by PMF Johnson
Grimly, he kept on. He stepped carefully from rock to rock to avoid leaving any sign of his passing.
The numbness surged up beyond his knee, and he had to focus all his attention on simply feeling his thigh again, sensing his knee, his sinews. He became aware he had fallen. He worked his way back to his feet, stumbled on.
He reached the clearing where he had left his horse. The gelding was not there. He had tied it up solidly but the branch had not been thick -- he chose that on purpose so that if necessary for some reason, the horse would be able to break free. And so it had. Frightened by the storm possibly, or by some passing animal. It did not matter, his ride was gone.
He did not even swear, needing to preserve his energy. But he had to stop and take stock -- his life hung in the balance of whatever he did next.
They would follow. They would find the tracks where his horse departed. They would not know he was not on the horse unless they found his separate tracks. He eased off his boots. In bare feet he picked his way out of the clearing, doubly careful to leave no tracks.
He kept thinking as he went. He still would not go back to Deeb's family -- he would lead no one to them. And they had camped on the far side of the thugs' fire from here.
No, his notion of finding the Ruskiya would have to hold. He knew where they preferred to camp when in this region -- he had a good chance of finding them.
He set out, but the journey turned brutal. Just a few paces along, his ankle caught and he fell, cracking his jerry-rigged crutch. He levered himself back up using his mage's staff, but the numbness in his leg had spread. He couldn't feel anything from his waist down. He suffered from chills and delirium. He lost track of where he was, why he should keep trying.
He came to at one point to find himself leaning against the bole of a tree, with no idea how long he had been there. With pure force of will, he forced himself on.
It was as though another creature wrestled him for control of his own body, one that wanted him to stop, rest, never move, yield. He felt that sense of mockery that planar magic brought, focused on him.
Determined, he fought, concentrating on making each step one after another, forcing his body to obey his will. There were herbs that could help against this sort of spell and he used them, hunting for wild garlic, chewing the leaves of arrowroot when he found that, which helped some, but defeating a spell like this, injected with an arrow, required more resources and time than he had. And of course such a spell could serve as a beacon to its maker, letting the Owl know at least roughly where he was.
But he found a stand of licorice growing on a bank and dug out the roots with his bare hands -- licorice was a wild card as far as magic went, sometimes increasing the power of a spell, sometimes dampening energies. Either way it would give him energy and confuse the relation between the Owl and his spell. He tottered on. He had lost blood as well from the physical wound, contributing to his fever.
He descended to a half-swoon of putting one foot in front of another, stumbling to his knees, falling face-first even, but each time getting up, going on. He worked his way through woods and brush, up a ravine once, where he tripped on a vine. He redid the poultice on his wound.
Then he was lying in the half-sun. He needed to rise -- for a moment it was strangely effortless -- then he realized hands were lifting him. They tried to take his mage's staff, but he knocked them away. They rummaged at his belt pouches, but he pushed them off, staggering and falling with the effort. Then he slept.
The prickling sensation of a spell settling on him awoke him. He opened his eyes, suddenly; his subconscious warned him to pay attention. He lay in a sort of sled being hauled somewhere -- the spell was almost overwhelming, as it kept him from moving, but unlike the Owl's spell it left his energy and will alone. A heavy, dank fur blanket lay over him.
His hand touched the dagger at his belt. He had not been disarmed. His mage's staff angled across his body. His other hand had a hold of it. The animal smell of the blanket gave him his bearings -- he was with the Ruskiya. They were traveling and concealing him. He soon learned why.
He could hear a horse walking before him, felt it pulling his sled. The horse ahead stopped, and the sled slithered to a stop in the grass. Hoof beats thudded -- several horses galloping up. They stopped.
Ulf's voice called. "You orcen seen a human? Man? He's injured. We got to find him."
"We not see," came back a woman's voice.
"Don't you be trying to fool us now. You know what I'll--"
"Ulf, they got a fighter out there with an arrow nocked. Better play cool."
"Ah, there's not even a half-dozen here. We could--"
"Ten warriors," said the Owl. "Six stay in the grass out there."
That shut Ulf up.
"He's an evil sort of human," said the Preacher. "You see him, tell us. Understand?"
No answer.
"I'd like to see what's in all that baggage," snapped Ulf.
"It's their stuff," said the Preacher. "They got pots and pans and bedrolls and truck like that, same as everyone."
His tone was soothing, as though Ulf were an intemperate boy. "We'll keep after the guy if you feel you got to get him. We can do that, Ulf. But no use taking on a clan of Ruskiya. Sure, we can take 'em, but they'll maybe get one or two of us. And these clans gather soon. There's lots more of them coming. That old lady might be powerful among them. She's got a lot of tattoos. Anyway, you don't never know in a fight who'd be at risk."
Rock snorted. "So what if he's here? We ain't after some broke no-account. It's that woman."
"You're always going on about that human female," Kin Re said.
Arch heard the cold silence.
"You got a problem with that?" Rock asked.
Kin Re answered quickly. "Ah, I didn't mean nothing by it."
