Barrenlands (The Changespell Saga)

by Doranna Durgin

  ~~~~~

  It didn't turn out to be as easy as that.

  Jada scouted ahead, pinning down the most hidden route to the meadow she'd chosen, and while they waited, clouds moved in overhead, hinting of more rain. Ehren leaned against a smooth beech, waiting with less patience than he expected of himself and fully aware that a hard rain would put off the morning hunt. Only when he realized Laine's expression had gone distant— and that it spoke of magic— did he pull back into sharp focus. "What is it?"

  "I'm not sure," Laine said, scanning the area ahead of them. "It seems to be... moving. I can't pin it down."

  "Toward us?" Ehren's hand landed lightly on his sword, though he well knew there were spells against which a sword was no protection.

  "I'm not sure," Laine repeated, closing his blue eye. Then his expression cleared, and just as suddenly he went completely berserk— dropping Nimble's reins to scramble away, his face mad with terror.

  What the hells— ?

  "Laine," Ehren said, pushing away from the tree, totally unheeded as Laine tripped over his own feet and fell heavily— but never stopped moving, never stopped his effort to get away. Scrabbling forward, he regained his feet and sprinted into the woods.

  Ehren didn't waste breath calling after him. Leaving the startled horses, he matched Laine's sprint, long legs quickly gaining ground even with the bad one screaming at him. He took Laine down in a tackle that threw them both heavily against a thick hickory, and flaky bark rained down on top of them as they slid down its trunk.

  The noises in Laine's throat weren't human, the contorted expression on his face barely so. He fought Ehren without comprehension, only naked fear— and Ehren learned first-hand that there was plenty of strength in Laine's sturdiness. He threw himself across the younger man, grabbed him at the either side of his neck, and shouted in his face. "Stop Looking, Laine! Stop Looking!"

  The barest glimpse of intelligence flashed across Laine's features. And then, as suddenly as the fit had come, it was gone. Laine relaxed against the tree, breathing hard.

  Carefully, Ehren released his hold. "All right?"

  Slowly, Laine nodded, looking befuddled. "I... I've never felt anything like that before. It was... so strong. There was nothing I could do to fight it. I feel like such a—" He sucked in a deep breath. "A coward."

  Ehren climbed to his feet, wincing; he offered Laine a hand up. "It was magic, Laine. No doubt a spell like that could drive a man to do anything in his attempt to escape it. I've heard of such things, but I've never seen it." He brushed crumbled hickory bark off the back of his neck and gave Laine a wry twist of a grin. "Until now."

  Laine held out his hands as if he expected to find they weren't his, and looked the rest of his body over in a similar manner. "Give me a good spitting monster any day."

  Ehren made a derisive sound deep in his throat. "It's one more reason to put Varien out of business. And lately, those reasons have been piling up." Then he stopped trying to get that last tricky bit of bark that was stuck beneath his collar, for Laine stiffened, his eyes gone apprehensive.

  "It's back," he whispered. "Could it... could it follow us?"

  "Damn that man to the Ninth hell," Ehren growled. "Yes, it's possible. If he's set the spell to key on me. Or Jada. He doesn't know about you." He scanned the woods that had Laine so alarmed. "At least, he shouldn't know about you."

  "Let's talk about that later," Laine said, shifting nervously. "It's damn hard not to see the thing once I've focused on it— and it's definitely closing in on us."

  "Running works for me," Ehren said.

  "Running sounds great to me." Laine jogged a few backwards steps, ran into a tree, and turned around to give navigation his full attention. Ehren snagged his arm and redirected him.

  "Back to the horses," he said. Laine didn't waste his breath with a reply, but nodded and followed, casting anxious looks over his shoulder.

  He soon fell behind Ehren, whose long strides came in a slightly syncopated rhythm— but when Ehren checked on him, Laine just waved him on.

  "We've left it behind," he said. "But if it catches up again..." He paused, gulping in a few audible breaths as he ran. "We can't run forever."

  Ehren didn't waste his breath. A few more moments, a slight course correction, and they were running up on the horses— who took their intrusion with some suspicion and much snorting. "Easy, boys," Ehren said, soothing them between breaths. He waited for Laine to catch Nimble and said, "There's got to be a limit to the spell— time or distance. I've no intention of getting caught by it."

  "The spells in the mountains have been wandering for hundreds of years," Laine said pointedly.

  Ehren grimaced, rubbing his leg. "True enough. But they weren't keyed spells... that's got to take more energy, or more direction."

  "You know that?" Laine asked with some surprise.

  Ehren shook his head. "No."

  Laine muttered, "Wonderful," and dug a piece of hickory bark out of his shirt. Then, "Are we just going to stand here?"

  "This is where Jada expects us to be." Ehren jerked the tie loose on his saddlebag, and rummaged around inside. He needed something dispensable. Unfortunately, all the dispensable things had been left with Laine's packs and mule on the other side of Kurtane.

  "Ehren..." Laine said, with distinct unease.

  "Go ahead, then— just stick to the game trail. It's me the thing's after."

  "You're going to let it get you?" Laine asked, true horror in his voice.

  "Not if I can help it," Ehren replied, pulling a narrow length of clean linen from the bottom of the bag— an extra bandage for his leg, never used. He only hoped that possessing it for so long had imbued it with whatever essence the spell was sniffing out. "Can you still see it?"

  "You better believe it, and it's mighty burning close." Laine's voice came from a hundred feet off, and even at that distance, his tension was clear.

