“Once we’re across, we’ll double back into the village, get some horses and be on our way.”
“The fallen tree is likely to draw attention,” Magda said.
“I know, just try not to kill anyone,” Abigail said, stepping onto her makeshift bridge.
Within minutes, the villagers were converging on the place where the tree had fallen, but Abigail and Magda had already moved through the forest to the road and were running back into the village.
A startled woman was the first person they saw. She eyed them warily.
“Where’s the stable?” Abigail asked.
The frightened woman pointed farther into the village. They continued without a word, finding the building and slipping quietly inside. A woman cleaning out one of the stalls froze when she saw them, staring like they might be death itself.
“We won’t hurt you,” Abigail said. “We need two horses with saddles.” She held up a coin purse, rattling the contents. “We’ll pay.”
The woman nodded tightly but didn’t move.
“You have nothing to fear from us,” Magda said gently.
“It’s just that … the last travelers to pass this way weren’t natural.”
“We know,” Abigail said. “We just need horses.”
She seemed to relax a bit until several of the men searching the woods shouted that they’d found tracks.
“We don’t have much time,” Abigail said. “These two look like fine horses. How much?”
“I don’t know. My husband always does the business, but he’s been acting so strange since they arrived. The one that came with the prince … she looked like something out of a nightmare. She just smiled at me like she knew I could see her, like she knew none of the men would believe me.”
“I know,” Abigail said. “Here are six gold coins for the horses and saddles.”
The woman stared at the gold that Abigail dropped into her hand, quickly nodding her agreement. Abigail and Magda went to work saddling the horses and attaching their packs.
“Will you help us?” Abigail asked.
“What can I do?”
“Go toward the bridge and shout for help. Say you saw us in the woods.”
“We don’t want to hurt your men, dear,” Magda said. “But they aren’t themselves right now, and we can’t afford to let them delay us any further.”
“All right, but you have to promise me you won’t kill anyone.”
“Agreed,” Abigail said, leading her horse to the barn door and opening it just enough to peek outside. “Looks clear.”
They waited until the woman started shouting before leading the horses out. They had just mounted when one of the men saw them, shouting to the others. Abigail cursed under her breath, looking over her shoulder at the man running toward them.
“Time to go,” Magda said, spurring her horse.
Several more men emerged from the forest in a vain attempt to stop them, but they weren’t willing to risk being trampled by the two galloping horses.
Ten minutes later, well south of the village and out of immediate danger, they slowed their pace to preserve the strength of the horses.
“How far is Torin?”
“Just over a league, still nearly due south,” Magda said.
“It’s a good bet they got horses in that village, too.”
“Agreed.”
They’d been traveling for about an hour when they heard the thunder of hoof beats growing in the distance behind them.
Abigail shook her head, sighing heavily. “It’s never easy.”
The forest was still thick, tall firs lining each side of the road, their boughs reaching across overhead and mingling with those from the opposite side. Abigail suspected she could get her horse through the brush on either side of the road if she led her, clearing the more stubborn shrubs with her sword, but she knew it wouldn’t be quick. She reined in her horse and dismounted.
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’m going to fall a few trees across the road; see if I can slow them down. Maybe they’ll lose interest.”
Magda shrugged, nodding her approval. “Better than killing them.”
Abigail selected trees just off the path, cutting them carefully with the Thinblade to fell them diagonally across the road, taking three from each side but alternating them so that each toppled over the last, creating an interlocking obstacle completely blocking passage.
Nearly twenty men from the village arrived just after she felled the last tree. Magda chuckled, handing Abigail her horse’s reins and they continued south, shouts and curses fading into the distance behind them with each passing moment.
By evening the forest had thinned, once again opening to rangeland on the western side of the road while the east remained blanketed with trees. Just before dark, they came upon a dead horse left in the road where it fell.
Abigail shook her head sadly. “Poor thing.”
“Seems like Peti’s in a hurry.”
“Yeah … good thing for us she has no idea how to get the most out of a horse. If she took care of her animals, they’d carry her a lot farther.”
Magda nodded, gently patting her steed on the neck. Abigail handed over her reins and dismounted, kneeling next to the dead horse.
“He’s still a little warm. If they’re doubled up on an exhausted horse, they’ll be on foot before long.”
Magda nodded, muttering the words of a spell under her breath. Three softly glowing orbs of light materialized overhead, circling in a lazy orbit.
“We should press on for a few hours,” she said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and catch up.”
They rode into the night, well past dark until they came upon a second dead horse.
“Let’s bed down a few hundred feet up the road,” Abigail said. “We’ll have a better chance of tracking them in the light, and our animals are tired.”
“I know how they feel,” Magda said. “For what it’s worth, we’ve narrowed their lead. They’re less than half a league ahead, and I think they’ve stopped for the night as well.”
