Merchants and Mages (Highmage's Plight Book 2) (8 page)

Were-Horse

Chapter 10

T
he mare nickered as the Summoning touched its thoughts.

 
YOU NEED NOT BE THE LAST OF YOUR KIND.

 
She whinnied, looking around.

 
The Summoning chuckled, MILADY, A SUITABLE HOST HAS BEEN PREPARED.

 
George frowned as Raven slowed just outside the glade.

 
“Milord?” Se’and said.

 
“The Summoning is much too pleased about something,” George said as he pulled his staff from his bindings. Fri’il scooted closer and drew one of her daggers with her right hand.

 
The large mare nickered.

 
George leaned forward as his mount slowed. He patted its mane as it turned her head back to look at him. She stopped and began pawing the ground.

 
“Uh, Se’and,” he said just before his mount charged forward.

 
Se’and let out a curse and spurred her mount forward.

The elfblood saw the charging warhorse and shouted at his partners to let fly. They released their arrows and quickly drew and let fly two more.

 
The beast bounding into the glade was struck – the arrows shattered against her furred chest. Their second set shot toward the warhorse and stopped in midair as the staff in George’s hands flared.

 
“He’s warded!” the scarred man cried.

 
The elfblood cursed and gestured at the bespelled ground.

 
The warhorse barred its teeth and leaped over it as the man upon its back yelled, “Shit!”

The elfblood ducked as the warhorse’s body passed over his head, then

landed and kicked out with both hind legs. The mageling was hurled off his feet and squarely onto the warded ground, which flared.

  Se’and cast a dagger at the archer with the scar on his face, even as Raven charged his companion, who swatted at the beast with his bow.

 
The man clutched Se’and’s dagger in his shoulder as he fell across the edge of the warded ground, near where the elfblood mageling had fallen and lay moaning. Then the mageling gasped, realizing he wasn’t dead – only to lose all memory of his miserable past, forgetting the death of his human mother and being left alone as a hungry child in a world too long at war with the evil beyond in the Northlands. He forgot his name; forgot magery.

 
His mind went blank as he stared in confusion at the large mare that came up to him. He threw up his hands in fear. It bit him. “Ow!”

 
The mare’s eyes watered and it shook its head. Carefully backing away as a tear splashed over his bite. Raven knocked the second archer onto the enchanted ground. He stared, then raised his hands to his head and cried out, falling to his knees.

 
George looked over the mare’s shoulder. “Okay, I’m game, what the hell did you do?”

 
DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF… IT’S A FITTING PUNISHMENT FOR THEIR CRIMES, the Summoning said.

 
“What did you do?”

 
WHAT I DO – GET MY WAY.

 
George drew his discolored dagger and stabbed it onto the enchanted ground. Blue smoke exploded outward as he sundered the spell. “Raven, find their horses. We’ll take them with us to our planned meeting with our new friends.”

#

The elfblood did not understand why they bound his hands or tied the two men to the horses they found nearby.

 
He glanced at the mare as it sidled over to him, tears in its eyes. It shook his head and one of those tears reached the bite, which momentarily glistened. The mare looked deeply into his eyes and he felt… He couldn’t explain it. Without memory, he shouldn’t feel – well, whole was, perhaps, the best way to explain it.

 
Ride well, my child.

 
He shook his head and realized they had been riding for quite some time. A cart with a dozen barrels on it was waiting ahead of them with six guardsmen.

“You want us to leave these fellows at Niota?” one of the Guilder guards asked.

 
George nodded. “They can use a few new guardsmen – its part of my contract with the Keep’s lord… Also, I’ve no doubt he’ll find the powder quite handy.”

 
“Well, the Master agreed we’d ship anywhere in the Province... which technically includes Niota.”

 
“And you’re to tell no one who ordered this,” Se’and affirmed.

 
“Right, we’re only to say a little birdy told us to bring it – no charge.”

 
George nodded.

 
“And you really want us to untie them once you’re out of sight.”

 
“They’re a bit disoriented.”

 
“But that Bertin, he’s one of the meanest crooks in Ueryln!”

 
“Oh, just don’t tell him that,” George said.

 
“Huh?”

 
“Never mind,” George said. “Just know if you treat him like a villain that’s likely how he’ll turn out… Oh, and don’t be surprised if, well, he doesn’t know how to use that sword of his or that bow at first.”

 
The Guilders frowned, but were soon on their way.

 
Se’and muttered, “You’re not going to explain, are you?”

 
His mount glanced back, then at Raven as she bounded forward, shimmered and took to the air as a pale winged falc with a black crest.

 
“Uh, I don’t think even you’d believe me… I’m not sure that I even do.” The Summoning was humming in his head again. “I’m coming. I’m coming.”

The elfblood looked at his hand that night, feeling his blood pulsing. He breathed harder and harder as he slipped out of his blanket. He was so hot that he unlaced his jerkin. He wiped sweat from his brow, pulling off his jerkin… The next morning the Guilders found only his clothes.

 
“Where did he go?” they demanded, suspicious of the two well––known hoodlums.

 
Bertin and Towsin looked at each other, then echoed each other, “Who?”

 
“We’re better off without him!” the senior Guilder said. “Let’s get to Niota and get this job done.”

 
They seemed to find it unremarkable that they had a somewhat large spare mount trailing after them. The stallion glanced back as the brush behind them suddenly rippled under an unnatural breeze.

