Protector Of The Grove (Book 2) (28 page)

“Enormously powerful?” she asked, seeing the whole thing in a new light.

“
Think of it this way, Tarah Woodblade
,” said the imp, leaning forward. “
My axe was a blood weapon, forged by an apprentice of mine. Alas, my people betrayed me. It is my blood that makes the runes red. Ho-ho, you haven’t seen Willy wield me in battle yet.
” He lifted the wine cup and drained the rest of the glass in one gulp. Licking his lips, he said, “
You have no idea the extent of what he can do with my power
.”

Tarah woke with a fierce headache. After the imp had set her free from his domain, her dreams had been restless and disjointed. She threw back the top of her bedroll and shoved her feet into her boots, then rubbed her temples as she watched a beautiful sunrise erupt from behind the mesas to the east. It lit up the entire sky, lining every wisp of cloud with a golden glow.

Southeastern Razbeck was a different type of landscape from the mountains and valleys of Dremaldria. The skyline was dominated by canyons and plateaus and the plants that grew here were mostly cacti and scrub brush. The only trees to be found were near small lakes or streams and those were sparse.

The worst part was the wind. It was relatively calm at the moment, but sometimes it threatened to blow them off their horses. The temperatures here weren’t as cold as the winter in Dremaldria but, when those gales hit, everyone was chilled to the bone. It was during those times that Tarah was most grateful for her new suit of armor. It kept her torso nice and warm, though that didn’t keep her from feeling like her ears were going to freeze off.

Tarah tore her eyes away from the view and looked down at the axe that still sat in her bedroll. It was a wicked looking weapon with a wide curving blade on one side and a curving spike on the other. The red runes on the side of its blade seemed to gleam at her.

She grabbed the axe and stomped over to Willum’s bedroll on the far side of the fire. He was sleeping on his side, a blanket pulled over his head.

“Wake up, Willum,” Tarah said, giving the man a little kick.

Willum turned over and looked up at her, wincing at the brightening sky. “What? Oh it’s you, Woodblade.” He yawned and placed his hands behind his head. “Thanks for taking Theodore for the night. I haven’t slept that well in months. How were your dreams?”

She crouched next to him and dropped the axe onto his stomach, causing him to double over. “You could have prepared me better.”

“How? You know he listens to every word I say. It isn’t beyond him to change his tactics just to mess with people.” He set the axe to the side and sat up. “He says you were lovely company, by the way.”

“Did he tell you I punched him?” she asked.

Willum smiled. “Wait. In your dream or his?”

“Well,” she replied, thinking about it. “I stomped on him in my dream, but we were in his realm when I punched him in the face.”

 “He says it didn’t hurt,” Willum said, then laughed. “That tells me it probably did.”

He threw back the top of his bedroll and stood, then began strapping on his sheaths. Tarah shook her head. He had slept in his boots. Why did all these academy men sleep with their boots on? Didn’t they know how filthy the inside of their bedrolls were getting?

“So was the information he had for you helpful?” Willum asked.

“He told me things about the origin of my staff that I didn’t know before,” she replied. “So I guess so.”

“Yeah, but what did he ask for in return?” Willum asked with a knowing smile. “He never gives anything away for free. Theodore says that you can’t tell me the details, but was that worth it?”

Tarah shrugged. “I actually think I came out on the better end of that deal.” She frowned thoughtfully and asked. “Tell me, Willum. Does Theodore ever foretell the future?”

“The future?” Willum said. “Wow. I don’t know about that. He seems pretty focused on the present most of the time.” The look on her face unsettled him and he opened his mouth to say something else, but Helmet Jan spoke up.

“Hey, Jerry! Don’t it bother you that your girlfriend’s sleeping with Willum’s imp?” She was sitting by the coals of the last night’s fire, getting a kettle of water boiling.

Needling Tarah was one of the few things that Jan took great pleasure in, especially once everyone found out about her relationship with Djeri. It had happened the morning they left Coal’s Keep. Evidently the farm hand that had seen Tarah straddling Djeri on the road had a big mouth.

