“I should like to meet her.”
“One day.” Laedron grinned. “I would like that, too.”
“Well…” Brice took a deep breath, his voice cracking. “If you’re done making me homesick, I’d love to get on with our journey.”
“Of course.” Laedron donned his pack. “Westward?”
“There’s still the matter of a bow.” Marac eyed Valyrie. “If she can do what she says, it could be an asset.”
The bow. Yes. I’d completely forgotten about it. Laedron nodded, then looked at Brenner. “Anywhere we could purchase a bow?”
“Nowhere that I know.”
“You’re the merchant, aren’t you?” Marac asked.
Brenner grinned, his teeth not unlike the black-tipped spikes along the town’s palisade. “Yes, milord, of course. Allow me to show you our silken robes, golden rings, and fine paintings whilst I’m at it. This is Laslo, if you hadn’t noticed, and the people here deal in food and clothes. I can’t be bothered to teach you how to run a business right now, but I’ll share a little secret with you: to stay in business, one caters to the clientele.”
“No need to be snippy about it.” Marac sneered. “Where can we find a bow? Nothing too extravagant.”
“I’m sorry if I can’t help with that. You might ask Paldren, given that it’s a weapon.”
“Right. We’ll see Sir Paldren.” Marac turned and walked out of the inn.
“Thank you for all of your…” Laedron eyed Brenner one last time before leaving. “…hospitality, I think.”
Laedron, Valyrie, and Brice jogged behind Marac, joining him as he reached the base of the ladder.
“Sir Paldren?” Marac called.
Paldren turned toward them. “Yes?”
“Might you have a bow for sale?”
“What?” Paldren raised an eyebrow. “A bow for sale?”
“We have need of a bow.”
“And arrows,” Valyrie whispered.
“Arrows, too.” Marac put his hands on his hips. “Do you have any we could buy?”
“Well, let me think about that.” Paldren climbed down the rickety ladder. “What do you need it for?”
“One of our party is an archer.”
Paldren examined Brice. “And he’s without a bow?”
“Not him,” Laedron said, gesturing to Valyrie.
“A girl?” Paldren sized her up. “What would such a pretty lass need with a weapon?”
“To do my part. Will you sell us one or not?” she asked, a fire behind her eyes.
“I have one, and some spare arrows, too, that I could part with, I suppose. For the right price.”
Here we go again. Laedron rolled his eyes. How much this time? Twenty platinum, a castle, land, and title?
“Fifty gold coins for the lot,” Paldren said, scratching his chin. “A bow and fifty arrows.”
Marac’s eyes widened. “Fifty—”
“We’ll take it.” Laedron fished out the coins and handed them over.
“You’re mad, Lae!” Marac tried to stop the money from changing hands. “Fifty gold? And before we’ve even seen it?”
“It’s a fine bow, I assure you. Your friend knows a deal when he sees one.” Paldren put the sovereigns in his pocket. “I’ll fetch it, and to put you at ease, young master, I will return your coin should it meet with your disapproval.”
The knight disappeared through the door of his house, then emerged carrying a stringed length of wood about half the height of a man and curved away from the grip on both sides. In his other hand, he held a quiver. He handed both to Valyrie.
“A composite yew bow?” she asked, her eyes wide.
Laedron, though he knew nothing of bows, took her comment and apparent surprise as signs in favor of the bow’s quality and construction.
Paldren nodded. “It’s lower on the draw weight, but that was the way I needed it. I used that one in the past when I thought I may have had need to shoot from horseback. Since I don’t travel much anymore, it’s yours.”
“Draw weight?” Laedron asked.
“The power of the bow.” She pulled the string taut. “The harder it is to draw, the harder the impact of the arrow.”
“Perhaps I underestimated you,” Paldren said. “Would you care to try it?”
“I’d rather save the arrows if it’s all the same.”
“Here.” Paldren pulled one from his own quiver. “Don’t worry about breaking that one. That hay bale is your target.”
She nodded, nocked the arrow, and drew, the bow and string creaking under the strain. Releasing the string, she squinted past the bow at her target.
