King's Folly (Book 2) (24 page)

“Does he know where he’s going?” Lucas asked.

“As long as he doesn’t keep making left turns.” The barbarian caught up to the seer, gripped his bony shoulder, and slowed him down. “Back with the women, Scarecrow.”

“As long as you hurry.”

Oenghus swore under his breath. Isiilde took Marsais’ hand firmly in her own as the group followed the river, pushing through the forest.

The sky was bright through the distant patches in the canopy. A strong wind rustled the leaves, moaning with the travelers’ footsteps and raising goosebumps along Isiilde’s skin. The sun peaked and then began to fall, and still they walked with an irrational sense of urgency prickling at their backs. Whatever the others thought of Marsais, his behavior had put the group on edge.

After a time, Marsais’ ebbing sanity faltered, and reversed directions. Isiilde felt his calmness return and his heart beat in a relaxed rhythm that echoed his gait. Soon, Marsais and Isiilde were falling behind. Oenghus pinned the seer with a smoldering glare, but they ignored the giant’s annoyance.

“Marsais?”

“Isiilde.”

She tugged his scruffy goatee. “When the hag attacked us, why did the vines leave after you tapped my head?”

“Aha! A lesson for today.” Marsais called the party to a halt.

“Why are we stopping?”

“An opportunity, my dear Captain.”

Isiilde sat on a moss covered rock, and Oenghus sighed, removing his knife and a crude pipe that was a work in progress.

“I shielded you, Isiilde.” Marsais traced three runes at her feet: stone, air, and a bind.

“We’ve been marching double time for hours, and now you stop to conduct a class?” Lucas glowered at the seer. The scars on his face tugged at the corner of his eyes, turning them into dark slits.

“Sir Lucas, when my apprentice—”

“Former,” she corrected.

“—shows an interest in the Gift, I drop everything to amuse her. I’d probably stop in the middle of a pitched battle,” he mused. “Consider this a brief halt. Soldiers still do that, don’t they?”

“It’s a waste of daylight.”

“At ease, Lieutenant.” There was an edge to the captain’s voice as she walked to the river. Lucas followed without comment, crouching at the bank beside her. The two bent their heads together in quiet conversation. Rivan did not join them; he tucked his helmet beneath his arm, and crouched, trying to copy Marsais’ runes, crudely tracing them in the dirt. The eager paladin felt Isiilde’s eyes on him, straightened, and quickly erased his attempts with his boot.

“Now then, my dear,” Marsais caught her attention. “Before you go tracing away, you can’t simply bind stone and iron to your flesh. That would result in ill occurrences—far worse than binding earth to your skin.”

“Is there anything worse than an ill occurrence, Marsais?”

“Yes, a devastating occurrence. Now, you have to weave stone around iron, and an air rune
into
the stone rune like so—into the cracks and flaws.” Long fingers traced three bold strokes before interlacing the flowing air rune between columns. “And a bind to tether them all.” A gossamer thread stretched from the bluish runes hovering in midair to his fingers, like strings of a puppet. Quick as a snake, he took a step to the side, and tapped Rivan roughly on the head. The paladin blinked.

Isiilde waited for something noticeable to happen, but nothing changed.

Oenghus bent, plucked a rock from the ground, and threw it at Rivan’s head. Rivan ducked, but he was too late. The rock hit him square in the forehead, and yet, there wasn’t a mark on his skin.

Isiilde brightened. She thought a moment before invoking the Lore, and then waded into the coursing streams of energy. Under Marsais’ sharp gaze, she wove the complicated pattern. Wispy blue strands stirred in the air, waiting. She beckoned the weave closer with a soft call and it flew at her like a net, encasing her body.

The weave was suffocating.

A strangled sound tore from her throat. She scraped at her skin and struggled to breathe. Marsais grabbed her wrists, meeting her wide eyes with his own. “Relax, it’s normal. You did everything perfectly.”

“Get it off!” she gasped.

With a brush of his fingers, he pulled the weave from her body, letting it dissipate on the wind. She sucked in a breath, walked to the nearest tree, and turned her back on the group; however, all eyes followed the trembling nymph.

“It’s not that bad once you get used to it,” Rivan said.

At his voice, her ears twitched, and anger twisted her gut.

A heavy presence stepped beside her. “It’s better than an arrow in your back, Sprite,” Oenghus said, rubbing her head.

