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

by Meighan, William

  In truth, Marian and Owen had done fairly well; Matthew McMichaels had been conscientious about training his children in the basics of self reliance and survival in the wild. Their lean-to in the trees was warm and dry despite the increasingly cold nights typical of fall and the proximity to the mountains, and they had been able to add substantially to their food stores.

  Marian had awoken early one morning and peered out on their little clearing before leaving the shelter. There was a light ground fog on the clearing floor, and not a breath of wind. As she watched, a young buck walked slowly out from under the trees on the other side of the clearing, heading cautiously toward the small pool created by the little spring. A crust of ice had formed near the edges of the water, and Marian could see the steam from each exhalation of breath from the deer seeming to add to the thin layer of fog already in the meadow. The animal was clearly not entirely certain of the safety of his surroundings, but had not spotted anything unnatural in the structure that they had built of cedar boughs back in the trees.

  Moving as slowly and quietly as she could, Marian reached for Owen’s bow and went through the difficult motions to bend it in the confined space and secure the strong, waxed cord that comprised its string. The buck continued to approach the spring in an arcing path, putting Marian’s concealed location off of his left shoulder. Silently pulling a broad head arrow from the quiver, Marian inched forward and slowly pushed one of the cedar boughs that constituted their doorway over just far enough to allow her to slip out of the shelter. As the buck lowered its head to drink, Marian silently exited the shelter, barefoot and in her small clothes and rose ever so slowly to a standing position. As she nocked and pulled the arrow smoothly back to her right cheek, the deer suddenly sensed her presence, looked in her direction then turned to bolt towards the woods. Marian anticipated his move, and let fly scoring a sound hit just behind the animal’s right shoulder. She could not have placed her shot much better, even if the target had remained stationary. There was no doubt that she had pierced the deer’s lung if not its heart. The buck bounded into the woods, but there was a definite hesitation in its movements.

  Marian, adrenaline pumping, hurried back into the lean-to to rouse her brother, get dressed and finish the hunt. Allowing a little time for the buck to settle so that it would bleed out and reduce the distance that they would have to carry back the carcass, the two walked quietly across the clearing where they found a splattering of blood trailing off into the woods. In no more than forty yards, Marian spotted her kill lying on the ground. The arrow had clearly been a heart shot, for the deer was already still. After dressing it out, Marian and Owen carried their prize back to their camp and suspended it from a nearby tree. They had eaten well that night, and had enough venison to keep them in meat for many days to come.

  Marian suspected that Owen was not aware of it, but she certainly was. Owen’s manner toward her had been slowly changing. He no longer treated her, no longer even thought of her as his ‘little’ sister that he must care for and protect. She was now a full partner in their mission to somehow rescue the villagers of South Corner.

  Unfortunately, contrary to their success in the woods, all of their efforts to find a way into the castle, or to otherwise rescue the captives, had resulted in only frustration. There was no doubt that the castle was still manned, they still saw soldiers patrolling the walls, and they were also sure that at least a few of the prisoners were still kept there. Young women still drew water from the river on a daily basis, and they had not spotted Aaron Murray among those prisoners that had been herded across the bridge, although his father was in that group. The main gates still hung open, sagging on their hinges, but with soldiers on the walls, there was no way that they could even approach them. Nor could they approach the old drawbridge that crossed the river without being seen.

  Owen had developed a couple of useful tricks in his experimentation with the lines of force. He’d learned that by manipulating the lines that flowed through the air around him, he could to some extent shape the air itself. He couldn’t form it into anything solid, but by selectively concentrating and thinning, he found that he could achieve a sort of lens effect, and after much trial and error, discovered that by forming two such structures in series was able to create a crude but working telescope. He was also able to form a much larger dish shape that would funnel sounds from the castle to his ears. Although both of these creations were interesting, and potentially useful, neither had really helped them other than to confirm what they already knew, that the castle was manned, albeit thinly manned, and that soldiers had generally foul mouths.

  Their continued search for the hidden back door was based on the observation Owen made in his vision of the large tree roots that were evident near the end of the tunnel. They were carefully scouting every little copse of woods that stood anywhere near the castle. Of course they had to be always mindful of the soldiers still in the castle, and sometimes even getting to a small stand of trees while being certain they could not be seen was a challenge that drove them to use very circuitous and time consuming routes.

  It seemed reasonable that the tunnel entrance would have to be under a fold in the ground, or at least at a significant low spot so that it could be used without those entering or exiting from it being seen by surrounding watchers. So they sought out and explored each wooded dip in the terrain that they could locate and safely approach.

  The ever thinning foliage as winter approached did not help much to conceal them during their search, so they spent much of their time hunched low to the ground if not actually crawling from depression to depression. Each evening they returned to their camp cold, wet, dirty and exhausted from their efforts. Soon, the winter snows would begin to fall, and that would mean the end of their ability to travel the ground near the castle without leaving obvious signs of their activities.

