On the second day after their meeting in the tower, during archery practise, Durren struck five bull's-eyes in a row. There seemed no point in pretending anymore. The two students who'd previously been the best in their group, Lyra and Tukver, looked at him with a mix of wonder and indignation. Tutor Tallowbyne, who surely knew that Durren's days at Black River were numbered, only pretended as though nothing unusual had happened.
Durren had thought that a little showing off might make him feel better, but doing so had entirely the opposite effect. All he'd accomplished was a glimpse into what his life might have been like, had he only made better choices over the course of these last months. Now, for all his recent efforts at friendliness, his fellow rangers would remember him solely as the boy who was expelled—the one who tricked his way into the academy and paid the price.
That night, Durren made a show of feeling ill at dinner and went to bed early. The next morning, he asked one of the other students to let that day's tutors know he still wasn't well. But that immediately backfired when the boy—it happened to be Arlo Mainbrow, the aficionado of Black River's architecture—proved so concerned that it was all Durren could do to get rid of him. Feeling as miserable as he ever had at the thought of all the potential friendships he'd soon be losing, Durren finally managed to persuade Mainbrow that all he needed was a few hours of bed rest and some peace and quiet.
With all of the other students absent, the room felt even emptier than it should have. Durren could hear faint sounds coming from around the building, murmurs of conversation and the tip-tap of feet, and from the main courtyard the muted clang of blades. However, those sounds didn't so much break the silence as deepen it. He wished he could have come up with a means of slipping away that didn't confine him here all morning.
Now, though, there was nothing to do but wait. As much as he tried to distract himself with the book on arrow-making, the period until second bell felt like an eternity. When eventually it came, the clang sent a shudder through Durren's whole body, as if his very blood were vibrating. Now he really had to go through with Tia's harebrained plot.
Once he was on his feet, however, Durren felt surer. By the time he left the dormitory, he'd already persuaded himself that there was no turning back. If he should be spotted wandering the corridors during lesson times, then he'd already be in grave trouble; perhaps admitting he was sneaking out to spend the day spying on one of the faculty couldn't even make matters worse.
When he arrived at the small courtyard, having nearly got lost half a dozen times on the way, Durren wasn't surprised to find that he was the last to arrive, as usual. The others were waiting in a huddle, looking impatient.
“I wasn't sure you were coming,” Tia said.
“Of course I was,” Durren replied irritably. Then he realised to his astonishment that Tia was smiling; she had only been teasing him. His scowl turned into a grin.
But already Tia's usual seriousness had reasserted itself. “Before we go any further,” she said, “the three of you might want to check in those barrels.” She pointed to a row of old casks against one wall, presumably left to be broken into firewood.
Puzzled, Durren went over to the nearest. “Not that one,” Tia called from behind him, and so he moved on to the next. Trying the lid and finding it loose, he levered it free with his fingertips.
Even having been told to look inside, Durren had still half expected to find the barrel empty, and was surprised to see something bulky filling its base. The courtyard's high walls had shut out much of the day's light, and at first he couldn't make out what he was looking at—until he recognised the protrusions jutting from one side. They were the feathered tails of arrows.
“Oh! My pack,” cried Arein from beside him, and from Durren's other shoulder he heard Hule huff with surprise.
Durren hauled his backpack out and slid his arms into the straps, glad of the familiar weight. “How did you possibly get them?” he asked Tia.
“It wasn't difficult,” she said off-handedly. “I just broke into the store late last night. Probably we'll have returned them before anyone notices they're gone. Now close up those barrels and let's get going; the last thing we want is for Cullglass to find us here.”
Only as she led them to the small door in the wall did it occur to Durren that Tia's plan possessed at least one obvious flaw: their way out was certain to be locked. However, Tia was already kneeling before the portal, profound concentration etched on her face. He heard the scrape of metal on metal; then there came an abrupt click. Keeping one hand in place and steady, Tia reached with the other and drew the door open.
“Easy,” she muttered, sliding her lock-picks back into a pocket.
Outside, the sun seemed brighter; its luminance made the spray rising from the river dazzling. Even Tia's black cloak looked cheerful. She was marching ahead with fast strides, and Durren had to hurry to catch her.
“That was really impressive,” he said. “You know, you deserved to be the first of us to get promoted. Honestly, I'm surprised they didn't go all the way and let you graduate there and then.”
Tia looked uncomfortable. “Actually,” she said, “you and Hule aren't the only ones who haven't been telling the whole truth.”
“Oh?” Durren tried to sound surprised, though it would never have crossed his mind that Tia wasn't keeping her share of secrets from the rest of them.
“The thing is,” she said, “I didn't really get promoted to level two. I just made that up to try and motivate you. Truthfully, I was told I'd never level up until my teamwork improved.” Tia frowned with indignation. “They said that my charisma rating was one of the lowest they'd ever given.”
Rather than laugh as he'd have liked to, Durren feigned coughing into his fist. “Ah,” was all the response he could come up with. Having allowed himself a moment to make certain he wouldn't give himself away, he changed the subject; a question had occurred to him back in the courtyard and now he couldn't resist asking it. “Tia,” he said, “I was wondering…you didn't do all this for me, did you? I mean, bringing us together, getting our packs, this whole thing? This isn't supposed to be one final quest before I get kicked out?”
