Ascendant (51 page)

"Healer's
got his own potions, whatever he could carry with him since his wagon's on the
other side of the river. Do what you can, and don't you worry about the
Captain. He just lost a battle, and a lot of our men, on our own territory.
He's not in a good mood about anything, so best stay out of his way for
while."

"We can't
just leave Paedris."

Porten
gestured toward the enemy troops across the river, troops who were still firing
arrows, when they thought they had a good shot. "Long as the enemy holds
that side of the river, and we're over here, there's not much we can do to help
the wizard, but you can help our men here. Come on now, time's wasting."

Koren knew
what it was like to be truly tired before, from long days on his parent's farm,
or surviving on his own in the wilderness, or working as the wizard's servant;
he found a new meaning for
tired
that day. Already worn out from the
unexpected battle, he spent the rest of the day doing whatever the royal army's
healer needed done, and the man had Koren running ragged. Finding and chopping
wood for a fire, hauling water from the river (and dodging enemy arrows that
still flew from the west riverbank), tending to the suffering wounded as best
he knew how, which wasn't much. After Koren collected wood and got a fire
roaring, and set kettles of water boiling to clean bandages, the healer asked
Koren if he knew where to find bloodroot, which Koren knew could often be found
growing along old stone fences and the cellars of abandoned homes. Riding
frantically far around the countryside, Koren managed to gather two solid 
fistfuls of bloodroot leaves, and when he got back, even Thunderbolt was
foaming with sweat, and unsteady on his great legs. The healer, without the
magical skills of a wizard, and with most of his supplies in his wagon across
the river, was doing the best he could to help the wounded.

"You
found bloodroot? Give it here, give it here!" The man shouted excitedly.
He wiped his hands off on a rag, then took a small pinch of bloodroot and
crushed it between his fingers, inhaling deeply. "Ahhh, fresh! Good, very
good, and more than a handful!" The healer had not expected Koren to find
much, if any, of the rare plant, especially since Koren had no idea where to
look, having never been in that part of Tarador before. "How did you find
it?"

Koren gave a
weary shrug. "South on the road, a quarter mile, I saw an overgrown lane,
figured it used to lead up to a old farm. There's an abandoned farm house, the
bloodroot was growing around the foundation stones." The bloodroot had
been tangled with an old, thick rosebush, Koren's hands and arms were scratched
and bleeding from being ripped up by the thorns.

The healer
looked up sharply at Koren, with new respect. He knew little of the wizard's
young servant, having never met the boy before Koren joined the army
expedition. "Hmm. That was good thinking. Now, hurry, you know how to
prepare a potion of bloodroot?"

"Sir,
I've done it many times for Paed-, for Lord Salva. Wrap them in clean cloth,
plunge into boiling water for a couple seconds, then gently squeeze the cloth
to bruise the leaves, to bring out the juice, or sap, or whatever it is."

"Yes,
yes, quickly, quickly! Only three leaves per cloth, we have too many wounded,
and too few leaves. I only hope we are not too late." The healer glanced
at the row of wounded men laying on blankets in the shade under a grove of
trees. Koren saw that, while he had been searching for bloodroot, two men must
have died; there were two empty blood-stained blankets in the row.

Bloodroot was
very effective at stopping wounds from bleeding. It also stung the skin, by the
time Koren had prepared all the bandages his thorn-scratched hands felt like
they were on fire. He ran back and forth from the kettle to the healer, giving
the man fresh bandages as needed. When all the bloodroot had been used up,
Koren hurriedly tended to Thunderbolt, giving the horse water, and removing the
saddle before brushing his glossy coat. The horse had eaten his fill of hay in
the fields around the abandoned farm while Koren had collected the bloodroot,
which was fortunate, considering that all the feed grain for the army's horses was
in wagons across the river. The east side of the river was mostly woods and
overgrown meadows, which provided little for the horses to eat. The soldiers
all had field rations, of dried meat and fruit, in their packs, but their
horses mostly went hungry.

The healer
next instructed Koren to make a vegetable broth, from a dried mix the man had,
and give it to the wounded men, to up keep their strength. As the day wore on
into evening, Koren sat with the men who had recovered enough to speak, trying
and failing to reassure them that everything would be all right.

"Sir?"
Koren approached the healer, who had his meager supply of potion bottles laid
out on a blanket. The man was holding bottles toward the setting sun, trying to
see how much was left in each bottle. "I gave everyone the broth like you
said, everyone who would take it. Arteman hasn't awakened."

