The Mage Wars

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Blade?” Tad called from behind her, and she realized that although the sound of the waterfall did penetrate in here, it was much muted by the rock walls.

  “Coming!” she responded, turning her back on the chimney and climbing back down to the driftwood pile. She smelled smoke, and indeed, a plume of it, ghostlike in the blue light of the bespelled pebble, drifted toward her and the chimney outlet. A warmer light up ahead greeted her; Tad had already started a fire with the driftwood, and she joined him there.

  “The fish around here must not be terribly bright,” he said cheerfully. “Quite a lot of them ended up on the rocks a few moments ago. I got you some.” He pointed with his beak at a pair of sleek shapes at his feet.

  “After you ate your fill, I hope?” she admonished. “You need the food more than I do; I manage quite well on that travel-bread.”

  His nares flushed, and she judged by that and the bulging state of his crop that he had been perfectly greedy. Not that she blamed him, especially not after going on short rations for so many days. “You might as well put this under something, so we can sleep,” she said, handing him the pebble and shrugging painfully out of her pack. “If I’d ordered up a cave, I couldn’t have gotten a better one than this. We can even make a really smoky fire back there—” she pointed to the rear of the cave, “—there’s a natural chimney that’ll send it up without smoking us out. The only thing we don’t have is a nighttime signal. We need to talk about that.”

  He ground his beak as he thought, his good wing half-spread in the firelight to dry. “I can’t imagine them flying at night—” he began, then laughed. “Well, on the other hand, since it’s me and you who are lost—”

  “Skandranon will have night flights out if he has to fly them himself,” she finished for him, with a wry chuckle. Then her humor faded. She could not forget, even for a moment, that they were still being hunted. Until they knew by what, and for what reason, they should not assume they would be here to rescue when rescue came. Yes, they had good shelter now, and it would be very difficult to dig them out of it. But not impossible; not for—say—a renegade mage and his followers, human or created.

  Tad, however, was going to take the moment as it came; he shrugged out of his pack and nudged a fish over to her with one talon. “You eat,” he said. “There’s enough wood in here already to easily last the night. While you cook and eat that, I’ll go back out and see what I can see.”

  She hesitated a moment, then gave a mental shrug and bent to pick up the fish. I might as well eat and make myself comfortable. He’s right about that. While the rain fell, it was unlikely that anything would try to find them. If the creatures trailing them were semi-intelligent, they would assume that the two castaways had followed their usual pattern, and had taken shelter before the rain started. The hunters would probably be looking for them on the other side of the river first, especially if the hunters had not traced them as far as the river when the rain began. Any trail would end short of the river itself, and the mud and rock of the riverbank would not hold any scent or footprint through the rain. The trail on the other side of the river would be completely obliterated, and if they could keep their fire out of sight, it was possible that they could keep their presence in this cave a secret for a day or more. By the time smoke got up the rock chimney and exited above them, it would be very difficult for anything scenting it to tell where it originated.

  After that, of course, it would become increasingly harder to stay hidden. Every time they left the cave, which they would have to do to catch fish, wash, and get firewood, they stood a chance of being seen. Watchers on the other side of the river could spot them without being seen themselves.

  But I’ll worry about that after I eat, when I can think better, she decided. It was wonderful to be able to have enough space to properly open the packs and spread everything out. Once again though, she found herself attempting a task one-handed that was difficult enough using two; scaling and gutting a fish. She wound up slipping off her boot and using a foot as a clumsy “hand” on the tail to hold it down.

  She saved the head and the guts for later use as bait; they could not count on having the kind of luck that sent a harvest of fish down over the cliff to their feet every day. That was all right; they had fishing line and hooks with them, and if the fish guts didn’t work, she could try a bug, a breadball, or a bit of dried meat. Once again, her shovel came into play as an impromptu grill; it probably would have been better if she’d had something to grease it with, but at the moment, she was too hungry for trifles like that.

  The fish burned a little and stuck to the shovel, but that didn’t matter in the least—she could scrape the fish meat off and eat, and some blackened fish meat stuck to it wouldn’t adversely affect the use of the shovel as a shovel. She was hungry enough, in fact, that she very nearly burned her fingers, picking flaky bits of meat off the hot carcass before it had properly cooled. She alternately swore softly and ate, making a happy pig of herself.

  Tad reappeared, dripping wet again, and regarded her thoughtfully. “Clay,” he said. “Next time, wrap it up in clay and bake the whole thing. When you break the clay open, the skin comes off with it, but the rest of the fish is fine.”

  “Where did you learn that one?” she asked, looking up at him in surprise.

  “Mother. She loves fish, and even though she likes it best fresh, she’s been known to accept baked fish if it wasn’t straight out of the sea.” He gryph-grinned at her again, and cocked his head to one side. “You know how she is—unlike father, she’ll wish for the ideal, but not complain when it isn’t given! What do you want to do about the firelight? Move the fire back farther into the cave? The cave bends enough that I think that will make it harder to see from across the river. Or does it matter?”

  So, he had been thinking about their stalkers. “I’m not sure it matters; sooner or later they’re going to see us, or see signs of where we are. I’d rather put some thought into defenses.”

