The Key

[tamrend]

Chapter 1: The Sorcerer

“Who do you think he was?” Shael squeaked excitedly. It made her sound like a child, far younger than her fourteen years. Kelsia frowned at the question, then moved out from behind the cover of the boulder. She wanted to get a closer look at the body.

The man lay on his side, his face obscured by a tangle of long, blood-matted hair. One hand clutched a pale staff lying partially beneath him. His skin was so light that it was nearly white and his clothing was of a strange cut and material, its surface seeming to shimmer like flowing water as it caught the sun’s rays. Surrounding him in a rough circle was a light dusting of black, white and gray, like dirty snow. Kelsia bent and pinched up a bit of the stuff. It felt gritty when she rubbed her fingers together. “It’s ash,” she said aloud, “and still warm. Strange.” She looked once again at the body, untouched by the fire.

“I don’t like this,” Shael called. She hung back, poised to take shelter behind the boulder again if needed. Her sense of adventure upon first seeing the body from a distance seemed to have fled as they actually approached. “I think we should go. Someone from the village can see to him.”

Kelsia scowled at her friend, but relented. “Alright, we’ll go in a moment, but let me get a closer look at him.” Her feet sank into the ash slightly and kicked up puffs of it as she walked. She was nearing the body when a crunch beneath her feet startled her. Heart pounding, she stepped back and looked where her foot had landed. Though blackened and half-melted, the broken halves were still recognizable as the heavy iron head of an axe. The metal had been made brittle somehow and had snapped when she stepped on it. There were other small artifacts nearby, buried in the ash. One looked like a melted shirt of chain mail.

Shaking her head in bafflement, Kelsia squatted down next to the body. The staff drew her eyes to it, glittering so brightly it seemed to shine with its own light. A twisting set of grooves spiraled around the whole of its length. She reached out with tentative fingers to touch the design.

An icy hand clapped around her wrist. Kelsia tried to scream, but her throat was constricted and no sound came out. The eyes of the dead man were open and feverish with lethal intent. Kelsia twisted and thrust herself backwards desperately, and the grip was broken almost at once. She stumbled and went down, a cloud of ash rising up in a swirling gray blizzard. Too frightened to move, she stared at the apparition that had grabbed for her, her breath coming in too-shallow gasps. The dead man shifted and groaned, turning slightly to look at her. She jumped when he spoke, “You…you’re human. Just a girl.” The voice was gravelly, but not inhuman.

“Y-yessir,” she managed.

He stared at her for a long moment as she stood up. He frowned. “Can you run, girl?”

She took a step back. “I uh-I suppose I can, sir.”

He nodded slowly, as if she had just spoken a piece of sage wisdom. “I have a task for you, girl. There is a village up ahead.”

“Yes. I live there,” she answered, before thinking that maybe she shouldn’t have told him that.

He clenched his jaw and grasped the staff with his free hand, pulling it from under him with a painful effort. The length of it gleamed like flowing silver, untarnished by the ash. He sucked several breaths through gritted teeth, belying the pain that the movement had cost him. It was several moments before he could speak. “Take it. Take the staff to your village. Someone there must take it and your fastest horse and ride for Dalmers Ferry. Waiting at an inn, the Shepherd’s Hearth, is a man named Seith. He will know what to do with this.”

Kelsia’s gaze was drawn to the staff. She felt the urge again to reach out and touch the spiral design. “The village is not far. We can bring back help-“

“No!” he wheezed. “No, there is no time. I am already beyond help. Take it now, please!”

Kelsia reached out with an unsteady hand to take the staff. The tips of her fingers tingled as they drew near. Her grip closed around it and she gasped as warmth flooded into her, a flash of heat that passed through her body and out to her extremities. Now her whole body tingled and the ground swirled beneath her feet. She stumbled and caught herself from falling with the staff, an act that caused even more disorientation. She had felt the ground. When the staff had touched down, she had felt it just as surely as if it had been her own hand or foot. Just as strange, when she closed her eyes she felt the presence of the staff in her mind, could see it just as clearly as before.

Shael’s warning cry broke through Kelsia’s reverie. A growl rumbled from the creature’s throat as she spotted it, crouched low in the grass barely a dozen paces away. Its yellow eyes fixed unblinking on her as its body tensed, muscles visibly rippling beneath short, black fur. It bared its fangs in a hideous grin. Suddenly the beast was moving, powerful lupine body dashing over the ground on all fours, jaws opening for the kill. Somewhere behind her, Shael was screaming.

Run, you fool.

Kelsia stumbled back, pushed by a blast of sound so loud it rattled her teeth painfully. She blinked, but the brilliant streak of green across her vision was slow to fade. The wolf-like creature lay on the ground some distance away, thrashing about dazedly. The thick, choking scent of singed fur nearly gagged her. The wounded man held his palm outstretched, arcs of sizzling energy jumping between his fingers. The creature stopped its confused movements and rose warily to its rear feet. Blackened flesh began to knit itself before Kelsia’s eyes. It crouched for another leap.

