His elevation made it easier to see the route, not to mention less dangerous, as he didn’t have to pay attention to trees and terrain. Soon he was having more fun than he’d had in months and wearing a grin that wouldn’t go away. He experimented with how high and fast he could go before it got uncomfortable.
When he went too high, the air got thin, and he nearly blacked out. Also, up high it got cold, like the winter wind blowing through the pass at castle Kord. That was less fun.
In less than three hours he had covered the distance he and Master Silurian had mapped out for his first day. He was confident that he would actually be able to make it the whole way to his final destination, a small village near Argaland where the primary gate used to be. Even so, he figured he would stop at this first village and have lunch before he flew the rest of the way.
He circled the village and then landed in a copse of elm trees off the road. From there he dropped the invisibility and walked the last couple of hundred yards to the first inn on the road, The Fighting Cocks.
He opened the inn’s door and walked into the dimly lit interior. As he entered, all conversation in the common room stopped, and everyone stared at him.
“Where’d you come from?” a large teamster said, looking curiously at Eril.
Eril waved vaguely in the direction of the road he’d walked in on. “Uh, from back that way,” he said, feeling nervous over the direct nature of the question.
“You ride in?” the man persisted.
“No, uh, just walked,” Eril felt like the man was very suspicious of him for some reason.
“Were you hiding from other travelers? See, I came from that direction,” he waved his arm for emphasis, “too, and my team is pretty fast, and I know I’d remember if I passed you.” The man sounded positively angry now. The other diners were all listening as well.
Eril was standing just inside the door. Now another man came up, which Eril assumed was the innkeeper, and he motioned for Eril to come to a table.
“Now, Durak, leave the young gentleman be,” the innkeeper said. “You can take that pack off, young sir, and I’ll get you something to drink.” He came forward to try and help Eril off with the pack, but Eril swung it off rapidly so that the other man wouldn’t see how heavy it really was and add more questions.
“You’ll have to forgive Durak,” the innkeeper continued as he brought Eril a tankard of ale. “There have been several highwayman attacks these last months. Normally, when a person comes up the road from that direction,” he said waving at a large window in the wall of the tavern, “we can see them coming up the slope well before they come in the door. That’s why he questioned you. We’re all a bit jumpy about those sorts of things these days.”
Eril had to think fast, he didn’t want to say he flew in nor tell an unconvincing lie and bring more suspicion on himself. “Well, I just came on that path, just north, that feeds into the main road just up that way.” Eril thought some more about what he’d seen from the air before he got in. “I came from the next valley north, but I don’t know what it’s called.”
“Ah, yes, Crispin vale,” the innkeeper said, smiling. “That explains why we didn’t see you coming.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Durak the teamster said, and promptly lost interest.
Eril struggled to not sigh in relief as the attention of the other patrons of the inn left him. “They really are touchy these days,” the innkeeper said. “So, sorry. What can I get you?”
Eril ordered the stew and bread that most folks were eating and found that he had quite an appetite. It seemed that flying made him hungry.
After he finished and paid for his meal, Eril got up, shouldered the large pack and made a point of very obviously continuing into the town along the main road. He moved unhurriedly to not attract more attention until he found a small path that led off the main road and followed it for more than half a mile to make sure he was unobserved, then he invoked the invisibility and shield spells and leapt into the air.
Either the distance was longer than he’d thought, or he was flying slower now, but it was near sunset before he sighted the village, Chilzen, that lay nearest to the ruins of the enormous castle that once hosted the primary gate. He had been flying high enough that he could see both the ruins and the entire village before he came down.
Remembering his lunchtime reception, Eril made a point of landing on a path off the main road half a mile from the village and its only inn. As he walked up the hill he was starting to sweat with the effort, but decided against any magical assistance lest it be observed. Less than a quarter-mile from the inn, there was a point where the road was bordered on both sides by thick trees and undergrowth. The trees were tall and broad enough that they completely covered the road, forming a natural tunnel.
Just as Eril was passing through the middle of this section of road, he heard a voice call to him.
“Ho, traveler.”
Eril looked around, and at first, couldn’t identify where the voice was coming from. “Hello?” he said.
“Young fellow, come over here, off the road.”
This time Eril was able to follow the voice and see a bearded man in rough leather armor, gesturing with a sword.
Eril was immediately on alert and invoked his shield amulet before he even moved. “Why would I do that?” Eril asked, conversationally.
“Because,” the man said, gesturing with his sword, “if you don’t, my men will fill you with arrows.”
As Eril looked around more carefully, both with his eyes and zdrell, he saw that there were indeed four men with bows drawn and pointed at him. He was also able to sense that besides the man talking to him, there were another four men placed at either end of the tunnel of trees, blocking his escape if he chose to run.
Considering for a moment, Eril looked at the man and said, “Lead on.”
“Wise move, youngster, wise move.”
He then led Eril into the trees. In moments they were far enough from the road that no traveler would be able to see them. As he moved, the bandits closed in. Three still had arrows nocked but not drawn. The others all had swords except for the biggest who hefted a large two-headed battle-axe.
When they came to a clearing with Eril in the center, ringed on all sides by the bandits, the leader spoke.
