Chained Adept

by Myers, Karen

  After a few minutes, she heard the rustle of bushes and two pairs of feet crossed her line of sight. The pressure holding her immobile released, and she felt Zandaril being hauled up off of her. She scrambled up on her own without waiting for their hands, and raised her mind shield, for all the good she suspected it would be.

  “Sorry, jarghal,” she said to Zandaril, with an apologetic whine, staring at him meaningfully. “Looks like this wasn’t the right way to go after all, to get away from them.” She spoke in Kigali-yat, hoping that would be a common language shared by whoever these people were. She didn’t dare use their native language, since Zandaril wouldn’t be able to.

  His eyes narrowed briefly in puzzlement, and then he protested fussily to the man who had hold of his arm. “There’s no need for that. My nal-jarghal and I were just trying to leave Wechinnat and get out of the way. None of our business, this is. Sarq-Zannib has no standing in Kigali affairs.”

  The two men grinned at them. They were bearded, with shaggy hair, and dressed in dusty brown leathers. Each had a longbow on his shoulder and small throwing axes fastened to his belt, and one had a short sword. Their jackets were trimmed with dirty fur.

  “That’s for our Voice to decide, ain’t it,” the larger and grubbier one said, answering Zandaril in badly accented Kigali-yat. “He told us to fetch you two.” The other one pulled a stout cord from the bag tied to his waist, and proceeded to tie Zandaril’s crossed wrists, in front of him. He left Zandaril’s pack in place.

  He cut the cord, and used the remainder on Penrys. She tried to take up as much space with her wrists as she could while he tied the knots, but he yanked the cord tight as if he’d done it a hundred times before. Maybe there’s a reason we didn’t find anyone out here, except the scouts on both sides. What were we thinking?

  The two remaining pairs she’d sensed appeared at about the same time. Her captor called out, in his own language, “Hey, got a bit of rope on ya?” and one of them volunteered the coil on his belt.

  “Don’t ya be cuttin’ that now,” he said, and their captor adeptly solved the problem by tying one end to Penrys’s bonds, hitching in Zandaril’s with a gap of about six feet between them, and tossing the remainder of the coil back.

  “Ya want the rope? Then you can lead ’em.”

  The donor curled his lip sourly, but took hold of the rope and yanked Zandaril forward. He stumbled and almost fell, but Penrys grabbed his arm, and was pulled after him. Five of the men spread out on either side of the one with the rope, disappearing into the woods on either side while he stuck to whatever path he could find.

  It didn’t take long for Penrys to exhaust herself, trying to maintain her balance without her hands free, and forced at something close to a jog trot up the rough trails. Her throat was dry and she couldn’t keep from coughing, hoping to clear it of the dust. Zandaril was clearly having a similar struggle.

  The chill in the air helped. She tried to ignore her discomforts and concentrated on keeping her shield up. She couldn’t feel anyone testing it.

  This Voice her captors mentioned must be the one who had mind-spoken to her, and presumably to Zandaril, too. A wizard. These men spoke a different dialect of Rasesni than the people she’d already tapped. They looked rougher than she’d imagined.

  Once, when Zandaril turned his head, she’d cocked her head at the man with the rope and raised an eyebrow, and Zandaril had mouthed the words “hill-tribes.” Was the wizard who’d found them the same, or something else?

  She dreaded being a captive like this, but at least they were headed to the place with the answers.

  They paused after a couple of hours, and she collapsed to the ground, her chest heaving. Three of the five men came back to join them. One of them offered water from a clay bottle on his waist, getting a good feel of her while he did it. She ignored him and drank as much as she could get, silently.

  Zandaril smiled at her encouragingly afterward, and she nodded back to him.

  They had to survive, that was all she had to think about for now. A tug on the rope alerted her, and she struggled up again for another run.

  The closer they got to the ridge of the Horn, the more people they encountered. At the base they found an encampment, strangely reminiscent of the expedition’s camp out in the plains. Some of the men paused in their work to grin at the running captives, and several threw sticks, hoping to trip them up.

  Penrys narrowed her attention to just staying upright, not wanting to fall and be dragged. She thought a broken leg would result in casual death.

  All the men she saw had a certain tribal resemblance, and most of them carried bows or had them nearby, whatever else they might arm themselves with. She didn’t see any women at all, and she set her mouth grimly as she considered what that might mean for her captivity.

  The pace slowed as they pushed through the camp to the base of the ridge. There was a trail up at this point, steep but accessible, following an old fault in the escarpment.

  They waited for a man to finish his descent, and Penrys bent forward at the waist, trying to catch her breath. Her legs trembled with exertion.

  One step at a time. Don’t look up and, whatever you do, don’t look down either.

  They moved Zandaril up the length of rope so that there was about twelve feet between them, and refastened it.

  The owner of the rope protested. “I ain’t gonna be tied to ’em going up the Horn. I’ll lead, and you all can follow.” He hung the gathered coils of the rope around Zandaril’s neck, in a gesture of contempt.

  Penrys knew Zandaril couldn’t understand what he’d said, but the gestures were obvious. With one captor in front and the other five behind, Zandaril started up the rough path, and Penrys followed.