The next morning brought an overcast sky and fits of gentle rain. They set out just before dawn, eating jerky and dried fruit for breakfast. Had they been relying on footprints, they would have been traveling blind, but Magda’s tracking spell guided them nearly due south. Abigail was all but certain that Peti was headed for Sochi, the port city on the southern tip of Fellenden. From there it would be a simple matter for her to charm the captain and crew of any ship she liked. After that, catching up with them would become much more complicated.
They made good time through the morning in spite of the weather. By midday they were wet and cold from the intermittent rain. They stopped to rest their horses and eat a hasty lunch atop a hill overlooking a broad valley. It was an idyllic setting. A stream ran out of the foothills, winding through verdant fields crosshatched with farm plots. In the distance, a small castle perched on a bluff overlooked the road below, which was bounded on the opposite side by the stream. It was a natural choke point-the only way around was to ford the stream and cut through the farmland blanketing the flood plain on the other side. The road forked before the bluff, the new road winding up a series of switchbacks to the castle.
“There they are,” Magda said, after casting a spell.
“I don’t see them,” Abigail said. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, they’re on foot about half a league from the castle road.”
“Good. Let’s end this.”
They mounted up and rode hard, pushing their tired animals nearly to their limit. The road wound down into the farm fields and leveled out as it straightened. Within a few minutes, Abigail spotted the two figures walking in the distance. Not long after, Peti and Torin stopped.
“Looks like they see us,” Magda said, slowing her horse to a trot. “Peti will be making preparations; be on your guard.” She started casting a spell, then another while they rode toward battle.
Abigail released an arrow a
t the limits of her range, sending the shaft in a high arc toward the witch, but it went wide by a dozen feet. Peti’s cackle carried through the damp air, followed by an unnatural darkness oozing away from her across the ground. It looked like sooty smoke but it moved like a living thing, gaining speed with each passing moment. Magda cast a light-lance at it but it simply flowed around the brilliant shaft of white-hot light.
It didn’t seem to have substance or form, moving like sentient smoke until it reached them, still covering only a few inches of the ground, surrounding them, flowing under their horses. Abigail’s sense of alarm peaked when the smoke seemed to flash with a pulse of darkness and then it was gone. The horses screamed in pain, toppling to the ground and throwing them both. Abigail’s leg was pinned under her terrified horse. She cried out in pain, trying to disentangle herself from the panicked animal.
Scrambling away, she saw with horror what had befallen the horses. The dark smoke had cut their hooves off when it vanished, leaving each horse with four stumps where its feet used to be. Choking back sadness and sickness, she staggered to her feet, drawing the Thinblade. With grim resolve she took her horse’s head, silencing the panic and pain with a stroke.
Magda had managed to get clear of her steed but fell hard. She was lying still while the animal struggled to regain its feet, screaming in pain with each attempt, thrashing around in wild panic. Abigail killed the mare a moment later. Distant cackling drifted into the sudden silence.
Magda shook her head, rolling to her belly and lifting herself to all fours, trying to regain her senses. Abigail sheathed the Thinblade, checking the enemy as she went to Magda.
“Are you all right?”
“Just dazed. What’s the witch doing?” Magda asked, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head again.
“They’re heading up the castle road.”
“I was afraid of that.”
They took a few minutes to gather their gear and regain their senses. Magda had a red-and-purple bruise on the right side of her forehead and Abigail was limping. Doggedly, they pursued the enemy toward the castle, knowing with certainty that they were walking into a bigger fight than either of them was ready for. Peti and Torin reached the castle well before them. Abigail and Magda took pains to approach with caution, unwilling to underestimate Peti’s power yet again.
After rounding the final switchback, both of them stopped in their tracks. Set in the middle of the road not two hundred feet from the drawbridge was a woman impaled on a pike. A man in scale armor with a spear stood beside her.
“You will come no farther!” he shouted. “Turn back or all of the women within this keep will be killed.”
“Dear Maker,” Abigail whispered.
Peti and Torin stood on the wall of the gatehouse, the witch’s cackle taunting them.
“This certainly complicates things,” Magda said.
“Let’s fall back,” Abigail said. “We need a plan.”
“Agreed.”
They withdrew around the bend and out of sight. Abigail sat down on a rock, rubbing her leg and shaking her head.
“How do we get to her without causing a bloodbath?” she asked.
“I’m not sure we can. If she sends the keep’s soldiers against us, we’ll have little choice.”
“So we hide until dark and then sneak in,” Abigail said.
“That may work, assuming she chooses to remain within the keep.”
“You think there’s another way out?”
“Of course,” Magda said. “And if not, she can always use her magic to reach the road below.”
“Maybe we should make our way south and try to ambush her again,” Abigail said.
“Getting past the castle without being seen will be impossible. I suggest we move to those rocks and wait for her to make the next move. If she’s still in the castle after dark, we go in after her.”
Abigail nodded, looking at the rocky outcropping near the switchback. Several large boulders offered ample cover and a defensible position should Peti send soldiers to attack. They carefully picked their way across the steep hillside, sliding a few times in the scree but eventually reaching their destination. From within the shelter of the boulders, they had a view of the battlements atop the gatehouse, but not of the gate itself.
