Through the haze, and with the help of the faint moonlight, Fes managed to keep pace with the men as they departed the clearing. They climbed along the rock, moving with less concern about noise than Fes and Alison did. They went nearly a quarter of a mile before they finally came to a stop.
Fes noticed the light from a dozen different fires.
Now, this was the mercenary camp.
How had he believed the other camp could have been the mercenaries? With only one fire, it wouldn’t have been likely, even if Carter hadn’t been there. But this one contained enough different campfires, and the sound of activity within it, that left Fes thinking that they had finally found it.
They found a place to hide, and he pulled Alison down. “I don’t know how we intend to sneak into that,” he whispered.
“We have to figure out where they’re keeping him.”
“And when we do, what do you expect the two of us to be able to do?”
“The two of us need only to be able to sneak in and then back out. We don’t have to do anything more than that.”
Fes breathed out. That was all they had to do, but somehow that seemed almost impossible. How could they manage to get into the campsite and back out without having any idea where they were heading once they were there?
Alison looked at him. There was desperation in her eyes.
How could Fes do anything other than what he’d agreed?
Only, he doubted they would be able to get in safely.
The haze still hovered off the ground, creating a fog, and remained just as prominent here as it had been before. “Something about this troubles me,” Fes said.
Alison stared at him for a moment. “After everything on this trip, this troubles you?”
“This fire mage. I can’t get past the fact that she has to be working with Carter, but I don’t really understand why.”
“What is there to know why?”
He stared through the haze toward the campsite. “There is the issue of trying to understand who she is and what she knows.” He turned back to Alison. “You weren’t there, and you didn’t see just how powerful she was. Why isn’t she working on behalf of the empire?”
“What if she is?” Alison whispered.
Fes shook his head, thinking through it. “She doesn’t serve the emperor. She can’t They destroyed a caravan—”
“You think the empire wouldn’t do something like that?”
He stared at her. The emperor wouldn’t. Not harming defenseless people like that. It just didn’t fit. Only… as he watched Alison, he could tell she didn’t—and maybe couldn’t—believe him.
Now wasn’t the time.
“Let’s just get this over with,” he said.
“I will go along with whatever you think that we need to do,” she said.
“Talmund knows where the dragon heart can be found. He’ll be valuable. Which means he’ll be in the center of the camp.”
For their attack to work, they would have to somehow draw off others, splitting up to distract the mercenaries so that one of them could sneak in, but how would they decide who would do it?
“I’ll be the distraction,” Alison said, watching him.
“That’s not—“
Alison smiled. “That’s exactly what you were thinking. I can see it on your face. I will serve as the distraction. One of us has to. I think that if I do it, I can hide in the darkness for long enough for you to get in and do whatever it is that you need to do. We can meet around to the south.”
“If you let me be the distraction, I can give you enough time,” he said.
“I can move more quietly.”
“Which is why you should be the one to go after Talmund.”
“I think you have a better chance of surviving if we come face-to-face with the fire mage.”
Fes opened his mouth to argue before clamping it shut again. There was no point in arguing. He had survived when facing a fire mage. “Circle around to the west and see if you can draw them in that direction,” Fes said.
“And what will you do?” Alison asked.
“I’m going to do what I promised. I’m going to help get him. Then we’re going after that dragon heart to finish this job.”
She studied him for a moment before nodding. Alison leaned close, and he thought that she might whisper something in his ear, but she kissed him gently on the cheek. Her lips were warm, and he remembered the gentle touch that she had when she kissed him, and Fes had to resist the urge to pull her in and kiss her more deeply.
Now wasn’t the time, and even if they could return to what they had, Fes wasn’t sure that he wanted to. There had been too much between them.
Alison started off, circling around to the west. He waited, wondering what sort of distraction she might use. It came as a crackling of rock, the sound of footsteps that clattered, almost as if someone had unintentionally made too much noise.
Fes watched the campsite, and many of the mercenaries burst into activity. At first, it was only a few, but as one of them must’ve neared Alison and she had stabbed him and shouted, others hurried out into the darkness.
Fes waited, knowing that he needed to utilize this time but needing to ensure that as many people as possible would depart the campsite.
Maybe the fact that he and Alison had managed to bring down that entire sentry camp would be beneficial. It was possible that the mercenaries would think that there were more people here than there actually were.
When he was content that there weren’t any more people leaving, he kept low and crept into the camp.
He didn’t see anyone at first and scurried toward the largest fire, the one that was at the center of the camp. He didn’t know whether it would mean anything but suspected that wherever they were holding the priest would be near the center. Maybe there would be others he would have to rescue, but it was the priest he was most interested in.
Him and Theole.
Maybe he could fulfill two promises this night.
When he reached the center of camp, he saw no evidence of the fire mage, not as he had expected to. Fes was convinced the fire mage was here, but where was she?
Movement startled him, and he turned. Three soldiers approached.
