Protector Of The Grove (Book 2)

by Trevor H. Cooley

  They set about retrieving the horses. Jan’s horse had died from the viper’s venom, but the others were scattered around the gorge. Most of them were nearby, but Lem’s horse had wandered through the smuggler’s campsite and was standing on the far side of the outline where the command tent had been.

  “Lem!” Tarah barked. “Don’t you dare mess up those tracks.”

  “I see your precious tracks, Woodblade. I won’t step on them,” said Lem as he approached his horse, walking past the fire pit. He whistled to it, but the horse wouldn’t come any closer to him. It paced back and forth on the other side of the tent’s outline and snorted, its eyes wild. Lem watched the ground, being careful to step over any obvious tracks in the dusty area. “Come on, girl,” he soothed. “It’s over.”

  He stepped into the outline of the command tent. There was a loud click and the ground opened up beneath him. Lem looked back at the rest with wide eyes, one hand reaching out as he disappeared into the ground.

  Jan ran, shouting his name and the rest of them followed. The whole area within the outline was a cunningly laid trap. The pit was ten feet deep and at the bottom were all of the baby snakes the dwarves had taken from the cliff vipers’ nests.

  Lem screamed as he was bitten multiple times. Jan thrust her pike down into the pit for him to grab. Swen and Benjo helped her pull the academy graduate up and out of the pit. Tarah reached out with her staff, knocking off two arm-length vipers that were clinging to his legs.

  They dragged Lem away from the edge of the pit. The venom did its work quickly. The graduate convulsed as Jan pulled back his hood and stroked his sweating face. “Stay with me, Lem,” she begged. “They’re just snake bites.”

  “Jan, for once,” he said, swallowing. “Just this once can I see your face?”

  Jan reached up with shaking hands and pulled off her helmet. Tarah’s eyes widened. Jan was one of the prettiest girls Tarah had ever seen. She had large blue eyes with thick lashes, a pert nose, and short black hair. Strange, her eyes hadn’t looked that blue through the slots on her helmet.

  Lem smiled and raised a hand to her face. Stroking her cheek, he said, “You’re beautiful. Why do you hide it?”

  “I don’t wear my helmet to hide, stupid,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I wear it to see.” Tarah saw then that the inside of Jan’s helmet was covered in runes.

  Lem’s convulsing began anew. Jan held him and placed a stick between his teeth. Benjo ran for water, but the others knew there was nothing that could be done with the amount of venom that had been pumped into him. Within ten minutes he was dead.

  Tarah rushed over to Willum who was sitting nearby, his back resting against a boulder, his injured leg bandaged and propped out in front of him.

  “Was that it? Was he the one?” Tarah shouted, shaking him. When Willum didn’t know how to respond, she wrenched his axe from its sheath at the side of his leg. “Tell me, Theodore! Was Lem the one of us that was gonna die? Is it over now?”

  The imp’s voice was hesitant in her mind. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tarah went to work checking every other track she could find while the others saw to Lem. They could not bring his body back with them, so they buried him next to the cliff face and marked his grave in the traditional academy manner, building a small cairn over him.

  They marked the cliff face next to his grave so that it would be easier for his family to find and retrieve his remains if they so chose. His whip and sword and anything else of value, they took with them as was custom. Grave robbers knew there was nothing to gain by pillaging the grave of a fallen academy man.

  Next they dealt with the pit full of deadly snakes. They couldn’t just leave it there for the next group who came through. They threw in some crates and pieces of oiled canvas and Willum commanded his axe to set it all on fire. Jan stood and watched the little monsters burn.

  When they caught up to Tarah at the far end of the gorge, she told them what she had discovered. The smugglers had left the gorge confident that they had assured the deaths of their pursuers and were heading with all haste to the southeastern border of Razbeck and Alberri. Evidently they had received a message that plans had changed and their buyer had decided to meet them there.

  “By buyer, you assume they mean the gnome, right?” Swen asked.

  “Scholar Aloysius,” said Cletus. For once, he wasn’t dancing around full of energy. The gnome had been in a somber mood ever since Lem’s death. He kept walking over and patting Jan gently on the shoulder. “Scholar Tobias hates Scholar Aloysius.”