“Run!” the sorcerer shrieked, a blast of heat pouring forth as a stream of orange light flowed from his hands and enveloped the creature in midair.

Kelsia fled alongside Shael, the screams of the man and beast trailing them as they struggled to kill one another. Kelsia cradled the staff protectively against herself. A voice, not her own, wept into the stormy mix of fear and confusion in her mind.

Terror drove them on, much further than exhaustion and pain would normally have allowed. They descended from the high, rock-strewn plain and entered the darker, closer confines of a pine forest. Only then did Kelsia begin to feel the pressures of her body's need for rest. Moreover, as fear subsided and common sense began to take hold, she realized that a cramped muscle or a careless misstep by either of them could lead to disaster. They slowed to a walk and Kelsia looked back for the first time. Nothing pursued them. There was only the stoic green silence of the trees and the sound of their own labored breathing.

They walked at an even pace to restore their strength, though the fading light soon began to lend urgency once more to their travel. The trees ended suddenly and they emerged into a wheat field, stalks of grain bending to the wind like waves on a red-gold ocean. Wispy trails of smoke rose up from beyond the ridge in front of them as the village warmed itself against the coming night.

Kelsia forced herself to think, working through the shock of what she had experienced. They had to go to Master Graegor, the mayor, and tell him what had happened. She wondered what could be so important about the staff that the sorcerer would risk giving it to a total stranger to get it to its destination. Suddenly, she was tackled to the ground and a hand clapped over her mouth. She felt hot breath on the back of her neck and her mind summoned up the terrifying image of lupine jaws about to close around her throat.

“Don’t scream,” Shael whispered next to her ear, her voice quavering. “Be absolutely still.”

Kelsia gave a nod and Shael’s hand came away. Several more moments passed before Shael climbed off of her. “There are two of them. I don’t think they saw us. Take a look for yourself, but keep your head down.”

Kelsia raised her head slowly and peered out over the field. Her eyes were not as keen as her friend’s but in a moment she spotted the pair moving close to the treeline. It was difficult to get much detail from such a distance, but they looked slightly hunched and cast off glimmers in the fading sunlight. They came to a halt as another figure emerged from the forest. The three appeared to exchange words with the smaller, slighter figure, which then turned and merged back into the trees. The pair resumed its marching as twilight began to fall.

“It’s a patrol,” Kelsia whispered, watching the pair continue on its line. “They are both wearing armor. They're staying close to the trees in case they need to take cover. If they're from Dunesmar, what would they be doing this far south?” Dunesmar, at nearly a hundred leagues distant, was the closest city large enough to sustain any army.

A movement among the trees made Kelsia duck down with a murmured exclamation. Lying low in the field, she could see little through the grass, but she could hear them, a steady rustle of movement. They came closer, and closer still. She pushed herself down further into the wheat, straining to be invisible. She could feel the thump of feet on the ground against her cheek. Her skin began to itch, but she kept still with an effort of will. Shael had squeezed her eyes shut and her lips moved silently as if in prayer. Levering herself slowly upwards, Kelsia was able catch a glimpse of them. They were armored and carried shields, spears and axes. One of them passed by almost right next to her and she saw a pair of tusks curving out beneath a spike-topped helm.

After what seemed like an eternity, the last of them passed on. The clatter of metal faded but was soon replaced by the chirping of crickets. Kelsia nudged Shael and they carefully rose to look about. The field had gone from gold to silver, lit by the stars glittering in a moonless sky. A smudge of darkness on that silver-black plain marked the progress of the creatures, circling around to the south of the village. “How many, do you think?” she asked.

Shael pursed her lips, staring at the moving group. “Less than a hundred,” she said. “Maybe only a few dozen." She squinted. "I think they’ve stopped moving. I can’t see them anymore.”

Kelsia wondered if Shael really knew how much a hundred was. Either way, it was more than enough to wipe out the entire village. “Come on,” she urged, rising to a half-crouch and starting across the field toward town. She watched the darkness to the south for signs of movement as they ran. They just had to hope that the creatures could not see in darkness any better than they could.

They stayed off the road and kept low to the base of the hill upon which the town was built, circling to a steeper ascent on the south side to keep their silhouettes from showing against the sky. Reaching the relative safety to be had between the buildings, they followed the village’s only street. Flickering light shone through the windows of most of the houses, but the handful of shops lining the street were dark. One building was still well lit and lively with noise and music and it was here that Kelsia and Shael went. Kelsia wrinkled her nose at the smell of spilled liquor and unwashed bodies and hurried through the tavern’s main room, ignoring the looks of the few travelers who bothered to notice them. They exited through a doorway that led into the kitchen, then went down a hallway to a quiet room at the back of the building.