Three wasn’t too much for him, not with the way he’d been fighting lately, and he jumped toward them before they had a chance to yell out. He slipped out with his daggers, catching both of the men on either side in the stomach, and kicked the central man. He fell backward, and Fes lunged toward him, landing on his stomach and driving his daggers into his gut.
Fes quickly wiped the daggers clean and hurried off, heading again toward the center of the campsite. It was larger than he had expected, and despite the haze and the heat radiating from the dragon fields, only a few tents. Most of the tents were quite large, and he hurried to the nearest one, slashing through the fabric to peek inside. Two men sat at a table, whispering. When Fes appeared, they lunged their feet, but he was faster and darted toward them, cutting the first one down with a sweep of his dagger to the throat, and spun around to catch the other man in his chest.
Fes slipped back out the tent the way he had entered. He moved on to the next and decided to make only a small slit in the fabric, small enough that he could look inside but not so large that he needed to fight were it not necessary. He didn’t know how many times he could get lucky. One of these times, he feared he would come across someone who was waiting for him. If he did, it would take more than a knife to the belly to bring him down.
This tent was empty.
Fes moved on. At the next one, he found three people. None of them were Carter, but none were the priest or the fire mage.
Fes neared a massive fire, and the tent near it seemed to radiate heat.
Fes approached this tent more carefully. When he made a small slit in the fabric, he found her inside. She was dressed in a crimson robe, and she was bent in front of a chalice, running her fingers along the inside. Every so often, she would bring h
er finger to her lips before placing her fingers back into the chalice.
He surveyed the inside of the tent and was not surprised to see Talmund chained to one of the posts. He had a bruise on one cheek, and dried blood was worked along the corner of his mouth, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. There was another prisoner, though his back was to Fes and he couldn’t see him clearly. He was too large to be Theole, but who was he?
Somehow, Fes would have to draw the fire mage out of the tent to rescue Talmund.
Fes glanced over her shoulder, not wanting to step inside the tent, not quite yet. What he needed was a way of drawing the fire mage out, but he wasn’t entirely certain how to do that. If she hadn’t been drawn out by Alison’s action, then there might not be anything that he could do.
The other option involved confronting her head on, but Fes didn’t think that was all that good an idea. He’d barely survived the last time. He had no misconception about the fact that he would be unlikely to survive another confrontation, especially one where she would be more prepared for what he might be able to do.
A distraction. That was what he needed.
What kind of distraction would work against a fire mage?
As he looked around the campsite, taking stock of the campfire burning brightly, an idea came to him.
Could he draw her out through fire? Could he somehow use the flames to appeal to her?
It was worth a shot.
Fes hurried over to the campfire. With Alison’s distraction, no one tended to it. The main part of the camp appeared deserted, leaving everything untouched.
He grabbed a branch out of the fire and ran with it over to the tent. He took it and use the flame flickering along the branch to ignite the canvas. When it was burning brightly, he tossed the rest of the branch into the tent.
Then Fes waited.
He wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. He didn’t know whether the fire mage would extinguish the flames before it had a chance to consume the rest of the tent or not. He wasn’t entirely sure what power she had over flames.
The fire began to lick along the canvas, crawling toward the top of it.
Fes crept around the other side of the tent, staying as close to it as he could and trying to remain concealed, and slit the fabric, poking his head inside. The fire mage had moved to the back of the tent. She was doing something with her hands, circling them in a strange manner that caused the fire to ripple. Fes wanted to watch, but a more urgent need pressed on him.
He ran into the tent.
Talmund’s eyes widened when Fes approached. Fes kept his gaze looking over the priest’s shoulder, looking at the fire mage, worried that he couldn’t act quickly enough. She continued to run her hands along the canvas. How much longer would he have?
Chains bound the priest to the pole.
There would be no way for him to unlock the chains, not without the fire mage knowing what he was doing.
He looked around, quickly surveying the inside of the tent, but didn’t see anything that would help him.
“Your daggers,” the priest whispered, the sound barely above the rising crackle of the flame threatening to consume the tent.
Fes shook his head. “I can’t cut through the metal.”
“You don’t have to.” His gaze flicked to the pole.
Fes had cut through a significant number of things with his daggers, but he’d never attempted to cut through wood. He frowned at the priest, and his attention flicked back to the fire mage and saw that she had nearly tamped the flames on the canvas down thoroughly. Whatever way she had of controlling the fire was almost complete.
Fes took a deep breath and crossed his daggers in front of him. He swept out, striking the pole.
He half expected them to sink partly into the wood before stopping, or maybe bounce off, unable to cut through anything, but they slipped through the wood as if it gave no more resistance the tent canvas. Everything began to sag.
Fes took a step back, and the priest stood, freeing his chains from around the pole.
The other man—the much larger man who was confined to another pole in the tent—watched Fes. If the fire mage was willing to capture this man, maybe he could be of help. He was large enough that he looked to be a fighter, and Fes suspected that having someone able to fight their way out of the encampment might be beneficial.
Fes started toward him, and as he did, the fire mage finished whatever she was doing. He swept with his daggers, cutting through the pole.
