By evening the forest had thinned, once again opening to rangeland on the western side of the road while the east remained blanketed with trees. Just before dark, they came upon a dead horse left in the road where it fell.
Abigail shook her head sadly. “Poor thing.”
“Seems like Peti’s in a hurry.”
“Yeah … good thing for us she has no idea how to get the most out of a horse. If she took care of her animals, they’d carry her a lot farther.”
Magda nodded, gently patting her steed on the neck. Abigail handed over her reins and dismounted, kneeling next to the dead horse.
“He’s still a little warm. If they’re doubled up on an exhausted horse, they’ll be on foot before long.”
Magda nodded, muttering the words of a spell under her breath. Three softly glowing orbs of light materialized overhead, circling in a lazy orbit.
“We should press on for a few hours,” she said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and catch up.”
They rode into the night, well past dark until they came upon a second dead horse.
“Let’s bed down a few hundred feet up the road,” Abigail said. “We’ll have a better chance of tracking them in the light, and our animals are tired.”
“I know how they feel,” Magda said. “For what it’s worth, we’ve narrowed their lead. They’re less than half a league ahead, and I think they’ve stopped for the night as well.”
The next morning brought an overcast sky and fits of gentle rain. They set out just before dawn, eating jerky and dried fruit for breakfast. Had they been relying on footprints, they would have been traveling blind, but Magda’s tracking spell guided them nearly due south. Abigail was all but certain that Peti was headed for Sochi, the port city on the southern tip of Fellenden. From there it would be a simple matter for her to charm the captain and crew of any ship she liked. After that, catching up with them would become much more complicated.
They made good time through the morning in spite of the weather. By midday they were wet and cold from the intermittent rain. They stopped to rest their horses and eat a hasty lunch atop a hill overlooking a broad valley. It was an idyllic setting. A stream ran out of the foothills, winding through verdant fields crosshatched with farm plots. In the distance, a small castle perched on a bluff overlooked the road below, which was bounded on the opposite side by the stream. It was a natural choke point-the only way around was to ford the stream and cut through the farmland blanketing the flood plain on the other side. The road forked before the bluff, the new road winding up a series of switchbacks to the castle.
“There they are,” Magda said, after casting a spell.
“I don’t see them,” Abigail said. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, they’re on foot about half a league from the castle road.”
“Good. Let’s end this.”
They mounted up and rode hard, pushing their tired animals nearly to their limit. The road wound down into the farm fields and leveled out as it straightened. Within a few minutes, Abigail spotted the two figures walking in the distance. Not long after, Peti and Torin stopped.
“Looks like they see us,” Magda said, slowing her horse to a trot. “Peti will be making preparations; be on your guard.” She started casting a spell, then another while they rode toward battle.
Abigail released an arrow at the limits of her range, sending the shaft in a high arc toward the witch, but it went wide by a dozen feet. Peti’s cackle carried through the damp air, followed by an unnatural darkness oozing away from her across the ground. It looked like sooty smoke but it moved like a living thing, gaining speed with each passing moment. Magda cast a light-lance at it but it simply flowed around the brilliant shaft of white-hot light.
It didn’t seem to have substance or form, moving like sentient smoke until it reached them, still covering only a few inches of the ground, surrounding them, flowing under their horses. Abigail’s sense of alarm peaked when the smoke seemed to flash with a pulse of darkness and then it was gone. The horses screamed in pain, toppling to the ground and throwing them both. Abigail’s leg was pinned under her terrified horse. She cried out in pain, trying to disentangle herself from the panicked animal.
Scrambling away, she saw with horror what had befallen the horses. The dark smoke had cut their hooves off when it vanished, leaving each horse with four stumps where its feet used to be. Choking back sadness and sickness, she staggered to her feet, drawing the Thinblade. With grim resolve she took her horse’s head, silencing the panic and pain with a stroke.
Magda had managed to get clear of her steed but fell hard. She was lying still while the animal struggled to regain its feet, screaming in pain with each attempt, thrashing around in wild panic. Abigail killed the mare a moment later. Distant cackling drifted into the sudden silence.
Magda shook her head, rolling to her belly and lifting herself to all fours, trying to regain her senses. Abigail sheathed the Thinblade, checking the enemy as she went to Magda.
“Are you all right?”
“Just dazed. What’s the witch doing?” Magda asked, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head again.
“They’re heading up the castle road.”
“I was afraid of that.”
They took a few minutes to gather their gear and regain their senses. Magda had a red-and-purple bruise on the right side of her forehead and Abigail was limping. Doggedly, they pursued the enemy toward the castle, knowing with certainty that they were walking into a bigger fight than either of them was ready for. Peti and Torin reached the castle well before them. Abigail and Magda took pains to approach with caution, unwilling to underestimate Peti’s power yet again.
After rounding the final switchback, both of them stopped in their tracks. Set in the middle of the road not two hundred feet from the drawbridge was a woman impaled on a pike. A man in scale armor with a spear stood beside her.
“You will come no farther!” he shouted. “Turn back or all of the women within this keep will be killed.”
“Dear Maker,” Abigail whispered.
Peti and Torin stood on the wall of the gatehouse, the witch’s cackle taunting them.
“This certainly complicates things,” Magda said.
“Let’s fall back,” Abigail said. “We need a plan.”
“Agreed.”
They withdrew around the bend and out of sight. Abigail sat down on a rock, rubbing her leg and shaking her head.
“How do we get to her without causing a bloodbath?” she asked.
“I’m not sure we can. If she sends the keep’s soldiers against us, we’ll have little choice.”
“So we hide until dark and then sneak in,” Abigail said.
“That may work, assuming she chooses to remain within the keep.”
“You think there’s another way out?”
“Of course,” Magda said. “And if not, she can always use her magic to reach the road below.”
“Maybe we should make our way south and try to ambush her again,” Abigail said.
“Getting past the castle without being seen will be impossible. I suggest we move to those rocks and wait for her to make the next move. If she’s still in the castle after dark, we go in after her.”
Abigail nodded, looking at the rocky outcropping near the switchback. Several large boulders offered ample cover and a defensible position should Peti send soldiers to attack. They carefully picked their way across the steep hillside, sliding a few times in the scree but eventually reaching their destination. From within the shelter of the boulders, they had a view of the battlements atop the gatehouse, but not of the gate itself.
It wasn’t long before a horn blew from within the castle. Soon after, a score of men came over the rise on foot, all of them armed and a few armored. Most looked like working men, armed with pitchforks and woodcutting axes, but there were a few soldiers armed with spears and swords. Behind them, a dozen men on horseback rode escort for Peti and Torin.