It wasn’t long before a horn blew from within the castle. Soon after, a score of men came over the rise on foot, all of them armed and a few armored. Most looked like working men, armed with pitchforks and woodcutting axes, but there were a few soldiers armed with spears and swords. Behind them, a dozen men on horseback rode escort for Peti and Torin.
Peti picked them out in the rocks and pointed her clawed finger at them. “Kill them!” she shouted.
The men on foot gave a battle cry that was far more enthusiastic than one might expect from a bunch of workmen and started charging toward Abigail and Magda. The horsemen surrounded Peti and Torin while they rode around the switchback and down toward the main road below.
Abigail tried to find an open shot, but the charmed men surrounding Peti rode too closely together, shielding the witch completely.
“I’m really getting tired of her,” she said, relaxing the tension on her bowstring.
As the men on foot negotiated the steep scree-covered hillside, a few fell, sliding down to the plain below. Magda started casting a spell, releasing a pea-sized blue orb several moments later. It struck the hillside just above the approaching men and rapidly expanded to a diameter of twenty feet, shoving them all off balance and loosening the already unstable scree beneath their feet, sending all twenty sliding to the base of the hill.
“Nice,” Abigail said. “Let’s go see if there are any horses left in the castle.”
Chapter 17
They climbed higher to avoid the area of hillside that Magda’s spell had disturbed and reached the road without difficulty.
The man who had warned them earlier not to enter the keep was still with the woman impaled on the pike, but now he was kneeling before her, sobbing uncontrollably.
“What have I done?” he asked when Abigail and Magda reached him. “Why would I kill my own wife?” He leaned forward, mewling in abject misery, putting his forehead on the ground before her, shaking as he cried.
Abigail and Magda shared a look of sympathy and anger but left the man to mourn his loss. The drawbridge was still down, spanning the gap between the road abutment and the rocky outcropping that the castle was built upon. Several frightened women were in the courtyard.
“Who are you?”
“What do you want with us?”
“Leave us be.”
Abigail raised her hand to forestall any further questions. “Who is the lady of this keep?” she asked.
An older woman with grey hair pulled back into a braid, wearing a simple grey dress, stepped forward.
“I am,” she said. “What is your business here?”
“We’re hunting the witch that took your men.”
She met Abigail’s eyes, taking her measure before nodding curtly. “My own husband couldn’t see that thing for what it was, none of the men could. How is that possible?”
“Magic,” Magda said, “dark and evil magic.”
The woman swallowed, looking at the ground for a moment as if afraid to put words to her fears. “Will our men return?” she asked very quietly.
“The ones who left on foot will return within the hour,” Abigail said, “though some may be injured. As for those on horse, I don’t know.”
She nodded tightly, a tear slipping down her cheek. “My husband was among those on horse. Why did that monster come here?”
“She’s fleeing us, and we need to catch her as soon as possible,” Abigail said. “Do you have horses?”
“No, she took them all … made a point of it.”
“Show us to the ramparts overlooking the road,” Magda said.
The woman frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand, you ju
st need to show us to the ramparts overlooking the road.”
“Quickly,” Abigail said.
After a brief moment of indecision, the woman motioned for them to follow her, leading them up a flight of stairs to the top of the wall and then up another to the western wall of the keep. The cliff was several hundred feet high with the natural stone flowing seamlessly into the wall.
“There,” Magda said, pointing. “They’ve just reached the main road. Give me your hand and don’t let go.”
“Really? Are you sure that spell will work at this height?”
“Quite sure,” Magda said with a reassuring smile and an outstretched hand.
A few moments later, they leapt off the battlement and fell into the sky, wind roaring past them, the ground rushing toward them with terrifying speed, but their descent slowed rapidly when they approached the base of the cliff and they landed as if jumping off of a table.
“Huh, I guess that would come in handy, especially if I fell off Kallistos,” Abigail said. “Maybe I’ll give the mana fast more thought.”
“I encourage you to do so, but not right now.”
The sound of Peti and her charmed horsemen approaching carried on the damp air. With the cliff on one side and the river on the other, Abigail and Magda stood in the middle of the road preparing to meet the attack.
“I’d rather not kill those men,” Abigail said, nocking an arrow.
“Nor would I, but it may become necessary,” Magda said. “I’ll spook their horses … be ready to take your shot.”
Abigail nodded, putting tension on her bowstring and setting herself to draw and fire quickly. When the horsemen saw them, they spurred their horses into a charge while Peti and Torin fell back, separating from their unwitting protectors.
Magda began her spell.
The air filled with the thunder of horses’ hooves as the men drew closer. Magda released her spell with a clap of her hands, producing a thunderclap that struck fear into the horses charging toward them. Several turned aside, bolting toward the river; a few went toward the cliff, then turned again and ran back the way they had come; a few more started bucking wildly, filled with panic, desperate to dislodge their riders.
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