Sky Rider

by Terry Mancour

  Maybe the useless tradition had some point to it after all, she decided, as she pulled herself excitedly to her feet.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Old Enemy

  Dara hadn’t really studied the spell that detected magic. It was a kind of a supernatural side-effect of combining a second-tier rune representing basic arcane energy, sefeleth, with the binding rune asath and the attention rune darseth. The three didn’t actually do anything together, not until you added additional qualifiers, but they did make magical fields light up like a beacon under magesight. That was only mildly interesting.

  Until she added a qualifying rune narrowing the focus of the spell to a few specific parameters. Weirwood, for instance – it rarely grew at all, in the Uwarris, and could only be cultivated with great care. The stick she’d gifted Festaran was only a fair example, but it teemed with arcane potential compared to the rest of the sticks in the forest.

  Still, that wasn’t enough. She added a second qualifier, that included the paring spell she’d used to smooth the thaumaturgical pathways in the wand for use. She’d spent more than an hour on that, and a lavish amount of energy – more than she’d needed to, she realized now – but as a consequence she knew precisely what flavor of energy her spell should look for.

  The problem, she realized, is that unless she wanted to go stumbling through the forest on foot, looking at every stick for its arcane glow, she would be at it for hours until some enterprising predator devoured her. Nor would she be able to note the thing from the air, she knew. It was simply too small.

  But she did have an idea. She’d never tried it before, or even considered it, but in the process of searching for some mechanism to indicate the location of the wand she’d recalled a conversation between Rondal and Tyndal, one day last spring, when they were discussing some caper Tyndal had carried out, early in his career, involving tracking. She couldn’t recall which specific fourth-tier rune he’d mentioned, but there were only so many. She tried several before she lit on the right one.

  She was uncertain it would work, but it made a kind of sense. And it couldn’t hurt to try. She poured power into the spell, once she constructed it, and then added the activation rune.

  Suddenly when she looked around in the darkness with magesight, on the horizon to the northwest a bright green light flared in her mind.

  That had to be it. That had to be where the chewed up wand was. Where Festaran and his men were.

  Excited, Dara packed up her things. The spell would only last for a while, perhaps an hour, but that should be long enough to figure out where he was from the air, she reasoned. She extinguished the fire with the spell she’d learned, proud of how quickly it now came to her, and then climbed onto Frightful’s back.

  In moments they were climbing back into the sky, following the trail only she could see. Frightful obligingly followed her instructions, and soon the green light was much closer. Dara didn’t know how the men had made it so far, across such treacherous terrain, but she had no doubt Festaran was responsible.

  As Frightful approached the source of the arcane signal, Dara’s heart fell. The wand was there, she could see plainly enough . . . but from what she could tell he was somehow underground!

  She made her bird circle the site twice, to convince herself she was correct. But there was no mistaking it. If she’d cast her spell properly, then Sir Festaran had taken the wand into the side of a decent-sized hill. And Dara had no idea how he’d done that.

  A cave, of course. These hills were full of them, from mere crevices to deep caverns. If Festaran was fleeing pursuit by a large band of robbers, a cave would make a convenient hiding place.

  Of course, she couldn’t very well get to him if she couldn’t find the cave’s entrance. And there was no sign of it from the air.

  “Ashes and cinders!” she exploded, catching a fistful of hair in her mouth as she did so. Yet if she hadn’t tossed her head in irritation, she wouldn’t have seen the faint glow out of the corner of her eye . . . another arcane sign that an enchantment was present. Not the one she sought, so it was faint, in comparison, but a spell nonetheless.

  Intrigued, Dara banked Frightful and returned to soar more slowly over the sliver of arcane energy in the darkness of the forest. Unless one of Festaran’s men had picked up an enchantment somewhere and then got left behind in the wood, Dara suspected that the spell belonged to the bandits.

  That disturbed her. Bandits were bad enough. Bandits with magic were serious trouble. And that settled her course of action in her mind. She could not let Festaran and his men be surprised by them.

