The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell) (21 page)

Dozo looked up at the sky again berating himself for being such a fool, and not just because he was standing in the rain rather than sheltering under Callabris’s protective spell by the fire. It was probably a good thing that his ambition to become a physic was unlikely to be achieved if he couldn’t even spot when someone was going down with a fever. Perhaps it was because he had always thought of Allowyn as being so strong and so immune to the usual aches and ailments that soldiers get that he hadn’t noticed something was wrong. It wasn’t until Allowyn slid off his horse and lay on the ground burning with fever and shaking with the cold that he realised that the protector was sick.

He’d been like that for two days and Dozo was worried. Usually a chill fever passed in a day, but Allowyn had shown no signs of his fever breaking. Placing him in the cool away from the fire had at least helped him to sleep though. He wondered if it was something to do with his age. Allowyn had been with Callabris for many years and was almost a legend at the Enclave, but he was just a man with a man’s life span, and not a magician whose life only ended when their magic faded.

Still shaking his head he walked to the fire where Callabris had cast a shelter from his magic to protect themselves and the fire from the rain. The magician looked worried and strained from sustaining the sheltering spell for so long. If Callabris didn’t sleep soon he was going to have two sick men on his hands, and he didn’t think Callabris would be a particularly good patient. He shook out his cloak, spreading it out on the ground to dry by the fire and then sat on the end of an old log and helped himself to some herb tea.

“How is he?”

“He’s about the same, Lord; burning with fever and somewhere away from this life.” He hesitated for a moment, unsure if it would be acceptable to ask a personal question about his master, but decided that if it would help Allowyn, then it would probably be allowed. “Have you ever seen Master Allowyn like this before?”

“Yes, but only once. It was when he heard the news that his brother had died after failing in his duty. He was beside himself with grief and just walked out into the night. When he returned, he had the chill fever and I thought I would lose him, but he came back to me.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. I only did what you are doing now but not so well.” He gave an ironic laugh. “Of all the magic in the world, healing magic is the rarest and it’s not a gift which runs in our line.” Callabris stood and kicked at a branch at the edge of the fire sending sparks spiralling into the sky. “Curse the High Master for making him kneel in the rain and the snow. If anything happens to Allowyn I swear I will drag him naked through the snows of the Deeling Pass and leave his corpse for the sly hunters to devour.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” croaked a voice from behind them. Callabris spun around with his hand out ready to cast a defensive spell, and Dozo leapt to his feet pulling his sword half free from its scabbard. “It’s a good thing I’m not a brigand,” muttered Allowyn walking unsteadily into the protection of the shelter clutching a rain speckled blanket around his shoulders and looking paler than a ghost. He sat on a spare log and held his hands out to the fire. “Some herb tea would be good.”

“Master Allowyn, what are you doing here? You should be resting in your blankets.”

Dozo hurried around and poured Allowyn a mug of herb tea which he placed in his shaking hands. Allowyn ignored Dozo’s words but sipped his tea gratefully. “I’m sorry master, my weakness has delayed your journey, but after I’ve completed my devotions tomorrow morning we will leave.”

“Dozo is right, Allowyn. You are not yet fit to travel. We will stay another day or two until you are properly recovered.”

“No, master. We need to leave at first light. This place is not defensible and I have an uncomfortable feeling about our presence here.” He looked out into the darkness as if he expected people to appear. “If it would be possible for you to ward our camp this one night I will take up my duties again tomorrow.”

Callabris nodded. It would be hard maintaining their shelter and holding an impenetrable ward around the camp for the rest of the night, he would be exhausted in the morning but he trusted Allowyn’s instincts with his life and he had never been wrong before. He held out his hand and turned in a circle releasing the spell as he went. When he turned back Allowyn had already slipped from the log and was curled up by the fire, fast asleep.

