Protector Of The Grove (Book 2) (12 page)

“Alright,” she said, trying to wrap her mind around his explanation. “So since I told you about the magic, can I go back now?”

“Not quite yet. First I’d like you to tell me why you refused to admit what you had done,” he said.

“I don’t tell folks about my magic,” Tarah said. “First of all, I don’t really understand what it is or why it works. Until recently, I thought the ability came from my staff. I didn’t want anyone to think my success with tracking had to do with anything but pure skill. Then I lost my staff and I could still use the magic and . . . Wait just a blasted minute. Why am I telling you this? Are you making me tell you these things?”

He smiled a bit sheepishly. “Not intentionally. But since you are here in my mind, it’s probably difficult for you to resist my questions. The prophet told me I have a ‘forceful personality’. He thinks it’s why I was named.”

Tarah’s frown deepened. “I feel like that should make me really mad, but I’m having difficulty holding on to my anger.”

“I’m okay with that,” Tolivar said and quickly changed the subject. “Tell me, what did you see in Samson’s memories that made you so animated? Who is this Esmine?”

“She’s the reason we’re here,” said Tarah and her mind drifted to the moment Esmine had revealed herself to her. It all flashed through her mind again, Esmine’s milky white scales, her scarlet tail and mane, and her lizard-like head with the sharp protruding teeth and her solid red eyes. “She’s the rogue horse we’re trying to rescue.”

“She’s . . . frighteningly beautiful,” Tolivar said, his eyes focused on something just beyond Tarah’s shoulder.

“What?” Tarah said, and turned to follow his eyes. Esmine was standing behind her. Right between her and the long table. She looked exactly as Tarah remembered her.

“She appeared there just as you started to think of her,” Tolivar said, pulling Tarah with him as he stepped closer. He ran his right hand down Esmine’s flank. “Amazing. You shouldn’t have been able to do this. Not here in my mind. And with such detail! I can feel the individual scales on her hide.”

As he said that, Esmine turned on him and growled. Her body shifted, becoming translucent. He raised his hand towards her head and she lunged at him and engulfed his arm up to the elbow, her long sharp teeth latching onto him. She snarled and whipped her head around, trying to tear his arm free.

Tolivar didn’t move.

“Huh,” he said and Esmine stopped her attack. She opened her mouth and let him withdraw his arm, then nuzzled him. The named wizard scratched her behind her strange spiral ears and looked back at Tarah, one eyebrow raised. “And you said you couldn’t be angry with me.”

“I did that?” Tarah asked in surprise. She smiled, realizing the great deal of satisfaction she’d felt when Esmine had bitten him.

“You have a great deal of power. For someone untrained to make this representation in my mental space and then take control of it?” he shook his head and chuckled. “This is the kind of thing I did to Alfred during my training. It drove him crazy.”

Tarah reached out and touched the Esmine she had created. He was right. She felt real. It was just as she remembered. Tears began to flow down her cheeks.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Does this rogue horse mean so much to you?”

“She is ancient and beautiful and stayed free for so long.” A wave of remorse swept over her and there was anger in her voice. “I tracked her down. I distracted her. I got her to show herself. Then the dwarves showed up and knocked me down and-and-.” She swallowed. “Esmine protected me. I laid there helpless in the leaves and she protected me with her own blood. Yes, Tolivar, she means that much to me.”

Tolivar removed his right hand from Esmine’s head and the rogue horse popped out of existence. He then placed that hand on Tarah’s shoulder. “I’ve heard what I needed to hear. The question is, are you willing to tell the others?”

“About my magic?” she asked, her brow furrowing in concern.

“Yes. After all, what reason is there to keep it a secret now?”

“But if they know my tracking ability is based on magic . . .” Tarah’s thoughts faltered. Where was the reason?

“Then the magic is part of your skill that sets you apart,” he said. “Tarah Woodblade will be more sought after than ever. A tracker that can understand the thoughts of animals? Amazing.”

Tarah was confused. She had kept it to herself for so long. “But what about the Mage School? If they find out I have this magic, they will force me to come and train with them.”

“I don’t think so,” Tolivar said. “If this was elemental magic you were hiding, then yes. You’re right. They would. But they haven’t been treating people with spirit magic the same way. Look at me. They knew about my magic for three months and they didn’t even try to keep me there.”

“You were named,” Tarah replied. “It’s kind of hard for them to tell someone they have to call ‘Master’ that he can’t leave.”

