“Then why,” Olivia balled up her fists in anguish, “do you want me to protect her? If the princess is so important,” she lowered her voice in response to Madame Chu waving her hands for quiet. “Why don’t you guard her? She would be safe with you.”
“She will be safe with you also. Your strength is greater than you know.”
“Not great enough!” She pouted, crossing her arms and sticking out her lower lip. She was being childish and she knew it and she didn’t care. She was still at least partly a child, though circumstances had forced her to grow up quickly, too quickly.
Madame Chu reminded herself to be patient with the trainee wizard. When Wing had been Olivia’s age, she lived behind the walls of the wizard’s compound on a hill overlooking the capital city of Ching-Do. She spent her days slowly and carefully learning the skills of wizardry in the ornate halls and lush gardens of the compound. Not until she had been five years older than Olivia had Wing ventured out into the countryside as an apprentice wizard, testing her skills in the real world, and making mistakes under the kind and watchful eye of a master wizard. Wing had been born in happier times, when wizards had been given proper time to learn their craft. Even one year ago, asking Olivia Dupres to assume adult responsibilities would have been unthinkable. Now, it was unavoidable. “Olivia, I am needed to the west, where we will fight those enemy wizards directly. You cannot come with us, it is much too dangerous.”
“But-”
“You would only hinder us, and make one of us spend our energies protecting you rather than fighting the enemy. You don’t want that, do you?” Wing added gently.
“No,” Olivia’s tone reflected her misery. “Madame Chu, I just feel so useless, babysitting the princess here in a camp with thousands of soldiers protecting us, while you fight. I could do so much more! I could learn so much if I were with you.”
“I would not have time to instruct you,” Wing laughed bitterly. “You will be doing much more than babysitting, as you call it. While I am away, there is something I need you to do-”
“Yes!” The young wizard exclaimed eagerly.
“You don’t know it is yet,” Wing allowed herself a ghost of a smile.
“I don’t care. It has to be better than acting as a second shadow for the princess while she does,” she waved a hand in disgust, “royal things.” Since the assassination attempt at the palace, Olivia had been spending almost every waking moment with the young Regent, and seeing what Ariana Trehayme’s days were like destroyed any illusions Olivia had about the life of a princess. While Olivia’s own life as a wizard was occasionally as exciting as she expected, it wasn’t exciting often enough, and it was not nearly as glamorous. In fact, it was disappointingly not glamorous at all. From what Olivia had seen, the life of the princess was certainly glamorous, with her opulent palace and carriages and an array of courtiers, but Ariana’s life was surprisingly, insufferably boring. The poor girl spent most of her time reading dull messages and having mind-numbing discussions about crop yields and finances and relations with neighboring heads of state, and other things that made Olivia’s head nod with oncoming sleep even in the mornings. From the expressions on the face of the princess and the little weary sighs she made when she thought no one could hear, Ariana also was crushingly bored with her twin responsibilities as crown princess and Regent. “If I have to sit beside the princess one more time, while she decides what sort of trinket is appropriate to give baroness so-and-so for her birthday, I am going to turn someone into a toad, and I don’t care who it is!”
That time, Wing did not have to force herself to smile. “I am sure Ariana finds such trivial decisions just as tedious.” Her expression turned serious again. “What I need you to do is dangerous, it may be very dangerous. It is also vital, so you should consider me entrusting you with this task to be a measure of my faith in you, your courage and your skills.”
The master wizard’s words chilled Olivia. Sitting next to the princess and being bored out of her mind was, she reflected, still better than being blown through a window and nearly drowned in the filthy water of a moat. What was the expression Olivia’s mother used to say? Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “What do you need me to do?”
“Koren,” Thomas whispered to the boy, with his hand over Koren’s mouth to stifle a startled shout, “Captain wants you.”
“Uh,” Koren shook his sleep-befuddled head. “I’m up.” That was an exaggeration, he was so tired after only four hours of sleep that he was barely aware of his own name.
