“Koren is learning to use his power,” Ariana mused. “Is this a good thing?”
“If he is trying to learn by himself, it is not a good thing, Highness,” Olivia warned. “He could hurt himself, or others around him. Magic is dangerous,” the young wizard emphasized. “Even for a master wizard like Lord Salva, pulling power from the spirit world must be done carefully.”
“But,” Ariana could not help clapping her hands in delight, “Koren used his power! Paedris hoped Koren could save us from-”
Olivia gestured for the princess to lower her excited voice. “Lord Salva hoped Koren could use his power against the enemy, after many years of training and practice. Highness, Koren is in great danger. Our demon enemy is now aware someone beyond its control has used a massive amount of power. The demon will surely now be focused on finding that wizard and killing him.”
Anger flashed across Ariana’s face, irritation that Madame Dupres had ruined her happiness for Koren. After a moment, the princess understood she was being unfair, for Olivia merely spoke the truth. And in that moment, Ariana straightened her shoulders and transformed yet again from a fearful girl to the determined Regent of Tarador. “Then it is all the more important that we prevent the enemy from crossing the river until next summer, to give Koren time to learn about his power. Lieutenant!” She called out in a loud voice, gesturing to a Royal Army officer. “Inform General Magrane we will strike camp within the hour and resume the march!”
Koren gradually became aware he was alive, became aware of anything. At first, he caught glimpses of sunlight during the brief moments when his eyes were open, before he slumped again into a deep sleep. After the light went away, he felt himself being jostled gently side to side, with an occasional jolt or something digging into his back, and that is when he realized he was being carried. Someone was carrying him on a makeshift stretcher, the pain in his back must be from a rock or tree root when the stretcher was set on the ground. He opened one eye painfully, the lids feeling crusted shut. And the skin on his face felt sunburned. Or worse. What had happened to him? It was dark, he could see the moon as a sliver in the sky through swaying fir trees. “Hello?” He tried to speak but only a rough croak came from his cracked lips.
“Koren,” came a voice he recognized as Raddick’s. “You are with us again. That is good, we feared for your life. Here, drink this.”
Koren felt a cup touch his mouth but he could not drink. A wet cloth replaced the cup, moistening his lips and dripping into his mouth. When he was able to swallow, the cup was there again and he sipped slowly, savoring the cool, clean water. “Where?”
“Where is not important right now,” Raddick said gently. “How do you feel?”
“Mmph,” Koren groaned. “Tired. What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Orcs. And fire.”
“Your fire.”
“Mine?”
“Yes,” Raddick gave a mirthless chuckle. “You destroyed an entire army. Hundreds of them. How did you do that?”
“Don’t know. Don’t remember.” Sleep took him again.
When he woke again, he could see, and the sun was already up. He felt a hand on one shoulder. That time, it was Bjorn’s voice. “How are you feeling?”
“How long did I sleep?” Koren struggled to sit up with Bjorn’s help.
“All afternoon and all night. It’s mid-morning, the Captain was about to order us to carry you again, we need to get moving. Can you stand?”
“I can walk,” Koren bit his lip in determination. He did not want to be carried, did not wish to be so weak, to burden others so heavily. “Can you help me up?”
Regin Falco pulled shut the flap of his tent, tying it from the inside. He needed privacy, and he needed to act quickly, while the wizards accompanying the raiding force north along the east bank of the river were busily engaged in strengthening their concealment spells. From the bottom of the pouch attached to the inside of his belt, he pulled a smooth stone and set it on a folding table. His hands trembled and he paused to take a deep breath, listening to the guards talking outside the tent walls. When his fingers no longer shook badly, he unrolled a blank sheet of parchment on the table and set to writing, slowly and carefully in clear block letters. The writing was not pretty and the message neither subtle nor lengthy, for the agent of Acedor had instructed Regin that sending stones could only carry short, simple messages.
