallen, but before they reached it another brood took flight. The birds were small, their bodies slightly bigger than Zollin’s hand. Their wings made them appear bigger and they seemed to fly in formation.
Brianna drew and fired in one graceful motion. This time her arrow took a bird in the wing, near its body. The bird fell to the ground, still flapping its one good wing in a vain attempt to escape.
“Great shot!” Zollin cried.
“I missed,” Brianna said sternly.
“What do you mean?”
“I was aiming for the body, not the wing.”
“Oh,” Zollin said. He reached out with his magic and quieted the bird with feelings of peace and safety. Brianna reached the fallen animal and picked it up by the head, snapping the delicate bones in the pheasant’s neck to end the animal’s pain. She then handed the bird to Zollin, who carried the bird by its feet the way he’d seen his father do it. Brianna cleaned the blood off her arrow and retrieved her other arrow. Then they turned back toward the road. Along the way they flushed out two more broods. This time Brianna did not miss. Her arrows hit both birds in the body, and they left the field with three nice birds for their supper.
Zollin didn’t speak until they were back at the road. He tied the birds to his saddle and then climbed onto the horse.
“That was good,” he said. “You’re a great shot.”
“I was okay because I was ready,” Brianna said. “I knew what the birds were going to do. There was nothing unexpected or frightening about it. I don’t know what I’ll do with a dragon.”
“Well, perhaps I can help with that,” Zollin said. “I have an idea.”
Chapter 5
They rode until the sun started to fall toward the horizon. They passed several small villages, one even had an inn, but they preferred to camp alone. The villages were all full of refugees making a slow trek to Orrock, where they expected to find some type of help. Zollin felt bad for the people who had fled from their homes, but there was very little he could do for them. They made camp by a swift littl
e stream that gurgled softly as it flowed past them. There was a small group of trees near the stream that shielded them from the road. Zollin unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down while Brianna plucked their pheasants.
Zollin gathered wood and then sent a spell toward the wood with his mind. At first nothing seemed to happen, but soon smoke was rising and then bright yellow flames licked up from the small mound.
“Can you make us a spit to roast the birds on?” Brianna asked.
“Sure,” Zollin said.
He’d fashioned spits many times before with his father. He found a few suitable branches and cut them down with a knife he wore at his belt. Then he used the knife to whittle the ends into points so that he could drive them into the ground on either side of the fire. He cut the branches away, leaving only a Y shape at the ends so that the actual spit could be laid across them.
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