“I don’t like it—I feel trapped.” Fury writhed under her words.

Her guardian did something unexpected—he began to chuckle. “You’d make a fine berserker.”

She blinked, surprised, and looked up to meet his sapphire eyes. There was concern, and no small amount of pride. But before she could comment, Marsais’ musing voice interrupted her thoughts. “Hmm, I doubt Brimgrog would affect her.”

Oenghus swiveled. “She’ll not get near the brew, and don’t you dare give her any.”

“Oenghus,” Marsais said, wounded. “I would never gamble with her life.”

Before Oenghus could argue, Isiilde cut in, “What did I do wrong, Marsais?”

“You wove the shield perfectly, but I must confess—I always add a feather rune to anything I weave for you, my dear. It seems to distract you.”

“Is that why your weaves always tickle?”

Oenghus grunted. “You mean to tell me that you take the extra time to add that in the middle of a fight?”

“A small matter when compared to Isiilde’s comfort.”

“I hate it when I agree with you, Scarecrow.”

“Precisely why I said it.”

ISIILDE
DID
NOT
attempt the weave again. Her skin was crawling with discomfort, and she gazed longingly at the river, feeling an overwhelming urge to throw herself into its cold embrace and wash herself clean—of memories and filth. She envied snakes just then. What she wouldn’t give to shed her skin and assume a new one.

A strong hand found her own, curling around her flesh and caressing her knuckles, bringing fresh memories and a warm touch. With the blazing presence of Marsais burning inside of her, the shadows retreated, somewhere far and distant, but still lingering in the corners of her being. She ignored them for the moment, focusing on her Bonded, and his recent lesson.

“Can I add a feather rune to my own shield?”

“Hmm, it might backfire. It’d be like trying to tickle yourself. At best, it wouldn’t work, but at worst, it might be painfully itchy. Don’t, however, let me deter you from trying. As long as I am nearby to unravel the weave, then you should be fine.”

“The shield really isn’t that bad,” Rivan stepped beside her. Marsais looked sharply at the paladin, and he quickly took a step away. “You should try wearing this plate and mail some time. Will the shield weave really stop an arrow?”

“Marsais’ weaves are as good as full plate armor,” Oenghus boasted. “I couldn’t stop a stone with one of mine.”

“That goes for most Wise Ones,” Marsais soothed. “But even my shields don’t last, not like armor. The weave fades over time—highly inconvenient during a drawn out battle.”

“Could you teach me?” Rivan blurted out.

“Teach you what?”

“The Gift, sir.”

The full weight of the seer’s gaze settled on Rivan whose eagerness faded into unease. The soldier’s Adam’s apple moved in his throat, and he faltered, taking another step back.

“I’m afraid not,” Marsais answered.

The disappointment in Rivan’s eyes twisted Isiilde’s heart. “But why not, Marsais? You don’t have an apprentice anymore.”

Grey eyes shifted to the nymph. “Neither do you, Isiilde.”

“I’m not a Wise One.”

“Oenghus and I have been cast out of the Order. I’m no longer a Wise One either.”

“You were?”

“Void-worshipping murderers usually are. The Order does have
 
standards, as low as they may be.”

“I can’t teach Rivan,” she protested.

Marsais looked at the paladin. “Do you play King’s Folly, young man?”

“The lord’s game? No, I’m not noble-blooded, sir.”

“Hmm, well then, Isiilde can teach you since she’s still part of the Order.”

The nymph’s mouth fell open, working silently through the betrayal, until her eyes narrowed to a dangerous glare. Marsais smiled.

“We don’t have the pieces.” She crossed her arms, attempting to work out of the corner she had just maneuvered herself into.

“Then I suggest, while we walk, that you gather two hundred flat stones from the shore. You can trace the runes on them tonight.”

Her ears flicked with irritation. Although she loved the game, teaching a novice how to play would be sheer torture. The nymph had never needed teaching. King’s Folly had come naturally to her. As a nymphling, she intuitively knew precisely what runes interacted and repelled the others. She turned to Rivan and told him to gather the stones.

A surge of amusement rippled along their bond, adding fuel to her anger. She stomped ahead, walking beside Oenghus.

“You won’t find any sympathy up here, Sprite.”

“I do not need sympathy,” she seethed. “I will, however, need you to restrain me from setting Marsais on fire.”

“Get in line,” Oenghus grunted.

