Wind Rider (4 page)

She pulled something out of her bag. It was a
book. It took me a moment to realize it was not just a book, it was
the
book. The book Kara had stolen from the spice shop, starting off the chain of
events that had left me with strong magic, but also parents who couldn’t wake
up.

“Is that it? The book of Id?”

Kara hushed me with a finger to his lips. “There
is a map,” she said, then.

She opened the book, not letting me see the pages.
Slowly and carefully she turned them, then opened the book wide so we could all
see. There was a colorful map of the old city, and the forest around it. There
were the eight lines that ran out from the city; you could see the one we must
have stumbled upon. There was the circular gate at the end, and the label:
Eastern Transporter. There were markings all round the old city, of places I
had never heard of, but Kara was examining the map intently. “Here,” she said,
pointing to a small X on the map where it was marked Rangers Outpost. “This
stream, these hills, there is no mistaking it. This is where we live, we
Kriek
. Although why it is marked so, I have no idea.”

She found another spot. It was farther to the
north, and there was a mountain there. “Here, inside this mountain, is where
the dark lord lives.”

“And the glass castle?” I asked.

“Here,” she said, pointing. “On the far side of
the mountain.”

Woltan
nodded. “If the
map is right, we must continue east through these woods, and come to an old
stone road. We will have to cross a river. I wish we had a way to keep going
eastward. There was ancient magic to find one’s way, but we of the old city
have not traveled for hundreds of years.”

That was when Cullen spoke up. “I know little of
magic, but much of iron. My master was even more skilled. And he handed down to
me a little steel device called a compass. Perhaps it can be of use.”

He went through his bag, then pulled out a
disk-like object, with a needle inside it, that moved back and forth.

“How does it work?” I asked.

Cullen shook his head. “That, I know not. I know
only that the needle inside always points towards the far north.”

Karsten
laughed. “Talk
about a bag of tricks! I wonder what else you have in there, smith.”

Cullen smiled. “A number of treasures. But none
perhaps as valuable as this little round device — or as the sword on my side.”

I nodded. It was quite a blade, and it seemed
magical, though different from the pixie blades. I would have to ask Carolina
about it.

Kara closed the book and put it back in her bag.

We started walking east;
Woltan
held the compass, followed by me, Kara, the smith, Elias, and
Karsten
. The going was easier here — we were not exactly in
a clearing, but the forest was not nearly so dense. We could not walk a
straight line exactly, but at least we could see where we were going, and walk
around the fir trees. The needles felt good underneath my feet.

We walked on and on, dodging trees. There was no
sign of the enemy, no strange smells in the air, no strange feelings of malign
energy. There was just sunshine, and pine needles, and clean cold air.

Suddenly,
Karsten
whistled.

We turned around and backed up to where he stood.

“It was the mushrooms!” he said. “I saw some
mushrooms here, and when I dug them up, my feet hit stone, and I found this!”
He was pointing at a patch of three cobblestones, tightly fitted together. The
road. It was narrow, more of a footpath, covered with hundreds of years of
dirt, but you could see stones every few feet.

“We cultivate these mushrooms in the old city. The
are delicious and full of energy, raw or cooked.”

I looked around. The mushrooms seemed to like the
stone and soil combination. There were hundreds of them along the road.

Woltan
smiled, patted
Karsten
on the shoulder. “We won’t be lacking for food or
road now, and had we not taken you along,
Karsten
, we
would be lacking both.”

Karsten
smiled. “Tonight
we’ll have soup, if we find a spring. And if you save any for later.”

Elias and Cullen put down their bags and began
picking mushrooms and stuffing their mouths with them.
Karsten
,
laughing, followed suit. It was good to see
Karsten
laugh. I idly touched my hand to sword hilt, and the image of Carolina came to
mind.
Eat now, Anders, with the others. The road is not long, but it is
hard, and you may have to fight your way along it.

I dropped my hand from the sword and Carolina
faded from my view, smiling at me. I saw Kara looking at me.

“What counsel does your pixie give you?”

“To eat now, while we can, for the road is not
long, but difficult, and we may have to fight along it.”

Kara nodded, and bent down to pick up some
mushrooms. She handed two to me. “Good advice.” She bit into a mouthful, and
chewed, swallowed. “They taste like berries and nuts put together.”

I took the mushrooms and ate them. I bent down to
pick several more, then looked over at Kara and
Woltan
,
who were busy picking mushrooms. “Is this the road then, of which the map
speaks?”

Kara nodded. “It’s going the right way. And it’s
very old.” She pointed one way down the path. “This way leads Southeast to our
country, the land of the
Kriek
. That way leads
northwest around the dark lord’s mountain to the glass palace, and beyond, to
the ocean and the
merpeople
. I think you may have to
travel this path again soon.”

“Won’t I be able to make a portal?”

Kara shook here head. “Not with your uncle’s eyes
on you. And we can’t make a portal somewhere where there are no
Kriek
, and to a place we’ve never seen.”

Then we were walking Southeast, on the path,
picking mushrooms as we walked. The road was narrow, perhaps three or four feet
across, but at least there were no trees on it.

We came to the end of the mushrooms and began to
walk faster, still chewing on the mushrooms we had picked.

For some reason, maybe the walking, the fresh air
or the food, I felt better than I had in weeks. The air was still chilly but
the sun filtered through the trees surrounding the path, warming my neck and
arms.

It was another hour before we came to the river.

My legs had begun to feel sore, and when I looked
at the others they looked weary as well. The river was shallow, and the smell
of the water dried my throat. I had had nothing to drink since that morning.

