Hunted (Book 3)

by Brian Fuller

  “Gerand smiled, relieved to see Gen awake and coherent. “Well, my friend, we have quite a tale to tell you.”

  “It will have to wait,” Maewen said, voice sharp. “Listen.”

  Ears strained, reaching out into the darkness, but it took nearly a minute for Maewen’s human companions to hear the sound that alarmed her—above them, in the darkness, someone was pounding on stone.

  “Unbelievable!” General Harband laughed. “They actually dug a hole all the way down here! They really are desperate. Well, Torbrand, ready for a fight?”

  “Always, but I’m afraid I have an idea that may delay the pleasure, at least momentarily.”

  “What are you proposing?” Maewen asked.

  “I’m proposing that we let them open the carriage door for us. The wagon is broken. I’m assuming they won’t take the effort to fix it and haul it back up the hole. If I guess right, they will lower a token force of men down here to secure the area, and then send in a Padra to open the door. Once he is sure that Gen is sedated, they’ll haul them out. With limited opponents and the element of surprise, this should be relatively easy, especially if we can eliminate the Padra early.”

  “The plan is sound, but I don’t want to kill a Padra,” Maewen said.

  “I can incapacitate him without killing him,” Gen offered. “If I can get close enough to him.”

  “They’ve been drugging you. . .” Gerand began

  “Yes, I can taste the elm’s draught on my lips.”

  “If you feign that you are near waking, perhaps the Padra will enter the carriage personally to administer the drug.”

  Torbrand loosened his sword in its scabbard. “It’s set then. Maewen, you’ll need to cover our tracks in this room so they won’t suspect that anyone’s been here. General, pass those swords inside so they can fight for us once the door is free. Gerand, Volney, when they start coming, yell for help and act as terrified and alone as possible. Gen striking the Padra will be the cue to advance. The cave entrance exits into a sewer a half mile from here. We will likely have to fight most of the way out. Soldiers will drop through the hole like rats fleeing a flood once we hit them. Go!”

  Hardman shoved the swords through the bars and retreated back into the passage, Torbrand following. Maewen stayed behind for several minutes, using her cloak to smooth the dirt into as natural a state as she could before she turned the corner and extinguished her torch. Darkness fell again, Volney muttering uncomfortably under his breath.

  Nearly an hour passed, the sound of the pick and then shovel resounding ever more clearly in the benighted cavern. “It appears our haste was unnecessary,” Torbrand observed. “By the sound of it, there are three diggers at most.” As he finished his sentence, a rumbling shook the cave, and all at once the ceiling above the carriage collapsed. A thunderous wave of rock, dirt, and diggers’ bodies showered down to bounce off the carriage and onto the hard cave floor. Two of the diggers lay motionless while a third yelled in agony, clutching his legs.

  Hardman snorted. “Morons.”

  Pale, flickering light from bonfires around the hole provided weak illumination to the scene below. On cue, Volney and Gerand yelled for help.

  “We’ve found them!” someone shouted from above. “Lower Padra Seffire first.”

  “Mikkik’s fury!” Torbrand swore quietly. “I miscalculated. They aren’t expecting us down here, they’re expecting a Magician. They had at least three Padras in the caravan. I expect we’ll see all three shortly. You may have to reevaluate your reluctance to kill Padras, Maewen.”

  True to Torbrand’s prediction, the soldiers above lowered Padra Seffire first, and as soon as his boots touched the ground, he incanted, a translucent sphere of dusty air encompassing the cavern. Maewen frowned and Torbrand shook his head in disappointment.

  “Wouldn’t have had much fun if it had gone according to plan,” Hardman whispered consolingly. “Let’s hope Gen is as clever as I’ve heard tell.”

  Two other Padras were lowered in immediately after Seffire, one attending to the fallen diggers. Maewen watched as Padra Seffire approached the bars, holding a brief conversation with the incarcerated. He approached the door, removing a flask from a cloak pocket.

  “Here we go,” Hardman said.

  “Have you seen anyone else down here?” Padra Seffire asked Gerand. “Be quick, boy.”

  “No, Padra,” Gerand answered as meekly as he could, which to Gen’s ear came across as just a shade under stubborn haughtiness.

  “And Gen still sleeps?”

