Blademage Adept (The Blademage Saga Book 3) (8 page)

“Powerful, to do that unaided,” Kevon commented, shifting his gaze to Mirsa.

“Concealed, as well,” she added. “I’ve seldom felt him work any of his magic.”

“Strange, but he’s been a loyal companion for years,” Yusa laughed. “Quite a few scrapes he’s gotten me out of, that’s for sure. Quite a few others I would swear he had a hand in.”

“We had a companion much like that,” Kevon closed his eyes and lowered his head. “Not a Mage, but…”

“An incredible ally.” Mirsa finished.

“I’m sorry I was never able to meet Waine,” Alanna offered. “It seems he changed everyone he met, for the better.” She stood and stalked around the fire to where Reko had been sitting. “One thing we may need to ask your friend, though,” she said, looking to Captain Yusa, “Is why he doesn’t leave footprints.”

“I suspected Illusion before, on the ship.” Kevon added. “A Sending between rooms when seconds of walking would do… was hardly practical. But what I suspected then makes no sense in this situation. We would see prints where we had not seen him, instead of none where he had been.”

“Or where he appeared to be?” Mirsa asked.

“That may well be,” Kevon nodded.” Projecting himself into our midst, while hiding his true self? Difficult, but not impossible.”

“But it is impossible,” Yusa fumed. “I’ve known him for years, before I got my ship, before I trained at…” he scratched his head. “No, it was after I abandoned my studies, and the Arts. A year or better after that. But still!”

“It seems your friend Reko would be the best to ask about this, the next time we see him,” Mirsa decided. “How long have you been watching him?”

“I always keep my eye on the nearest Mage,” Alanna smirked. “I noticed the footprints yesterday, but have felt uneasy around him since our first encounter.”

“I’ve heard some of the reasons why you have cause to distrust practitioners of the Arts, and understand,” Mirsa fidgeted, and looked up at Alanna. “I hope to be a part of the reason you can trust some of us again.”

“Tolerate? Perhaps.” Alanna answered, returning the Mage’s gaze. “But trust?”

“It’s not just Magi that Alanna mistrusts,” Kevon interjected. “But we have the furthest to go to regain any measure of that trust.”

“I trust we’ll all need a good night’s sleep under our belts to strike camp and head inland in the morning,” Yusa barked. He stood, glanced at the untouched sand in front of the log where Reko had sat, and shook his head. “Here’s to hoping we can get it.”

Kevon led the way, working ever inward and upward toward the shrouded center of the island. Stretches of clear path were punctuated by webs of vines and brush that the Warrior reluctantly hacked aside with his saber.

“We rest here,” he called to the others, staggering as he reached the third waterfall of the morning, the first that they could not step over and around. He reached out and filled his cupped hand in the thin cascade, sipping, then splashing the rest over his face to wash away the sweat and sap from the vines.

“Still no sign of Reko,” Yusa grumbled. “I don’t know if he’ll even be able to find us this far away from shore.

“Or if we’d want him to,” Alanna muttered as she entered the clearing, watching to make sure nothing was behind them.

Kevon sat by the falls, his back to the stone face that rose a good twenty feet above them. His breathing grew ragged and short.

“Here,” Alanna pushed a small flask at him, and he drank.

“What is…”

“It’s the only thing keeping him on his feet, Wizard,” Alanna snapped. “The faster we can get him to any kind of civilization, the better.”

Snatching the empty flask, Mirsa sniffed at it. “This is…”

“Bonesage tea,” Alanna said, eye locked on Mirsa. “It’s more than anyone else here has done for him.”

“
We’re
not trying to kill him!” Mirsa shouted, taking a step toward Alanna before seeing the bared dagger in the assassin’s hand.

“Enough!” Kevon straightened as the tea took effect, and stood up. “No one is trying to kill me. Did she force it down my throat?”

Mirsa looked at her feet and shuffled uncomfortably. “Did you at least brew it with milkweed sap?”

“I always carry fresh milkweed sap with me,” Alanna scoffed. “Not all of us have that luxury.”

“We’ll find something here!” Mirsa pleaded, scanning the surrounding vegetation. “I’ll brew up a potion…”

“I only have three leaves left,” Alanna sighed. “We’re almost out anyway.”

“We have to start right away!” Mirsa opened a bag and began pulling out smaller pouches.

