Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dayna peered through the thin brush to watch Katrie. She realized she was chewing her lip, stopped herself, and a few minutes later discovered she had bitten a nail to the quick. She looked up in surprise when Ander’s hand landed on her shoulder.
He crouched, keeping low. “A few more minutes and we’ll have them,” he murmured, looking out where Katrie slunk to the third corner of the barn.
She shook her head. “I never expected it to be that easy. I still don’t.”
Beside the barn, Katrie froze and flattened in response to some noise Dayna couldn’t hear. Dayna held her breath; Ander’s hand tightened on her shoulder. When Katrie finally moved onward, Dayna breathed a carefully silent sigh and rested her forehead on her arms.
“It’ll be all right,” Ander said, not quite certainly.
She nodded, not lifting her head. Only a few more moments, surely. And then she’d feel the magic of the wards being triggered, and it would be over, and their wild gamble would pay off.
There’s still Willand, she reminded herself. Maybe she’d look now. Maybe she’d find Katrie about to place the fourth ward.
Beside her, Ander stiffened.
Dayna lifted her head. Katrie had frozen against the barn again—but this time her attention was riveted on the woods. Ander twisted, searching, while Katrie’s frantic hand motions made it clearer than ever that the problem was out here.
“I can’t find—” Ander started—and startled at the sound of a piercing cry, startlingly close.
It yelped a short song, silenced, and started again from a slightly different location. Dayna came up on her knees, twisting to find it, until Ander cried, “There!” and pointed.
A small woman crouched in the woods, yelping alarm and then scuttling silently into a new position to do it again; she looked as frightened by them as Dayna was of her. Her gaze was accusing, her clothes dingy and torn, her short, scruffy yellowish hair dirty and uncombed.
“Cairndog, I think,” Ander said, speaking quickly in the brief silence between her cries. “She won’t hurt us—they’re timid, and usually run in packs.” He pitched a rock at the woman, who stopped in mid-yelp and vanished into the woods.
“She’s got a big mouth,” Dayna said, turning quickly to check on the barn. Katrie was as flat as she could get, tucked in beside the barn, and raised voices from within told Dayna why. They were coming out to check on their alarm system. She felt a spell click into place, not quite touching them—but Katrie had frozen, all slight, natural movement stilled.
Katrie would be found, they would be found—and as she hesitated, the raw magic just out of reach, Ander said sharply, “Do it, Dayna!”
What if she was wrong? What if it didn’t work? What if—
The first figure appeared at the barn doorway, a tall and slightly gawky woman.
So much for easy. Dayna pulled at the raw magic, gathering it, bundling it—
She let it spin away, potential intact. It stirred through the area as an invisible dust devil.
The woman at the barn stumbled, grabbing a rough log for balance. From inside, a man’s voice raised in anger.
Ander didn’t hesitate. He ran for the barn, reversed course just long enough to grab Dayna, and hauled her onward. She stumbled behind him, her attention focused inward on the raw magic she funneled, and ran right into the corner of the barn when he stopped there. The woman staggered back inside without even noticing them, one hand to her head and the other keeping herself upright.
Dayna knew the feeling.
Katrie’s face contorted in effort, her muscles trembling as she fought the holding spell. Ander went for the ward still clenched in her hand and found her grip unbreakable.
“Damn,” he muttered, retrieving his bow. “We’re going to have to get them under control before we can use this.”
Don’t distract me, Dayna thought, wishing she’d emphasized the need before they’d started. But Carey would have known.
Ander grabbed Dayna’s shoulders and guided her to the barn door. An elderly lady lay collapsed on the floor; a middle-aged man, stout and balding, bent over her, barely on his feet. A tall man and the gawky woman argued, their voices harsh and labored. Makeshift tables with rickety legs filled the space; two of the three seats were merely log stumps. Papers were scattered everywhere, and the end of the barn held a collection of caged animals.
The tall man lurched, starting as he saw them; his companion turned in surprise and nearly fell, her face screwed up in pain. Ander said, “Yes, we’re doing it. We got tired of you and we’re here to stop you.”