Even by Tia's standards, the look she gave him was inscrutable. “No,” she said, “of course not.”
“Okay,” Durren agreed. “I didn't think so. But, if you had—well, I'd have appreciated it.” And with that, unable to bear the uncomfortableness any longer, he fell back and let her march on by herself.
It didn't take them long to reach the end of the riverside path. Durren struggled not to think about when they'd travelled this way in reverse, with Blackwing in tow. He hoped Arein had been wrong and that the unicorn was safe; as much as he hadn't much liked the beast at the time, the thought of anyone mutilating so magnificent a creature was hard to bear. At any rate, he had no doubt that Arein would be troubling herself with similar thoughts.
Tia picked out a spot near the corner of the wall, a little way down the river's steep bank, where a close patch of trees surrounded by low bushes offered the perfect cover from which to see anyone approaching. The day was warm and pleasant, the sun's heat mitigated by a fine mist coming off the water behind them. Insects buzzed and birds warbled, and every so often Durren would hear the splash and plop of a fish as it leaped after some prey. It almost seemed a shame that they couldn't just relax and enjoy themselves. This was the first time since he'd arrived, he realised, that he'd been outside the academy's walls for any reason other than an official expedition.
However, waiting in hiding wasn't a great deal of fun, especially when Tia insisted on shushing them whenever he, Hule and Arein tried to whisper among themselves. She seemed to be the only one taking this self-imposed mission seriously.
Fortunately, they didn't have long to wait. Just as Durren was beginning to feel sleepy—from the lapping of the river against the stones of the bank and the sunshine upon his neck—Tia whispered, “All right, here he comes.”
Durren had long
since shifted from the spot where he could see out over the path in favour of a more comfortable position, and so all he could do was rely on Tia's perspective. She held a hand upraised and stayed perfectly still, and he was reminded of a kestrel readying to stoop. After a while he thought he could hear what must be the patter of Cullglass's footsteps upon the packed dirt of the path.
The sound passed. Again, there was nothing to be heard but the birds, the insects, the fast-moving river.
Finally, Tia dropped her upraised hand. “Now,” she murmured—and with that, she was gone.
15
H
ule was next to break cover, with Durren and Arein close behind him. There was a patch of bare and rocky ground before the academy's front, which sloped down to the point where the highway entered the forest. Durren had a brief view of Cullglass in the distance, before a curve of the road stole him from view.
“I'm going to get closer,” Tia said. “I'll take the lead, and all you have to do is keep me in sight. I don't think he can give me the slip between here and Olgen. Just in case though, Arein, did you manage to bring Pootle?”
Arein nodded, and reached into a baggy pocket. When she drew her hand out, the observer was nestled in her palm and blinking at the sudden daylight. Arein held the creature up to her face. “Now,” she addressed it, “do you remember what we talked about?”
Pootle rocked its small body back and forth in a fair semblance of nodding.
“All right, then. Go on, and whatever you do, don't let him see you.”
Abruptly, the observer shot straight up into the air and sped away, towards the forest edge. Tia watched for a couple of seconds, perhaps making certain that Pootle was following its instructions. Then she darted after, disappearing moments later amid the first trees. Durren hurried to close the distance between them, conscious that if he wasn't careful, he would lose sight of both her and Cullglass and that the entire endeavour might be over before it had even begun. Beneath the canopy, the dense upper branches shut out so much of the sun's brilliance that at first day seemed to have turned to evening.
Durren was already half convinced Tia had eluded him when he saw a flash of movement to his left, so brief that he nearly dismissed the flutter of darkness as a fleeing animal or a branch swaying in the wind. However, as he concentrated, he was sure that what he'd seen was the hem of Tia's cloak.
Hule and Arein were catching him up now, so Durren pointed wordlessly towards where he believed her to be. Together the three of them hurried in that direction, careful not to be visible from the road. As he dashed from tree to tree, Durren scanned the dense woodland. Keeping Tia in sight was far easier for her to say than for him to actually do. Of course, she was trying to keep hidden from Cullglass rather than them, which meant she shouldn't have been so hard to see from behind. Yet her ability to dissolve into every shadow, to merge her outline with even the narrowest trunks, was remarkable. It seemed to come instinctively to her, and certainly Durren struggled to imagine that every level one rogue was half so skilled.
Not losing Tia took all of his concentration. Even then, he might as well have been trying to watch a fish swimming at the bottom of a deep pool: he would see only the smallest flicker of motion, gone before his eyes had properly had time to register it. Durren quickly discovered that his only choice was to trust to his instincts and risk being wrong.
For all his efforts, though, he soon realised that it was Pootle who was their best hope and not he. Arein seemed to be doing an excellent job of communing with the little creature. She had taken off her glasses, and now wore an expression at once intent and glazed, as though she were both staring at a distant point and deep in meditation.
