Sky Rider

by Terry Mancour

  Now she had to pay closer attention, and force Frightful to really focus on the ground below. She convinced the bird that they were hunting, only hunting buildings on the ground, not rabbits. The novelty of the project did not impress the falcon, but she complied. Dara knew from the wounded soldier’s report that the patrol had headed for an abbey, a ruined and abandoned abbey, so she looked for buildings that size.

  The problem was that even though Frightful’s giant eyes were every bit as sharp as her normal ones, Frightful had a difficult time actually seeing differences in buildings. From the air, size was about all that distinguished them to a bird. Minor features that told a mill apart from a barn were lost on her.

  So Dara had to keep slipping in and out of her rapport with Frightful and stare at the ground with her own eyes. Even using magesight it was a difficult task, made more so by how quickly her eyes started to freeze in the fierce cold of the atmosphere. But if they came upon a building of reasonable size, she had little choice but examine it herself.

  Alas, the abbey seemed to elude them. She looked at plenty of barns, a few manor houses and a mill, and was considering flying westward and expanding her search, when she saw a brief glint of metal in the distance at an unreasonable height. She nudged Frightful to head for the structure with her knees, and was gratified to see a steeple bearing the silhouette of a giant copper sickle at its peak: the symbol of Huin the Tiller, the god of grain agriculture to whom most plowmen and peasants in the Bontal Vales were devoted.

  The building fit the description of an abandoned abbey, and not a particularly large one. It sat half a mile back from the road down a long overgrown track, and the two small outbuildings from the chapel, presumable the kitchen and the living quarters for the priest, were both doorless, dark, and empty. The garden looked untended to Dara’s eye, and the ritual one-acre field used for ceremonies to the Tiller was barren and choked with weeds. If one desired the perfect picture of spooky, ruined old abbey, the one below would serve perfectly, Dara decided, as she examined the site.

  But there were figures down there, she saw. Human figures. And they weren’t moving.

  She wasn’t adept at using magesight, and certainly not with frozen eyeballs, but she managed to alter her vision enough to determine that the bodies were, indeed, dead, and not just sleeping. They emitted no heat, nor did they move. Their arcane shrouds, the magical field that surrounded all living things, to an extent, were missing. As frightening and disheartening as that was, her thaumaturgical gaze also told her that there were no other large living bodies in the area. Whatever happened down there, she reasoned, was over. It was probably safe enough to land and inspect the place on foot.

  With such somber thoughts in mind it was easy for her imagination to consider the worst for her friend and his men. Yet she forced herself not to leap to any conclusions until she’d examined the scene with her own eyes.

  Though she’d not seen any dangers from the air, the first thing she did when her bird’s great talons touched the ground was cock the heavy crossbow and place one of the heavy oaken-shafted, iron-headed darts in the groove. And she made certain the hunting knife at her belt was within reach, before she slid off Frightful’s back and into the abbey’s yard.

  “Keep watch,” she ordered her, unnecessarily. Frightful was eager to find someone to challenge her in her new size, Dara realized. She’d keep careful watch.

  With a heavy heart Dara approached the ruined abbey and saw why it had been abandoned: the chapel was half-consumed by fire. It had been some time ago, Dara noted, based on the vines that had started to grow over the charred timbers that remained. The odor of long-burnt timbers was still barely detectable.

  But the smell of blood in the air was fresh enough.

  As she approached the first of the bodies, she was relieved to see the man’s feet were bare, and his trousers were tattered. None of the knights in Sir Festaran’s squadron would present themselves so, she knew, and upon closer inspection she saw the man was clearly a bandit.

  He looked like a bandit, with an unkempt beard and scars on his face, telling the story of a dangerous life. It had ended in such a manner, too, she noted distastefully. The man had bled to death from a mighty blow betwixt his neck and shoulder. The kind that a cavalry sword might cause.