Master Graegor sat behind a huge oaken desk, quill fluttering rapidly across the page of a ledger. He paused and looked up over his spectacles as they entered, jotted down another quick series of strokes, then sat back with a sigh. “Hello Shael, Kelsia.” Then he noticed their dirty, bedraggled appearance. "By the seven hells, what’s happened to you two?”

Kelsia stepped forward. As a girl she had always felt intimidated by the mayor, whose generous height and girth and spiky beard lent him something of the countenance of a bear. “Master Graegor, sir, we just came from the forest to the west of the village. We saw soldiers, just outside the village. They wore armor, and carried all sorts of weapons, and—“

“Hold on, there,” Graegor said, eyeing her critically. She couldn’t blame him. She knew how it sounded. “That’s a very poor joke to try to play on someone, Kelsia. Or are you two in some kind of trouble?”

Shael gulped. “It’s true, sir. We hid down in the grass and a troupe of them passed right by us. They settled in a spot to the south of the village.”

“You really expect me to believe this, don’t you?” His tone sounded a bit less skeptical.

“On my honor, I swear it,” Kelsia said earnestly.

“Your father used to say that,” Graegor said, nodding slowly. “And he was nothing if not an honest man. I’d like to think he raised a daughter much the same. Tell me, then. These soldiers, what did they look like? Quickly now.”

Kelsia told him what little she had gleaned and answered his questions as well as she could.

”It almost sounds like they were demons,” he mused. “And what's that?" he asked, pointing at the staff.

"That's an even stranger story," she began. Time was essential, so she told only the most vital parts of what had happened. In particular, she left out the part about being able to feel through the staff. That might make an otherwise plausible story sound too far-fetched.

"May I see it?" he asked and she dutifully handed it over. He turned it over in his hands and Kelsia winced at the perceived touch of his calloused fingers. "Excellent craftsmanship," he muttered, "and made of a material I've never seen before." He propped it against the ground and rested some of his weight on it, making Kelsia lick her lips nervously at feeling herself being pushed down against the ground. "Do you believe it has anything to do with the soldiers you saw?"

It was a connection that she had not until now had much chance to examine. "Possibly." She remembered the bits of metal in the circle of ash where she had found the sorcerer. "Yes, I think so. Will you be sending a rider to bring the staff to Dalmer's Ferry?"

He shook his head. "That is a matter for another time. We'll need every man here to defend the village. I suggest you two ladies hurry home to your families." He started or the door, stopped to prop the staff against the wall, then hurried out.

Kelsia went over and retrieved the staff before she realized what she was doing. She held it, staring at it for a long time. Graegor would do the right thing. He would send the staff on its way once he knew the village was safe. But what if it didn't happen that way? What if the village were overrun? She couldn't stop thinking about what the sorcerer had done, entrusting the staff to her and then sacrificing his own life so that she could get away. "I will take it," she said, though it was as if she were hearing someone else say the words. "I'll take the staff to Dalmers Ferry."

"Have you lost your wits?" Shael demanded.

"It has to be done. I'm the only one there is to do it. I'm leaving tonight, after I make sure my mother and brother are safe."

"Right. Well then burn me for a pig-headed fool, Kelsy, because I'm going with you."

[tamrend]

Chapter 2: Flight

"You'll meet me at the edge of Graegor’s estate," Shael said, putting a hand on Kelsia's arm. The light from the tavern cast her face half in light, half in shadow. Her tone suggested that she thought Kelsia might try to leave without her.

“I’ll be there,” Kelsia promised. She was anxious to be off. They were each going to warn their families about the possible attack.

“See that you are, and stay out of trouble,” Shael admonished as she shouldered the satchel of food scraps they had weaseled from the tavern cook. She started away towards her house, the satchel bouncing against her side as she ran. Kelsia turned and set off with a brisk stride in the opposite direction, alone in the deepening darkness.

As the walked, the staff struck the road with a hollow thump, a constant reminder of its presence. She flinched at the distant sound of a dog’s barking. For one terror-stricken moment, she thought that the attack had come, but then the noise quieted once more.

Her family’s farm was close by the edge of town. She heard rather than saw the pond that marked the land's boundary near the road, the frogs greeting her approach with a riot of croaking. She turned off of the road and followed the cart trail through the tall, close stalks and sweet, musky scent of the cornfield. The smell of home.

A strange, sudden longing lent urgency to her steps. She leapt up the stairs to the porch and flung open the door. The interior was black but for the shapeless patches of color conjured up by her own eyes. “Hello?” she called. After a few moments, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The front room was empty. She went to the kitchen, really just a corner of the same room. The stove was cold when she put her hand up to it.

She went to the room that she and her brother, Matias shared. The bed was empty, the rest of the room very tidy, the way he always kept it. Her mother's room was last. The floorboard in front of the door creaked when she stepped on it, just as it always did. “Matias? Mama?” No one answered.

