No. He forced his eyes open again. The pale sky above meant that the sun was already rising. He must be up on his feet and more than that, he must be as alert as he ever had been, if he wanted to stay on that Mandarkin mage’s trail. If he wanted to stay clear of the Soluran wizards and their cursed men-at-arms so diligently quartering these woods.
The Solurans themselves had only settled down for some respite in the very dead of night. Corrain had watched the three wizards huddle together, doubtless conniving at some magecraft. Their men-at-arms had shared the tasks of keeping watch and cooking simple food over a small, swiftly dug fire pit before wrapping themselves in their cloaks to sleep or stand sentry, turn by turn.
Corrain had withdrawn to prop himself between two young trees fighting to claim the same patch of open sky. He had only managed a broken doze, stirring at every night-time noise in the woods. Was some Soluran seeking a nook for a piss about to stumble across him? Or was the entire contingent rousing at a wizard’s command?
Knuckling his eyes hard enough to leave them stinging, he stood up as quietly as he could. A mouthful of water from the leather bottle at his hip was tepid and unrefreshing. His throat ached with fear as much as hunger. He could only hope that the Solurans were still camped in that glade. And that he hadn’t misjudged how far away he needed to go, to balance the perils of being discovered against the risks of being left behind.
Something rustled above his head. He peered suspiciously upwards. Was Deor hunting him? Corrain hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the Forest man over these past two days but he wouldn’t wager a copper cut-piece on that evidence alone.
He only hoped that the Mandarkin mage was more valuable prey, especially if the Solurans were paying for Deor’s woodcraft with the location of those cached stores. Corrain guessed that the sneaking redhead would value food ready for the taking above coin which his people would have to travel to spend on provisions. Or perhaps he’d found Corrain’s horse and was already leagues away. That would be an unlooked-for stroke of luck.
He’d been forced to let the beast go, sparing a swift prayer to Talagrin that it wouldn’t fall foul of some undeserved fate. Sneaking stealthily through the woods with the creature snuffling behind him was too ludicrous to contemplate. So he’d stripped off the gear that could snag on some branch and be the death of the hapless animal, slapped its rump and sent it on its way. If Talagrin were truly listening, maybe its hoof prints would persuade the searching Solurans that they were rid of him as well as Kusint.
Who would be here watching his back if only the fool had seen sense. Corrain’s spark of anger faded as fast as it kindled. He’d misjudged the boy and that was that. He should have remembered that he only ever had himself to rely on. He was doing well enough so far. He’d kept pace with the hunters even if he’d yet to catch sight of the quarry they were both pursuing.
In this grey morning light, that was comfort as cold and unrewarding as the stringy dried meat in his saddlebag. Corrain grabbed a handful of strips and stifled a groan as he shouldered the heavy coin. Snatching mouthfuls of food here and there had done little to lighten his burden.
He chewed on beef strips pungent with herbs as he began walking warily through the woods. He searched out the waymarks he’d noted in the benevolent moonlight last night. A splintered snag there, a sapling strangled by honeysuckle on the far side of this deer track. He had to find those Solurans again, ideally before they broke camp or soon enough after to follow a clear trail. Just as long as they didn’t catch sight of him first.
If they did, he didn’t dare risk capture and have Deor’s kinsman find his current plan among his thoughts. He would have to drop the money and run. Of course, that would leave him with nothing to induce the Mandarkin mage to help him, even if he managed to find the man. Corrain’s shoulders sagged, and not merely from the encumbrance of the saddlebags.
What fool’s errand was he pursuing? But what choice did he have? Beyond taking the money for his own and making a new life far away from Caladhria. Yes, he could do that. Until guilt drove him to cut his own throat.
Movement in the trees drove such treacherous thoughts clean out of his head. Corrain crouched low to avoid anyone’s gaze scanning the woodland at man height. He glimpsed movement again, this time catching a glimpse of russet.
The youngest of the Soluran wizards had worn a cloak the colour of autumn leaves. Espilan, the wizard who’d been sent on ahead with a bare handful of guards to tempt the Mandarkin mage into murder. The Solurans surely couldn’t think the Mandarkin was fool enough to fall for the same trick a second time?