The healer
didn't know that Koren was almost desperate for Arteman to awaken, as the old
soldier was the only person around who could tell Captain Raddick that Koren
was not a coward, that Paedris had ordered Koren away. If the wizard didn't
survive his own battle across the river, Koren could never prove he wasn
’
t a coward.

"Arteman
is an old soldier, veteran of many a campaign." The healer answered with
great weariness. "This may be his last battle, and I fear he must fight
this one alone. If he cannot recover on his own now, he'll need a wizard to
heal him."

Captain
Raddick sent riders out north, east and south, to see whether the enemy was on
the east side of the river also. Even the wounded soldiers struggled to sit up
when the first of the riders returned as the sun was setting, everyone in camp
was anxious for news. The news was good, as far as it went. There was no sign
of the enemy on the east side of the river. Raddick, fearful the enemy would
use small boats to sneak troops across the river in the darkness, but unable to
move the wounded without wagons, ordered his men to cut down trees to create a
makeshift barricade, and posted sentries along the riverbank. As darkness fell,
Koren found himself with two soldiers on a bluff above the river, cutting down
trees. Portis had seen Captain Raddick start making his rounds among the
wounded men, and had pulled Koren away, to keep the boy out of Raddick's sight
a while longer.

"You
think the enemy will really try to cross the river tonight, Portis?" 
The other soldier asked, as he wiped sweat away from his eyes.

"Don't
matter what I think, nor you; the Captain says we build barricades, then that's
what we do."

"If I
wanted to be a lumberjack, I wouldn't have joined the army." The other man
grumbled. He looked down at the swiftly flowing, dark water. "Enemy'd have
to be a fool to try getting across that, at night."

"You
think so? And what would you have said the odds were we'd be ambushed this
morning, huh?" Portis swung the ax, and it bit a shallow cut into the tree
with a dull thudding sound, instead of a solid 'Thunk'. There was only one ax
for the three men, and not even a proper wood-chopping axe. Raddick's men had
to build barricades with the axe blade of the half dozen halberds that some men
had carried as secondary weapons. The long pole handle of the halberds had been
cut down to make it able to be swung as an axe, but the halberd blade was
longer and thinner than a useful wood-chopping axe. Still, the soldiers needed
to make do with what tools they had. The rest of their tools, food, supplies,
medicines and weapons were in wagons left behind, across the river. 
"Koren, bring that stone, we need to sharpen the blade again."

"Sharpen
it much more, and there won't be any blade left." The grumpy man grumbled,
as he sat down on the ground.

"What're
you sittin' for, Loxa, you lazy good for nothing? You sharpen it this time,
maybe that'll learn you against complain' so much. Koren, you give Loxa the
stone, I'm setting down for a rest."

Koren handed
the sharpening stone to the grumpy Loxa, who sat down and began to run the
stone over the axe blade. Koren's job in the three-man team was to drive two horses
to drag the felled trees down to where they would be set into the barricade.
Portis had put him in charge of two horses which usually pulled the cook's
wagon; beasts that were strong and sturdy, not fast. If they had been cutting
the trees for lumber, the branches would have been trimmed off before Koren
hitched the logs to the horses. For a barricade, what Raddick wanted were trees
with tangled, thick branches, which made them very difficult for the horses to
drag through the woods. The trees were constantly getting snagged on other
trees, rocks and pretty much everything, and Koren had to haul on the branches
with all his might to get them unsnagged. By the time he had delivered four
trees to the barricade, he had used up all the swear words he learned from the
royal army, and started inventing new curses of his own.

"Looks
like we could get some rain." Loxa observed.

"Huh? Why
you say that?" Portis grunted, laying backing against a tree, with his
eyes closed.

Loxa pointed
to the northwest with the sharpening stone. "Lightning in the clouds, over
yonder there. Storm's coming."

"That's
funny looking lightning." Koren said, and hopped on a tree stump to get a
better view. "I've never seen lightning like that."

Portis roused
himself to see what was so interesting about lightning. "What the hell is
wrong with you two, can't you let an honest, hard-working man rest?"

  Loxa
snorted with laughter. "If you were honest, or hard-work-"

"Quiet!"
Portis exclaimed. "That's not lightning, you fool, you ever see lightning
red and blue like that? That's wizard fire! The light from wizard fire,
reflected on the clouds above."

