Yeva waited for the sound of Salanda’s steps to fade in the distance, then counted to one hundred, slowly, before she silently eased back down to the floor. There she paused again, allowing her body to recover from the strain of holding her position up on the wall and extending her perceptions to detect any further presence in the passage. Satisfied that she was once again alone, Yeva carefully moved back up the corridor in Salanda’s wake.
Salanda could be a problem. He was very skilled and ranked nearly as high in the Guild as Yeva, but his allegiances were not clear. It was rumored that Salanda had ties to the High Lord Sorcerer himself, but Yeva had not been able to confirm them, and as far as she knew neither had anyone else. Salanda never spoke of his work, and allowed no one close enough to find out. The rumor might even be a plant by Salanda himself to garner some safety from other Guild members based on the hinted ties to power, but if so, and if it was not really true, Salanda was courting considerable risk from the Guardians. Yeva dismissed the speculation for now; until some evidence could be gathered, there was no way to resolve the questions.
There were not many freelance Guild members. Without the official backing of one lord or another, it was difficult to stay alive as an independent operator. Only a very few, like the mythic Trancer, dead now nearly two hundred years, were able to do it successfully for any length of time, and an assassin with the skills of Trancer had not been seen since his passing. It was Trancer who had first discovered and perfected the method of drifting freely on the tides of probability in the Realm of Infinite Possibilities. It was said that Trancer could peer as much as two weeks into the future, keeping all of the myriad paths of possibility straight in the process. If true, his mastery far surpassed any Guild member before or since his time. It was this mastery, along with an unerring cunning, that kept him alive and successful for nearly 40 years as a freelance operator, turning all plots and most actions against him to his own advantage.
“Trancer protect me from misstep,” Yeva prayed quietly, and moved on. In addition to opening the avenues by frequenting the publicly known entrances to the palace, she was also searching to discover one or more of the private and hidden exits that she reasoned must exist. Men like Kadeen, al Bardon, and his predecessors back through time would have made sure that they had a path of escape that was unknown to anyone else in case of extreme emergency. Even the High Lord Sorcerer himself would not feel totally secure if he knew he could be trapped in his own palace.
Over the centuries since the Palace was first constructed, several such secret exits must have been created, and in the dim passage of the years it was reasonable to suspect that more than one of those had been lost and forgotten as the men who knew of them took the secret to their graves. Rediscovery of those dark tunnels out of the palace could prove exceedingly valuable, should events take an evil twist, and Yeva had a strong premonition that she was going to need that extra margin of safety.
Sarah, Emily and their guards camped for the night on a small grassy open space that rose some fifteen feet above the Wizard’s Moat on its eastern shore. As the evening light began to fail, Stangar and one of the other guards built a small fire inside a ring of stones, and prepared a pot of bitter tea and a rough trail stew in a caste iron pot. They used water they had brought with them that day, not wishing to approach closer than a few feet from the musty waters of the placid lake below them, and not daring to drink from its waters.
The hands of the young women were untied, and they were each given a small wooden bowl of the dark stew and a crust of hard bread. The rope that joined them at the neck remained in place, chafing slightly as they moved. It had been adjusted so that they were required to sit right next to each other; the ends were pegged firmly to the ground well out of their reach. Their guards were arrayed around the small fire from them, eating their own meals and joking in crude detail about the treatment that they could look forward to once they reached the Palace on the morrow. Despite the rising moon, the dark was deepening around their small island of flickering fire light.
Emily picked sparingly at her meal, her head down and blushing deeply at some of the comments made, but Sarah was determined to do whatever was required to maintain her strength and maximize her potential for escape. She ate every bite of her stew, and even managed to consume the hard bitter bread after soaking it in the dark gravy. The vegetables used would have long since gone to the swine in South Corner, and she tried not to even think about the possible origin of the tough stringy meat. Instead, she placed her attention on her captors, trying to weigh the threat level of each and any possible weaknesses they might reveal.