There was no sign of the young wizard’s escort. Corrain couldn’t hear the most furtive footfall. More importantly, the woodland birds were singing their dawn songs without a care in the world.
If the Soluran wizard was out here alone, where could he be going? As Corrain rose to follow, the dead weight of the saddlebags nearly made his knees buckle. After swift, agonised deliberation, he dumped them in a hollow stump. He could come back to retrieve them later, when he had a better idea of what was afoot. Or he’d be dead and it wouldn’t matter.
He slid his sword noiselessly from its sheath and crept through the trees. His eyes shifted constantly, watchful for any shimmer of Soluran hauberks amid the greenery, while striving to keep track of that russet cloak.
Now the Soluran wizard was slowing. Corrain fought an impulse to do the same. Caution was all very well but he had to see what the wizard was up to. Without the wizard seeing him.
He dropped low a second time as he saw Espilan staring straight in his direction. He breathed a little easier when Espilan’s gaze slid downwards. The young wizard was looking into his cupped hands, where the merest shimmer of azure coloured the pallid dawn gloom.
This was interesting. From the shadow where he lurked, Corrain watched the Soluran through the lattice of twigs. Espilan’s jaw was set, his eyes narrowed with determination. Corrain had seen that expression often enough in the guard barracks to recognise a young man out to prove himself.
He had set off without the rest of them, seeking the Mandarkin with his own magecraft. He was out to show that arrogant woman and the old man exactly what he was capable of.
Espilan looked away to the north. He headed off so quietly he must surely have muffled his boots with magic. Corrain followed as carefully as he could. He could only trust the faint breezes to cover any unavoidable noise.
Espilan went on, slowly, carefully, his direction unwavering. The sun rose higher, warming the day. Corrain soon emptied his leather water bottle and began keeping an eye open for a stream fit to drink from.
As they drew further and further away from that stump where he’d left the coin, he grew increasingly uneasy. There was no sign of the other Solurans. Perhaps the woman wizard and the old man mage were already on the Mandarkin’s scent. They could catch him and Corrain wouldn’t even know. Perhaps he should backtrack before he lost his waymarks entirely in this accursed impenetrable forest.
Blue light seared his vision. Birds burst from the bushes and trees. Corrain dropped to the ground, barely restraining his curses.
Hearing delighted laughter amid the frantic squawking putting more fowl to flight, he scrambled forward as fast as he could. The chaos subsided inconveniently soon. Corrain slowed to a snail’s pace, wary of any brush of a leaf or crack of a twig beneath his hand or knee.
Espilan was intent on something on the forest floor. Flat on his belly and peering through the undergrowth, Corrain saw a writhing shadow caught amid coils of coruscating light. The struggling shape became clearer. Not because Espilan’s magic was fading but rather the figure was growing more solid, more tangible.
Corrain recognised the Mandarkin now that whatever magecraft had rendered him invisible or insubstantial had been so violently stripped away.
The Soluran stooped over the captive wizard. His words might be unintelligible but his triumph was as plain as the daylight. Until Corrain’s sword pommel hit the back
of his head to send him sprawling unconscious into the leaf litter, the sapphire magelight snuffed.
Corrain wrenched at the reins coiled around his waist. He hadn’t abandoned that horse without taking anything he might find a use for. Before the Soluran regained his senses, he must have him securely bound. These were not Hadrumal’s wizards. He’d seen them kill without compunction.
He gagged the slack-limbed wizard with a sticky rag that had held rounds of dried apple. Once he had the reins buckled tight around Espilan’s wrists and ankles, hands behind the wizard’s back, he knotted the free ends together around a conveniently solid tree. The bleary-eyed Soluran was beginning to stir.
Corrain stepped back. ‘Remember, I could have hit you hard enough to kill.’
He spoke slowly in formal Tormalin. For good measure, he turned his sword to show Espilan the heavy pommel before resting the blade on the wizard’s shoulder, the edge pressing lightly against his neck.
‘I don’t wish to make an enemy of any Soluran,’ Corrain told him. ‘But I need a wizard to fight the corsairs. If you and your own won’t help me, I must find a mage who can.’