She knew that they had planned to go into town that day, but it was rare for her mother to stay out after dark. At a loss, Kelsia stepped back out into the night and closed the door behind her. Her feet felt heavy as they carried her back to the road and toward the village. Her choices swam through her head, slippery, ephemeral. She had committed herself to a quest, a purpose she knew nothing about, but she sensed its importance. What would happen, though, if she didn't find her family and warn them to get to safety?

The staff suddenly grew warm in her hand.

No, she had to go on. She couldn't even begin to know where her family might be. She would have to trust that they could take care of themselves. Whatever the staff represented, it was too vital to risk.

Shael was not there when she arrived at the place they had agreed upon. Kelsia sat down to wait, her back against the fence. Soon she began to grow worried. Graegor's estate was close enough to the village that she should be able to hear if a battle had started, but it remained quiet. At last, Shael's diminutive figure came running across the field from the direction of the town. Kelsia stood up and waved and she corrected her course to meet her.

Shael came to a stop and hunched over, her hands resting on her knees while she regained her wind. "Sorry. I'm. Late," she said between breaths.

"They weren't home," Kelsia told her, knowing she would be able to appreciate how strange that was.

"Women had a meeting," Shael said, now beginning to get back her breath. "My ma was there. Maybe yours, too."

It was a hopeful thought. If here mother had been at the meeting hall, Graegor would get word to them quickly. Shael began speaking again. "I almost didn't make it. My da told me to stay put when I told him. I had to sneak away. Here." She held out one of the two bows that hung over her shoulder.

Kelsia looked at the weapon dubiously. “I don’t know how to use one of those,” she protested.

Shael took hold of her hand, put the bow into it, and closed her fingers around it. “I’ll teach you how. I’m nearly as good as any of my brothers. This one was made for a child, so it will be an easy draw.” She then handed Kelsia a quiver of arrows.

"Is this your old bow?" Kelsia asked.

Shael's expression looked pained. "I had to take my chance to slip away from the house, and I couldn't risk trying to get my bow. I took them out of Master Keese's shop. The latch on one of his back windows is loose."

"You stole these?" Kelsia demanded.

Shael put out her hands in a placating gesture. "We're borrowing them," she said, "just like we're borrowing Master Graegor's horses."

She did have a point, though at least Graegor would probably realize who had taken the horses and why, once he noticed that the staff was gone. The bowyer, Master Keese, was like to believe that he had simply been robbed. Kelsia would rather leave the bows behind and hope they would not need them, but Shael would not be dissuaded. “If you’re a damn fool enough to want to do this on your own, at least have the wits to bring some protection,” she retorted. In the end, Kelsia had to accede that she was right. Even if they weren’t being chased, there were enough dangerous animals in the wild to warrant bringing weapons.

The entered the mayor’s pasture land by squeezing through the wooden post and rail fence. Kelsia was thankful that she and Shael had chosen to wear tunic and breeches for their hike earlier in the day. What they were doing wasn't the kind of thing to attempt in a dress.

Light shone from the house on the hilltop, but the field through which they trudged was empty and quiet but for the sound of night bugs. The large, open space made Kelsia feel exposed. She was glad when the stable loomed before them in the darkness, providing some amount of cover. They crept along the wall of the long, low building until they found a door. At a push, it creaked inward.

“We’re going to have to do this in the dark,” Kelsia whispered. “Try to find a horse that looks like it will stand up to a long ride. This door is too small, so I’m going to open the main doors. Once we’re out, we’ll turn west and head for the road.” Shael nodded her agreement and followed her inside. Kelsia found the huge double doors at one end of the stable. She heaved upward on the thick wooden beam and it gave grudgingly, pushing up out of the bracket that held it on one side. Grunting with the effort, she swung the beam on its hinge until it locked into another bracket on the other side. At a push, the doors swung outward and she hurried back to look for a horse.

Many of the horses were asleep in their stalls, but one snorted at her and lifted its head through the slats of its gate. Kelsia stopped and put her hand out, letting the animal sniff her. She opened the latch and swung the gate out. The horse stepped out through the opening, stamping a hoof and tossing its head at finding sudden freedom. Kelsia checked the animal over quickly. He was a gelding and seemed to be in good health. She couldn’t tell his color without light, but he was a dark shade and had a pair of light spots on his head below his eyes. “Are you sure you want to go with me, boy?” she asked him, stroking his mane. His ears perked up and rotated to follow her voice. “It’s a long way.” For answer, he nuzzled her hand.

She found riding gear stowed on a shelf and saddled the horse as quickly as her limited experience would allow.

A voice sounded from another part of the stable and Kelsia froze, thinking a stable hand had entered and spotted her. In a way, the thought was strangely a relief, that the burden of responsibility might be taken from her by circumstance. But then she heard Shael’s answering voice. She followed the sound of the voices towards the far end of the barn and saw what had happened. Shael stood before an open stall with a bridle clutched in her hands. Facing her, and with his back to Kelsia, was a young man with a crossbow pointed at her chest.

