Nature's Peril Part 1 (The Nature Mage Series) (13 page)

“Sure,” Baard answered, echoed by Sabu. They handed the reins of their hoses to Zlekic and Zaric and went through the narrow opening.

Even with Baard and Sabu’s help, leading the horses into the thicket was hard work. The overhanging branches made them nervous, and at several points one horse or another dug its heels in and whickered uncertainly. It took a great deal of patience and persuasion, but they finally got all the horses through, and found themselves in a large clearing within the thicket.

I
t was noticeably darker inside the thicket than it had been outside. Hemmed in on all sides by the overgrown tangle of foliage and covered by a thick canopy of interlocking branches, the clearing was shrouded in perpetual murk. Gaspi suspected it wouldn’t even brighten up on the very sunniest of days.

The hermit’
s dwelling stood in the centre of the clearing. It was constructed from a hodgepodge of materials, some natural and some man-made, and all of them were covered in a thick carpet of moss. The doorway had clearly been taken from another building, frame and all, and had been shoved up against an opening in one of the walls and tied on with lengths of dirty rope. White smoke curled from a broken pipe on the roof and filtered up through the branches overhead, dispersing it and making it hard to spot from a distance. Gaspi could see that the hermit had made an attempt at cultivation, but he’d never seen a sorrier looking row of turnips in his life. They were wilted and grey, and less than half the size they ought to be. What was that growing in the next row? Whatever they were, they were too rotten to identify, blackened lumps of vegetative matter decaying in the wet soil.

The door to
the shack creaked open on protesting hinges and the hermit came scurrying out, pushing the door shut behind him. He was even filthier than Gaspi had first thought. Ragged clothing clung to his lumpy frame like a second skin, ingrained with ancient dirt. He couldn’t have had a wash in years! He was a couple of inches under average height, but he was broad, with heavy shoulders and long, ape-like arms. He had a weak chin, a prominent, rounded forehead, and heavily lidded eyes that darted from face to face.

“
You can make your camp out here,” he said, indicating the part of the clearing they were standing in. “Make a fire if you like, but just stay clear of my house. Understood?”

“Understood
,” Voltan said.

With a loud grunt, the hermit
turned his back on them, pulled open the door and went back into his shack.

“He’s not exactly friendly,
” Taurnil said quietly.

Voltan shrugged. “He doesn’t have to be friendly. He just needs to let us camp here.”

“Do we really have to stay?” Gaspi asked, keeping his voice deliberately low. “It isn’t just the hermit. The whole place stinks!” he said, eyeing the plot of rotten vegetables, mouldering in beds of dark, fetid soil.

“Does it?” Baard said
, sniffing the air curiously.

“It’s too late now,” Voltan responded. “
It’ll be dark soon, and we’d have to spend time getting the horses out again. So let’s just make the best of it okay?”

“Okay,” Gaspi grumbled. Voltan was right, but he hated being in this horrible place.
It was the very opposite of Heath’s clearing – in place of life and growth there was nothing but mould and decay.

“Good,” Voltan said. “Now go
collect some firewood and give it to Talmo.” They collected the wood in silence, and then waited while the meal was prepared. No-one seemed to feel like talking, so they cooked and ate without any of their usual banter. Even the twins were quiet. When the meal was over, they performed their chores, rolled into their blankets, and went straight to sleep, leaving Baard to keep watch.

Gaspi strained against the ropes that tied him even as his captor bent down to pull them even tighter. The hooded man’s features blurred and ran into one before his eyes, refusing to resolve into anything recognisable. The featureless face swivelled towards him, and for the briefest moment Gaspi glimpsed a pair of sullen red eyes, gleaming with dark intent.

Fear shot up Gaspi’s spine and he screamed helplessly into the gag. The hooded man reached down to his hip and drew out a dagger, its blackened blade as smoky and insubstantial as
his face. Gaspi tried to focus on it, but looking at it played tricks with his eyes and he was overcome by a wave of intense nausea. The fell blade lowered until its point was level with Gaspi’s right eye. Gaspi turned his head aside and struggled against his bonds, but to no avail. He couldn’t break free of the ropes any more than he could remember how he got there. In a quiet corner of his mind he recognised that none of this made any sense. Who was this man, and why was he trying to kill him?

I’m
dreaming
! Gaspi realised, a truth so clear and simple it cut right through his befuddled state. He shook his head violently, trying to awaken from the disturbing dream. He was teetering on the brink of wakefulness, but the dream had a hold on him and wouldn’t let him go. The hooded man leaned in and grabbed him by the chin, holding his head in place while he pushed the point of the dark blade towards Gaspi’s eyeball.

WAKE UP!
He screamed to himself, and the dream was shattered.

…

Gaspi’s eyes flew open. It was still night-time and it was almost pitch black within the enclosure of the thicket. Keen to shake off the remnants of his disturbing dream, he sat up. Or at least he tried to, but he couldn’t move a muscle! He felt a surge of panic, more visceral than any emotion he’d felt in the dream. What was going on? Why couldn’t he move? He tried again and again without success. His heart started racing, his muscles flooded with adrenaline, but it made no difference. He was helpless.