  “I’ve set up some simple line snares on the path, so watch out for them,” he said. “Not much, there’s not much I can do in the rain, but some. It should help, I would think. I can do better tomorrow.”

  “So that’s why you’re wet!” She signed to him to sit beside the fire, as she devoured the cooked fish. It didn’t taste like much, a bit bland, which in itself made it an improvement over the dried meat, which tasted like old boots. It was hot and satisfying and cooked, which made all the difference, and she ate every scrap, using her knife to scrape the burned bits off the shovel and eat them too. Then she settled back on her heels, sucking her slightly-burnt fingers to get the last of the juices, and gave him all of her attention.

  “Right, then. Let’s settle the short-term first, then the long-term. First watch?” she asked.

  “Yours,” he said promptly. “As full as I am, I’m going to doze off no matter what. I can’t help it; it’s the way I’m built. And I have marginally better night-vision than you do. I also have better hearing,” he added, “but with that waterfall out there, that isn’t going to matter. I can run our fishing line from one of the snares into here, and stack some stones over the light pebble to make a sort of alarm.”

  Well, that seems pretty reasonable to me. “Good enough. If I see anything tonight, should I take a shot at it? Across the river is in the range of my sling, and with all these rocks around I can afford to miss now, and we won’t have to go after my ammunition to get it back.” That was another source of easing tensions. Now she was no longer limited to the pouches of lead shot for ammunition. The rocks might not fly as true, but she could lob as many of them around as she needed to. “My vote is that we not provoke anything tonight,” he said instantly. “Let’s not give them the answer to the question of where we went. If they can’t find us tonight, we might get lucky and they’ll go away.”

  “Probably not, but it’s worth giving ourselves the chance. Agreed. Do we trap the other side of the river?” That was another good question
. It might well be worth it to try—or it might make them targets when they crossed the river to check the traps. The river wasn’t all that deep even at its deepest; barely chin-high on Blade. Anything energetic enough could cross it easily. After all, they had, and neither of them was in the best of shape. A stealthy swimmer could cross it and never betray himself by sound, what with the waterfall out there pounding away.

  He shook his head. “No; we trap this side of the river, but not the other. We’d be too vulnerable on that side, and why bother? We really don’t want to catch these things, do we?” He didn’t look as if he did, and she agreed with him. After all, what could they do with one if they did catch it, alive or dead? All that would do would be to tell them what the hunters looked like, and there were easier ways to do that.

  “Not unless we have to start whittling down their numbers,” she murmured, thinking that this cave was both a good and a bad place to be. They could defend it—but it would be hard for rescuers to spot, and it would be very easy to place them in a state of siege from which there was no escape. The narrowness of the chimney that made it impossible for anything to climb down also rendered it impossible for them to climb up.

  “Right. Then tomorrow, if it looks clear, we go get some green wood and leaves from across the way to make a smoke signal with. We get all the dry driftwood we can and stock it in here.” He cocked his head to one side, and waited for her contribution.

  “Water we have, finally; I might just as well start fishing and as long as we’re running a smoke-signal fire, it can do double duty and I can smoke what we don’t eat.” That way if we’re trapped in here we’ll have something to eat. “We ought to go back down the way we came in and decide what kind of traps we can lay.”

  “At least one rockfall, right at the entrance, with a release one of us can trigger from in here,” he said promptly, and yawned. “With a lot of work and cleverness we can even barricade the opening of the cave with wood and rocks; we’re certainly clever enough, so all we need is the work. And that is about all of the thinking that I’m good for. I have got to get some sleep. I don’t need a blanket; it’s plenty warm enough in here next to the fire.” He winked at her. “I can even lie down on this nice, soft sand so that I’m between the fire and the entrance, and screen it with my body. I shall sacrifice staying near the cold and water to do this duty.”

  “Big of you. Help me spread out the bedding so it can dry,” she responded dryly. “Then you can sleep all you like—at least until it’s your turn on watch!”

  And may there be nothing to watch for—except a search party, and that soon, she thought, as he chuckled and moved to help her with the damp blankets. By now they’ll have missed us back home. We didn’t make the rendezvous, and the other patrol should have sent word back with their teleson. How long until we’re missing instead of overdue! And will they look for us when they think we’re only late! I wish I knew.

  I only know one thing. Father’s going to go out of his mind when he hears of this. I’m glad I’m not the one to tell him!

  * * *

  Amberdrake stared at Commander Judeth; for a moment her words made no sense.

  Then suddenly, they made all too much sense.

  “They’re what!” All of Amberdrake’s hard-won equanimity deserted him. He rose out of the chair in his office as if he’d sat on a hot coal. Indeed, that was very much the way he felt.

  “Calm down, Drake, the youngsters are only overdue by a day,” Judeth told him. She looked outwardly calm, but he knew more than enough about her and the tiny telltale signals her body showed to know that she was seriously worried. And yet, that was simply not good enough. “The patrol they were relieving got to the rendezvous point expecting them to be there yesterday, and they weren’t there.”