“Who’s to say you wouldn’t be named if you went there? Then they’d be calling you ‘Mistress’.”

Tarah snorted. “Me? Named? It’d never happen.”

“Truly? How do you know? If you stood in front of the Bowl of Souls and dipped that weird staff of yours into the water, what would the bowl find? What kind of person are you, Tarah?” There was honest curiosity in his eyes.

Her mind instinctively brought up a litany of responses, most of them she had used before. Tarah Woodblade is the soul of the forest in human form. Tarah Woodblade is the nose of a wolf; the claws of an eagle; the rage of a bear . . . She returned his gaze with a confused one of her own.

“I have no idea.”

Tolivar nodded. “I know the feeling,” he said and let go of her wrist.

Tarah gasped as the heavy blanket of mental pressure was lifted from her mind. She found herself sitting back at the table. Their frozen moment was over and everyone’s eyes were on her once again. From the worried look on Djeri’s face, that frozen moment had been longer than a moment.

“How long were we like that?” she asked.

“You two was lookin’ into each other’s eyes fer near a whole damn minute,” Lenny said, leaning forward with one elbow on the table. He gave his handlebar mustache an amused twist. “If Bettie hadn’t told me otherwise, I’d’ve thought you was ‘bout to start smoochin’.”

“Shuddup, Lenui,” Bettie said.

Tarah’s eyes narrowed and she was hit with the sudden urge to leap over the table and punch Tolivar in the face.

“Are you alright, Tarah?” Djeri said.

“I’ve been worse,” she said though clenched teeth. How dare Tolivar snatch her mind away like that? It didn’t matter who he was. She struggled to keep her composure, reminding herself that their conversation had been for the best. She settled on giving the named wizard a fixed glare. “You never do that to me again. Not without my permission, understand?”

“You’re angry now?” Tolivar asked in surprise. “I thought we were past that.”

“That’s only because your brain was keeping me from getting mad,” she snapped.

“My brain? I told you I wasn’t doing that purposefully,” he replied.

“She’s right, Tolivar,” Samson said. “What you did was, at the very least, a breach of etiquette.”

Now everyone’s eyes were on Tolivar.

He scratched his head. “Then I apologize. Tarah, I am sorry. I thought you had done something to one of my bonded and I guess I left my manners behind.”

“Aww,” said Bettie as she patted the baby’s back. “I don’t think he’s ever talked about us like that before.”

“So, Woodblade, you finally gonna tell everybody what’s going on?” Helmet Jan asked. There was a string of red preserves dangling from her helmet by the corner of her mouth. Tarah debated whether or not to point it out. Shrugging, she turned away and addressed Samson.

“I have a kind of magic that helps me track things,” Tarah told him, aware that everyone would now know her secret. It was strange how easily the words came out. “When I touch the track of a creature, I get a glimpse of their thoughts.”

“So that explains it,” said Willum, looking relieved.

“Wow. Great power!” Benjo said with an approving grin.

“It was unintentional, but I saw parts of your past when I touched you,” she told the centaur. “The rogue horse we’re trying to save was captured by dwarf smugglers a couple days ago. I saw her in your memories. Her name is Esmine.”

Samson nodded thoughtfully. “Tolivar just sent me her image. Yes, I know of her, but you should understand, I was the last rogue horse made. The day I was born, the prophet destroyed my father Stardeon’s keep. We were scattered. Most of the other rogue horses were destroyed before I ever had the chance to meet them. I saw Esmine just one time and that was during the chaos as the keep fell.”

“Oh,” said Tarah, disappointed. She had been hoping that the centaur could tell her more. There was so little she really knew about Esmine.

“Stardeon told me of her though,” Samson said. He ran his hand through his hair. “It’s been so long. I had forgotten about her until I saw her image. Stardeon remembered each of the rogue horses he made and told me all about them. He talked of Esmine often. She was one of the last of us he created and he was quite proud. I think he would have used her for a template if the Prophet hadn’t stopped him. I can’t believe she survived all this time on her own.”

“So what makes this one so special?” Bettie wondered.

“Esmine was designed for stealth,” Samson replied. “Through his research, Stardeon had learned of a type of large desert lizard with color shifting scales that allowed it to blend into its surroundings so well it was practically invisible. It took his suppliers months to find some and then he had to slaughter fifteen of the creatures to get enough skin to cover her body.”