  CHAPTER 29

  When Penrys found there were no more steps, she stopped and swayed, puzzled. Rude hands behind her pushed her forward and out of the way, and she concentrated on staying upright and letting her vision recover from its reddish, tunnel-focus on her feet.

  Over the pounding of her heart she could hear the noise and bustle of many people. When she blinked and raised her head, she discovered the top of the Horn was a wide plateau, sloping down to the west in front of her as if there were no drop-off on that side.

  An entire population seemed to be up here, dwarfing the encampment they’d passed through at the base of the ridge to the east. There were so many that they stirred up enough dust from the rocky surface to create a local haze in the air.

  Their captors escorted them north along the eastern edge, where a wide space had been left open, not bothering to retrieve the rope from around Zandaril’s neck. Where, after all, could we go?

  There were women up here, she saw, part of the throng that waited, milling about. She saw no tents, and few cooking fires. Where do they get their water? How long have they been there?

  Quiet. They were very quiet. Unlike their passage through the men down below, Penrys and Zandaril attracted little attention up here—just the occasional raised head and dull stare.

  She spared a glance at Zandaril’s back, but he seemed well enough, limping a bit. Like her, he was studying the situation. A recently dug channel on their left dodged downslope from the spot they encountered it and terminated in a pool where a line of people waited to fill their water vessels.

  Where does the water come from? Somewhere ahead of us. She could smell moisture in the air.

  There was a separation in the crowd on the other side of the channel, a gap of a good fifty yards. The people on the far side were different. She spotted few women. All of them, men or women, wore leg shackles, and their clothes were ragged. She could hear the occasional clink of chain. Thirty or more of them stood around a shallow pit, the source of the water channel.

  Penrys didn’t dare lower her mind-shield to check, but she knew what she was looking at. These were wizards, captive wizards. They were pulling water from the air into the pit.

  She felt the hair rise on her forearms. Were
they all Rasesni? They were too filthy for her to be sure, but she thought so. The quiet crowd she’d seen first seemed to be dressed the same way.

  She tugged twice on the rope, surreptitiously, to bring them to Zandaril’s attention. He nodded slightly without looking back at her.

  Where are they taking us? To add us to the working slaves?

  Up ahead, she spotted a cluster of tents.

  Their captors walked them to the start of a guarded avenue leading through the tents, leaving them twenty feet from the eastern edge. They parked a man to the north and south, and two more on the open west. The remaining two, the ones they’d first met, trotted up the avenue past the guards and out of sight.

  Penrys looked over at Zandaril. His face was set and grim, and he glanced at her and shook his head.

  How long have those wizards been captive? How long do they survive?

  There was movement, coming back down the tent avenue. A tall young man led the way, dark haired and clean-shaven, his unbraided hair hanging to his shoulders. Not the same as the scouts at the base of the horn or the people camped up here.

  Behind him strutted their missing captors, with a few others, but Penrys only had eyes for him. The chain around her neck started to throb fiercely.

  He casually reached with his mind for Zandaril and tore the protection of her shield from him. “Zan, this time. That’s a rare flavor. Maybe we should go south, next.”

  Then he turned his attention to her, and his eyes widened. “At last!”

  He leaned forward, and his shirt gaped open to reveal a thick chain around his neck.

  Zandaril felt his borrowed shield ripped apart and his mind riffled for anything of interest. When the tall man withdrew again, his relief was cut short by the sight of the chain around his neck.

  Another chained wizard! I will not be owned.

  Penrys spun around. “Trust me,” she cried. “Run!”

  She dashed for the unguarded cliff edge, and he followed before the twelve feet of rope between them could even tighten.

  She’s right. Death is indeed preferable.

  He was not quite even with her before they reached the edge, and she took the first leap into the void, with him following immediately behind.

  The air rushed past his face and he lost sight of her, but then his arms were yanked up with all his weight on them, and he looked up to see her above him, with wings outstretched, longer than her body, struggling to support them both and failing.

  The best she could achieve was a controlled fall.

  As he looked at her wings in amazement, one of them sprouted an arrow and blood, and her face contorted.

  Pain exploded in his left calf, and he felt a jerk above him. When he looked up again, there was an arrow sticking through her side.

  Her face expressionless now, she stopped flapping and locked her wings into a glide, angled north and east. The ground still approached, but much more slowly.

  Too many trees. We need open ground.

  She must have had the same thought, for she slid sideways through the air, his own body trailing hers like an anchor, swinging out at the curve on twelve feet of rope.

  I hope the knots hold. Wish I could drop the weight of my pack and make it easier.

  There was a tail, too, he saw, flaring as it tried to keep the too-heavy mass on course.

  How far can we get?

  They had started from several thousand feet up but lost quite a bit of height in the first few moments. They were stable now, descending shallowly, but she had to be weakening and there was no way to defeat the pull of the ground. Distance was what they needed, and a safe landing.

  Neither of them could reach a knife, with their roped wrists holding them together, so there was nothing he could do to improve her chances alone, but he was strangely relieved to think she could get away on her own, if he was captured again.

  He could no longer feel his hands, as the bonds tightened even further.

