“Come back to me, Jess,” he said. “Be careful enough that you can come back to me.”
“Damn straight,” she said positively. And she pointed the horse at the rock-walled corridor, startling him with her heels.
Their departure rated zero for form; the gray flung his head up and lit out in a stiff, angry canter-turned-gallop, topping the final rise at high speed and encountering nothing more than the angry shouts of belated discovery. Crouched over the whipping salt and pepper mane, her arms following the exaggerated motion of the gray’s effort, Jess suddenly wondered about the consequences of her escape to those in the hollow. A ringing gunshot followed her thoughts, barely heard above the hoof beats of her run; she abruptly sat back, pulled the gray up, turned him back the way they’d come—and then as abruptly halted, wanting to go back and ride down the man who was threatening her own but not daring to do it.
The gray pranced in angry impatience, throwing in a borderline buck. She ran a hand down his tense neck and quietly turned him away from the hollow again, still reluctant but in the end willing to do as she’d been asked. If she went back to help them and failed, their one chance would be wasted for nothing. When the gray relaxed enough to lower his head and snort in frustrated acceptance of his situation, she again asked him for a canter.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Twenty-One
Jess knew these trails. She’d been on them as soon as she was old enough to pony-lead beside her mother, following Carey on short, quiet trips while she learned her first lessons, her first Words. And though the little finder glow moved alongside her in a mute, frustrated attempt to get her to turn right, she ignored the first two opportunities, going on instead to a main intersection further ahead. There, she had five different paths to choose from, and she was able to pick the one that most closely matched the glow’s indication.
Carey had said there would be people trying to stop her, so she wasn’t surprised when the gray pricked his ears and sent out an almost inaudible greeting, his neck stretched high and his body quivering with the forced exhalation of his call. She startled him out of the next, inevitably louder effort by jumping off his back and hauling him back around, swapping ends so she could run him behind the best cover she could find, a barely adequate combination of brush and tree. She clamped her hand over his nose, and had only just noticed that the glow was out in the middle of the trail when the increasing noise of multiple hoof beats made a change of position impossible; a dozen cantering riders plowed right by it, swallowing it in their midst and then spitting it out again in the dust of their passage. They never even glanced her way; Jess had only enough time to see that they were battle worn, sporting blood and bandages and a trophy stringer of armbands. The trophy colors, she realized, were from Sherra’s people. She stared after the group and wondered if the woman with the calm voice and pleasant hands had fallen to Calandre’s people already.
It was only a moment’s dilemma, that tug to go back and help her friends. Then she led the gray onto the trail and mounted and the glow moved out before her, encouraging her onward. Two more furtive dashes into the woods kept her clear of similar self-involved fighters, but it was during a quiet canter along a relatively uncomplicated section of travel that she encountered her first real opposition.
The woman seemed to come from the trees, landing on the trail in front of Jess and startling her so there was no time for thought, only the instinctive effort to stop before she ran the challenger over. And while Jess’s eyes were still wide with surprise, the woman had a bow raised and aimed at her.
“What’s your business here?” she asked, calm but clearly a demand.
Jess merely stared, caught in a tangle of thoughts, trying to judge which side this woman was on.
“Snappy comebacks will get you nowhere,” the woman said with a humorless smile. “Off the horse, then. Whatever you want, you’re not cleared for this area, and you’ll get no further.” Then, when Jess still hesitated, the leftover smile vanished. “Do it now, or die. You don’t seem to be particularly well-suited to this game, girl, so quit trying to play it.”
“But I can’t tell who you’re with!” Jess blurted.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” the woman responded, looking not at all strained as she continued to hold the bowstring taut, her humorless smile back. “Get off the horse. Maybe I’ll give you a few answers.”
Run, Jess thought, but realized she had little chance of surviving any sudden move. Slowly, she dismounted, feeling awkward under the scrutiny of this woman. “I need to see Sherra,” she offered, standing beside the gray. “If you’re an enemy, try to kill me. If you are not, let me go on. My friends need help.”
The woman grunted. “Plenty of people need help.” She lowered the bow with this apparent declaration of alliance. “I’m not here to kill you, but that doesn’t mean you can go on. You’ll be coming with me, to a place where you’ll be out of the way until we’re ready to deal with you.”
Jess tossed her head with an impatient snort. “I have to talk to—”
“Just like everyone else,” the woman said shortly. “Everybody thinks their problems are worse than anybody else’s, and if you all got through, the important work would never get done. You’re not going to see her, and you’re not going to ride off on your own. So walk that hell-fried creature in front of me—unless you want to end up like that fellow.”
She nodded at the woods beside her, and for the first time Jess noticed the limp, raggedly shod feet poking out of the undergrowth. She looked back at the woman’s bow, where an arrow still rested loosely against string and stave, and the sentry gave a short laugh. “He was on the other side, as it happens, but I’m in no mood to fool around with you so don’t push it. And just so you know—you go further than this without and escort and you’ll be shot without warning by the next sentry. That finder isn’t going to get you anywhere but the Hells.”