“Not bad,” Paldren said, walking over to the bale and pulling out the arrow. “At least you hit it.”
“I wasn’t aiming at the bale.” With the others following, she joined Paldren, then tugged at the string wound around the straws of hay and frowned. “Missed my target.”
“It was close, though. Surprisingly close.” Paldren examined her, as if impressed by her competence. “How long have you been shooting?”
“For a few years, on and off. Each time the university hosted a new batch of men for the militia, I’d be sure to visit and pick up anything that I could.”
“University? What university trains archers?”
“The Arcanists of Azura.”
“The Arcanists? My, my.” A smile creeping across his face, Paldren gave her the arrow. “Keep that one. And good luck on your endeavors outside these walls.”
“Thank you for letting us in for the night,” Laedron said. “If you’ll be so kind to open the gate, we’ll be off.”
“One last thing. We used to send smaller shipments of lumber west when requested, but the last one returned and reported that the ancient bridge was damaged. We’ve sent word to Navarine, to the king, but with the fighting in the east, he’s yet to send aid.”
“Ancient bridge?”
“The valley makes a sharp turn west of here and has long marked the divide between the east and the west of Lasoron. The Uxidin built a bridge—well, they built most of the ones we still use today—but this particular bridge was quite long indeed, a marvel of ancient engineering by any standards. One of the sections has fallen out, so you’ll be forced to find a way across it or travel down the valley and up the other side.”
“I think we can handle that. Thank you.”
With little more than a nod, Paldren returned to the top of the wall and turned the crank to open the gate. Slamming shut behind them, the gate was a symbol of what Laedron anticipated for the rest of the trip. From this moment forward, we shall see no security, no shelter, until our journey has concluded, he thought, glancing one last time at Sir Paldren atop the palisade.
Through sparse forest, they trekked until Laedron spotted the columns the knight had described, two marble pillars that had been there so long that they seemed to have sprouted from the earth. Only pine straw and undergrowth surrounded them, as if the trees refused to encroach upon the columns.
Laedron climbed down from his horse. He crouched beside one of the stones and dug into the ground with his hands. A few inches down, he felt smooth rock against his fingertips. “Here it is.”
Marac glared at Laedron from his saddle. “Must we crawl along the ground to find this road? There had to be another way.”
Laedron cleared away more of the thick straw-dirt mixture. “No. If I go along and find a few more in a line, we can merely follow the spacing between the trees. The stone’s been placed with a tight fit, where trees can’t grow up between the blocks.” He searched the ground for another piece of the road. Finding one, he smiled and pointed to the west. He mounted his horse, then brushed his hands together, dusting off the bits of pine straw and mud. He pulled on the reins and led the way deeper into the forest, keeping an eye on the spacing between the trees as he went.
Brice slapped his neck, then examined his palm, as if he had killed a mosquito. “How much farther do we have?”
“
We follow this highway until its end. At most, two days by Sir Paldren’s estimation.”
“Two more days,” Marac said, then quaffed a mouthful of water from his canteen. “I’ll be glad to be done with this damned forest.”
They rode on through the rest of the day and came to the start of a stone bridge late in the afternoon. Beneath the bridge, the valley extended deep and long, and Laedron couldn’t see the end of the vale no matter how hard he strained. Wide enough for five horses to cross walking side by side, the bridge was a sight to behold, a miracle of the ancient world still standing in the present. Neither nature nor age had been mighty enough to fell the stonework, but he remembered what Paldren had said about a section missing.
“This should be interesting.” Laedron cleared his throat. “Ready?”
Marac stood in his stirrups and stared at the river far below. “Is it sturdy?”
“Only one way to find out.”
“Do you think it’ll hold, Lae?” Marac asked.
“A bridge that massive and thick? We’ll be fine. I’m sure of it.”