One of the soldiers had pulled a bottle from his pack, and they were passing it among themselves as they ate. “Maybe the ladies would like a good swig,” suggested a burly guard with a gap-toothed grin and a leer in their direction.
“Leave ‘em be,” growled Stangar. “I don’t want ‘em hung over and clumsy when we try the bridge tomorrow. `Sides, there be little enough for the five o’ us.”
“I still say we should take advantage of the opportunity we been given with these two,” a dirty soldier with greasy black hair offered longingly. “Blondie there is about the tastiest morsel I’ve ever seen. They don’t have ‘em like that among the whores back home.”
“Sizzle, sizzle,” hissed Stangar menacingly with a meaningful stare.
“Damn,” cursed the soldier, and moved off to the edge of the fire light and began to throw fist-sized stones far out over the black mere. They would disappear into the dark as they left his hand, then you could hear a deadened PLUNK as they struck the lake, and concentric rings highlighted by the moon on the black water would race away from the point of impact.
“I wouldn’t be disturbin’ what’s out there, be I you,” commented Stangar.
“I’m not afraid o’ that hell’s spawn,” growled the soldier. “`Sides, it can’t reach us up here, and if it could, I got a piece a steel at my side that would just love to lop off a tentacle or two.”
PLONK went another stone, far out over the water. The sound and the racing ripples were almost hypnotizing in the otherwise silent darkness.
PLUNK The ripples seemed to be disturbed by a deeper swell that time Sarah thought, but in the dark it was difficult to make out the surface of the black lake clearly.
PLONK furrrzzzz SWONK!! The burley guard left his feet and was flung back away from the water, the stone he had thrown embedded deep in his forehead. ‘That sounded like a stone from a sling striking a melon at close range,’ thought Sarah in amazement. It had happened so quickly that she had not even had time to feel fear.
Nobody moved for several long moments. Everyone just stared at where the soldier had been, and where he know lay motionless in the dark, a deeper shadow with a fist-sized stone protruding from where his forehead had been.
Suddenly they all recovered from their shock at once, and dove for the ground, Sarah and Emily nearly strangled by the rope around their necks as they struggled to prostrate themselves. The bottle one of the guards had been holding shattered against a rock off in the dark as it flew from his out flung hand. Instinctively, one of the guards reached out and dumped the teapot over the fire. There was a loud hiss and sudden darkness as smoke and steam rose from the dying embers. All else was deadly still.
“Idiot,” cursed Stangar disgustedly under his breath in the dark, then all remained quiet and motionless.
They lay there for many minutes, no one daring to move or to speak. Finally Stangar whispered, “move back to the far edge o’ the clearing. Keep low, and bring the women.”
Sarah felt someone untie the rope from the peg on her side, then a rough, calloused hand slapped her hard on the bottom as a low voice commanded, “move!”
Stifling a yelp (Emily was not so controlled), Sarah crawled across the grass another thirty feet away from the water. There they were stopped, and the ends of their rope were once again pegged to the ground out of her reach.
Stangar
threw a rough and smelly wool blanket over the two women, and keeping his voice low he told off two of the soldiers to drag the body of their dead comrade well off into the dark woods. “I don’t want it drawin’ anythin’ to this clearing,” he grumbled. “Then take the first watch.” The former relaxed and ribald atmosphere around the campfire was completely gone. Only the quiet menace of the trained soldier under a threat condition remained.
The guards would be alert this night, Sarah knew. There would be no chance to loose her bonds and sneak off into the dark. Instead, she moved as close as she could to Emily to share her warmth against the cold night ahead, and reluctantly put off her thoughts of escape for another time.
Chapter 9
Councils
It took Marian much longer than she expected to make the return trip to the spot where she had left Owen near the old castle of Carraghlaoch. After Jack’s departure to the north and east in pursuit of the gorn troop, she had ridden well to the north of the trail between the castle and the watchtower before turning west so that any traffic on that trail would have no chance of spotting her. Travel was slower here, because the terrain was rough with frequent rock outcroppings and an occasional dense wood of pine or aspen.