  “Yes, Padra. . .”

  Gen interrupted Gerand by grumbling and stirring noisily.

  “But I think he is near waking.”

  Seffire abandoned the bars and the conversation immediately. “Orvis, Brace, we have to hurry. Get as many soldiers down here as you can.” He incanted his spell and the lock popped. “You two get out,” Seffire commanded after pulling open the door. Volney and Gerand hesitated, unsure what to do. Gen stirred again. “Get out!” Seffire yelled.

  Gen steadied himself and kept up his restless act, moving his head back and forth and fluttering his eyelids. Volney and Gerand dismounted the carriage and the Padra incanted again, though Gen couldn’t tell what the spell had done. Seffire’s robes rustled as he ascended the carriage, his shadow returning the brief glow of light behind Gen’s eyelids back to darkness. The acrid smell of the elm’s draught filled the carriage as Seffire unstoppered a vial. Gen opened his eyes briefly and closed them again as if in a waking swoon.

  Just a moment longer.

  Seffire placed the vial on Gen’s lips. Gen rocked backward and thrust forward with his legs, heels catching the Padra squarely in the chest. The top of the low door of the wagon smashed into the Padra’s head as he shot backward, rotating his body forward while the momentum carried him outside. He was limp before he landed face first on the cave floor. The protective dome of air vanished.

  “Seffire!” the other Padras shouted in unison. A deafening battle cry reverberated through the hall, General Harband yelling a knee-weakening command to attack. Gen moved toward the carriage entrance, muscles sluggish. He gathered the swords under his arm and thrust himself through the open door, weapons clanging as he unfurled the cloak and let them fall to the ground.

  The other two Padras yelled for help from above as their eyes cast about in fear as they assessed the threat they faced in the dark. Volney and Gerand were as still as statues, the victims of some spell.

  Forgoing a weapon, Gen dashed at the Padras. Using Trysmagic, he eroded portions of the floor beneath their feet to throw them off balance and keep their minds far from their spells. With a precise punch to one and a kick to the other, they fell to the ground unconscious. Volney and Gerand snapped from their stupor, and Gen joined them, retrieving the weapons from the ground. Ropes from above cascaded down the hole.

  “Let’s go!” Torbrand yelled.

  Maewen shot down the first two soldiers plunging down the rope before shouldering her bow and reigniting her torch. Hardman and Torbrand punished the first eager soldiers to shimmy down the ropes with a brutal assault. Once the young men joined Maewen, they dashed away from the hole, and the chase through the cramped cavern began. The cave floor alternated between damp, smooth rock and loose gravel, confounding boots and ankles as they struggled forward in the dark.

  “I think we went faster walking,” Hardman commented after Gerand slid and bashed his head into the wall. Gen straightened him up and helped him along, his own bare feet cut and bleeding. He realized the mark of prophecy on his instep would be visisble in better light.

  Shouting echoed to them from the tunnel behind. The cave rarely widened enough to let more than two people walk side by side.

  We could hold them here forever, Gen thought.

  “We should find the sewer before long,” Maewen reassured from the rear after they had hiked for several minutes, confirming what their noses already sensed. The sounds of pursuit came no closer, harsh,
guttural oaths evidencing that their enemies also found the way treacherous.

  Rank, dark fluid seeping along the walls and pooling on the floors signaled their proximity to their goal, and as they rounded a corner, the torch revealed a scattering of pale bricks knocked out of the sewer wall intermixed with rocks picked out of the cave to form a squat, wide opening.

  Maewen stiffened. “Someone is approaching, more quickly than is natural.”

  “A flash skirmisher,” Torbrand identified. “Into the sewer. We’ll have more room to deal with him there. Looks like you didn’t hit one of the Padras hard enough, Gen. Seffire was a fine piece of work, though. He probably won’t remember what table manners are when he wakes up . . . if he wakes up.”

  Gen ushered Maewen forward and placed himself at the rear of the retreat, ducking through the low opening last. He remembered vividly the night Samian taught him about flash skirmishers. Magicians on both sides of the war used them, enhancing a warrior’s or creature’s natural speed and strength. The result was a fighter that could slash into an enemy camp to assassinate a general or into the front line of a defense to quickly weaken a point for a breakthrough charge.

