by Logan Jacobs
Finally, just as we were about to set out, Corulin drew me aside with a hand on my shoulder. "A word of advice, before you go. A mage like this will not wish to be found, and you can be sure that he will know when you're coming and attempt to stop you." A crease formed between the man's eyebrows. "What I mean to say is this, you need not risk your lives for our sake or for the glory of a bounty. There's nothing wrong with turning back if it becomes too dangerous."
I met Corulin's eyes as I answered him, determined he understood our resolve.
"We're going to find him," I promised, "and we're going to stop him. We're a good team, and we can handle ourselves. We'll find a way to break the curse."
The man smiled and inclined his head in a nod. "I wish you well, then, Shadow Foxes."
I nodded in return, then jogged to catch up to the others on the trail that would take us north.
Chapter 14
"I think I look quite dashing, don't you agree?" Maruk asked as he stroked the fur on the shoulder of his new cloak.
"You're the envy of all the nobles in Ovrista," Lavinia told him. "For the seventh time."
Maruk wagged his head proudly. "I just wish it would get cold enough in the city to wear this around." He sighed. "Perhaps I'll find some other occasion for it, though."
"It's my most ardent hope that you do, Maruk," Lavinia said drily. "Now, can you be quiet for a moment? I'm trying to concentrate."
"The sarcasm is perfectly unnecessary, Lavinia," the orc replied, but if he was offended, he forgot about it soon enough as he went back to admiring his cloak.
We'd been hiking for close to two hours along the northern trail and the weather rapidly turned from gloomy to bitterly cold. I was glad for the cloaks Corulin had given us because not even the warmest garments we'd brought would have sufficed against the biting mountain wind and intermittent sleet. We were all bundled up to our ears, and we must have looked like a strange sleuth of bears as we trekked through the pine forests into the mountains.
At the moment, however, we stood at a fork in the path where we had been trying for the last few minutes to figure out which direction we ought to go.
It proved too wet and windy to consult the map, though it wouldn't have done us much good in any case. According to Corulin, any of the paths that branched from the main trail still led north, and north was the only real direction we had. Whether we now chose to go slightly northeast or slightly northwest, we were really just guessing and hoping we would stumble upon Aurelius' path.
Lavinia thought she might be able to track some of the afflicted clanspeople because if our theory was correct, their diseased wandering would draw them to Aurelius' hideout. Unfortunately, the weather was less than accommodating for the tracker. It was summer and therefore too warm for snow, even at this altitude, but snow at least might have given us an easier trail than the soggy pine needles we had been left with.
"Does it matter?" Aerin complained as she shuffled in place in an effort to stay warm. "I'm sick of standing around. Let's get moving already. If we don't find anyone after a few miles, we'll backtrack. We have maps, that's what they're for, isn't it?"
"I can find the trail," Lavinia ground out, and I suspected at this point, finding the trail was less a matter of practicality for the ladona woman and more a matter of pride. She didn't want to admit defeat just yet.
The ranger was nearly bent double as she examined the ground where the trail forked, circled back around where the rest of us stood to see if she'd missed anything earlier, then turned back to the fork again. All the while, she muttered to herself under her breath.
I wished I could help, but I knew next to nothing about tracking, and I wasn't yet able to pick up on any sort of magical signatures that might help lead us to Aurelius. We were still too far from the mage or any magical foci for my mana-sensing to be of any use. Merlin might have been able to catch a scent, but we didn't have anything that belonged to one of the afflicted for him to know what scent trail to follow, and besides, he had been curled up in the hood of Aerin's cloak for the past hour and was staunchly refusing to emerge until the weather warmed up.
So, if anyone would be able to find a trail here, it was Lavinia.
"Wait," the ranger said suddenly as she took a few jolting steps forward. "Yes! That's a footprint!"
"Are you certain it isn't your footprint?" Maruk asked.
Lavinia shot him a glare over her shoulder. "I know what my boots look like, and you will too if you make another comment like that."
"Someone's touchy," Maruk remarked with a sniff.
"Sorry," Lavinia sighed, "I'm just cold. I can't feel the tips of my ears anymore."
"Just the tips?" Aerin asked miserably. "That's lucky. It's going to take all night for my ears to thaw out."
"So which trail is it?" I asked Lavinia.
"This one," she said as she started up the right hand path.
We followed her, and the wind howled around us. The mountains and the pine trees almost reminded me of hiking in Yosemite with my dad as a kid, but there was something about this forest, maybe the mountains themselves, that just felt bleaker somehow. I noticed there was no birdsong here, and in fact, I couldn't remember having seen or heard any animals since we'd left the camp this morning. I wondered if this had anything to do with the curse that made all of those people so sick or if the bad weather and my imagination were getting to me.
After a few minutes, Lavinia stopped and knelt to examine a bent bit of the undergrowth with a frown.
"Looks like someone came through here," she reported as she stood again. "Most likely a person, probably one of the sick people Corulin warned us about."
"Then we're on the right path," I said.
"Looks like it," the ladona woman replied with a nod as she drew her bow.