  "Tell me when it's on the edge of triggering distance," Ehren said, tightening his hold on Ricasso's reins. He dropped the cloth to the ground and moved a few feet back, shooing Shaffron up the trail. Shaffron snorted indignantly and swished his tail in Ricasso's face, trotting only a few steps away.

  "All right," Laine said. It was only another moment before he added, "Now, Ehren. Move it!"

  Ehren moved it. Dragging Ricasso behind, swatting Shaffron's bobbing hindquarters ahead, he jogged down the trail until he met up with Laine. "Did it work?" he asked, glancing behind and moving aside to see past Ricasso. Everything looked just as it had.

  Laine must have thought otherwise, for he made a noise in his throat and added, "It's stopped... it's just sort of... whoops!"

  Ehren detected nothing. "What? Is it moving again? What?"

  "It triggered," Laine said somberly. "It's scaring the Hells out of that patch of ground. How'd you do that?"

  "Gave it a decoy," Ehren said. "Something I've had for a while. It's definitely keyed to me, then. Varien's not taking any chances." He shook his head. "Unless someone hires another wizard to find these things and read the signature on them, he can take us out without incriminating himself in the least."

  "You think he'll send more?"

  "He might. If I was him, I'd send a couple more even though this one triggered, just to make sure we didn't somehow blunder out of it." He gave Laine a searching look. "You're going to have to stay on your toes, I'm afraid. Jada may get us to the king, but you're going to be the one to get us past Varien."

  Laine sighed, and ran a hand down Nimble's neck, never looking away from Ehren. Although humor-crinkled eyes defined the one expression Ehren most associated with Laine, recently his face had been all too somber... just as now. Laine said, "Then we'd better hope you don't run out of things to throw down as decoys."

  And they'd better hope Varien didn't catch on.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  "Why'd you move?" Jada asked instantly, spotting Laine and Ehren in the trees where they wait
ed to intercept her. "Trouble?"

  "Definitely," Laine said. Jada tucked away the stray hair that habitually fell over her eye, shooting Laine an impatient look. He offered up the rest. "Varien's sending spells after Ehren. Or," he added, "someone's sending spells after Ehren. We just tricked one of them— didn't want you caught in it."

  She frowned, and looked at Ehren for the missing pieces. "Someone's sending spells?"

  "Make a spell, key it to someone, and turn it loose," Ehren said. "We're assuming it was Varien."

  "Seems a safe enough assumption to me," Jada grumped. "How'd you get away?"

  "Laine spotted it," Ehren said, glancing up at the clouded sky. "We'd best hope that rain holds off, because I'm sure that wasn't the last spell, and Laine's our only hope of avoiding them."

  "Oh?" Jada said tartly. "And how is that?"

  "I can See them coming," Laine said simply, then spoke quickly to forestall her questions as her jaw dropped. "Just leave it at that, Jada, and actually, if you can forget you know it, that might be better."

  Ehren and Jada knew who he was, and so did the T'ieran. Knowing there were people in the world who would wish him dead just because of his heritage, that almost seemed like a crowd.

  If Ehren had followed orders instead of instinct, Laine and his family would be dead already.

  "I agree," Ehren said with a nod. "I think it's safe to say that anything you learn about Laine, you should consider a confidence, Jada."

  She looked slightly affronted. "As if I'd betray him."

  "Betrayals come in insidious packages," Ehren said. "And with some people, it only takes a single word out of place."

  Jada tossed her head in annoyance, but Ehren let it go. "And you, Laine— you're going to have to watch what you say, as well. You're not used to keeping your Sight a secret."

  "No," Laine said ruefully. "I'm not." He stroked Nimble's tangled mane and thought about the ways his life had changed this summer. He had learned what real fear was, for one thing. He'd never even imagined he was capable of such utter terror as that spell had just invoked in him, and he'd only been Looking at it, not been under it. He wished he could perceive the sendings more clearly than a funny little itch at the corner of his vision.

  On the other hand, maybe it was just as well that they were hard to See.

  "You know," he said, "I can spot the spells that come our way... but I don't think I'll Look at them again."

  Ehren snorted, a mixture of amusement and appreciation. "That," he said, "is what I call a good idea." Then, looping Ricasso's rein loosely over a thin, flexible branch that the horse would probably eat in another moment anyway, he went back to Shaffron and began fussing with the packs.

  "I found the trail that'll get us to the hunting meadow," Jada said loudly; she gave Laine a glance that seemed to dismiss him. Still smarting over Ehren's admonishment, he decided.

  "In a minute," Ehren said, grunting as he shifted the packs; Shaffron grunted too, a noise of surprise at the tug. "Shouldn't have made this thing so secure... though no doubt I'd be saying otherwise if things started falling out as we traveled."

  "No doubt," Jada muttered. She and Laine stood and listened to Ehren's efforts for a few more minutes— and then he reemerged from the other side of Shaffron, holding the stained and torn pants he'd replaced in T'ieranguard.

  "Bait," he said to Laine, who suddenly understood. Jada frowned at him as he slipped his belt knife from its sheath and cut the stained cloth into squares. "If any more spells sniff us out, they ought to key in on this just as well as on me. Unless," he added with a frown, "Varien figures out what we're doing."

  "Don't beg trouble," Jada told him shortly, and turned her mare around in the narrow trail. Ehren exchanged a glance at Laine, who grinned back at him. He knew better than to argue with any woman of Jada's skills when she got the wind up her back.