Reluctantly, Marac and the others followed Laedron onto the bridge, all of them silent, as if even a whisper could rattle the foundations and cause them to plummet into the chasm. The gusts of wind through the trestles and the patter of hooves against stone were the only sounds Laedron heard. He kept his eyes focused on the path ahead. Don’t look down. The simple act of looking down could be enough to pull you over the edge.
He slowed to a halt when he spotted the break, stopping about a stone’s throw away from a huge section of missing bridge. “Hold up here.”
“Creator! How can we get across there?” Leaning forward, Valyrie hugged her horse as a child might her favorite toy. “It must be a hundred feet or more to the next landing.”
“A little magic goes a long way.” Laedron drew his scepter. “I’ll send each of us—horses and all—across the gap.”
“Do you know nothing of horses?” Marac asked.
“What? I know enough—”
“If you lift a horse off the ground, there’s a good chance that it will panic. You may be able to save one, but the other will fall to the bottom. Since we want to lose neither people nor mounts, we’d better come up with a better solution than that.”
“A bridge of air, then?”
“Tell me, then: what do horses do when you drive them over the edge of a cliff?”
Laedron shrugged. “They fall?”
“Unless frenzied and ignorant of the edge, they stop, Lae. A bridge could work, but it has to be something that the horses can see.”
“Good thought.” Scratching his chin, Laedron considered the options. Conjure air, but change the color? Or summon the illusion of stone? The latter would be more difficult, but it may be safer. “I’ll try to conjure a replacement that looks just like the bridge, but it could take some time. It would be best if I test it before anyone else.”
Marac nodded. “Take your time. We have that in abundance.”
Laedron hopped down from his horse, crouched, and examined the stonework. It’s almost as if it’s woven together magically. Such small stones fitted together in such a precise fashion... one would face some difficulty to find masonry of this quality even in Sorbia. Crawling along, he tried to find a pattern, something he could duplicate on a scale large enough to cover the gap, but no matter how close he came to finding one, he couldn’t.
“Problems?” Marac asked.
“I can’t find a common scheme; all of the stones are shaped differently.”
“Can’t you just create some?”
“For a space that size…” He pointed at the gap in the bridge. “It’s easier and safer to have a guide. Far simpler to make a copy than invent something new.”
“You might want to give it a shot, Lae. You may never find something you can use, and you might be able to conjure a spell well enough for us to get across without it.”
Laedron nodded and climbed back onto his horse with his scepter in hand. Closing his eyes, he imagined long lengths of timber across the span because he had far more experience with wood. A hundred feet? Almost two hundred? Waving the wand, he repeated the incantation and concentrated on his spell, then opened his eyes to see the result. Timbers glimmered into existence, bridging the gap. He added another, then another, and more until the space had been completely covered. He counted slowly while maintaining the spell. I need a count, a measure of how long I can keep it going. Without a count, we won’t know how many might cross during each cast of the spell.
“Sixty… sixty-one…” He clenched his eyes shut and stilled his mouth, focusing on his count and fighting the strain. Seventy… seventy-one… He released the spell and fell to his knees. He waited for the ache to fade, then asked, “Do you think that will be enough time to get over?”
“It’ll have to be,” Marac said. “We have no other choice.”
“We could go back. Down through the valley.” Brice came alongside Marac, pointing over his shoulder. “It’s the safest way.”
“And lose a few days of time?”
Brice scoffed at Marac. “What good is time when you’re lying dead at the bottom of the valley? Or worse, two broken legs and left suffering and starving until you finally die?”
“Time isn’t on our side, Thimble. Laedron’s sleep is returning, and I don’t take that as a good sign; it could mean the magic—and his life—are fading away. The sooner we get to Myrdwyer, the better.”
Laedron gazed at Valyrie. “What do you think?”
She shrugged. “I would have to agree with Marac. If something happens to you before we get there, what need will we have for answers?”
“Oh, we’ll still have a need for answers, but it’ll be hard to find any without him, I’d say,” Marac said. “No one else here has a handle on spellcraft or the ways of magic like Lae.”