Traveling alone in these silent hills, knowing that the enemy that she had always thought of as myth and legend was suddenly real and on this side of the West Wall wore on Marian’s nerves. She knew that the chance of meeting a scouting party in these hills was vanishingly small, but at the same time she could not shake the fear that the gorn had picked up her trail and were at this moment following her quietly back to Owen.
After a few hours of slow and rugged travel, she reached a spot where she could position herself on high ground overlooking her back trail. Marian stopped and silently watched from concealment for any sign of a follower. When not so much as the flushing of a grouse or a rabbit occurred after nearly an hour of patient but nervous watching she moved on, only to repeat the process twice more along the way. Each time, she was terrified that her delays had given a following gorn ample opportunity to circle around behind her, so after each delay she had turned even further off of the most direct path.
It was late afternoon by the time Marian reached the Blackrock Water, where she turned to the south, staying in the trees as much as possible. More than an hour later, she found the little wood where Jack and she had left Owen the night before. She dismounted and slowly led her tired horse in under the trees. Owen’s mount was no longer picketed where it had been the night before, so she tied off her own and began to circle deeper into the woods looking for some sign of her brother’s new camp. She moved as silently as she could, and kept her sling in her right hand ready with a stone just in case.
Owen’s horse spotted Marian first, as she crept through the woods, and responded with a snort at this suspicious person who was moving with such obvious attempt at stealth. At about the same time, Marian resolved the image of the horse in the dim forest, and a man in a cloak with his hood up sitting on the ground facing away from her. The man appeared to be Owen—that certainly looked like Owen’s cloak—but he did not move at Marian’s approach despite the horse’s warning.
Knowing how close she now was to the enemy stronghold at Carraghlaoch, and still on edge from her recent travels, Marian stopped to carefully scan the surrounding woods. The lighting was growing dim here, and with the uneven ground and the occasional old fallen evergreen giant rotting on the forest floor, there were many places nearby where a few men might lie unseen. But the forest felt empty and she could see no sign of others lying in wait. Slowly Marian advanced in an arc that would take her in front of the hooded figure at a safe distance while the bay mare stood stiffly watching her furtive movements intently. Her body was tensed, and she was prepared to cast a stone and flee all in one motion if the seated figure was not her brother.
“You’re back,” Owen said, breaking the silence in a low voice.
Marian started, then suddenly becoming fully aware of the tension she had held, she took a deep breath and answered. “How did you know it was me?”
“I just knew. I assume that because Jack is not with you that the gorn kept going toward the village.”
“That’s right.” Owen’s lack of motion was not helping Marian much to shed her tension. She still felt a little wary of this man sitting cross-legged on the forest floor, wearing Owen’s cloak and using Owen’s voice. Why didn’t he rise to welcome her? Why didn’t he at least turn to look in her direction?
Marian was sidling to her right now, circling around to Owen’s front, but maintaining a little more separation than would be expected from the reunion of two close siblings. She also continued to make an occasional quick scan of the surrounding forest.
“They stopped last night at the watchtower,” Marian continued in what she hoped was a calming voice. “Jack and I camped nearby to see which way they would move next. When they continued down the valley this morning, Jack took off to get ahead of them, and I started to work my way back here.”
Nothing else was said for the few moments it took Marian to reach her objective in front of her brother. Owen’s hood was pulled forward, and Marian could not see his face clearly, but she could tell now that it was really Owen. Marian squatted down so that she could see his face more clearly.
With a hiss, Marian said, “What happened to you? There’s dirt and blood down the right side of your face. You look like you’ve been in a battle. They didn’t find you here, did they? We’d better move quick if you killed one of their scouts.”
“No. No, they didn’t find me… though I almost wish they had,” Owen answered with a sigh. “We failed, Marian.”
“Failed… what do you mean, ‘failed’? How did we fail?”