A twig snapped nearby
and Gaspi instantly stopped trying to move. He listened intently, trying to identify the source of the noise. For long moments there was silence, but then someone grunted. Then came the sound of heavy, shuffling footsteps, and if he wasn’t mistaken, they were coming in his direction. He tried to move again, but it was no good. The footsteps were getting nearer. Panicked, he closed his eyes and kept his breathing steady.

The footsteps crunched through the dirt and twigs and came to a stop. A reek of r
ancid sweat drifted into his nostrils. He risked opening his eyes a crack. It was the hermit, crouching down right next to him, but he wasn’t bending over Gaspi – he was bending over Taurnil!

The hermit stood up. “Fortunate,” he called.
There was no response. “FORTUNATE,” he roared, clearly unconcerned about waking anyone up. Gaspi wished he could turn his head. Were the others all trapped as helplessly as he was?

A loud creaking sound cut through the night
, and the sound of much lighter footsteps came pattering across the ground. Gaspi kept his eyes narrowed as the footsteps approached. Within moments, another shadow loomed over Gaspi, but this one was much smaller than the hermit.
A boy
! Gaspi thought, but he couldn’t make out any of his features in the darkness.

“Where we
re you?” the hermit growled, grabbing the boy by his hair and yanking his head downwards, twisting his neck viciously to one side.

“I’m sorry
Baas!” the boy cried. “I was sleeping.”

“Sleeping?” the hermit accused, twisting the boy’s neck around until Gaspi was sure it was going to snap. “I’ll see to you later,” he added, releasing the boy’s hair and pushing his head away. “No
w help me get them inside. Grab this one’s feet.” Fortunate circled Taurnil’s body, bet down, and came up holding Taurnil’s ankles. He was clearly struggling with them, and though the hermit had Taurnil by the wrists, Fortunate couldn’t lift him off the ground. He let go, and Taurnil’s feet landed in the dirt with a thump.

“Useless boy,”
the hermit cursed.

“Can’t you
just let them go?” Fortunate asked querulously. “If you let them wake up, they’ll never know.”

“Shut up,” the hermit hissed. “If I hear another word from you, I’ll cut out your tongue.”
He eyed Fortunate intently, driving his message home. “Now pick up those damn legs!”

Fortunate bent down and
took hold of Taurnil’s ankles again, groaning loudly as he tried to lift him. The hermit pulled on Taurnil’s arms, raising him off the ground, and started to stagger backwards towards the hut. Fortunate followed along, struggling to keep Taurnil’s legs in the air, but Gaspi could hear that his friend was basically being dragged through the dirt.

Adrenaline flooded through Gaspi. He had to do something. Exercising every last bit of mental discipline he could muster, he
ignored the energy pumping through his veins and focussed inwards. He had to break whatever force was holding him, and he had to do it now! Closing his eyes, Gaspi pushed aside the sounds of the hermit and Fortunate going in and out of the hut, dragging his friends inside one by one. He concentrated on one question alone: what was stopping him from moving? He roamed inwards with his senses, searching for intoxicants. It was the kind of magic he found very difficult. His progress was slow and clumsy, but still he pressed on, searching for the presence of poison or some kind of drug. After a couple of minutes he still hadn’t found anything, so he gave up trying. Slow as he was with that kind of magic, he didn’t think he’d missed anything.

If he hadn’t been drugged, then it had to be magic.
It seemed so unlikely that the hermit had any kind of magical skill, but what else could it be? He probed inward with his senses, searching for any kind of spell-work. At first he didn’t detect anything, but then he narrowed his focus to search for a compulsion, and sure enough, there it was, like an iron band around his mind. Gaspi ran his senses up against it, testing its strength, and instantly recoiled. The spell holding him captive reeked of blood and dark power, a thing born of pain and suffering.

The sound of the hermit speakin
g to Fortunate penetrated his consciousness. In a distant corner of his mind, he registered that his friends had all been dragged inside the hut, which meant that time was running out! Urgently, Gaspi flicked a thread of power at the compulsion, stinging it to see how it would react. If the hermit was a magician, then he would sense what he was doing, but there was nothing else for it. The compulsion reacted defensively, tightening around Gaspi’s mind and forcing him back towards sleep. Gaspi’s eyelids were suddenly so heavy he couldn’t keep them open, sliding shut as he was sucked down towards oblivion. On the verge of unconsciousness, all he could see was a fading image of Taurnil lying helpless in the shack, awaiting the hermit’s mercies.

NO!
he cried inwardly, and his eyelids flew open once more. Pushing back numbing waves of fatigue, Gaspi drew deeply from the well of his magic and attacked the compulsion. It didn’t stand a chance. It absorbed the influx of power for the briefest moment and then exploded, releasing Gaspi’s mind from its grip just as the hermit reached him. Gaspi tensed his muscles, preparing to spring to his feet.