“Well, youngster, you look to have some very nice kit there. Mind takin’ off that pack and handing it over, as well as any other money or valuables yer carryin’?”
“Actually,” Eril said, addressing the leader calmly, but keeping his eyes and senses open to all the other bandits. “I do mind quite a bit. I’m tired, I’ve had a long day, and I just want to get to the inn to relax. And,” he made a point of looking around at all the bandits, “I see no reason why you’re entitled to anything I’m carrying.”
“Oh, yeh don’t see any reason, do yeh?” the bandit chuckled darkly. “So yeh don’t see that me an my men are any sort of threat, eh?”
“Not really, no,” Eril replied evenly. “But there is one thing I want to get clear. You are saying that if I don’t give you my stuff, that you’ll kill me for it? That for just whatever I have of value you’d kill me here and now?”
“Aye, pup, yeh have the right of it. We’ve killed others for less quality kit than that yer bearin’, so yeah, we’ll kill yeh if you give us a fight.”
“Okay, I just wanted to be sure what I was dealing with,” Eril said and immediately lifted the bandit leader with his zdrell and slammed him violently into the tree behind him.
The man hung there, pinned, his boots dangling two feet above the ground, stunned to near unconsciousness by his head’s impact with the tree.
Eril then looked around at the dumbstruck bandits. “I suggest you all put down your weapons right now before anyone else gets hurt. You really should pay more attention to who you choose to attack. I would have thought journeyman wizards’ robes would be sufficient deterrent, but perhaps not.”
The ban
dits' reactions were varied, but none of them put down their weapons, though most looked uncertain as to what to do. The largest bandit raised his battle-axe and screamed, running straight for Eril. “I’ll kill you!”
He might have said more, but Eril took control of the head of the axe and pulled it forward and down in an arc that caused the man to pitch forward in his rush. He fell forward heavily just as the axe completed its loop and embedded itself in his abdomen and lower ribcage. He lay on the ground gurgling and oozing blood.
Four of the other bandits turned and ran, while three others with swords tried to simultaneously run him through from different directions. The attack was coordinated, and at least one of them would have cut him if Eril hadn’t jumped eight feet into the air just as their attacks came in. As it was, two of them stabbed each other in the chest while the third cut his arm on the blade of the second.
Eril turned his attention to the four fleeing bandits and was able to render three of them unconscious with a sleep spell. The fourth had been running so fast that he was too far away for Eril to do the same to him. As all the others were incapacitated or dead, Eril flew at low altitude following the fleeing bandit.
The bandit was fast, so Eril didn’t catch up to him until he was only thirty yards from the inn. Once he had a clear shot, he used the spell and knocked him unconscious mid-stride. The bandit landed in a heap and Eril flew to him to make sure he was down.
As Eril checked on the unconscious man, two men emerged from the inn. “What goes on here?” one of the men shouted.
Eril straightened up and calmly asked, “Do you have a constable in this village?”
The men looked at each other. The one shrugged and turned to go back into the inn. The one who had spoken earlier asked, “Why is this man lying dead in the road?”
“He isn’t dead, just unconscious,” Eril replied, looking down at the man. “He is a bandit and part of a group that tried to rob me.”
The man looked at Eril askance, “Truly, and how did you stop him, young sir?”
Eril sighed, “I’ll tell the constable that, and we need to get some men to help. There were eight others besides this one. We’ll need to round up the living ones before they escape.”
“Living ones?” the man said alarmed.
Just then, the door of the inn banged open, and the first man emerged, followed by three others. Eril expected that the stout man bearing a sword was likely the constable. The entire group advanced until they were standing by Eril. He quickly told them of his encounter, but emphasized that he didn’t know how long the ones he’d knocked unconscious would stay that way since he’d been in too much of a hurry to calibrate the attack.
The entire group was skeptical, but the constable had two of the men go back into the tavern for more men and rope to tie the bandits, then they proceeded to the scene of the attack.
When they arrived two of the bandits had started to revive, Eril put them back to sleep. Upon seeing this, the attitude of the constable and townsfolk shifted from skeptical to wary. This was further enhanced when they saw the bandit leader slumped unconscious against the tree and the large bandit with the axe embedded in his chest.
Several of the party from the inn exclaimed as they recognized one bandit or another. The constable was most interested in the leader of the bandits. He walked over and crouched down to talk to the bandit who was sitting, propped up against the tree Eril had thrown him into.
“Well, Dez,” the constable said to the bandit. “It looks like you finally bit off more than you could chew and swallow.” The bandit only growled something incoherent.
The constable stood and walked over to Eril. “Young man, you’ve done us all a great service. This man,” he said, waving at the bandit leader, “has been harassing trade on this route for over six months. Previously, he has been very cautious in picking his targets and every time he attacked, he was always able to fade back into the woods before anyone was able to put together a force large enough to safely pursue him. The few times people tried to follow with smaller groups, he’d just ambush them as well.”
“Now you said, and I’ve seen a bit, that you dealt with them with magic. We’re not used to seeing wizards much at all around here, and the few we’ve seen could not have defended themselves like you have. Are you a battle mage? I’ve never heard or seen one before who didn’t announce their presence with pomp and outriders?”
