Fletcher

by P. S. Power

  Instead there were ten guards, all in gray, most showing signs of having been in battle before, riding up on a single horse each. Gull, his knife fighting instructor was there, if one lesson counted for that. Several of the others were men that Anders recognized from the bowyers. To the side, a smaller group of people in varied clothing also sat astride horses. At least three of them were full knights, riding without their squires in tow.

  Baron Kilroy was also in attendance for some reason. The man looked mean and ready for blood.

  Then, most of them did. Anders was fairly certain his own youthful visage was no less ready to take the life of Master Franken and any who had aided him.

  The last two riding up were interesting. Unexpected, at least in part. On a fine enough looking pony, who was all gray, sat Depak Sona. His hair had been cropped almost to nothing, leaving his head round and bald. His mustache was still there, but only as a set of short black bristles on his upper lip. For clothing, instead of grand silk robes, the man was in plain green and brown. On his saddle was the horn bow that Anders had made for him. One that the color had been altered to make it a plain brown, to match where they would likely be riding.

  Behind him, also in trousers and a sturdy shirt, one that was too big for her, sat Eltha Tennet. She was comfortable enough seeming on her horse, which was larger than the one that Depak was riding. No one came to see them off, which was all for the good. Half of their people had clearly been crying recently. Sitting an all night vigil for the dead.

  For Estella Ford.

  It was, clearly, what Anders should have been doing as well, since leaving at that moment would have them being gone when she was buried or placed in the vaults below the castle. He had no reason to think she would be given such an honor at all. It simply felt like the mood in the air would make that a proper part of the story that Farad was telling himself.

  Raising his right hand got Chestnut to dance a few steps to the right.

  “We need to move fast. If you can’t keep up, for any reason, we’ll leave you by the side of the road. I have the route and Master Tolan is with us, to lead the way to our quarry directly. Thank you all for coming.” He didn’t tell Eltha not to go with them. Depak, either.

  Part of him thought he understood what was going on with both of those people being in their grouping, at least at the start. It wasn’t that they felt great pain at the passing of Estella. They would have likely not met her much, if at all. Certainly, no more than in passing as they moved about the castle on their own errands.

  No, it was that both Barquea and Modroc were claiming friendship with Istlan. When their new friends and allies were presented with a magical problem, it made sense for magic users from both lands to turn out to address it. A thing that would be noted by the King and his court.

  Of interest to Anders was that they had knights, including Sir Humphrey who lead the heavy horse for the King and a Baron. None of the rest of them were making claims to being of noble blood. No one would have expected Kilroy to ride with them, either. It was simply not his duty to stand for Estella Ford, as far as Anders understood.

  It wasn’t until the dark and brooding man, who was thin in a way that spoke of great physical prowess, road over to be next to Master Belford that Anders got the idea. The two men were, it seemed, friends. Enough so that Kilroy put a hand on Master Belford’s shoulder, if briefly. To reassure him, rather than show love. If it were a deeper thing than friendship…

  Well, then neither Anders Brolly or Farad Ibn Istel cared. Not as long as the man could keep up and was willing to help them in their task. It was enough if it was just a friend taking pains to help his fellow in a dark time.

  Without saying more, Captain Ford started to ride, not going fast in particular. There was a need to ride the horses at the correct level, or they’d end up being harmed by the pace. Making best speed would have to come into play by taking fewer breaks and riding longer each day. It was summer, so they had the daylight to get that kind of thing done.

  Their beasts of burden were the limiting factor. Using them to death would be temping for some there, seeking to hunt down the killer as quickly as possible. Doing that would be a poor plan, of course. For the first hours they simply rode, making good time. Ford waved them all to a halt, his face tired and grim.

  “We need to find water, for the horses. If anyone can find a stream…” His eyes went to Master Tolan who simply closed his eyes and pointed in front of them with his left hand.

  “Four miles. Near the road, however, if we keep going.”

  The Captain took an angry seeming breath.

  “We’d ride better if the horses had water sooner than that. The day is going to be hot soon.”

  Anders pointed back at Brownie, where there was a single wooden water bucket.

  “I can get water here. It will take a bit. Unless anyone else has a bucket they don’t mind a horse drinking out of.” A few had vessels that would hold water, it turned out. Most of those were the guards and Knights. They all just lent them out, with Anders filling the things over and over, taking water from the air.

  About halfway through the task, Depak joined in, his face grim.

  “We must be careful, Anders. If we use too much energy, without replacing the resources, we might fail, later. What plans have you for food?” The words were asked as if they might need to stop in a town to purchase things. If so, he really did have some coin on him for that purpose.

  “I’ll gather and hunt as we go. Nearer the end of the day. Until then we’ll ride hungry.” His words sounded a bit firm, which got looks from about half the gray clad guards with them. Two of them actually laughed.

  “Brolly did warn us we were riding fast. Check the mounts for wear.” That call went out, which had everyone doing at least something that seemed correct. Eltha even readjusted her saddle harness before getting back up on her beast.