When he was done and satisfied his clumsy fingers had not caused the pen to drip too many ink blotches on the parchment, he muttered the words he had been taught and passed the stone steadily over the lettering, working from top left to bottom right. The stone became warm, then briefly flared hot in his hand before instantly becoming cool again. Regin had to hold onto the tent pole to stop his knees from collapsing. He slipped the stone into a pocket, rolled up the incriminating parchment and added a blank piece of parchment before untying the tent flap and stepping outside. The guards stepped back respectfully as Regin tossed the parchment into a campfire, gazing out at the river toward the sun setting over Acedor as the parchment curled, crisped and burned. “I am going for a walk down to the river,” the duke announced. It would be dark soon, and he could toss the now-useless sending stone out into the river. He glanced to the north, where Madame Chu had her wizards gathered around her, casting a spell to conceal the raiding party’s movements from the prying eyes of enemy wizards. Regin could not prevent a ghost of a smile fleeting across his lips. The haughty woman from Ching-Do may be a powerful wizard, but her efforts were all for nothing. The enemy now knew where the raiding force was going, and they would be waiting to strike.
“Last one,” Bjorn grunted a week later as he slapped the arrow into Koren’s waiting hand, but this time Bjorn didn’t let go. He wanted the boy to look at him, and as Koren felt the arrow wasn’t yet his to take, he looked at his companion questioningly. “Make it count,” Bjorn stared Koren in the eye and let go of the arrow.
“Have you ever seen me miss?” Koren didn’t look back at the older man, and though his words were boastful, his tone reflected uncertainty.
“That’s not what I meant.” Bjorn loosened the strap of his now-empty quiver, so it would be easier to pull the strap over his head and discard it if needed. His sword belt he tugged on, bringing the scabbard toward the back where it would be out of the way after he drew he sword. “Killing another ordinary orc will do us no good, there are too many of them.”
“I know,” Koren frowned, dashing out from behind cover to run around a corner of the trail along the steep wall of the ravine. His feet skidded on loose sand and he got a heart-stopping look at the rain-swollen stream at the bottom of the ravine, where rapids crashed over and around jagged rocks fallen from the ravine’s sides. “What else can I do?” He ducked back behind cover as he saw an orc aiming an arrow at him, pressing his back flat against the near-vertical wall of the ravine.
“How about some magic?” Bjorn’s joking smile belied the seriousness of his question.
“No,” Koren shook his head angrily, poking his head out from cover to see where the orc was then. “I told you, I can’t do it!” Koren recovered physically within two days, but inside he still didn’t feel right at all. He flexed his right hand open and closed, overcome with frustration that since he had poured forth a river of fire, he had not been able to make even the faintest glow of wizard fire appear. “I don’t know how, I don’t know what I did that one time. It almost killed me!”
“All right, all right,” Bjorn waved a hand to calm the boy down. Seeing an orc peek his head around a corner of the twisting ravine, he let fly a rock he had in one hand, watching with satisfaction as the orc was forced to dash backward and the rock clattered where the orc’s head had been, shards breaking off and falling down into the stream far below. “Hold onto that arrow until these orcs get closer, uh!” Bjorn was forced to flatten himself to the trail as a pair of arrows came from up the ravine.
“They’re not close eno
ugh now?” Koren asked anxiously, holding the last arrow to the bowstring nervously.
Bjorn didn’t answer, he didn’t have to, his actions spoke for him as he sprung to his feet and dashed past Koren, talking cover behind the tangled root of a long-dead tree clinging to the ravine wall. He inched downward to pick up a nice sharp rock, then dropped it. If the orcs saw Bjorn was reduced to throwing rocks, they would soon risk a charge along the trail, and Koren held their only remaining arrow.
“Bjorn! Koren!” Thomas called from down the trail, gesturing them onward. “Captain found the bridge, it looks like they didn’t cut it yet!”
“We-” Bjorn had to duck as an arrow hit the rock he was huddled behind, sending stone chips spiraling down into the stream at the bottom of the ravine. Silently, he held up one finger, but Thomas didn’t understand. “Koren.”