Eril sighed, trying to decide how best to respond. “I guess you could say I’m a type of battle mage, but I don’t see myself as one. I can do the sorts of magic a battle mage does, but I can do many other things as well.”
“Aye, I gather that. Now, please don’t be offended, but can you fly? One of the men here, Grell, said he saw you flying to chase, Ibez, that bandit you stopped near the tavern.”
Eril was afraid he’d been seen, and though he didn’t want to reveal the full extent of his powers, he figured there was no point in admitting at least that much. “Yes, I can fly. I also have an amulet that allows me to become invisible.” He deliberately said nothing about the shield amulet. Even so, the color drained from the constable’s face. He looked around furtively.
“Where is the demon? Who is it going to eat next?”
Eril groaned. “There is no demon. I am no demon wizard, and I don’t much like them.”
“But, I’ve never heard of powers like that without a demon, except for in the tales of days before the Great War.” The man’s eyes continued to dart around, looking for danger.
“Master Constable, I can assure you that there are no demons here, and you are closer to the truth than you think when you speak of the old tales. I do wield some of the power of the old zdrell masters, though I am no master, myself.”
“I’m not sure if that assures me or frightens me more, wizard. The tales of the zdrell wizards many times did not end well for the normal folk nearby when wizards clashed.”
Eril nodded. “I agree, and I have no intention of clashing with any wizard around here. I only came to visit the ruins of the great castle yonder.”
“Oh, aye, that makes sense enough. I doubt you’ll find much of interest, but far be it for me to understand the ways of wizards. In the last thousand years, all the smaller stone and artifacts have long been carried off. All that is left is stone too large to move or too tough to break up. But you’re certainly welcome to try.”
As the men carried the restrained bandits back to town and the constable turned to go back to the tavern, Eril asked, “What will be done with the bandits?”
“Oh, they’ll all hang in the morning. We’ll have a justice here by then, and with what they’ve done, they’ve all earned death several times over. They’ve killed ten men and women before you and robbed over a score. I suppose most of my night will be spent trying to see if I can find out where they’ve hidden their loot. Looks like it will be a long night for me,” he said as he walked resignedly towards the inn.
For his part, Eril was feeling quite energized. The encounter and fight had felt very much like the drills he’d been having at the castle with Dorull over the previous month, and when he stopped and thought about it, the whole thing had been just like those practice sessions. Only this time, these men really had been ready to kill him, and he, in turn, had killed to defend himself.
Chapter 33
As Eril entered the inn, he was greeted by a great deal of activity as people went in and out, but nearly everyone was smiling, and most took a moment to thank him, shake his hand or bow respectfully. The innkeeper, a rotund middle-aged man wearing a broad white apron, rushed up to him and pumped his hand enthusiastically.
“Young master wizard,” the innkeeper gushed, “I can’t say how happy I am to meet you and to thank you for what you’ve done for our little village, and my poor inn. These bandits have had everyone afraid and nearly destroyed my trade. No one wanted to be on this road if they could avoid it, for fear of those fiends.”
He finally released Eril’s hand and
stepped back, sweeping his arms wide. “You are welcome to stay and eat here, as long as you like, at no charge. You taking down those bandits has saved my poor house.”
Eril colored at the abundant praise and stammered, more put off by the flattery than he’d been by the bandits. “Really, it . . . it was nothing. They attacked me, and I just defended myself. I even gave them a chance to walk away, and they insisted, so I just did what anyone would have.”
“What anyone would have?” the innkeeper guffawed. “Maybe anyone who happens to be the most powerful wizard in the world.”
“But, I’m not,” Eril protested.
“Master wizard, you are not only the most powerful wizard I’ve heard of, but the most humble, and that’s saying something.
“I’ve met several wizards in my lifetime, and humble is not a trait I’d ascribe to any of them, before you. I’ll say no more. Enjoy the hospitality of my house. Ask, and if it’s in our power to provide it, we’ll get it for you.”
The innkeeper turned to the young serving girl, who looked to be his daughter, and said, “Marta, get the young master wizard here dinner and a drink and anything else he asks for, and be quick about it.”
“Yes, father,” the young girl replied. She smiled shyly, put a tankard before Eril and asked quietly, “would you prefer ale or wine, master wizard?”
Eril sighed. Everyone kept calling him “master wizard,” and he kept wanting to correct them, to tell them he was no master, but felt it was probably impolite to do so. Besides, “master” was a typical title for any man of means, and apparently, around here, he was dressed as what passed for a man of means. So he didn’t correct her.
“I’ll just have ale. Thank you,” he said, looking at her, though she wouldn’t meet his eye.
“We have roast mutton or beef stew for the main fare. If you really want and are willing to wait, I’m sure we could get you chicken or duck if those aren’t good enough.” She looked up briefly as she said the last two.
“I’ll have the beef stew,” Eril said, leaning back in his chair. “If it’s really good, I might have two helpings. It seems fighting bandits makes me hungry,” he said with a chuckle.
The Journeyman for Zdrell Page 19