Espilan’s eyes blazed with contempt. Contempt and something else?
Where was the Mandarkin mage? Corrain looked back at the ground where Espilan’s captive had lain only to see scuffed leaf mould. Before Corrain could wonder where the fugitive had gone, his feet were pulled out from under him.
He fell heavily. He would have thrust out a hand but his arms were pinioned to his sides. A searing coil of green steam dragged him along the ground, wrapping around him from head to toe and dazzling him to blindness. Corrain fought, bucking and twisting, to no avail. All that won him was deep gouges to his chin and forehead from stray twigs.
Another flash of emerald light hauled him upwards to slam against a tree trunk. Realising that his eyes hadn’t been scalded into empty sockets was paltry relief. Corrain found a web of cold mossy tendrils swathed him, binding him to the tree. He was far more securely restrained than Espilan on the far side of this ragged glade.
He still had hold of his sword, though with it pressed tight to his leg, Corrain couldn’t see how he was going to use it. As he flexed his shoulders to test these sorcerous bonds, the magic tightened to leave him gasping for breath. He heard the Mandarkin mage laughing with soft malice. He saw Espilan close his eyes and roll his head away, conveying his utter contempt without any need for words.
The Mandarkin mage hissed and the Soluran wizard was encased in mage-wrought ice. Vapour rose from the glittering jade mantle like a man’s breath on a frosted day.
The Mandarkin stepped out from behind the tree where Corrain was bound. He looked the Caladhrian up and down. Hesitating before he spoke, he finally cocked his head towards the bound Soluran. ‘You and he. Friend?’
If Corrain had never heard anything remotely like the man’s guttural accent, he recognised the formal Tormalin that all these wizards seemed to know. Thank Trimon for that.
‘No.’ he said forcefully. Hadn’t the mage seen him knock the Soluran senseless?
Before he could ask that, a shard of ice appeared in the Mandarkin mage’s hand. He pressed the razor-sharp edge against the blood vessel pulsing in the side of Corrain’s neck. Feeling the cold fire burning his skin, Corrain had no doubt that this magewrought blade could kill him as efficiently as any steel.
The Mandarkin mage raised sceptical eyebrows. ‘True?’
‘True.’ Corrain put all the conviction he could muster into the word.
The Mandarkin stared up at him, deep in thought, the pressure from his icy blade unrelenting.
From a distance, Corrain had thought he was some youth like Espilan, yet to grow into his full height and strength. Close to, he realised the Mandarkin was older than he was himself by half a generation. The man was little more than skin and bone and he’d been hungry lifelong, Corrain guessed, to judge by his bowed legs and stunted frame.
His heavy leather tunic stank of sweat and he wore no linen beneath it to save his dirty skin from its chafing. Corrain tried not to flinch away from his foul breath. The man couldn’t have an unrotted tooth in his head.
Didn’t wizards have spells to save them from a tooth-puller’s pincers? He’d bet good coin that those in Hadrumal did. Mandarkin magic doubtless had other priorities. So did he. If this wasn’t what he’d hoped for, at least he’d found what he’d been hunting.
Corrain looked into the Mandarkin mage’s eyes, making sure his words were slow and clear. ‘I will be your friend.’
He gasped as the emerald magic tightened further, crushing him against the rough bark.
The Mandarkin mage leaned close, his breath even more nauseating. ‘Why?’
The cold from the ice shard was an excruciating itch. Corrain swallowed. ‘I need a friend with magic.’
The Mandarkin mage’s eyes narrowed, dark beneath brows and hair that might have been blonde if he’d ever fallen foul of some soap. ‘Why?’
‘I come from far away to the south.’ Did the man understand? Corrain couldn’t tell. He could only press on. ‘We have enemies who attack us. We need magic to attack them.’
The Mandarkin was puzzled. ‘You are friend or enemy to Solura?’
Corrain curbed an impulse to shake his head lest he cut his own throat on that cursed ice. ‘Not friend, not enemy.’ He tried to shrug but the magical webs held him tight. ‘I care nothing for Solura. I fight for my own people—’
The Mandarkin was turning away. Whether or not he understood, he was losing interest in Corrain.
