by LeRoy Clary
“Who made this trail?” I asked.
“No idea, but it does not matter.”
“Why?”
She turned to me as if I’d asked another stupid question, which it turned out I had. She said, “Because a trail comes from one place and goes to another.”
She was right. Trails exist for reasons, even old ones. The ground became more broken, and we reached a dry riverbed. The banks of either side were taller than a man on a horse and they were steep, yet the trail went down one of the few places where access to the bottom was an easy ride. Across the riverbed, perhaps a hundred steps away, the path continued up the other bank.
Kendra turned off the trail to our right along the dry riverbed and to where the bank was even taller and steeper, almost a small cliff. At the base was an old campsite. While it was in direct sun, a small sliver of shade was already growing on the east side. Before long, there would be enough to shade us.
Kendra dismounted and said, “Nice of somebody to leave this for us.”
“In this heat, I need more sleep.”
She nodded, but said, “We all do. First, we need more water. Mine’s all gone, and the horses must be parched.”
I looked at the sand at my feet. Any rain would soak down before it could become a puddle to drink from. We needed a hollow in solid rock like last night.
Kendra said, “Look at the old river bottom near the center. It’s a different color.”
We walked there, and she knelt. With a hand, she scooped at it and found it hard. “Clay. Baked hard.”
“But not a hollow. Water will just flow away.”
She looked behind us where the clay mixed with sand. “We’ll make a little dam. The horses can drink from that. So, can we.”
Her idea was simple and would work. Kendra had a habit of doing that. Most of us tend to complicate issues. We pushed sand to the hard middle where it was baked hard by the sun, into a crude circle. I sat beside it and called on the little nearby water, concentrated it into a mist that engulfed us in a short time. As before, a slight breeze caused the vapor droplets to collide and combine, and finally to fall as drops.
The horses smelled the water and arrived on their own as the first drops struck the ground and sank in so fast, we watched them hit, turn the clay a darker color, then it faded back to the original.
I pulled more water, and the number of drops increased. The ground held onto the water better, and more fell. Under our little cloud, water finally rose in the circular dam we’d made until a finger dipped into it wouldn’t touch bottom.
The horses had already lapped up, snorted, and sucked all they wanted. However, I noticed they didn’t leave the mini-storm to return to the heat of the direct sun. Their coats were soaked, cool water sluiced off them in sheets, and to me, they looked as contented as we were.
Wet hair matted Kendra’s smiling face. She finally knelt and used her lips to suck the surface of the water. I did the same. It had a gritty texture and tasted of dryness if that makes sense, but overall it was some of the best water I’d ever tasted.
Kendra said, “I love having a mage for a brother.”
“I am not a mage.”
She ignored me. “Do you know what would be really nice? I mean, this is good but better? Well, I’ll tell you. If you could slow the rain to a small drizzle, just a few tiny drops here and there, and keep the cool mist around us while we sleep. And maybe add a mug of cool white wine.”
“Using magic makes me tired so you’ll have to wait for the wine.”
She sat still, enjoying the diminishing rain as I slowed it to a cool mist. “Why haven’t you heard from Anna?”
“I’ll try her now.”
I reached out and found her mind unreceptive. It was dark in her mind and wouldn’t allow me entry. She was sleeping. Interesting. I gently prodded and poked. Nothing. I considered trying to suggest a bee stinging her arm but didn’t for two reasons. First, it might not work. Second, it might.
Waking to a bee sting was not the ideal situation for either of us. But her sleep, as little as I could tell, was peaceful, so I assumed our friends were doing well. They must have made the initial escape and hadn’t been captured, or Anna would not be comfortably asleep.
“She is sleeping. They were probably up most of the night.”
“Sleeping? In the daytime? Are you sure?”
I knew what she was asking—but she didn’t want to say the words out loud. Was she alive? “I can touch her mind, but it’s like talking to a deaf person. She is there. I sense no fear or pain, so assume she is sleeping.”
“Can you wake her and find out?”
I paused. “I don’t know. Doing that might really scare her, I mean, waking up with someone in your head.”
She said, “You’re right, you’re right. Don’t try. Can you tell when she wakes?”
“I can check back with her until she is awake.”
That settled the conversation. The gentle rain had come to a stop and was now more of a fog, so I added a little water to it, and a few small drops fell on us. Kendra looked up, her wet hair plastered on her face, along with a wide smile. “This is nice.”
I said, “I wonder what it looks like from a distance?”
She sat up suddenly. “I can’t see anything past a dozen steps away. I assume nothing out there can see us. What a way to hide.”
“Or, to be snuck up on,” I added. Then, upon an instant if further consideration, “But you’re right. It could be a way to hide. We might have to modify things a little, but it could work.”
“What else can your new powers do?” Kendra asked. “Can you make lightning or fire? We should make a list.”
I had to laugh. She sounded like the eager Kendra of a month ago—and before. A childlike attitude to most of the world in a young woman’s body. She had always been the curious one, the girl who wanted to know more, and the girl who avoided practice with swords, spears, bows, knives, and any combat. Princess Elizabeth and I looked forward to the morning lessons, even to the point of extending them until time to dress for lunch.
