by Paul Collins
Jelindel was jolted awake by distant barking and a clashing of blades. The room spun in the glow from the coals as she sat up, but now she was at least able to pull herself to her feet with the aid of a table. She drew on the sheepskin.
Zimak came clattering down the stairs, pulling on his tunic. ‘Jaelin, where are you?’ he was calling. ‘Daretor’s gone!’
‘Over here,’ Jelindel croaked as loudly as she could.
‘What are you doing down here? Your bed’s not even slept in.’
‘I – I was doing a dangerous meditational experiment,’ she said, her voice still slurring. ‘I’m very tired.’
‘Gah – look, stay here out of the way, then. I have to find Daretor.’
Jelindel managed to stand up and shamble after him as far as the door of the inn.
Out in the street there was a pack of mongrel dogs attacking someone near the stables. The big hunting dog still lay where her blue coils had pinioned it, but several men were gathered around the distraught dog now, unsure of what to do.
‘Daretor!’ Zimak shouted, drawing his knife and running to the aid of the man at the centre of the mongrel pack.
As Jelindel watched, Daretor killed one dog with his axe while Zimak kicked and slashed at the others. The survivors kept coming back as fiercely as ever. Jelindel had seen mongrels like them back in the D’loom marketplace, but they never fought with such aggression unless cornered and desperate. The linkrider! They were pack animals, and he was controlling them as a pack.
It had been barely a minute since the first bark, yet nearly everyone in the entire village was out on the street now.
Gradually the mongrels’ owners managed to seize them and drag them away. Several men began arguing with Daretor and Zimak about the dead dogs, while more of a crowd gathered around the hound still bound with coils of glowing blue.
Very soon Daretor and Zimak found themselves facing several dozen angry men holding torches and weapons and shouting at them to leave at once.
Daretor and Zimak returned to the inn to retrieve their rollpacks, and as Jelindel tried to get a better look at the dog she had immobilised the coils suddenly flowed into a single sphere of blue light, then streaked across her face and vanished into her nostrils. Strength flowed back into her like a warm drink down her throat.
‘Another of ’em!’ exclaimed a burly man holding a scythe.
‘Git aht, wi’ ye!’ shouted an elderly veteran as he waved a pike at her.
Jelindel and Zimak counted themselves lucky to have escaped with what they had carried into the village. Daretor suggested that the villagers had probably been frightened of enchantments left to protect their rollpacks.
After walking for an hour or so in the moonlight they stopped and made a small fire amid a scattering of boulders beside the trail. As they huddled around the crackling brushwood Daretor explained what he had done.
‘After Zimak was bitten by the rat I guessed that the linkrider would probably sleep soon. We had been under attack all the previous night, so he was sure to be tired. I stole out of the tavern after taking the mailshirt from Jaelin, and I used it to track the linkrider down. Whenever it faded a little I turned in the other direction until the glow grew bright again. That way I tracked him to the stables.’
‘The stables!’ exclaimed Zimak. ‘That’s the last place I would stay.’
‘And that’s why he went there. The unchivalrous thief of warriors’ skills was sleeping in the hay as I approached, but was completely buried so I could not get a good aim with my axe. Perhaps I should have just plunged my axe into the pile of hay.’
‘You should have,’ said Zimak.
‘Gah, even if he was not honourable, I must maintain my own honour. I began flinging the hay aside in the near-darkness, and he awoke before I could pin him down. We struggled for some moments in the hayloft. He was a strong one and my sword-wound still pains me after all these months. Still, I managed to knock him almost senseless, but as I tried to wrench the link from his finger he twisted away and fell from the loft to the cobblestones below. I swung down after him as he tried to limp off, but by the time I had reached him he had summoned that pack of dogs. You know the rest.’
‘The glow has gone from the mailshirt,’ Jelindel pointed out. ‘He must be back at the village still.’
‘Then we should get some sleep,’ concluded Zimak.
‘Tomorrow we’ll travel very slowly,’ said Daretor. ‘He needs a chance to catch up.’
‘Catch up? After what just happened?’