  That made her breathe a little easier. The Sevendori had fought well. The next body was also a ruffian, though better dressed, she noted. The robber boasted a throat viciously and expertly penetrated by a blade. The next ruffian had been stabbed in the belly after his hand had been hacked, and the fourth had his skull crushed. Only the fifth and final body proved to be one of the Sevendori men-at-arms.

  He had an arrow in his throat, alas, and unlike the bandits his body had been laid out reverently across the vine-covered altar of the abandoned chapel. His sword and shield had been laid over his bloody chest where a thick iron crossbow bolt still protruded. Though as a warrior he was likely to be a patron of Duin, the Destroyer, Dara knew the Narasi believed any temple was better than no temple . . . and Duin and Huin were brothers. No doubt they had given their friend what quick funeral they could before retreating from the abbey after the assault.

  But the Sevendori soldier’s death also told her that her friends were still alive after the battle. The ruffians had been left where they’d fallen, she reasoned, but the man-at-arms had been tended after his death, even in the most elementary fashion. The sort of thing you would do if you were in a hurry and running for your life through the darkness, she decided.

  But how recently? That was the next question Dara asked herself.

  Despite her squeamishness she reached out and touched the dead man’s face. It was cold, but there was a trace of warmth left in it. She tried to forestall her sorrow and act objectively, like a good mage should. She observed his body carefully, looking for the signs she sought. The blood around his wound had yet to dry and turn black. He couldn’t have been killed more than a few hours ago, then, she knew.

  But where did the men go, after their victory at the abbey?

  Clearly, they were now afoot. Dara saw no sign of horses, either the chargers of the knights or the rouncies she assumed a prosperous bandit would ride. She was a poor tracker, particularly at night, but magesight gave her some insight in their direction: westward, away from the road. Which likely meant that, when they’d slain the first group of bandits, it had attracted the attention of a second from the road. A battered horn in a bandit’s outstretched hand supported her theory.

  Westward was helpful, she conceded, but she saw no trace of the men in the underbrush nearby. They had wisely kept moving after the fray. Based on the time the men had died, she figured that they could only have gone so far on foot, through the dense woodlands to the west. That meant more tracking them by air.

  Sighing, she returned to Frightful, and after wrapping her cloak tightly about her and appreciating the warmth of the summer night, she took to the air once again.

  A few hours on foot could place the men anywhere in a three or four square mile area, she decided. If they stayed on this side of the road, that limited her search to a broad corridor . . . that, unfortunately, was exceeding rocky and heavily forested.

  Unlike the well-tended trees of the Westwood, this forest was tangled with underbrush and what her Uncle Kamal called “weed trees”: nearly useless trees like gum and poplar. Worse, vines grew everywhere, and there were swampy patches in the little valleys that were simply choked with foliage. As the daughter of a forester, she was disgusted at the state of the wood – it was nearly wild! No wonder it was haunted by bandits!

  But that made it a good hiding place for her friends, too. Dara was determined to find them, despite that.

  She flew in a lazy spiral from the center of where she thought they might be hiding outward. It was maddening, trying to find some signs of human life down there. She was more fascinated by all the nocturnal nightlife: raccoons and racquiels, opossums nightfoxes and a host of smaller creatu
res that teamed from forest floor to treetop. But no men. Falcons preferred hunting in meadows and fields, around hedgerows and ponds, not in thick forests, the bird reminded her, mind-to-mind. Frightful unhelpfully suggested that they search where it was easier to look, not where the prey was most likely to be found.

  Dara compelled her sulky bird, and once they’d completed a full circuit of the area she started again from the center, even lower, this time. It would take longer, but she had to find them.

  When she’d completed the second circuit with no result, she was frustrated and Frightful was getting tired. They’d spent more than two hours in the air, now, and her wings were starting to ache. Even at her size, with her great strength, there was a limit to how long she could fly bearing a rider.

  Starting to get tired herself, and realizing that she had to pee, she looked around for a barren spot that might be safe to light upon. She chose a half-acre wide knob of rock that thrust out of a hilltop like a bulging blister. It was high up enough to avoid any night time predators, she reasoned – though she couldn’t think of anything smaller than a dragon that might challenge Frightful’s form. The falcon was grateful for the break, and while she was hungry, she was still game to fly again, after some rest.