“We need to move now,” Kevon said, stepping across the stream and hefting the saber. “We’ll figure out what we need to do when we stop for the night.”

Rhysabeth-Dane blotted a damp cloth against Kevon’s forehead, leaning in to see if she could make sense of the fevered murmurs that escaped his lips. She shrugged her shoulders at Mirsa, who’d looked up from the potion she was tending.

“Nothing yet?” the Mage asked.

The dwarf shook her head, and wrung the cloth out before dipping it in the bowl of cool water that sat beside his bedroll.

“How is he?” Alanna asked, ducking under the makeshift canopy.

“Do you have the things I asked you for?” Mirsa snapped.

“I’m not sure,” Alanna answered. “These plants are different than those on either continent we’ve been on. I’d only just begun to get familiar with the foliage when we left…”

“Give me what you do have, and bring some more water.” Mirsa glared a moment longer before returning to her work.

Alanna emptied a small sack onto the crate that they were using for a table, sections of vines, flowers in full bloom, and clusters of unopened buds spilling and sprawling across each other.

Rhysabeth-Dane folded the cloth and pressed it against Kevon’s forehead. She rummaged through her things, finding the book she wanted and returning to the crate. She flipped through the text, whispering now and again in her native tongue, sniffing a blossom here, tasting a bit of sap there. She continued flipping through the book, and making notes of her own on loose parchment.

“What are you doing?” Mirsa scolded. “You don’t know what any of those are! You could…”

“Bonesage tea is a rare treat for my people,” Rhysabeth-Dane giggled. “As are many things that would kill you. Very few things that grow in the earth can harm us. I have already identified half of these, and have ideas about the rest.” She lifted a spiky, reddish leaf. “Bloodthistle, for example. Sharpens the mind more than Bonesage, while paralyzing the body.”

Mirsa cleaned the tools she had been using, and set them aside. She rinsed out a small stone bowl, and brought it over to the dwarf.

“If you were going to heal Kevon, with the supplies we have here, what would you use?” She held the bowl out to Rhysabeth-Dane.

The dwarf plucked three petals from one of the larger flowers, and half a dozen smaller buds from one of the clusters Alanna had retrieved. “These would ease his symptoms, but we would need much more than Alanna has gathered.”

“Perhaps not,” Mirsa picked up one of the smaller sections of vine that lay on the crate. “This is not poisonous?”

“Just bland,” Rhysabeth wrinkled her nose.

“That’s fine,” the Mage replied, whisking back over to the rock shelf at the back of the shelter where her laboratory was set up. She picked up a small granite pestle and crushed the flowers into a tacky paste that she scraped into a glass container with a wooden spatula. She upended the vine over the mixture, squeezing the sap from the top of the vine section to the bottom. Thick drops oozed from the cut end, globs of the greenish fluid spattering atop the peach colored paste. She poured fresh water from a skin up to the etched line in the glass, and stirred it until there were only a few clumps left. After placing the glass into a bronze holder, and igniting a small piece of wood beneath it with a wave of her hand, she returned to Kevon’s side.

She wrung out and replaced the cloth on his forehead before settling into her own bedroll nearby. “Wake me in an hour?”

Rhysabeth-Dane nodded, and continued reading.

Chapter 14

Carlo startled awake, the twitch of his arm sending the shield leaned against his desk thudding to the dirt floor. Cursing softly, he shook the debris free of the symbol that had helped reinvigorate the southern garrisons, and had helped push the lines of the frontier further south than they had been in generations.

“What is it?” he growled, his step back from the desk sending the spindly chair sprawling in a swirl of dust behind him.

The Novice that peered into his office wheezed thinly. “Dhwa-” he croaked, choking on his words in the grimy heat. He shook his head, doubling over, resting one hand on a knee, the other against the doorframe. “Follow.”

“What is this?” the Commander asked as they reached the doorway, shielding his eyes from the shifting glare of the polished plate some of the Dwarven contingent wore.

“Reinforcements from our friends to the north,” Martin called from behind the third rank of dwarves. “Sent on the authority of Bertus the Bold.”

The sea of armored dwarves clanked and parted, allowing Martin and Alma to walk through to greet Carlo.

“Alma?” Carlo squinted studying the girl’s face.

“Yes, how did…”

“I know Kevon, and knew your father. Come with me.”

