The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1)

by Meighan, William

  “Tame it and raise it as a pet,” answered Aaron, eagerly. “Nobody’s ever done that before, I bet, and besides no one is going to believe us if we don’t take back some proof.”

  “Nobody’s ever done it, because nobody could do it,” responded Owen quickly. “Great-cats are vicious. Even those kittens would tear you open if you tried to pick them up.”

  Just then the discussion was interrupted when they heard a deep cough and a low menacing growl behind them. There across the small clearing was a large tawny great-cat, muscles bunched beneath its crouching body, tail lashing powerfully from side to side. Owen stared for a moment at the intent yellow eyes, the black markings that went up the furrowed brow and back between the tawny ears, and the long sharp fangs evident in the snarling mouth, and knew that he was seeing what many a deer had seen just before it became the great-cat’s dinner.

  Slowly, the boys began to edge to their left, away from the mouth of the cave. “Stay behind me,” Owen said, as he started to weave his staff before him, building momentum and hoping to confuse or intimidate the angry cat. “And don’t use your bows,” he added quickly when he saw Aaron fit an arrow, “you’ll just wound her and make things worse.”

  They had covered about three long strides, when the great-cat suddenly sprang forward in a rush. Owen braced himself, and at the last moment he struck as hard as he could to the side of the head of the leaping cat and pivoted away. The sleek animal managed to rake Owen’s left forearm with her sharp claws as she went by. She landed heavily, but quickly rolled to her feet snarling. Using the opportunity, the boys backed quickly towards the far side of the clearing. The cat advanced more cautiously, as Owen went back into his weave. He was shaken, but with the adrenalin streaming through his veins did not feel the pain of the gash in his arm. By now, Aaron and Jack had slung their bows, pulled out their slings, and were throwing stones with as much energy as they could at the sensitive snout of the advancing animal.

  When the boys managed to back to the far side of the clearing, without a further attack, the cat shook its head in response to a particularly effective stone, gave a last low warning growl, and ran quickly back to her den to check on her cubs. Owen, Jack and Aaron took the opportunity to turn and run as fast as they could into the woods and down the hill. It was some time before they gained sufficient self-control to slow their mad scramble to a quick but more cautious pace. More like the cat than like the deer, Owen had chastised himself.

  Once they were clear of the trees, behind Jack’s back pasture, Jack noticed the blood running down Owen’s arm and dripping off of his fingertips. “Geez, she really got you good,” Jack exclaimed to Owen. “You’d better let me clean that up a bit for you before you go home.”

  The boys stopped at the pump in the yard where Jack peeled back Owen’s tattered left sleeve and whistled his amazement as he revealed four long parallel slashes running diagonally down Owen’s forearm. “Do you want my mother to look at that for you?”

  “No,” Owen responded, “it cleaned itself out pretty good with all that blood so I don’t think it’ll get infected. Just rinse it off good and bind it up tight for me. My mom will do the needlework if it needs it. Wish I didn’t have to tell my folks what we got ourselves into today, but there’s no way I can explain this shirt.”

  “Explain it,” Aaron exclaimed. “What are you talking about? This is the greatest adventure that any kid in South Corner has ever had. We’ll be heroes!”

  “Maybe so,” Owen responded, wincing while Jack bound up his arm with a piece of cloth, “but I don’t think my dad is going to see it that way, and I’ll bet Jack’s won’t either.”

  They had been heroes at school that week, Jack remembered. The long deep slashes beginning to form permanent scars on Owen’s arm had been more than adequate proof of their adventure. Each of them had also been thoroughly thrashed by their fathers, but that had been nothing compared to the memory of the close call that they had had with that cat. They didn’t admit it to their friends, but they had all had nightmares about the charge of that great snarling beast for many nights to come.

  Jack remembered that experience now as he chose a good spot for first watch. Several times since that harrowing adventure, when faced by some intimidating or fearsome task, Jack had called forth the memory and told himself, “but this is not as bad as facing a great-cat.” He’d never faced a gorn before, but he hoped that old expression still applied.

