Poplar and beech gradually replaced the pines that had dominated the woodlands nearer the Northlands. The ground became firmer, but less regular. Roots and boulders lay exposed by erosion, littering the path. Colbey selected his route more carefully, tempering his excitement for the coming reunion with Frost Reaver with the need to watch each step. The hawk winged after him, flying short distances to maintain his pace.
Colbey halted, uncertain. Clearly, the aristiri planned on accompanying him, and it had wearied. It had coaxed him to safety, then watched over him like a guardian while he slept. It was not his way to form attachments, especially with animals, but his bold self-assurance seemed to naturally draw followers. He could not allow the bird to delay him, and he already carried enough gear to hamper him. Its weight would seem negligible in the wake of the staff’s inconvenience, and it could fly if danger struck.
Colbey stopped, wrapping bandages around his left arm to offset the talons. Hefting the aristiri would not noticeably hinder him, but making it understand what he intended seemed more difficult. Kneeling, he extended his arm, tapping his wrist with the opposite hand. Without hesitation, it flapped toward him, landing in the indicated position. It preened, then shuffled up and down his forearm. Though it moved past the protected part of his arm, it again used balance rather than grip to hold its place.
Colbey rose, and the aristiri scuttled painlessly to his shoulder. He wondered how it had so easily known what he wanted of it, attributing the nonverbal communication to the Western Wizard’s affiliation with winged creatures. Then, realizing he might find an answer, he turned the question to the staff.
*That’s probably part of the answer. The bond between Wizard and animal is empathic. It can tell that you mean it no harm that, in fact, you mean to help it. But this hawk seems unusually perceptive.*
*Is this how Secodon and Shadimar came together?*
The staff returned nothing for a moment. *Somewhat. I’m certain Shadimar chose Secodon for loyalty and intelligence. But there’s magic involved in that relationship. Sorcery allows more extensive communication and manipulation.*
Colbey wished the staff would use shorter, simpler words in its explanations, but he understood well enough. His mood remained high. He felt comfortably rested, no longer plagued by his wounds, and he had spent the previous day practicing sword strokes from morning until night. He had lost two weeks of training, and the minuscule improvement that time would have gained him, but he seemed to have regained his agility and timing quickly enough. The familiar excitement that suffused him with every practice seemed a welcome friend he had sorely missed.
As Colbey cut back east toward the town of Bruen, forest opened onto the crest of a hill. Below him, a fertile farm valley stretched, cleared of trees. Near the horizon, a stream twisted, silver beneath the sun. Splotches of dark green and gray wooden buildings dotted the countryside, and the sight stirred Colbey. Just after the Great War, some fields had lain fallow, their farmers lost to the battle tide. Houses, barns, and fences had lapsed into disrepair as those left behind gave their all to the most essential chores, like the tending of crops and livestock. Now, again, Bruen looked much as it had before the War; and one of its barns, Colbey knew, housed Frost Reaver. Apparently sensing his anticipation, the aristiri hunkered down on his shoulder, chuckling contentedly.
Birches and tangles of thorny vines choked the mountainside. Great charred hulks of trees punctuated the landscape. Game trails crisscrossed the underbrush, tunneling through brambles and across ditches. Bluebirds picked at clusters of berries growing from long stalks, seeming to take no notice of his presence.
Colbey knew that descent anywhere along this mountain would prove difficult. The last time the farmers had cleared brush from the valley, their fire had raged out of control and consumed all of the forest between the mountain and the stream. He forced his way through the matted foliage. Almost immediately, a deer trail opened before him, headed down to the valley and wide enough for a lone man to walk. It cut a clear swath through the chaotic jumble before him. The path ran parallel to a gully clogged with briers and the berries the birds enjoyed. The thick, musty odor of rotting vegetation issued from the depths of the trough.
The hawk trumpeted a sudden squawk directly into Colbey’s ear.
Startled, Colbey froze, painfully alert. He scanned the path in front of him and to either side, and his gaze found motion. A rust-colored snake with gold and blue diamonds slithered from beneath a log, poising directly in his path. Another step, and it could have struck. Its triangular head swayed rhythmically, almost touching the ground.