Kendra had attended the same lessons half-heartedly, skipping them when possible, and never taking an active role. That didn’t mean she couldn’t defend herself with most weapons, or that she would hesitate to do so. She still wore her pair of throwing knives under her sleeves.
That thought gave my mind time to shift to a related subject. When encountering enemies, they looked to me as the threat. She was the chameleon that was possibly more dangerous because she was unknown. In me, they knew they faced a swordsman and treated me that way. I had to fight to defeat them. Kendra could act demure and innocent and then strike like a desert snake from concealment behind a rock.
That provided us with an added weapon to use when needed. My magic was similar. Only a few knew I had any abilities, and none besides Kendra knew the extent of my new ones. I turned to share my ideas only to find my sister had slumped forward in an awkward position and was sound asleep.
I eased her to her side and heard a mumble of thanks before standing. I walked out of the rain into intense midday heat and a cloudless sky. My clothing steamed and would soon be dry. A long survey in four of the six ancient directions mentioned in the Book of Warfare revealed we were alone.
But there were six. At sea, there were dangers that came from below. And there was always the sky. Because of training, I glanced up. A dark figure high above floated on waves of air, hardly using its wings to remain aloft. I smiled to myself. Kendra’s dragon checking up on us, and as always keeping us in her sight.
I turned away to reenter my little gray cloud and perhaps take a nap too when I paused. The dragon had appeared odd, even at the extreme distance. It was too thin around the middle. Almost like a Wyvern.
I stopped so quickly I almost fell forward, my eyes already searching the pale blue near the sun. My eyes squinted, then found it again. The Wyvern was much closer, diving directly at me, its wings pinned back, its eyes locked on mine.
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“Kendra,” I screamed.
At the same time, my sword appeared in my hand, and a hated tinging of fear filled me. The Wyvern was as large as a house. Its talons curved and were as long as a steer’s horns. They were extended, ready to grasp me. The mouth full of jagged teeth showed as the lips pulled back in a snarl.
It wasn’t flying so much as falling at me. I saw the details of the pattern of its skin, the red pupils of the eyes, the salivating pushed away by the passage of air. I hated the thing.
It could kill me simply by falling on me. At the speed it came, there was no contest, no place to hide. I ignored the talons, the speed, and the ripping teeth.
I stood my ground, waiting with my little sword in hand. From somewhere, my mind seemed to belong to someone else. It pulled away from the coming attack and methodically considered my options, which were few. I couldn’t outrun it. There was no shelter to hide behind. Kendra’s dragon was not going to rescue me. But I had magic.
I faintly heard my sister shouting my name, but there was no time to turn. Instead, I focused on all the surface of the ground me, drawing the searing heat to me in a similar manner as I did the moisture for the rain that still fell near Kendra. I concentrated that heat, reduced it to the size of my fist, combined it with more heat from the surface of the hot sand, and then my mind pushed it at the Wyvern in an intense ball of fire.
The Wyvern screamed in fear and pain as it burst into flames.
The creature became red, blue, and orange as tongues of fire consume it, as it continued to fall from the sky. Its wings were no longer visible in the pyre, it continued the forward course it had been on, falling directly at me.
“Damon,” Kendra screamed, waking me from my trance.
I dived to my right, and rolled over and over in the sand, as the impact from the Wyvern scored a trench, right where I’d been standing. It had come so near to me I had felt the heat as it passed by on its death dive.
Kendra dived on top of me, crying and plummeting her fists on my chest in frustration. “Why didn’t you move?”
“Did you see what I did?”
She shoved me aside as a tavern server might shove a drunk. “Yes! You stood there and waited for that thing to crush you.”
My voice was soft. “No, I made it burn. I set it on fire.”
“How?” She looked at me, scared.
“With my mind. I pulled the heat from the sand and rocks and air, then made it hotter and threw it at the Wyvern.” I turned to her. She seemed less surprised and impressed than me.
I turned to the black, smoking, dead husk of what had been a magnificent animal. I’d killed it without touching it. Just the power of my mind, a power I hadn’t even known existed a few moments ago, had killed a beast.
Kendra said, “I guess we need to add another one to that list we were discussing.”
For some reason, that struck me as funny. Perhaps it was a way to release the built-up fear inside, or that my sense of humor is stunted and often out of step with the rest of the world. No matter. I laughed, and Kendra joined in. We laughed until we cried.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Late in the afternoon, we drank as much water as we could hold, refilled our water bottles, and left the riverbed where we’d slept away the heat of the afternoon. Each time I’d awoken to the afternoon desert heat, I simply drew more moisture and placed it into the air above us to form a cloud and a few drops of coolness.
The strangest thing was not that I did it, but that it came so naturally. I did it without fully waking. Before departing, we’d examined the dead Wyvern. The fire had almost consumed the flesh, leaving bones and teeth. A few insects gorged on the burned flesh. More would arrive during the night. By morning, a mountain of burned Wyvern would be under attack by thousands of tiny, hungry mouths.
We rode due east with our backs to the setting sun. The sea was somewhere ahead of us, and we dared not travel northward to Dagger where we could buy food and get directions. The Wyvern that had attacked hadn’t found us by accident. Someone had sent it.