Samson noticed the looks of distaste around the room and cleared his throat. “Sorry, but that’s the way Stardeon made us. Some rogue horses required the deaths of dozens of different beasts to get all of the pieces he wanted. The end result with Esmine was that she could keep not only herself, but her rider invisible.”

“By the gods,” said Lem the Whip. The man had remained silent up to this point, but there was an eager gleam in his eye. “Can you imagine how valuable that would be for a scout? You could ride right between enemy lines, count their troops, and be gone without anyone seeing you.”

“A mount with those powers would be useful to anyone,” Swen said.

“We certainly don’t need a group of dwarf smugglers running around with a rogue with powers like that,” Willum said.

“They ain’t keepin’ it fer themselves,” said Lenny. His face was pale. “The friggin’ buzzards’ll be lookin’ to sell her.”

“They already have a buyer,” Tarah said. “When Blayne had them haul her off, I heard them say they were taking her to a gnome. They also made it sound like they didn’t expect her to live.”

“Dag-blast it!” swore Lenny, slamming his fist down on the table. “Those corn-chewin’, lily-livered, baby-sellin’, sons of kobalds! Woodblade’s right. They ain’t sellin’ her to some collector. Them no-good rat-riders are sellin’ her off for slaughter.”

“That don’t make sense, dwarf,” said Jan, her tone incredulous. “We are talking about a gnome they’re selling it to, right? Surely you don’t think a gnome would kill a creature so valuable. Especially after paying the kind of prices these smugglers would want. He probably just wants to study it.”

“It’s happened before,” the dwarf insisted, his eyes haunted. “I was there.”

Bettie placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Is this about Puppy?”

Lenny looked at Tarah. “You heard of the Abernathy Barrier?”

“I’ve read about it,” she said. Tarah loved to read and books about far off places were some of her favorites. The Abernathy Barrier was a dome of magic that covered Alberri’s capitol city Mallad, and the Gnome Homeland. It kept out rain water even during Alberri’s monsoon seasons.

“Well I seen it made,” said Lenny, his lip curled into a snarl. “I don’t usually talk ‘bout this, but when I was just a young pup I was with Blayne’s group fer a while. Durin’ that time, we delivered a rogue horse to a gnome buyer. Ended up it was Scholar Abernathy himself. That gnome bastard killed the rogue right in front of us. He slit his throat and used some kind of magic to bind the rogue’s soul to a scepter. That’s how the filthy dag-blamed barrier was made!”

“Unbelievable,” said Tolivar, disgusted. “The Abernathy Barrier is powered by the soul of a rogue horse . . .”

“The soul of a rogue horse I knew,” the dwarf said, shaking his head. “Poor Puppy.”

“Do you think this Scholar Abernathy is the one paying the smugglers?” Djeri asked, looking sick. “Is he trying to do it again?”

“Well, Abernathy’s dead,” said Lenny, spitting on the floor. “Died a few years back. I had myself a little party when I heard. But you ever met a scholar wasn’t tryin’ to one up his peers?” He shook his head. “No, ma’am. That’s ‘xactly what’s gonna happen to yer rogue if we let ‘em get it to Alberri. I’d bet my dag-gum forge on it.”

Tarah felt a panic rising within her chest. “We can’t let that happen.”

“What are we up against?” Tolivar asked and Tarah was happy to hear him say the word ‘we’.

Djeri shifted in his seat. “As far as we know, it’s Blayne Cragstalker’s band mixed with the few survivors from Donjon’s group.”

“So what you’re saying is we’re going to be facing a lot of dwarves,” Willum said cautiously. “How many are there?”

“We don’t have an exact number yet,” Djeri said, hesitantly. “The band we were with was decimated. We’re pretty sure there are only three dwarf survivors, plus Shade. Blayne’s group is where we’re lacking information.”

“I only saw six of them when Esmine was taken,” Tarah said.

Lenny shook his head. “Blayne never travels with a group that small. There’s at least a score of them road-apple snatchers.” 

“So no more than twenty five or so altogether,” said Helmet Jan with a snort. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

“The hell you say?” Lenny scoffed. “This ain’t dag-gum farmer folk yer up against. Ain’t even dwarf soldiers. They’re dwarf smugglers, which makes ‘em way blasted worse.”

“He’s right,” Tarah said. “They have these paralyzing rods that can freeze us in place. And almost every one of them has a magic weapon of some kind.”