"Remember," I said, "Corulin wants us to avoid hurting anyone if we can. We should see if we can talk to them first. If they're lucid enough, we might be able to help each other."
"And if they attack us like they attacked Corulin?" Lavinia asked, one brow arched.
"Violence is the last resort," I said firmly. "We'll try to subdue them without hurting them. They're still people."
"You're the boss," Lavinia replied with a shrug.
"Let's keep moving," I said with a nod, and we started down the trail once again.
We hadn't gone much further before we discovered another sign of the afflicted clanspeople, and this time, it was blatant enough to be evident to the rest of us without Lavinia pointing it out. There was a shoe lying out in the middle of the path. The leather was damp where a bit of frost had melted over it, but otherwise, it appeared as though it had simply been shuffled off someone's foot as they'd walked by. Except, of course, anyone in their right mind would have retrieved their boot, wouldn't they?
I recalled what Corulin told us about the sick person he'd encountered. He'd said the boy's eyes were glazed over, and he hadn't appeared to recognize even one of the people he'd grown up amongst. That was who we would be dealing with if we caught up to any of them, and if this boot was any indication, our meeting probably wasn't far off.
"We should take it, don't you think?" Lena said as she bent to retrieve the soggy boot. "They'll be cold without it."
I wasn't sure the owner even noticed the loss in their state, but I had to admit Lena was right. If the weather got much worse, or if the ill people continued higher into the mountains, discomfort would be the least of their problems. Maybe the curse didn't kill them, but infection or frostbite could do irreparable harm.
"That's a good idea, Lena," I said, and the elf smiled at me as she tucked the boot into her pack.
We were quiet as we continued on, and the carpet of pine needles muffled the sounds of our footfalls considerably. Perhaps that was how we were able to sneak up on the group of afflicted from behind a half hour later, or perhaps the ill people were simply too far gone to care. Either way, we saw the group of five several yards ahead on the trail as they shambled
, zombie-like, toward some unknown beacon, and we needed to decide how we were going to deal with them.
If the mage who had cursed them was Aurelius, and this seemed more than likely, then we might have been able to simply follow them to the mage, but we couldn't be sure Aurelius was even summoning them to himself. The curse could be directing them to some other location. That was what I suspected, anyway. From what I knew of Aurelius, he was cunning, and I doubted he would run the risk of the ill people's families finding him by following the trails of their loved ones. He could just as easily force them to gather somewhere else, then do with them … whatever it was he was planning to do with them.
The other main problem was that, if it could be helped, we didn't want any of these people to fall further into Aurelius' clutches. We couldn't exactly stop our quest to lead them all back home, nor could we tie them up and leave them to the elements while we dealt with the evil mage who was controlling them. That left us with only a few options.
We all hunched among the bushes at the edge of the trail as we tried to come up with a plan.
"It would be easy to just sneak past them," Aerin said. "It doesn't seem like they're very aware of their surroundings."
"I thought we were going to try to talk to them," Lena said, “and I have to return the boot." She had the shoe in question clutched close to her chest like a child with a teddy bear.
"If there's any chance we can communicate with any of them, I think it's worth a shot," I said. I knew it was a slim chance based on what Corulin told us, but he'd only been able to track down one person. Perhaps some of the others were a bit more lucid and could be reasoned with. "At least, maybe we could get them to turn around. They might be able to make their way back on their own."
"I don't think the curse would let that happen," Lavinia said, her arms crossed over her chest. "Corulin said one of his own people attacked him. I don't see why we should expect they won't do the same to us."
"Maybe not," Maruk agreed, "but it seems cruel to just walk by." He cast a glance over to the path where the group was shuffling slowly along. "They seem so defenseless out here. They'd be easy targets for predators."
I put my head in my hands and raked my fingers through my hair.
"So, what do we do?" I asked. "Try to convince them to go home, and then if they don't respond … then what? We can't kill them."
"What if we tied them up?" Lena suggested. "That way, they can't attack us or wander into danger."
"That would just make them easier pickings for the wolves and bears," Lavinia pointed out.
Lavinia was right, but what Lena said gave me an idea.
"I could disorient them with an illusion," I suggested as I lifted my head again, "maybe even cancel out the curse's influence, at least temporarily."
I'd already learned from my dealings with Allowen's reanimated corpses and the revenants in the Shadow Delves that I had to address the source of magical control directly. I wasn't able to influence the corpses, just the necromancer who controlled them. The same principle probably applied to the afflicted here, though there was one major difference in this case I hoped could work in my favor. Unlike the corpses or the revenants, the afflicted were still alive.
The curse had some sort of mind-control effect over them, but they were still autonomous people beneath it. I doubted I would be able to break the curse on each of them permanently, but my magic might still be able to get through to the people inside long enough for us to get out of the way if the afflicted were hostile.
"Worth a shot," Lavinia said with a shrug. "Ready to go say hello?"
"Let's go," I replied.
Quietly, we all got up and stepped back onto the path. We followed the afflicted until we were only a few yards from them, but they still didn't seem to notice we were there. If there was any chance that we could still reason with them, I figured it would be better not to startle them by coming up from behind without warning, so I put my fingers to my lips and whistled sharply.
