Mystic: A Book of Underrealm (29 page)

“A nag will not be enough.” Xain’s voice grew softer, almost pleading. “Loren, you know what I pursue—but you know also what pursues me. The Mystics will not surrender their hunt. And Jordel knows that I make for the Seat. He will send word to his order, hoping they can capture me there—but the arms of my enemies are long. They will be prepared for my arrival, and my hope will be lost. Even the magestones will not help me. Then again, I might never reach the Seat. Jordel has found me once and will be harder to evade if he still pursues me, as I know he will. Haste is my only hope. If you will not help, this one last time, then break your vow of peace. Draw your dagger and slit my throat, for it will be a quicker end than the one that will find me.”

Loren looked away. “You think to pluck at guilty strings within my heart. You helped me in the Birchwood, yes. But can you claim I did not help you as well? You cannot forget all I have done when you speak of the past.”

“I do not forget it.” Loren felt his hand on her shoulder. “’Tis why I ask this of you. Have we not traveled far enough together, daughter of the family Nelda, to earn me this final boon? Do this for me, and let us part as friends, each with some hope of achieving our desires. It is no bad thing to have a wizard in your debt.”

Loren pushed his hand away and fixed him with a hard stare. “My debt, and then some. I will expect you to conquer a city for me, if I ask it.”

Annis looked panicked. “You cannot mean to do as he asks!”
 

“One outlaw to another,” Loren said, holding out a hand. “You will answer if I call on you. Are we agreed?”

Without hesitation, Xain reached out to take Loren’s hand with a smile. “One outlaw to another. I quite like that.”

“On your word,” said Loren, gripping his wrist and shaking hard. “Now let us see if I have earned my name.”

thirty-five

THEY CREPT BACK DOWN THE hill on its southern side, where they found a narrow dell with many trees to hide them from watchers above. There, Loren told Annis and Xain to await her return—hopefully with a steed.

“We shall wait,” said Xain. “Only make haste, for dawn is close.”

“Do not tell me to hasten my steps into danger while you wait here in safety,” said Loren. “I have half a mind to bring you with me if I did not think you would walk loudly enough to wake the army.”

“Loren, you must not do this,” Annis pled. “It is far too perilous, and if anything should happen to you . . . well, have you thought of what would happen to
me?
Alone here with this madman of a wizard?”

“This madman has ears,” said Xain.

“I hope they burn with shame,” snapped Annis, glaring at him. “I will take no sharp words from you, and you deserve to hear many more from me.”

“I will not be long,” said Loren. “And all will be well. They will take no more notice of me than their shadows.”

“That is easily said,” said Annis. “But harder done.”

“If something should go wrong, make for the city. They will not turn you away, especially if you bring them word of the mercenaries. They will see no threat in you.”

“Because I am only a little girl, you mean,” Annis said, scowling at her feet.

Loren put a hand on her chin and tilted Annis’s face to meet her eyes. “It is no bad thing to seem less of a threat than you are. Remember that always. When you look at me, you see a simple woodsman’s daughter. Little would you know that you match eyes with the world’s greatest thief.”

Annis laughed, but tears moistened her eyes. “I do not like your talk of remembering always. It sounds too much like a final goodbye. Do not tell me what to do if you do not return; instead, promise that you will.”

Loren did not blink. “I have chosen a life of darkness and lies. I have skill in the shadows and with twisted words. But I must always have someone to whom I will speak only truth. Without that, I will go mad. That is what you are to me, Annis, so I will make you no promise that might be a lie.”
 

Her tears finally fell. Annis wrapped her arms around Loren’s waist. The sweet scent of the girl’s hair flooded her nostrils.

“Do your best, then, or I shall walk into the sellsword camp and fetch you home myself.”

Loren smiled. “My best is all I can promise. And I do so willingly.”

Annis turned her face and retreated into the dell. Xain studied Loren with careful eyes that glittered in moonslight.
 

“See to her safety. I shall return swiftly, or not at all.”

“I will,” said Xain. “If anything should go wrong, she will see Wellmont in safety.”