‘We are hunting him just as surely as he is hunting us,’ said Daretor firmly. ‘So far he has taken a far worse beating.’
‘But he has every bloody animal in the mountains at his disposal!’ exclaimed Zimak.
‘But only according to the rules of enchantment that govern his dragonlink,’ Jelindel cut in.
‘What would you know about enchantment? You nearly killed yourself tying up a single dog with those blue coils. You’re not even trained as an Adept 1.’
‘Jaelin tells me that you fight very well with knives and the Siluvian kick-fist method, Zimak,’ Daretor cut in, ‘yet you do not wear a black headband, or indeed any colour headband. Have you had formal training?’
Zimak folded his arms and stared sullenly at the glowing embers for some moments.
‘I used to run errands for an old Siluvian black-band master who was living in exile in D’loom. He saw that I had aptitude, and he taught me for four years before he died.’
‘For free?’ asked Daretor in surprise.
‘No, in return for dangerous errands. I could not wear the coloured headbands, lest I betray his presence in the port. Enough of this!’ he said moodily. ‘We’re awake and bickering while we have a good chance to sleep.’
Jelindel put the mailshirt on again and lay down with a sleeve exposed near her face. Reculemoon was close to the zenith as she closed her eyes, and Zimak was already snoring.
She awoke sometime later with the woven links of mail glowing brightly.
Her first thought was to wake the others, but Zimak’s sarcasm was still fresh in her ears. The linkrider might be lame, but he could easily ride a horse in the moonlight. Now he was close, but how close, and doing what?
‘Oculesquri,’ she whispered after doing her breathing exercises.
She closed her eyes and moved her vision into the paraplane. There was only one domain of enchantment nearby, although she could feel the dull bulk of the link somewhere further out. Moving into the enchantment, she could immediately see through the eyes of something in motion. It flowed evenly over the ground and saw a landscape of sharply defined monochrome. The movement was smooth yet rhythmic, as if to the beating of wings, heading straight to a narrow gorge as if it could fly. The linkrider had sent a bat after them, Jelindel concluded. It was flying low towards their windbreak of boulders between the trail and the gorge.
Jelindel returned to herself, felt for her staff and got to her knees, ready to strike the bat down as soon as it flapped into sight.
A dusky white streak hurtled over the nearest boulder as Jelindel lashed out with her staff. The snow lion had been pouncing for Daretor, but it twisted in mid-air as Jelindel’s staff caught it and it crashed down on Zimak instead.
Chapter
11
Daretor was upon the snow lion in a moment, dragging its head back with a locked forearm while its claws slashed rock, bedding and air.
Lions are far more powerful than any human, and a moment later the huge cat had twisted free. It stood back for a moment, taking in Zimak’s body, Jelindel standing ready with her staff, and Daretor crouched and ready – hands empty. As it sprang for Daretor he rolled aside, snatched up his axe and chopped hard across its face – too low!
The snow lion crashed into him, legs flailing, and again Daretor rolled away still holding his axe. For a few moments the snow lion staggered, gurgling and coughing, then it collapsed, dying through loss of blood. Daretor’s swing had miss
ed its head but slashed its throat.
The badly winded Zimak soon revived, and Jelindel’s probing fingers revealed that he had a broken rib. Daretor was still shivering with shock as Jelindel cleaned and sewed up two ugly but shallow gashes in his arms by the light of the newly stoked fire and the moons.
‘It was leaping for me, yet you were awake to strike at it,’ Daretor said to her in amazement. ‘Are your senses so very keen?’
‘I saw through its own eyes as it approached.’
‘You – you what?’
‘Like Zimak, I have no formal training, yet in the arts of enchantment I have learned a few tricks. I probably rate middling well as an Adept.’
‘Well why didn’t you warn us?’ demanded Zimak.
‘I didn’t think you would pay me any heed!’ she snapped back. ‘You were hardly encouraging to me.’
Daretor sat thinking as they argued with each other, and at last he spoke.
‘Zimak, I think you are badly wounded and cannot walk.’