Dunshil said, "Tttt, I thought we were here looking for Benn Ku. He wasn't one to just vanish like this."
"He went out when I was making coffee this morn," Shef said. "Said he was going to check something. I'm pretty sure he knew where the wounded guy got to. There was a flash of light after that, I saw it out at a distance. Low down."
The Preacher shrugged. "Lightning from the storm. I will send out my animals to search. We will find him."
There came the sound of horses trotting off into silence.
Arch stayed alert even after they were gone, but he thought about what they said. A flash of light? He had a confused memory... He touched his staff, felt the energy it contained. It was down in strength even from after his fight with the Owl, as though yet another spell had been cast. He always kept it at top power, not knowing when he might need it. He would need to replenish it as soon as possible. But he was tired, so tired.
The horse ahead started up again, pulling the sledge into movement.
#
In the late evening they halted and drew him forth from his spot under the blanket, laying him out in a nondescript spot near their camp, hidden in the bushes. They fed him, and the old woman who ran the clan looked over his leg. He could feel the energy she used to probe the spell with tendrils of her own magic, but she made no effort to break the spell. Still, whatever she did left him feeling easier, more comfortable than he had since the attack.
They brought him soup, but then let him be -- as he watched the proceedings of the camp, none of the Ruskiya approached him and he realized they feared surveillance, from the Preacher's animals, maybe.
In the dead of the night the old woman came, bearing more soup. As he ate, she worked magic, probing the circumference of the spell laid on him. He would have tried to converse, but she briefly touched his lips in warning -- no noise, someone might still be listening.
He wondered if the thugs had laid a scrying spell on the camp. If so, any counter spell by the old woman was so subtle he could not feel it at all.
When he woke, it was morning and he was bundled up for another day's journey. Once, the other two horses came to a halt in a sort of screen, and the
old woman chanced giving him some water. He began to think the Ruskiya must have some special dislike for the Preacher's crew, because this was an awful lot of help to extend to a stranger.
Or maybe they thought of him as bait. Could they keep him hidden from the predators the Preacher sent out to hunt him down? Wolves, cougars, snakes, the Preacher commanded a number of deadly animals through his clerical magic. But these were the lands of the Ruskiya, and the Rus, the old woman, was powerful among them. She could likely counter the Preacher's magic.
Despite the subtlety of the old woman's magic, he gained the impression she was spending the day gathering power. There was a sense of oppression in the air, a weightiness, as though a bit of the storm from yesterday might be returning.
He seemed to be in a mild fever, but he noticed there were fogs outside -- fogs were very rare in the middle of the day in this country.
At one point, he distinctly heard a snuffling noise, as though something far larger than the clan's few scrawny dogs was trailing right behind his basket, investigating him. He tensed, ready, but the sound was not repeated and he heard no sound of any more movement. The hair rose on the back of his neck -- a spirit wolf? Or had the Rus fooled one of the Preacher's animals? After a time, he slept again.
The next night the old woman came again in the middle of the night, and this time he felt her fully engaging the spell that had latched onto him. For a long time, the magic she wielded balanced against the power of the spell that held him, and he more imagined than felt the struggle between the two powers.
The sensation both relieved and disturbed him -- relieved that this strange old woman helped him, but unease at learning how powerful a mage he was up against, how far beyond his own skill the Owl's magic proved to be.
This time when she finished, he felt an easing of the grip of the spell that held him. He rested easier, suddenly. His mind cleared. He was lucid enough to set his staff in the ground, cast the spell that would recharge it overnight.
By morning he was back at full strength and pulled the staff back under his blankets to conceal it once more.
That day as they journeyed, he took advantage of his recovering strength to study the spell that still gripped him -- the weakness of any such magic was it allowed an opponent to learn the strengths and inclinations of the caster through the emotions that clung to it.
As he would have expected, he found no easy handle -- no sense of arrogance about this spell, no disquiet, only a strong confidence, with a level of excitement and overall a deadly focus. Here was a mage who enjoyed the battle of wills and strength, who sought to measure himself against the strong. And now that the Owl had a connection to Arch, it would not be an easy ensorcelment to break.
But Arch also had a connection to him.
It was only near the end of the next day, focused on each little tendril of the spell, that Arch found a slight wisp of a different emotion: a hint of regret. Even loneliness?
All men who traveled alone in the Wilderlands felt their aloneness, and he could not be sure that this was not an emanation from himself. Still, it was intriguing -- could the Owl be reached through an offer of companionship? It would be like taming a wild bear, fraught with terrible dangers, a project for years, not days nor even months. But it might explain why he traveled with those other men, so different from himself in so many ways.
Each moment Arch was aware that the spell that had ensnared him was sucking away at him, attempting to end his life, even now. He fought it by paying attention to the tiniest sensations in his thigh, trying to extend his sense of touch down toward his knee.
The spell fought back, attempting to numb him completely.
Back and forth he contended with the magic, his body a battleground, as a fever took him -- his body, confused but knowing it was under attack, fought as best it could.
But after the old woman's intervention, for the first time he began to make progress against the spell, driving the numbness back beneath his knee, towards the spot of the wound itself.
