Fireclaws - Search for the Golden (8 page)

“I agree with Marjoree,” the other water caster chimed in. Balding and stoop-shouldered, he too looked more like a lifelong farmer than a wizard. “It’s insane.”

“No, it’s insane to stay here and either get our throats cut, or worse,” Marson growled firmly. “We have no choice; we won’t get a second chance.” With a sigh and a helpless shrug, the other two wizards acquiesced and Marson added, “If this woman was resourceful enough to break in here, I have to believe she is resourceful enough to break us out.”

While all this discussion was going on, I noticed Ryliss had moved back to the dead guard and stripped him of his leather belt, sliding a boot knife out of its sheath. She deftly split the strap lengthwise and joined the ends to make a large leather ring. Stalking quickly back to me, she looped it under my arms and tied it off firmly, leaving a pigtail of leather in the back.

“Do I even want to ask?” I said, looking at her handiwork askance.

“No.” The creature that appeared to be an old woman chuckled in a young woman’s playful voice. “Just remember what I told you and don’t panic no matter what you hear or see.” Motioning us all to the door, she whispered, “I’ll go out first with my water bucket. If it’s all clear, l will open the door. When I do, move decisively. Good luck!”

She paused and then slid out the door noiselessly. A moment later, it reopened and a hand frantically waved us out. The other wizards exited left along the building and I followed. Ryliss just stood there pretending to dither around with her water bucket and ladle, but I could see she was scanning everywhere for trouble. As luck would have it of course, trouble was exactly what she found.

Two laughing male guards in light leather armor rounded the corner of another low building, not thirty feet away. I’m not sure who was surprised more, them or me, but to their credit they shook it off quickly. Shouting out a hue and cry that I’m sure could be heard throughout the compound, they drew their long swords and raced to the attack. Cautiously, I backed away down the alley, and the two of them charged right past Ryliss who seemed to be crouched fearfully next to her water bucket. They were almost in my face, so close I could see their yellow teeth and lips peeled back in savage grins as they raised their swords to strike me down. I didn’t even have a decent spell handy that I could get off in time.

Suddenly something large and wooden collided sharply with the skull of the one on the left. Then it swung past, looped elegantly and accelerated into a vicious uppercut that snapped back the chin of the other. It broke apart in the process, sending shards of oak bucket and water droplets spraying high into the air. Both guards dropped to the ground as if pole-axed, revealing a grinning old woman standing behind them with just a scrap of rope in her hand.

Before I could say anything, more shouting bravos arrived at the mouth of the alley. Ryliss tossed the remains of her bucket aside and lithely snatched up the swords of the fallen guardsmen, tossing one to me grip first.

“You know how to use one of these?” she growled an almost catlike sound. I nodded as we retreated a little farther down the alley and turned to face three more guards who were cautiously stepping over the bodies of their comrades and entering the fray. Our swords clashed with a scream of metal.

The first thing I noticed was that Ryliss knew her way around a sword. While I’m not an expert, I did force myself to train with the regulars in the army for several years, reasoning that one couldn’t depend on magic to pull you out of every scrape. I count myself a decent swordsman, but of the three opponents that crowded down the alleyway trying to skewer us, she easily left two of them clutching their guts in the dirt at our feet, while I was still struggling to fend off and dispatch one. Seeing his two companions taken down so quickly, my guy panicked at the thought of having to face us both and overreached. His eyes glazing over as my blade slid past his breastplate’s opening for his armpit, dividing his heart. Backing down the alley further, we faced more brigands joining the attack, this time with shields and axes.

“Time for you and your friends to leave, Master Bard!” Ryliss’ voice rang out above the din of battle.

“I can’t leave you...you’ll be overwhelmed!” I shouted back.

“Follow the plan! Put aside your silly wind wizard arrogance and follow orders, soldier, I mean it!” she barked and shoved me behind her with her free hand. Ok, that last remark stung a bit! Throwing my sword angrily at the oncoming horde, I turned and ran down the alley to where the other three wizards stood bunched up nervously. Marson and I cast our spells with the other two hanging on for dear life. A small puff of air and our feet left the ground. One foot high, two, then ten and finally, we were rising straight up above the single story rooftops that made up most of the buildings in the outer courtyard.