Lem the Whip laughed along with her. He was sitting next to Jan, his arm around her shoulders. The two of them had gotten closer and closer recently. Djeri didn’t like his soldiers fraternizing, but there was nothing he could say considering his relationship with Tarah.

“I don’t have time to worry about every weapon she spends time with,” Djeri replied. The dwarf was standing at the edge of the camp looking to the south. He had taken the last watch of the night as was his custom. He wore a long winter cloak over his shining armor to keep it from glaring in the sunlight.

Tarah liked the way he looked in his new armor. If only it didn’t stand out like a beacon. The suit was so highly polished that it shone like mirrors. Tarah had suggested Djeri paint over the armor to keep their quarry from seeing them coming, but he had refused to mar his uncle’s fine work. In the end, the heavy cloak and a loose fitting shirt that he wore over the breastplate had been his compromise. He kept the helmet in a bag tied to Neddy’s saddle.

Tarah walked up to Djeri and put an arm around his shoulders. Leaning in to kiss his cheek, she whispered, “Djeri, I’m worried.”

The dwarf looked at her, his eyes searching. Tarah had decided that something had changed with Djeri. Ever since they had started this mission, he’d begun this habit of staring a person down before he talked. It was almost as if he were looking past her eyes and seeing directly into her intentions. The frustrating thing was that he was usually right.

“Yeah you are,” he said, keeping his voice low. “You look incredibly guilty. What happened? Did the imp tell you something?”

“He told me that one of us was gonna die.”

He kept his voice low. “And you believe it, don’t you? How did it know? Some kind of vision?”

“Something like that,” she replied. “He didn’t know what the specifics were. He just said that he was sure that at least one of our group, possibly more, was gonna die.”

Cletus’ long nose pushed between them. “Who’s gonna die?” he asked loudly. The gnome was silent as a ghost when he wanted to be, but he had no idea how to keep his voice down.

Tarah tried to think up something to tell him, but Djeri beat her to it. “All those dwarves who captured the rogue horse. Right, Cletus?”

“Oh yes,” the gnome said with enthusiasm. He bobbed his head. “I’ll kill ‘em. Do you want me to go now?”

“No. Not yet,” Tarah replied. Cletus asked them that question every morning. It was a ridiculous thought, one solitary gnome going up against more than a score of veteran dwarf smugglers, but after what she had seen him do that night on the docks of Filgren, part of her wondered if he might be able to do it.

Cletus frowned in disappointment, but then a hopeful gleam entered his eyes. “Are we riding today, then?” He loved riding horses, though he couldn’t sit still for more than a minute at a time.

“I don’t think so,” Tarah said. The smugglers had traveled fairly quickly until the last few days. Once their party had caught up, the dwarves hadn’t moved at all. They’d just set up camp in a gorge between two mesas and occasionally sent out small scout parties. Luckily none of them had come near Tarah’s position.

“Swen and Dinnis are out with Benjo watching their camp,” Djeri said. He gave both of them a reassuring smile. “I have a feeling that our opportunity will come soon. Who knows? Maybe we’ll see an opening and free Esmine tonight.”

As if in response to Djeri’s statement, they heard the sound of horse hooves pounding up the trail towards their camp. Tarah grabbed her bow and drew an arrow, but then the rider came into view. It was Benjo.

The large man reined in his horse and hopped down next to the fire, pulling his long scarf away from his face. “They’re gone,” Benjo said, his voice excited. “The smugglers left their camp while it was still dark. Swen says they made a beeline for the border. We need to leave right away if we want to keep pace with them.”

Tarah frowned. So much for freeing Esmine tonight. How long would the chase go on until they found the right opportunity? “Let’s go by their campsite first. I wanna know what they’ve been up to these last few days.”

They hurriedly packed up their things and headed out on horseback, Djeri riding Neddy. Cletus rode the battle-scarred warhorse that they had borrowed from Lenny before leaving Coal’s Keep. His name was Albert and he was the only one of their animals that would put up with the gnome’s antics. Cletus rarely put his feet in the stirrups, spending most of his time either crouched on the saddle or standing with his hands wide, somehow using his unnatural agility to keep his balance while enjoying the chill wind on his body.