“Good. Follow me.” Keeping low and moving quietly in the faint predawn light, Thomas carefully led the way forward to where Raddick was huddled in a shallow hole behind a rock.
“Koren, one of the dwarf sentries thinks he heard something. I want you up there,” he pointed to a slightly less dark area in the darkness, where the forested mountain ridge gave way to skyline. “You can move almost silently, I’ve seen that. Can you do it?”
“Yes, Captain.” Koren had not been aware his movements were especially quiet, he had only been following the fieldcraft examples of Raddick’s chosen men.
“It’s probably only mountain sheep wandering in the darkness,” Raddick squeezed Koren’s shoulder with a grin. “Oh,” he added, “and don’t think of shooting one of those sheep for our breakfast, we can’t have a whole flock of sheep making noise.”
Koren moved from one rock to another, avoiding any dry vegetation that might snap under his feet. He knew to test the balance of a rock before putting his full weight on it, lest the rock slip and fall with a clatter. When he approached the lone dwarf sentry, his keen eyes caught the gleam of a razor-sharp arrow tip. He gave the pass signal; hooting like an owl twice, plus the hand signal for that day. The arrow lowered, and he could barely see the answering hand signal. He said nothing when he ducked down beside the dwarf, and the dwarf also did not speak. Using standard dwarf army hand gestures that Koren had quickly learned the basics of, the dwarf indicated from which direction he had heard the sound.
Koren knew not to still his breathing completely for too long, as that would only make blood pound in his ears. He stilled himself, breathing evenly with a pause before exhaling. In the darkness, he closed his eyes, but heard nothing. After what he judged a full two minutes, he shook his head. The dwarf insisted he wait, gesturing emphatically.
Koren followed the dwarf’s order, though he was not truly subject to orders from the dwarves. The sentry had sat long hours in the cold while Koren huddled asleep under a blanket, at least Koren could humor the sentry by remaining there a while longer, though his stomach was grumbling for breakfast. In the darkness, he put a hand to his mouth from embarrassment when his stomach squeaked loud enough for the dwarf to hear. Koren almost laughed, catching himself by biting the inside of his cheek. He would not shame his fellow-
What was that? Koren grasped the dwarf’s arm and pointed with his other hand, his finger wavering one way then another as he located the source of the sound. There wasn’t one source of sound, it was coming from several places in the darkness in front of him. Whatever was creating the sound, it was not close. Then there was a louder sound, like a rock being dislodged and falling onto another rock with a sharp ‘clack’. The dwarf next to him nodded, he had heard that also.
Koren strained to hear more, wishing he could stand up from the cover the sentry had chosen, but he dared not. Orcs could see well in the dark, nearly as well as dwarves. Koren hoped even the night vision of dwarves was no match for his magical eyesight, but since he really didn’t know how to use magic, perhaps his abilities were not as they should be? The sentry post was in a good spot, in a shallow depression where a great tree had fallen over, at the edge of the wooded patch where the group had rested for the night. The roots of the tree were sticking up out of the hole, and the sentry had cut branches to jam into crevices in the rotting wood of the roots, providing more cover. Koren nodded to himself in the d
arkness, admiring the dwarf’s good thinking and experience. In the gentle early morning breeze, the branches swayed back and forth, their still-green leaves rustling softly. The swaying of the leaves would distract any watchful enemy eyes from Koren’s own motion, if he moved carefully. Inching slowly, ever so slowly upward, Koren got his eyes and ears above the dead tree root in front of him. The sounds were louder now, still not distinct enough for him to tell what was causing the noise.