  Tarah frowned. Cletus had never mentioned that name before. “Cletus are you saying that the scholar who wants to kill Esmine is this Aloysius?”

  “Scholar Tobias didn’t want Scholar Aloysius to get a rogue horse,” said Cletus. For once his mind seemed clear. “He sent me to stop Shade. Kill Shade’s dwarves and horses. Mess up his plans real good.”

  Djeri looked at Tarah, his eyes concerned. “What else can you tell us about this Aloysius, Cletus?”

  “He’s real smart. A lot smarter than me.” The gnome shrugged and started messing with his chain, switching out the ends, replacing the spear tip and blade with weighted silver balls. “Scholar Tobias says Scholar Aloysius is not thinking like a scholar. He says Scholar Aloysius wants to rule over everybody.”

  Cletus attached another silver ball to the middle of the chain and began to juggle them in a complex manner, every once in a while yanking on the chain to make the balls fly this way or that. Once he got started there was no more talking to him. His focus had been redirected onto his training.

  “A gnome that wants to rule?” said Djeri, his brow furrowed with concern. “Turd sandwich, but that’s a bad idea.”

  “Look, as interesting as this is, the identity of the gnome doesn’t matter.” Tarah said. “It doesn’t change what we need to do. We’ve got to catch up to the smugglers and free Esmine before they reach the border.”

  They mounted up and rode after their quarry, Tarah and Willum taking the lead so that she could watch the dwarves’ tracks for any strange behavior and so that the axe could watch out for traps. Tarah was worried about Willum’s leg, but he kept a brave face and told her it had numbed up a bit. She was glad for his toughness, but knew that he would be terribly sore once they stopped.

  The dwarves had a half day’s lead before they even started, but Tarah’s party rode the horses as hard as they could, hoping to catch up to the smugglers by nightfall. Unfortunately, they had underestimated the speed at which the dwarves could travel, even slowed by their wagons.

  They rode deep into the night before stopping for a few short hours of sleep. At the imp’s urging, Willum contacted Tolivar through the bond and told him what had happened. Their connection was fairly weak at this distance, but Tolivar was uncommonly strong. He used his strength of will to bolster the bond as much as he could, then forced his magic through so that he could use the healing magic of his sword on Willum’s leg. It wasn’t strong enough to heal the damage completely in the short time they had, but Willum felt much better by the time the party was ready to head out again.

  They left before the sun peeked over the horizon. Tarah had hoped that they had made up some time, but it was mid-morning before they came across the spot where the dwarves had camped the night before. Tarah dismounted to see what she could find out from the smuggler’s tracks. It didn’t take long before she found something that left her sick with anxiety.

  “Mud and leaves! We’re screwed!” she exclaimed.

  “What is it?” Djeri asked.

  Tarah stepped away from the runny pile of horse dung she had been inspecting and wiped her finger on her leather greaves. “They’ve been feeding their horses some kind of magic to keep them going. It’s not sitting well with their stomachs, but this horse isn’t even tired. It was disappointed when they stopped.”

  “I should have thought of that,” Djeri said, slamming his fist into hi
s palm. “Smugglers use tricks like that when they’re being chased by the law.”

  “Do they know we’re still after them?” Swen asked.

  Tarah shook her head, her face a mask of frustration. “No. They assume we’re dead. The reason they’re rushing is that their last message from the gnome told them he would be at the border tomorrow night.”

  “So what you’re saying is, we ain’t catching up to ‘em,” said Helmet Jan. The academy graduate had been quiet most of the ride. Tarah saw how hard she was pushing herself. The woman had revenge on her mind.

  “We can’t push our horses as hard as they can,” Benjo said. “We’ll kill ‘em if we try.”

  “We’ll just go as hard as we can, then,” Djeri replied. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and something will happen to slow them down.”

  “We ain’t that lucky,” Helmet Jan grumbled.

  “Then we’ll have to make our own luck,” Tarah said. She climbed back into her saddle. “We’ll find a way to free Esmine even if they beat us to the border.”