Momentarily out of alternatives, Jess tilted her head in the human laying-back-of-ears and walked before the woman, taking a newly worn path through the woods with the gray beside her and the finder futilely trying to catch her attention along the way. She’d go to their out of the way place, for now. And then she could wait and hope someone would listen to her, or she could break away and try to reach Sherra—or she could return to Carey.
She didn’t think she would make it to Sherra—none of them had counted on heavy security around the wizard. And she didn’t have the feeling anyone was going to listen to her.
Carey.
They quickly reached an area where the trees thinned to leave room for a narrow, shallow river. The air was thick with the spicy smell of crushed vegetation. There was only one other horse, being watered by a tall, thin man at the river; a disgruntled looking group, men all, were more or less sitting around a fire and its large hanging cook pot of something that smelled good. Jess’s stomach growled, telling her the peach had not been enough, although she was far too angry to put food in her stomach.
“Go get yourself something to eat, then. Someone’ll take your horse—can’t have you getting ideas about making a run for it—and listen to your story. You may even make it to Sherra.”
Jess’s fingers tightened around the reins. She could not let them have the horse, not let them take away her chance to return to Carey if she failed here. “I can’t wait for someone else to listen. You listen. I am here from Carey and Arlen, and I need help for them.”
“What, you think I came into this world yesterday? Arlen’s hold is under siege and he’s trapped inside. Now tie your horse and eat or not as you please, but quit wasting my time.” She turned to go.
“No,” Jess insisted. “Arlen is free of his hold. Carey and I got him out. He said to tell you I am Dun Lady’s Jess, and you would believe me.”
“Dun Lady’s Jess,” the woman repeated blankly, as the others stirred with interest at the fuss Jess was creating.
“His horse. I—”
But the woman s
lapped her forehead in an exaggerated gesture and said, “Heavens abandon me, I’ve snagged a crazy.” Then she pointed, a distinctly commanding gesture, at the fire. “Get over there. And give me those reins—and shut up.” This last as Jess opened her mouth in protest, and then came an outstretched hand, ready for the reins.
Jess stared at the woman, caught in indecision, her head lifted as she again laid back her mental ears—a sign that would have kept the woman from crowding had she been the least familiar with it. But she wasn’t, and she did crowd Jess and Jess’s vacillation lost out to deeply ingrained reaction. Her leg flashed a fierce kick that sent the woman tumbling, astonished and unable to take weight on her leg when she tried to rise. Jess was already mounting, pulling herself up with an arm that erupted in pain, charging through the low-ceilinged path with her body held tight against the horse. There were shouts behind her, and a brief flurry of cheers from the other captives.
Freedom! Jess rode hard, retracing her path back to the rock hollow at top speed until she nearly ran up on the heels of a rough-looking pair on the wrong side. She dropped back into caution and a slow jog, taking the first turning she could.
And that was when the man caught up with her.
~~~~~
As soon as Carey heard the enemy’s angry shout he knew Jess was out and away. He headed for their protected corner, hauling Dayna along with him while Mark and Jaime quickly followed. An arrow struck at the edge of the pocket on their heels, and then Carey saw the man bellying up on the point of the exposed rock. He pulled the awkward bulk of the automatic from the top of his boot and used its last bullet, a miss that nonetheless scared—terrified—the man into panicked retreat.
“He’s not likely to come back after that,” Mark said with satisfaction.
“No, but he’s not going to leave, either,” Carey said. “And now there’s someone else on Calandre’s side who’s seen the gun and is alive to tell about it.”
“It was still a good choice,” Jaime said firmly. “Mark wouldn’t have gotten to his bow before that guy had a chance to take good aim on us. Anyway, he wasn’t close enough to really see anything—”
“And neither were those first men Dayna chased away,” Mark said. “They’ll just think it was a loud spell.”
“A very loud spell,” Dayna added, putting a finger inside her ear to pop it.
“And one which I would like to see,” Arlen said.
As one, they realized he was not privy to all the secrets Carey had warned to keep from this world. And suddenly things were awkward, and Carey, looking at the gun in his hand, pulled up his tunic to shove the thing in his pants, neatly covering it again until he could find some place to stash it. “I’m sorry,” he said at the surprised look on Arlen’s face. “There are things no one here should know about. And they won’t, not if I can help it. We’ve got enough trouble with people like Calandre without giving her more to work with.”
“Well,” Arlen said into the awkwardness, “that’s certainly true enough. I’ll have to accept your judgment on this one, Carey.”
Carey nodded, grateful, but the incident had given him something to think about. While they would all certainly do their best to remain alive and free, he knew it was indeed possible their ragged little group would be killed before Jess came back with help—if she managed to come back with help at all. He had to make sure the guns would not be found.
For what seemed like hours, he scoured their small retreat, and finally found a place he deemed secure. On his belly, inched into the very back of the low overhand behind the spring, he found a crevice in which to tuck the guns. The one without bullets was of no use to them anymore, and he left it there. When he crawled out, covered with moss and streaked with slimy mud, he said to Dayna, “Whatever happens, Calandre can’t get her hands on these—she can’t even know they exist—and that means we can’t risk using them against her. If anything happens to me, I want you to take the other guns to the back of this cave and shove them down the crack in the rock there. You’ll fit most easily. After you, it’s up to Jaime, and then Mark, though it’ll be a squeeze.”
