“I think about plenty of things other than magic!”
“Really? Like what?”
Sienne gaped. “I… the fact that I can’t think of anything right now in no way validates your opinion.”
The door swung open. “We want to try something,” Dianthe said to Perrin and Kalanath.
The artifact remained inert for Perrin. Kalanath flatly refused to touch it. “It will not work for me either,” he said. Sienne didn’t push.
“So it needs a wizard to activate it,” Alaric said. “That’s good news. It eliminates nine out of every ten people from being able to use it.”
“But our enemy knows a wizard,” Kalanath said. “Someone who will use it at his direction. And if our enemy knows how to make it work, he will send that wizard after us to retrieve it.”
“True, but there’s nothing we can do about that.” Alaric took the falcon from Perrin and wrapped it in its canvas again. “Dianthe, do you have the map?”
Dianthe rummaged in her pack and came up with a map tube. Alaric unrolled the map and spread it out on Dianthe’s bed, where he and Kalanath held its corners down. “Verrone is here,” Alaric said, letting a corner of the map curl up when he released it to point. Sienne held it down. “Thanks. The highway south goes through a bunch of little towns, and then Terrius, which is the last city before the road heads into the forest. It will take us a day and a half to get that far. The forest is where they’ll have to ambush us.” He jabbed the map with his finger. “It’s a stretch of road about twelve miles long, with only the one town, Muskey, at the eight-mile mark. Muskey isn’t very big and we can’t count on it dissuading them from attacking us. Our best bet is to stop at Terrius until the next day’s dawn, then ride like mad through the forest and hope to outrun them.”
“I wish I had cat’s eye,” Sienne groused. “We could sneak through at night. Or the kind of force that blasts several people at once.”
“I’m more worried about Kalanath’s point that these people will probably have a wizard with them,” Dianthe said. “If he can cast that ferry spell, who knows what else he might be capable of?”
“Ferry is powerful. It could be a lot,” Sienne said.
Perrin stepped back. “I intend to go to my room and pray,” he announced. “I think it unlikely that Averran has forgiven me after less than a day, but perhaps he will take pity on the rest of you.” He left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.
“We should not disturb him,” Kalanath said. “I will go to the tap room and meditate.”
“I’m going to have another beer,” Alaric said. “Do you ladies want to join us?”
“I’m ready to sleep,” Sienne said. Dianthe nodded.
“Then we’ll see you in the morning,” Alaric said. He looked at Sienne as if he wished he could kiss her good night, then followed Kalanath out the door.
Sienne tucked the canvas bundle under her bed, then cast camouflage on it. It was probably pointless; Dianthe might be a snorer, but she slept lightly, and no one would get more than a few steps into their room without her waking. When she stood, Dianthe was already in her nightdress and settling into bed. “Perrin will be all right, won’t he?” Sienne said.
“I wish I could say yes,” Dianthe said. “But our need for a priest isn’t as great as his need for healing. It might be a while.”
Sienne changed into her nightdress and climbed into bed. She sent a magical breeze toward the lamp, blowing out the light. “I wish there were something we could do to help.”
Dianthe responded with a gentle snore. Sienne smiled into the darkness and rolled to face the wall. She thought about composing another prayer to Averran, but if he was as crotchety as Perrin said, he might not like non-worshippers pestering him. Instead, she thought of her family. She was as isolated from them as Perrin was from his, but in her case, she’d chosen to leave. At the time, she’d been angry and hurt and willing to make them angry and hurt too. Now she could think of her parents and her sister Felice with only a trace of the pain she’d felt nearly a year ago. If they’d cast her off instead of the other way around, would she miss them the way Perrin missed his wife? Sienne didn’t think it was at all the same. Even so, she fell asleep almost, but not quite, regretting her actions.