  They pushed on and when night came, Tarah saw that they had made very little ground. She and Djeri decided to get a full night’s sleep, knowing that they would arrive at the Alberri border late the next day. They would need their energy.

  Jan had been right about their luck. Their quarry didn’t slow down. By the time Willum’s axe sensed the encampment ahead it was late in the day. Swen took Benjo with him to get a closer look and Djeri led the rest of them up a long rise to the edge of a small mesa that overlooked the smuggler’s camp. They snuck up to the cliff’s edge and looked down at the camp far below.

  Tarah swore when she saw it. The smugglers had joined up with another camp. It wasn’t quite as large as the dwarves’, but the tents were much bigger and nicer and she could see people walking around wearing white. The dwarves were meeting with their gnome buyer.

  Djeri had them set their camp up a little further down the slope away from the eyes of the encampment below. The slope was being hit by a stiff breeze, but it would shield the light from their fire when night came. Unfortunately, they had to wait until nightfall to light the fire and they would have to put it out and bury by morning to make sure that smoke didn’t give their position away.

  Swen and Benjo came back from their closer inspection of the enemy encampment with both good and bad news. First, Esmine was still alive. They had seen her chained up in the northeastern section of the camp near the border of the gnome and dwarf sides. Swen led them up to the cliff’s edge and pointed out the section of the camp where Esmine was being held. Tarah gasped as she saw a flash of red by one of the wagons that might have been the rogue horse’s mane.

  The bad news was that the dwarves were being careful. They had extra guards posted around Esmine’s position and their scouts were making wide sweeps around the camp to make sure they didn’t have any visitors.

  They watched the movement of the camp as much as they could from this distance until it grew dark. Then they lit their fire and discussed possible plans of action. Several different ideas were discussed. Swen suggested that the majority of them create a diversion on the western side of the camp, drawing the guards, while a few of their stealthiest members headed in to set the rogue free.

  Jan disagreed. She didn’t like the idea of splitting up and suggested a surprise attack by all of the melee fighters while Swen and Tarah provided support from a distance with their bows. The arguments devolved from there while Tarah grew more and more worried. While they were wasting time discussing this, the gnome could already be killing Esmine.

  “It’s going to be more difficult than you think,” said a clear voice from out of the darkness, interrupting their discussion.

  A figure approached the fire wearing a thick winter cloak and a heavy cowl. Everyone drew their weapons. Swen pulled back on an arrow. The stranger lifted gloved hands and pulled back his cowl.

  “Don’t be hasty, now,” he said, smiling at them. The man had tan skin and shoulder length black hair and would have been handsome had he not looked so thin and sickly. He wore a white robe with a black sash. “I am Steward Gray. Scholar Tobias sent me.”

  Cletus perked up at the mention of Tobias. He approached the man and bent down, sniffing at him with his long nose. “He smells like a steward.”

  “I think he’s trying to fool us,” said Helmet Jan, her voice laced with suspicion. She tightened her hands on her pike. “He’s got magic all over him.”

  “Alas, as you know, we in the resistance can’t be too careful,” the man said, his grin not faltering. Tarah saw his fingers undulating within his gloves as if he had a nervous twitch. “I have to use magic to keep my identity a secret.”

  “Resistance?” Benjo said.

  “Am I mistaken? You’re not part of the resistance?” the man said. He sighed in disappointment and lowered his hands, his expression darkening. “In that case-.”

  “Wait,” Djeri said, holding up a finger. He had seen something in the stranger’s eyes that worried him. “Before you go doing something you might regret, you should know that we do know of Tobias.”

  “Tobias is my scholar.” Cletus said proudly.

  “Your scholar?” said the man. He pulled a piece of parchment out of a pocket within his robe. He scanned the page. “Let’s see, here. You have the look of a gnome warrior about you . . . ah. I suppose that would make you Cletus.”

  “That’s my name!” Cletus said happily.

  Scholar Gray raised an eyebrow. “But it says here that you were sent alone. Who are these fine people?”