“Take his legs
,” the hermit said, and Gaspi froze, uncertain. He remembered something Jonn had once said; all it takes is a lucky slip of a dagger, and even the very best warrior can be killed. He could overwhelm the hermit with magic, but the man was standing right over him, and Gaspi was in a very vulnerable position. Besides, he didn’t know if Fortunate was an innocent party in all of this, and he didn’t want to catch them both up in the same blast. Gaspi decided to let them pick him up and wait until the hermit’s attention was elsewhere before making his move. His friends’ lives might depend on it.

Gaspi closed
his eyes just as the hermit loomed over him. The next thing he felt was a rough pair of hands gripping his wrists so tightly it hurt, and a much smaller pair of hands grasping his ankles.

“Lift him up
, boy,” the hermit growled. Two pairs of hands hauled on him, and Gaspi felt himself leave the ground. He swayed back and forth as they carried him, keeping his body deliberately limp, even though every nerve in his body was screaming at him to break away from his captors!

T
hey passed through the open doorway and went into the hut. A hot stench washed over him, and he had to fight the urge to hold his breath. It was overpowering! What in the world was that smell? Whatever it was turned his stomach and stung his nostrils.

“Over there, in the gap,” the hermit said
. Gaspi was carried a few more yards and dumped on the floor. He hit the dirt hard and let out an involuntary grunt. Realising what he’d done, he tensed up, ready to spring. If the hermit was onto him then time had run out and he had to act.

“What
was that noise?” the hermit asked. Gaspi drew on his power, ready to strike.

“It was me,” Fortunate said. “I dropped him on my toe.”

“Well, be more bloody careful,” the hermit responded, “or once I’m done with them, I’ll use the stone on you as well.”

“Sorry B
aas,” Fortunate replied.

“So you should be,” the hermit responded. “You’re fortunate I
don’t kill you.”

“Yes B
aas.”

Gaspi’s mind whirled. Fortunate hadn’t dropped him on his toe, and
he hadn’t made a noise. Did the boy know he was awake? Was he covering for him?

The hermit walked
away, and Gaspi opened his eyes a tiny crack, only to find Fortunate staring right back at him. The boy had skin even darker than Sabu’s. He was thin as a rake and dressed in rags. Fortunate mouthed something - a single word - but Gaspi couldn’t make it out. He shook his head ever so slightly, and opened his eyes a fraction wider. Fortunate mouthed the word again, and this time Gaspi was sure of what the boy was trying to say:
Help
.

Gaspi gave the smallest of nods
to show he understood. Fortunate nodded in return before turning away and shuffling over to stand beside the hermit. The hermit had his back to Gaspi, so he opened his eyes fully and looked around. He was lying in the dirt alongside his friends; Sabu on his left and Baard on his right. The hermit was several paces down the line, bending down over someone, though Gaspi couldn’t see who it was. He nudged Sabu in the ribs to see if he was awake, but he didn’t get any response. He tried Baard, to the same effect. He faced the fact that he was probably the only one who’d broken the compulsion, and it was up to him to save all of their lives. He needed to pick his moment, and to strike as fast as he possibly could. He lifted his head a fraction to see what was going on. The hermit was leaning over Taurnil, peeling back the folds of his cloak.

“Chain mail,” the hermit muttered. “We’ll start with someone else.”
The hermit stood up and shuffled down the line until he came to Voltan. “This one will do,” he said, pulling back his cloak to reveal a simple shirt. “This’ll cut right off,” he said, pulling the material taut. He reached towards his hip and drew a knife.

There was no more time to wait. Gaspi
sprang to his feet, magical power surging around his fists.

“STOP!” he shouted, just as the hermit slid his knife through Voltan’
s shirt, parting the cloth as if it was water. He stopped and looked up in surprise.

“What? How?” the hermit
said, frozen in disbelief. He glanced to his left, and Gaspi followed his gaze to a table. A blackened stand stood in the centre of that table, and resting on that stand was a rock - or something like a rock - throbbing with unholy magic. It was roughly cut, jet black and covered in a lattice of pulsing red streaks. As soon as he looked at it, Gaspi felt the pressure return to his mind, trying to force him back into unconsciousness.

“That’s right,”
the hermit hissed. “Sleep…”

Gaspi shook his head and resisted the compulsion. “Not a chance,”
he said through gritted teeth, and lashed out at the hermit with a ball of force. The hermit’s eyes widened as it soared towards him, and then widened further as it took him in the chest and sent him smashing through the wall of the hut. Gaspi followed him out through the hole, spun out a web of power and pinned him to the ground. “You’ll keep,” he said, his eyes ablaze, and went back into the hut.

The moment he stepped back through
the hole in the wall the rock’s glow intensified, bathing him in sullen red light as it unleashed a fresh assault on his mind. It wasn’t trying to make him sleep this time, however. It battered the walls of his mind, flooding him with hate; hatred for his unconscious companions, hatred for himself, and hatred of life itself. He wanted to pick up the hermit’s knife, lying abandoned on the floor. He saw himself wielding it, slicing deeply into the chest cavities of his companions and extracting their hearts. He saw himself placing the rock in the open wounds, bathing it in blood as it soaked up the power within. The images were overpowering, and for long, unbearable moments, Gaspi was consumed by alien hatred towards every living being in the hut.