‘Oh no, I’m in a little pain but I can –’
‘Just shut up and listen! Pretend that you are badly wounded, understand? Now Jaelin, can you really tell when the accursed thief of a linkrider is watching us through some animal’s eyes?’
‘Well yes, but I need to be in a type of trance.’
‘Good, do it now. I’ll begin digging while Zimak strips off his clothes.’
‘What? My clothes? That’s too much. It’s not just cold here, it’s bloody freezing and –’
‘Do it, Zimak! We must be clever or we’ll be dead! Jaelin, take off the mailshirt, I must bury it.’
‘Bury it? Daretor, I can manage to get into the right trance by myself, but I need the mailshirt to get back to my own body. It acts as a sort of beacon.’
‘Damnation! Damn Black Quell and damn his arse! Can you … Look, what can you do without the mailshirt?’
‘Nothing. My vision and control remain separated from my body – except for hearing and speech. If nobody looked after me I would soon waste away and die.’
‘Damn.’
They sat in silence, all three looking at the dead snow lion. Zimak threw some more brushwood onto the fire’s coals and flames blazed up cheerily.
‘Would you need to bury the mailshirt for long?’ Jelindel asked.
‘I – I can’t say,’ replied Daretor. ‘Three hours, perhaps a whole morning or even a day. Why do you ask?’
‘Because there may be a way. I’ll need a lot of faith in whatever you have planned, though.’
The sky was already brightening with dawn when the linkrider sent a lark over to spy on them.
Zimak was lying on a stretcher made from bedrolls and their staffs, and Jelindel was curled up beside the fire, patrolling a paraplane for the glow of enchantment points. Because it was the countryside, there were very few. Suddenly one blazed up, not far away, but quite high in the air.
‘He’s back,’ Jelindel said in a voice flat from her trance. ‘He must have needed some sleep, but now he is riding a bird high above us. Through the bird’s eyes I can see Daretor scraping a hole in the soil.’
‘Good, now tell me what it sees,’ said Daretor.
‘You are picking up the glowing mailshirt, putting it into a bag, and dropping it into the hole. The bird is circling and dropping lower. He’s definitely interested. Now you are trying to move a boulder. Are you sure it’s not too heavy?’
‘Just tell me what he sees.’
‘You’re rolling the boulder over the hole. Now he’s looking at Zimak’s body.’
‘I’m done; we’ll go now,’ said Daretor.
The sun was clear of the horizon as they set off with Zimak and Jelindel lying as limp forms on an improvised stretcher that Daretor dragged along the road. Once they were well clear of the campsite, Jelindel told Daretor to stop. Her perspective was still from high above, for the linkrider was still watching them by means of a bird overhead.
‘Put a waterskin to my lips, please,’ said Jelindel.
Daretor made a show of tending her, and the linkrider abruptly lost interest in them and broke off. The bird flew back to their campsite, first flying in low to check that all was clear, and that there were no traps.
Through the bird’s eyes Jelindel now saw the linkrider for the first time. He was a tall, gangly man riding a grey mare and leading their three fugitive horses. He dismounted. Leaning on a staff he limped in among the boulders, carrying what looked like a makeshift hoe.
Daretor had chosen the campsite well, for the ground was a triangle with a deep gorge on two sides and the road on the other. Defending the place would have been easy had humans been the attackers, but the snow lion had been able to jump across the deep, narrow gorge.
The bird flew up, watching the scene from above. The linkrider limped over to where the mailshirt was buried, stopped, and kicked the boulder. He bent down and heaved at it, but he was not as strong as Daretor and it did not budge. He began digging with his hoe.
Jelindel saw Zimak dart out from among the rocks behind the linkrider and snatch up his staff. The man whirled about and drew his sword. Zimak caught the blade with the staff, pushed it to one side and lashed a back-step kick into the linkrider’s ribs.
The bird dived, fluttering about Zimak’s head as the linkrider wrenched his blade free of Zimak’s staff and threw an overhand swing at the youth’s head.
In spite of the bird fluttering in his face Zimak swung his staff one-handed to clout the linkrider across the temple, then drew it back and thrust its end into his sternum.