“Paralyzin’ rods I might can help you with,” Lenny said thoughtfully. He kept glancing at Bettie as he spoke as if waiting for her to interject. She looked down at Nala’s baby in her arms, pretending not to notice. “The magic weapons can be tough, but the hardest part’s gonna be their blasted know-how. Each one of them dag-blamed dwarfs in Blayne’s band’s got ‘least fifty years experience transportin’ critters and evadin’ the law. Some of ‘em got centuries. We’ll be lucky if we can even find ‘em.”

“That’s why you’re lucky to have Tarah Woodblade,” Tarah said with confidence. “They can’t hide from me. Not with my magic.”

“Don’t be so sure of yerself, Woodblade. Blayne’s the best dwarf smuggler in the gall-durn world, ‘cept maybe Maggie herself,” Lenny replied. “He might not even leave a track fer you to use yer magic on. Naw, the only way to take his whole band would be if you had a dag-gum army. Our best bet is to come in with a smaller group and steal yer rogue back. Hell, if we’cn just set her loose, he’ll probly never find her again.”

He chuckled. “Now I know some of his tricks, but even with my help it’ll be hard-.”

“Yer not goin’ Lenui,” said Bettie sweetly. She still wasn’t looking at Lenny, just smiling at the baby.

Lenny’s face fell as if he knew this was coming. “What’re you talkin’ ‘bout, woman? ‘Course I’m goin’!”

“No you ain’t,” Bettie said, the smile still stuck on her face. She didn’t even raise her voice. “You got too many responsibilities to go runnin’ off on some mission.”

“This ain’t just any mission!” Lenny bellowed. “This is about a dag-burned rogue horse bein’ kilt! I can’t let it happen again. Not if I can stop it!”

The baby was startled by his loud voice and Bettie stood, rocking it back and forth. When she spoke, her tone was as syrupy sweet as if she were talking to the infant. “You’re still not going. You ain’t got time to go gallivanting off to Alberri. No you don’t. You got a wedding to attend and a new post on the Academy Council to take and you gotta be a daddy to your new son. Sounds to me like a full docket, Lenui.”

“You ain’t gonna stop me, Bettie.” Lenny said, though his tone wasn’t quite as loud as before.

“Surely we won’t be gone that long,” Tarah said, trying to be helpful.

“Stay out of it, girl!” said Bettie with a snarl, then smiled back down at the baby before it could start crying again, “If Lenui wants to force the friggin’ issue, I’ll just have to pack up our son and go along with him now won’t I? Oh yes I will.”

“You won’t!” Lenny shouted. “You can’t bring our baby on a mission like this!”

“You think your gonna stop me?” she asked, fixing him with a glare.

“Con-found it! Dag-blasted woman!” Lenny grimaced. Then he stood, knocking his chair over, and stomped his feet. His fists clenched and his face red, he said, “Sorry, boys. I ain’t goin’.”

“But uncle-!” Djeri said.

“I doubt Tolivar’s goin’ either,” Bettie added.

The door to the kitchen swung open and Miss Becca strode in with a frown, broomstick in hand as if ready to hand out sweeping duty. When she saw that the fighting had simmered down, her scowl faded to a frown and she let the door swing back shut as she surveyed the scene.

“Wait,” Tarah said, looking at Tolivar. “How can you not be coming to help us?”

“I intend to,” Tolivar replied.

“Really?” said Bettie, raising an eyebrow. “How’re you gonna go sneaking up on smugglers when your nightmares still wake you up screaming every night?”

“This is not a place for that discussion,” he said, his cheeks reddening. “But those dreams will happen whether I’m here or on the road, Bettie.”

“Uh huh. You’ll head out with these folks even though you can’t be within ten feet of your old sword without breaking out in a sweat?”

“If the sword’s a problem we can leave Dinnis behind,” Tarah suggested. This whole mission seemed to be falling apart before her eyes.

“Hey,” Dinnis complained.

Tarah shrugged. “No offense, kid, but I’d rather have Tamboor the Fearless any day.”

Tolivar winced at the sound of his old name and when he spoke again his tone was uncertain. “I need to go, Bettie. I can’t let a rogue horse be led to slaughter.”

Bettie didn’t let up. “What about Samson, then? Ain’t he a rogue horse? What happens if your mission fails? One zap with their freeze spells and they got themselves two rogues for the price of one. That sound smart to you?”

“Come on, Bettie,” Samson said. “That’s not fair. I can take care of myself. Besides, this is Tolivar we’re talking about. He won’t let anything happen to me.”