❧

“Do you speak Suevi, Marsais?” Acacia asked as the day darkened, and their destination neared.

“That’s an excellent question.” Marsais scratched at the beginnings of a beard. “I’m hoping I’ll remember when the natives start talking.”

The sigh issuing from the scarred paladin was like a gust of wind, and the contempt was sweltering. “That isn’t very reassuring, Seer. We’re treading on foreign lands, into an unknown village, with a man who may or may not speak the language of heathens.”

“I’m not here to reassure you, Sir Lucas. I’m simply stating a fact.”

Isiilde wondered whether Lucas’ wounds had made him disagreeable, or if he had always been ill-tempered?

Captain Mael held up a hand, silencing her lieutenant. “What do you mean you are ‘hoping’ you’ll remember? We’re not faulting you if you don’t speak Suevi, none of us do, but we’re used to more—definitive answers.”

“The only thing definite about Marsais, is the unexpected. Trust me, Captain, I gave up long ago.” Oenghus bared his teeth. “I stopped counting the times I wanted to strangle his skinny neck.”

Isiilde snatched up a flat stone, directed another glare at the indefinite mage in question, and tossed the stone to Rivan.

“Hmm, I have always believed your murderous inclinations were one of the contributing factors that made you such an excellent apprentice.”

“Oenghus is your apprentice?” Rivan asked.

“Was,” the ex-apprentice growled.

Surprise fluttered across Acacia’s eyes. “How exactly did that come about?”

Marsais glanced at his old friend.

“The Scarecrow saved my life,” Oenghus answered vaguely, and promptly changed the subject. “What’s it been now—working on eight hundred years?”

“I started having regrets after the proverbial twenty years of putting up with your hairy hide.”

Oenghus snorted. “I should have strangled you as soon as I sobered up. Would have if you had been carrying a weapon.”

“You
tried
to strangle me.”

The giant ignored his old master’s claim. “You see in Nuthaan, a man without a weapon might as well be a man with no bollocks. Took ‘im for a dandy.”

Lucas grew stiff beneath his armor, and his face was as impassive as the rock he nearly stumbled over.

“Until I turned you into a piggy,” Marsais retorted.

“Shut your trap.” Oenghus cast a baleful eye at the thin man. “It was a boar.”

Isiilde snorted, and Rivan gaped.

“You two bicker like Oathbounds,” Acacia inserted dryly.

“Oen
has
kept me warm on more nights than I’d like to admit,” Marsais quipped. The comment earned him a rock, but the agile seer stepped to the side, only catching a nick on his thigh.

“You could have hurt him, Oen.” Isiilde frowned at her guardian.

“I know, that’s why I was aiming below his belt.”

She huffed, looked heavenward, and dropped back beside Marsais who greeted his return to her good graces with a kiss to the hand.

“I’m still waiting for an answer, Seer,” Acacia warned.

“I gave you an answer.”

“Do you speak Suevi or not? A simple yes or no will do.”

“But that’s not the answer.”

“You really can’t remember whether you speak a language or not?”

Marsais scratched at the scar beneath his robe. “How many languages do you speak, Sir Lucas?”

“The trade tongue, obviously, Kamberian, a bit of Rahuatl, Celestial, and I know a few Southern dialects.”

“Well I’m not trying to boast, but at one time or other, I have spoken just about every dialect there is to speak—including dead languages. Words get muddled in this blasted mind of mine, and everything runs together after a time. I find that hearing a language will sometimes knock something loose, and I’ll remember the rest of it.”

None of them had anything to say to this. The implications, the vastness of his mind and memories, hurt their own heads. Lucas did not ask again.

❧

They forded the river a few hours before sunset. The water was shallow but swift, and Isiilde rode on her guardian’s back. Oenghus waded across as if he walked through a puddle. Loathe to get his boots wet, Marsais levitated, leaving the paladins to slip on the rocks.

A sharp wind sent ripples over the water, stirring the leaves like a herald for an approaching storm. And more. There were signs of habitation: a lonely footprint on the sandy beach, a trap bobbing in the water, and the track of a canoe banked on shore.

Oenghus moved away from the river, trusting to his instincts to keep his company on course. He was not willing to leave an encounter to chance. Surprising a group of hunters would only result in bloodshed. And bloodshed, as so often was the case with these tribes, demanded vengeance. They did not need an entire valley full of vengeful natives on their heels.