19
The next two days’ travel was uneventful, though Sienne couldn’t quite shake her unease at carrying the artifact so casually before her pommel. She rode with the reins clasped lightly in her left hand, resting on the falcon, and her spellbook loosely held in her right, ready to fall open to force or scream. But no one attacked them. The roads weren’t well traveled at this time of year, and every time they saw a group approaching from the south, Sienne tensed. It was never the promised ambush. By the second day, when they reached Terrius at around two o’clock in the afternoon, she was so worn out Alaric took the artifact from her and sent her to bed. She went without a fight and fell gratefully into a deep, restful slumber.
The next morning dawned gray and wet. Sienne stood at the window in her nightdress and looked out at the rain slicking the cobbles. “Maybe they’ll stay home,” she said. “This isn’t good ambush weather.”
“Of course it is,” Dianthe said. “Visibility is low, everyone’s hunched into their hoods trying not to be rained on, they’re thinking about other things and distracted… weather control is impossible, right? Because I’d almost suspect their wizard of arranging things to suit them otherwise.”
“There are evocations for calling a wind or creating lightning, but that’s the most anyone can do to change the weather. And I was thinking about how hard it would be to sit in the rain for hours, waiting for their prey to stroll by. They’ve got to be distracted, too.”
“They probably cancel each other out.” Dianthe rose and got dressed. “I couldn’t sleep last night. Kept going over possibilities for avoiding this confrontation, none of which were viable.”
“If I knew how to use jaunt, I could go back to Fioretti and find someone to sell me transport, and then I could take us all home in a heartbeat. Or several heartbeats, I guess. The only thing I know about spells like jaunt and transport is they’re not instantaneous.”
“Well, my conclusion was that there’s no point fretting about this. We know they’re waiting for us somewhere, and that will have to be enough of an edge. It’s probably too much to hope for that they think we’re oblivious.”
Sienne pulled her shirt over her head and picked up her trousers where they lay across the foot of her bed. “I was thinking I should ride in front.”
“Really? Alaric will never go for it.”
“If I’m in front, I can cast scream and disable some of them before it comes to close fighting. I can’t do that if Alaric is blocking my view.”
“That’s true. We can suggest it. He might even see sense.”
They were the first to the tap room for breakfast. The serving woman offered them a choice of eggs or hashed potatoes. Dianthe took eggs. Sienne asked for potatoes. They were eating peacefully when the three men entered. Only Kalanath looked fully awake. Perrin’s eyes were bleary, and he refused food in favor of black coffee. Alaric looked as if he hadn’t slept well, but took both eggs and potatoes.
“Don’t eat too heavily,” he warned them. “We need to be alert, not logy with food.”
“What do you call that?” Dianthe asked, pointing at his overflowing plate.
“That is lightly, for me. I wanted twice as much.” He took a drink from his coffee mug and added, “I have no idea where they’ll strike. My guess is somewhere past Muskey. It’s too small a village for them to have stayed there overnight so they could come north to attack us as we enter the forest. But the forest road is more overgrown north of Muskey, with better opportunities for an ambush, so I could be wrong. So, unfortunately, we’ll have to stay alert the whole way.”
“I was thinking I should ride in front,” Sienne said.
“Out of the question,” Alaric said.
“She can c
ast scream to incapacitate some of the enemy,” Dianthe pointed out.
“And if their wizard casts spells, she will see the magic first,” Kalanath said.
That was something Sienne hadn’t thought of. “You’ll be close behind,” she told Alaric, who looked torn. “And we’ll all be in danger no matter where we ride.”
Alaric’s lips thinned in irritation. “All right,” he said. “But you fall back when we encounter them, after casting scream, all right? You and Perrin can’t get into hand-to-hand range.”
“I appreciate the warning, and will try not to feel resentful that it is necessary,” Perrin said with a grimace.
“They’ll try to stay hidden, to let us walk into the middle of them so we’re surrounded,” Alaric said. “As soon as we see them, we ride hard as far as we can until it comes to fighting. Kalanath, are you comfortable fighting from horseback?” It was a polite way of saying what Sienne knew he was thinking, which was Are you going to fall off your horse if it comes to a fight?