  While costly to Magician and warrior alike, flash skirmishers proved effective tools in killing large numbers quickly with few resources. If the skirmisher caught them in a cave where only one defender could be brought to bear, he would cut through the lot of them like a scythe on summer wheat.

  “Get into the middle of the sludge,” Torbrand ordered. “It will slow him.”

  However clean the streets of Tenswater, its sewer presented no improvement over any other. A dark, fetid water—if it could be called that—rose up to the height of their knees, garbage of all varieties carried slowly on a barely discernible current. The cold liquid chilled their legs as they sloshed forward.

  “Stand behind us, Maewen,” Gen ordered. “Keep the torch forward so we have light. Those knives will do you no good if the skirmisher has a sword.” Maewen complied, but not before shooting him a look that said, “I know that.”

  Gen assessed his options. The spell he had used to trip up the Padras tired him, but he could manage more. A well-placed spell could put a speedy end to the skirmisher, but he could not risk anyone knowing of his magic. Discrete forms of Trysmagic that would delay or momentarily throw off an attacker would be of little use—skirmishers could recover too quickly. Creating an obstruction in the enemy’s windpipe would scream magic, but perhaps disabling a weapon or damaging a leg might give them an edge.

  The too-quick staccato of boots on the damp rocks tightened grips on swords and pinned eyes to the entrance into the sewer. Gen’s mind raced, but not quickly enough as a blurred figured darted through the hole and into the sewer water, blackish green spray flinging up behind churning legs. While difficult to see, Gen could tell that the soldier wore the white of the Eldephaere, a long sword drawn and whipping back and forth.

  There was no time to think. With a quick effort, Gen used his magic to weaken the sword metal where the hilt met the blade just as the skirmisher crossed the distance to face him. Gen timed his swing, the skirmisher easily blocking, but as he did the blade simply gave way and fell into the water. The skirmisher withdrew several paces and stopped momentarily to regard the hilt. The Church soldier was built like Gen, tall, lean, and fast. He regarded them briefly and sprinted forward with such speed that they could barely follow him.

  On his first pass, he bashed Volney in the face with the heavy hilt. The young man fell backward into the water, blood spurting from his nose. Gerand stooped to help him up but received the same punishment as the skirmisher flew by in the opposite direction.

  “Clump together!” Torbrand ordered. Gen complied, sidling up next to Hardman and Maewen. Gerand and Volney floated in the water unmoving. Gen swallowed hard. As the blur started at them again, they all struck out, but the skirmisher diverted to the right, flanking them. In a half a moment he had grabbed Maewen by the jerkin and slammed her into the slimy sewer wall. Her head cracked against the stones and she slumped down unconscious. Her torch sizzled out in the repulsive water, and absolute darkness fell. All sound and movement stopped momentarily.

  “Mikkik’s curse upon you!” Hardman yelled. Gen felt the general step away from them and heard tentative steps forward. “Can’t see worth a bugger, Churchman? Can you? Well, I’ve the eyes of an owl and. . .” Rapid splashes, three solid thumps, and a heavy splash later, Gen knew Hardman had fallen. At worst, the skirmisher would have taken hold of Destiny.

  Unwittingly, Gen realized, their attacker had afforded them the protection of darkness and an advantage to exploit. Closing his eyes, Gen concentrated his senses in the direction of the struggle, the quick breathing of their assailant plain above trickling of the water.

  While committing a cardinal sin of sword fighting, Gen took the risk. Swinging both arms above his head, he flung the sword point first in the direction where he heard the rapid breaths. The soldier rewarded him with a painful grunt and the sound of footsteps staggering back away from them. To Gen’s surprise, Torbrand thrust his sword into his former pupil’s hand and hastily felt through his gear, removing a torch and flint.

  With two sure strikes the torch flared to life, revealing the skirmisher leaning against the wall bandaging a bad cut to his lower-left abdomen. Even blurred, the pale of his face revealed his weakness, and Gen remembered the bane of flash skirmishers—quickened bodies moved, healed, and bled at an accelerated pace. Hardman lay slumped over a flotilla of garbage.