  She had Frightful climb and continue to circle the area. The flicker from the forest was nearly three hundred yards from the spark in the hill, she saw, and on the opposite side of the hill. If she assumed that the entrance of the cave that Festaran was obviously in was close to the spark, Dara reasoned, then it had to be somewhere about . . . there. She marked the spot mentally, and then had Frightful set her down in a meadow beyond the hill. Trying to land amongst the trees on the hill would have been difficult, she knew.

  That left her sneaking through the exceedingly spooky forest in the darkness. A little magic made it less so; the Cat’s Eye spell, which bestowed on her the ability to see almost as well as in daylight, without using magesight. That allowed her to maintain her original spell without distraction. She wasn’t a good enough wizard yet to keep both active at the same time.

  Nor was she unarmed. She carried the heavy crossbow and had a dagger on her belt, as well as a few cantrips she’d hung. She wasn’t worried about animals, of course. But she didn’t want to be surprised by a bandit. Despite the assurance that magic would warn her, she still swallowed nervously as she advanced through the underbrush toward the hill. Magic and even weapons could not detract from the fact that she was walking through a very spooky bandit-infested forest in the middle of a moonless night.

  Thankfully, she was able to use magic to find the cavern entrance by simply asking. Two young raccoons who were chasing each other up and down a fallen tree were familiar with the cave, once she kept their attention from wandering, and they led her there in short order.

  Dara had to admit that it was a cunning hiding place. She didn’t know how Sir Festaran had even found it: a narrow crevice hidden under a rocky outcropping, concealed with ferns and vines. It was only three feet high at its widest point, and if you didn’t know it was there you could walk right past it.

  She wiggled into the cramped little space after thanking the raccoons (who assured her they smelled people inside) for their help. Inside it was pitch black and smelled of dirt and decomposing leaves. It had been used as a lair by various animals over the years, she realized, but there was a gap at the rear of the cave that opened into a kind of passageway. The tunnel was so narrow she had to crouch and crawl most of the way, dragging the crossbow behind her, until it opened up a bit more. But it was passable.

  The temptation to panic at the thought of being buried alive flirted with her the entire time. Dara did her best to focus on moving forward, not letting her imagination betray her. After all, she reasoned, plenty of animals had come this way over the years without getting trapped, and Festaran had apparently made the journey.

  Besides, after twenty feet the space widened a bit on all sides, even as it descended deeper into the hill. She still had to crouch a bit as she threaded her way into the cave, and she wondered how a tall fellow like Sir Festaran had managed. In a moment she’d know, she realized. The spark she followed was getting closer and closer.

  She heard them, before she saw them, even by magesight. They were murmuring in the darkness about something, and Dara’s heart raced with relief – they were still alive! She could not admit it until she’d known for certain, but tracking the weirwood stick did not mean that she would find her friend alive, holding it. But the voices gave her hope, and she pressed forward, quietly, as she neared the end of the cave. No doubt the men were on their guard, and she had
no desire to be stabbed in the darkness because they mistook her for a bandit.

  She paused, as she got closer and could hear their voices. They sounded tired and resigned in the dark, but not panicked. She could hear some of what they were saying.

  “—since the Spellmonger brought us,” one man’s voice was saying in a harsh Wilderlands brogue. “It’s not Boval Vale, but Sevendor has been good to my folk. Aye, and all the Riverlands folk, too, the ones who haven’t tried to kill us.”

  “You’ll have to excuse my former friend,” she heard a voice she recognized as Festaran’s. “He was never bloodthirsty, before. Just arrogant and proud. When Fortune turned against him he became embittered. But taking up with bandits? I had no idea he would stoop so low.”

  “He shot Baskar,” snorted another voice. “The only excusing he’ll see from me is at swordpoint!”

  “Yes, well, you’d better wait for him to have less than twenty friends around, when you do,” said the first voice, discouraged. “You saw what they did to poor Ralk—I don’t know what I’m going to tell his girl, back in Sevendor.”

  “I’ve got a girl in Sevendor, too,” said a fourth voice in a worried tone. “If I don’t make it back, will you—”

  Dara had enough of that sort of talk. She pushed herself past the last narrow portion of the passageway and into the midst of the men.