The strangeness of its presence and actions touched Colbey at once. When it felt his approach, it should have fled. He eased Harval from its sheath.
The snake glided toward the movement. Suddenly, its head flashed forward, lunging for Colbey’s leg. As quickly, Colbey swung. The flat of his sword crashed into its face, stopping the strike. Its body curled into a knot. Colbey flicked his wrist, and Harval’s tip split the snake’s neck. He kicked the still-roiling body into the gully. Throughout it all, the hawk remained perched on his shoulder, undisturbed. Yet without its call, Colbey doubted he would have noticed the snake in time. He stroked its crown with a finger. “Maybe we can communicate, after all.”
Colbey back-stepped. His foot hung up on the staff’s base, the wood cracking against his shin, and he stumbled. Catching his balance, he sheathed Harval and pulled the staff free. Had his battle with the serpent required even a single retreating movement, he might have tripped and lost the fight. Annoyed, Colbey continued along the trail more cautiously, contemplating the snake. The shape of its head, keeled scales, and brash coloring marked it as poisonous, though Colbey did not know its type. Its boldness made him suspicious; it had seemed almost to be awaiting him. Carcophan? Colbey frowned. Though he knew the Southern Wizard had a rapport with such creatures, it seemed like a paranoid leap in logic to believe Carcophan stood behind an attack that could be as easily explained by coincidence. Yet placed in context, his hunch seemed less irrational. If they would summon a demon to kill me, why not a snake?
Colbey glanced about, seeking some sign of another’s passage. Finding nothing, he dismissed his concern. He had little means to predict or understand the Wizards’ magic. To run scared of every slight variation from the expected meant spending the rest of his life in place, muscles knotted and heart racing. Always before, he had relied on his instincts and his nearly instantaneous reactions. Caution had never served him as well as premonition. He would not allow the Cardinal Wizards to make him a prisoner to speculation and fear.
The idea made retrieving Frost Reaver gain more significance. If the other Wizards had found him already, escape to anonymity required him to move quickly. The surefooted stallion would increase his speed and mobility.
Colbey doubled his pace toward the valley. The path grew steeper and threaded its way between boulders encrusted with bird droppings dried as hard as stone. Colbey sought handholds to control his descent, and the aristiri hopped from his shoulder to an overhang. He kept the staff clamped to his chest, supported by his upper arm. The sharp crust of rock cut into his callused hands but did not draw blood.
The trail ended at a low cliff. Colbey suspected the deer who had made the path could leap down the sheer face, but they required a different route to climb back to the top. For him to jump would result only in more broken bones, yet he was too impatient to clamber all the way back up the mountain to seek a different trail. He believed he could find a way down, but it required freedom of movement. Rummaging in his pack, he shoved aside clean clothes, sword oil, food, bandages, and his knife, emerging with a rope. He looped the end in strong figure eights around the staff, hitching it securely. He lowered it over the side, intending to dangle it well above the reach of passersby. But gravity slid the narrow rod of wood through his knot. He jerked upward, hoping sudden movement would spin the staff back onto his perch, but it detached, tumbling free of the cliffs a
nd to the ground.
Colbey swore, watching as the staff spun then righted, landing tip first and sticking upright in the soft ground. The fall took longer than Colbey had originally judged. If he fell and only broke bones, he would consider himself lucky. *Sorry,* he sent.
The staff returned an indecipherable message that took the form of disgruntled concepts rather than words. It indicated displeasure and the need to come fetch it as soon as possible.
Colbey returned his concentration to his route down. To turn back now would leave the staff out of sight, so he chose to trace a path from where he stood. A series of slender, intersecting ledges led to a vertical crack that stretched nearly to the ground. This appeared to be the only possible descent. He took another glance at the staff. It seemed safe, tan against the green and gray of the cliff. Yet the idea of backtracking and leaving it unseen and untended seemed too dangerous. In the hands of the power hungry, it would prove a crucial tool. But in the hands of the weak, it would simply take over, giving its wielder all the power Colbey had refused and controlling its so-called master like a puppet.