  Then they rode again, with Master Tolan moving to ride beside him. Depak came over as well, the older man speaking softly.

  “The art of the Wizard is different than some other schools of magic. The key is to free the mind of other thought, holding only the one idea you wish to know about. Then letting the magic provide the answers to you. The knowledge of all things lies inside of you, already. Getting your busy thoughts out of the way correctly and learning to sort what is useful over that which isn’t is the base of the art.” As they rode, over the next hours, the whole process was explained. Carefully and more than once.

  How to enter the proper state of mind and how to hold it under stress. Ways to practice and how to link to different types of information in many ways. The use of the left hand only to point out and feel where things were. Then, still on horseback, they were given orders for things to look for. That was harder to do than it sounded like it would be from the Master’s use of the words easy and simple in his explanations.

  Still, Anders had the basic idea down by the time they watered the horses at the small stream that Tolan had proclaimed being ahead, earlier. Depak struggled with it all more, though he seemed to get where the water was finally as well, as they closed in on it.

  Master Tolan nodded at both of them, his face pleased enough. It was a mild thing.

  “That’s fine work for the first day. Use this talent whenever possible. Find your lost sock or feel who is at the door before you open it. The more you practice, the better your skills will become in the long run. It generally takes many years to become truly proficient at such skills. There are other tricks to learn, as well. It… is not a thing of grand power. The skill is most useful when you need to know almost anything. Do not limit yourself that way. If it can be known, then the arts of the Wizard will allow you access to it. The trick is in finding the way you need to look at different matters.”

  A few of the others that rode with them nodded at the idea. One of the old veterans made a face and moved up to join them. Gull, the guard smiling, his face warping a bit where the scar made his lip pucker.

/>   “So, I just clear my mind, like, and know that I want water? I could do that with anything? Say I want some ale, I just do that and point at it with my left hand?” He demonstrated, ending his movement by pointing at Baron Kilroy’s saddle bag.

  Instead of stabbing him for the implied insult of drinking such a low born beverage, the man gave a wintery smile, reached into his bag and pulled a decent sized hide water skin. The thing was tossed to the guard that had spoken, who, rather nervously opened it. Then, when the baron nodded, took a sip.

  “This is good. Who knew, I’m a Wizard!” The words were meant to get a laugh, which worked, for about half the people. None of the magic using ones did, nor the baron, who only took his skin back and repacked it.

  Master Tolan looked at the guard and smiled. It was a bit sad seeming.

  “What’s your name, if I might ask it?”

  The man sobered, then nodded, his brown hair gray at the edges.

  “Gull. Sergeant Demo Gull, Master.”

  Tolan nodded at the name.

  “Well, if you can apply what I was telling these others and practice, then yes. You can be a Wizard. Chances are nearly half of you men here have some kind of magical talent, if you wish to learn to use it. Most don’t want to put in the work. Fighters aren’t lazy, or too afraid, so it might be a plan for those here. We don’t know what we’re facing on the other end of this trip, or what wars will be coming. Anything might help. We’re going over things, as we ride here, so try it out, if you can. The worst that happens is that you don’t get as bored and learn things that might help to understand, even if you can’t use them yourself.”

  There was some truth to the idea that doing nothing but riding was less than fun. On the good side, when they got off, his inner thighs weren’t on fire each time any longer. The conditioning from the last trip hadn’t worn off as of yet, it seemed.

  Eltha went next, working over how to form the mental images used for illusions. It was clear that no one else there was truly getting the idea as they traveled, including Tolan and Depak.

  Painting pictures in his mind of the complicated mental images needed, which was a pictorial language that had full life images put into them at different places took some memory work to make happen. In the end, no one else made anything appear in front of them at all.

  Anders made a horse that walked up alongside Eltha, being nearly a copy of the gray she rode. The dappling was in different places and there was no rider on it. Otherwise it wasn’t too poorly done. It sounded real, and smelled like a horse, at any rate. The only real issue was that it looked too much like Brownie to be real.

  Glancing at it, the woman made a rude sound.

  “It took me five years of practice to be able to do anything even nearly that complex. I’d claim you were cheating, if I could imagine how one might do that at all.”

  Anders nodded.

  “I have a very good memory and use tricks to make it even better. It’s like having a book in front of me, with your words in it, now.” He didn't elaborate, though there was truth to the words he was using.

  A thing that got a nod, without anyone asking where he’d learned that kind of clever trick in the first place.

  Which was foolish of him to mention, being a fact that he needed to keep hidden. Except that those who might have killed him over it were already aware of the situation. Some of them at least had been almost the entire time. Told by Master Franken, who was, Anders recalled, the same person that had warned him to hide what had happened in the first place. True, Anders the boy had feared what would happen if he, if they, were found out. That had been a real portion of the whole thing as to why he’d tried to prevent the presence of Farad from being known.

  The biggest portion was that the first person there he’d spoken to had played into those fears so very well.