 
EXCELLENT, the breeze said as it watched them head east.

  The stallion whinnied
as it trotted after the cart with the bemused men and the Guilders.

 
The breeze moved off.

The Scrying

Chapter 11

S
crying is an art. It is made possible through a gift and through a talisman. For Esperanza, her ability was taught. Her birthright was to have been born an elfblood. Her father’s name or station she never knew. That was often the way of the elves. Unions between humans and elves was fecund, between elves, who lived for centuries siring children was another matter. Birth rates were much lower.

 
Once she was recognized as being of elvin blood she was taken from her mother and sent to the Northland Tower to become one of the consecrated. Sworn virgin, taught to use the scrying pool by the Lady Mother herself, her task and those of thirteen others was to probe past the enchantments and see to the defense of the Empire’s Northern border.

 
She knelt at the pool, chanting the incantation. The waters rippled, then stilled. The Northland’s were blanketed by gray clouds. She changed the chant and sang of sunlight. The cloud’s briefly cleared as the rays of the sun broke through.

 
The clouds closed once more and she turned to write everything she had seen. Another of the consecrated entered. Disrobed and stepped into the pool.

 
Esperanza picked up the young elfblooded woman’s robe and held it for her as she dove under the waters, then returned to the edge and climbed out. “Thank you, Es.”

 
“You’re welcome, Amira. Did you receive a vision?”

 
The brown-haired elvin woman put on her robe. “I’m not sure,” she replied, then chuckled, “I must have been daydreaming.”

 
“You?”

 
Amira nodded. “It’s not like I’m ever leaving this place, am I?”

 
Frowning, Esperanza made a sign of warding, “What did you see?”

 
“The impossible.”

 
That could only mean one thing. Esperanza’s eyes widened. Amira nodded. She’d seen herself in bed with a man… something that would never be permitted. It would thwart the talisman’s gifts and was flatly impossible.

 
That was a vision of betrayal – a betrayal of everything they had been taught to believe. No male had ever been allowed in the Tower. The Empire depended on the scryers network, which could do more than see – they could communicate at great distances.

 
Amira glanced at the visions book and did not make an entry. Esperanza threw off her robe and stepped into the talisman pool.

The Lady Mother stared into the small scrying bowl and frowned seeing the two young women beside the pool. “Amira, what did you see?”

 
That one’s gift had been a mixed blessing. Like the others, she knew nothing of her lineage. But the Lady Mother did. That lineage had protected her and seen her placed here. She was the last of her line, one that had taken thousands of years to pull down and eradicate from Imperial memory.

 
“What are you two up to?” And worse, had they somehow learned the truth?

The direct contact of water was something she did not need to scry. Yet, it was said to be best to invoke the talent in some. She had not done it since she was a girl. She had nearly drowned in vision, literally.

 
Amira shouted, “Es, what are you doing?!”

 
“What I must!” she said as she dove beneath the waters.

 
The waters spouted upward, swallowing her.

 
Ogres marched, singly, in pairs, and it what appeared to be families. They crossed leagues to the northeast. They would pause, kneel down and touch the earth as if listening, then nod and intone, “NI––O––TA.” The ogres continued on day and night without pause.

 
“NI––O––TA,” she breathed out in bubbles as Amira threw off her robe and dove into the scrying pool.

 
Esperanza felt something akin to electricity course through her at the intrusion.

 
Amira lay in bed beneath plush thick blankets, lying with – a young man. She kissed

him as he cried out, “NI––O––TA!”

  Another image assaulted her.
An army massed on the plain far below the ancient fastness on the Empire’s edge. An ogre hefted a boulder and dropped it on the soldiers climbing the narrow road to the Imperial plateau to the fortress. It rolled, knocking scores down to their deaths.

 
But the ogre was alone except for a boy in elvin chainmail urging people, peasants mostly, to bring bows and arrows.

 
Niota will fall.

 
Amira’s hand grabbed her arm, and… Esperanza reached to the next tower to pass on the warning.

“No!” the Lady Mother cried. “You’ll ruin everything!”

The scrying bowl tipped, splashing water. She sang out the counter spell in purest Elvin.

The next tower heard the signal and started to answer. “Yes?”

  “It is nothing,” the Lady Mother said, interrupting.

 
“Then why bother us?”

 
“I have a new consecrated coming.”

 
“Very well… Now, let us do our work and let us know about something serious next time.”

 
“Signing off,” the Lady Mother said.

#

Amira burst back to the surface with Esperanza, then gasped for

breath. “I… I couldn’t…
get through.”

 
“I know… I felt it… What’s going on?” Amira rasped.

 
Esperanza took deep breaths, “We’ve got to help Niota.”

 
“How?”

 
Taking a deep breath, Esperanza dove back into the water. Eyes wide, Amira dove after her.

The Lady Mother returned from the scrying link and looked back into the talisman chamber. The water in the pool churned and there was no sign of the two young women. Their robes lay strewn at the pool’s edge.

 
“They’ve gone back in, the fools!” she cried. Then she sat back and

smiled, “And accidents do happen to fools.”

  She dipped her finger in the scrying water, writing on the table an elvin rune. She then drew the dagger hidden within her robes and pricked her finger. The water rune glowed. She overlaid another symbol on it… Death.

 
She turned back to scry the talisman chamber as the waters turned into a storm and arched upward, then solidified. “No way out now, poor dears.” She laughed.