Zoran Chronicles Volume 1 A Dragon in Our Town (11 page)

            
Fifteen minutes later, the very excited group gathered around Archmage Nadia in
their dining room. All wore their leather outfits, packing all of their weapons along with
a change of clothes. Eagerly, they watched her every motion as she cast a very complex
spell. Zoran had not heard of Mystical Door before and naturally had a professional
curiosity about it. Unfortunately, he got no clues from its casting. One by one, each
stepped through the door only to find themselves stepping out before a wooden mine
shack and at a much higher elevation.

            
Several guards, both heavily armored and holding many weapons, stood guard
around an open wagon. A burly man stood nearby, waving each arrival towards him as
he or she suddenly stepped out into an unfamiliar place. That they were high in the
mountains was obvious immediately. Zoran noticed that the air was both thinner and
less humid. A brief round of introductions followed.

            
The owner, the burly man, explained, “I’ve a good horse for each of you. Milan is
the driver and Tomas goes along as his guard. They are carrying a week’s worth of food
for all of you and some water, but there are many streams along the way. Thanks for
protecting this shipment. I must say that this has been our best year ever. Go with God.”

            
Milan and Tomas came out of the nearby stables leading a pair of horses each.
Two other men led three more. The wagon had two large draft horses pulling it. The two
handed the reins to Zoran, Zdenka, Jarka, and Karel; then headed for their wagon. The
other hands brought the remaining three up to Bernard and the twins.

            
As they drew close to the three, suddenly the horses began neighing wildly and
rearing up, refusing to move any closer. No matter how the men pulled, the horses only
grew more upset. Bernard called out, “Hey. Hold on; don’t force them. Back off.” He
walked up to the frightened animals and began petting them and talking soothingly to
them, one at a time. Quickly, the three calmed down under his expert handling.

            
“Let me,” he said and took the reins of one horse. Still talking soothingly to it, he
slowly led it up to Emil and gave him the reins. The horse was very nervous but didn’t
act up. Bernard repeated the action with the next horse, finally giving the reins to
Renata. Then, he fetched the last one for himself. “Okay, Emil, Renata, mount up. They
should be okay now. I don’t know what got into them. Something sure spooked them.”

            
“Er, Bernard,” Emil whispered, “we don’t know how to ride. How do we do it?
We’ve never been on a horse or seen anyone riding.”

            
“Zoran, little help here?” Bernard called out. Zoran rode up to them, fighting to
keep his horse from acting up as well, as it drew closer to the three. Quickly and softly,
Bernard explained the problem to Zoran.

            
“Everyone, get going; we will catch up to you in a couple minutes. We are going to
walk them a bit to get the horses over their skittishness,” Zoran called out. At once Milan
obeyed. After giving the four a strange look, the rest of his team moved out, Karel taking
up the point position with Zdenka and Jarka on either side of the wagon. He heard the
three chatting about what was going on.

            
“Okay, let’s follow on foot. Lead them like we are,” he explained to the two very
nervous twins. Once out of sight of the mining camp, he explained, “It’s okay that you
don’t know how to ride. I am having us walk for two reasons. One, it will give Bernard
and I some time to teach you to ride — well the basics anyway. Two, I didn’t want to
embarrass you further back there, what with all the men watching you.”

            
“Thanks, Zoran. I really appreciate it. We’ve never ridden a horse before,” Renata
explained.

            
“Think nothing of it,” Bernard added. “Probably half of the folks living in Brn
have never been on a horse either.” Zoran noticed that this really seemed to bring a
measure of relief to both of them. Now he began a crash course on riding horses. Ten
minutes later, the four caught up to the others, though both Emil and Renata looked
petrified sitting in their saddles.

            
“Hi all, they’ve never ridden before,” Zoran explained to the others. The others
took it in stride, though once more Jarka gave them a queer look.

            
The day passed mostly uneventful, save one minor situation. In the early
afternoon, a swarm of paleowasps crossed their path. Before anyone could react, Emil
handled them by shooting off a Ball of Fire, incinerating the lot. He was teased for
reacting with total overkill, however, but Emil took it in stride, a smile on his face.

            
Around five, they began looking for a place to camp. Tomas, who had traveled
this route many times, knew just the spot, only a short way off the road. They pulled in
to a small half-moon shaped glen where three pine trees struggled for life amid the high
altitude granite mountain side. Nearby a small stream bubbled its way on down the
mountain.

            
As they pulled into the glen, Zoran’s inner sense kicked in, signaling danger to
him. “Someone’s watching us,” he called out. “Stay alert.”

            
“How do you know?” Zdenka asked him.

            
“Just do,” he didn’t directly answer her. He wanted to say because I am Duska,
but dare not. The group made camp; the twins were more than glad to scour for
firewood, leaving Bernard and Karel to deal with the horses, eventually tethering them
between the trees.

            
Milan asked, “Say, one of you ladies wanna do the cookin? Otherwise, yea’ll have
to eat my miserable attempt.”

            
“Oh brother, okay, okay, move over. I’ll do it, only you get to wash the dishes,”
Zdenka resigned herself to the task. No way was she going to eat lousily cooked meals
for five days!

            
Since no further danger seemed apparent, Zoran chatted with her while she began
cooking their supper. “I do it every day for dad and myself,” she explained.

            
“Smells good. I’m famished,” he chatted away. Still, his inner sense continued to
gnaw in the back of his awareness. Something was out there and watching them, but
what?