  Owen watched Jack take his position in a concealed spot that gave him good visibility of the campsite and surrounding area, then climbed under the rock overhang next to Marian and rolled himself in his blanket, placing his staff close at hand. It had been a long and difficult day, and Marian’s unexpected appearance had made it that much more difficult.

  Owen had always been protective of his younger sister, watching out for her and defending her in the face of the town bullies when she was old enough to join him in the school in South Corner. In a family with two brothers, working a farm on the edge of the Gray Hills, Marian had grown up tough and capable in her own right, and she often found Owen’s protective instincts a little exasperating. At an early age, she had learned how to take best advantage of the close bond that she shared with her older brother, often getting his help with some of her less desirable chores around the farm, and even occasionally tagging along with him and his friends on some of their adventures into the woods.

  Marian had quickly fallen asleep in the aura of protection next to her older brother, but Owen, despite his fatigue lay awake for some time. What was he to do with his little sister in the morning? She clearly did not realize the danger that they were all in. She probably had not seen the havoc caused by the raiding party in the village, the bodies of the small children broken and left behind. Like Owen, prior to this morning, she had never seen the results of real violence before, other than the natural kind of violence that one wild animal would inflict upon another. Raised on a farm, and hunting to supplement their food, they were both well familiar with the relationships of predators and prey, but the kind of violence that men can use against other men was completely foreign to them. How could Owen let his innocent little sister become exposed to this type of danger?

  “Little.” On reflection, that description really no longer applied. Marian at seventeen was only two years younger than he, and he had to acknowledge that almost without his noticing, she had begun to develop all of the characteristics of a healthy and pretty young woman. Other girls her age were already forming serious relationships and even getting married. Would her age and appearance make her safer or more at risk if they were captured by the hard men that they pursued? Owen did not like to think of his own sister in this context, but he was almost certain that her growing femininity would put her in even more personal danger.

  Owen lay there brooding over their situation and what he would have to do come morning. He would have to send her back. He stared at the rock above him for some time, but the stresses of the day took their toll, and despite the hard ground beneath him, he ultimately fell asleep.

  Owen drifted for a time in the gray world of sleep, hearing the night sounds and feeling the soft night breezes on his chest. When he opened his eyes, he looked out over the dark hills, adequately lit by the waning moon and the stars above. When he looked down from the high branch in the old oak, he could see Jack sitting vigilant near a bush that provided him cover from below.

  Feeling completely natural with the motion, Owen spread his wide gray wings and leaped from the branch. With a few strokes, he regained his altitude and soared once in a wide arc around their campsite. He saw a possum foraging on the other side of the hill, the horses grazing quietly in the little clearing, and Jack looking up as he passed silently overhead, but there was nothing else moving in the area.

  Satisfied, Owen stroked his powerful wings and sailed to the west. From just above treetop level, it was easy for him to see where the thin patchy grass below had been crushed by the gorn and their
prisoners. Using available air currents and thermals he flew a swift but easy course that kept him in sight of the trail. These were not rich lands, so other than the occasional rodent, Owen saw few night animals. He seemed to be the only owl in these skies this night.

  Owen continued to wing his way west and a little bit south into the Gray Hills. The trail below was completely empty. If the gorn had left a force behind to capture pursuers, he did not see it, and he did not believe that even a small party of gorn in those lands could have avoided his notice. After a few hours, he saw the light of fires in a small valley ahead. Stroking to gain more altitude, Owen circled wide of the encampment. There were seven small fires in a large circle that had burned down to glowing coals. People were lying on the ground in small groups in the center. Some were rolled up in blankets, but most just huddled together for warmth. The ones without blankets seemed to Owen to lie strangely, until he realized that their arms were bound behind them.