In all the time Allowyn had been a protector, he had only missed his devotions four times; once when his brother had died and he had lost the will to live, once when he had been badly burnt pulling Callabris from a burning building, once when a bolt had lodged in his spine and any movement would have turned him into a helpless cripple and this time. Even when he had been wounded in battle he had done his devotions the following day, all be it in a reduced way so as not to aggravate his wounds, but his devotions today were an insult to the Goddess. He had tottered and staggered about, barely able to lift his swords and four of his knives had missed their target. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he had been able to offer his pain to the Goddess in recompense for his poorly executed devotions but he had no pain, just this cursed, damn fever.

Dozo was right, he should still be in his blankets but that wasn’t going to get his master to his destination as quickly as he wanted. There was something else too, a lifting of the hairs on the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the sweat which ran down his body from his fever or the thick mist which had taken the place of the heavy rain. He knew they were being watched and his instincts had never let him down before. As he had picked up his last knife from the dirt where he had missed his target and had prayed to the Goddess for forgiveness for defiling his blade,   he had been certain he had seen movement in the nearby bushes. Under normal circumstances he would have been onto the watcher like a hound onto a hopper but by the time he had wobbled to his feet the watcher was long gone.

He hadn’t told the others; they were jumpy enough already but they must have both guessed something was wrong when he had insisted that Dozo helped him on with his full armour. It had taken all his strength to pull himself onto his horse and as he sat there, at the head of their small column, with Callabris behind him and Dozo bringing up the rear with the two pack horses, he wondered if it had been a mistake. Certainly the armour would reduce the impact of a bolt and deflect a blade but it was heavy and in his weakened state he wasn’t sure if he would be able to fight in it.

The only reason he had put it on was to make any would be attackers think twice about molesting them. It was the same reason he had insisted that Callabris cover his white robes with an old brown cloak and Dozo change into servant’s garb. He couldn’t do anything about pack horses but he hoped that they looked like well protected travellers who would be more trouble to attack than they were worth.

The mist didn’t help either, swirling amongst the trees at the side of the road looking like wraiths so that it was impossible to tell if it was the mist that moved or something more sinister. Then there was the noise which was enough to block out the sound of anyone approaching. There was the loud clop of their horse’s hooves on the hard stone roadway and the constant drip of water where the trees shed three days rain and gathered more moisture from the saturated air. On top of all of that there was the crash of fast-running water somewhere to the right as a swollen stream cascaded over the rocks which made up Essenland’s Silver Hills.

When the attack came it was so sudden that none of them had time to react. One moment there was just swirling mist and the sound of water, and the next their attackers were all over them. Allowyn had time to throw two knives, only one of which found its mark in an enemy’s shoulder, before he was dragged from his horse and pulled to the ground. He fought all the way with his studded gloves and heavy boots thudding into unprotected flesh causing screams of pain. However there were too many of them and when one of them caught him a glancing blow on the temple with a flat river stone he went limp, overcome with the dizziness from the blow and his fever.

Dozo, at the rear, had slightly longer to react. He dropped the lead reins of the pack horse, drew the short sword which was concealed beneath his tunic and charged forward to defend Callabris, knocking two of the attackers to the ground. If there had been one or two of them he would have been fine, but they were all over him, their hands pulling at his arms and belt until their sheer weight tumbled him off his horse. He rolled as he hit the ground squashing one of the attackers beneath him with a loud shriek before he scattered the rest and rolled onto his knees. Before he could stand two of them had jumped on his back and Dozo froze as a sharp blade pressed against his throat.

Callabris remained where he was. White robes never fought, that is why they had protectors, and with Allowyn and Dozo in the midst of their attackers any spell that he might use would affect them too. But that wasn’t the real reason he was reluctant to use his magic, it was the size of the attackers. They were all children, small, dirty, ragged children with only two of them taller than the top of his saddle and all of them with desperate eyes and haggard faces. The two eldest, a boy of about twelve summers and a girl just a little older were the only ones who were armed with anything more than a stone or a piece of stout wood. The girl held the knife to Dozo’s throat whilst the boy held a broken-shafted spear which wavered in his hand as he pointed it at him.