"Paedris!
He's alive!" Koren shouted excitedly. Now that he knew what he was seeing,
he could tell Portis was right. It was wizard fire, glowing off the bottom of
the thin, low-lying clouds to the northwest. Glowing blue, and red. That
morning, the enemy wizards had thrown red fire, and Paedris blue.

"Course
he's alive all right, the old rascal, alive and giving the enemy hell, by the
look of it." Portis said with pride in his voice. "That's our wizard,
he is."

"I never
seen wizard fire until this morning," Loxa said defensively. "You
seen old Paedris fight before?"

"Well,
sure," Portis said, "wasn't I with him when we-"

"We need
to help him!" Koren interrupted.

"Help
him?! I told you before-"

 
"Before we didn't know where he was, or that he was still alive, and
fighting. If there's a battle, that means he didn't get away. He could be
trapped somewhere. He needs our help."

"You know
where he is, do you, you who never been in these parts before?"

"He's,
he's," Koren waited for another flash of light, "he's over there,
somewhere." He waved his hand in the general direction of the light. To
the northwest, beyond the village, up the river. "We can follow the light
to find him!"

"Koren,
lad, your heart is in the right place, but you need to use your head too."
Portis tapped his temple with a finger. "That's on the other side of the
river, we can't even get over there." Portis pointed down toward the
black, rushing water that was now barely visible in the vanishing twilight.

"We
burned the bridge behind us, for real this time." Loxa added. "No way
to get across, that I know. Nearest bridge is leagues north of here?"

"Aye,
listen to Loxa, lad, he's right. Nothing we can do tonight to help
Paedris." Portis said. "Best we stay here, and build a barricade, so
we can stay behind it until dawn, and some of us can catch a few winks of
sleep."

"No."
Koren dropped the horses' reins on the ground. "I'm
not
in the
army, I'm not a soldier, I'm a servant. And I belong with Paedris." And he
turned and hurried down the hill without another word.

"What?"
Loxa exclaimed, "You can't just-"

Portis grasped
the younger soldier's arm. "Let him be, Loxa, let him be. This is his first
battle, and he's right, he's not a soldier. We'll get these last two trees cut
and drag them down to the road. Koren will be back, I think, he can't go
far."

Koren held
Thunderbolt to a fast trot, although he could feel the great horse straining to
run. The road was dark and unfamiliar, Koren could not risk the horse stepping
into a hole and injuring a leg. The moon was half-lit, high in the sky, but
ducked behind clouds too often for Koren to see the road ahead with confidence.
This road, on the east side of the river, seemed to be less used than the west
side road the army had traveled. The road here was more narrow, deeply rutted,
with overhanging trees, and in places old stone walls had partly tumbled into
the road. Several times Thunderbolt had stumbled and nearly thrown Koren off
when the horse stepped on a stone. Even with his excellent night vision, Koren
was afraid to let his horse run in the darkness.

An hour after
seeing the wizard fire in the sky, Koren was doubting whether he had been right
to run off to rescue Paedris. What was he going to do, by himself? After he had
run down the hill and found Thunderbolt, he had ridden away as fast as he
could, pausing only to lean down from the saddle to snatch a bow and quiver of
arrows from the ground next to a sleeping soldier. Koren had let loose the
reins, Thunderbolt had surged off into the night, chased by a chorus of shouts
from the alarmed soldiers. Koren had urged Thunderbolt onward, to bolt through
the last gap in the almost-finished barricade, then they were gone, Koren
barely hearing the shouting behind him over the wind whistling in his ears.
Soon as they were around the first bend in the road, where the light from the
campfires and torches of the royal army was blocked by trees, they were plunged
into sudden darkness, and Koren had pulled back on the reins, and held
Thunderbolt to a brisk trot since then. At first, Koren had been afraid of
Captain Raddick sending men to pursue him, but in the confusion of setting up
barricades and preparing for a night defense, no one thought much of the
wizard's servant riding out of camp on his horse; the few soldiers who noticed
him going assumed Koren had been sent on another errand by the healer.

He had gotten
away, he had a strong horse, a bow, a quiver of arrows, his short sword, and no
idea how he was going to rescue the court wizard. No idea how he was going to
get to Paedris, to even get across the river. When the road ran through farm
fields, where Koren could see the sky to the west, he would sometimes see
wizard fire reflected off the clouds, so he had a very rough idea of the
direction he needed to go. The river, however, was still an impossible barrier.
Once, when the road ran close to the top of the bluff above the river, Koren
had gotten off Thunderbolt and walked to the edge. When the half moon peeked
out from behind the clouds, he saw there was a steep drop to dark, rushing
water. White foam boiled around the rocks, the river was still in Spring flood,
there was no way Thunderbolt could get across, and Koren would be gambling his
life to swim across, even without weapons.