Swen and Dinnis met them just in front of the entrance to the gorge. Tarah climbed down from her horse and began touching tracks. It was difficult to absorb what was going on because there were so many jumbled together. The dwarves had traveled in and out of the gorge quite often over the last few days.

“Alright,” she said. “It’s weird, but they’ve been trapping animals. With the memories I’m getting, the dwarves don’t know why, just that Blayne ordered it.”

“They were hunting, you mean?” Swen asked.

She rubbed the back of her neck. “No, they weren’t looking for food. They were looking for dangerous creatures and they planned on bringing them back alive. They brought wagons with them to bring their captures back in.”

“Dwarf smugglers do that some times,” Lem the Whip said. “They use live animals in their menageries and sometimes sell them to nobles or wizards.”

“Maybe Blayne has an order to fill,” Djeri suggested. “Could be the gnome wants more than just a rogue horse or he has other clients.”

“Could be,” Tarah said. “But-.” She saw another set of boot prints, perfectly pressed in a skiff of snow. The feet that had made these tracks were narrow and longer than a dwarf’s. Tarah smiled. She had a good idea who had made them. Tarah crouched next to the tracks and touched one. A memory flashed through her mind.

“These are Shade’s tracks!” she announced. “And he was upset about something.” She touched the next few tracks and stood, a clearer picture in her mind. “Blast!” she swore. “Dirt and leaves!”

 “What is it?” Djeri asked.

“They know!” She turned to the others, her face pinched with concern. “When Shade made these tracks, he knew they were being followed.”

“How?” Benjo said.

“Was it Jerry’s stupid armor?” Jan asked.

“I don’t know,” Tarah replied. “There are only so many memories in these tracks.”

“The how is not important,” Djeri said. “The question is do they know who we are and what we’re after?”

“I need more tracks to find out,” Tarah said and made her way into the gorge, touching every surface that might have been trod on. The others stayed behind her, knowing that Tarah needed her space. If one of them were to step on a track, the old memory would be erased, replaced by their own.

As Tarah went on, a picture began to build in her mind. The dwarves had figured out they were being followed the morning after their first night in the gorge. One of their scouts had used a long range eyeglass and saw the smoke from one of their camp fires. Blayne had ordered the others to wait in the gorge another day to make sure that the people who made the camp fire were coming their way. Then one of them had climbed to the top of the mesa and saw a group of riders, but more alarmingly, a gnome standing on the back of his horse.

“It was Cletus,” Tarah said aloud, looking back to scowl at the gnome. The others sighed, shooting him glares.

“What was me?” the gnome asked. He had gotten bored waiting for Tarah’s tracking and was sitting on Albert’s back, polishing the different attachments for his chain weapon. He had a variety of different pieces that could clip onto the ends of his chain. He kept them in multiple pockets on the vest he wore under his coat; everything from hooks to blades to strange star shaped pieces. He did everything with his chain. He even ate with it, attaching spoon and fork-like utensils to it and finding crazily dexterous ways to throw the food to his mouth.

 Tarah turned her attention back to the tracks. She followed them to the middle of the gorge. The area between the cliff walls widened at this point and Tarah could see the remnants of the dwarves’ camp. Enormous boulders littered the area and the dwarves had simply set up their tents around them.

“They must have left in a hurry,” Lem said. “The place is a mess.”

He was right. Canvas tarps were scattered around the area, as well as several crates and boxes. The tracks were harder to read here, so many of them overlaying each other. In the very center of the camp Tarah saw a small golden orb lying on the ground. It was not far from the central fire pit, sitting within the outlines where the dwarves’ command tent had once stood. The orb glowed softly.

Djeri knew what it was immediately. “Don’t get too close. That’s a paralyzing orb. Dwarf Smugglers use them to freeze their targets.”

“I don’t think it’s active,” Tarah said, standing from the tracks she’d been examining. She thought it strange that the dwarves would be in such a hurry that they’d leave something that valuable behind. “There’s no buzzing in my ears.”

“If it’s glowing it’s on,” Djeri said. He looked up at the cliffs on either side of the gorge. This was a perfect spot for an ambush. He reached one hand up to grasp the hilt of the greatsword he wore on his back. “Swen, are you sure that all of the smugglers left this place?”