“Thank you,” said Loren. “Wish me luck.”

“Why should I? You have never had it before, and yet you seem to live well enough without.”

Loren smirked and turned from the wizard. Her black cloak whirled around her shoulders as she slipped into the night.

Her feet whispered through the soft grass, her weariness like another hundred pounds upon her. She had not slept since the morning when the Dorseans attacked. Loren had seen enough for many lifetimes of adventure since, but here she was, rushing headlong into her greatest peril yet.

“Still, I hope it will make a good story,” she said out loud, her words swallowed by the night. “A better one if I survive, I suppose.”

Loren drew near the hill’s crest and walked more carefully, not bending so much as a blade of grass nor making a sound. She surveyed the tents below, observing the torches making their way amongst the lines.

The mercenaries would have sentries, and she would have to find some way to slip through them. Darkness might provide her the cover she needed, but then again it might not—there was no way to know until she saw how many there were, and how far apart.

Loren lay in the grass, trying to pierce the darkness with her eyes, but soon grew impatient, knowing that dawn was nearing. Her eyelids grew heavy, and once or twice her head drooped. She reached up and pinched her cheek, hard enough to make her eyes water.
 

“You will not fall asleep,” she growled to herself. “What an inglorious end to my tale that would make:
then she drowsed off atop the hill, and the next thing she knew a spear prodded her awake as the soldiers attacked. Her friends would have mourned her death had they not been too busy laughing at her foolishness.”

Just as Loren wondered if the army had posted sentries after all, she caught a glint of starlight on metal. After a moment she made out the shape of a man in a grey cloak sitting against a fallen log.

In an instant, she realized her mistake and how crafty the mercenaries had been. Sentries on this side of the road stood under the hills’ shadows, where the brighter southern moon could not shine its silver light upon them. Only luck had given Loren a glimpse of the man—the pale northern moon catching the steel of his pommel. He was close to her, much closer than she would have thought possible, and her heart skipped as she imagined herself crawling ignorant down the hillside into his waiting arms.

Her drowsiness fled with all thoughts of sleep. Now that Loren knew what to look for, she crawled west along the hillside with a keen eye for the next sentry. This one she spotted without much trouble, not far from the first. Loren thought that mayhap she might sneak between them, but it would be a dangerous business indeed. Even the slightest noise might give her away, and once she passed from the shadows she would not be hard to spot in the moonslight.
 

Loren would have to create a distraction. She wished for Xain. The wizard could have sent a bolt of lightning below, and in the sentries’ shock she might have slipped by. But Loren feared she had not the time to fetch him and was mayhap worse off with such a plan, anyway. For then the camp would be roused and impede her chances of leaving unscathed.

Loren thought of her dagger but dismissed the idea immediately. Sheer luck had made it useful thus far, and she did not like the odds that one of these men might know and respect the Mystics who dealt with such weapons. She would have to draw them out but in such a way that they determined there was nothing worth alerting the camp about.

An idea struck her. It seemed risky and might raise the alarm, but Loren had little time to think of anything else. South of the hills, close to the river, the grass had been lush and green. Here, beside the road, it was dry and cracked with summer’s heat. Such scrub caught fire easily and could quickly spread to an inferno. Loren had never seen a forest fire but had heard tales from droughts in days past, when swaths of the forest could catch ablaze at once. Every forest dweller’s greatest fear.

What were the odds that the sentries might know this? Fair, she supposed, especially if they came from lands where woods were common and crackled in summer. A small fire, then, hardly more than wisps of smoke, might draw them out.

Quickly, she leapt into action, pulling several dried scrub brushes and branches together. To make it look like an old campfire, she gathered a few small stones and arranged them in a circle. She pulled flint and tinder from her pouch. She struck once, twice, thrice, until a few small sparks licked the tinder. Within a moment, a little flame lit the grass. Loren waited as long as she could and then stole away.
 

Her first instinct was to run from the sentries while waiting for them to see the fire. Then she realized that would only put her outside their ring, where eyes would be turned more watchfully outward. Instead, she ran halfway down the hillside towards a boulder and dropped down beside it. She pressed her face into the grass and threw her cloak overhead, then curled her legs up to rest beneath the hem.
 