“You, old man, get down from that ‘orse and don’t try owt if yer don’t want me to stick yer with this.”

Callabris raised his eyebrows, impressed by the boy’s courage if not his demands, and carefully dismounted. “I would be obliged if you would release my servant so that he can see to my guard, he appears to be hurt.”

“You aint going to tell us what to do, old man. You’re our prisoners and I give the orders around ‘ere.” The girl hissed something at him and he nodded. “Brim, Stack, get some rope off the pack ‘orse and tie them up. Deck, see what’s in the saddlebags.”

Callabris scowled in annoyance. He had no intention of being tied up or letting these thieves rummage through their belongings. “We mean you no harm, boy. Just release my servant and let him tend to your injured friends, and then we can talk about what you are all doing here running around the woods and attacking travellers.”

The boy looked around him and seemed to notice the injured children for the first time. For a moment he looked undecided but the girl spoke up. “Don’t you take no notice of ‘im, Trad. ‘E aint goin’ to ‘elp us, ‘e’s just another one of them tax collectors.”

“She’s right and in any case we don’t need no ‘elp, we look after our own. Tie them up and you others get ‘em all on their feet, we’re goin’ back to camp.”

Everyone jumped to obey the boy’s orders and Callabris watched as Allowyn and Dozo had their hands bound behind them. Brim came to tie his hands too but couldn’t work out what to do with the rope so he wandered away to find something else to do. The boy called Deck tried to open the saddle bags on the two pack animals but gave up when the buckles wouldn’t open. Instead he picked up the trailing lead reins looking slightly confused.

Around him the other children were helping the injured to their feet, some with bleeding wounds, all but one, the small girl Dozo had rolled over, able to walk with help. The girl sheathed her knife and picked up the limp child, glaring angrily at Dozo who looked as if he would have given anything to have been set free so he could help the injured child. When they were all ready they turned towards the sound of running water and set off in a ragged line.

It would have been easy for Callabris to have done something about the situation of course. He could have unbound Allowyn’s and Dozo’s hands or used a compunction spell on the children to set their prisoners free but he was curious. He wanted to know why a band of children ranging from five to thirteen summers were living wild and attacking travellers. Most of all he wanted to help them; they had been lucky this time but next time they might find travellers who were more willing to defend themselves. Even if they didn’t it, was clear that it wouldn’t be long before starvation or sickness began to take its toll.

They followed the children through a thin coppice of trees which lined the road and then over the rocky ground which climbed steeply into the lower slopes of the Silver Hills. When they came to a stream, which cascaded noisily over a fall of boulders, they stopped whilst some of the children drank and others tore off strips of their clothing and dabbed ineffectually at the wounds that Allowyn and Dozo had inflicted. Dozo offered to help but the only response he received was an angry hiss from the girl who still carried the limp child in her arms. They crossed the stream using a stout rope attached to two metal stakes and then followed a broad cart track until they came to a horseshoe-shaped clearing.

Dozo had seen such places before. They were dotted all over the Silver Hills, many of them were still active mines but this one looked like it had been abandoned a long time ago. The main entrance to the mine was deeply rutted where wagons had passed for generations carrying away the spoil and the precious ore. At one time it had been blocked off with wooden planks, but the planks had been taken away just leaving the rusting nails to show where they had been.

Further along there was a smaller entrance which could have been a service tunnel or an escape route if the mine was very old and unstable. Looking at the metal bars which crossed the entrance, Dozo guessed its last use had been as a storage area for the silver ore before it was transported away from the mine. He looked around him and found the well trodden pathway that led from the mine to where the miners’ cottages would be; close enough to be reached quickly, but far enough away to be safe from any subsidence.

“Oy, you! Stop gawking and move!”

Dozo jumped as the eldest boy prodded him in the back with the spear point and hurried after the others who were already being herded towards the smaller, barred entrance. By the time he reached them the girl had opened the door and Allowyn and Callabris were already inside. He stopped just as he was about to step through and glanced at the pale child the girl was still carrying.