Colbey lay facedown at the edge of the precipice and swung his legs over it. His boots scraped over the bare stone, seeking the ledge he had previously seen. Pebbles dislodged and clattered against the cliff, then silently plummeted through space. Finding the shelf, he edged along its gently sloping course. The forest disappeared above him, and the rock face became his entire world.
The ridges widened as Colbey progressed. Though he could now place his entire foot firmly onto stone, he could not escape a feeling of uneasiness. He had always relished the tight alertness that came to him in battle, his life precariously balanced on a knife’s edge. Here, he had no control over the knife. Squatting, he braced a hand on the ledge. He cautiously lowered his left leg and wedged his foot in the vertical crack. He allowed himself another glance at the ground. The height of two adults beneath him, a familiar, broad-shouldered man with gray and black hair held the staff that used to belong to Colbey. He froze.
Catching Colbey’s gaze, Carcophan smiled. “Drop something?” The Southern Wizard threw back his head and laughed mockingly. “Perhaps I can speed your journey down to claim what you so foolishly lost.” He waved his hand, and fist-sized pieces of flint cascaded down the cliff face.
The aristiri flew to the safety of a tree, silently watching. Colbey flinched flat to the mountainside, but the hail of stones crashed painfully against his head and shoulders, nearly battering him from the cliff. Dizzied, he clutched rock, mind sprinting for answers. His only hope lay in desperate action. A flash of memory brought the image of Arduwyn tumbling from a tower window ledge twice Colbey’s current distance from the ground, escaping with only a broken arm and bruises. Colbey had no sand to cushion his fall, but he could die, sword in hand, and possibly kill Carcophan as well. As larger blocks of stone spilled toward him, the Renshai kicked himself from the cliff.
“Modi!” Colbey shouted, drawing and raising Harval as he fell.
Carcophan went still, staring for a moment in horror. He opened his mouth, the first syllables of a spell rushing forth in an explosion of breath. Then, apparently realizing he would not finish in time, he dodged.
Harval swept for the Southern Wizard’s head, but struck his arm instead. The blade bit deep. The staff fell from Carcophan’s grasp. Colbey pitched to his side, then rolled to his feet. He thrust for Carcophan’s lungs. The Wizard spun away from the attack. Harval tore cloth and gouged a furrow across his chest. Then Carcophan waved his uninjured hand. Without flash, sound, or preamble, he disappeared.
Colbey crouched at the ready, feeling the hot excitement of battle course through him, masking any wounds he might have taken from the fall. The freedom of his breathing and movements told him he had not broken any bones. At the worst, he had sustained a few more bruises, and those would become lost in the dispersing wash left from his battle with the summoned demon. He cleaned and sheathed his sword. Catching the staff, he rose, hurrying toward the farmstead. Though he believed the wound he had inflicted would occupy Carcophan’s attention for a long time, he dared not take a chance with Frost Reaver. It would fit the Evil One’s tactics to try to demoralize an enemy by killing a loved one. Colbey ran, finding some solace in the realization that the Wizards had no instantaneous spells of slaying. If Carcophan had known such a thing, Colbey felt certain he would have died.
*He appreciated my power. He would have used me to my potential.*
Annoyed by an interruption that sounded suspiciously like childish whining, Colbey responded absently as he raced toward the farms, gaze selecting the familiar wood-roofed structure that belonged to the farmer keeping Frost Reaver. *He would have used you for his cause, not yours.*
*He would have tried, Master. I’m more powerful. I would have swayed him to my way.*
*At what cost?*
*The balance isn’t my concern.*
Colbey disagreed. *It is. You just don’t know it yet.*
Colbey felt a wash of mirth and outrage, a strange mocking combination. *You profess to know more than I do?*
*Only to have a more balanced view of the world. And more common sense.* Colbey continued before the staff could interrupt. *I’ve got more urgent concerns than arguing station with you. Things are as they are. You know as well as I that the Western Wizard was meant to wield you. Whether either of us likes it, I am that Wizard.* He said nothing more, hoping his mood would make it clear that he had no intention of listening to or saying more about the matter now.