  Dara was frustrated, as she slid from her back. Where had the men gone? She had seen sign of neither bandit nor knight on her search, using falcon’s eye and magesight. Worse, as the night wore on a mist started to arise from the ponds and swamps around her. It hovered on the ground like a defeated cloud, rising nearly ten feet in places. A great thing, if you were hiding from bandits. Not as great, she sighed, when you were seeking someone hiding from bandits.

  Though summer, the night was chill, and Dara’s bones still ached with the cold of the upper air. Deciding to do something productive while she figured out a better plan, she gathered a pile of sticks and started a fire with magic. That was something that she knew how to do, she reasoned, and she was desperate for the heat. While it alerted her location to any bandits who might be in the forest, she didn’t care. Indeed, she started to appreciate the idea of taunting the bandits from the top of the knob. That would at least keep them from searching for the Sevendori men.

  But no bandits assailed her. And Festaran did not spring from the brush, grateful for his rescue. But the fire warmed her, and gave her a chance to both thaw and rest her eyes from magesight. Even Frightful curled up around the flame made tiny by her transformation. Dara quietly tore a small loaf in half and shared it with her bird. At her present size it wasn’t much, nor was it her preferred snack, but she took it anyway.

  When she’d eaten and drank a little from a water bottle, she finally used her witchstone to reach out to Master Olmeg to inform him of her progress.

  The Greenwarden was surprised she’d gone off alone like that, gently chiding her on her impetuousness. But Dara ignored the criticism, and Olmeg did not persist. He was glad to hear she was safe, but had little good news to give.

  Sire Cei is leading twelve men himself across the frontier, he reported. He left after supper, and pledged to ride through the night. They bear war-lances and are ready for battle.

  They’d best bring torches, too, Dara counselled. It’s as dark as the inside of a cow out here, without a moon. It’s only barely a crescent waning, tonight, so not much light. Aren’t there any tracking spells I could do? she pleaded with the wizard.

  Of course, he agreed, dryly. But you won’t learn them until you complete the ninth staff of runes, sometime a few months from now. And understand a great deal more thaumaturgy. Now, what I can do is try to scry the area from here, he suggested. I will enlisht Zagor’s aid. It will take a little time to set up, and I’m unfamiliar with the territory, but I can make the attempt.

  Would you, please? Dara asked. I need all the help I can get.

  It appears you have the help of a giant falcon, Olmeg pointed out. Might I ask where that came from?

  It’s Frightful, my bird, Dara informed him, realizing that the Greenwarden was unaware of the secret experiment. It’s transgenic magic. Lady Ithalia and I have been working on it since Cambrian. We’re in the final phase of testing, but we weren’t quite finished enough to show you and Master Minalan.

  Well, you certainly managed the ‘secret’ part well-enough. I had no idea. But it does explain some of the rumors in the marketplace. Let me get to this scrying, and I will inform you what I come up with.

  Dara thanked the mage, and closed the connection. The fog had grown so thick it had made an island out of the rocky knob. The dying fire gave the top of the cloud an eerie, flickering glow, Dara saw.

  Still no bandits. And no knights.

  There had to be some way to use magic to find them, she told herself. Though she didn’t know tracking spells, yet, she knew a lot of other magic, more than she’d known at Cambrian.

  She tried to form a rapport with some of the other creatures of the forests, electing to bond with the bats, as she had done in Barrowbell last year. But though the flying mammals were willing to dance and sprint overhead, they hadn’t seen any sign of men. Unfortunately, Dara realized, the stupid little creatures really did not have much of a memory. They may well have seen men in the forest and forgotten it the moment they detected prey in the sky.

  The racquiel and the two raccoons she bonded with likewise had no knowledge of men in this region. An owl was more helpful, and very curious about the giant bird near her. It would not come more than two trees away from the knob, but once it respectfully perched out of Frightful’s reach, it revealed that it had seen men.

