The huge smiles that appeared on the brothers’ faces, as well as on Palusa Filk’s, told him they were satisfied with his answer as well.
Chapter 13
Sam looked out at the miles of forest to the north. They would have to pass through all those trees. He sighed. Things had been so much easier—and faster—when they were able to use Ix’s abilities to skim from place to place instead of having to travel by rakkeben all day. He guessed he was just spoiled.
“What are you thinking, Sam?” Nalia asked as she came up alongside him on Cleave.
Sam looked over at her and smiled. “About how much traveling we still have to do. It feels like we’re going so slowly like this. I’m afraid Chetra Dal will reach the artifact before us.”
“I understand,” she said. “I too am concerned about that. But we are doing our best to travel quickly. There is no sense in worrying about whether or not we are going fast enough. It will be what it will be.”
Sam blinked and rubbed his hand across his eyes, then blinked again. Nalia gave him a quizzical look.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing. I just had to make sure it was you and not your father I was speaking to.” He chuckled.
“Very funny,” she said as she slapped his shoulder. “It is true. It is needless to worry about such things. We will do our best, and if we reach the artifact, we will keep it from Chetra Dal’s grasp. If not, we will determine another way to foil his plans.”
“You’re probably right,” Sam said. “I’ll try to remember. Anyway, we should get moving. One thing I am sure of is that if we don’t move, we won’t find the last artifact.”
The others came up to them. Rindu had as close to a frown on his face as Sam had ever seen.
“I am uneasy,” he said, looking around. “There is a feeling in the air, within the rohw. I do not know what it is. I do not like it.”
Sam thought for a moment. He felt uneasy, too. It wasn’t anything he could put his finger on, but something didn’t seem right. It was almost like when—long before he had ever heard of the rohw—he felt someone’s eyes on him, like he was being watched. It was unsettling.
“Me, either,” Sam said.
“It is as if there is the shadow of something sinister, a memory of some wrongness,” Rindu continued. “We must be wary today, I think. Even more than normal.”
The others remained silent, but their expressions were set, their body language showing their resolve. Even the rakkeben seemed extra alert.
“We might as well move out,” Sam said. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, trying to remove the tension there. He looked around, expecting something to jump out at him. It was almost like he was traveling in a haunted forest. The word “spooky” came to mind. He sniffed, dismissing the thought. It was the same forest they’d left the night before. Maybe he was just tired.
As they moved, Ix came up to him on her manu bird. “What do you think the brothers thought of Whitehall?”
“I was thinking about that, too,” Sam said. “I’m sure they were impressed. How could they not be? The place is amazing.”
“True,” the assassin said. She thought a moment and then continued. “What will the Zouyim do with them, do you think? Not the brothers, but the whole Order of the Rohw?”
“What do you think, Ix?” Rindu asked. “How should the Zouyim treat a whole community that believe they will be brought into the Zouyim Order?”
She looked almost embarrassed. “I…I meant no disrespect.”
“Nor was there any taken,” the monk said. “I asked the question sincerely. What do you think should be done? I would like to hear your opinion on it.”
“I think that—”
The assassin was not able to finish. Rindu launched himself from his rakkeben and tackled her, pulling her out of the saddle. She rolled to her feet, glaring murderously at the Zouy, but then her eyes shifted to an arrow quivering in a tree just to the side of where she had been. She gave a tense smile to the monk.
The two jumped back to their feet in an instant, just as other arrows streaked toward them. Emerius dove to the ground, the humans leapt off their rakkeben, and the big wolves charged into the forest to take cover. Sam broke his staff into the two sticks without thinking and swept aside two arrows at they came at him. Nalia cut three from the air as well.
The projectiles seemed to be coming from the same direction, to the northeast. Sam started moving toward the source, but Rindu was faster. He and the assassin were strides ahead of him, moving through the growth between the trees. As he tried to catch up, Sam saw Ix disappear.
There was a commotion ahead, some crashing of the vegetation and the sound of hard objects striking each other. Sam knew that Ix had teleported to where the hidden archers were and sprinted faster, recklessly hurtling through the bushes, vines, and creepers.
When he, Rindu, and Nalia caught up to Ix, she was battling two foes. One was using a bow stave to try to strike her while the other attempted to cut her with its long fingernails. The pair looked like long, stretched humans, though their heads were much too big to be normal people. They wore only loincloths over their sinewy bodies. Their grayish skin rippled as they moved in ways that it wasn’t possible for a man to move, too flexible and fluid for a normal human. Sam gulped when he realized what they were. Bhorgabir.
Even as the others arrived to help Ix, one of the mutants nodded to the other, threw its bow at Ix while tossing some item to the ground, and they both disappeared in the smoke caused by the object.
The party searched the area but could not find the creatures.
“They’re gone,” Sam said.
“What was the point in that attack?” Ix asked. “Were they hoping to whittle us down, striking one at a time with arrows and then retreating to attack again later?”
“That is perhaps the case,” Rindu said, “but I think there is more to it. Let us continue moving, and it could be we will find them again. We may find even more than we expect.”