Koren held up his one arrow for Thomas to see, turning to show the quiver on his back was empty. Thomas did understand that, holding up three fingers to indicate the arrows he had remaining. “You can have mine,” he assured Koren. “Come now, quickly!”
Another arrow aimed at Bjorn missed, this one wobbling above his head to stick into a pile of sand at the bottom of a side gully. He did not wait for an invitation, rolling over and over until he was no longer behind cover of the rock, when he sprang to his feet and dashed after Koren. They reached Thomas just in time for that soldier to grab Bjorn’s vest and yank him to the ground before an arrow could strike him. “Koren,” Thomas began but the boy needed no instruction. He spun, his last arrow already fitted to the bowstring, and let it fly to zip up the trail and bury itself in the shin of an orc who was fourth of a half dozen creatures racing along the trail. The stricken orc tripped forward, knocking down three others in front as he fell, and all four crashed onto the trail, arms and legs windmilling frantically, then they all tumbled over the edge.
Bjorn risked poking his head out to watch the four doomed orcs plunging downward, mercifully bashing themselves insensible before they reached the bottom and disappeared into the roiling rapids. “One arrow. Four orcs,” he muttered.
“You told me to make it count,” Koren retorted without a grin.
“No one likes a showoff, young one,” Bjorn grumbled admiringly. “In this case, I grant you permission to show off any time you like.”
“Arrow,” was Koren’s only reply, for two of the original half dozen orcs were still on their feet, with another six coming around the bend of the trail. Thomas slapped an arrow into Koren’s hand and the untrained wizard fitted it to the bowstring, drawing back.
That was enough for the orcs, who had seen four of their band die from one magically well-placed arrow. They turned and ran, two of them throwing aside their own bows in their haste. “Hmmm,” Koren grunted as he eased strain off the bowstring. He inspected the arrow, surprised and disappointed. “Thomas, this arrow is bent,” he complained, “and the fletching is missing a feather.”
“I didn’t say I had three good arrows,” Thomas defended himself. “Why do you think I used all the others before this garbage?” He held up the other two weapons, one of which was nearly snapped in half. “Good thing you’ve got the orcs afraid of you now. Come on, Captain has more arrows. I think,” he added hopefully. “This way.”
Thomas lead the way down the easy slope of the trail at a dead run, not looking back. The ravine bent to the right, so the orcs behind them could not see the three as they ran, until the ravine bent back to the left and a long, exposed section of the steep-sided canyon gave the orcs a view of the fleeing trio. With a shriek of anger and blood-lust, the orcs resumed the hunt.
Koren pulled his head up, pumped his arms and forced his weary legs to keep running, careful to hug the ravine wall rather than the steep drop-off to the stream below. Did orcs ever get tired, he asked himself?
Their prospects for returning to Tarador, for survival, had seemed much more hopeful the previous day. Koren had recovered from his dizziness and extreme weakness, refusing the offer for him to rest while being carried on a stretcher, but accepting when Raddick insisted others carry his pack and weapons. When his brain shook off the fuzziness that had been the result of him using uncontrollable power, he learned Raddick and Renhelm had agreed to separate, with the dwarf leader assigning one of his soldiers to guide the Royal Army troop at least down to the valley that lead to Tarador. The secret passage was, Renhelm had explained with apology, no longer an option as they had come too far west. Instead, as Renhelm escorted the civilians up to the dour fortress of Magross, Raddick accepted the offer to be guided along a path that was not secret but little-used. Their guide, a dwarf woman named Anrid, hoped the bands of orcs roving through the lower mountains had not discovered the track she intended to take. At first, her prayers had been answered, as the party reached the upper end of the trail without being noticed, and without seeing any orcs, although their howls could be heard echoing off the mountainsides all around.
