The smell of green. Dew on grass, the smell of green. Green the grass along the great gorge….
Thern opened her eyes on leaf-dappled sunlight. The willowy branches of a red birch rustled over her, shaken by a wind heavy with the smell of morning. The sun was rising somewhere, she thought. In the east. Wasn't it usually in the east?
She sat up, shaking a head that felt as if someone had cracked it open and filled it full of molasses. Sunrise in the east. That's right.
What am I thinking? What's happened? Thern breathed deeply, and her chest rattled as it filled with air, hissed as it pushed the air back out again. Her chest felt…numb…as if she wore a Woodmaid's poultice to draw the pain from a wound. What had happened last night? What was wrong with her?
She remembered the death of the Mage first. Smoke curling up from belly and neck.
The stranger bleeding, her own bolt flying, the man fiddling with something in his hands. Then pain. Then darkness.
The Mage's party. She'd seen the Mamluk's face go slack the same time she'd felt the first strange sensation in her chest. Whatever had taken her out had affected him as well - presumably the whole party would have been affected. If she'd woken up, then they should be coming around as well. In her weakened state, she could do with companions.
Thern tried to stand, but her head filled with a thousand buzzing black bees. She sat again, heavily. Beset with buzzing black bees, the brave bondswoman…. What? The brave bondswoman…what? Well, she wasn't a bondswoman, and she wasn't feeling particularly brave. Still, she had to do something. Thern scooted around to face the gorge, then dragged herself to its edge and peered over.
No sign of the party. The Mage lay where she'd fallen, on her back, one arm twisted beneath her, the other flung over her head. The dead stranger was gone, but a patch of red on the forest floor marked where she'd lain the night before. Of the artifact there was no sign at all.
Two options lay before her. Well, two that she'd seriously consider - return to Harper's Inn immediately and lose herself in a substantial breakfast, or climb into the gorge to make sure the Mage's party wasn't lying down there in serious need of healing. The choice was really no choice at all, though, given that they might have been Servants of the Light, not unless she wanted to risk another migraine. Or worse.
She picked up her crossbow and found her pack. The crossbow she secured to the back of her belt in order to free up her hands for the climb down. She followed the edge of the gorge until she found a likely descent - a cleft which, she hoped, would be narrow enough for her to inch her way down, back to one wall and boots on the other. The cleft would have to be narrow indeed to accommodate a dwarf's legs, and the possibility that it would widen out halfway down had her considering possible headache remedies - after all, falling down into the gorge would be at least as painful as what she'd suffer if she just walked away.
Unfortunately, it just wasn't in her nature to leave good people in danger. She'd been fool enough to choose the Light, but she'd done so because it suited her.
The descent was the first thing that had gone smoothly for her since the blackout at the Inn had started this whole adventure. She reached the bottom of the gorge without mishap, though she could feel the beginnings of a serious knot forming in her lower back. She kneaded the spot while trying to get her bearings. When she thought she had a pretty good idea in which direction the spot of the ambush lay, she started out.
It was easier to find than she'd imagined possible: when she was several yards away the scent of charred wood (with something worse beneath it) led her directly to the place. The Mage's body sprawled near the foot of the knuckle tree, her hood fallen back. The woman was older than Thern had thought - her black hair was streaked with gray and a network of fine wrinkles surrounded her eyes. The sleeve of her exposed arm had pulled up to the elbow, exposing that peculiar undergarment. Thern had always assumed it was a kind of armor - possibly the talisman which bound the shield spells which usually guarded Adventurers.
Last night had certainly proven the assumption wrong.
Nothing more could be done for the Mage. Thern circled her body, looking for signs of what had become of the woman's party. There were the Mamluk's tracks - the man had been no Fire Dancer - his boots left deep marks in the soft loam which covered the forest floor. Tall, and heavy. Of the Stripling and the Elf she could detect no sign, but she hadn't really expected to - both races were known to be light-footed.
Now for the strangers' trail. They'd left clear prints all around the knuckle tree and leading off across the valley to the west. As she followed the tracks they'd left going she came across the prints they'd left coming. Three people had come, only two had gone away again.