  “You’ve got a Sevendor girl right here,” she interjected. “And she’s not inclined to see anyone not make it back home!”

  “Dara!” Sir Festaran gasped, shocked and surprised. The other men scrambled to find their weapons in the darkness until their captain recognized her. Then they relaxed, and even cheered a bit. “Dara, how in three hells did you find us?”

  “Magic,” she shrugged, pointlessly. While she could see the five men crouched in the small cave thanks to the Cat’s Eye spell, they couldn’t see her. That, at least, she could remedy. She produced a magelight, small and dim but enough to illuminate the entire space. “It really comes in handy for that sort of thing. I tracked the weirwood wand I enchanted,” she explained, pointing toward his chest. “It was my spell. I just followed it.”

  “All the way from Sevendor?” he asked, still confused.

  “It’s been a busy day,” she dismissed, taking a water bottle out of her pack. “Anyone thirsty? I don’t have a lot, but that and some food might cheer you,” she said, pulling a small loaf out.

  The food and water was welcomed, she found – the men had abandoned their supplies on their saddles when they were forced to abandon their horses near the abbey. Sir Festaran told the story between hungry bites.

  “The first attack happened on the road,” he explained in the dim light of her spell. “Twelve men on foot against seven ahorse – but they had good archers. Corporal Baskar was shot in the shoulder with a crossbow bolt, and we laid out three on the road before we had to withdraw under their fire. Two horses were wounded. Baskar was bleeding badly, but fit enough to ride, so I bid him return with all speed and summon help. Then we drew them off while he escaped.”

  “That’s when we ran into the rest of them,” the Wilderlands man said, bitterly. “And they were on horseback. Knew their business, too.”

  “We crossed swords,” Festaran admitted. “But we had archers behind and horsemen ahead. We were outnumbered. Ralk took a wound to the back and his horse was near lame and mine was shot,” he said, sadly. “We pushed past the horse and escaped up the road, but they gave chase. And, alas, that’s when I recognized one of the bandits.”

  “You know bandits?” Dara asked, confused.

  “When I knew him, he wasn’t a bandit,” Festaran explained. “He was my brother squire at West Fleria. Sir Ganulan. Son of the Warbird.”

  That name stunned Dara’s ears. She had heard of Sir Ganulan – he had once illegally owned Brestal, after his father stole it from old Sir Urantal. But then the Spellmonger arrived and took it back his first Yule in Sevendor. Young Sir Ganulan, newly-knighted and sure of his prowess, had arrogantly challenged the wizard to a duel over the estate. Master Minalan had defeated him handily. Or perhaps it was Tyndal – the story got jumbled up every time she heard it.

  The Warbird had not taken kindly to his son’s humiliation. Within a year he’d declared war on Sevendor, and laid siege to it while Minalan was away. The Spellmonger brought an army back with him, though, and while the Warbird of West Fleria besieged the Spellmonger’s lands, Master Minalan and his men absolutely ravaged West Fleria and its vassal domains. Badly enough that the Warbird admitted defeat.

  She’d thought his son would have joined him in exile, but apparently he’d chosen the life of a bandit, instead.

  “Ganulan? Are you certain?” she asked.

  “Absolutely,” the lanky knight assured. “I’ve sparred with the man for years. I know his face. Even now, when he still bears the Mage’s Marks that Master Minalan placed on it.”

  Dara knew that when a wizard as powerful as Minalan wanted to remind people of their debts to him, he didn’t merely entrust them to parchment. For some miscreants her master had used magic to draw marks on their very skin that would never wash off no matter how hard you scrubbed. Only a counterspell could remove them. And she knew Ganulan bore such marks.

  “After we gained a few miles on the road, we saw the abbey from the road and hoped it could shelter us. Alas, it was abandoned, a ruin. Our horses were winded and wounded, so we sent them on while we set a trap at the ruin. A squadron of bandits searched there, and we surprised them. Unfortunately Ralk wasn’t as lucky in his second fight,” Festaran said, mournfully. “After we put them down, we heard horns down the road. We took to the wood to hide, and eventually found this cave.”