“They took her. She’s gone.”
“Took who, where?” Marian responded with frustration clear in her voice. She was exhausted from her night of standing watch on the gorn and her trying journey back to Owen, and now Owen was deliberately talking in riddles. “What are you talking about?”
“They took her over the bridge this morning. They took Sarah and another girl—Emily Pearson, I think, I don’t know; but they’re gone. I couldn’t stop them, and I can’t get her back. I don’t know how to get her back.”
“What about the rest of the villagers,” Marian asked, “and what about the soldiers?”
Owen didn’t answer right away. Marian was starting to think that her brother hadn’t heard her questions when he finally responded.
“They’re still in the castle, I think. I watched them all morning until five of them marched off with Sarah. Then after awhile I came back here. I’m not sure what they’ve been doing since, but I think they’re still there.”
“Well, we’re not done yet then are we?” Marian rejoined, heatedly. “We may not be able to rescue Sarah Murray or Emily Pearson just yet, but there’re still about thirty others in that castle that need our help, and it’s still just us here to help them. We’re not done yet by a long ways, and if we’re not done, it’s too early to say that we failed.”
For the first time, Owen raised his gaze and looked directly at his sister. “But I can’t beat him, Marian. Not yet. Maybe not ever, but certainly not yet.”
“Beat him? Beat who?” Marian responded in exasperation. “Owen you’re not making any sense. Who the devil are you talking about now?”
Once again, Owen acted as if he had not heard, but then he blinked and a sad, rueful look slowly formed across his face. “The devil,” he said quietly to himself. “Yes, could be.”
“You’re right of course,” Owen finally acknowledged with a tired sigh. “I’ll just have to figure out a way. There’s too much to do and too many lives at stake to quit now. Welcome back, by the way, if I haven’t said it already. I want to hear all about what you did and what you saw, but perhaps not now. You look exhausted, and I feel even worse.
“Let’s move a little farther north—farther from those soldiers in the castle—a
nd try to get some sleep tonight. Neither one of us is in any shape to keep watch, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want some random patrol to catch us sleeping.”
A cloud passed across Owen’s face as he thought about being caught by the strange sorcerer in his sleep, but he shook it off. He needed sleep desperately, so there was nothing for it but to take his chances and hope for the best. He had a persistent feeling that his brief experience with magic had changed him somehow, but he was not in the slightest tempted to think that he had suddenly become a wizard—a wizard strong enough to defend himself in a battle of magic.
“Go get your horse, and I’ll meet you at the edge of the woods,” Owen said tiredly.
Owen and Marian found a small clearing deep in a wood about two miles north of Carraghlaoch. They were well into a cedar forest as the light was failing, when the thick, dark trees gave way to a grove of quaking aspen which surrounded a small clearing, surprisingly with some remaining green grass, and a little spring-fed brook. The two unsaddled and hobbled their horses, then collapsed exhausted, rolled up in their cloaks and blankets on a spot of turf that appeared softer than most in the fading light.
Marian was still worried about the state of her brother—he had not explained the dirt and blood on his face—but she was far too tired to pursue the matter that night. Almost as soon as she lay on the ground, she was asleep. Her dreams that night included moments of terrified flight, pursued over the rocky hills by a rabid and drooling squad of gorn, but fortunately those dreams were few and brief. If she dreamed of anything else, it left no memory behind.
Owen was no less exhausted than his sister, and although he retained a residual, nagging fear of the unidentified sorcerer and his vile fumes, he resolved to worry about it in the morning. There was nothing he could do about it tonight. With a last sigh, he embraced the silence to calm his nerves and slept. He dreamed that night, as all living things do, but his dreams all retained the nature of dream—he did not fly, and he did not explore dark tunnels. In one dream, he stood sadly near a black mere, on the edge of a small, cold camp in which Sarah and Emily were bound and covered by a course, wool blanket, but that dream was no more real than any other, and it was forgotten with all the rest before morning arrived.
The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1) Page 17