Soon we all were sitting down except for
Karsten
, who gathered wood together to make a fire. Elias helped
him assemble twigs to start it with. Soon we had amassed a formidable pile. I
watched Kara knock two rocks together from her bag, and start the fire.
Karsten
took out a large metal pot from his bag, went and
filled it with some water from the river. He propped it on rocks that he had
arranged around the fire.

“The water is clear, but it’s safer to boil it.
We’ll make soup, with some rolls I brought with me. We can drink the water too,
once it cools.”

Then we all were throwing our leftover mushrooms into
the pot, and
Karsten
added a few spices from some
small pouches in his bag. The smell was sweet – my dry mouth started to water.

Woltan
stood for a
moment. “We rest here until we have eaten, and then cross this river and keep
moving. Kara and I will scout it out, but it appears neither deep nor
treacherous.”

Kara scowled. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

Woltan
shrugged. “It
would be easy with magic to divine the best path, but I would rather not. The
dark lord will be looking for us.”

No one spoke for a while then until Cullen pulled
out a small harmonica from his bag, and began to play, hesitantly, at first,
and then with more assurance.
Woltan
frowned – maybe
the noise worried him — but the others seemed to relax, and gradually I relaxed
too. Then we were drinking hot soup out of little tin cups, dunking rolls into
the soup. The rolls were good alone, but with the hot mushroom soup on and in
them, they felt particularly wholesome — I felt a warm feeling in my stomach
that moved out to my aching feet and legs.

Later I would remember that fire, remember the
smell of the burning wood, the taste of the hard rolls gone soft from the
fragrant soup. And the sound of the water roaring past, the cold air, the
humidity, and the sound of one lone harmonica before it too fell silent, so
Cullen the smith could take his fill.

Now though we were packing up —
Woltan
was already in the river, finding a path while Kara
shouted directions and watched him from the shore.

He crossed in less than two minutes, walking
slowly and carefully.

From the other side of the bank, he gestured us
on. It was strange to not communicate with
Woltan
by
magic, but I figured
Woltan
was trying to be extra
cautious.

Cullen went next, holding his forge and his other
supplies up high and dry. The water never went past his knees, so I figured he
might not have bothered.

Then he slipped. He overbalanced – he was going to
fall into the water, forge and all. But then he righted himself, and continued
walking, a little more cautiously. When he arrived at the other side of the
river, he waved us on as well.

Elias and
Karsten
crossed together — Elias slipped at the same point where the smith had; again I
was sure he was going under, and I gasped, but
Karsten’s
hand was out in a flash. Then
Karsten
was slipping
too, but they remained upright. A moment later they were walking again slowly,
holding onto each other. When they reached the other side I let out my breath,
and watched it appear in the cold air.

Kara squeezed my hand, and then she was moving
across the river, more swiftly than the others, holding her bag, with the
precious book, to her side. I watched her walk and tried to commit to memory
every step she took. She reached the other side, and waved me on.

I walked into the river. The water was cold, and
my feet and shins went numb; the cold water seeped through my leather shoes. I
kept my feet moving, balancing my bag on my shoulder, my sword trailing in the
water by my side. My eyes stayed on the water, trying to remember where Kara
had stepped, looking out for hidden dangers. There came a point where the water
deepened to the height of my knees, but I kept walking, following the same
course that Kara had, and then it grew shallow again. I came to the stone patch
where the others had slipped. My foot gave way, but I relaxed, and let myself
slide, without falling over. I moved forward slowly, as if skating on ice,
until the riverbed was softer and less slippery.

I looked up, smiling, expecting to see smiles all
around.

Kara’s face was filled with fear and horror.

I turned around.

Something surged out of the water.

Turning back to my friends I ran through the shin
deep water, glancing back behind me as I approached the shore.

But it was too late.

Two enormous jaws were opening and moving towards
me faster than I could run.

I fell face down in the water, got back up again,
sputtering, ran a few more feet. My hand went to my side and I grabbed for my
sword, but there was nothing. Nothing at all.

The blade had fallen into the river.

The great water lizard was just feet away from me.
I spoke a word of power, imagining my blade.
Komm
!

The blade surged forth from the water just a few
feet away from me. The hilt was in my hand and the scabbard flew away onto the
shore, just yards away.

Just in time.

The blade burned blue, blue fire that I swung down
onto the creature’s snout, cleaving off the top half of its jaw. Hot blood
spurted out into the cold water as the creature thrashed back and forth,
snapping what was left of its jaws at my feet. I danced around it, and swung
again, chopping its head clean off. The body thrashed about, and the head
snapped several times, as I backed up and onto the shore.

I sighed in relief.

Too soon.

The water seethed. There were more of the
creatures, and for a moment I thought they would surge into and out of the last
of the shallow water and attack me.

Instead they converged on the animal I had slain,
feeding on their own kin. The water frothed and then was still.

I felt
Woltan
at my arm
and looked at him as I continued backing up. Then Kara was there too, and she
handed me my scabbard. I cleaned the sword and sheathed it.

When we were a good hundred yards away from the
river, we stopped on what must have been the beginning of the rest of the road.
“Crocodiles,”
Woltan
said, then, breaking the
silence. “I have read of them in our library. It is far too cold here for them
to be here. I wonder if someone sent them.”

Kara shrugged. “Perhaps they have adapted
magically to our cold climate.”

But then she was staring down at my legs, and I
looked down as well.

There were little black wriggling shapes attached
to the bare parts of our legs. “Leeches,” Kara said. “Best to remove them
before they feed further.”

I reached down to pluck at them, but Kara shook
her head. “They’ll leave their teeth inside and infect you.”

Without thinking, my hand moved and I spoke a word
of power.
Geh
!

I looked down at my legs and the leeches had all
fallen to the ground, where they wriggled.