The path climbed steeply now. Dark, damp earth clung to overturned stones in the path. Moss showed on the tops of some, the sides of others, and in many places the thick, green cover was scraped and scored. “They were hurrying,” Tyorl said, “and not bothering to cover their trail. They cut onto the path just where we first saw their sign.” He looked back over his shoulder. “We shouldn’t have left her alone.”
The breeze quickened, and the shadows sprawled across the path swayed and danced. Stanach tried to catch the sound of Kelida’s voice and heard nothing but the scratching of old leaves against stone. “I’m thinking you’re right. Go back. If Lavim’s still there, send him ahead and tell him to catch up with me.”
Tyorl frowned and Stanach, seeing his doubt, snorted. “I’m no ranger, Tyorl, but I’m not blind either.” He nodded to the signs on the path. “I can follow this, and I can keep quiet enough when I have to.”
He didn’t have to say it: the elf’s longbow could defend Kelida better than a lone sword. Tyorl nodded. “Leave the track here, Stanach. Keep it in sight and follow it from the woods. If they’re waiting up ahead, they’ll have a guard posted along here soon. If you sight him, get back here quietly and quickly. If we can take them, we will.”
“And if we can’t?”
Tyorl shrugged. “We try to cross the river someplace else. However, I don’t want to worry about these mage-killers cropping up in front of us again.”
“Go on then. I’ll be back.”
Stanach watched him go. The dwarf picked his way as quietly as he could through rustling underbrush whose slim branches clawed at his beard and scratched at his face and hands. He paralleled the path for a dozen yards, then was stopped by the broad, high face of an outcropping of stone. Around or over? he wondered, eyeing the obstacle. The stone was hard and old, rough with good grips. Stanach, who had seen nothing but forest for too long, grinned. Over, he decided.
He ran a careful hand over the stone, testing hand-and footholds. The holds were good, and he climbed swiftly, gaining the crest of the outcropping in a few moments. A foolhardy young pine clung to the the top of the rocks, with a few scrawny bushes for company. Except for these, the stone was gray and naked. Crouching low, Stanach kept to the north side of the pine’s trunk. From this cover, he saw the empty trail below. No guard.
Several yards beyond the outcropping, the trail turned again to the right, ran just below the rock where Stanach crouched, and dropped off suddenly. Stanach shifted position a little to gain a clearer view. The trees ended abruptly here, and the path snaked down into a stony river valley. The river itself was a narrow silver ribbon, the ford a shallow place at the path’s end, fringed with browning reeds. There was no sign that whoever had come up the trail before them lingered now in the stony vale.
A hawk wheeled high over the valley and slid down the wind on long, lazy spirals, searching for prey. The water’s wind-ruffled surface split as a small bass leaped high, a silver flash in the sun. Before the fish reached the height of its arc, the hawk dove hard and caught it with a triumphant cry.
Aye, dinner for you, Stanach thought, and likely you’ve left some for us.
The vale was empty, the river full of fish, and the fording would be easy. Smiling, he rose and turned.
He stood face to face with the one-eyed Theiwar known in Thorbardin as the Gray Herald.
Cold fear filled his belly. Trapped! Even as he understood that, Stanach instinctively ducked his right shoulder and pulled his sword free of the scabbard across his back. The high, singing whine of steel coming free was overwhelmed by the Gray Herald’s hard, brittle laughter. Stanach, fearing that he had already lost, knew it was so when his mighty double-handed blow rebounded inches from Agus’s neck. The air around the mageling flared scarlet, spat hot, fat sparks, and Stanach’s arms ached to the shoulders as though he’d struck mountain stone.
Agus, laughing still, lifted his right hand, caressing the air. He whispered a word, then another, and the sun-filled air around Stanach became cold as a winter night. The sky, blue a moment ago, became heavy, smelled of fear and despair. As though a huge hand had struck him from behind, Stanach crashed to his knees. Dimly, he heard the clatter of his sword on stone and saw Agus reach for the blade and snatch it up from the boulder.
Stanach tried to find air to breathe. There was none. It was as though the Gray Herald’s spell had sucked all the air out of Stanach’s lungs. This, Stanach thought, is how Piper was taken. Ambushed by a Theiwar mageling.
Thinking of Piper, he remembered his friend’s flute hanging from his belt. Though Piper had invested it with several spells, though the flute possessed an inherent magic of its own, it was useless to Stanach, who was not versed in magic. He knew instantly that it would be a powerful tool in the hands of the Gray Herald. The Theiwar would surely fathom its use if he had the time to study it. Under the guise of struggling to move, Stanach freed the flute from his belt and shoved it fast and hard into a crack in the boulder.
Agus lifted his hands again, and Stanach knew the gestures he made now. The words he spoke, only three, were oddly gentle ones which gave Stanach no comfort at all. They were the words of a transport spell. Agus reached down, touched Stanach’s head, and smiled into his eyes. Caught in the familiar wrench and grab of a transport spell, Stanach doubled over as all feeling drained from his arms and legs, all sense of being fled his heart and mind.
Lavim perched on a boulder just off the trail where he could see up the path and down. His hoopak balanced across his knees and a large leather pouch containing stones ranging from smooth pebbles to rough-sided, fist-sized rocks lay between his feet. He examined the stones one by one, the way an archer will check his arrows. He held up a reddish brown and green stone mottled with shining bits of yellow pyrite and white calcite for Kelida’s inspection.
“This rock,” he said, watching the sun catch the pyrite and calcite,
“killed a goblin at a hundred paces.”
Kelida eyed him doubtfully. “A hundred, Lavim?” The old kender nodded casually as though his veracity had not been questioned. “Maybe a hundred and ten. I didn’t have time to count, you understand.”
“But you fetched back the rock after it killed this goblin?”
“Oh, yes. It’s a good rock, a lucky rock. I’ve had it for a long time. It was my father’s, and he had it from his father.”
Kelida swallowed a smile. “Sort of a family heirloom, is it?”
Lavim tucked the stone back into his pouch. “Well, I never thought of it like that, but yes, I suppose it is.”
The picture of two generations of kenders dutifully retrieving this rock each time it flew from a hoopak’s sling was too absurd to consider. Though she hid her smile behind her hand, Lavim saw it in her green eyes.
“What’s so funny about that, Kelida?”
“Oh, I’m not laughing, not really. I’m—I’m smiling because it’s nice that you have something to remember your father and grandfather by.”
Kelida drew her legs up tight to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. She watched the kender continue his inspection of his weapons. Thin sunlight ran like silver down his long, white braid. In his weather-browned and wrinkled face, his green eyes shone like spring leaves in sunlight.
“I was just thinking I don’t have anything to remember my family by—no lucky rock, at least.”
Lavim looked up. “Oh, there are plenty of them in Khur. Have you ever been there? That’s where I was born. It’s a nice country, all hills and mountains. Some pretty valleys, too. You should see it sometime, Kelida. I’d like to go back there myself. I always mean to but—I dunno, something always tugs me in the opposite direction. Like this Stormblade, although I’ll be darned if I can figure out what it is, exactly.