  As they all became more weary and were about to camp for the night, riding to a point where fear for the health of their mounts was what caused them to cease their actions, Anders started to use magics to pull plants from the area around them. Then, when they stopped he moved into the brush, pointing with his left hand at where there was a small heard of deer, using the skills Master Tolan had taught him that day and managed to sneak close enough to kill one of them before the others ran off. He had his bows and a spear with him, both back with the horses.

  Those were in the care of Depak, when he came back into the camp, a while later, the deer already having been bled. It floated behind him, since he lacked the size to carry the thing over his shoulder at the moment.

  A fire pit had been made, with his cook pot being pulled out, though no fire had been started as of yet. One of the guards was about to work on that, when Anders walked over and pointed at the logs with his right hand. His thumb and smallest fingers out, the rest being tucked under.

  That got a blaze going much faster than fighting with it would have. The guard just packed his gear up in silence and placed more wood on the blaze, since they were going to need more in order to roast most of a fresh deer. The pot was settled almost in the fire itself, to start the water boiling for a rough travel stew. That would be what had been collected and some salt. He’d left the rest of the spices back in his room.

  After a moment, Anders closed his eyes and started to call in mounds of forage, so that the horses could have their own late meal. Not feeding their mounts well would be worse than not eating themselves. Riding took a certain amount of energy for the man. Carrying a person while walking across a good quarter of the kingdom wouldn’t work at all, without enough to eat.

  The next days all went like that first, for the most part. They started to slow down on the third day, the horses getting tired. They all stayed fed, with the food being bland, if filling enough that no one was complaining of hunger. No one even bothered him about collecting spices or different types of animals each night. More than once he’d cheated by using magic to do basic things.

  On the fifth day, for instance, Anders decided to try his hand at archery. He’d been practicing his wizardry skills, trying to see what was ahead of them on the road. More to the point, to feel what was there. The images in his mind didn't care what was in the way, which was interesting to note.

  Meaning he waved for everyone to stop for a moment. That got him glared at by Captain Ford, most of the knights and about half of the guards. The Captain had to turn his head to see him getting off of Chestnut. The man started to speak, only to have Anders shake his head and finish stringing his bow. Then, he took four arrows, and muttered a sentence at each of them.

  When he fired the things into the air, he hit both sides of the narrow dirt path they were on, making the brigands that were hiding there in ambush scream nicely. No one even commented on his stopping for a spot of murder. They just went on, with Captain Ford looking into the brush in a few places once they were traveling again. It wasn’t even commented on that the ten or so criminals would have likely let them pass, since they had more numbers and clearly armed people.

  Leaving them there would have likely led to the death of whomever passed next.

  As they moved on, he kept practicing his skills. All of them. It was hard to do and exhausting. Also, a thing that he figured might be needed.

  If nothing else, to keep them all fed as they traveled.

  On the tenth day, early, Master Tolan waved him over, along with Depak and Eltha. Captain Ford, as well. The rest of the men were still on their horses, looking interested, if tired.

  Tolan, his face showing a decent beard at the moment, if a new one, pointed with his left hand, one finger out, accusingly, to the side of the road, off to the left, if only slightly.

  “We’re almost upon him. Franken, the traitor. My talents tell me that he is in a small building, about a mile ahead. Also, that we have not been noticed as of yet by him. How do we proceed?”

  Rather than ask about what was there, Anders dropped into a trance, with his eyes closed. Standing on the ground, since falling off of Chest
nut was a horrible way to start a mission. Then, slowly, he let his mind run over what was there, in the distance. A small cabin, though one that showed tight seams and skill in the woodwork on it. The kind of thing a nobleman would think meant he was roughing it while hunting, even if half the population of the world lived in things far less secure or well made.

  In the front of the place, under a crude tilt frame, stood a single horse. Inside the place… There was only the one man. He did, indeed feel like the Master Healer. That part of things nearly caused Anders to lose the state he was in. The man didn't feel evil. Just like any man might.

  That annoyed him, knowing that he’d murdered someone so close to so many.

  Taking time to find his thoughts, it was clear that Franken felt secure enough in the moment, having moved well away from the border of Istlan. Meaning they were in Yanse and had been for several days. The back paths they’d taken were the same roads that the other man had, so no markers had been in place to tell them of that fact.

  A thing that didn't matter at all.

  Blinking, Anders realized that Master Tolan was asking him something.

  “What plans does he have for escape, if we descend on him?”

  That was simple enough to find, in the other man’s mind. He wasn’t planning anything, so would run, if he could. Taking him wouldn’t be hard at all, since he had nothing of note set up to tell him that anyone was even close to finding him.

  What he did have was several blood magic patches with him. They felt like him, instead of a more advanced blood mage. That didn’t mean the things might not be powerful, of course. Depak mentioned that, which sounded very far away.

  Finally, coming up to his own mind, Anders understood that they’d moved from information gathering to planning an attack.

  Ford spoke in a low, almost angry, tone.

  “We surround him on all sides. You magic users stay back. Be ready to fight if he gets past us. We have orders from the King to take him alive. If possible.” The Captain sounded as if that might just not be a thing that anyone could really do or be expected to pull off.