  “We ain’t telling you nothing until you tell us what you’re here about,” said Jan threateningly.

  He turned his skeletal smile on Jan in what Tarah assumed was supposed to be a charming way. “I’m sorry, madam, but I am in the same position. I cannot provide you with information about my group if I don’t know who you are.”

  “Theodore says that he thinks the resistance is likely fighting against Scholar Aloysius,” Willum said. Steward Gray inclined his head at Willum in confirmation.

  “We’re academy,” Djeri said finally, his eyes piercing into the man, gauging his reaction. “I believe we’re working in a common cause with your Scholar Tobias. We don’t want to let Aloysius kill that rogue horse.”

  Gray’s eyebrows rose. “Academy soldiers? Here? And you know about the rogue horse?”

  “I was there when the smugglers trapped it,” Tarah said. “We’ve been chasing them down for almost a month now.”

  “Would that help your ‘resistance’?” Djeri asked. “If we freed that rogue horse out from under Aloysius’ nose?”

  “That would put a dent in his plans,” Gray said, stroking his chin. His smile widened and a giggle escaped his mouth. “Oh, I think I can help you quite a bit.” He crouched and used a stick to sketch out a diagram of the camp in the snow. “You must hurry, though. Scholar Aloysius plans to kill the beast at dawn.”

  * * *

  “Clever, Arcon,” Mellinda said some time later as he left the academy camp and melted back into the night. “Now you have set up a perfect little trap for those academy fools. Deliver them into Aloysius’ hand and you have come a great deal closer to proving yourself worthy to be part of his inner circle.”

  Arcon used threads of air to cover himself with a cloak of blackness as he made his way down the steep slope towards the fires at the scholar’s side of the camp. It was a cloudy night, making the slope quite dark, and he had to be careful to watch his step. He had twisted his ankle badly on the way up there. For all the vaunted powers of the rings, why couldn’t they make him fly?

  Then again, he told her. If I tell Aloysius about their group I’ll have to explain how I know about them. He’d likely make me hand over the list and our time of playing both sides would come to an end.

  “It’s a small loss for such a great gain,” she replied. “Besides we may be able to avoid giving everything away if you phrase things just right.”

  Po
ssibly, Arcon admitted. He licked his lips. But perhaps it would be better if we didn’t tell him. What good does it do us if Aloysius comes upon his weapon of power so easily? If we create a diversion like I told them we would and they escaped with the rogue, he would be even more dependant on me to make a rogue horse of my own.

  “Nonsense,” Mellinda scoffed. “We studied that thing tonight and came no closer to understanding how to make one. It could take years. Decades of practice. Do you have the patience for that? Does Aloysius? He may be a gnome, but he seems to be accelerating his plans for power. I doubt he waits. He may just have us killed and give the rings to a more experienced wizard.”

  Arcon stifled a curse. Blast that witch, but she was usually right. It would be easier for him to turn the academy party over to the gnome. But he had examined the rogue horse that Tarah Woodblade had called Esmine and the creature was beautiful, a marvel. He didn’t like the thought of it dying at Aloysius hands.

  Mellinda couldn’t hear his thoughts or feelings, but she could read his body language quite well. She scoffed. “You want to help them, don’t you? This isn’t for strategic reasons. You just want to be on the good side for once. Please don’t. I have good reasons for wanting that Woodblade girl dead.”

  “And why shouldn’t I?” he snapped aloud, then quieted himself. He was coming close enough to camp that one of the men on watch might hear him. I’m tired of being the plaything of people like you and Ewzad Vriil and Aloysius. My time at the Mage School, the life I was living . . . It was all good before you showed up. I enjoyed what I was doing. Now I hate doing what I do. I hate myself!

  “Ugh, I thought you were over this by now,” she groaned. “I understand you wanting to do things that feel good, but do you know what feels the best? Staying alive. So let’s say you help those academy fools here. What’s next? Are you going to start actually doing something for the resistance? Hmm? I’ll tell you right now that the resistance is going to lose. They’re likely dying back in the gnome homeland right now along with all of the other scholars Aloysius wants to get rid of.