  How far could that chained wizard track them?

  He didn’t dare mind-speak to her. They were leaving no trail for the scouts, but that would be futile if that wizard could sense them from ten miles away.

  The ground of the Craggies fell away below them—not as quickly as they were sinking, but it helped prolong their time in the air. Penrys slid sideways again, this time to the east, choosing to stay in the northern foothills with their pockets of shelter instead of the open plains just north of them.

  Zandaril gave a passing thought to the danger of running into Tlobsung’s scouts working the Rasesni back trail, then dismissed it. Rather be captured by them than that slave camp up there.

  Their glide developed a jolt and he looked up. She was just about done, her legs dangling loosely instead of held out to lower her air resistance.

  “Hang on,” he shouted up to her. “Just find a place to get us down.”

  His eye caught the glint of water. “This would be good, if it opens up.”

  She revived a bit and looked more alert. “Bend your legs. It’s going to be rough,” she called.

  The stream he’d spotted dropped over a small waterfall and widened into a pool. The low-water shingle around it made a dry, open gap between the trees, and she circled around it, coming in low over the water until his feet hit the gravel and he tumbled to the ground. His landing forced her down in an uncontrollable sprawl as the rope yanked on her arms, and she crashed with a thud and didn’t move. Her wings vanished.

  CHAPTER 30

  The landing broke off the spent arrow that had been embedded in Zandaril’s left calf and it was several moments before he could focus on checking for other damage.

  Nothing seemed to be broken, so he fumbled with his bound hands until he could pull his belt knife loose. He held the blade reversed and sawed through the rope, then stripped the bonds from his wrist, dumped off his pack, and hobbled over to Penrys.

  She lay in an oddly crumpled position, and he feared for a broken neck, but she was still breathing. He didn’t dare try to mind-speak, not knowing the range of the chained wizard who’d captured them. He quickly cut her bonds off and pulled her pack away but left her lying on her side, the undamaged one. The arrow in her right side above her waist was still intact, the point having penetrated all the way through.

  He ran his hands over her arms and legs looking for breaks, but found nothing. When he felt under her head, his hand came back bloody.

  Where are the wings, and the tail? How do they attach? There were no gaps in the clothing to accommodate them.

  He remembered the arrow in one wing. How could he treat that?

  Calm down. She’s breathing—let’s keep it that way. One thing at a time. Side and head. We’ll think about what to do for the wing after that.

  Hot water. Nothing’s spurting blood, so start with that.

  He quickly gathered loose branches and built a fire under the overhang of a bushy maple on the margin of the shingle, and shoved his pan into the middle of it to heat water. The leaves of the tree would dissipate the smoke, he hoped, and make it harder to find them.

  After checking her pack for a spare shirt, he tore strips off the one she was wearing and made a pad for her head. Then he sat on the gravel by her head with his bad leg thrust out stiff before him, and tilted it up so he could see, pulling her hair aside to assess the damage. He felt a bump on the back of her head, but the blood was superficial.

  Don’t know how bad it is inside, but nothing I can do about that.

  He rigged the pad in place with a strip of rag to hold it, and laid her head back down, trying to position it so as not to apply pressure against the damage while keeping her on her side.

  The water was boiling now. He dropped several rags into it, and sat down in front of her to work on the arrow. First he notched the shaft and then broke away the back with the fletching. He whittled the broken end carefully, shaving off every splinter he could find. Then, with a hot water-soaked pad ready, he grabbed the arrow just behind the point
and drew it steadily out the front of the wound. A small amount of blood followed it, and leaked out the back, too, but much less than he expected.

  He pulled what was left of the shirt up out of the way and probed with his fingers. He thought the arrow might have missed any vital organs, but still, there should be more bleeding. When he pressed down, a little more blood seeped out, then it stopped.

  Zandaril had never seen a deep wound that behaved this way before, and it puzzled him. He’d hoped to flush out any scraps of clothing the arrow had driven into the wound, but none appeared. The shirt looked like it had been cleanly slit, but he thought it unlikely that no material had been carried in with the point, and he feared the festering that would result.

  He strapped a boiled pad on it, front and back, and considered his next steps. Maybe a poultice would help draw any infection to the surface.

  The throbbing of his own wound reminded him that they were both dependent on him, now.

  Making himself comfortable near the fire, with the rest of Penrys’s stripped shirt, he thought through what he would have to do. His boot had kept the arrow from penetrating very far, but now boot, breeches, and stocking were all involved.

  He wanted to save the boot—they might have to walk a long way from here. He picked apart the seam stitches at the back until he had freed up enough to fold the pierced side’s flap down and away from the broken stub of the shaft. He had to take the boot off to free the clothing beneath it, but he cursed the necessity as the pressure the boot had applied to the wound site suddenly released and the pain doubled.

  He closed his eyes as sweat broke out on his forehead. He swayed and bent his head until the sensation eased and he could see again.

  He pulled the leg of his breeches up, and the stocking down—both looked like clean cuts. The arrowhead was embedded in the meat of his calf with about an inch of the shaft behind it, and he was going to have to back it out the way it came, or open his leg up further with his knife, a prospect he wanted to avoid.