by Pedro Urvi
After the second explosion, Maldreck and Resgusen realized that something was going on. They were almost at the end of the bridge when they stopped their horses and turned, to find that they were under attack.
“Ambush!” cried Resgusen. “Watch out!”
“It’s a trap!” Maldreck yelled.
The two riders immediately behind them brought out axes and shields and prepared to defend themselves against the attack.
The next two traps reached the other four guards in the middle of the bridge: gas traps this time. The riders had difficulty controlling their horses, which were now terrified and desperate to get away from there at all costs.
The horses of the three fallen Guards galloped past them, which made them even more terrified and desperate to follow their example. The gas from the two traps now covered the center of the bridge, as if a small violet cloud had bumped against the bridge and been left trapped on top of it.
“Get out of here!” cried Maldreck.
Resgusen was deeply annoyed. “What the heck is that purple smoke?” he muttered.
Abruptly, the four riders in the middle of the cloud of gas stopped trying to master their horses and collapsed on top of them. The horses seemed to grow calmer and took a couple of stumbling steps forward. The riders fell off and lay unconscious on the bridge. The horses took another couple of steps more and lay down, then a moment later they were asleep.
“No!” Maldreck shouted.
“What’s going on?” Resgusen asked. He could not understand what was happening to his men.
The two guards who had avoided the gas by the skin of their teeth were now overwhelmed by two new Traps of Earth and blinded and stunned by the explosion of dust and smoke. When they felt their horses bucking, and to avoid plunging into the river, they hurled themselves on to the floor of the bridge, and their horses galloped away in terror.
“Hell! The whole lot of them are falling!” Resgusen swore. He was looking in every direction as he tried to catch a glimpse of the attackers.
“I can’t see anyone!” yelled Maldreck.
There were only two Royal Guards left standing beside them whom the traps had not reached. They were trying to calm their horses as those of their fellow guards rushed past them in their flight.
“It’s an ambush!” Maldreck shouted in warning. “They’re coming for the Star!”
Resgusen stared in every direction without seeing anything. “Who? Where?”
They went on looking, but there was nobody there. The two traders were running away in terror down the road they had come by.
“I don’t know, but this is an attack!” Maldreck shouted back. He was pointing in one direction after another with his mage’s staff, waiting either for something to happen or for the attackers to appear.
But no one appeared, and nothing happened. By now Maldreck and Resgusen were completely bewildered.
“Are they using magic?” Resgusen asked.
“No, it’s not magic. I can’t perceive any.”
“So what is it, then? There’s nobody here!”
“I don’t know, but we’d better be on the alert!”
At that moment, the covers of two of the barrels in the first cart flew off. From inside two figures appeared. They rose in a swift move, without coming out of the barrels, and aimed their bows without saying a word.
“Archers!” Maldreck shouted.
Resgusen had seen the threat. “Charge!” he ordered.
The two remaining Royal Guards who had not fallen victim to the traps spurred their horses and hurled themselves at the two archers in the cart, one on each side of it, clutching large war axes in one hand and round wooden shields, reinforced with steel, in the other. The two archers, in hooded black cloaks and with black scarves covering their faces, waited unflinchingly. It was as if they knew the two Guards were going to miss in their attack, which of course was totally unthinkable.
“Kill them!” Resgusen ordered.
The moment the Royal Guards raised their axes to hit them at a gallop, the archers released. At once, almost in the same movement, they dropped down and hid in the barrels with extreme agility.
“What are they doing?” Maldreck asked in puzzlement.
The arrows struck the Guards’ shields with a hollow sound. There followed two small explosions, and the Arrows of Air struck the soldiers with discharges the moment their axes landed, only to find empty space where the archers’ bodies ought to have been. The axes passed over the barrels without touching the archers, who had crouched down to hide inside them.
The guards tugged on their reins to attack again, but the discharge they had suffered was handicapping them. Half-stunned and in some pain, they struggled to recover. Meanwhile the two archers rose up from inside the barrels once again, spun round and aimed at the two soldiers.
“Maldreck, your magic!” Resgusen called urgently.
The Mage pointed his Ice Staff at the two archers and began to cast a spell under his breath. He would put paid to them by conjuring a Trident of Ice. They were so close to one another that it would hit them both in the back and run them through.
“Kill them! Quick, before they release!”
Maldreck finished his spell, but at the moment when there ought to have been a white flash to show that the spell had been cast, there was nothing. In its place there was a brief grey flash, and the spell failed.
“What …” Maldreck stammered. He was staring at his staff in complete bafflement.
The two archers released the moment the two riders managed to turn their horses and were getting ready to attack again. They hit them in their shields once more, this time with two Arrows of Earth. There followed two small explosions, which blinded and stunned the two guards. Their horses panicked and tried to escape, neighing in fear, while the riders clung to the reins to avoid falling off.
Suddenly, from where it had remained hidden and waiting among the tall grass, a figure in black stood up. It raced toward the two riders in trouble, and with an amazing leap brought down the first of them. The soldier tried to stand, blinded and stunned, while his horse fled. The figure which had brought him down delivered a sharp blow, precise and hard, to the base of his neck with the handle of a knife, and the soldier fell unconscious.