“Gotcha,” Mark mumbled unhappily, as reluctant as any of them to admit that things might come to that point.
Jaime shushed them suddenly, rudely enough to prickle sibling rivalry, and Mark opened his mouth for what would probably have been an equally rude sibling response. But Arlen came up beside Jaime and looked, as she did, up at the point of rock. Mark subsided into quiet attention.
“Magic,” Arlen told her. “You didn’t hear anything, you felt it. Calandre’s magic.” He glanced back at Carey, who had gone stiff and still, momentarily captured by dread. “I warned you this could happen, especially with Calandre scouring the area for any sign of me.”
“Maybe,” Dayna said hesitantly, “maybe Sherra felt it too, then.”
“If Calandre’s smart, which she is, she’s trying to maintain the illusion that I’m still at the hold, and is defending it against any physical or magical attack Sherra might launch. And that’s certainly what Sherra’s doing—putting all her effort into breaking down that resistance. Not keeping her wizardly ears open for such small ripples as creating a finder might cause.”
“She’s here, then.” Jaime said, barely audible. “And she probably has Willand with her.”
“We’ll do our best to keep things from coming to that,” Arlen told her, a cryptic response, and Carey exchanged a look with Mark, sharing an awareness that there was more to the story of Jaime’s capture than they knew.
Even as Carey came to the further conclusion that it was a subject for another time, a figure stalked to the end of the point and stood, arrogantly confident, staring down at them. Reed-thin, dressed in a dark ankle-length shift, the woman’s equally dark hair fell around her shoulders like a crinkly cloud. Around her, the air seemed to crinkle as well.
Carey felt a brief wash of Arlen’s magic and recognized the slight optical effect of the wizard’s shielding. Arlen gave him a grim look. “I don’t have the strength to protect you all. I have to keep—”
“The spell away from her. We know,” Jaime finished for him, as though she’d been there before. Mark had raised his bow—but he took a second look at the shielding effects and at the slight shake of Carey’s head, and lowered it again with a resigned expression.
“Get the guns, Dayna,” Carey said quietly through his teeth, wishing he’d had the nerve to dispose of them all when he’d had the chance. But no, he’d had to hang onto that one chance of survival. “I can’t do it, she’ll be watching me. Get them and shove them so far down that crack they’ll never come out.”
“All right,” Dayna said, her voice quivering slightly despite her obvious effort to sound calm. “A diversion would be nice.”
“Calandre,” Arlen said, stepping forward. “I hadn’t expected the pleasure of seeing you again so soon.”
She made a rude noise. “Nonsense. Although it was considerate of you to put out a signpost for me. A little stupid, actually.”
“It still seems to have taken you a while to get here,” Arlen said. “That spell means, incidentally, that help is on its way.”
Behind them, Dayna picked up the saddlebags and headed to the spring, quiet and deliberate.
“Nice of you to mention it,” Calandre said. “And you, little person, you can stop right where you are. I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m sure I don’t want it to happen.”
Carey closed his eyes in despair. This hollow as a place to hole up, the finder spell for Jess, keeping the guns for what small advantage they might create...bad decisions, all. His next choices had better be the right ones, because he was running out of room to bumble around in.
When he opened his eyes he discovered that Calandre was no longer alone. Another woman stood beside her, a voluptuous woman whose features edged too close to cuteness to be called beautiful. Her blond hair was bound in some intricate manner, and when she looked down on them, her face held more trium
ph—or anticipation?—even than Calandre’s.
“Willand,” Jaime groaned.
“I expect you know what I want,” Calandre said, crossing her arms as she shifted into a hip-shot stance that did more than anything to show just how little she regarded them as a threat. “And you already know how far I’ll go to get it.”
“You must be getting desperate,” Arlen said. “All your cards are on the table and you’ll never be free again—not unless you can get some advantage with that spell. Your little schemes are falling down around you, woman. It’s only a matter of time now.”
Nettled, she straightened to glare down at him, nostrils flared, hands on hips. And then she gave a sudden laugh, shook back her hair, and said, “Nice try, Arlen. What you said has some truth to it, but I have no intention of losing ground to misplaced temper. Let me see if I can sum up the situation here.” She took a dramatic pause, one finger resting on her chin. “You’re down there, we’re up here, and you’re not likely to invite us down—at least not until you run out of arrows. Of course, I can arrange for that to happen fairly quickly, if I’ve a mind to. On the other hand, Arlen, you obviously haven’t had enough time to gain the strength to shield this hollow—or even the small area it would take to cover the five of you. While I, of course, am well-rested and just brimming with magic.”
“I doubt that,” Arlen said dryly. “Not if you’re maintaining that shield on my hold.”
“I am,” she told him coolly, “but I have plenty of help. Willand is not my only promising student.”
“I’m going to learn quite a bit today, I think,” Willand said with a lazy smile that she aimed at Jaime.
The Changespell Saga Page 30