“Do you want to tell me what you’re doing, then?” he demanded

Kelsia’s heart pounded furiously in her ears. She set the staff on the ground. Taking a step forward took all of her will.

“Master Graegor wants me to deliver something for him,” Shael answered. “I saw him tonight, at the tavern.”

The man took one of his hands from the weapon for a moment to scratch his jaw and returned it quickly. “No. He pays me to gaurd his horses. He would have told me. Why are you doing this, Shael? Are you trying to run away?”

Kelsia crept closer, step by careful step. Shael must have noticed her by now, but mercifully had not looked her way and alerted the man. “I’m just borrowing the horse, Edwin. I swear it.”

Kelsia knew that name. Edwin was a few years older than her, but they had played together as children. Whatever he thought, Kelsia couldn’t imagine that he would actually try to kill either of them. Somehow, that thought didn’t do much to make her any less afraid. She was just a step or two behind him and had to make a decision. Steeling herself, she threw her shoulder against him, knocking him into the side of a horse stall. A thwap sounded as the string released and the crossbow bolt skipped off the ground and clattered against the wall. She wrapped her arms around him and tried to drag him to the floor, but he stubbornly kept his feet. His elbow jabbed into her ribs and she fell off him, gasping for air.

Edwin raised the crossbow over her like a club, ready to bring it down on her head.

“Stop!” The command was hissed with enough force that Edwin paused in his swing. Shael stood five paces away, bow in hand, with an arrow drawn back against her cheek. “Put it down, Edwin.”

He lowered the crossbow and let it drop to the floor. Kelsia stared at her friend in amazement, feeling as though she had witnessed a transformation. Shael glanced at her. “Are you alright, Kelsy?”

Kelsia had managed to get her wind back and wheezed a “yes.”

Edwin squinted at her. “You too, Kelsia? Why are you doing this?”

Kelsia looked at Shael, who still had the arrow pointed and half-drawn. There had to be a way out of this without resorting to violence. “Edwin, you know us," Kelsia pleaded. "You know we aren’t thieves. Shael wasn’t totally honest with you. Graegor doesn’t know that we’re taking his horses, but we need them for something very important. If you tell him we went to Dalmers Ferry, he’ll understand. And we’ll bring them back when we’re finished.”

He looked at the bow in Shael’s hands. Kelsia could tell he was weighing his duty against his life. Suddenly he didn’t look as old as he had at first, nor as threatening. “Do I really have much choice?”

Shael flashed him a wry, confident grin. "No, not really. Would you saddle her up, Kelsy?"

Kelsia moved to do as she asked. She attached reins, headstall and bit and tightened the strap of the saddle to fit the mare Shael had chosen.

"Stay where I can see you," Shael commanded Edwin once she had finished. Kelsia took the reins of her own horse and led them both toward the doors, stopping only to retrieve the staff. Shael backed up next to her, arrow still trained on Edwin. Once they were outside, Shael plucked arrow from bow and ran to her horse. Kelsia got her leg over on the second try and spurred her mount to a gallop, sparing a glance back to be sure that Shael wasn't far behind. It took most of her concentration, though, just to keep her seat while hanging onto the staff and keeping her bow from slipping off her shoulder. She had ridden bareback a few times on the old mare her mother had bought a few years ago, but that was nothing like trying to stay on the wildly bouncing back of this powerful horse. When she felt they had reached a safe distance, Kelsia signaled Shael and they slowed to a brisk trot.

"That was amazing," Kelsia remarked, tipping her head back the way they had come.

Shael shook her head ruefully. Her voice was hoarse with emotion. "You can't see it, but I'm still shaking. I was terrified. What if my hand had slipped?"

It was a sobering thought. Their encounter at the stable, though successful for them, had not been what she had in mind. How much might this quest cost them before they were finished?

They joined the main road and turned north, the ground taking on a gradual upward slope on its way up and over the highlands. They stopped for a brief rest to stow their possessions in the saddlebags. Also to give Shael some time to calm her nerves. As soon as Shael was ready, they were off again. Kelsia hoped to put a few hours of distance between them and the village.

They came to the top of a bare ridge and Kelsia glanced over her shoulder, back the way they had come. She gasped in horror. Far below in the valley, yellow flames leapt upward towards the sky. She called for Shael to look, but her voice was cut short by a sob.

The village was burning.

[tamrend]

Chapter 3: Over the Highlands

Kelsia awoke, shivering, to the sound of sobbing. Shael sat next to her on the cold, moist bed of grass. Her eyes were red and swollen.