  She’s worried. She’s only worried. And she still hasn’t done anything. “And they haven’t shown up yet.” He held both the arms of his chair in a strangle grip, and stared at her with unveiled accusation in his eyes. “So why aren’t you doing anything? You know those two are as by-the-book as any trainees you’ve ever had! They have never, ever violated orders. If they had a reason to be late, if they knew they were going to be delayed, they’d have sent a teleson message! If they haven’t, it’s because they can’t, because something happened to them!”

  His voice was rising, and he knew it, and what was more, he didn’t care that he was making a blatant display of his emotions. For once in his life he wanted someone to know how upset he was. Judeth made soothing motions, as if she thought he could somehow be propitiated by a few words. As if she thought he could be “reasoned out of his hysteria.”

  She was certainly going to try. “We are doing something, Drake; the patrol has left the rendezvous and they are going on out to see if they can’t find some sign of Blade and Tad. It’s too early to get in a panic about this—”

  Too early to get in a panic! Who does she think she’s talking to! He held himself back from exploding at her only by great effort of will. “You tell me that when it’s your child that’s missing!” he snapped at her. “Or have you gotten so wrapped up in being a commander that you’ve forgotten this isn’t wartime? Instead of telling me not to panic, I suggest you tell me what else you’re doing right now. And if you aren’t doing anything right now, I am not interested in hearing why you can’t! I’ll pull in every resource I have to see that something does get done, and without any nonsense about not getting into a panic because one person thinks it’s too early!”

  That was the closest he had ever come in his life to saying that he was actually going to use all the power and influence he held and had never used before, for any reason. And I will, I’ll do it, if I have to blackmail everyone in this city. Even her. It was a threat, a real one, and he was not bluffing. But he felt he owed it to Judeth to warn her that lightning was going to fall on her before it came. If he used all his influence, it would be worse than lightning, and Judeth’s position as commander might not survive the storm.

  Her eyes darkened dangerously at his words, but her voice remained calm and even, which was something of a testament to her own control. Judeth did not like threats, but she was a realist, and she must know that he was not bluffing. “Right at this moment, the original patrol is flying out about a day in the right direction to see if they can find anything. If they don’t, they’ll go north of the track, then south, to see if they somehow went off course. Meanwhile, we’re working on it. We’re not just sitting around, waiting to see what happens. We’re trying to find some way of locating them from here, and—and—” she finally raised her own voice as he got ready to explode again. “—and we are putting together search parties. Those will leave in the morning, since we can’t possibly get one together before then. There is no point in grabbing unprepared people and sending them out at random. Now, if you can think of anything I might have missed, I’d like to hear it.”

  The truth was, he couldn’t, but that didn’t stop him from wanting some action right that very moment, something besides merely “readying a search party.” “I can’t think of anything, but I’m—this is difficult. It’s hard to think,” he admitted grudgingly. “Does Skan know yet?”

  “Aubri’s telling him.” Poor Aubri, her tone said, but Poor Skan, was what he was thinking.

  He was afraid of this. He didn’t want Tad to go off on this assignment any more than I wanted Blade to. I know he thought about going to Judeth and asking them to be reassigned to something else, and didn’t do it. And now he must be wondering if he is to blame for them being missing.

  “I’ll tell Winterhart—” he began, his throat tightening at the thought. Gods, how do I tell her? This was my fault, if it all comes down to it; something I said or did made Blade want to be in the Silvers in the first place, all my interference made her want to be assigned somewhere far away from here—if I hadn’t tried to meddle in her life so much, she would still be here—maybe even doing something else with her life. And Tad would have a different p
artner, one that wouldn’t have urged him to ask for assignment out of the city. He desperately wanted someone else to take on the burden of telling her, so that he did not have to face her accusing eyes. Cowardly, yes, but—

  “No, I’ll tell her,” Judeth said firmly. “I already know where she is, and I’m Silverblade’s commander; that’s part of my job. You go to Skan; I’ll send her to you there.”

  There, as everyone in White Gryphon knew, was “Kechara’s nursery” this time of the day. Skandranon spent at least an hour with her and the other children, human and otherwise, every afternoon. He loved to spend time with them, telling stories, playing games. Once again, Amberdrake got to his feet and headed for the door; this time Judeth didn’t stop him.

  As soon as the White Gryphon Council Hall was finished, the spouses of every city official had demanded the addition of real offices to it—Winterhart included. “We’re tired of you people bringing work home, and we’re tired of having work follow you home,” she had said, both in her capacity as “spokes-spouse” and in her capacity as a city official herself. “Home is where you go to get away from idiots who couldn’t find the public latrine without a map and a guide! And every official gets an office, even if it’s no bigger than a closet!” she had added. “I don’t care if the post of k’Leshya Clan chief has never had a physical office before, the k’Leshya Clan chief has also never lived in anything other than a tent before, and if he can break tradition by living in a cave, he can break it a little more by having an office and regular hours, and he can bar the door when his office hours are over!” She had glared at Amberdrake, and her eyes had said, And that goes twice as much for you, my dear and over-obliging spouse!

  Since Lionwind’s wife had been standing behind Winterhart, nodding her head at every word and with one hand on her knife, he and every other city official had readily agreed.