And, blast it! Behind him, the refugee camp was beginning to awaken, dwarves seeing the dim line of pink in the eastern sky that heralded the coming sunrise. They rose and began walking around on legs sore from climbing mountains for days, and stiff from sleeping on bare ground in the nighttime chill at altitude. He could hear stones being clumsily kicked in the darkness, and muffled curses, and the harsh whispers of soldiers telling the refugees to stay where they were and be silent. Koren knew the dwarves could not help making noise, no group of a hundred beings could move around and start their day in complete silence, but he gritted his teeth because the sounds from behind him were distracting him from listening to what was in front of him. If the ‘threat’ he was listening for was only mountain sheep, Koren was going to feel very-
Another clacking clatter of rock on rock followed by a dull thud, and, sending a chill up Koren’s spine, a harsh curse word. Directly after, another thud, this time ending in a metallic ringing sound. Koren imagined what he had heard was someone tripping, causing rocks to scatter, the person falling down and shouting a curse. That last sound had to be a second person striking the first with the flat of a sword as punishment for making noise, with the sword blade ringing from the blow.
Beside him, the sentry’s eyes were wide, the whites showing bright even before the false dawn of early morning. The dwarf leaned toward Koren. “That was no sheep nor goat,” he stated the obvious.
No, it was not a sheep, nor anything that walked on four legs. Though whoever was out there unseen in the darkness had spoken only one word, and a short curse at that, Koren had no question what he had heard: an orc! Where there was one, there were sure to be more. Koren made the hand signal for orcs, waited for the sentry to acknowledge he understood the clumsy sign language, then the sentry slowly ducked down and crawled away to report. A minute later, Koren was joined by Renhelm and Raddick, with Koren pleased to hear the Royal Army captain made no more noise than the dwarf. Renhelm made a hand signal indicating he wished to talk, so Koren ducked down. “Orcs!” Koren spoke barely enough to be heard. “One at least for certain, likely two or more of them out there?”
“Where?” Renhelm asked, daring to look above the cluster of roots. The ground in front of the sentry post sloped downward and was bare of tree cover, that was why the sentry had chosen that particular spot. Down the mountain and a quarter mile away was another line of fir trees, a deeper black in the darkness.
“I can’t see anything moving out in the open,” Koren reported. “They must be in the cover of those trees?”
Renhelm chewed on his mustache while he thought. If he sent out scouts now, they would be caught in the open between the treelines when the sun rose. He tapped Raddick on the arm and the two soldiers crawled back away from the sentry post, to a dense grove of shrubs where they could talk. “We’re in a tight spot here,” Renhelm declared unhappily.
“Aye,” Raddick agreed, glad for once that he was not in command, did not have the responsibility. The dwarf lieutenant faced an agonizing decision, if they had been detected by orcs during the night. He could attempt to slip away with a hundred refugees who were already desperately weary, knowing that would likely to be disastrous for everyone in the group. Or he could abandon most of the civilians, ordering them to scatter, and strive to break away with his soldiers in the confusion. That second plan was, Raddick knew, the only realistic chance of anyone reaching the safety of the Magross fortress. The cold logic of that second plan could not be argued with, but it did not set well with Raddick’s heart, nor his soldier’s sense of honor.
What mattered most was they did not know if their group had been seen or heard, although the continued clumsy movements of the civilians made Raddick wince and he knew sooner rather than later, any orcs within earshot would hear over a hundred dwarves making their way through the forest.
Raddick remained silent while his dwarf counterpart considered his options, but the Royal Army man watched the dwarf’s eyes in the dim light. He saw Renhelm was watching the refugees stumble around in the predawn darkness, bumping against trees, dropping their packs, tripping over roots and rocks. Soldiers gestured frantically for everyone to remain still and be silent, but without lights, far too many of the dwarves did not get the message until too late. Raddick imagined he could see the wheels turning in Renhelm’s mind, and he knew the terrible decision the dwarf was about to make.
“We don’t know if the orcs have spotted us,” Raddick whispered. “Not for certain.”
Renhelm appeared startled that Raddick had spoken. “If they haven’t yet, they will soon,” he pointed toward the hazy triangle of light extending above the eastern horizon, visible through gaps in the trees. Then he looked up at the gently swaying fir trees, hearing the wind softly whistling through the needles. “I suppose we have to try,” the dwarf said, his humble and uncertain words not conveying the courage it took to give voice to his decision.