Kalanath scowled at his plate. “Staff fighting is not good for horses. But I will do my best. Do you think they will be mounted?”
“No. Hard to stay concealed when you have horses to worry about. If you have to dismount to fight, that’s just how it has to be. But the idea is not to engage with them if we can help it. The idea is to break their ambush and ride south. Stopping to fight is a distraction that could get someone hurt.”
“But we stay together,” Dianthe said. “Nobody runs ahead, nobody gets left behind.”
Nobody could think of anything to say to that. They finished their meals in silence.
Alaric came to Sienne’s side as she was saddling Spark. “I’m not happy about this,” he said.
“I know.”
“If that wizard throws something big at us, you’ll be the first hit.”
“I know.” She settled the artifact on Spark’s neck.
“Don’t get hurt.”
“I wish I could promise that.” She looked up at him. “It’s not just me, is it? You’d willingly throw yourself in front of any of us if it meant protecting us.”
“That’s true.” He smiled. “It might be extra true for you.”
She’d never more wanted to fling her arms around his neck and kiss him. “Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For caring. And for letting me ride first anyway.”
He clasped her hand briefly. “We’ll get through this.”
She mounted, wheeled Spark around, and headed for the gate. Around her, her friends did the same. She took a moment to look at each of them: Perrin, his face still drawn and tense; Kalanath, looking calm but with one hand on his staff; Dianthe, seemingly unconcerned about what came next; and Alaric, fiercely scowling at nothing. Her friends. Her adopted family. She tried not to feel superstitious about her moment of sentimentality.
It was so strange not having Alaric’s looming back blocking her view. Terrius was large and old, one of the oldest cities in Rafellin, and its age showed in the archaic wattle-and-daub houses and narrow streets that forced them to ride single file. Men and women in modern dress looked out of place against the buildings with their tiny glass windows and the streets whose sidewalks were the merest curbs defining the gutters. But it was clean, the gutters free from refuse, and had the day not been overcast it would have been a pleasant ride through an attractive city.
Sienne smiled tightly at a child who gaped up at her, tugging on his sister’s sleeve to point out the scrapper team riding through their streets. They were deliberately riding into an ambush. It had to be the stupidest thing she’d ever done, far stupider than investigating a midge hive on her own. She relaxed her grip on the reins and practiced breathing to calm herself, in through the nose, out through the mouth. By the time they left Terrius behind, she was more relaxed. All she could do now was be prepared to cast spells at the first sign of trouble, and not get hurt. She hoped it would be that easy.
It took half an hour’s riding to reach the beginnings of the forest. They’d passed a number of travelers, some in wagons, others walking, going north, and it cheered Sienne. Their enemy wouldn’t attack them if there might be witnesses. She ignored the tiny voice that suggested the enemy would just kill any would-be witnesses. They didn’t know how ruthless he was. All he wanted was the artifact; their deaths were unnecessary. She clung to this theory. It helped her stay relaxed.
Thunder rumbled as they moved deeper into the forest. With the overcast, it was particularly dim beneath the branches. Sienne’s gaze roved across the road from side to side. Was that a man? No, just a broken tree. She stayed alert for any sign of magic, or the sound of someone casting a spell. Raindrops began striking the canopy of leaves, pattering lightly like someone tapping their fingers on a table top. She put up her hood as the first drops of water made their way between the foliage.
“We can move a little faster,” Dianthe said from beside her. She hadn’t put her hood up and looked alertly ahead and to the sides.
Sienne nudged Spark into a trot. At that gait, it was hard to hold the reins and her spellbook and keep the artifact from slipping off. She opened the spellbook to scream and cradled it in the crook of her arm. Rain struck its impervious pages and rolled off like water on glass. The clop of Spark’s hooves on the road became more of a squish as the earth soaked up the rain. Sienne stroked Spark’s wet mane and wished for both their sakes this was over already.