They had ridden half the night, pushing the horses as long as they dared. Kelsia’s memory of their flight was a haze of shocked silence and endless plodding. More than once, they flew into a terrified gallop, thinking they were being pursued, only to realize it was only a deep patch of shadow or the movement of a small animal. With night slipping away, they had spotted a cluster of trees and left the road to take shelter there, collapsing into a restless, uncomfortable sleep.

Kelsia got up without a word and walked around to a private spot on the other side of the copse to relieve herself. I should be crying, too, she thought. My brother, my mother were both back there. And then the tears did come, hot and wet on her cheeks. She had lost everything. Her home, her family, everyone she had ever known was gone. There was only Shael. Last night when she had made the decision to carry the staff, she had felt pround of herself for doing something worthwhile. This morning she just felt very young and very foolish.

The climbing sun had taken most of the chill from the air by the time she returned to their improvised campsite. Shael was looking much better. While Kelsia had been away, she had sorted through their food supplies and set out an apple and a wedge of cheese for her. She was in the middle of lifting one of the feet of Kelsia’s horse, checking for lodged stones and damage to the hooves. She looked up as Kelsia approached. “Your gelding’s hooves are chipping. He may need to be shod.”

Kelsia sat and bit into the squishy, overripe apple while she watched Shael check over her own horse and sprinkle some grain in a pile for them both. Even if there were a blacksmith to be found, they didn't have the money to pay for a shoeing. At the moment, that seemed to be the least of their problems.
Once Shael was finished, she came and sat next to Kelsia. “So what do we do next?”

Kelsia sighed and began to pluck the seeds from her apple core. “We can’t go back.”

Shael looked toward the south. The ruins of their former home lay that way. “I thought that was obvious.”

The staff lay at Kelsia’s feet, though she didn’t remember putting it there. She nudged it with the toe of her boot. “We could just walk away.” She had to raise the possibility. “Someone or something wants this thing pretty badly. Maybe if we just left it behind they would find it and leave us alone.”

Shael snorted. “It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think? If you had listened to me, you would never have picked it in the first place.”

Kelsia understood what her friend was saying, but it hardly seemed fair. She had picked up the staff because it seemed like the right things to do. She hadn’t known what the consequences might be. She stood up and flicked the last of the seeds from the apple core, then offered it to her horse. He crunched the morsel down gratefully and sniffed her hand, looking for more.

She couldn’t just leave the staff behind. It wasn’t coincidence that the town had been attacked after they had brought the staff there. Her home was destroyed, all because of the decision she had made. She had to know there was some meaning to it. “I’m going on to Dalmers Ferry,” she said. “I’ll leave it up to you to decide where you wish to go.”

Shael got up and began preparing the horses and their packs, and that was answer enough.

The road wound in long, lazy curves across the rolling landscape of the highlands. Except where a boulder jutted up from the ground, everything was covered in dry, brittle grass. Kelsia seemed to constantly be traveling up and down, her horse taking two or three quick steps down a slope, then four more slow steps up the other side. She began to study the tiny valleys, trying to puzzle out in her mind how this land had come to look this way. It was as though a great plow had been pulled back and forth across the land, though they looked a bit too irregular for that. It made her think of the way that water made little canals when it was poured onto the dirt. Could that be it? Did the rain shape the land this way? It would take a huge amount of it, but perhaps it was conceivable that after years and years of water pouring down and draining away and taking little bits of dirt that the land might begin to take on this kind of shape. Kelsia knew better than to make the suggestion to Shael. Her friend was more tolerant of her peculiar ideas than most, but she seldom truly understood what Kelsia was trying to say.

As the sun edged toward noon, the comfortable warmth of the morning began to turn to sweltering heat. They both removed their cloaks and stowed them in saddlebags, but it didn’t help much to relieve the heat. Worse, the skin on her face was beginning to feel hot, signaling the onset of a sunburn. If she had the chance, Kelsia would try to fashion hats for them both, but out here there was simply no materials at hand to use.

“We should name our horses,” Shael said suddenly. “It’s bad luck to make a journey on a horse without a name.”

Despite the fact that the horses likely already had been named by their real owner, Kelsia agreed that it was a good idea. At the very least, it would help to take her mind off her discomfort. Shael stroked the neck of her mare. “I think she looks like a Cloud. What do you think?”

Kelsia looked over the unusual coloring of Shael’s horse, a gray dappled with lighter spots. “I like it. It really suits her.” She studied the color of her own horse, now that she could see him properly in daylight. His coat was dun that ran toward reddish, except for a white spot on either side of his nose. “Copper,” she said. “I'll call you Copper.”

Throughout the day, they stopped every few hours to rest and feed their mounts and Shael would give Kelsia instruction in shooting her bow. The horses didn’t appear to like the stringy brown grass that covered the ground, so they had to use up more of their store of grain. Water was going to become a problem too, if they weren’t able to find a natural source soon. On the third stop, Shael found a long, shallow pit on the roadway and regretfully emptied half of a waterskin into it. The horses greedily drank up the offering until nothing but soft mud remained.

