by H. M. Clarke
“What do you mean? I can feel your uneasiness through the Link, but it doesn’t give me much to work with.”
Ryn sighed and shrugged, unsure of what it was she wanted to say. “I was talking with Ashe and Bron earlier and we all agree that things today went a lot easier than it should have.”
Dagan quirked an eyebrow. “By ‘a lot easier’ you mean that we didn’t get our asses handed to us on a silver platter?”
“Well… yes. I know they were unregistered magi and all, but even so, apart from you and the brothers, the rest of us are basically unseasoned recruits. I feel like we overcame them too easily.”
“You think that they wanted us to catch them? That Leeta has some ulterior motive behind her defeat?”
Ryn’s eyes narrowed at the jovial tone in his voice. “Yes.”
Dagan stared at her silently for a moment and then nodded, letting a small smile appear. “I happen to agree with you.
She could not hide her shock at his answer. Ryn had been expecting some small amount of argument, not this easy capitulation. She saw him smile at her obvious confusion which immediately made her frown again.
“I should say that I agree with you to an extent. I think both our conclusions as to the why are poles apart from each other.”
“She wants something. Or someone. Though I don’t know how being captured by the Blackwatch will help her. We are not a political order, we keep the provincial peace and protect the realm. That’s it.”
Dagan shook his head. “I don’t think she is after anyone from the Blackwatch. Unregistered magi come under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. The Blackwatch will hold the group until the Tribunal comes to take them back to Kaldor for trial and sentencing at the… but what can she possibly hope to do there?” Dagan let his words wander off as he fell into his own thoughts.
Ryn turned her attention back to the road and stayed uncharacteristically silent.
They rode that way until Ryn determined that Dagan had long enough to ruminate on the problem.
“You’re a Magister. You work for the Tribunal. You caught them. Why do we have to wait for someone from Kaldor to come and collect the magi? Why don’t we escort them?” Ryn held tight to the reins of her roan as it was becoming skittish. The horse was probably picking up on her own unease. “If we escort them, then we can keep an eye on them to ensure that nothing goes wrong.”
“And by ‘we’, I’m assuming you mean us, your Blackwatch friends and the Osega brothers,” Dagan said and flashed her a grin.
Ryn felt his approval over their Link and she nodded. “There are only four magi left alive and now that the inhibitor has been cast over all of them, our small group should be able to escort them to the capital with no problems.”
“Don’t ever say ‘no problems’ Kathryn, that’s just asking to invite trouble in.”
“For the short amount of time that you’ve known me, Dagan, you should have gathered that I’m not worried by trouble.”
Dagan threw his head back and laughed. It was a deep, joyful sound that was completely unexpected from such a cynically sarcastic fellow. Ryn could not help but smile as she heard it.
“Truer words have never been spoken,” he said once he regained enough breath back to speak. “But have you forgotten the reason why I am out here in the first place?”
“No… but-”
“There are ‘no… buts’ about it. I have been sent out to track down an enemy of the state. I cannot just put that aside because we want to escort some unregistered magi to the Tribunal in Kaldor. The longer that man remains at large, the more chance he has to work his mischief.”
Ryn shut her mouth and turned away from him to hide the sour look on her face. The man was of course right. He had orders to find Ben Henly and bring him in. That was his priority. But was Dagan forgetting that now he is also Blackwatch? His path is now permanently linked to hers until one of them goes to meet their maker. Ryn shook herself to get rid of her moribund thoughts and, once her features were schooled back to neutrality, she adjusted her posture in the saddle and turned to him again.
“So, what are our plans now?”
“Same as they were last night. The Knights Captain have kindly granted me the use of Donal and Ashe, along with Bron and Vannik, which should give us a good-sized group to go ahead with.”
“So we are still going to Kaldor?”
“I can see where this is going, Kathryn. And yes, we will travel with the prisoners for a part of the journey. Then we are going to split away and find our own path.”
