by Dave Skinner
“Do you have a problem with that?” the assassin growled, letting his hand fall to the handle of his sword.
“Not at all, I yearn to see him dead, but I need this skin returned to him before he is killed. If you will force him to take it back, I will tell you where he will be.”
The assassins looked to one another. “It means we cannot use our bows.”
“We are four. He is only one.”
“But he killed the prince. He must be a master swordsman.”
“He is not expecting us. Surprise will win the day.”
“Are we agreed?”
The other assassins nodded their accord.
Chapter 16
A short distance along the coast, Bray, Adel and Clamcraver sat around a small cooking fire. Their boat was pulled up on the sand of the beach. Their meal was finished.
“I have never seen you use your magic,” Clamcraver said to Adel.
“That is because I do not possess any magic,” Adel replied with a laugh. “I can sense it, only.”
“I can see your magic. You do not have to try to hide it from me,” Clamcraver replied with a questioning look.
“You are most likely sensing the magic in my coat or in the blankets we use. They are both of Far Darrig origin.”
“I can see that you are being truthful with me, but you are mistaken. You possess magic. I will prove it if you wish.”
Bray moved forward slightly. He knew that Adel was uncomfortable with her ability to sense magic. He was interested to see what she would do in this situation. He felt that she had matured quite a bit over the time they had been together, but would she or could she accept what the Selkie was saying? Bray believed the Selkie. It was an accepted fact that all the fay folk could see magic. It was often said that they could see a person’s essence.
“I think you are wrong,” Adel told Clamcraver, “but go ahead and try to prove it.”
A clam shell appeared in the Selkie’s hand. “Catch,” he said as he tossed it towards her.
Adel snatched the shell from the air and held it in her open palm. “It is only a clam shell. What does that prove?”
“Only a clam shell? It looks like fire to me,” Clamcraver announced, and sure enough Adel now held a flame in her palm.
She held her hand out farther. “There is no heat. It is an illusion.”
“Of course it is an illusion. That is the simplest magic to perform, but it is your illusion.”
“No. You created it. I am only holding it.”
“I created the clam shell illusion. When I suggested it was fire, you changed its form, and you can change it again whenever you want. Think of something you want it to be, but do not tell me what it is. Concentrate on changing the fire to the new thing.”
They watched Adel’s palm. Nothing happened for a few moments until suddenly the fire was replaced by a clay mug. Adel flinched when the change occurred. Her movement caused the item to tumble from her hand, but instead of stopping on the ground it passed into the sand.
Before Adel could say anything else, Bray hissed, “Someone comes.” He rolled away from the fire into the shadow of the boat. The others followed his example; in a heartbeat the camp fire was deserted.
Bray could hear faltering footsteps in the sand. Whoever was approaching was not trying to surprise them. There was too much noise for that. Bray waited, but even before the figure lurched into the dying light of the fire, he smelled the blood.
“Help me,” the person moaned just before collapsing to the sand, a crossbow bolt protruding from his back.
Bray’s low whistle told Adel to stay hidden as he slipped around the boat into the darkness behind. He prowled the beach in both directions before returning to their camp. Whoever this person was, he was alone.
***
Adel saw Bray appear out of the darkness and kneel by the body. She joined him as Clamcraver appeared. “He is alive,” Bray announced quietly. “I will leave you two to do what you can for him while I make sure we remain undisturbed. You can build the fire up. He was alone.”
“Adel and I may be able to heal his injuries if we work together,” Clamcraver announced.
“See what you can do. Expect my return before dawn,” Bray assured Adel with a quick squeeze of her hand, and then he disappeared again into the night.
They dragged the body over closer to the fire and Adel used their morning stock of driftwood to build the up the flames while Clamcraver examined the wounded man. She put water on to boil before returning to the Selkie.
“The wound is not as bad as I first assumed. The arrow is imbedded in his shoulder blade. It is not deep. Once it is removed our combined magic should be able to heal him. I am surprised he passed out, but then again he looks to be a weak specimen.”
Adel had to agree. The man was thin and underdeveloped. His body had felt soft when they had moved him. He was not a local fisherman. His fancy clothing supported that conclusion.
When the water had boiled she held the body down while Clamcraver pulled the arrow out. They washed and cleaned the wound, and then the Selkie had her place both her hands over the injury while he placed his on top.
“Feel with your magic, like this,” he instructed and she sensed something extend out from her hands. A picture built in her mind. “See the bone. It has been cracked by the bolt. Let your energy flow into the crack and heal it thus.” She felt what he meant. The picture in her mind changed, the cracks disappeared. “Now, do the same thing to the injured flesh.”
When their ministrations were finished, Adel made a pillow from her cloak. They turned the man over and left his still unconscious body lying by the fire. They took turns watching him through the night.
The grey of dawn was creeping into the sky when Bray returned. He crawled into the blankets beside Adel and went to sleep. The full light of morning woke him some time later. Adel handed him some tea when he joined her and Clamcraver at the remains of the fire.
“Did he say anything?” he asked indicating the man.
“No,” Clamcraver answered.