The party continued onward, heading northeast through the tangled and twisted vegetation. Mostly there were pine, but oak and alder were interspersed as well, even an occasional cottonwood, choked with various shrubs in between the trees. With no tracks visible, their progress was slow. They moved unmounted, the foliage too close for them to ride the rakkeben and the manu.
Every eye darted around the forest ahead, around, and behind them. The assassins could not have gone far. Sam wondered what kind of game they were playing. Was it a chance encounter, or had the bhor been waiting for them? He shivered at the thought of the latter.
Within a mile, it was clear that it was not a coincidence that the bhor were there.
They were moving through the green landscape, the rakkeben, Oro, and the manu spread out to the side and behind the humans, when Rindu called them to a halt. “I sense something up ahead,” he told them. “I am not sure what it is, but the rohw is disturbed. Let us proceed carefully.”
It was only another fifty feet before he stopped them again. “Just ahead. I still cannot determine exactly what it is, but there is something…”
Each of the others tightened their grip on their weapons. Since the attack by the two bhor, they had all had their weapons out and ready, Sam with Ahimiro, Nalia with her shrapezi, Rindu with Sunedal, and Ix with her ring daggers. Emerius had an arrow nocked, ready to loose in an instant.
Rindu was on point, with Sam and Nalia close behind him. Ix and Emerius brought up the rear. Sam noticed the expression on Rindu’s face, such a slight thing that most others would not have noticed. He only did because of his close association with the man. It showed worry and more than a little confusion. As he was wondering what Rindu sensed, a twig snapped softly below his feet. Then it was all motion and chaos.
Several large objects hurtled toward the party from straight ahead while at the same time a flash of movement, many small projectiles, came at them from the side.
Instinct told Sam h
e could not simply flatten himself on the ground. Emerius was directly behind him and did not have the rohw-enhanced reflexes Sam had developed. If the objects coming from directly ahead—they appeared to be large wedges, probably razor sharp—passed by him, they would certainly strike the archer. Instead, he whirled, separating Ahimiro into the two sticks as he turned.
Whipping the sticks around in a figure eight pattern, he deflected the darts from the side, some of them striking his sticks and embedding themselves there. He cleared them just in time for four of the larger, wedge-shaped objects to reach him. He was able to pick out each of the arrowhead-like objects and bat it down to the forest floor with his sticks, though he barely was able to strike the last one out of the air before it had a chance to reach him.
He only had to clear a corridor in the rain of projectiles the size of his body. The others passed by him without striking him. Emerius hit the ground with a thud behind him, and Sam hoped it was the archer diving to the ground and not being struck. He was absently aware of Ix disappearing before any of the weapons touched her. Nalia and Rindu, of course, deflected a wider swath of the items coming at them.
Silence fell. Sam stood there, sticks at the ready, two darts stuck in one and a single dart in the other. He didn’t relax his guard as he continued to scan the forest. “Is everyone all right?” he asked.
“I am fine,” Rindu said.
“I, too,” Nalia answered.
“No worries for me,” Ix said from a dozen feet away.
“Emerius?” Sam said, wanting to look back toward where the hunter had dropped but not wanting to take his eyes off the forest just yet.
“Damn it,” Emerius said. “It’s hard for a guy to be around you folks, you know that? Always someone or something trying to kill me in new and inventive ways.”
“Were you hit?” Sam asked.
“No.”
Sam breathed out, realizing he had been holding his breath.
“…thanks to you,” the hunter continued. “If you hadn’t knocked those things aside, there’s no way I would have been able to get out of the way in time. I owe you one.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sam said. “We watch each other’s backs. That’s what friends do.”
“I guess,” Emerius said as he got to his feet with a grunt.
When it was clear that nothing else was going to happen, Sam relaxed and looked at Rindu. “What happened?”
“I believe,” the monk said while stepping toward Sam, “that you stepped on a twig which, when broken, released two tightened cords. Those, in turn allowed the mechanism with the projectiles to activate.”
“Oh,” Sam said, feeling his face flush. “Sorry.”
“Do not worry about it, Sam,” Nalia said. “Even my father was not able to detect the trigger for this trap. Not precisely, anyway.”
“It is true, Sam. You have no fault in this. It was purely mechanical, with no rohw component to detect.” He looked around at the others. “Besides, it appears that no one was struck.”
Rindu took one of the darts Sam had knocked to the ground and inspected it. “Hmm. It does not appear to be poison. I do not understand that. I would think that if someone went to the trouble of setting a trap, they would put poison on the darts. I wonder why they did not.”
Sam plucked another of the darts off his stick and looked it over carefully. It was made of some type of stone, very sharp. It was crudely chipped, which must have accounted for the way they wobbled in the air as they had been flying at him. As Rindu said, there did not appear to be poison on it.
“Maybe they’re not ready to kill us just yet,” Ix said as she appeared beside Emerius.
