When at last, panting a bit, he opened the tower door and stepped into the courtyard, he found a light snow just beginning to fall. Captain Evann and his squad of men stood across from him, going through a weapons check of some kind.
Captain Evann spotted him and jogged to his side. “Are they—?” he called.
“Done. Yes.” Candabraxis held out the small cloth sack he’d placed the talismans in. “Here.”
Evann drew one out and stared at it. “How do they work?” he asked.
“Pin it to your clothing—it doesn’t matter where. That’s all you need to do.”
He scowled at it. “It doesn’t seem like much….”
“It will protect you against all minor charms and spells … not against the Hag herself, certainly, but it should work against any magics used by her minions.”
He nodded. “It will be enough,” he said.
Evann returned to his men and began handing them out. The men, one by one, pinned the talismans to their cloaks.
The doors to the audience hall opened, and Harlmut strode out. Like Candabraxis, he wore a heavy woolen cloak with the hood pulled up. He quickly joined Captain Evann and talked in quiet tones with him. Evann nodded several times, called orders to his men, and marched them single file out through the huge castle gates. Outside they turned toward the Drachenaur Mountains. Candabraxis watched until the last one had vanished from sight behind the walls.
Harlmut joined him.
“What are their chances of finding Hawk?” Candabraxis asked. By the light of day, it seemed a mad, almost impossible plan.
“They will succeed,” Harlmut said firmly. “They have to.”
The door to Haltengabben’s office burst open, and a boy of perhaps ten or eleven rushed up to the desk. Young Jerroch. Haltengabben had assigned him to watch the castle. Something must have happened there, she realized, but that was no excuse for his behavior, not here in the Temple of Ela.
“Always knock, Jerroch,” she said sternly.
“But, Haltengabben—” he gasped.
“Do it again.”
Slowly, head down, he turned and went back out into the hall, pulling the door closed after him. A heartbeat later, he gave a timid rap.
“Come in!” Haltengabben called.
He opened the door, stepped in, and pulled it closed after him. Taking his place solemnly before her desk, head bowed, he waited for her to speak first. She nodded imperceptibly: much better. She kept an iron discipline inside the temple.
“Make your report,” she said.
“The soldiers left, Haltengabben.”
“How many?”
“Ten, Haltengabben.”
“And the wizard?”
“He stayed at the castle.”
Haltengabben leaned back in her seat, pursing her lips slightly. So … Candabraxis hadn’t gone along on the mission. She’d expected him to try to kill the Hag himself. Perhaps he didn’t want the strength of her bloodline. But what manner of magical weapons must he have given to the soldiers to safely battle her? And why risk passing the Hag’s bloodline along to one of them? It didn’t make sense. She had missed something somewhere, she decided.
“Thank you,” she said to the boy. She opened a small pouch on the desk, drew out a copper eagle, and tossed the coin to him. He tucked it into his belt in one swift movement. “That will be all,” she said.
“Yes, Haltengabben.” Bobbing his head once, he turned and quietly left her office, shutting the door carefully and almost silently behind him.
Candabraxis posed a threat, she decided. She couldn’t have him lingering in Alber. No telling what mischief he might discover.
After a second’s thought, she drew a small, square piece of parchment from a stack, dipped her quill pen in ink, and began to write a brief letter explaining the situation.
Her sister Temple of Ela in Grevesmühl had an assassin staying with them at the moment. The price would be steep, but she knew she could buy his services to kill the wizard and still make a tidy profit, thanks to the Hag. After all, a pound of gold went a long way in Grabentod.
Seven
Captain Evann couldn’t help noticing the high spirits of his men as they marched in two columns out of Alber. He had seldom seen a more enthusiastic band of adventurers. And why not? They were off to save the king, and with a wizard’s magic to protect them, they had no doubts as to their ultimate success.
He arched his back a little as he led them up the road. This early, no one had turned out to see them off, and just as well. The fewer people who saw them leave, the less talk there would be.
Cobbles rapidly gave way to deeply rutted wagon tracks as they left the city. With the wind at their backs, the snow little more than flurries, and gently rolling farmlands before them, he knew they would make good time today.
He squinted at the horizon. Twenty miles ahead, the immense Drachenaur Mountains began. He planned to march out to the foothills, turn right, and skirt them until they came to the Hag’s Domain. It would take four or five days of steady marching.
For now, the company had nothing to worry about. Today would be the easiest stage of the trip, as they crossed the most civilized part of Grabentod. Idly, Evann stared at the fields surrounding them. In the spring, the land would be green with wheat and oats and hay, but for now he saw only a few animals loose to graze on winter-brown grass and thistles: cattle, a handful of mules and horses, some goats.
He grinned as, behind him, he heard Harrach begin a boisterous marching song. “The Ballad of Gretta Magree” was a catchy tune, and one he hadn’t heard since King Graben’s brief campaign against the neighboring barony of Wolfgaard, some ten years before. He found himself matching his stride to the tempo. The three battles against the baron had been indecisive, and when winter came, both sides had withdrawn from their mutual border. Hostilities had never resumed, though the peace remained uneasy.
The rest of Evann’s men joined in on the bawdy chorus the second time Harrach sang it, even Uwe Taggart, whose clear young voice rang like a bell in the stillness.
Late in the morning, the snow let up completely, leaving a faint dusting on the ground. Overhead, the clouds parted, and briefly the company glimpsed a wan sun.
At noon Evann called a break, and after a quick lunch of trail rations washed down by water from a stream, they continued as before. They had a lot of ground to travel today, he knew, if they were going to reach the foothills below Mount Krakenwald, the closest of the Drachenaur Mountains, before darkness overtook them.
The day wore on, the road became rougher, and the farms fewer and farther between. Harrach moved from lusty ballads to military marching songs until his voice gave out, and then the men chatted as they walked. Evann listened with half an ear, but mostly kept his attention on the road ahead.
The mountains grew steadily closer. Although he’d been this far only twice before—both times as King Graben’s guest on hunting expeditions— Evann remembered it well enough. He’d never thought he’d enjoy himself so far from the sea, but the hunting, feasting, and general merrymaking had been quite an experience. At the end of the first hunt, King Graben had made him captain of one of his roundboats. Truly, it had been a week to remember. He smiled as he thought back on it all.
As afternoon edged into evening, the sun beginning to stretch the men’s shadows long before them, they reached the dense pine forest that marked the beginning of wilderness. The roar of a cougar came from somewhere close by, and several deer bolted for safety among the trees.
Here the road ended entirely. Several small trails, suitable for little more than small game, wound up into the pines. Evann paused, inhaling the fresh, clean-scented air and trying to get his bearings. Which trail had they taken last time to get to the king’s hunting lodge?
The one on the left, he thought. He peered in that direction. Just visible over the trees he spotted what looked like wooden shingles … a roof? It had to be.