“You enjoy being cryptic don’t you,” Ryn said this more as a statement than a question.
“It’s one of my joys in life and I’ll do it every chance I get. And, in warning, if you say ‘So’ one more time I’ll make you darn my socks. The smell of them alone will make you regret ever meeting me.” Dagan smiled as he spoke and for some reason it made Ryn feel better.
“Have you had a chance to go through any of those papers you collected?”
“You know I haven’t Kathryn. Kuma and Kimba arrived not long after I found them and we’ve been occupied since then. We’ll both take a look through them once we are back at Brookhaven.”
Ryn’s face brightened. “We?”
“We.”
A loud squawk from above caught everyone’s attention and Ryn looked up to see Peck diving straight towards her. She reined her horse to a halt and lifted her arm and let that take the brunt of Peck’s momentum as his claws dug into the leather and chain as he landed. Ryn moved her arm to her shoulder and let the bird take his usual perch.
“What did you see Peck?”
The bird immediately went into a long series of caws and croaks and Ryn listened intently to what he had to say. She also heard the rest of the party move their horses up to flank both her and Dagan.
“You’re sure Peck?”
The bird cawed and nodded his head. Ryn frowned at the news.
“What did he have to say?” Dagan asked once the crow had stopped talking.
Ryn turned in the saddle, looked at him, and then looked back to the others behind her before looking back again to Dagan. “Peck says that there is a large group of people shadowing the road ahead of us.
“How far ahead?”
Peck croaked his answer and Ryn quickly translated it to the others.
“About a league or so away. He thinks they are trailing the Blackwatch Caravan ahead of us.”
“Do you think they are after the prisoners?” Ashe asked bringing his horse up to ride alongside Ryn’s.
“I’m pretty sure they’re after the prisoners, Ashe.” Dagan frowned and looked to the road ahead, running a hand over his mouth as he thought. After the span of a few breaths, he turned to them and said, “The caravan needs to be warned.”
“But they are over a league away!” Donal all but shouted at them. “We’d run our horses into the ground trying to catch them up and it would be too late by the time we reached them to help.”
“Donal, have you ever heard of the saying ‘Quicker as the crow flies’?” Dagan asked. Donal nodded his head in response. Dagan smiled. “Well, in this case, we literally mean just that.”
“Is Peck able to carry a message to the Blackwatch caravan? To give them a warning?”
On Ryn’s shoulder, Peck stood straight up and fluffed his feathers, giving a croak that sounded like assent. Ryn nodded.
“Good.” Dagan immediately slipped a hand into his saddle bag and pulled out a scrap piece of parchment and a pencil. Using his thigh as a writing table, he quickly scrawled a message and then handed the note to Ryn.
Ryn fished a small leather pouch from her own saddlebags and pushed the note in it before tying it tightly shut. She then secured the pouch loop over the bird’s shoulder and under the opposite wing. “Peck, deliver this to Corporal Enon with the Prisoner caravan. And then come straight back to us once he has it. Understood?” The bird snapped his beak and nodded. Ryn smiled and held up her hand for him to
hop onto and then, with a slight bob, she propelled him into the air and Peck disappeared into the blue sky like a small, black arrow.
“Now what do we do?” Donal asked.
“We ride.” And with that Dagan put his heels to the sides of his coal-black horse and they shot off down the road kicking up dust behind them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The sounds of fighting faintly came to them over the thrum of their horses’ hooves before they could actually see it. Ryn’s horse snorted heavily with each stride she took and combined with the puffing of the other mounts it made a strange but fitting rhythm to their haste.
The road ahead was clear, but even her with wind teared eyes, Ryn could see that it turned sharply into a copse of stunted, scrubby trees and underbrush. She remembered it from their ride out. It would be a good place for an ambush.