The tall man snapped a few gutterally harsh words—and then left his mnemonic gesture hanging, incomplete.
“You can’t.” Ander’s hands were casual on his bow, an arrow nocked and ready... his voice coming to Dayna through her fog of concentration. “Not as long as we’re here. You’re limited to plain old brute physical force—and the first of you to move at us is going find out just how much that hurts.”
“What,” the man said, still harsh with effort, “do you want?”
Ander said, “Start by releasing our friend.”
“The intruder?” The man shook his head. “It takes a spell to undo that spell.”
“He’s right,” Dayna said distantly. “I can’t affect magic that’s already been invoked... and he can’t trigger the release while I’m doing this.”
The stout man looked up from the old woman, his hand patting ineffectively at her shoulder. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it! I think you’re killing her!”
“Ludy?” The other woman saw her fallen colleague for the first time, and fell upon her with an unsteady little wail. “Oh, please, stop! We’ll give you our honor, we’ll release your friend, but don’t do this to her!”
“And you?” Ander said, looking pointedly at the tall man.
He snarled at them. “Go to the lowest Hell!”
“Please!” the woman cried, her hands traveling over the old woman’s shoulders and arms as though she could find something there to comfort or fix.
“You’ll have to tame your friend here,” Ander said, his voice hard. He lifted the bow slightly, placing enough tension on the string to bend the tips of the stave. “Or I will.”
“Jenci,” the stout man said, turning to the tall man with anger on his face. “This has gone far enough. We’ve lost.”
“To who?” Jenci said. “One small wizard, a man with a bow, and the woman we hold captive outside?”
Ander held the bow steady. “And raw magic. Don’t forget the raw magic.”
Dayna closed her eyes, trying to convince herself she didn’t feel faint, that the power of the raw magic wasn’t too much for her.
The the woman shrieked anger and alarm, and Dayna’s eyes flew open to see the crates unlatched and Jenci leaping aside. Wolf, cairndog, badger—they bounded free, heading for the barn door.
The man and woman threw themselves over Ludy as Ander jerked Dayna aside, losing his grasp on the nocked arrow. Dayna tumbled out of her careful balance—
And the raw magic boiled up around her.
The man cried out, hands clutching at his head, and the woman fainted over Ludy. Jenci, staggering and barely on his feet, shoved past them all.
Dayna’s knees gave out, and Ander made a nimble pivot to grab her. “No,” he said, catching her around the waist and pulling her in close. His face was only inches away and fierce. “Hold on to that magic!”
The roar of runaway raw magic filled her. “I can’t...”
Ander shoved her back up against the rough log doorway, holding her there. “You can! There’s no one else!”
We’ll all die... .
No Arlen to clean up after the wild surge of magic, no Sherra to heal them after the backlash hit.
No.
They said raw magic couldn’t be controlled; they said it was too wild, too dangerous.
She was going to prove them wrong.
She cl
osed her eyes and gritted her teeth and reached out with every bit of intractable, argumentative, hard-to-get-along-with Dayna she had. She made a net of herself and threw it around the boiling magic—only half-aware of Ander’s encouragement, her fingers around his arms and clutching him hard.
“’Atta girl,” Ander breathed. “You can...”
Magic fought her, pummeled her, strained against her net...
Magic slowed... and grew sluggish... and gradually dissipated.
Dayna released her breath in a gasp, suddenly aware of the sweat trickling between her breasts and down her nose. When she opened her eyes, she found Ander grinning at her.
“Told you!” he said, taking her face between his hands and planting a resounding kiss on her forehead. She offered him stunned and wobbly annoyance in response, and let herself sag against the barn.
Ander turned to the three wizards—one down, one fainted, and one hanging on to his senses. “We can do that again, anytime. So behave.”
Right, Dayna thought at him. Anytime. But she kept her silence.
The male wizard leaned heavily against one rickety tables, fingers pressed to his temple. “I’ll free your friend. Just... give me a moment.” After another moment, in a voice that hadn’t quite worked its way up to an accusation, he added, “I think Ludy’s dead.”