“Maldreck, spells!” Resgusen begged when he saw his man fall.
“I’m trying to, but I can’t cast!” the Ice Mage said. He aimed at the two figures in the cart, who were already nocking their arrows, and made another attempt to cast a spell as fast as he could. This time it was Spikes of Ice, which would go through them. But the spell never took place. There came the same brief grey flash as before, and the spell died before it was finished.
“By the Ice Gods!” Maldreck yelled.
“They’re going to release!” Resgusen warned him. His expression showed that things were going wrong, and doing so very fast.
“I can’t conjure! I don’t know what’s happening!”
“What do you mean? You’re an Ice Mage!”
“I just can’t!” Maldreck shouted desperately. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me!”
Resgusen spurred his horse and charged at the two figures in the cart, who were already aiming at the Mage. He covered the distance that separated them in a moment and raised his axe above his head to behead them both with a single horizontal swipe.
To his horror he realized that at the last moment, both archers had changed their target. They were no longer aiming at Maldreck, but at himself. He tried to cover himself with his shield when he saw the two arrows leave the bows and head for his own body. When the first reached his shield and exploded, he felt a terrible discharge lashing him as if a bolt of lightning had struck him. The second hit him in the forehead, and he felt earth and smoke exploding in his face. He fell off his horse, unconscious, a moment before he could complete his blow.
The figure in black leapt on to the second stunned rider and threw him off his horse. As the moment he hit the ground he rece
ived two blows, one on each temple, with the flat sides of two knives, and was left unconscious.
A tense silence followed this sequence of action. Not a soldier was left standing. The only one who was still trying to cast spells from his horse was Maldreck, whose Winter Storm spell failed just as the others had done. He cursed in an agony of frustration.
Finally he broke the tense silence. “How dare you! What is all this?”
Nobody replied. The two archers and the figure in black stared back at him without a word.
“What do you want? Do you know who we are? Do you know who I am?”
More silence.
“Of course you know! This is a very well-prepared ambush!”
Nobody said a word.
“I’m not going to give it to you! It belongs to Duke Orten!”
The three attackers came toward him, very slowly.
Maldreck shook his head. “I’m not going to give you the Star! I betrayed Eicewald for it!”
The archer in the center reached out a gloved hand and gestured to him to hand the Star over.
“I’m not going to give it to you! Duke Orten’ll skin me alive if I fail him!”
The figure shrugged and gestured toward the bridge. Suddenly there came a growl, followed by a hiss. It sounded like the attack of a panther beside the Mage, except that there was no panther visible.
The Mage’s horse reared up in terror, threw him off and galloped away. As he passed the three assailants, the one in black leapt on to the horse and managed to stop it a little further on. He searched in the saddlebags and found the Star of Sea and Life, then nodded to his partners.
The archer in the center made a sign to the Mage, who was getting up from the ground, aching all over from the fall.
“What else do you want? You’ve already got the Star!”
The figure made the same motion. It was a very clear gesture, which the treacherous mage understood clearly.
“I’m not going to jump into the river! I refuse!”
The second archer aimed at Maldreck’s heart.
“No! Don’t shoot!”
The other archer gestured energetically to him to jump. Maldreck screamed and leapt over the parapet.
“Arghhhh!”
He plunged in feet-first, surfaced to breathe, then the current carried him down-river. The three archers watched him float away until he was lost to sight.
Then they left at a run before any of the soldiers could manage to recover from the effects of the traps.
Chapter 7
“In my humble opinion, I think that was a perfect ambush,” Viggo said with enormous satisfaction as they ate by the fire. Night had fallen, and by now they were a long way from the bridge where the strike had taken place.
“You’re just about as humble as I’m a housewife,” Ingrid acknowledged as she drank from the water-skin on the other side of the fire, “and it wasn’t perfect. Still, I must admit it went pretty well, better than I was expecting.”
He gave her a triumphant smile. “I’m glad that for once you agree with me, even if not all the way.”
Ingrid wrinkled her nose and frowned. “I’m making a tremendous effort.”
“And it’s much appreciated,” Viggo replied without a trace of sarcasm, which when Ingrid was concerned was something unheard-of.
Lasgol noticed this and smiled. It seemed that the two of them were beginning to behave in a rather more civilized way. He was very pleased about how well the plan had come out. He had not been so sure about it at first.
“Delayed-action traps, what a great idea!” Viggo said. He handed Lasgol some sheep’s cheese from their provisions.
“I can’t take all the credit for it,” Lasgol said. “It’s really Egil’s idea. He was the one who suggested it quite a while ago. I’d never felt the need, and I hadn’t made them till now, but he suggested the idea of making them with a delayed action to give us time to get away.”
Viggo nodded. “Necessity is the mother of invention.”
“It was brilliant,” Ingrid told Lasgol. “We got them fair and square. With normal traps, half the column would have been safe when the first ones exploded. Then they’d have stopped the advance.”