  ~~~~~

  They set up a cold camp at a stream not far from the hunting meadow. After they'd eaten some borderline cheese and bread that crunched more than it tore, Ehren walked the perimeter of the area. It held a large meadow, a quarter-mile across, with sparse, tall grasses and big-headed flowers; hoof divots pocked the turf and trampled the grasses. A hundred years of royal hunting had started here, but if Rodar didn't limit himself, this would be the last of it for a good long while.

  As it was, there would be no approaching on horseback. They would have to be excruciatingly careful on foot, or they'd be detected too soon and wouldn't even reach earshot of the king. Reaching him physically was out of the question; Ehren had no intention of fighting his way through Rodar's Guards. His Guards.

  When he returned to camp, he discovered that Laine and Jada had reestablished peace, and now spoke of something fairly safe between them— Ehren himself. Laine smiled cheerfully and guiltlessly as Ehren seated himself in front of the packs and stretched his leg out.

  "If there's fighting tomorrow, will you be up to it?" Jada asked, giving the leg a pointed glance.

  "Ask the T'ieran's guards," Ehren said.

  Jada looked at Laine, who nodded with feeling. "Ah," she said. "I see."

  "Or ask the T'ieran," Laine said, with mischievous eyes.

  "Ah," Jada repeated. "I see."

  "I doubt that you do," Ehren told her. "I think it'd be best if we move in before they arrive tomorrow. I don't want to be seen until I'm ready to be seen."

  "Ignoring, for the moment, the fact that you're changing the subject," Jada said, "are you sure you want to seem that... sneaky? If I was guarding Rodar tomorrow, I'd trigger on sneaky a lot faster than a straightforward approach."

  "We'll be straightforward enough," Ehren said. "When we're in the right place for it."

  "Uh-oh," Laine murmured, in a voice that said much more.

  Ehren stiffened. "Where is it?"