As useful as Arein's connection with the observer was, however, it had at least one drawback. Durren wasn't certain how much of the view before her own eyes she was actually seeing—but it certainly wasn't enough to keep her from walking into trees.
Hule was the first to notice, catching hold of Arein just as she was about to stumble into a sprawling spineroot bush.
A surprised, “Oh,” was her only response.
After that, Hule apparently decided that his responsibility in the party would be to keep Arein from injuring herself. He stayed close to her and made a point of gently steering her aside from obstructions, leaving Durren the task of keeping Tia in sight.
All told, they had difficulty maintaining a remotely rapid pace. What made matters worse was that, to judge from the speed with which Tia flitted from trunk to trunk ahead, Cullglass himself was hardly dragging his heels. Their one slender advantage was that the road was winding, defined by the contours of the land. Though the route through the forest was more challenging, it was also more direct.
After a while, to Durren's great relief, Tia began to slow down enough for them to close the gap a little. They'd come to a point where the highway dipped well below the level of the surrounding woodland, and from the high bank Durren found that he could catch the occasional glimpse of Cullglass. In any case, there was only one place the storesmaster could be going, and that was the town now visible in the near distance, where wavering pillars of smoke and a few of the taller rooftops cut through the forest's emerald blanket.
That second leg of their pursuit was easier. So long as they were higher than Cullglass, keeping him in view was relatively straightforward, while for him to see them was all but impossible. And it seemed to Durren that the storesmaster was wary of pursuit; more than once he glanced sharply over his shoulder, or looked askance at the roadside. Perhaps he was only fearful of outlaws. Yet the area around Olgen was unusually safe, thanks to the presence of Black River itself and its many students constantly in need of excuses to test their mettle—a fact Cullglass surely knew.
The ground grew rougher about the town, as though twisted out of shape by Olgen's own presence. As they started down a rugged decline, Durren realised he'd lost sight of both Cullglass and Tia.
“Can Pootle still see him?” he asked.
Arein nodded, nearly lost her footing and clutched at Hule beside her—who looked gravely embarrassed, but was careful to hold her steady.
By the time they reached the slope's base, they'd strayed some distance from the road, and all they had to rely on was Arein and her connection with the observer. Durren let her lead the way, until they broke through a last dense band of trees and the edge of the town rose up before them.
Olgen was a small town by Durren's standards, or really by any standards at all. To his eyes, it barely qualified as a village. He suspected that the settlement existed first and foremost in service to the academy, though from what he'd heard, the locals would have denied the fact vehemently. After that, Olgen's function was as a hub for the surrounding area, offering trade and supplies. Nevertheless, it remained a primitive place in every way; the buildings were largely of wood, with only the very largest built from stone, and hardly any reached above two storeys.
Nor were there many people around. Durren was no expert in shadowing, but he suspected that wasn't in their favour. However, though he couldn't see Cullglass, Arein still seemed confident, and Durren concluded that his best approach was just to let her get on with things. In fact, for all Tia's skill, it occurred to him that Arein and her strange pet could probably have managed this self-imposed quest all by themselves.
With that thought still fresh in his mind, Durren started guiltily when Tia appeared at his elbow. Her arrival was like a magic trick; he hadn't even known she was near.
“Do you have him in sight?” she asked Arein.
“Pootle does.” Even though Tia was right in front of her, Arein spoke as though she were talking to someone in a different room. “Yes, we can see him clearly.”
“And how's Pootle doing? Does it mind helping us?”
“Not at all. I think it's enjoying itself.”
“Good. Then we'll split into two groups,” Tia decided. “Durren, you and I are going to get ahead of Cullglass. Arein, Hule, once he enters t
own you stay well back, at least a street away. If anything goes wrong, don't rush in; rely on Pootle. Cullglass might be on the lookout for someone following him, but I doubt he'll have thought to expect an observer. Can you do that?”
Arein nodded.
“Of course,” Hule confirmed.
“Good,” Tia said. “Don't worry about finding us, we'll find you.”
“All right,” Arein agreed—and narrowly avoided walking into an elderly couple, steered away at the last moment by Hule catching her arm.
“Are you sure it's a good idea to let those two…” Durren began—but Tia was already vanishing into a side street. Durren dashed after her.
This was his first proper visit to Olgen, having barely passed through on his way to Black River, and he was only growing less impressed. The place smelled of wood smoke and horse dung, and those odours seemed to have infected its colours too: everything, even the clothes of the people they passed, was either grey or muddy brown. The place made him a little homesick for Luntharbour, where the buildings were all of lustrous white stone and the streets were kept meticulously clean.
Well, he told himself, you'll be back there soon enough. And suddenly Olgen seemed more appealing, foul smells, drab colours and all.
Tia seemed to have a fair grasp of her way around town. Perhaps she didn't show quite the confidence with which she'd navigated Black River's passages; nevertheless, she barely hesitated as she took one turning after another, moving from alley to broad street to narrow passage between ramshackle houses. At any rate, it was apparent that she had a destination in mind—presumably one that would bring them out ahead of Cullglass, with minimal risk of their being seen in return.
The Black River Chronicles: Level One (Black River Academy Book 1) Page 18