At its upper end, the trail was a mere shallow gully cut by a rivulet that might ambitiously be called a stream. The party picked their way between groves of trees and clusters of shrubs clinging to the increasingly steep sides of the gully, until it became a ravine and several streams joined to make a roaring torrent of white water at the bottom. At that point, the walls of the ravine were nearly vertical on both sides, with the trail a path hacked out of rock and crumbling soil by the dwarves. All the first day and half of the following night, the party walked down, down, down, with Raddick both encouraged by the speed of their passage and worried about being hemmed in by the narrow ravine walls. In places, the trail became precarious, no wider than a man’s shoulders, with a steep drop-off to the rock-strewn stream far below. Gullies and other ravines coming in from the sides were spanned by rickety rope bridges, some of which had been cut and others appeared to have sagged and even collapsed due to lack of care. Anrid had apologized, explaining the paths so close to the border with Acedor were not well traveled, and since Acedor had crossed the River Fasse in Tarador, the dwarf army and engineers had concentrated on building up defenses rather than maintaining bridges that might be useful to the enemy. The dwarf woman had shown how to cross a side ravine, wrapping her legs around a surviving rope cable and pulling herself along hand over hand. Even knowing he was a wizard and should be able to stride across on top of the swaying rope as if it were a broad road, Koren’s heart had been in his throat until he felt solid ground under his feet on the other side.
Then, that morning, disaster struck. With the ravine walls so close and the water of the fast-running stream rushing along at the bottom, sounds from above were muffled. Koren heard orc hunting cries throughout the night, he judged none of them close enough to worry about. Before mid-morning, however, three events shattered the party’s unspokenly growing confidence. First, they came upon a side ravine, just as deep and steep, where a rope bridge had been cut deliberately, and cut recently as Anrid judged. Going back was not an option, so the dwarf woman had pulled a clever device from her pack and attached a thin cord to an arrow. Koren shot the arrow to fly between the crevice of a stout boulder on the other side, where yanking on the cord demonstrated the cord and the anchor were firmly set. Anrid removed her helmet, chainmail, weapons and even her boots before she slid along the alarmingly thin cord to the other side. After she used the cord to pull across a strong rope, the party followed, but Anrid had warned the danger was not over. “There is another bridge below us, longer, which crosses from one side of the ravine to another. If that bridge is cut, I cannot get us across there.”
“What would we do then?” Raddick had asked fearfully.
“Turn back,” Anrid answered with resignation. “If this bridge has been cut by my people, they would likely have cut the main bridge also. We should see if by midafternoon, so we could turn around without walking all the way there.”
Raddick did not reply that turning around did them no good, though as he had no idea what else to do, he had held his tongue.
Raddick had groaned. Civilians. More refugees, people he did not have time to help or care for. Yet, he could not do nothing, particularly not when Anrid recognized one of the women and softly called out to her. Hearing a familiar voice set up a relieved chatter among the civilians, and several of the children squealed with joy.
The civilians had been with a much larger party that became separated two nights before when an orc band attacked. The men had led the orcs away, intending to rejoin the women later, but the men had not returned and the frightened dwarves had walked along barely-remembered paths through the mountains, now they were lost and feared the hunting cries of orcs all around them. Raddick had been about to suggest that Anrid go with the civilians back up the trail, as the path downward was clear to the Royal Army soldiers, but his thoughts were interrupted before he could speak.
Behind the civilians in the side canyon, a shriek arose as a small band of orcs spotted the prey they had been tracking. At almost the same time, another group of orcs from the same band looked down from the lip of the ravine above Raddick, and they, too, set up a cry to call more of their foul kind.
There was nothing for it, then, but to run quickly as they could, down the ravine, hustling the civilians along, and with the soldiers helping carry weary or injured dwarf children. Their only hope was that the main rope bridge was intact; if they could cross it and cut the rope behind them, the orcs could not follow. If. Anrid warned she had no idea whether the bridge still existed, but she also saw no choice but to race down the ravine trail.
Deceptions (Ascendant Book 3) Page 31