Ryn leant further into her horse’s neck, trying to protect her eyes from the wind but then remembered why she had stopped doing that as the roan’s bobbing head collided again with her cheekbone. She settled back into squinting ahead and hoped that there were no surprises waiting for them on the road just ahead.
A bright flash of orange light lit up the copse of trees which bought their rushing horses to a sliding standstill.
“What was that?” Ryn heard Bron call from behind her.
“That is bad news. We need to get in there and help them,” Dagan replied as he reined his black back under control.
Ryn’s skittish roan bobbed its head up and down and tried to turn away from the road. The mare was usually so placid and Ryn could not understand why a flash would unsettle it so much. It was then that she ‘felt’ something in the surrounding air. She peered around her thinking that there was a marsh fog coming in, but the landscape around her was clear.
“It’s from the magic,” she heard Dagan say. He must have felt her reaction through the Link. “It’s charged the air, it won’t hurt you, but animals don’t like it.” He looked back over his shoulder at the others as he slipped his staff from its saddle mount. “Let’s go.”
Ryn drew her sword and made her shield loose on her back. She heard the ring of steel and wood from the others as they too readied their weapons.
Over their shared Link, Ryn could feel his courage and determination and his desire to help bring justice to those unable to claim it for themselves. And he was angry. That emotion simmered beneath all the others and was directed more inward than outward.
Ryn’s roan came up alongside the black as they rounded the corner and entered the copse of trees. She was immediately assailed by movement and sound, but followed as Dagan headed his horse into the surrounding trees. The Blackwatch wagons were on the road ahead of them, each one contained within a protective bubble of magic that flashed a myriad of colors as Blackwatch Pairs fought to protect them and each other.
The attackers are many. And clever. They also had mages. Orange light flashed around them as an incoming spell hit one of the wagons. More and more of the Blackwatch mages were set to strengthen the wards while their warrior Pairs fought to protect them as their attackers beat against the barriers in waves of steel and arrows.
“We need to take out their mages!” Ryn called out to Dagan as they moved quickly through the trees. “Whatever we do, we need to do it quickly!” Donal called from behind her. “They won’t be able to hold those barriers for long.”
Dagan jerked his black to a halt making the horse whinny in surprise. Ryn reined her roan in next to him while the others quickly gathered around them. Dagan sat still, studying the fight before them.
“It’s only a small group attacking, but they have magi,” Bron’s deep voice could be heard over the sounds of battle.
“They had to move in a small group so that they would pass undetected by Brookhaven’s patrols,” Dagan replied as he straightened up in the saddle. “Their magi look to be concentrated in the trees on the left side of the road. We’ll go around the outside of those trees and flank them, hit them from behind before they know we’re coming. Their fighters are too intent on attacking the wagons to notice us. They don’t fear attack from behind. Let’s go.”
Dagan turned his horse back into the trees and the group followed him in. They made their way quickly through the brush, circling behind where they estimated the enemy magi to be. The group quickly dismounted and secured the still nervous horses to nearby trees before making their way towards the enemy.
Ryn unslung her shield and found herself clenching her grasp on the grip of her sword. It was something she did before a fight, something that she was trying to cure herself of. If caught unawares, a hit to the sword while her hand and arm muscles were clenched could send them into shock and maybe lose her grip on the sword. She willed her hand back to suppleness and followed just off of Dagan’s right side. To Dagan’s left came Ashe and Donal and behind them came Vannik and Bron.
The runes on Dagan’s staff suddenly flared up in a flash of blue and she saw Donal’s staff awake in a purple glow as well. She gripped her sword again and tested the weight of her shield on her arm. She was as ready as she was going to be.
And then they were on them.
Without thinking, Ryn launched herself forward and charged at the first man she saw. The staff slashed down by her ear, narrowly missing her arm. She rammed her shield hard into the mage’s midsection, knocking the wind out of him and stopping him from incanting. Her momentum carried the two of them backwards, knocking the mage off his feet. He fell on hard uneven ground, his weapon arm swung out to one side, causing the staff to fly out into the brush. The man drew in a ragged breath and began to incant.