As they traveled, even from beneath the robe where Arch could see nothing, he sensed they were headed straight into the heart of the Magic, where the old woman would feel most at home and her power would increase. He felt in the world around him a deep thrumming, an anxiety and watchfulness, as though things might explode at any instant. Each moment became fraught with power and meaning, like the instant before lightning struck.
The old woman rode nearby, he could sense her -- the work she had done on him let him sense her as a vague presence, though he heard only whispers of moccasins in the grass. More and more he had the feeling she was poised, waiting and ready.
At the same time he felt the magic of the spell that clung to him blazing in the ether, growing more powerful. The progress he had been making against it began to slip away, as though he were losing his own power.
Night came again, and the spell grew to become a beacon in the ether, revealing his location, visible in the darkness even to the naked eye.
He felt the tension of this, the danger of any hunter on the ether finding him, wyvern or spirit snake or something deeper, more evil, something that might drain his soul, destroy him forever. Could the old woman defend him from such? Would she try? Was he simply there for her entertainment? Again, he suspected he had become her bait in a deadly game.
The Ruskiya camp was silent in the darkness. He could have risen and fled, but how would he cast off this spell, so much beyond his own power? How would he survive, blazing like a beacon for the world to see? Better to wait and see, ready to act in an instant if needed.
As the night went on, he sensed cruel spiritual presences out at the edge of the shadowy depths, circling, voracious, eager to get at him.
But they were cautious, he realized, cautious of what else might be here. Creatures of magic were not easily caught, not easily fooled, wary of anything that blazed in this manner -- they would wonder what was causing it. Was it something they must avoid?
He was aware of no defenses around him. True, he had recharged his staff to its full capacity and had not an inconsiderable amount of energy at his own disposal, but against the gigantic beings circling out there that would be small protection.
The stars turned overhead. The creatures of magic began to close in, deciding perhaps that no defenses did exist beyond what he carried. Like sharks coming up to bait, they came in closer and closer until he could detect faint hints of their presence: disturbances visible against the stars, as though heat waves rose up from the prairie, shifts of color in the heavens to a darker blue, even violet, as though midnight creatures came in for the kill. He felt the presence of their hate.
At the first suggestion that the sky was beginning to pale, one huge creature turned inward from its circling and made straight for him, doubtless intending to beat the other creatures to his soul before the coming dawn gave him more strength to fight. He aimed his staff at the wavering portion of the night sky where he sensed it coming in. His heart pounded as he readied himself--
In that instant, the Owl struck.
The Owl did not wish to lose Arch's power to this outside threat. Gambling he could snatch Arch's soul from the jaws of the approaching monster, the half-elven sent his power surging through the wound in Arch's leg. The spell poured through Arch's body like water overcoming a dam, reaching for Arch's heart.
Why the old woman put such an elaborate trap on Arch he never puzzled through, but it proved a very subtle trap indeed. Even the Owl had not noticed the faintest dusting of sage on Arch's staff, the sage and bloodroot in the soup she had been feeding him. On this night Arch belonged to her, and when the Owl reached for Arch, she was waiting.
As the Owl's will clutched at Arch's heart, the Ruskiya woman struck in turn. Her own will clutched around the half-elven's.
The trapper became the trapped. Energy blazed through Arch's body, lighting him up like a human torch as the two contended. Overmatched, the Owl twisted away, frantic to be free, giving up his
spell and his power, vanishing into the ethereal as lightning fast as an alligator might flee back into its swamp after being dealt an injury.
The Owl was powerful, and maybe even more than that, he was lucky. He escaped.
No time to worry about that. The night monster arrived from the Heart of Magic.
In an instant the old woman's will turned toward the predator bearing down, the dark presence unaware that it had served as distraction to make the Owl unwary. But by the same token, the battle between orcen and half-elven had distracted it for a critical instant.
The full, complex nature of her trap became clear -- a dual ambush, not only sprung on the Owl but also on the great predator of the darkness itself, unwary enough to come in too close. This was a dangerous woman.
In a flash, her soul leapt out and latched on to the monster's spirit. The spiritual predator, suddenly desperate in its own turn to escape, snapped backwards like a sling, shooting the soul of the old woman out past the margins of their world, dwindling, twinkling, gone.
Silence. Arch became aware of the prairie all around, the wind easing through the grass, a copse of trees to one side, and above them the dark, pre-dawn sky, stars still mostly visible, no clouds in any direction, as though a wind had blown away all confusion, leaving only the clean prairie on all sides.
The old woman had vanished. The Owl was also gone, his spell sundered. Arch was alone, freed of the magic. The numbness was gone, and the weakness less than he might fear.
Of the old woman he sensed nothing. From the occupants of the camp he heard only quiet. But at the same time he became aware of a noise out in the shadows, dark beneath the trees of the woods. Very quiet, very slow, drawing closer. One of the Preacher's hunters?
The sound of a hoof fall. A rider, then. But the Ruskiya slept on, as far as he could tell. Had they all been ensorcelled? Even their curs did not bark. It was the last, deepest part of the night.