“Blame that on your clever colleague,” Ander told him.
The man didn’t respond right away; when he did, it sounded less like an argument than something he was repeating to himself. “It all seemed so reasonable at first... we didn’t realize Dayton was so... cruel. We didn’t know he’d bring in Willand... and that Jenci would turn.” A long pause. “Dayton found out about the northern provinces’ history of feuding... he plans to stir up trouble, and sell Jenci’s reverse changespell to the highest bidder.”
“And after a suitable period, the reverse spell or a checkspell would be offered to the other side, right?” Ander said, and snorted without waiting for the answer. “At least Renia knew when she’d had enough, and got out.”
“And died for it, too.”
The last of Dayna’s patience snapped as she felt the bruises of the logs at her back. “If you’d been content with your natural talent, none of this would have happened at all. So release Katrie, and do it now.”
“Feeling better?” Ander asked, his voice gone dry.
Dayna smeared a hand across her face, wiping away sweat and a few stray tears she hadn’t realized were there. “I guess I am,” she said. “I was distracted for a while, but as soon as I figure out who shoved my back against those damn logs, Ander, there’ll be hell to pay.”
From outside, Katrie called, “I’m loose! You want me to set those wards?”
“Set, don’t trigger,” Dayna called back. “And check the cook!” She tugged her tunic back into place. As if she didn’t realize the male wizard was watching—waiting—she calmly pulled the gripper band from her ponytail and re-gathered it. Then she set her hands on her hips and looked down at him. “You’re Strovan, right? And she must be Emmy.” At his surprised nod, she said, “Benlan told us quite a bit.”
“Speaking of... I’d best go get him; we can stash him in here with the others.” Ander gave her a questioning look—a will you be all right expression.
Dayna nodded. As Ander left, Katrie came to the doorway. “The cook’s in the house,” she said. “Scared to death. She’s not going to bother us.”
Strovan said, “Willand is still out there, and as soon as Jenci recovers from that raw magic static, he’ll probably join her.”
“She’s got a travel site set up at her cabin?” Dayna asked sharply. She told herself it didn’t matter—that it would be hours before Jenci could perform the travel spell, especially if she kept the raw magic trickling.
She didn’t quite believe herself.
“At the edge of the clearing.” Strovan patted Emmy on the shoulder as the woman raised her head and looked blearily around. Dayna scowled with skepticism, and he shook his head. “Go ahead, set up the wards—we’ll tell you about Willand and Jenci. We don’t owe them anything—if they hadn’t gotten carried away, we’d have the rights to a brand-new spell—”
“You must be kidding.” Dayna tried—failed—to keep the snap out of her voice. Behind her, Katrie quietly left, and a moment later, the null wards kicked in. “The Council would have forbidden that spell as soon as they realized what the animals go through.”
He blinked at her. “Why... your own good friend is a changed horse!”
“Exactly,” Dayna said, and left it at that.
Ander’s footsteps pounded up to the barn, catching himself on a log to slow his sprint as he entered. “Jenci... got there first,” he said, panting. “You don’t want to know...”
“He killed Benlan?” Strovan scowled, instantly understanding. He climbed heavily to his feet, running his hand over his bald head as though to smooth hair that wasn’t there. “And he’s heading for Willand. Still, if he feels anything like I do, he’s not up to anything as complex as a travel spell. If you have a horse—and you can ride—you can beat him there.”
“The turn-off to Willand’s cabin is hours away,” Dayna said, frowning at him.
“No,” Strovan said. “There’s another way. No one here rides well enough to take it except Shammel.”
Ander straightened, giving the wizard a sharp look. “It’s true—the path here made a big northern loop,” he said. “What’s the straight line—through one of those gorges?”
“Exactly,” Strovan said. “It’s not easy, and it’s not safe. But you can get there before Jenci does—assuming that’s where he’s headed.”