Abruptly there was a change in perspective, and the view changed to high overhead again. Jelindel could see the linkrider staggering back, outclassed even though his smaller opponent was naked and armed only with a staff.
Zimak padded after him over the sharp rocks and freezing ground. Jelindel now realised that the second bird was an eagle. It was diving, confident and arrowswift, straight for Zimak. It struck, tearing at his ear and shoulder with great sharp talons.
Zimak swung at it, missed, dodged a thrust from the linkrider’s sword and brought the staff around in an overhead swing to clout the linkrider over the head again.
The eagle returned to slash Zimak’s scalp with its talons, flapping in his face and screeching. It seized his staff as he thrust at it through blood-blinded eyes, hanging on like a leech as Zimak pounded at it with one hand.
The linkrider chopped overhand but Zimak dodged behind the staff rather than moving it and the blade severed the eagle’s head and stuck in the wood for an instant. For a moment everything went blank for Jelindel.
Another eagle overhead gave Jelindel its view as it too dived. The linkrider had dropped his sword and Zimak was advancing on him with a shower of kicks from his bloody feet. The eagle must have screeched as it dived, for Zimak turned.
The linkrider drew a knife and flung it, hitting Zimak in the forearm. The man had only one moment of triumph, for in his jubilation he had not realised how perilously close he had strayed to the edge of the ravine. He lost his footing, flung his arms up to balance, then slowly toppled over the edge.
The eagle wheeled and flew to the linkrider who seized its legs as he toppled. An eagle can support the weight of a lamb, but not a fully grown human. Jelindel saw the side of the precipice hurtling past, faster and faster, then her view was obliterated.
‘Well, has the linkrider arrived yet?’ Jelindel heard Daretor ask. His words came from beyond the void where she now floated.
‘The linkrider’s dead,’ she said in monotone.
‘What? Why didn’t you tell me when he first attacked?’
‘Zimak’s wounded. Go back and help him, then bring the mailshirt to me.’
‘Damn that; we stay together,’ Daretor replied.
He began jogging along the road, dragging the stretcher behind him. Without the mailshirt Jelindel floated in blackness, hearing the scraping of the poles on the ground and Daretor’s footsteps, but unable to return her
perspective to her body.
The mailshirt was a dull lump of solidity in the distance, and the link of the dead linkrider was a speck nearby. There was nothing else to see, nothing familiar to touch. It was like trying to catch smoke.
Jelindel noticed the mailshirt move a little. Hampered by his wound, Zimak was probably slowly digging it up. Soon he would bring it to her and drape it over her body. It was to this reference point that she would return. Without such a beacon she was lost and she knew with dread how easily she could become trapped within this enchanted paraplane.
Enchanted! Jelindel suddenly had a new thought.
She spoke the word of binding for her own lips, using the softest, weakest intonation that she could. At once a point of light flared before her senses. She moved back towards herself, using the aura of the coils binding her own lips as a reference. She opened her eyes!
Now awake and within her body, the relief was so great it was almost painful. The mid-morning air was cool around her, the sun was warm, the stretcher was bouncing all over the place and the reek of Daretor’s perspiration was very strong.
Experimentally, Jelindel lifted her hand before her face, then slumped down limp on the stretcher. But at least the binding on her lips was fading.
‘The mailshirt – I’ve dug it out,’ Zimak called in the distance.
‘Bring it here, quickly,’ Daretor called back as he approached.
Jelindel sat up as soon as the mailshirt was in contact with her. The risk of what might be discovered if someone else tried to get the mailshirt onto her was too great to contemplate.
‘I’m back,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
Zimak cheered as he wrapped a trail cloak about himself, then he and Daretor threw their arms around each other.
‘We got the bastard; we got one!’ Daretor shouted in triumph. ‘Honour has prevailed.’
Jelindel stood up shakily and they both hugged her as well.
‘Tch, don’t we make a good team!’ said Zimak. ‘My skill, Jaelin’s magic and Daretor’s brawn.’