As evening approached, the rolling ground finally grew smoother and the heat began to lessen, though their prospects for water and feed for the horses looked no better than before. They settled down for another fretful night, but this time all they had to sleep on was the hard, dusty roadway. The other half of the waterskin went to the horses, leaving them only one full skin and part of another.
After a cold meal of dried meat, a turnip and a hunk of bread, Kelsia got out her cloak and huddled next to Shael for warmth. Her sunburned skin made her feel both hot and cold at the same time. She closed her eyes and tried not to dwell for too long on the faces of the loved ones they had left behind, but sleep was slow to come.

The next day started much like the last, swinging from bitter cold to stifling heat in the space of a few hours. For lack of a better substitute, both of them draped their cloaks over their heads awkwardly to protect them from the sun. Though the heavy cloth added a bit to the heat, it was well worth the relief it offered from the touch of direct sun.

Kelsia began to notice strange things happening around them. Features in the landscape in the distance seemed to ripple in waves. What appeared to be patches of water appeared and disappeared on the road. The first few times they saw these water illusions, they hurried onward in anticipation of a cool splash and a drink for the horses, but soon realized that they were being fooled. Instead, a second waterskin was eagerly consumed by the horses. Even then, Shael worried that it was not enough.

So it was that when they began to make a winding descent down a narrow trail, they were overjoyed to spot scrub brush and further down, actual trees. The road turned back on itself at least a dozen times, but the air grew perceptibly cooler as they descended. The breeze was no longer a scorching blast, but blessedly soothing on her sore, peeling skin.

Off to the left, the arid highlands stretched on into the distance, but before them to north and east was deep forest. Shrouded by the haze of distance, they could see the beginnings of a mountain range to the north, the top of the nearest peak hidden by a long, streaming cloud. The road skirted the trees for a bit, but then turned and plunged right in. They stopped to allow the horses a chance to graze on the vibrant green grass at the roadside and to enjoy a meal of their own from their stores.

Though it was nearing dark once more, Kelsia suggested they press on a bit in the hope of finding water. Sure enough, before the sun's light had slipped completely away, they came upon a tiny rivulet of a stream that burbled right across the road. They followed it for a fair distance to a clearing and a pool that was several feet across. For their excitement, it might as well have been a lake. Both horses drew long and deeply from the water, showing that they had, indeed, been getting less water than they should. Copper tossed his head and pranced about the clearing when Kelsia removed his saddle, but he quickly came back and nuzzled her hand with a low whinny.

She laughed. "I know what you want," and took out an apple for him, though she sliced it in half to share with Cloud.

While Kelsia arranged the camp, Shael picked up her bow and quiver and slipped away. She returned sometime after dark gripping the scaly legs of a pheasant she had brought down. While she cleaned and dressed it, Kelsia gathered up twigs and dried leaves to set into a circle of stones and got out their only tinderbox. A shower of sparks fell as she struck the iron and flint together, until a tiny red ember began to burn among the leaves. She blew on it, coaxing the spark into a tiny flame. Once the blaze was going well, they speared strips of the pheasant meat and enjoyed the savory smell as they held it over the flames to roast. Though conversation between them was light, there was an underlying tension to it, as neither one was willing to talk about much else than what had happened that day. The future was still uncertain and the past still painfully raw.

Still, Kelsia felt better than she had since that terrible night they had left the village. She fell asleep with a full stomach and the cozy warmth of the fire nearby.


Danger.

Kelsia's eyes snapped open. Her heart was beating wildly. Had it been a voice she had heard that had woken her? She waited, straining to listen through the raccous croaking of the frogs coming from the pond.

There was a rustle, a snap, the sounds coming seemingly without direction. Her imagination? She let out the breath she had been holding and tried to calm herself, but her fear seemed to have taken on a life of its own. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. She patted Shael's shoulder, and when that had no effect, shook her forcibly. Her friend muttered something incomprehensible.

"Wake up, Shael," Kelsia hissed into her ear. "Wake up or we die."

That seemed to sink in. Shael blinked a few times and raised herself up slowly. "What is it?"

Kelsia shook her head. "Quietly. Saddle the horses. We have to leave this place." She put her hand to the ground to stand up and it came down on something hard and round. She stared down at the silver length of the staff, this time quite sure she remembered having left it strapped to her saddlebags. Had Shael picked it up and brought it over?

Another sound, something between spoken words and the grunting of a warthog. It sounded much nearer than the first set of noises.

Though it was nearly impossible to get the laden saddlebags onto the horses noiselessly, Kelsia and Shael managed to keep metal from jingling together and the horses from snorting a protest as they lifted first one, then the other onto their backs. Fear was throbbing through Kelsia in waves that were almost painful, though it lessened enough to allow her to get onto her horse. She had been afraid that her weakened knees would keep her rooted to the ground. Kelsia led as they walked the horses single file back toward the road, the grass and leaves of the forest floor helping to muffle the sound of their hooves.

