what pulled Blade and Tad down, and you just fed it everything it wanted!”
Skan was just glad that they had alerted the other parties that they had
finally found signs of the missing children before the teleson became a pretty
piece of junk. By the time they camped that night, it was evident that, not only
had the creatures out there “eaten” the teleson—or rather, drained away all of
its mage-energy—but they’d “eaten” the energy from every other magical
device the party had.
Why they’d waited so long to do so was a matter of conjecture at this point.
Maybe they’d been screwing up their courage to do so; maybe they had just
been biding their time until they had a certain number of their lot in place.
Maybe the things were staying in hiding until something was thrown at them,
as a form of cover.
“It wasn’t my fault!” Filix kept protesting. “How was I going to know?”
He couldn’t have known that some bizarre animals were the cause of the
trouble, of course, but since they had known there was something out here
that ate magic, it seemed to Skan that lobbing spells around indiscriminately
was obviously a bad idea. He had been about to say just that when Filix had
lobbed the first one.
Well, what the search party had to deal with now were the results. In the
short term, that meant the tents had to be put up by hand, and using freshly-
cut poles and ropes; fires had to be started with the old-fashioned firestriker,
and any number of other problems, both inconvenient and possibly
hazardous, suddenly arose to confront them.
In the long term—having gotten a taste, the strange and possibly hostile
creatures that had stalked them through the fog and rain might now be looking
for a meal.
The tents were keeping the rain out, but were not precisely dry anymore.
They weren’t keeping bugs out, either. Skan wondered how long it would take
until it occurred to Regin that the waterproofing and bug-protections on their
rations might also have been magical. Serve him right if he had to eat soggy,
weevil-ridden ration-bread!
The two tents shared a canvas “porch;” it lacked a canvas floor and one
wall, but gave protection to their fire. They gathered in the two tents on either
side of the fire, with the flaps tied back. Regin called them for a conference as
the light began to dim in the forest outside. Rain drummed down on the
canvas, but Regin had pitched his voice to carry over it.
“We’re doing fine,” Regin decreed, as they sat, crowded into the two tents
meant for a total of four, not eight; at least this way they all had space to get in
out of the wet, even if it was not completely dry beneath the canvas. “We have
nothing to worry about. Canvas still keeps out rain, wood still burns, and we
still have the north-needle, which is, thank the gods, not magical. We’ve found
the river, and it’s only a matter of time before we either run into the missing
Silvers or one of the other parties does. If they do, they’ll try and notify us,
realize what happened when they don’t get our teleson, and come fetch us. If
we find them first, we’ll just backtrack along the river until we meet one of the
other parties, then get back to the base camp. Not a problem.”
Skan was hardly in agreement with that sentiment, but Regin was the
leader, and it was poor form to undermine confidence in your leader when it
was most needed by others.
This is not a wartime situation. And now we know that the magic stealers
are just some kind of strange wild animal, not an enemy force. If we’re just
careful, we should get out of this intact and with the children. At least, that
was what he was trying to tell himself.
“For tonight, I want a double watch set; four and four, split the night, a
mage in each of the two watches.” Regin looked around for volunteers for the
first watch, and got his four without Skan or Drake needing to put up a hand.
Skan did not intend to volunteer, but Filix seemed so eager to make up for
the mistake that cost them all their magic, that it looked as if the younger
mage had beaten the gryphon to volunteering. Skan wondered what the
young man thought he was volunteering for; he was hardly a fighter, and the
idea of throwing magic at something that ate magic did not appeal to the
gryphon.
I am not lobbing a single spell around until we lose these menaces, “he
resolved. If these things eat magic, it stands to reason that magic makes them
stronger. And the stronger they are, the more likely they are to attack us
physically.
Well, Filix could use a bow, at least, even if he didn’t possess a gryphon’s
natural weaponry.
He might do all right at that—provided he thinks before he acts. He wanted
to take Filix aside and caution him, but an earlier attempt had not been very
successful. Filix clearly thought that Skan was overreacting to the situation.
One of the biggest problems with the younger mages—youngsters who had
come along after the Cataclysm—was that they thought magic could fix
everything. They had yet to learn that magic was nothing more than another
tool, and one that you could do without if you had to. Maybe things wouldn’t
be as convenient without it, but so what? Snowstar ought to force them to
spend a year not using magic.
Regin nodded with satisfaction at his volunteers. “Right. Close up the watch
right around the camp; there’s no point in guarding a big perimeter tonight. If
you get a clear shot, take it; maybe if we make things unpleasant enough for
whatever is out there, it’ll get discouraged and leave us alone.”