  Captain Saglam sat at the ancient desk that had been discovered still in one piece in one of the rooms of the old stone keep. It must have been a beautiful piece of craftsmanship at one time, made of heavy planks of oak, cleverly pegged together, and inlaid with what appeared to be cherry. The top had cracked and warped some with the passing of the ages, and it had been the devil’s own work to move the heavy desk to his office in the inn without breaking it apart in the process, but a little time and effort with a rag and some bees wax had returned the desk to a semblance of its former glory.

  The construction and restoration of fine furniture had been his hobby and his joy in his spare time before this mission across The Deep so he recognized the exceptional quality of this piece, and besides, since Commander al Bardon’s departure with the bulk of the prisoners, there had been precious little to do to occupy his time. At first, he had devoted his energies and those of his men to preparing the castle for defense against whatever force might exist on this side of the water, but they’d long since done what they could with the resources that they had. They’d given up on their attempt at putting the massive main gates back into service, so now it was just a matter of keeping watches, and of course feeding and watering the few captives that still remained in their custody.

  Saglam was in the process of writing his daily report for al Bardon—how many different ways could a man describe sitting on his ass while his men paraded pointlessly back and forth along the castle wall so that it sounded like he was actively and enthusiastically engaged in the greater mission of securing these lands for the Baraduhne—when there was a firm knock at his office door.

  “Come,” he commanded.

  Lt. Tofflin entered and stood before his desk in a relaxed, but acceptable military manner.

  “Captain, lookout tells me that our two ghosts were seen again today, moving through a small patch of woods to the east.”

  “The same two?”

  “He believes so, sir.”

  “They must be camped somewhere to the north; at least they seem to be coming from and departing in that direction. If it’s just the two, they’re not a
real threat, but on the other hand, I’d feel better if I knew who they are and what the hell they’re up to. Pick a couple of our best hunters, and see if they can’t locate their lair. First light, I think, maybe we’ll catch them with their pants down.”

  Brian Murray lay exhausted at the end of another grueling day. It had been more than a week since the commander of the Baraduhne and all but a few of his soldiers had herded the villagers across the bridge outside the gates of Carraghlaoch and into the woods on the other side of the river. They had been marched a mile or so to the south, and west toward the mountains until they came to the shore of the large, dark waters of the Wizard’s Moat. The villagers were herded down this shore until they came to the huge earth and stone berm created by the landslide that had dammed the waters that filled the lake so many years ago and sealed McDonald’s Break.

  Brian and most of the other men were put to work felling trees and constructing shelters, while the remainder were employed fashioning crude, wooden shovels and other digging tools. The village women were set to weaving small branches together to create rudimentary sledges that could be loaded up with dirt and small rocks and drug away across the ground.

  As soon as a barely adequate living space had been created, all of the captives were forced to begin an excavation at the base of the narrowest spot in the huge slide that held back the still, black waters. It was exhausting and painful work, using their bare hands and the crude tools at their disposal. Their days began in the cold first light before dawn, and with a brief rest at mid day continued until the light was nearly gone in the evening. The older women made them three hot meals of thin soup each day, and those plus the hard work were the only things they had to keep them warm. None of them had been warmly dressed when they had been dragged from their village, and they huddled together to try to keep warm through the increasingly cold autumn nights.

  Despite the extremely adverse conditions, day after day, a deep, narrow slot in the dark brown earth could be seen to be forming in the natural dam that the Old Wizard had created so many years ago.

  Chapter 13

  Escape & Evade

  After their first battle with the gorn, the men from South Corner had gathered their dead and wounded and retreated to a small box canyon nearby to camp for the night. They had had a significant victory, killing eighteen of the gorn, but that still left a dozen or more out there, and there was no way to tell how many of those were still in good fighting condition. Some, at least, carried away arrows embedded deep in the massive muscles of their chest and shoulders. Surely those wounds had to be somewhat disabling, even if the enemy had been able to continue to fight and ultimately withdraw in order from the battle.

  During their retreat, the farmers were dismayed to find that the Gorn were not limited to clubs as their only mode of offense. With their heavy upper body physique, the gorn proved to be nearly as dangerous when flinging heavy stones with cloth and leather slings. While not quite as effective as the farmers’ long bows in terms of range or penetration, the gorn proved very capable at stepping out from cover and quickly launching their missiles before disappearing again into the forest. The still able bodied among the farmers did their best to cover with their bows the movement of the wounded among them.

  The canyon into which the farmers took cover was about fifty yards long, open at one end, with a sandy bottom dotted sparsely with greasewood bushes. The walls of the canyon were only about thirty to forty feet tall, but they were shear, weather-polished sandstone and virtually unclimbable. Without ropes and special climbing gear, there was only one way in, and one way out.

  Matthew took a tally of the men in their small, makeshift militia, and found that of their original thirty-four, fifteen were completely healthy; five more had suffered various lacerations that, once sewn closed and bound up, could still draw a bow; six were out of the fight with broken ribs, arms or shoulders, and one, Jedd Corrick, remained unconscious with a head wound. That left seven men dead, all good farmers and family men.