Sam thought about how it would be to be able to teleport instantly like that. His ability seemed so slow compared to hers. “What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“They may just be playing with us, trying to shake us up and get in our heads. I don’t believe for a second that those two we saw are the only ones around. Also, this trap took a while to set up. This isn’t a spontaneous thing. We’re being hunted. I think I should skim ahead and see if there are any other traps,” Ix said.
“No,” Sam answered immediately. “They may be trying to get us to do that, trying to make you use your abilities to jump right into one of those rohw traps again.”
“I teleported just now to escape those darts,” she said. “Nothing happened.”
“I know,” Sam said, “but you didn’t go far. If you skim up farther, though, you may run into the same kind of trap you encountered before. It’s too risky.”
“I must agree with Sam,” Rindu said. “We cannot allow you to become trapped. We must continue ahead and be wary of any of these more conventional traps. There are still at least two bhorgabir out there, as well, do not forget. We must stick together as a group and work our way slowly out of this thick forest.”
“Fine,” Ix grumbled. “I’ll stick with the rest of you, but I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
Sam thought that he had never agreed with her more.
Chapter 14
Vahi listened to the report of the two bhor he had sent to harry the humans. Chetra Dal had finally allowed the bhorgabir to gather as one, once they discovered where the humans were.
“They are very skilled,” Mahri said. He was only nineteen years old and had been excited to be one of the two who made first contact with the enemy. “Our arrows did not strike them, and I believe we would have been hard-pressed to defeat them. Of course, they outnumber us…”
Tenu interrupted, “They would have defeated us, regardless of the reason. It is clear that they are not easy prey. We escaped and remained close enough to monitor their progress and their success at the first of the traps. As Mahri says, they are very skilled.”
Vahi considered for a moment. “I know. I have fought two of the Zouyim. One of them struck me. I do not underestimate their prowess in battle.” He rubbed his pointed chin and looked off into the forest. “Still, we have planned and prepared. The traps may injure one or more of them, weaken them. Even if they don’t, they will be affected. They will be tired, overly wary, their nerves on edge. We have time. We will be patient and strike at the right moment.”
He turned his attention back to the two in front of him. “What is their status right now?”
“We turned over the reconnaissance to Lika and Hila so we could report to you,” Tenu said. “They are tracking the humans now.”
“Good,” Vahi said. “You can go back into rotation with the others. Be sure that you are careful if your turn comes up again to watch them. The Zouyim can sense us when we are too close. Being drawn into a battle with such as these without our full number would be…disappointing.”
Mahri straightened and his chin came up. “They will not sense us. We are bhorgabir. We can ride shadows and disappear in bright sunlight.”
Tenu, the older of the two by a good seven years, shook his head. Mahri was young yet. He would learn caution. If he survived this assault. Vahi was completely truthful; these foes were more dangerous than any they had faced before. Attacking the party without caution could be disastrous. He would make sure that they were careful. Very careful.
Throughout the day, pairs of bhor reported to him. The party drew closer to where the bulk of the bhor waited, defeating each of the carefully laid traps in their way. Based on the encounters the humans had with Dal’s troops in previous days and assuming that the humans knew where the last artifact was, the bhor had scoured the area of the countryside where Vahi expected them to be. He had already figured out that they transported themselves away by some magic every evening—probably back to their fortress—and back every morning. All he needed to do was to find exactly where they were at any given time, and then he could put his plan in place.
Chance had let the bhorgabir find where the people had been the day before. They ran into the trail very close to where it ended. The humans were not trying to hide evidence of their passing. There was even
a depression in the grass where the young one had meditated. Chetra Dal said that one used the rohw to teleport, much like the artifact Azgo, the bell, could. To do that, he had to meditate and learn the vibration of the area to which he wanted to travel, his master had said. Vahi mobilized his bhor, leaving two close by to harass the enemies and taking the rest with him to lay the necessary traps.
The bhorgabir had all night to prepare. They couldn’t assume the humans would travel in the right direction, so they would need to be prodded, harried, goaded into going where Vahi wanted. A series of traps and possibly short encounters with some of the bhor would channel their prey to the location Vahi chose, where they would be attacked by the full number of the mutants.
The key was to find a location where the humans’ superior combat skills—as loath as Vahi was to admit—could be neutralized, or at least mitigated. He had found such a location, far enough away from the original starting point that the humans would be tired, far enough that it would take them more than half a day to get there moving warily because of the previous traps and attacks.
“Mahri has been killed,” Hila told Vahi. His second-in-command had taken himself out of the rotation for tracking the humans as they got closer to the final confrontation.
Well, so much for passing a few more years and losing some of his recklessness. “How did it happen?” Vahi asked.
“They were sloppy and allowed themselves to be seen. The Zouyim threw some kind of dart and struck him in the eye. While he was trying to regain his composure to escape, three arrows struck him in the other eye. The Sapsyr finished him quickly with those hooked swords of hers. Tenu escaped, but barely.”
Vahi sighed. “Our first casualty. Make sure the others recognize that they cannot be seen. Let the traps do the work, watch from a distance. Do not engage the enemy.”
Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set Page 110