  "Right down the creek," Laine said, climbing to his feet, his gaze riveted downstream. "And it's a fast one, Ehren..."

  Ehren didn't waste any time. Stuffing a square of the torn trousers into his sword belt, he headed for Ricasso, snatched up the startled horse's trailing lead rope, and vaulted aboard. Ignoring Ricasso's indignant snorts, he put the horse directly into a canter and headed away from the camp at right angles.

  "That's far enough!" Laine called to him. "Any further and I won't be able to see clearly!"

  Ehren stopped, tossing out the square of cloth while Ricasso dropped his head and snorted several times in succession, clearly disgruntled at this whole odd procedure.

  "Go!" Laine yelled.

  Ehren went. Discarding niceties, he heeled Ricasso around forcefully enough that when the horse cantered off, he kicked up both his heels in protest. Fortunately, it was no chore to sit on the bay's wide back, and Ehren's soothing words got them settled into an even gait. By the time Ehren circled Ricasso around through the trees, the spot where the spell had triggered was obvious. He gave the wilted, blackened area a wide berth on his way back to the creek.

  "What was that?" Jada said when he returned to them, staring at the destruction in the fading light. Ehren thought he winded a stench on the breeze, something that put him in mind of a certain sumac patch in Loraka. From the expression on Laine's face, he was thinking the same thing.

  "I don't know," Ehren told Jada, "but I'm certain it's good that we aren't in it."

  She gave the patch one last unhappy look, and nodded. "I guess we'll have to split watch tonight, Ehren— one of us ought to be up with Laine."

  "To keep me awake, you mean," Laine said. Jada shrugged an apology, but he shook his head. "Don't. I don't want to take any chances, either."

  "You take the first watch, Jada," Ehren said. "With any luck, we'll have that much time before Varien sends anything else at us— though with more luck, he'll figure me dead and leave it at that. As fast as that one was moving, we won't have much leeway." He slid off Ricasso's back and tied the horse nearby. "Sorry, son. I'll want you right at hand if I need you."

  "First watch it is, then." Jad
a sent Ehren a stern look. "And don't you be taking my head off if I wake you up fast. If I had a choice I'd use a ten-foot pole."

  "I'll do my best," Ehren promised.

  "I've heard that before," she grumbled

  He just grinned at her. "Gotta be fast." And then he ducked the missile of stale bread she flung at him.

  But Jada's watch went quietly, and when she woke Ehren it was with a soft call from a safe distance. She settled right down to sleep, and Ehren worked out his stiffness with a quick walk around the edge of the camp, checking that the horses browsed reasonably nearby and moving Ricasso so he could demolish the undergrowth in a fresh area.

  He returned to sit by Laine, who hadn't said much; the strain showed on his face. Ehren didn't envy him— on constant alert for something he wouldn't truly be able to see even had it been daytime. And he didn't like having to rely on him; it left him restless and uneasy. He preferred to rely on himself, and his own skills.

  Above him came the pattering sounds of light raindrops on leaves.

  "If it's raining," Laine said, "will they hunt tomorrow?"

  "Depends on how hard it comes down, and how long."

  "Ehren... I can't do this for another whole day and night. Even if I somehow stayed awake, I'd probably miss anything that came our way."

  "I know," Ehren said. "Don't worry about it. It's not raining that hard." And it had better stay that way. Laine was right. If Rodar didn't come out to hunt tomorrow, they'd have to go in after him.

  But the rain stayed light and intermittent, and the spells stayed away. It was the grey of dawn when Laine suddenly perked up, and Ehren got to his feet immediately, going for Ricasso.

  "Right down the creek again," Laine said wearily. "Not too fast."

  Ehren moved swiftly, although he was a little gentler to his sleepy horse than the evening before. They rode out beside the smear of darkened tree trunks and wilted leaves from the previous spell— and when Laine signaled him to make a break, he'd only gone a dozen yards when a jagged thunderclap rang out. It sent Ricasso skittering sideways and Ehren snatching at his mane. The halter rope was hardly effective as a bit and bridle, and Ricasso pounded forward, barely dodging the trees in their path. When Ehren finally got him stopped, Ricasso trembled wildly, snorting in huffs of fear. Gently, Ehren turned him around; Ricasso pranced and tossed his head all the way back.