  It had been late afternoon when the battle ended and the men had withdrawn. The canyon they were in provided them some protection from a frontal assault, but the gorn were raised on fighting in mountainous terrain, and a few of them had managed to work their way to the tops of the canyon walls. From there they stepped out of concealment behind the rock outcroppings just long enough to sling stones down at the men on the canyon floor. This tactic had significant effect; Frank Marshal suffered a scalp wound that bled impressively, and Stu Fredson, already suffering from two cracked ribs, also received a broken clavicle. Return fire from the farmers’ longbows was just not quick enough to stop them. Fortunately, wind and weather had undercut a long section of the south side of the canyon, forming a long, shallow depression where, after the removal of the windrows of greasewood that had accumulated there and with some crowding, the men were able to take shelter with their horses.

  “I never thought to see it; wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself,” declared Wil Stanton, “but I ain’t too proud to admit I was wrong. Those sure as spit are gorn out there. The old stories have come to life, I guess. Question is, what do we do next? We’re likely safe enough here, but we clearly can’t stay for long with no more water than what we’re carrying.”

  “Well, I think our options are few at the moment,” responded Matthew McMichaels. “It’ll be dark soon, and we can’t reach any better shelter than this before it is. The best thing we can do right now, is take care of our wounded and start making plans to make a break for it at first light. We still have the horses, and once back on the old road, we should be able to outrun the gorn.”

  “Jack, you, I and a couple others can get to work digging graves for the dead,” proposed Dan Farrell. “I hate to leave them behind, but we’ll need to move fast when we move and it is still a good way back to town.”

  “Thanks, Dan,” said Matthew, “I’m sure Evan would be willing to help. The rest of us will establish a watch and get some supper going.”

  “Me and my boys will take first watch. I figure we can cover the mouth of the canyon from that screen of brush up there,” Wil volunteered, pointing to the far end of the overhang. “Josh, Cory, Abe, come with me.”

  It proved to be a very long night. Small groups of gorn periodically charged into the mouth of the canyon to launch their missiles at the waiting farmers, who responded with flights of arrows. No serious damage was done on either side, but few men got much sleep.

  With the approaching dawn, Matthew and Dan had the men organized and ready to make a break for South Corner. They had prepared bundles of greasewood tied around stones at the end of short tethers. At a signal, the bundles were lighted and cast toward the mouth of the canyon. The greasewood flared and burned aggressively, but more importantly, gave off a thick, dark smoke. Under this smokescreen and distraction, the mounted farmers charged from cover. With thirty horses in full gallop, they hit the mouth of the canyon with considerable momentum. A small group of gorn was there to meet them, but they were easily overwhelmed and the farmers charged by through the smoke and headed for the old road and South Corner.

  “Where are we headed now?” Jack asked his father once the pace had become more sustainable. “Is everyone still gathering at the Campbells’?”

  “We’ll take up a position in town. We’ve not been completely idle while you kids were picnicking in the country, you know,” Dan responded with a smile. “The Campbell’s place has been fortified some, and your mother and most of the other women and children are there, but a few of us have been working on a section of South Corner that we think is defensible. There are not enough of us to hold the entire town, but we’ve stripped the houses outside of our barricades of any food or other supplies, and we’ve got the wells protected, so we should be able to hold what we’ve got.”

  Marian had made a point to be up before her older brother on this morning, and, as soon as she stepped out of the shelter to relieve her bladder, she planned to sn
eak back in and see if she could not finagle the Old Wizard’s staff head out from under the bundle of clothing that Owen used as a pillow. If she was successful, she could bury it in the woods and put an end to the extremely dangerous “practice” that Owen had devoted so much time to. Owen seemed to be unaware of it but Marian could see her brother changing with each passing day, becoming progressively more quiet and withdrawn, and she was determined to stop it, if she could before the changes were irreversible. There was not a doubt in her mind that all of their problems could be traced back to when Owen found that evil piece of brass in the Old Wizard’s study. Well, all of their problems except perhaps for the gorn and the foreign troops that had abducted the villagers of South Corner. But, there was nothing she could do about those problems. She could, however, save her brother from that staff head even if she couldn’t seem to save the villagers from the invaders.

  Scrubbing the sleep from her eyes, Marian moved quietly to the entry of their shelter. As she reached for the web of cedar boughs to move them aside, she peered through a gap to inspect the nearby clearing. Her recent luck with the small buck had made this a habit. Sure enough, her eyes picked up some furtive movement through the trees. Marian froze in place. It was not a deer. There were two men, clearly soldiers from Carraghlaoch, moving cautiously and quietly just on the fringe of the far side of the clearing. Their shelter was well hidden, and fortunately the soldiers were upwind in the soft morning breeze, or they might well have smelled the ashes from last night’s fire. The horses had been hobbled in another clearing half a mile to the north-west where some green still showed.