Ryn stepped forward and swiftly drove her sword into the man’s chest and the chant stopped in a loud sigh as his last breath left his body. Pulling her sword, Ryn turned to look for her next target.
A man lunged at her. She backed away from the burley young man, who had assumed a hunched over stance and was edging cautiously towards her, arms spread wide, much the same way that a crab approached its prey. Ryn swallowed. She, too, bent over into a fighter’s crouch, and hoped that her training would be enough.
Her assailant knew he didn’t have much time before the attention of the others returned to them. Ryn warily watched the man’s eyes. If she could judge where he’d strike at her next, she might counter his move. One of the training games Blackwatch cadets are taught was unarmed combat where she learnt how to deal with opponents twice her size and strength. Techniques that can also be used in armed combat. All she needed was for the big oaf to make one good mistake.
Ryn ducked as the man’s sword went whistling above her head. With a grim smile, she moved in to swing her blade at his jaw, and intercepted his fist, jabbing in and catching her right in the throat.
Coughing, she staggered backwards. Ryn cursed inwardly. He was good, damn him! It was a good shot, and in the throat. That needs to be paid back. She took two strides forward, backhanding his arm on the way past him with her shield and then twisted her shield arm and grabbed it. With a quick foot, she pushed and pulled, flipping him over onto his back she stooped to bring her sword across his windpipe. No one ever expects dirty fighting from a woman. More fool them.
The others had charged on ahead, except for Dagan. He was a short distance away from her in spell combat with a woman. A flash of color caught her eye, and she turned to see an enemy mage dressed in white, his runestaff glowing bright orange standing near one of the wagons. His gaze was fixed on Dagan, and Dagan had his back to him. The man started to chant.
Dagan sidestepped as the female mage cast a fireball and then he let loose a barrage of mage bolts, shredding the woman’s magical barrier and striking her out cold.
The white mage was too far away for her to reach, so Ryn did the only thing she could think of. She charged.
Ryn’s shoulder caught Dagan’s side and knocked him out of reach. But the mage’s blast caught her instead. Her sword flew from her grasp as she felt the power instantly swirl around an
d encase her as it lifted her up into the air. And then every nerve in her body exploded with pain. Ryn threw back her head and screamed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dagan slid to a stop in the dirt and immediately rolled into a couch, his staff still in hand. Something had slammed into him. As he glanced back to where he was standing, Dagan’s mind filled with blinding pain. It was the Link….. Kathryn….
Dagan pushed himself to his feet and looked on in horror at the form of Ryn floating in the air encased in an orange glow of power.
The battle had quickly passed by them but Dagan saw the man dressed in white standing near one of the wagons, with a staff glowing in the exact shade of orange that covered Ryn.
Dagan set his feet, planting them firmly on the ground and stood his staff before him. The surrounding area suddenly glowed blue and the runes on his staff became blinding. The mage had noticed him. The man became outlined in orange as he drew his power back to himself. The bubble around Ryn disappeared, and she fell hard to the dusty earth. She did not move.
Dagan felt his rage burst as her body hit the dust. How dare this man….. In the blink of an eye, he gathered the power to his hands and threw it across the gap between them.
It slammed hard into the mage who staggered back under the onslaught as the blue ball detonated in a flash of blue fire against his shield. The orange bubble wavered, but held as the white mage frantically drew more power from his rune staff to bolster it.
Anger roared through him as Dagan gathered up more power from his well and his rune staff glowed so brightly that it would have blinded anyone who looked at it. He moved forward, flicking his staff back and forth, sending hot bolts of blue force hurtling against the white mage’s protective bubble until he stood between Ryn and her attacker.
How dare you hurt her...
The white mage began to counter, sending out orange bolts of his own which fizzled against the raw power in Dagan’s shield. Now the real battle will begin.