  Owen saw motion near a tree just outside of the ring of campfires, and glided a little closer to get a better look. He dared not come too close; he knew that he had finally overtaken his enemy, and a good archer might find him a tempting target if he swooped in on this group in decidedly un-owl-like fashion.

  Startled, Owen suddenly realized that he was looking at his first gorn. The shoulders were too high and too wide to be those of a man, and it was covered by a thin patchy coat of long hair. Owen could not discern the color of the gorn in this light, but he thought it might be a mottled sandy gray or brown—colors well suited to blend in with the rocks of mountain or cave which legend held was the natural habitat of the gorn.

  Owen slowly circled the camp three times, and saw perhaps twenty men who looked like soldiers, and perhaps twice that number of gorn. He saw one group of women prisoners huddled together near the center, but he dared not get close enough to see if one of them was Sarah Murray. He deeply hoped that she was still alive and not too badly treated, and vowed that he would see her freed and home again in safety. He was not able to pick out Aaron among the groups of huddled men, but he did think that he spotted his father, Brian.

  Curious, Owen decided to extend along the line of march to the west to see if he could determine where the invaders were headed. Up into the Gray Hills he flew. A few leagues beyond the camp, he spotted a great stone tower on a hill with a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. Although it appeared to be mostly intact, stones had fallen from the walls, and vines had grown over much of the remaining structure. He landed on a high point of the crumbling wall and peered into the dark and deserted ruin.

  Owen thought back over the stories that the Old Wizard had told them about the men who had fought gallantly against the sorcerers and their gorn before McDonald’s Break had been sealed, closing the only passage in the south across the great natural mountain barrier known as the West Wall, but he could not remember the name of their ancient city. Could this be a watchtower or some outer fortification of that city? No one from South Corner ever traveled in these lands south of the village. The lands themselves were too arid for profitable farming; there wasn’t much game here, and nothing in this direction from which any commerce or other traffic would come. The Old Wizard was likely the last to have had any personal knowledge of this part of the parish (if part of the parish it could rightly be called). From his perch, Owen gazed around the surrounding hills to see if he could spot any other signs of the past civilization that had once flourished here.

  A sudden movement in the dark interior of the tower startled Owen, and in a panic he launched himself from his stone perch. As he was barely airborne, a large chunk of rock glanced off his thigh and spun him in midair. Owen struggled frantically to regain control and dive away from the now sinister stone structure. Disoriented by fear and barely able to achieve controlled flight before crashing, Owen managed to swoop away from the tower at less than a span above the rocky ground below.

  “Ha! See throw?” he heard a deep guttural voice boast from the shadows behind him. “Near had us snack with that one.”

  With a gasp, Owen awoke wrapped in his blanket, struggling to scoot on his side further back under the overhanging rock. His heart was pounding wildly, and it took him several moments to remember where and what he was. Calming his breathing, he waited for his heart to return from his throat back to his chest where it belonged, then took stock of his surroundings. Marian still slept soundly beside him, and other than the receding echo of the pulse that had been hammering loudly in his ears all seemed quiet.

  During his wild thrashing as he awoke trying to escape from his nightmare, Owen had bruised his right hip on a large stone that had worked its way under him. He rolled off of it onto his back and continued to breath deeply and run through the calming mental exercises that he sometimes used during archery competitions with his friends in the village. His thigh still throbbed a little, so he reached down to rub the pain away. Owen was surprised to feel that the stone that he had laid on had somehow found its way into his pocket. Curious, he pulled it out and held it up to his face before casting it off into the dark. There in his hand staring back at him with gradually fading ruby eyes was the brass headpiece to the Old Wizard’s staff.

  Chapter 3

  Watchtower

  Aaron Murray was struggling to keep up the pace demanded by his captors. He was keeping his breaths shallow and bending slightly at the waist to favor his right side, but every step still sent a stab of pain from his cracked ribs. This, the second day of their march was even more difficult than the first. The shock of initial capture was over, but all of the captives had grown weaker due to lack of food, rest and sufficient water. Their course was a winding one to the west, climbing up into the Grey Hills. As a result of their condition and the steadily rising terrain, the line had grown ever longer during the day as the slower and weaker had fallen behind despite the most brutal encouragement by the soldiers and the gorn.