And maybe you’ll provoke them into an attack! Skan reminded himself that
he was not the leader and kept his beak clamped tightly shut on his own
objections. But he resolved to sleep with himself between Drake and the tent
wall, and to do so lightly.
Somehow he managed to invoke most of the old battle reflexes, get himself
charged up to the point where nerves would do instead of sleep, and laid
himself warily down to rest with one eye and ear open. In his opinion, Regin
was taking this all far too casually, and was far too certain that they were
“only” dealing with a peculiar form of wild animal. And he was so smug about
the fact that he had brought nonmagical backups to virtually every magical
piece of equipment except the teleson that Skan wanted to smack him into
good sense again.
Bringing backups isn‘t the point! he seethed, as he positioned himself to
best protect Drake in an attack. The fact that there is something out here that
can eat magic and is clearly hostile—that’s the point! What good are our
backups going to do if these things decide that they want more than just a
taste of us from a distance?
The rains slowed, then stopped. The fire died, leaving them with nothing
but glowing coals for a source of light. Just as the camp quieted down for the
night, the “wild animals” proved that they were not intimidated by a party of
eight.
Skan came awake all at once with the sound of someone falling to the
&nbs
p; ground, followed by cursing and a bowstring snapping practically in his ear.
But it wasn’t Filix taking the shot—the mage was lying on the ground, just
outside the canvas wall nearest Skan, gasping for breath.
The other three humans not on watch scrambled up, but Skan was already
on his feet, ready for trouble. A moment later, Regin hauled the half-conscious
mage into the tent. “What happened?” Skan asked harshly, as the other two
fighters scrambled outside, leaving -himself, Regin, and Drake alone with the
disabled mage. Amberdrake went to the young mage’s side immediately and
began examining him.
The leader shook his head. “I don’t know,” the young man admitted, looking
pale and confused in the light from the single lamp that Drake had lit. “He saw
something out there, and I think he was going to work some magic on it—he
muttered something about his shields—and then he just fell over. I took a shot
at something moving, but I don’t think I hit it.”
“He’s been drained,” Amberdrake said flatly, looking up, with his hand still
on Filix’s forehead. “I saw this once or twice in the war, when mages
overextended themselves.”
I remember that; it was on the orders of an incompetent commander.
“The only difference is that this time, Filix didn’t overextend himself, he was
drained to nothing by means of the spell he cast,” Drake continued. “My guess
is that those creatures out there were able to use his previous magic to get
into his shield-castings, and then just pulled everything he had out of him, the
way they pulled the mage-energy out of the teleson. And probably Tadrith and
Silverblade’s basket as well.”
“Stupid son of—” Regin bit off what he was going to say. “Is he going to be
all right?”
“Maybe. Probably. As long as he doesn’t give whatever is out there another
chance to drain him.” Drake looked angry and a little disgusted, and Skan
didn’t blame him. “I’ll do what I can for him, but you should be aware that it
isn’t much. Lady Cinnabar herself couldn’t do much for something like this.
What he needs is rest, rest, and more rest. We’re going to have to carry him
for the next few days. He probably won’t even regain consciousness until
tomorrow, and his head will hurt worse than it ever has in his life for several
days.”
“Well, we’ll go short one this shift.” Regin shook his head again. “Stupid—”
He glanced at Skan, who drew himself up with dignity.
“I know better than to try anything magical,” he retorted to the unspoken
rebuke. “I’ll use a more direct method of defending this camp, if I have to use
anything.”
Stupid fool thought that if he cast shields, he’d be safe against this, Skan
fumed. Never bothered to remember that magical shields are themselves
magical, did he? And since shields are spun out from your own power, they
are traceable directly back into your own mage-energies. He probably didn’t
think it was necessary to cast anything more complicated, and figured his
shields would block anything coming in. . . .
The result had clearly been immediate, and had certainly been predictable.
He pulled Drake back into the tent they had been trying to sleep in. “We’ll
stay here,” he told Amberdrake. “Leave him in the other tent with Regin.”
“With just one man to watch him?” Amberdrake asked. Skan shook his
head.
“Does it matter?” he replied. “There’s nothing you can do for him, and if
something comes charging in here, we’re going to have more important things
to think about than defending an unconscious mage.”
There it was; hard, cruel, war-truths. This was a war, whether or not Regin
realized it yet.
Evidently Drake did; he grimaced, but didn’t protest any further. He
remembered. He knew that the two of them must make their priority that of
finding the children. And he knew all about cutting losses.
Which was just as well, because a few moments later, the second attack
came.