“We could go back,” Raddick used a thumb to indicate downhill to the southeast. “Stay in this tree cover until we get back to that stream, then climb the backside of this ridge? If the orcs stay west of the ridgeline, they won’t see us.” His weary mind struggled to recall details of the land they’d walked through early the previous evening, before setting up camp for the night in the welcoming grove of trees.
“Mm,” Renhelm grunted. “If. Thank you, Captain. I’ll have my men get the civilians on the move quietly as possible, will your people keep watch?”
“Agreed,” Raddick nodded, and slipped away to give orders.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Koren’s orders were to remain where he was, his impatiently grumbling stomach having to be satisfied with a bite of tough bread he dug out of his pack. Chewing on the bread and sipping from his water flask, he scanned the treeline across the open rock field, seeing more details as they morning sky brightened. The sun had not risen but the soft light of false dawn hung in the sky, and Koren knew this light heralded the true dawn in an hour. He kept his eyes slowly moving back and forth from one end of the treeline, looking for movement. His father had taught him while hunting that eyes were better at seeing movement than anything else, so Koren swept his eyes left to right and back again, knowing the orcs huddled under those fir trees were doing the same, looking for movement in his direction. He was confident the cover of branches moving in the morning breeze would fool the eyes of anyone looking toward him, although he moved as little and as slowly as he could.
He had not heard any more suspicious sounds, stilling his breathing regularly to listen for any sounds that did not belong on the mountainside. Either the enemy under those trees had settled in to wait for dawn, or, as Koren hoped, they had moved on. He did not bother indulging himself in the foolish hope that what he had heard was another group of lost dwarves rather than orcs.
He wished he did not hear any noise coming from behind him either, but that was not at all true. Every time there was a grunt or a conversation whispered too loudly or something dropped on the ground or a thump as someone bumped into a tree in the dark, Koren gritted his teeth. He knew his hearing was much more sensitive than that of an orc, and the orcs were far enough away that most sounds would not carry that far. He knew the increasing breeze stirring the trees and whistling through the fir trees covered up much of the noises made by the dwarves, but he also knew it was only a matter of time before someone shouted in pain as they bashed a knee on a rock, or dropped something noisy like a cooking pot. Or until a child cried. Even if by some miracle the civilians slipped away as Captain Raddick
told Koren they hoped, the orcs in the woods across the rock-strewn open area could not fail to check the dark grove of trees where Koren was laying on his belly. No orc could fail to see the ground had been disturbed under the trees; they could not fail to understand a large party of dwarves had been there recently. And they would certainly follow the trampled underbrush.
Koren reached out and touched his bow for reassurance, then bit off another piece of the tough bread. He needed to refill his water flask at the first clean mountain stream he came across, the thought of cold fresh water making his parched mouth-
Movement! He saw something moving under the fir trees! This was no branch or bush swaying in the breeze, this was the dark shape of something moving under the dark trees. Koren was about to turn around to crawl back to report what he’d seen when he heard soft footfalls he recognized as belonging to Raddick. The Royal Army captain shook Koren’s outstretched foot then eased himself up next to the young wizard. “Captain Sir, I saw something moving.”
“Not an animal?” Raddick’s tone held no hope that could be true.
“Taller, not as tall as a man. It was there only briefly, I- there’s another one. Different place this time, I don’t think it is the same one. Too far apart.”
“The civilians need time to get away,” Raddick’s voice reflected his anguish.
“Sir,” Koren decided it was time to be bold. “If I go up there,” he pointed up the mountain, north of the fir trees where the orcs were hiding, “I could shoot down on them when they come out into this open area. If I can discourage them from coming under these trees-”
“Yes, then they won’t see signs we camped here overnight.” Raddick’s stomach churned. His orders stated explicitly ‘You shall take no risks with the safety of Koren Bladewell’ and in his career he had seldom been given orders that were so entirely clear. They were also not entirely realistic, for Raddick knew from experience that in the field, there was no such thing as no risk. The idea of sending Koren, alone or with soldiers, out from cover to put himself at risk by shooting at orcs was incredibly foolish.
Deceptions (Ascendant Book 3) Page 23