“He came from the house of our friend, the fisherman. I saw two men standing guard. There may be others.”
“There are four in total, my Prince. They are assassins, and they are here to kill you,” the man said from his place by the fire.
Chapter 17
“The woman is coming,” the fisherman told the two assassins, “but the man you want is not with her.”
“He will come once we grab her,” said one assassin. The other one nodded.
“Get ready,” the fisherman said before he moved from the widow to the door where one assassin was positioned. The other was standing five strides across the room ready to pounce. A knock sounded, the fisherman yanked the door open, the assassin grabbed the woman and jerked her into the room, but instead of sprawling on the floor as expected the woman rolled and sprang erect as a man with blades in his hands. The fisherman heard the knives punched into the assassin. Spinning, the man sent a blade into the throat of the one by the door. Before the bodies reached the floor the man was standing in front of him with a bloody knife held to his throat.
“Have you returned the skin to its rightful owner?” he asked.
The man, struck with terror, shook his head.
“Where is she?”
The fisherman’s eyes looked towards the bedroom door, and then he was on the floor with his head ringing from the blow that put him there.
***
Bray moved quickly to the main door and latched it. Retrieving his knife from the assassin’s throat, he returned to the other killer and cleaned both knives on the man’s shirt, after making sure he was dead. Only then did he unlatch the bedroom door.
A woman was tied to the bed with a gag in her mouth. She had unkempt long brown hair, green eyes, and bruises on her face and upper body. An aura of fay permeated the room. Her eyes were wide with fright as he approached until he showed her the carved shell Clamcraver had said would identify Bray
as a friend. A smile spread across her face. Indicating the need for silence, Bray quickly removed her bindings.
“Your brother is outside. Stay close to me,” he whispered. They exited the bedroom. The fisherman was starting to stir on the floor. Bray ignored him and searched the room with his eyes. “Did he keep you tied all the time?” he asked the woman.
“No, I had to be free to clean and cook.”
“So you looked for it?”
“Yes, until he gave it to you.”
“I have returned it,” Bray said as he considered the room again. The Selkie would have searched everywhere she could reach, he reasoned. Grabbing a chair he checked the top of a high cupboard located against the back kitchen wall. His hand encountered a soft object almost out of his reach. The woman cried when he brought forth her water-skin.
Clamcraver had told him there was a bedroom window at the back of the house. His information proved correct. When both of them crouched outside the back wall of the cottage, Bray instructed her, “Keep low and walk slowly straight back to the trees. Only run if I say so. Do you understand?’ The woman nodded. “Okay, we go now.”
Bray’s back itched as he walked away from the wall staying a few steps behind the woman. He had trusted Clamcraver’s magic to disguise him on the way into the cottage, but this part of the plan counted on stealth, not magic. If Clamcraver had not been able to make his way around to the back woods without being discovered, they could be walking a deadly path. He held his breath and listened for the buzz of an arrow.
Nothing happened. As he entered the trees he saw Clamcraver holding his sister tightly in his arms. “Have they moved?” Bray whispered.
“No. Should I come with you?”
“No, into the water for you, I will take care of the last two. We will meet back at the boat.”
Bray slipped off into the trees. He had scouted the location of the other two assassins before going to the house. Supposedly they remained in the same places, but he still went carefully and silently. His bow was where he had stashed it, close to the position of the first assassin he found. He retrieved it. The assassin was lying comfortably on the ground behind a fallen log watching the approach to the front of the cottage. He died without a sound.
As he was starting to work his way towards the last assassin’s position, a man stepped out of the trees. He had Adel by the hair with a knife at her throat. “Killer, I have your woman. Come out where I can see you, or she dies!”
Bray moved slowly, to not draw the man’s attention. He lifted his bow and shot an arrow upwards before he stepped into the open and walked quickly towards the man. He knew he only had a moment before the arrow dropped. He hoped Adel saw the Tawshe battle-talk he was signalling to her with his hand.
“Not so—” the assassin started to say as the arrow plummeted out of the sky and into his shoulder. At the same instant Adel dropped to the ground, breaking his hold on her. In one smooth movement, Bray snatched an arrow from his quiver and shot, just as the cottage door burst open and the fisherman charged forth, screaming and wielding a cleaver. Bray’s arrow struck in the same shoulder his first one had, spinning the assassin slightly and exposed the small crossbow he was raising in his other hand.
The assassin was good. Instead of shooting right away, he held his shot until the fisherman was closer. Evading the bolt and the fisherman’s weapon at the same time was impossible. Suddenly the screaming figure of Aramas charged out from behind the assassin, a knife flashing in his hand. The assassin spun and fired. Adel surged up from the ground plunging her own knife up under the man’s ribs. Bray shifted to face the fisherman’s charge, but attacking an armed warrior was not the course of action the fisherman thought prudent. He swerved away from Bray, dropped his cleaver, and sprinted for the lake.