Seemingly deep in contemplation, Brice rubbed his chin and jaw for a while, then said, “I think we should go one at a time.” He pulled a coiled rope from his pack. “This is at least a hundred feet. Tie one end to the first person and the other to one of the horses on this side. Switch it up as each of us crosses. Keep your feet free of the stirrups unless you want to take two horses with you. If we fall, we lose a horse, but not one of our lives.”
“We need the horses. All of them,” Marac said.
Brice shrugged. “We need our lives more.”
“I’ll just have to do it well.” Laedron readied his scepter. “Who’s first?”
“The slowest first,” Marac said, glaring at Brice. “You, then Valyrie, then me.”
Before wrapping the rope around his waist, Brice knotted both ends into a loop, then gave the loose end to Marac.
“Why two loops?” Marac asked.
“When you come across, we’ll have to tie off to one of our horses.” Brice pointed at the far end of the bridge. “Easier to add loops to both ends now than to try throwing the rope.”
Marac gestured at Laedron. “It’s a sound plan, but what about him?”
“Eh?”
“Once you two have crossed, I’m to put the rope around myself and the other end will be tied to one of your horses. When I go, both ends of the rope would be on that side, and we would have to toss the end some hundred feet or more back to Lae.”
“You’ll take my horse with you when you go, Marac,” Laedron said.
“But you could fall.”
“If I do, I stand the best chance of surviving. Have you forgotten when Valyrie fell?”
“If that’s how you want it, that’s what we’ll do. I’ll tie this end to your horse since you won’t be on it.” Marac secured the rope to Laedron’s saddle.
Once Laedron conjured the planks to bridge the gap, Brice guided his horse forward. Each impact of the horse’s hooves against the wood pressed against Laedron’s will, and he fought reality itself to keep his illusion going. Brice looked back over his shoulder with fear in his eyes. The pressure. Fight it. You can do thi
s.
Once Brice stopped on solid ground, he untied the rope from his waist. Marac pulled it back, helped Valyrie secure it, and she started across the bridge. She kept a quicker pace than Brice, and the hooves pounding on his illusory bridge made his heart race.
Forty… forty-one… Laedron counted upward, maintaining the spell. Marac, watching Valyrie dismount and secure the rope, hastily tied his end around himself, then he looked questioningly at Laedron.
“Go. Plenty of time.”
Keeping his eyes on Brice and Valyrie, Marac urged his horse and guided Laedron’s across the bridge. His hands shaking, Laedron watched as the boards bowed and creaked. His will weakened and a headache formed behind his forehead. Just when Marac reached the other side, the planks fell and faded from existence in mid-air. Laedron dropped to his knees. He felt beaten, as if the horses had been trampling his body instead of an imaginary bridge.
Marac called, “Come on, Lae. Get up. You can do it.” Brice and Valyrie joined in with his cheering.
One step, then the next . A bit more, and I’ll be across this bloody ravine, with my friends once again, and onward to Myrdwyer. Thinking of the name filled him with dread, for he had come to associate that name with the endless road, the broken bridge, and his pain and misery. The name had become a mirage, an illusion no more real than his wooden planks, no more tangible than the answers he sought. Will I ever discover the truth? Or will this whole journey be for naught?
He stared across the gap at his friends, all of them apparently eager to see him cross the span and join them on the other side. I cannot lose faith. Failure is a choice, not an unavoidable end. He raised the scepter. I can manage a levitation spell. I don’t need a whole bridge. He chanted. When his feet lifted off the ground, he compelled his body forward. Slow. Keep it slow. Easier to take. Work through the pain! Gritting his teeth, he kept his focus on the spell, doing his best to ignore the agony coursing through his veins. He closed his eyes when his speed and balance wavered. His spell was diminishing with every step. When he thought he was close enough, he released the spell and dropped. His chest and head struck the stone, but he felt his legs dangling in the breeze. His head pounded from the impact, and he couldn’t tell if he’d broken any bones from the fall. The scepter rolled out of reach, and he noticed sparks flickering within the ruby. Then, the weak stones that had been supporting him gave way.
The Immortals of Myrdwyer Page 7