I'd expected some sort of response, a pause at least, but none of the afflicted even slowed down, much less turned to acknowledge us. I swallowed. We'd have to go around, then.
"Let's go up on their left," I said. If it came to it, we could always block the path ahead of them to get their attention. There were just as many of us as there were of them.
I led the way as we quickened our pace to catch up with the afflicted, but even as we walked beside them, they ignored us completely. Exactly as Corulin had said, there was a glazed look to their eyes, and you could tell just by looking at them that something was seriously wrong. They moved like zombies in an old horror movie, their gaits little more than awkward lurches. Their faces were slack, and their arms hung limply at their sides.
I saw the one whose boot we'd found on the path, a young man who looked to be about my age. His foot was bleeding slightly from where he must have stepped on a sharp rock, but he didn't seem to notice the wound any more than he had noticed his missing boot.
There was something deeply unsettling about them, but it was more than just the sickly pallor of their skin, the tinge of yellow around their eyes, like old bruises, or their flaking lips and noses, chapped from the cold. They seemed like puppets almost, or wax figures, not dead exactly but certainly not alive.
Finally, at my signal, the five of us moved ahead of the group of five afflicted and stepped in front of them on the path to block their way. At once, the ill people stopped, and I was hopeful for a moment that we could get through to them.
"We want to help you," I said, clearly but gently, and I held up my hands to show I meant no harm.
The man with the missing boot stared at me, though with that blank, dead-fish look in his eyes, it was more like he was staring through me. He didn't blink.
"Do you understand?" I asked. "We're here to help."
Then, with incredible swiftness, the man lunged forward to claw at my face with his blunt fingernails, and I barely stepped back in time to avoid him. He lunged again, but Maruk acted quickly and rebuffed the man with his shield, though I could see he was holding back so as not to hurt any of the sick people.
The others had grown restless and began to move forward again in an attempt to get past us.
"Hold them back," I ordered as I stepped to the side and prepared to cast my illusion. I wasn't sure if a fog would disorient them properly since the afflicted didn't seem bothered by natural obstacles, but I thought I might be able to confuse their sense of direction if I could make the forest around them look different. It would be easy enough to make them believe the mountains in front of them, for example, were actually behind them, at least for a minute or two, but that was all the time we needed.
Lavinia batted away one of the afflicted with a hit from her bow, and Aerin and Lena were on the perimeter to ensure none of them got around Maruk. The orc, naturally, was responsible for the bulk of the crowd control we were trying to manage here, and he took to it well. It was in his nature to deflect without doing any real harm, and he herded the afflicted back easily.
"Now, now, that's not very polite," the orc chided as one of the afflicted gave a rasping cry and attempted to claw at his arm. "Back you go, now."
I had just raised my hand to cast the illusion when I suddenly got a twisting feeling deep in my gut. I followed the urge of that inexplicable instinct and looked up, and when I did, my blood ran cold. Nearly invisible against the backdrop of gray clouds above us, a flock of white-winged gryphons circled as silently as ghosts.
"Guys, we have a problem," I warned, and as the others followed my gaze upward, I heard Lavinia curse.
"Now what?" the archer demanded as she drew three arrows and fitted them at once to her bowstring.
"Gryphons, coming in fast. We have to protect the people," I said. Though the afflicted seemed willing enough to try to fight us, they would be no match for the gryphons. "Lena, get to cover! Aerin, get Merlin out here, and get ready."
The gryphons began to descend, tho
ugh they still flew in circles as they observed us. There were seven in total, more than we'd faced in the desert, and back then, we had Uriel and the caravan guards helping us. They were bigger than their desert cousins, too. Even the smallest of the flock could have put a grizzly bear to shame. Now was our chance to take out as many as possible before this got messy.
Lavinia had the same idea, and as the gryphons swept closer, she loosed her three arrows. Two of her shots connected, and one of the gryphons shrieked and lurched through the air out of formation with one arrow in its chest and another in its belly. The creature lost altitude quickly though it still beat its wings in a desperate attempt to stay airborne, and there was a snap of branches and a heavy thud as it fell through the trees on my left.
I couldn't see it through the undergrowth from my place on the path, but I knew that if it wasn't dead yet, it would be soon, so I turned my attention instead to the six gryphons still above us. I raised my hand toward them and cast the same illusion I had in the desert. My mana surged hot and bright through my veins just like the fire I willed the gryphons to see, and I was rewarded by the creatures' startled shrieks as they wheeled out of the way of the illusory jet of flame.
Lavinia tracked them with her bow, and I saw the ranger's own mana flare up as she fired a long shot at one of the fleeing gryphons that struck the creature cleanly through the jaw. The gryphon plummeted to the ground just like the first.
I let out a breath, but I'd barely turned back to see how Maruk, Aerin, and Lena were handling the afflicted when a shadow passed over me.
My fire illusion hadn't scared the gryphons off for long. Perhaps these ones were simply startled by something unexpected, and they didn't have the experience with fire mages that their kin in the desert did, or perhaps these gryphons were just bolder. It didn't matter. Either way, they were back, and they were done checking us out. This time, they came to attack.