The place was a stirred up anthill alright! Guards were converging on the sounds of battle from all over the castle. The only good I could see from all this was that the loud clash of swords drew footmen into the fray and not archers. I strained to see what was happening with Ryliss, but there were intervening rooftops blocking my view. The sounds of steel on steel convinced me that she fought on. By now, we were forty or fifty feet in the air, well above the outer curtain wall and the wall sentries were taking notice. From our vantage point, we had a bird’s eye view of most of what was going on below us, but I still couldn’t see Ryliss.

“Looks like the sentries are sending for more crossbows,” Marson said shakily, and the two water wizards just moaned in dread fear.

Looking down, I was still concentrating on the sounds of battle, but suddenly the swordplay went silent, and an angry roar rose up from the guardsmen below. That’s when I spotted Ryliss sprinting across the rooftops, a boiling, frenzied, sword-waving crowd of warriors chasing behind her at ground level.

Normally this would be almost comical given that the rough, tough bravos were chasing what appeared to be an elderly woman who was making them all look silly by running them around in circles. A few of them attempted to climb on the shoulders of their comrades and hack at her feet as she passed, but she skipped over them like a child in a daisy field and continued her dangerous dance. Finally, I saw her stop, drop elegantly into a formal bow, arms extended like a stage performer, and contemptuously toss her sword sideways into the crowd. Then she raced ahead, dropping out of sight behind a building at the back of the compound, pursuers swarming after her like ants from a stirred up nest.

The grin on my face was wiped away rudely as I felt a harsh tug at my arm. I looked down to see my sleeve had just been shredded by a crossbow bolt that had ripped its way past and continued off into the night air. Damn that was close!

Two more bolts whistled past our heads. We were probably a hundred feet or more up in the air now, dangling like a ripe piece of fruit above the fray. We would be well within deadly crossbow range even once we reached the spell’s maximum altitude. Below us, several dozen grinning crossbowmen had assembled in the courtyard and were preparing to use us for target practice.

“Kerrik, it has been an honor knowing you,” Marson rasped. Marjoree started to weep softly with the other farmer, who I now assumed to be her husband, trying to comfort her.

The sounds of cocking weapons of war were interrupted by an inhuman screech that ripped through the air. I spotted several wall sentries, who were the closest foes to us, point and stare in disbelief. I couldn’t see what they were so animated about, as I was facing away and had no way to swivel my point of view. Suddenly, I was buffeted by blasts of air and felt the belt cinched under my arms jerk sharply and tighten. Below us, the ground seemed to blur and we were moving in great haste. All of the crossbowmen in the courtyard who had been taking their time readying our execution, now started loading frantically. In seconds, we were swept out over the main curtain wall, blocking all shots from the courtyard. The wall guards, however, slapped their weapons onto the battlements and took careful aim.

I felt a sudden searing pain in my thigh, which told me that one of the heavy bolts had found its mark; luckily a flight of half a dozen more narrowly missed the four of us. The pain was excruciating, and I struggled to maintain the concentration I needed to keep us aloft. A hurried glance down told me we were moving very fast now, at least as fast as the fly spell would have moved me alone. Clenching my jaw, with the leather belt still painfully taut against my chest, I looked up and saw huge eagle feathers rhythmically sweeping the starry sky above me. Neata, our brightest moon, was rising in her full glory and it allowed me to pick up on the blue and while coloring above me.

“A Fenorian eagle?” I said in wonder, even as my identifying vision began to dance and swim a little. The pain in my thigh seemed to be lessening, but I felt strange.

Marjoree shifted her grip on me. She had been concentrating on the ground far below us for several minutes, and now announced, “We’re out over the forest now, I doubt they’ll follow us in the dark, but tomorrow you can be sure they will be on our trail. If we can get to our farm, we can get clothes and provisions and flee from this awful place, but…”

“I know,” I grimaced, “we’re just passengers right now. Where is your farm?”