  “Why is Ganulan a bandit?” she asked.

  “Because he hates Minalan, and by extension, Sevendor,” Festaran explained. “He thinks the Spellmonger took everything away from him. He’d rather fight us as a bandit than accept defeat.” There was a disturbing touch of admiration in the knight’s voice, Dara noted.

  “Well, that mage mark of his let me see his position,” Dara reported. “He’s on the north side of the hill, searching there. Likely with his entire crew.”

  “He’ll never find us in here,” one of the men said, confidently.

  “Dara did,” another reminded him.

  “With magic,” the first replied. “Unless Ganulan has a wizard in his pocket, he won’t find us.”

  “But we can’t stay here forever,” the third man pointed out. “The water and bread was lovely, but that won’t last.”

  “Neither will the attention of the bandits,” Festaran assured his men. “They have lost eight of their fellows this day, and may lose more in pursuit. As angry as they are, they will not compound their losses. They make no coin if they are not on the road, robbing. They will abandon their search before long of necessity,” he predicted.

  “Help is on the way,” Dara promised. “The castle sent a squadron of knights, and my brother, the Warden of Caolan’s Pass, went speeding down the road ahead of them with a half-dozen men. They will be here, soon.”

  “Yet you lead them all, Hawkmaiden,” Festaran observed, cannily. “How did you manage that?”

  “I’m getting better at magic,” she said, evasively. “Now let me practice some. I’m going to send a message about where we are, if you can all be quiet for a moment.”

  It took her a few minutes to compose herself before she reached out through her witchstone and tried to attract Olmeg’s attention through the mind-to-mind spell. It took a while longer than usual, but eventually the wizard answered her summons.

  Dara! Where are you? he demanded, concerned.

  Inside a cave in a wood in Sashtalia, she reported, south of the road about two miles. I’ve found Sir Festaran and his men. All but one, who fell at a nearby abbey. They are well, but tired and pursued by bandits, who still roam the wood searching for them. For us, she corrected, realizing that she was now just as hunted.

  Ho
w many bandits?

  At least a score, and well-armed for such ruffians. And one of them is Sevendor’s enemy, Sir Ganulan, she added. About a third of them are on horseback, from what Festaran says.

  I shall relay that to Sire Cei, the wizard told her. He has a Magic Mirror that Minalan gave him for such missions. When last I spoke to him, he pledged to ride through the night to find the men.

  He’ll never find us, where we’re hiding, Dara realized. But if we can make our way back to the road . . .

  Dara! I’d recommend that you stay put! the wizard ordered. If you are safe then don’t tempt fortune by doing something foolish.

  I won’t take any unnecessary risks, Master Olmeg, she promised. But that was all she promised.

  “Master Olmeg now knows our position and is relaying it to Sire Cei and his men. But my brother should be passing by in a few hours, if he didn’t stop for the night . . . and I can’t imagine him doing so, if he didn’t have to. If I can get us near the road I can signal him with a magelight,” she decided. “He can protect us until Sire Cei shows up.”

  “That’s a daft plan, Dara,” Sir Festaran said, shaking his head. “If there are rescuers on the way, then we’d best stay here until they arrive.”

  “And walk into a nest of bandits, like you did?” she challenged. “The air in here was stuffy when I arrived, and with one more set of lungs breathing it, it’s only going to get worse. We have a lot better chance of sneaking away at night,” she pointed out.

  “Unless they catch us,” Festaran frowned. “And then we’ll be dead. And not quickly,” he added, darkly. “I don’t think Ganulan likes me very much, any more.”

  “All the better reason to avoid him, then,” Dara concluded. “Look, with magic we can see them long before they see us. The road isn’t too far. And that way we won’t suffocate in this cave.” It was, indeed, becoming stuffier every moment she spent in the gloomy hole. “This might be a tidy lair for a vixen and cubs, but with six adult humans in here, we might go to sleep and not wake up.”