  When they had halted the night before, their captors had kept them separated in small groups of ten or less. Systematically, the soldiers had gone through the groups one at a time, and under very heavy guard had untied the leather straps that bound the villager’s arms behind their backs. They were allowed a brief and painful period to exercise and get the blood flowing, then they were each given a thin strip of dried meat and a hard, dry biscuit. When this meager meal was eaten, and the water bags passed around, their wrists were again secured behind them, and the guards moved on to the next group. It was strange, Aaron thought, after being tightly bound all day and half of the previous night, his arms were practically useless to him, and yet the guards had acted as though they feared that their prisoners would be able to somehow sweep them away with the mere wave of an unfettered hand. Aaron didn’t think that he could have swept away Marmalade their family cat after yesterday’s ordeal.

  The prisoners had spent a miserable night on the ground, their hands and feet bound, huddled against each other for what warmth they could retain against the cold autumn night. Most had been herded out of the village in what little clothing they had worn to bed the night before—ample in a warm cottage under a down coverlet, but totally inadequate for a night under the stars in the Grey Hills. At first light, they were allowed to attend to their toilet, again under heavy guard. They were given another strip of jerky (Aaron did not want to speculate what kind of flesh it might be) and some water, then their wrists were bound behind them and the arduous trek up into the hills resumed.

  By the time the sun had risen half way up the sky, Aaron was plodding along with his head down near the middle of the long line of captives. Gradually a low murmur from the groups ahead of him finally broke through the dull concentration he was devoting to placing one foot in front of the other. When he looked up, he was unable to immediately determine the cause of the disturbance, but soon he noticed that captives in the line ahead were casting furtive glances towards a vine covered mound on the hill ahead and to the right of their line of march. It wasn’t un
til Aaron had gotten closer that he suddenly realized that what he was looking at was an abandoned tower or fortification of some kind. Some of the stones had fallen, breaking up the silhouette somewhat, and brush and a tree growing out near the base had obscured the size and nature of the tower at first, but once his mind determined what it was, he could see that it must have once been proud and strong with a clear vantage over the hills and valleys for many miles. The large scale of the tower was provided by a trio of gorn who were standing outside at its base looking down on the passing prisoners. Aaron thought that he glimpsed a fourth on the remaining portion of the tower’s rampart high above.

  Aaron was awestruck and continued to gaze at the tower as the line of captives snaked its way around the base of the hill and continued to trudge westward. This had to be a remnant of the great kingdom of Carraghlaoch that had figured so prominently in the stories of the Old Wizard. It was Carraghlaoch that had ruled these lands ages ago. Their dominion had extended to the north well beyond the current town of Shepherds Hill and to the south and east into what was now called the Trackless Hills. Carraghlaoch had also been home to the storied warriors who had fought so many heroic battles holding the great mountain pass through the West Wall known as McDonald’s Break against the recurring and determined assault of the gorn and the evil sorcerers who led them.

  When he was young, Aaron had spent many hours listening to the Old Wizard weave these tails and wishing that he had been born in those more exciting times. The boring routine of village life was almost more than he could bear when he thought of the impressive deeds that the heroes of that past age had accomplished.

  If the Old Wizard was to be believed, the people of South Corner were the descendents of the men of Carraghlaoch. Aaron had been filled with pride when he first heard this, but now it galled all the more to realize that while his ancestors had fought valiantly and vanquished this ancient enemy, he and the rest of the village had been conquered by that same enemy while lying in their beds, and without a single casualty inflicted on the other side. Silently he vowed to never accept captivity, to never give up the struggle for freedom. He knew that he would have to bide his time. They had been too well guarded so far, but sooner or later the guard would get careless, and then, he promised himself, he would make his move.