“We have to assume that,” Dayna said. “We don’t dare not. Ander—”
“Yes,” he said. “I can do it. Strovan, get your pointing finger ready. I want to know just where to go.”
“Never mind that,” Dayna said. She might not be skilled enough to find a travel site she hadn’t studied, and she might not be able to spell herself to Willand, but she could darn well make a maplight spell keyed to Jaime. “I’ll get you there. Just go get your horse.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jaime pushed her horse hard—harder than she should have.
Hard enough to put her heart in her throat over this rough terrain.
When she at last came to the steep turn-off, she let the horse pick its own pace, wishing for a crupper as the saddle slipped ever closer to the horse’s neck. As the path leveled out, she dismounted and reset the saddle, cinching it tight over hot and dripping horseflesh. She untied the handbow and slung the quiver over her shoulder, finding a place for it to settle.
Benlan had said the cabin wasn’t far, and she slowed her pace, peering through the trees.
Riding right into Willand’s hands.
No. She had a shieldstone, she had doctored bolts, and she had her wits.
And she had something else, too—a deep and festering need to stand up to this woman. To show her that Jaime had only been bent, not broken.
Problem was, she had to convince herself first.
Well, there wasn’t time. She’d just have to pretend. Especially since just up ahead, through the woods that filled the slight curve of the path, she saw a fallen tree in her way—and beyond that, there was enough light to convince her there was a clearing.
Leave the horse here. Jaime tied the animal just off the trail and wiped her sweaty hands down the front of her shirt before she picked up the bow. The downed tree smelled of newly turned dirt and roots, the sap still sharp from bent and broken branches. She crept up to the thicker end of the trunk.
Yes, this was the cabin. Willand’s cabin.
And yes, Jess and Carey were in trouble.
~~~
Lady’s head rose, taking in the scent of her friend. Her ears pricked forward, and then back, as the Jess-self warned her not to give Jaime away. Jaime is here. And with Jaime, hope.
~~~
Jaime bit back a groan. Lady was tied up short to a tree near the cabin, and by someone who knew not to take chances—she wore two halters with thick ropes, neither of which she had a chance of breaking. And someone, in a move they probably thought was quite funny, had put Jess’s Baltimore Oriole’s cap on Lady’s head.
She found Carey sprawled against a thick stump, his tunic stained and his tough riding pants torn, his eyes closed.
Willand sat on the other side of Lady, perched on another stump with paper propped against her knees and a pencil bouncing against the papers, a rust-stained bandage around her carefully cradled arm. She stared at Lady, her wide and deceptively bland eyes narrowed in thought. Working on a spell, no doubt.
Ernie circled Carey’s tree stump, eyeing Lady, and casting the occasional scowl at the third figure in the doorway, someone Jaime couldn’t quite identify. She thought she’d seen him before, but...
“Will he ever to wake up, or is he just going to die there?” Ernie said. “Maybe he was hurt worse than you thought in that fall.”
“And maybe you kicked him too hard,” Willand said, distracted; she rubbed her eyes. Then she looked over at Carey and said, “I do know you’re awake, by the way.”
“Burn in the lowest Hell,” Carey replied, in the same pleasant and conversational tone. Willand merely smiled.
“Dayton, I can’t think with all that pacing.” Willand rubbed her eyes again; Jaime was struck by the sudden hope that Dayna’s raw magic might have reached out this far. “Quit hovering; Carey’s too smart to move, even if he could. Go make friends with Shammel. Talk business, make tea—I don’t care. Just do it away from here.”
Ernie returned a mutter and scowl, but he moved back to the cabin, disappearing inside. Jaime doubted he’d be there long.
She adjusted her grip on the handbow. It was time to see just how good she’d gotten.
~~~
Lady strained at the halter ropes, nickering at Carey. No one seemed to notice. Nor did they heed when she jerked her head up, surprised by the skipping arrival of something in the sparse ground cover by Carey’s knee. A handbow quarrel...
Jaime!
But Willand straightened on the stump, staring toward Carey, toward Jaime. No—distract her—
The Changespell Saga Page 57