  Unfortunately, the landmarks the nocturnal hunter related to Dara were nearly incomprehensible. By asking questions and presenting mental images, she at least narrowed down the direction the night bird said she saw the men travel. Northwest, along a deer trail. Just as the bats came out.

  That was but an hour ago, Dara realized. With a little more prodding Dara got the idea that the owl’s brief glimpse was against a backdrop of stone . . . but there was little other detail in the image.

  When beastmastery failed her, Dara turned to thaumaturgy.

  Her recent study of the subject had presented a number of fascinating and occasionally useful new spells, by combining the elementary runes in combinations of three or four. With sufficient power she could do all sorts of interesting things – from the fire spell she’d been working on to turning a cup of water into ice, and then into a snowball, to making a spindle reverse course as it spun with magic.

  She knew how to do a simple spellbinding on a knot. She knew how to freeze one of Frightful’s kills to keep it fresh until she got home. She knew how to extract the pure acid out of vinegar with a rune. She could make a flame dance on her fingertips, conjure magelights and send them spinning, push a cup across a table without touching it, magically bind a rent in a stocking, whisper and have her voice carry over hundreds of yards, even make electrical sparks fly between her hands, after Gareth taught her the trick.

  Those were mere cantrips, but they’d led to more powerful spells. Most she knew in theory, or read about, but had yet to practice, much less master. And some she had picked up casually, from Gareth or other wizards, the sorts of personal spells that colored a wizard’s professional idiosyncrasies. The Gutbuster spell was one such ‘advanced’ spell. She hadn’t learned that one in the workshop.

  Dara ran through all of the spells that she knew, using the fog and the rock as her laboratory. She made the fog bulge, thin, thicken, and move at her direction – a fascinating enough power, once she got the trick of it, but not particularly useful. But it was fun.

  Drawing a generous amount of power from her witchstone she experimented using various third-tier runes with their first and second staff cognates. She managed to turn a section of fog into a smooth, mirror-like surface that flashed in the firelight before she released it. Then she had it flatten into a disc. Supposedly, when she learned the seventh staff, one of those runes could turn the reflective plane of wate
r molecules in the disc rigid, making a gaseous thing into a solid, somehow.

  She stopped, eventually, out of frustration. Dara realized the Court Wizard was correct: she needed to understand thaumaturgy much more before she could be much more use than a footwizard.

  What was even more frustrating was that Sir Festaran was, technically, a mage himself, although not a true wizard. His sport Talent had arisen the same fateful night as her own rajira manifested, the night baby Minalyan was born to her master. But Festaran’s Talent was extremely limited – to accurate estimation. She couldn’t think of any way that it might help the situation.

  If only Fes was a real wizard, he’d probably know a location spell to find me, by now, she chided herself. Of course, he has no idea I’m even searching for him. I’m sure I’m dripping with magic, with this mammoth bird around.

  Dara watched the fire as her mind rambled, too tired to sleep. A wizard tried to approach a problem comprehensively, she reasoned. There had to be something, some way to fix her problem. She considered all of her resources, laid out every item in her pack hoping to see some answer to the problem. None came.

  But it did lead to an inkling of an idea that her tired mind tossed around far too long before it realized that the solution was, indeed, there. She just had to see it the right way.

  If Fes was a real wizard, she reasoned, he could track her by means of the magic she carried. You could do that with Magesight, if you knew to look. And where.

  Festaran’s Talent used very little arcane power, she knew. It also left him relatively insensitive to such energies, as a result. Even if he was estimating up a storm, it was unlikely she would be able to detect the arcane emanations if she was standing right next to him.

  But he did have something enchanted upon him, she realized, suddenly. Something that she could track, or at least detect . . . because she’d laid the elementary enchantments herself! The stick of weirwood that Cinder had gnawed on, and that she’d gifted to Festaran as a token of her favor!