She held out an arm and pointed. “See that river? If we follow it for three miles or so, it will take us right to it…I don’t suppose the eagle…” As if by command, our course changed and in a matter of moments, we were cruising high above the river.

Sweat was running profusely down my forehead and nausea was a real possibility, but it wasn’t from the joyride or the exertion of maintaining the spell. “The observation spell is starting to weaken!” Marson shouted warily, and I could perceptively feel the slow eroding loss of altitude. We were coming down, and as if in reaction to our words, the large bird beat its wings faster, giving us a small amount of lift and greater speed for a short while.

“There it is,” Marjoree whispered excitedly. “I never thought to see it again!” We were sinking a lot faster now, and my vision was starting to tunnel. At thirty feet above the trees, we finally cleared the last of the forest and swooped ever closer down toward level farmland. I distantly felt the belt harness go slack, and our forward momentum slowed to next to nothing. We just hung there slowly descending to earth like a downy feather.

Oddly, I just felt numb as my feet hit the ground, and it really didn’t register that my legs crumpled under me as I slid limply to the earth. My eyes closed and my heart hammered ineffectively in my chest. I think I blanked out for few seconds, but I eventually roused enough to hear the discussion going on around me as if from a distance above.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Marjoree whispered fearfully, apparently examining me in detail. “He’ll die if we don’t get that quarrel out of his leg, but I’m pretty sure he’ll bleed out even faster if we pull it out. Looks like it nicked a big artery.”

“Well, we can’t take him with us in this condition, that’s for sure,” the other water wizard huffed as if daring the others to disagree with him. “He’s unconscious, best to just let him drift off and never wake up…that’s the kindest way to go.”

Huh! I struggled to move, but an extreme debilitating weariness settled over my body, and I knew I was done for.

“It’s a damn shame, that’s what it is,” Marson added sadly. “He survived years of war, and then to die like this with a brigand’s arrow in his leg…well it doesn’t seem fair! But you’re right; it might be a kindness to just let him go.”

The three of them whispered some heartfelt thanks for my part in rescuing them, and then they were gone. I considered it for a few seconds and couldn’t even muster up any anger at them. I had faced similar instances with comrades’ deaths on the battlefield, with the same detached impassionate logic. It was just another survival mechanism that soldiers employed, plain and simple.

I was cold and exhausted. I was actually looking forward to drifting off to sleep when my ears detected rapid light steps approaching and a short cry of dismay, as someone knelt by my side and placed cool fingertips on my throat. So tired…I heard a voice, a low melodious voice begging me to hold onto…something? She sounded nice and I wanted to please her by doing what she asked, but sleep was becoming too insistent. Just before I dozed off, I felt bare hands explore my chest, and I remember they felt warm.

The wizard Verledn sat uneasily at an inlaid gold filigree table in his personal tower of his new keep. The table didn’t match any of the other sparse furnishings, which did not match each other either, the drawbacks of pillaging as a redecorating source. Verledn tapped irritably at a hardboiled egg and scowled at the two men standing in front of him.

One was a fighting man, a type that Verledn had never been particularly comfortable around. Outfitted in studded leather armor with metal plates sewn on in strategic places, Marl Fremvoller was one of the few mercenaries in the wizard’s employ who actually had military experience. As a result, he had become Verledn’s de facto general. The twin long swords that crossed his back were well used and deadly sharp. At the moment, he was standing patiently a few feet back from the table.

The other man standing next to him was middle-aged but still fit enough to look dangerous. Dressed in red leathers and a garish cape, the acrid smell the fire wizard put off was nearly enough to kill Verledn’s appetite altogether.

“What is so important that you must spoil my breakfast, Marl?”

The mercenary saluted. “Your pardon, Lord Wizard, breakfast? It is barely past the midnight watch call.”

Verledn answered, pushing his food away, “Wizards do not keep the hours of mere mortals. Besides, who could sleep with that insufferable racket going on outside? What happened this time?”