Lasgol waved it aside.
“Yeah, truly brilliant,” Viggo agreed. “It still surprises me when I realize you can hide them in full daylight, in the middle of a bridge, just by throwing a bit of earth on top of them and calling up your skills.”
“It’s a particular skill: Trap Hiding.”
“Well, whatever. You know I’m not too fond of your magic. It makes you into a real weirdo, and I don’t want it to rub off on me.”
“But how could it rub off on you?” Ingrid asked.
“Everything rubs off,” Viggo said. He winked. “Except beauty, of course.”
“Thank goodness your empty-headedness really is unique and unlikely to rub off at all.”
Viggo gave her a charming smile. “You’ve forgotten to thank me for the idea of the carts. It came out of this empty head.”
“That … well, that was … pure luck. An idea that just happened to work.”
“Not at all. It was a really good idea, and it occurred to me at the last moment, when we bumped into the traders who were on their way to the bridge.”
Ingrid refused to admit this. “Bah, it would’ve worked the same without the carts,” she said, shrugging it off, but by her tone of voice it was obvious that she really did not believe this.
Viggo turned to his friend for support. “Lasgol, tell her it wouldn’t have worked the same way.”
“Hmmm … probably not so well. When they saw the carts they hurried to cross the bridge. It was a good idea.”
“And hiding in the barrels? That was a brilliant idea, you’ve got to admit it,” said Viggo, who was still full of himself.
Ingrid was still unwilling to give him the credit. “We were going to hide among the tall grass, one on each side of the road. It would’ve worked the same. They wouldn’t have seen us until it was too late.”
“Well, just to avoid admitting I’m right, you’d deny the sun rises every morning.”
“I often ask myself whether anything ever rises in your head, or if you go through life with your mind completely asleep.”
“Ingrid …” Viggo wagged his finger at her.
Ingrid snorted and shook her head. “This is going to be difficult.”
Viggo smiled. She nodded and dropped the subject.
“It was a very good idea,” Lasgol said to Viggo. He knew Ingrid would never admit it. “They weren’t expecting it, and it took them completely unawares.”
“Exactly!” Viggo said. He puffed up his chest proudly, launching triumphant looks at Ingrid, who was ignoring him as she ate salt meat.
“You were great dealing with the stunned soldiers,” Lasgol admitted. “I was sure you’d do that really well.”
“Now there’s no need to exaggerate,” Ingrid said dismissively. “It was just two soldiers who were stunned. It wasn’t that hard to knock them out.”
“I was really fast. They didn’t even realize what had hit them. In the blink of an eye they were out cold on the ground. And just let me point out that it wasn’t as simple as that. Those Royal Guards are huge, and so are their horses. Bringing them down in one leap was no mean feat.”
“Oh yeah? If you’d pushed them with a stick they’d have fallen down and not got back up. Don’t pat yourself on the back too much.”
Viggo looked at her in disbelief and turned to Lasgol. “Did you hear what she said? D’you think this is normal?”
Lasgol shrugged. “I thought you did pretty well,” he said soothingly, while Ingrid gave him a ‘don’t encourage him’ glare.
“I was masterly, and let’s leave it at that,” Viggo said, and took a drink of water.
Ingrid snorted and rolled her eyes. She was about to say something, but thought better of it and restrained herself. “It’s not worth it,” she murmured under her breath
.
Lasgol could not help smiling.
“I’m glad nothing happened to the horses,” she said, looking toward where Trotter and the other horses were resting.
“I took great care over the mixture,” Lasgol said. “It was impossible to avoid them getting scared, but I made sure they wouldn’t suffer any physical harm. I put more blinding charge than stunning charge in the Elemental Earth Trap. It affects humans more than it does animals.”
“How did you know that?” Viggo asked with interest.
Lasgol smiled. “From Camu, that mischievous creature.”
“What did he do?”
“What do you think? He put his nose in an earth trap while I was preparing it and set it off.”
Without meaning to, Camu transmitted from where he was lying on one side of Lasgol with Ona on the other, both enjoying the pleasant warmth of the fire.
Yes, but you did it.
Helped.
The fact that by a stroke of luck we could use the discovery doesn’t make it right. You could have hurt yourself, or hurt me.
I not touch traps ever.
Good. Let’s not have any more upsets.
“What happened to him?” Viggo wanted to know.
“That’s the odd thing. It was a charge that would have left me blinded and stunned for quite a while. All it did to him was to make his eyes water, and it hardly stunned him.”
“Now that really is odd,” Ingrid said, looking at Camu. The little fiend noticed and wagged his long tail playfully.
“It looks as though animals can stand the effects of the trap better than we can,” Lasgol concluded.
“Hah! So maybe this bug’s good for something after all,” Viggo said directing his sarcasm at the creature and pointing his dagger at him.
I deny magic of Mage! Camu complained bitterly.
“He says he saved us from the Mage.”
“That’s true,” Ingrid said. “The fool looked utterly ridiculous, trying to cast spells and not getting anywhere.”