  “If you would have aimed just a touch higher, this would all be over,” Torbrand criticized as Gen returned his sword to him. Torbrand started toward the skirmisher, and Gen was looking to follow when he noticed that Volney and Gerand floated facedown in the water. As quickly as he could, he dragged them out of the sludge and to the slightly raised bank where Maewen lay bleeding from her scalp, face wan. To make matters worse, the sounds of soldiers approaching in the cave grew painfully close.

  Gen looked up. This has to end now. Torbrand approached his quarry cautiously. The skirmisher made no move, standing stock still until Torbrand shot forward, slicing the fatigued soldier on the arm, blood running out in a steady stream. The former Shadan backed away, but the soldier sprang forward, landing a solid blow to Torbrand’s midsection and ripping the sword from his hands.

  Gen concentrated. While experienced Trysmagicians could alter the complex organs of the body directly, to do so required great will and great power. Gen chose the easier path, creating a thick, gooey substance in the empty airway. The celerity with which the skirmisher choked, turned purple, and died surprised Gen. Torbrand’s face showed his surprise, but he did not dwell on it as the sound of hurried boots drew near.

  “I’ll heal Hardman,” he said. “You see if you can get those two breathing and then find a sword.” Gen had already thought the same thing. They could not heal or carry everyone before the first wave of soldiers found them, but they stood a better than average chance of beating them off.

  Remembering Samian’s training, Gen pumped his friends' chests and breathed into their mouths until they gagged and expelled the smelly water from their lungs and started to stir.

  Gen wiped his mouth and set his mind to ignore the awful taste. He found a sword by the time the first soldiers piled through entrance wielding short swords and bucklers meant for fighting in close quarters. Seeing no immediate offense, the leader waited until twelve others joined him. By that time, a tired Torbrand had healed Hardman, who, by virtue of a leather strap, still had possession of Destiny.

  Their foes formed a wedge, preparing to charge. Gen glanced at the hungry, anticipatory fire in his companions’ eyes and then back to the Church warriors before them. Perhaps never before in Ki’Hal had a group of soldiers met with such misfortune.

  “At last,” Hardman growled, stretching his neck, “a straight fight.”

  The Eldepahere were well-trained but wildly outclassed. What Hardman did with
brutal delight, Gen and Torbrand accomplished with determination and precision. In moments the three men swept away their resistance like dry leaves before the gale.

  “Too easy,” Hardman commented as they crossed to their injured companions.

  “I will have to recover before I can heal Maewen,” Torbrand informed them.

  “I’ll carry her.” Gen tucked his sword into his belt and hefted the half-elf after donning her gear.

  “Can you two walk without help?” Torbrand asked Volney and Gerand. The lack of response from the stunned young men was answer enough. Hardman and Torbrand pulled them to their feet, looping their arms over their shoulders.

  “Now we find a place to hole up and heal,” Torbrand said.

  “Anywhere but here,” Volney gagged.

  Chapter 61 - Iron Keep

  The Chalaine, Mirelle, Dason, and Cadaen huddled under piles of blankets for warmth, as the weather had turned unexpectedly cold during the last two weeks of travel.

  “It will only be a few more days, I suspect, Highness,” Dason comforted the troubled Queen as the wagon crept along the snow-buried road. If possible, the conveyance chosen for them felt even more dark and cheerless than the carriage Regent Ogbith had designed for the journey to Elde Luri Mora.

  The Chalaine regarded her Protector and thought she should feel grateful that Padra Athan had permitted any more of her personal guard to remain with her at all. Wrongly, Athan wrote off Gen’s attack as a consequence of prophetic destiny and Jaron’s as a result of Gen poisoning his mind against the Ha’Ulrich. Since both men had acted while in her Protectorship, she initially thought Athan would dismiss all the Dark Guard in favor of the Eldephaere, but then again, with Chertanne dead, the only person who had ever treated her with egregious disrespect could no longer trouble those loyal to her.

  Since they rose that morning, the snow had fallen steadily, the wind sometimes gusting and driving the chill powder through the slim, barred openings on the sides of the wagon. What time it was, the Chalaine could not guess, the sky an immutable gray from sunup to sundown. The snow had drifted up high on the boles of the trees which were thick along the side of the road, slowing the growing caravan in its progress. Athan saw to it that every man-at-arms who could survive a brutal winter march lined up to accompany their ‘wounded’ King and his anxious bride.