The third one they'd left behind must have been the one killed by the Mage's party. So where was his body?
She found no answers, but after searching the ground around the tree in ever-widening sweeps she discovered a mystery that was almost an answer. The Mamluk's prints appeared again, deeper than before and joined now by the track of a man walking in soft leather shoes - undoubtedly the Sufi. Those prints were deep too - deeper than they should have been, since the man had been neither tall nor fat. Both sets of tracks led off across the valley to the west.
At least two of the Mage's party had left the scene of her murder, carrying a heavy load and travelling in the same direction as the surviving ambushers. Thern could imagine two scenarios which might explain this, and what should have been the most unlikely one seemed the only reasonable possibility.
The first: the party had set off in pursuit of the Mage's murderers. That was what she would have done - in fact, she really didn't see how they had any choice. If they'd survived, Servants of the Light that they were, they would have to avenge their leader's murder.
But there were problems with that scenario. They hadn't sent for the Brothers of the Isle to take her for healing, standard procedure when an Adventurer was incapacitated, nor even buried her as they would have another Companion. And who had the Mamluk and the Sufi taken away from the ambush? The only casualty unaccounted for was the stranger who had murdered their Mage!
The other possibility was that the surviving strangers had somehow subverted the party. There were charm spells, enchantments, or even simple bribery that might have worked that magic. Maybe they’d been Slaves of the Abyss all along.
By Brillin's fruitful balls, she thought sourly. It really didn't matter which scenario was the right one. Her duty was the same either way. Unaffiliated. I should have gone for Unaffiliated. I'd be back at Harper's by noon, stuffed full of sweetbread and cider by twelve-thirty.
No such luck. But first, before anything else, she would see to the artifact. Thern returned to the knuckle tree and looked for signs of…well, something. A weapon, or a staff, or a mirror or a globe or any of the hundreds of items commonly used in enchantments.
She found three perfectly round holes, about as wide as a golden hawk, the coin of the Sea's Reach Confederacy, arranged in a triangle about an arms-length to a side. No mystery there. Someone had placed a tripod there. That explained where the artifact had been, but gave no hint as to its nature - a tripod could have been used to support almost anything.
A dead-end on the artifact then. So, back to the Mage's party. Either they had set off in pursuit of the villains who had slain their leader, or they had been ensorcelled by them. They were Servants of the Light. So was she.
So, she'd have to set out after them, alone.
If the party was intact and out for vengeance, her axe would serve them well. If, on the other hand, they were in the thrall of the strangers, well, then she would never be finishing the "Epic of Granwin the Stout at Bellow's Bridge." She'd be outnumbered, and she'd be alone against that mysterious artifact.
She shouldered her axe and started off, Heaven's Eye peering down at her as she approached the western wall of the gorge.
Hold on a second…. Thern stopped, her axe slipping to the ground. She felt the stirrings of something almost like hope.
The party had set off to the west. Less then a day's walk in that direction was Tallboy's Ferry, the jewel of the Great Drain, a crime-ridden, smoky, inn-clogged city with almost nothing else to boast of except those inns, sprawling along both sides of a river which was more sewage than water.
A thousand inns, a constant stench and Ignatius Longfellow, a Wizard of the Seventh Ring and one of her oldest friends. Maybe not the greatest sorcerer in Murkworld, but Iggy would certainly know more about mysterious artifacts than she did, and a well-timed fireball had tipped the scales in more than one desperate battle.
Even Iggy could manage a fireball or two.
So. Tallboy's Ferry. And then she would see to those strangers!
The doughty dwarfmaid, daring to drink danger's draught…. Yes, that would do nicely. And something for Iggy, something like…
Ignatius…well now, what began with "i"? Ignoble? No, of course not. Ignorant? Completely off! Irritating…insolent…introverted…insufficient…. Blasted "Ignatius"! What under Heaven's Eye had his parents been thinking?
So Longfellow. What begins with "L"?
Comments (0)
See all