            
A while later, the group dined on the best trail cooking that Milan and Tomas had
ever had. Milan didn’t grumble at all, when afterwards, he had to wash the many pots,
pans, and dishes. As darkness fell, the two put their bedrolls beneath the wagon and hit
the sack, leaving the rest to guard them.

            
Zoran gathered the six to him. “Okay, I am sure that it’s still out there, probably
watching us. I get the sense that it’s alone, so probably not a megalowolf pack or bandits.
Archmage Nadia said not to worry about Yellers, so my money is on a banshee. Let’s
have two of us on watch each shift. Zdenka and I will take the first shift of three hours.
Then Bernard, you and Jarka relieve us. Then Karel, you and I will take the dawn shift.”
While Zdenka protested that he would get short changed on sleep, he shrugged it off. If a
banshee was out there, he wanted a double watch.

            
While the others slept, he and Zdenka sat around the small cooing fire,
periodically stoking it. They killed the time by chatting a bit about their lives, though he
found it difficult to relate many things that he wished he could share with her,
concentrating on some of the funnier episodes that he and his two buddies had gotten
into before he had fled. At last, they roused Jarka and Bernard and turned in
themselves. Zoran fell asleep at once.

            
Around one in the morning, his inner sense sounded an alarm in his head, almost
as if someone were screaming him awake. He sat up; it was screaming! Jarka had
thrown more logs on the fire and cast a Light spell, illuminating the whole small glen.
Bernard dashed around the campsite looking for the banshee, while holding his ears.

            
The others got up rapidly as well. Then, Zoran saw her; the banshee was sliding
down the slope to their camp. Ghost-like, wearing a gauze of a nightgown, hands more
like claws, and fangs, long pearly white fangs, she seemed to float towards them,
shrieking her piercing, paralyzing call. With great effort, Zoran forced his nearly
immobile muscles to draw his swords. Zdenka’s arrow flew true to its mark, piercing the
banshee right between her eyes. To everyone’s utter amazement, the arrow went on
through the banshee as if she were indeed a ghost!

            
Jarka, seeing that everyone was moving in slow motion as a result of the
banshee’s call, acted. She cast a Scream spell on herself, then a Magnify spell. Now she
began singing and yelling, “La di da di do di da!” Her greatly amplified voice drowned
out that of the banshee. Zoran felt his strength returning and rushed the banshee, slicing
her twice with his short sword pair. Both blades cut through thin air. She in turn tried to
grab him with her talon claws. His intuitive combat training kicked in, and he dove to
the ground on her right, hit, and rolled out of her reach.

            
At that moment, Bernard and Karel both shot Lightning Bolts at the creature; it
staggered and shrieked in great pain. Recognizing this was working, Renata, Emil, and
Zdenka shot their Lightning Bolts nearly simultaneously. The banshee’s ethereal form
shook violently in many directions and slumped to the ground, lifeless. A moment later,
a giant puff of smoke rose from where its body had lain. Ashes were all that remained of
the banshee.

            
Jarka cancelled her spells. “Well done all of you! Wow. So that was a banshee.
Great going gang.”

            
“Fabulous idea, Jarka, you more or less canceled her paralyzation cry,” Zoran
praised them. His inner sense was now totally quiet. “I think she was what I was sensing
when we stopped here, so we are probably safe, but let’s continue the guard duty.”
However, none could relax, for they were way too keyed up over the battle.

            
As they chatted, Zoran realized his mistake. “Sorry gang, I reacted with my
swords, which I always used to do, instead of using magic. You all were great, saving my
butt.”

            
“Well I did too,” Zdenka added. “Until now I never met something my arrows
couldn’t handle. I ought to have remembered and shot my spells.”

            
“Hey, don’t knock yourselves,” Bernard interrupted, though becoming a bit bored
once more as the excitement died down. “You reacted the way that you were trained. It
takes time to undo training patterns in dogs. I suppose it is the same with us.”

            
An hour after first light and breakfast handled, the group began rolling on down
the mountain road once more. In the distance, the dark green color of the Dark Forest
loomed. They would reach it by noon. Here, Zoran expected to confront the bandits, who
would use the cover of the dense woods to their advantage.

            
As they entered the Dark Forest, Zoran and Zdenka took the point position, some
hundred feet in front of the lumbering wagon. He had Jarka hang back a hundred feet to
their rear just in case bandits made a rear assault.

            
Around three in the afternoon, Zoran’s inner sense tingled once again. “Stay alert,
something is up!” he called out. The seven’s eyes constantly studied the dense trees near
the road, but a bandit could well be within ten feet of them and they wouldn’t be able to
see him. Many trees were two feet across and quite densely packed, giving the woods its
name. Slowly the wagon rolled along the rutted road.

            
Not long after this, around a bend, Zoran and Zdenka reined in; ahead a large tree
had fallen, blocking the road. “Trap. Stay alert,” he called out. His inner sense told him
that many individuals were lying in wait. As they drew closer, it was clear that the tree
had recently been felled and was going to be difficult to move out of the way. Two feet in
diameter, the tree totally blocked the road and would need the draft horses to move!

            
“They are in the trees; I caught a glimpse of one,” Zdenka whispered urgently.
“What do we do now?” She struggled to get her bow out, but Zoran could see that it
would be nearly impossible to use while mounted. He had to make a decision
immediately, before these raiders did it for him. If the enemy were on foot and if his
forces were trained to fight from horseback, the ideal scene would be to remain
mounted. If the enemy were on horseback and cavalry, they stood a better chance if they
too remained on horseback. Then again, Emil and Renata could barely stay on their
horses. No telling what would happen to them if their horses spooked or they were
attacked.