There was no warning. They hadn’t even blown out the lantern or tried to lie
down again. The rain must have covered any sounds of approach, for there
certainly was nothing outside the tent walls to indicate anything was wrong. All
that Skan knew was that Bern shouted, then screamed, and something dark
came ripping through the canvas of the tent, knocking over the lantern in the
process, plunging them into darkness until the spilled oil flared up. He
knocked Drake to the ground and stood over him, slashing at whatever came
near in the darkness.
He ignored anything outside the tent to the point where it simply didn’t exist
for him, concentrating fiercely on tiny currents of air, sounds, movement, and
what little he could see reflecting from the burning spilled oil. His talons
connected several times with something that felt like snakeskin, tearing
through it to the flesh beneath, and he clenched any time he was able to, so
that he might rend away a chunk of meat. But his opponents uttered nothing
more than a hiss, and they dashed away through the double rents in the tent
canvas as if his fierce opposition surprised them. The fight couldn’t have
lasted for very long, for not only was he not tired, he hadn’t even warmed up
to full fighting speed when the attacks ceased, and the attackers vanished,
silent shadows sliding between the raindrops.
He stood over Drake a while longer; the kes’tra’chern had the good sense
to stay put and not move the entire time. When Amberdrake finally moved, it
was to pat the flame out with the edge of a bedroll and then right the lantern.
“Are they gone?” came the voice from between his feet.
“I think so,” Skan replied, shaking his head to refocus himself. Only then did
he hear the moans of wounded, and the sound of Bern calling his name.
“We’re here!” Drake answered for him as he relit the lantern with a
smoldering corner of the bedroll. “We’re all right, I think.”
“That’s more than the rest of us can say,” the scout replied grimly,
wheezing and coughing. “Can you get out here and help me? If I let go of this
rag around my leg, I’m going to bleed myself out.”
Drake swore, scrambled for the medical kit in the darkness, and pushed
through the ruined tent wall. Skan followed slowly.
When the lantern had been relit so that Drake could see to treat wounds,
and everyone had been accounted for, they discovered that Regin and Filix
had been killed by more of the things. They had probably died instantly, or
nearly so. Amberdrake reached for the bodies, and could only locate so many
pieces. At the very least, they got the mercy of a quick death. There wasn’t
much left of them. Blood was spattered everywhere, and it was difficult to tell
what part belonged to whom.
He left the tent quickly, reminded all too forcefully of some of Hadanelith’s
victims.
And of Ma’ar’s.
I’m supposed to be hardened to this sort of thing, but maybe I’ve just seen
too much death, too much suffering. Maybe I am not as tough as I thought I
was
, or wish I could be, even after all this time. It was one thing to think about
cutting losses — another thing to lose people like this. We were caught
unprepared, despite my hoped-for lessons of experience.
Amberdrake remained for a few moments longer, and when he came out,
he surprised Skan by the thoughtful look of concentration he wore. Finally, as
the other men bundled the two bodies hastily in the remains of the tent, he
drew Skan aside.
“Are these things animals, or not?” he asked.
Skan blinked. “They certainly fought like it,” he replied cautiously.
“Extremely efficient predators. They didn’t have weapons, just talons and
teeth, and . . . and speed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that fast since
the last makaar died. Fierce predators; no wonder we haven’t seen much
game, and all of it small. They must have emptied out the forest around here,
of ground-based game at least.” He shook his head. “We should have figured
that out, and assumed they’d attack us for food. They must be half-mad with
hunger by now; they can’t live long on rabbits, snakes and bugs, not as big as
they are.”
Drake nodded, as if he had expected Skan to say that. “In that case, tell me
this; why didn’t they drag their prey off with them to eat? Why didn’t they try
and kill more of us?”
Skan opened his beak to reply, and shut it with a click.
Why didn’t they, if they’re just big hunters with an incidental ability to eat
mage-energy?
“Maybe we don’t taste good?” he suggested lamely.
“Maybe. But that hasn’t stopped lions from becoming maneaters when
they’re famished. Shalaman showed us that, remember.” Amberdrake chewed
on his lower lip a moment. “I have a feeling . . . that these things are planning
something. And that they don’t intend to let us get away. Skan, they’re a lot
worse than they seem.”
“They seem bad enough already to me,” Skan grumbled, “But I see your
point.”
He didn’t have time to think much more about it, however, for Bern, as
acting leader, decreed that there would be no more rest that night.
They spent the rest of the dark hours in the open, sitting in a circle with
their backs together, facing the forest with weapons in hand.
It was a long, cold, and terrifying night. Every time a drop of water fell from
Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon.txt Page 35