It was not long before she heard a cry farther down the hill and feet running up the slope, along with the jingle of chainmail.

“What is it?” called a voice.

“A light!” The sentry’s voice sounded as though it were right on top of Loren. “Someone has started a fire!”

A set of footsteps passed and receded to silence up the hillside. Then another, and another. At last, all fell quiet, and Loren could hear nothing but her thundering pulse.

“It looks a campfire,” said one of the men. His voice was distant, and Loren had to strain to hear the words.

“Aye, but no one’s around,” said another.

“That only means they are wandering about in the darkness,” said the first. “Run back to camp, and alert one of the officers. The men must be roused.”

Loren’s heart stopped, and then:

“Hold that order,” a third voice said. “In summer, an ember may lurk unseen for days before sparking to life. This could have been set a week ago, or more.”

“Or tonight,” said the first man. “We should send word.”

“And risk the morrow’s march? For an old campfire, long dead? I will not risk it, for if we rouse the men and find nothing, the commander’s wrath will fall upon us.”

“Yet if we say nothing and are attacked . . .”

“By a lone wanderer, mayhap lost in the darkness? It could be no greater force, for who would be so foolish as to light a fire to announce their coming? At worst, this is some moonslight traveler who fled as soon as they saw our approach.”
 

Loren needed hear no more. She peeked under the edge of her cowl. Three large shapes were illuminated against the night sky. She rose to her hands and knees, and crawled around the rock. Then she stood and ran, bent to make herself small, her eyes scanning the path as she dashed on ahead.
 

No other sentries stood near, so in silence and shadow Loren crept amongst the tents of the sellsword camp.

thirty-six

LIKE A WRAITH SHE MOVED, steps soft as the wind. Loren took no great trouble to avoid footprints—the grass had been trampled by many hundreds of feet, and one set of boot prints looked much like another, especially in moonslight.

She avoided the campfires, for any man or woman nearby would no doubt raise the alarm. Jordel could pass for a mercenary, but Loren’s fine cloak and lack of armor would give her away in an instant. She had to avoid being seen, or all was lost.

The camp had been thrown together, with uneven rows and no clear lanes to move through. Sometimes, this was a blessing—easier to slip around in a different direction and hide herself from a wandering guard. But Loren soon found that it could work against her as well. She picked her way between two tents—a rustling and grunting coming from one. Loren paused, afraid she had been heard. As she stood frozen, listening, a guard stepped out from around the tent. The light from his torch nearly blinded her. She turned and stumbled around the edge, but her foot hit a stake and her knee struck the ground as she fell. She gasped in pain.

“What was that?”
 

Loren heard the hiss of drawn steel.
 

Blinking hard to rid herself of the white spot in her eyes, she crept around the tent in haste, hobbled by her knee. The guard was faster, bootsteps pounding as he rounded the tent. In a moment he would catch her.

“Quiet out there!” cried a voice—it came from the same tent where Loren had first heard the noise. She heard the slapping of a tent flap in the night air. “Who is that bumbling about?”

“Back to your bedroll,” said the guard. “I thought I heard a noise.”

“Aye, so did I—when you kicked my tent.”

“I didn’t kick your tent, I—“

“Then why are you standing by its uprooted stake?”

Loren thanked the sky above and melted back into the darkness. Quarreling voices faded behind her.
 

Ever more careful, she tried to peek around the corner of each tent before moving by.

Soon, she reached the horses gathered in the camp’s midst though not at its center. A scattering of tents was just south of the mounts, which she could ride through in moments.

Loren had planned to find a horse and lead it out by the reins, hiding behind its bulk in her cloak. If spotted, she would have to risk climbing the mount and riding for her life. But her hopes were dashed as she surveyed the line of pickets.
 

A ring of guards was watching the horses. Loren thought she might slip inside their watchful circle but could not imagine escaping it with a horse. Moreover, these mounts had no saddles, so her little skill at riding would be even more useless.