The tent began to collapse.
The fire mage pressed out, and a streak of flame shot toward him.
Talmund stepped in front of it and, with a wave of his hand, the flames dissipated. “Go,” he said.
“I came for you. I’m not leaving without you.”
“You don’t have to. Just keep going.” Talmund pushed on Fes, sending him staggering forward. He glanced over his shoulder to see the priest lunge at the chalice. He spilled it, sending a splatter of what had to be blood along the canvas. He grabbed something from atop the table and pointed it at the mage. As he did, flames burst from his hands and power exploded away from him, sending the fire mage flying backward.
Talmund turned and raced with Fes out of the tent and into the night. Once out of the tent, the priest turned back and pointed dragon bone at the tent. It exploded again, flames leaping out of it.
“There’s another they captured. A Toulen merchant—”
Fes didn’t have a chance to finish. Three men converged on him.
One of them slashed at him with a long sword, and Fes turned the blade with his dagger, twisting it, and jabbed forward, sliding his dagger into the man’s chest. As he withdrew the dagger, he prepared to turn, ready to face the other two men, but found that he didn’t need to.
The large man that he had freed had wrapped the chains that had confined him to the pole around one of the men’s necks and twisted, snapping it. The remaining man was already down on the ground, his chest caved in from what appeared to be a vicious kick.
“Which way do we go?” the priest asked.
“Alison was going to make a diversion to the west of the encampment before heading south,” Fes said.
“It’s just the two of you?”
Fes nodded.
“Not the others?”
Fes shook his head. It did no good to explain to the priest that he had been deemed a necessary sacrifice. Fes could tell from the hurt look on his face that he recognized that fact. Talmund wasn’t with the rebellion. Not really. He had been a means to an end. Did he see that?
They headed toward the west side of the camp, but as they did, there was quite a bit of movement, so Fes didn’t want to continue in that direction. He motioned for them to follow him to the north side of the camp, a path that led them through a series of tents. Near one, there was some motion, but Fes managed to get a jump on the man on the inside. Near another, the massive man with him managed to prevent them from attacking.
And then they reached the edge of the camp. Once there, Fes glanced back. The haze that covered everything seemed to obscure the camp even more. As he watched, there came a sudden thunderous explosion. Fes glanced back to see smoke rising above the haze, filling the air. The priest’s eyes widened.
“Reina.”
“You knew her?” Fes asked.
“Knew of her. She is a dangerous fire mage that we haven’t fully understood. Our insight at the fire temple hasn’t been able to help us know her, almost as if she never trained there.”
As they spoke, the large man glanced from Fes to the priest and then raced off into the darkness. When he was gone, Fes motioned for them to continue making their way toward the west. They needed to find Alison, and when they did, they could return to the rebellion campsite.
“Who was he?” Fes asked.
“A man she had picked up along the way. I’m not certain what she wanted of him.”
“There’s another I’m looking for. Someone Reina—or Carter—might have gr
abbed. A merchant by the name of Theole.”
“It was only the two of us,” the priest said.
Fes looked back the way the man had gone, disappearing into the night. Where would he have gone? “You didn’t know anything about him?”
He turned back to the priest, who was shaking his head. “We aren’t the only ones she was interested in,” he said.
Fes sighed as they hurried through the darkness, trying to find any evidence of Alison. The longer they went, the less likely Fes thought that it was that they would find her. Not only was the haze challenging to see through, but the darkness was nearly complete. Little moonlight shone overhead, making it difficult to see anything.
“Neither of you should have come.”
“I agreed to this job even if I wasn’t told everything.”
Talmund watched him a moment. “That’s not all this is to you.”
Fes squeezed his eyes shut. “Maybe not. That doesn’t matter. What matters is getting away. Do you know how to navigate through here?”
The priest stared at the darkness and Fes tried to look around, trying to see if there was anything that would help, but he came up with nothing. Whatever was out there was too difficult for him to see through.
“I can get us through here, but where do you want to go?”
There was a sense of movement near them, and Fes hesitated. What was it?
As he listened, staring into the darkness, he couldn’t tell what it was. At first, it sounded as if there were traces of debris falling, and then he realized that it was the sound of feet along the strange rock of the dragon field.
He glanced over at the priest. “Wherever you think we can make a stand.”
The priest stared into the darkness, squinting as if he could somehow penetrate the night in that way. And maybe he could. Maybe he was so well connected to the dragon lands that he could.
“Talmund?” Fes asked.
The priest turned toward him and then nodded. “I will guide you out of here.”
“Which way?”
“North. We need to go north.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
When dawn came, Fes had grown so tired that he wasn’t confident he could keep his feet. They had been walking most of the night, having run at times, the priest managing to move more silently than Fes, and by the time the sun was creeping over the horizon, he wanted nothing more than to sleep. Unfortunately, there was no time for that, not when Carter’s men were still behind them.
Dragon Bones (The Dragonwalker Book 1) Page 25