The ground leveled. The trail led into a solid wall of holly. A low tunnel cut through the dark green leaves. Colbey skittered through on hands and knees, emerging in a cleared field. Rows of stems jutted from the soil, weighted with fat leaves. Avoiding the crop, Colbey followed the field’s edge to a road he knew. Deep ruts betrayed many years of cart traffic, and the buildings of the farm that housed Frost Reaver became discernible ahead. Just beyond a shed, a trio of young men worked in a large, egg-shaped hole, flinging shovelfuls of mud to the surface. Their cheerful work song rose over the wet slash of steel through earth, interspersed with laughter. In the field directly in front of the house, one broad figure and several smaller ones knelt in the dirt.
As he came abreast of the second group, Colbey switched his course and headed toward them. Soon, he could make out the hefty figure of the farmer from whom he had bartered barn space for his horse. The others were children, plucking scrawny weeds from amid the growing crop. Apparently, this farmer had done his part to replace the hands lost to battle and disease, and all of his offspring appeared robust. They, too, sang as they worked, finding exhilaration in what others saw as drudgery. Colbey watched for a short time, glad for a new generation springing from the ashes of the last, one that took pride in their work from a young age and appreciated the freedom their elders’ blood had won. When a dirty-faced girl looked up and noticed him, Colbey stopped, hailing the farmer from a distance. “Hello.”
The farmer looked up, the singing stopped, and all of the children’s heads swung in Colbey’s direction. The man rose, his homespun filthy, and clapped soil from his palms. Dark eyes regarded Colbey from a red-cheeked, pudgy face, and the farmer smiled. “Returned at last, have you? Come for your horse, I’d guess.” He approached Colbey.
Though the farmer seemed happy, Colbey could not help the concern that rose. “Is he well?”
The children quit working, nudging one another and commenting on Colbey’s swords and staff in loud whispers.
“Healthy like a horse,” the farmer said, laughing as if he had said something funny. “Bit restless these last days, though. Hope you don’t mind, we used him for what a stallion’s good for. It seemed to calm him some. And neighbors who have horses thought his blood would do their stock good; lots of the best ones got lost in the War, you know.” The farmer spread his lips in a gap-toothed grin. “I think he missed you.”
Too eager to chat, Colbey dug a pouch full of gold from his pocket
and tossed it to the farmer. The man caught the offering one-handed, coins clinking through the fabric, then placed it in his pocket uncounted. Colbey’s previous payment had been more than generous enough to insure competent care.
The farmer half-turned to address his children. “Back to work.”
The boys and girls obeyed, still exchanging low-pitched comments. The farmer headed toward the buildings, stepping over each planted row, and Colbey followed. Mud caked his boots, and every step left heavy prints in the moist earth. “Fine, strong animal you got there. Wish all my cows could be so hardy, though I can’t complain. It’s been a good year.”
The splash and plop of wet earth grew louder as they approached. Colbey watched the shovelers work. “What are you digging for?”
The farmer grinned, obviously pleased by Colbey’s interest. “Noticed the fish pasture, did you?” He continued talking as they headed around the house to the barn. “Got my first taste of fish after the War and loved it. The fish, I mean, not the War. We fought by the ocean, you know. Now that we’re all rebuilt again, I got this idea. Why not farm fish as well as cows and crops? No one’s ever done that before far as I know.”
“Not as far as I know either.” Colbey approved, pleased to see that war and chaos had sparked new thoughts and innovations in addition to doing harm.
“My oldest’s got some ideas, too. He’s working on a new kind of harvesting tool that’ll pick corn faster than any man can alone. Horse-drawn, of course.” The farmer stopped before the pasture fence around the barn. Recently rebuilt, the poles and slats looked pale and unweathered. Clearly, the Bruenian farmer had chosen to invest Colbey’s money back into the farm and his children rather than spend it on beer and gewgaws.
Child of Thunder (Renshai Trilogy) Page 31