“My Lord Wizard, there was another escape. You commanded me to inform you when anything odd occurred within the castle or the outer grounds.” The wizard grumpily waved his hand in a hurry up motion. “Four of the recent captures escaped with the help of some sort of spy or assassin.”

The cloaked fire wizard standing next to Marl reached into his pocket and withdrew the bag holding the large onyx stone, removing it, he stroked it like a favored pet.

“Go on!”

Marl stood a bit stiffer at attention. “Someone disguised as an old woman entered the jail cell where we soften up the new wizard prisoners. He or she killed the guard and freed the four. One or more of them must have been a wind wizard, as they cast a spell which caused all four of them to rise straight up into the air above the height of our walls. While all this was happening, the assassin fought a delaying action against my men on the ground.”

“Straight up?...Mere rudimentary levitation,” Verledn snorted dismissively, and again started to attack his breakfast. “Your crossbowmen should have been able to remedy the situation with a few well-placed quarrels, yet you say they escaped?”

“Yes sir, a trained eagle or a familiar of some kind latched onto the four and towed them away. The last we saw of them they were moving fast out over the forest. One of the wall guards swears he skewered one of them in the leg as they escaped.”

The wizard shook his head in exasperation. “How am I to build an empire with incompetent help like this?” he complained to no one in particular. “Well, at least tell me that you killed the old woman or assassin, or whatever it was. Or did he get picked up by an eagle as well?”

Marl grimaced. “No, My Lord, the old lady disappeared somewhere behind the stables, but not before she killed an even dozen of my guards. We searched the compound the entire rest of the night with torches and lanterns, but found no trace.”

“Why send an assassin with obviously superior skill sets to free a quartet of hedge wizards?” the fire wizard growled, still stroking the crystal.

“Finally, an intelligent question,” Verledn barked. “If hedge wizards they were; I am mindful of the escape of our little seer. In my opinion, a wind wizard would have been a prime candidate for helping her escape, silent and leaving no trace through the air. The wench was in no condition to just get up out of bed and walk away. It may well be that the net we cast caught us her accomplice, and whatever group or individual hiding her is responsible for this evening’s fiasco. Retrieve these escapees and one of them may be able to lead us to the seer, and make no mistake gentlemen, I tire of your excuses for not finding the blind girl. Find her, or face her fate as well.”

“But, My Lord, they escaped into the air! We have no way of tracking them!” Marl protested.

Verledn glared at his general and then nodded at the fire wizard with a sigh. “What will it cost me for a solution to this problem, Lebahn?”

The fire wizard, Lebahn, lifted the onyx crystal to his ear as if listening. Then he cackled and grinned broadly. “My mistress says for a mere fifty she will provide you with a magnificent stone gargoyle of average intelligence, more than sufficient to track down and capture any prey you should desire.”

“Fifty! Ridiculous!” Verledn spat. “Besides, we can’t just have a bat-winged twenty-foot behemoth of a demon flying every which way over the countryside. People would notice, and that notice might make its way somehow to Sky Raven. No, I needed something low key and much, much cheaper!”

Lebahn again put his ear to the crystal and grinned. “Fine, My Lord Wizard, something very low for ten then?”

“Agreed, but I want that seer. And mind you, Lebahn, don’t be taking the souls of any of my earth wizards, I still need them for construction. You can have the low-grade healers and rainmakers; they’re practically worthless to me anyway.”

“Done!” Lebahn exploded in hysterical laughter as he used the crystal to project a portal on the far wall.

The curdled blood color of the ring repulsed Marl nearly as much as the stench emanating from the other side, as he stepped back unconsciously. Suddenly, movement low to the ground caught his eye as a river of molten-eyed horrors flowed over the threshold. Short of leg but long of body, black terrifying teeth snapping together like steel traps, they came. Ears flopping, steel claws drawing sparks on the stone floor, and tails wagging with unseen menace…

“What the…” Verledn snarled.

“Hellhounds, My Lord…specifically dachshund hellhounds since you requested that ‘low key’ effect. These are as low as they make them.” Lebahn smirked, still petting the black as night crystal.