‘I have gold,’ Corrain shouted, ‘and silver. And food,’ he added as an afterthought.
The Mandarkin understood some of those words. A new light shone in his eyes, a light Corrain recognised from his years among troopers. Greed.
‘Where?’ The mage’s gesture was clear enough. It was obvious that Corrain was carrying no more than his weapons and the clothes on his back.
‘No.’ With the ice blade clear of his neck, he could shake his head emphatically. ‘I tell you and you kill me?’ He forced a laugh. ‘Then we are not friends.’
Whatever the Mandarkin mage might have said to that was lost as the skinny man spun around. Corrain saw that the ice encasing Espilan was melting faster than lard in a hot pan.
The Mandarkin snarled, raising his magewrought blade up high. The Soluran spat back through the muffling gag. In the next instant he was gone, leather bindings and all.
As Corrain instinctively surged forward, he felt the magic binding him to the tree weaken. Looking down he saw the mossy webs flicker and begin to fade.
The Mandarkin mage was looking this way and that, his lip curled in silent defiance. As he flourished his ice blade, Corrain saw the fear in his eyes. The man must be as worn out as everyone else by this relentless pursuit. No wonder his magic was failing him.
Espilan’s escape could be the death of them both. Corrain didn’t imagine old Orul or that hard-faced woman Selista would give him the benefit of any doubt. Not once Espilan explained how this Caladhrian had saved the Mandarkin mage from capture or death, whichever the young wizard intended.
With a convulsive effort, Corrain ripped himself free from the withering magic. The Mandarkin turned on him; his ice blade lengthening into a spear, Corrain brandished his broken manacle instead of his sword. When the Mandarkin had pressed that blade to his throat, he’d seen the distinctive scars of such shackles on the man’s bony wrists.
‘You want to be free? Come with me to my own people. So far away that no one will ever find you. Not those Solurans.’
He jerked his head towards the sun though in truth he’d no idea where Espilan might have fled. He shook the broken manacle again, this time to the north.
‘Nor any man who would chain you. Earn gold and silver with your magic, keep it for yourself and enjoy the finest wine and food.’
Again, he wasn’t at all sure the Mandarkin understood him. He broke off at the sound of booted feet trampling
through the undergrowth. The Solurans didn’t care who heard them coming now that Espilan had reported the Mandarkin’s imminent exhaustion.
The ice blade crumbled away into milky steam. Corrain levelled his sword at the starveling mage.
‘I am leaving,’ he said with careful precision. ‘If you will not help me, I will not help you.’
The Mandarkin mage grimaced and held out an empty hand, palm up and fingers spread. Corrain hesitated, unsure what to do. With a hiss of exasperation, the Mandarkin stepped forward and grabbed his wrist.
He leaned close to whisper. ‘Show me gold. Then we go to your people.’
Corrain nearly ripped his hand free, no matter what that might cost him. As soon as the Mandarkin took hold, a crawling sensation began spreading up his arm. From there the vile prickling swept over his whole body.
Was he covered in spiders summoned to that magespun web? That revolting thought drove Corrain to the verge of panic. Looking down, he expected to see insects swarming over his hands, underneath his shirt and down the back of his neck—
Instead he could see his own boots through his arm. His body was no more than a rippling translucent outline. As he watched, his legs turned clear as glass, the twigs crushed beneath his feet clearly visible.
‘Gold!’ The Mandarkin mage jerked Corrain forward, unexpectedly strong fingers fastened on his insubstantial arm.
How could he be so solid and yet seemingly made of nothingness? Soluran shouts prompted a more pertinent thought. Espilan had already found the Mandarkin once despite this concealing magic. They had to get away as fast as they could.
Corrain pressed a finger to his lips, trusting that the sign for silence was common to people of any race. With the Mandarkin’s hand clamped round his wrist, he swiftly retraced his steps.
Talagrin be thanked, the Solurans were a good way off. Better yet, they were heading towards the trees where Espilan had found his prey. That would only widen the distance between them as Corrain backtracked. Until one of those men-at-arms found a trail to follow. Unless these magics left some trace visible to other wizards.
Dangerous Waters Page 39