He stared down
at the river, at the swiftly-flowing black water, and doubted himself. What was
he doing, in the dark, all alone? What did he hope to accomplish, one person,
with a single quiver of arrows and a short sword, against enemy wizards and
scores of battle-hardened soldiers? Maybe he should ride back to camp, tell
Portis he was right, and do whatever he was ordered to do.

Give up? Give
up, and ride back to the safety of the camp, where he could chop wood, and boil
water, safely surrounded by the royal army? Give up like a coward?

Koren had not
been angry during the battle, he hadn't had time. After, he was in shock, and
scrambling to follow the healer's orders. It was only now, alone with his
thoughts in the darkness, that he was free to consider what had happened since
the morning, a perfectly pleasant Spring morning. And he was angry. The battle
was still a blur in his mind, the fighting so unexpected, so brief and intense,
that he only remembered bits and pieces, such as when Dartenon fell, and the
look on the face of that enemy soldier on the bridge, when Koren's arrow caught
him in the throat. He wasn't angry about the battle, he was angry that Captain
Raddick had called him a coward.

Koren may be a
jinx, may have been cursed by God, may have been a terrible son, may have been
abandoned by his parents. But he was
not
a coward. And he was going to
prove that, or die trying.

He sprung to
his feet, ran back to Thunderbolt, and continued north on the road, anger
fueling his determination.

They were
nearly past the crossroads before Koren realized another road led off to the
left. He dropped to the ground, and walked carefully along what he thought was
the center of the road, feeling grass and weeds brushing against his legs. This
road, wherever it led, had not seen much traffic in a long time. He waited for
the moonlight, the clouds were thinning and ragged, he should soon have some
light to guide him for a few hours, until the moon set over the hills to the
west. When the clouds slid aside, Koren got a  decent look at the road in
front of him. It was overgrown, with brush crowding the sides, a downed tree
blocking the way. It looked like someone had made an attempt to chop the tree
in half, to move it, but then had given up. The road didn't appear to be a
promising way for Koren to get across the river.

Unless-

That morning,
he had ridden past another little-used crossroads on the west side of the
river, and one of the soldiers who had been in the area before said the road to
the east led to an old bridge, which was not used because the center span had
fallen in the river. That road had also been overgrown. Maybe the weed-choked
road ahead went to the old bridge. Even if the bridge could no longer carry
wagons, or horses, it might be possible for Koren to somehow use the bridge
supports to cross the river.

The moonlight
helped Koren see at least the outlines of the road, and any trees that had
fallen across it, but after Thunderbolt stumbled twice on objects unseen under
the weeds, Koren dropped down and walked, leading the way.  By the time
they reached the bridge, the moonlight was steady, and Koren could just barely
see wizard fire, not reflected on the scattered clouds, but as a flickering
glow on the western skyline, through the trees atop a hill. He must be getting
closer to the wizard!

Leaving
Thunderbolt behind, Koren cautiously walked out onto the bridge. It was narrow,
only wide enough for one wagon, but substantial, being built of stone. Leaning
over the railing, he could see the bridge was a series of stone arches, soaring
high above the river below. Each arch ended in a sort of tower, rising from the
river, white rapids glinted in the moonlight around the base of the towers. The
gray stone surface of the bridge ended after four arches, replaced by a wooden
bridge in the center, which at one time reached across to the stone tower on
the other side. Some time ago, the wood structure had sagged and tilted to one
side; it still reached almost all the way across, but many deck boards were
missing, and the other end of the wood bridge deck was below the stone road
surface on the other side. Someone had tied a sturdy rope all the way across,
Koren tugged hard on the rope, it felt safe. Safe enough for him, carrying his
small pack, short sword, bow and arrows? He edged out onto the sagging bridge,
feeling for steady footing, holding tightly to the rope. Halfway to the other
side, he felt the bridge shift and sway under his weight. With his legs
shaking, he inched his way back toward the security of the stone arch. He could
gather up his pack, sword, bow and arrows, and make it across. Even if the
floor of the bridge gave way, he could hang onto the rope. There was no way for
Thunderbolt to get across; the wood bridge sagged so much there was a gap half
as high as Koren was tall at the far end. Surely not even Thunderbolt's legs
could jump that high.