One of the Common-speaking dwarves shouted a string of commands to the rest of the host, who split into groups and sought the shade of nearby buildings. He followed Carlo and the others to the Commander’s office.

“Bertus could not come himself, then?” Carlo asked, closing the door once the dwarf and his other guests were far enough inside the cramped room.

“He’s taken a smaller group of dwarves through Eastport, to try and follow Kevon,” Martin explained.

“What trouble has your brother gotten himself into now?” Carlo asked Alma.

“People saw him use magic, and weapons,” she whispered. “They had to flee. He used magic to send Bertus to us.”

“And you collected an army of dwarves along the way?”

“Bertus has dealt with them before, it seems. They helped us get here quickly…”

“On foot? In full armor?” Carlo interrupted Martin. “I don’t see how that…”

“There are things we won’t be able to tell you,” Alma began.

“Your family and their accursed secrets!” Carlo roared. He picked up the fallen chair and sat at his desk. “So. What exactly
can
you tell me?”

“I’ll have to see Prince Alacrit right away,” Carlo shook his head. “Convince him to not turn on the boy.” He looked at the Dwarven translator. “Your forces will have no issue as support here, and reinforcements as needed?”

“Ye’ll have a hard time keeping the Stoneguard from the fighting, but the rest will do whatever there is need fer,” he answered. “Our King has ordered fer the words of Bertus, and those he trusts, te be as they were his.”

“Your Stoneguard can bloody their axes at camp three,” Carlo grunted. “We’ve been taking casualties there almost daily. Who knows, by the time we find Kevon, they may well finish the push across the wastes for us.”

“I will inform the others before we leave.” The dwarf bowed and ducked out of the room.

“We?”

“The dwarves are determined that we shall not fail, since they learned of Kevon,” Martin offered. “Some legend they’re all riled up about.”

“Let’s hope that Alacrit feels the same,” Carlo sighed. “And hoping is one of my least favorite things to do.”

Chapter 15

“The tea tasted better.”

Kevon coughed and retched, somehow managing to keep the foul-tasting potion from coming back up.

“This will fix part of what the tea did to you,” Mirsa scolded. “You should be feeling better by noon.”

“Good.” Kevon struggled to his feet, fumbling with his swordbelt, wondering at the red ribbon tied near the base of his sword’s guard.

“You need to rest!” Mirsa stepped between Kevon and the shelter’s exit.

“I’m sure that Holten and his followers are resting today.”

“If we can wait until you recover, we’ll be able to move faster.”

“And if we find an elf that knows more about plants around here, I’ll recover faster.” He sighed. “I don’t like feeling half dead any more than you like looking at it. We’re moving.”

Rhysabeth-Dane packed away the potion-making equipment, cleaning the instruments more thoroughly than Mirsa herself might have. By the time the dwarf was done, the rest of the camp had been struck, and everyone else was done with breakfast.

“Ahem,” Mirsa chuckled. “You wanted to move?”

Kevon opened his eyes and pushed off of the tree he’d been leaning against.

“We just need to keep heading inland. Getting close… I can feel it.”

I’m feeling it too,
Mirsa thought, reaching down to take Rhysabeth-Dane’s hand. The sensation flickered at the edge of her mind, but would not take solid enough form for her to examine properly. “Like in the Dwarven Hold, but different…” She looked at Rhysabeth-Dane, who only shrugged and shook her head.

Shortly before noon, Kevon led them out of the undergrowth onto a wide path that they could see winding down a valley to a sandy cove.

Yusa muttered under his breath, then chuckled and shook his head in the direction of the shore.

Not five minutes further up the path, they made contact with the elves.

The soft, unfamiliar speech startled everyone but Alanna, who had just spotted the trio, and had a palmed blade ready to throw.

Kevon struggled to focus his eyes on the Elven noble before them, her inhuman perfection distorting in pulses against his heartbeat. He heard Mirsa’s tongue stumbling over a few lisping phrases before the Mage admitted, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know the entire greeting ritual…” The greenery on the lead elf’s tunic seemed to Kevon to rustle as though growing from the garment, rather than simply having been embroidered on it.
I really should be more concerned about those two,
he thought, glancing to the noble’s escorts, lean, stern hunters whose casual half-drawn bows represented possibly the greatest threat to life and limb they’d faced in recent times.