Bray checked around. The assassin was struggling to rise to his feet, so Bray finished him with an arrow. Adel had reached Aramas and was kneeling beside him. The fisherman reached the lake, ran a few steps into the water and dove forward, striking out with strong smooth strokes towards a fishing boat anchored away from shore. Suddenly two sleek shapes shot up from below and crashed into his side. The man’s stunned body was forced beneath the surface. The Selkie had their revenge.
Bray returned to Adel. She was kneeling beside Aramas with her hands held over a bloody spot on his upper ribs. Bray thought her hands were glowing as he walked up.
“How is he?”
“Only a scratch,” Aramas answered. “I will be ready to travel as soon as you like.”
“You are going with us?”
“Of course, I believe my worth has been proven, and every prince needs a retinue.”
“I am not a prince.”
“Not yet, but give me time.”
Chapter 18
The sunshine brought warmth and Ran welcomed it. For too many days there had been no heat aside from hat was cast by his fire, and that barely enough to push the chill from the cave he called home. Now, as he sat cross-legged on a bear skin, the warmth seeped into him. In a few more weeks he would be travelling again.
Through the worst of the winter the cave had offered shelter. He had come to it too late to gather many supplies before a thick blanket of snow covered the ground, but luckily the prior occupant of the cave had died quickly on his sword giving him a ready supply of fat, meat, and the bear skin on which he now sat. Smaller game had fallen to his bow whenever he hunted. There were plenty of animals living on the southern slope of these mountains and the Mother supplied berries, nuts, and shoots even in the dead of winter, if one knew where to search. He had lived well if not comfortably, but he admitted he welcomed the warmth of the sun, and the promise of spring.
For three weeks he had watched spring move up the mountain side from the valley below. A few days past it had crept above his cave and continued towards the peeks far above. If this weather held, in another seven-day he would continue his journey towards North Lake and beyond.
Something in the sky caught his attention. A bird was flying erratically, swooping, twisting, and plummeting as if being attacked, but he could not make out the aggressor. At first Ran thought the bird was a vulture or an eagle, but then it disappeared behind some trees and he realized it was farther away than he had first thought. It reappeared climbing, rose to an impossible height and then plummeted again. The long dive brought it closer and he realized it was a teratorn, a predatory bird with a wing span that could completely cover the cabin he had grown up in. Is it trying to catch something? He watched intently as the aerial display continued, and brought the creature closer to where he sat. The teratorn climbed again, was lost in the sun for a time, and then appeared as it dove, close enough for Ran to hear a scream of joy or rage.
As it spun and twisted above him, Ran thought he could see a creature clinging to the bird’s back at the base of its long neck. The teratorn disappeared behind some trees, rose again, dove, and spun upside down as it flew above the trees, close enough to brush its back through the foliage before it disappeared again. It reappeared almost instantly, and hovered above the trees before attacking them. Sections of the trees were skeletal before the bird ceased its destruction.
***
The sun was still climbing the sky when Ran reached the area the bird had attacked. The smell of broken wood came first, followed by visual evidence of the destruction. He had no problem recognizing the trees that took the brunt of the teratorn’s anger. Branches, some as thick as Manda’s waist covered the ground. Most of one tree was bare leaving only a few of the largest branches closest to the earth still covered in needles. He circled the tree twice, looking for the cause of the bird’s distress, before he detected a patch of red in a hollowed out section of the trunk above one of the broken limbs.
Ran gnawed a piece of jerky, waiting for any indication of what lay hidden in the crook of the tree. Nothing happened. Finally, when his curiosity reached a point that demanded action, he climbed the tree. He went cautiously, thinking that an injured an
imal might not appreciate being disturbed in its temporary lair until he got close enough to recognize the red patch as cloth. The back that it covered was torn and bleeding.
“The bird is gone, child. Can you move?” The child, for that was what its size indicated, did not move or reply. Close now, Ran could detect only a slight indication of breathing. He reached out, careful of the wounds, and touched the child’s shoulder. It still did not move, so bracing his body in a position that freed both hands he reached in and gingerly lifted the body out. It was a child he realized, but older than the size suggested. One of the little people he thought, probably Far Derrig if the red coat meant anything, yet small enough that he could carry him easily which was good, considering the child remained unconscious.
At the bottom of the tree, Ran found a spot free of branches. With the kit from his pouch, he cleaned the wounds and sewed the worst closed with needle and gut before using cut sections of the child’s coat to staunch what bleeding continued. There was a swollen and scratched place on the child’s head that could explain the unconsciousness, but then again Ran was unfamiliar with what natural protective responses the Far Derrig body might possess.
“Well, my young adventurer, it looks like you will be my guest for some time. I hope you like cave living.” Ran gathered his possessions, picked up the child, and headed back down the mountain.
The boy was still unconscious when they reached the cave and remained that way into the night. He developed a fever in the new hours of the next day. Ran felt the young body radiating heat under the bear skin they shared. He bathed the boy’s head with cold water for the rest of the night and well into the morning before the fever broke. With the boy sleeping peacefully, Ran made his way down the mountain to pick some fresh greens. When the boy awoke that evening, Ran had a rabbit stew prepared.
“Water,” was the first word he spoke.