Minutes passed. Sienne tried not to feel impatient with their enemy for not ambushing them immediately. The waiting would kill her. She wiped rain out of her face. A gray mist rose up from the ground, curling around her horse’s hooves. Visibility was getting worse. Sienne peered into the fog. How could it be foggy if it was raining? That seemed impossible.
Impossible fog. She caught her breath. “It’s fog,” she whispered.
“I can see that,” Dianthe said.
“No, not natural fog, magical fog. Mehla. It’s them.”
“Can you clear it away?” Alaric murmured.
“No.”
“Then ride!” Alaric shouted, spurring his horse forward.
Sienne kicked Spark into a gallop and careened into the fog bank rising up before them. She brought her spellbook up to just below her chin and stared vainly for a target.
A gust of wind came out of nowhere, blowing so hard Sienne nearly dropped her spellbook. The fog turned to tatters and then was gone. Men, too many for Sienne to count at the speed she was going, appeared in front of her, weapons at the ready. She leaned wide of Spark’s head and read off the evocation scream, feeling it burn her mouth as it built to a terrible shrill volume.
As the spell left her lips, a light grew ahead and to the left, a warm orange glow like the sun setting, except it was far too early and the wrong direction. It rushed toward her, growing brighter and hotter, and she barely had time to get her spellbook in front of her face before the fire struck her and Spark nearly head-on.
Spark let out a terrified scream that Sienne echoed. The fire was everywhere, clinging to her clothes and her hood, filling her nose with the smells of burnt hair and scorched fabric. It hurt as nothing had ever hurt before. Spark reared up, and Sienne lost her seat, falling heavily to the ground. She rolled frantically, remembering vaguely that this was what you did with someone on fire. She couldn’t see anything but the lightness of the pages of her spellbook, and tears came to her burning eyes, tears of terror that she’d been blinded.
After what felt like an eternity, she realized the pain had lessened, and she couldn’t smell fire anymore. She pushed herself up and nearly screamed again at the pain in her hands. Their backs were red and blistered from where she’d held the spellbook in front of her face. She blinked away the tears and the world swam into focus. The harness was ruined, but her spellbook had saved her face and her eyesight. She clutched it to her chest and drew great sobbing breaths.
She became aware of sounds, shouting and the clashing of weapons. She lo
oked around frantically for her friends. She’d gotten turned around and had no idea which direction was south, but Alaric and Dianthe were slashing away at their attackers somewhere ahead of her, Kalanath had dismounted and was smashing his way through more of the enemy toward them, and Perrin was running her way, screaming something and waving his hands. Behind you, it sounded like—
Sienne twisted around. A man wielding a sword was fifteen feet from her, bearing down on her rapidly. Without thinking, she opened her book to force and blasted the man as he swung his blade at her head. She threw herself to one side, screamed again as she landed on her burned wrist, and then Perrin was there, helping her up. “You have to find the wizard,” he shouted.
“Where—”
“He hit us all with that fire and hasn’t cast anything else—look out!”
An enormous warrior strode out of the dimness, armored in heavy plate mail and wielding a sword as big as Alaric’s. Sienne scrambled to stand and cast force again. The blast took the man in the chest and bounced off, not stopping him. Terror struck Sienne as hard as force. She’d never seen anyone stand up to that spell before.
The warrior continued to advance, bringing the sword up for a powerful swing. No light gleamed along the edge of the blade. No light…
With an effort, Sienne turned her back on the warrior. “Sienne!” Perrin screamed. “What are you doing?” He grabbed her around the waist and bore her to the ground, out of the way of the warrior’s blade that swept through the air above them.
Sienne struggled free of his grasp and stood. “It’s phantom,” she said. “Terrifying images meant to paralyze with fear. But it’s not real. And if that’s the best that wizard can do, he’s not as powerful as we imagined.”
The warrior struck again, swinging his blade hard and fast. It passed through Sienne harmlessly.
“You took an awful chance,” Perrin said. He was breathing heavily and his eyes were wide.
Stone of Inheritance Page 21