Before sleeping, and after our fit of laughter, Kendra suggested she send her dragon to guard the others of our group at the lake. It didn’t take special instructions to warn the dragon of the Wyvern, even if she could. It knew and hated them. Any in the area would be attacked.
I reached out to Anna. She responded right away, *I’m here.*
*A Wyvern attacked us. Warn everyone.*
*Are you all right?*
*We’re fine. Kendra sent her dragon to guard over you.*
She didn’t respond right away. Then, she said, *I see it.*
I told her we were moving east, and she said the boat they were on was sailing in the same direction. They had seen two separate groups of soldiers marching to the west, to where they had last been seen. They planned to sail and row all night, through the narrow passage from one lake to another.
*Won’t that be dangerous?* I asked.
*The old fisherman says it had never been guarded before, besides, all the soldiers are heading upriver. If we see any sign of trouble, we’ll move away from the passage and try going around on land. There will be other boats we can steal if we do that, Coffin said.*
I flashed the image of a freed bird to her as a way of ending the conversation. As I started to call to Kendra and relay the information, the image of a fish swimming past a net filled my mind. I chuckled at Anna’s humorous imagery. I used the freed bird for her, she used a netted fish. We looked at the same things differently.
The late afternoon had heated the rocks and sand, but as the sun sank, the air cooled. We rode steadily, always looking around to see what might be attacking next. We saw nobody and not a sign that anyone had ever ventured into the desert we crossed. They may have, but we saw no discarded items, abandoned huts or houses, no rings of rocks that had been firepits, no roads, and only a few trails that animals had used.
To the world, we were alone.
The horses carried us into the night, never faltering, slowing, or complaining. We rode through a darkness so clear and crisp that each star was visible. Our blankets were around our shoulders, and near the middle of the night, I placed mine over my head to warm my ears. Kendra was in the lead, never halting and seldom slowing.
She moved as if possessed. Or scared. Stopping gave our enemies time to find us or catch up. She wouldn’t allow that. The moon gave more light to navigate the rocky ground when it rose.
I wanted to find trees to shade us, and near dawn we did. The ground dipped, and a dark line told us where a river had once flowed. When we reached it, we found a thin trickle of brown so narrow we could step over it. But alongside the banks grew trees, many of them dead.
However, a few survived, and we found a small grove where five or six grew near each other. We let the horses drink water at the river, then staked them in the grove near where we intended to sleep.
There was little for them there, but staking horses makes them easy targets for wolves or other predators unless kept close. Keeping them near us might keep them hungry until dawn but would also keep them alive.
Anna came into my mind. *Can’t talk now, but we’re safely through the narrows and rowing to deep water.*
*We are also doing well.*
Her presence winked from my mind leaving me to feel awkwardly alone. That explains how ingrained and ordinary feeling our method of communications had become, and I felt sorry for anyone who couldn’t duplicate it. I told Kendra what she had said, and when I looked at her a last time, a smile was on her lips. I went to sleep happy.
We slept through the morning coolness and the first harsh rays of the sun. Near midmorning, I awoke sweating and sore from the all-night ride. We’d chosen our place to make camp well, with one major exception. The sun struck with brilliant sunlight. A shadow behind us indicated that as the sun rose higher, we’d be in the shade again.
I went to the horses and watered them, feeling guilty at providing only sluggish brown river water when I
could make better. Then, to wash the mud from their mouths, I led them to a patch of green, knee-high grass. The horses didn’t hesitate to eat. Mine seemed to look at me in appreciation a few times as if we were old friends—or it may have been scared I’d pull them away from their first good meal in days. It’s hard to tell with horses.
I didn’t believe they would leave the lush grass for anything, so I climbed the bank with the intent of doing a little exploring. Unlike before when I’d searched the four directions, then the up at the sky, I had learned. I looked up first. There were no Wyverns.
I stood on a small hill, just tall enough to allow an unrestricted view all around. After looking in three directions, I turned to face north, where the chain of lakes and our friends were located somewhere over the far horizon. It was as empty and barren as the other three, until a tiny flash, a glint of sunlight off glass or metal, caught my attention, not once, but twice. It was no mistake.
The location held my attention for a time, but the flash didn’t repeat. I’d never seen or heard of such a thing in the natural world, except for sun on water, which was not what I’d seen. Sunlight reflections of the type I’d observed came from things made my man. Glass and metal, perhaps other things.
What was important was that I believed the maximum distance I could see a reflection like that would be less than a half day's travel, probably closer. It didn’t mean there were soldiers a half day from us . . . but it might. No matter what the cause, we needed to know.
A mental map of what I remembered of the area formed in my head. I knew we were a day’s travel south of the lakes, on a line below Kaon, and a full day’s travel east. Two more days to the coast. A day and a half to be directly south of Dagger. There had been nothing on the map to indicate a town, or the presence of enough water to support life. The Brownlands were stark and devoid of life because of the lack of water.
We had hoped to pass by Dagger without incident or sighting enemies—and that they didn’t sight us. However, we were getting low on food. We’d eaten the last of our meager store yesterday.