The two creatures that stood watch on the road looked as surprised to see her as Kelsia herself felt at seeing them. Though shrouded in darkness, she easily made out the helmeted head and hunched, long-limbed bodies of the creatures. Their white tusks glowed dimly in the faint light of the moon's sliver and their eyes glowed red beneath their helmets. Both creatures gave a hideous, squealing roar and charged, their heavy, stubby swords raised to strike.

Kelsia dug in her heels and slapped at Copper's flank. He surged forward, slipping to the side of the foremost creature and turning sharply to follow the road north. On her right, Shael and Cloud burst through the foilage lining the road. Shael had taken a path wider to the side to avoid the creatures. The hooves of the two laboring beasts thundered as they raced down the road. Kelsia glanced back in time to see at least a dozen pairs of red eyes converging on the road and running after them, shouting in bestial voices. Copper rounded a bend and the creatures disappeared from sight.

The sounds of their pursuit soon faded, though they did not slow their ride until foam began to glisten on the flanks of the two horses. Even then, it was only a short rest with the pace still at a fast walk. As soon as the horses began to breathe more normally, Shael and Kelsia spurred them on once more, terrified that their pursuers were just around a curve in the trail behind them.

The trees thinned and then gave way entirely to open ground. The road began to slope upwards, climbing across the foot of a mountain. They slowed once more, both for rest and because on the left side, the land began to drop away sharply. Kelsia glanced back to see an indistinct group of figures moving out of the forest a few miles distant, trailing them on the road. She got down off her horse and trotted alongside, hoping that the animal would be able to maintain a bit more speed without her own weight to burden it. In a moment, Shael slipped down as well.

They had to stay ahead of that pack of beasts, but with the distance so close between them, they would soon have to put the horses at a gallop again. She found herself wishing they had pushed a bit harder while crossing the highlands. If they had gotten a bit farther along, maybe they would not have been surprised in the middle of the night. But of course, pushing their mounts too hard would have been dangerous. Horses allowed a traveler only a bit more speed than walking afoot and even that advantage is nullified by the need to stop for grazing. Driven hard enough, a horse would run itself to death.

The trail veered right, following the contour of the mountainside. Kelsia glanced to her left and froze. The wolf-thing hunched over the road on all fours, sniffing at the ground. It reared back and stood smoothly upright, its head swinging to orient on them. A gap separated the place where Kelsia and Shael stood from the part of the trail that the wolf occupied. The trail meandered around the edge of the rift for a few furlongs, but at this spot, the beast was no more than thirty yards distant. A single yellow eye glinted at them from the wolf’s ruined face. Its mouth opened in an expression that could have been a snarl, but could as easily have been a grin.

“Go! Back!” Kelsia shouted, pulling on Copper’s reins to turn him. She threw herself across his back and slid onto the saddle, waiting only long enough to see that Shael had done the same before dashing down the trail back the way they had come. She gripped Copper’s mane so hard that her fingers hurt as his hooves came down dangerously close to a fatal drop at the edge of the road. They hurtled headlong down the slope, racing for the open ground at the bottom and their only hope of escape. But as the road leading away from the bottom of the mountain came into view, they saw that that way, too, was blocked. Kelsia drew Copper to a harrowing, sliding halt on the slope. The boar-like creatures had already reached the foot of the mountain some hundreds of feet below and were making their way up, unconcerned with speed now that their prey had no escape.

Kelsia turned to look behind. There was still no sign of the wolf creature, but that would not be for long. They were trapped, with no way out but a precipitous drop and certain death. She looked over the edge, considering whether that way might be a better one than capture. The drop did not look completely sheer. They might survive, though the horses would not.

“There!” Shael shouted, trotting her horse forward. She stopped a few dozen steps down the trail and dismounted. Kelsia saw it at once: a steep and narrow trail that had been carved out of the mountainside next to the road. Cloud balked at the difficult slope, but Shael managed to coax her up to where it flattened out somewhat. Copper nearly slipped and lost his footing, but then launched himself upward with an effort that nearly sent Kelsia sprawling.

The narrow track was too steep for riding safely, so Kelsia and Shael both led their horses single file as quickly as they dared in the darkness. At some point, Kelsia noticed that she was carrying the staff in her hand, again without memory of retrieving it from the saddle. The trail sloped as steeply as was safely possible, seeming to climb directly up towards the peak of the mountain. She had to wonder why anyone would make a path like this at all, as it seemed to lead nowhere.

The trail abruptly turned back on itself at the face of a sheer drop off, ascending again but in the opposite direction. Looking down, Kelsia could see the road far below. The boars had reached the bottom of the track and were beginning to climb.

The trail continued to cut back on itself, rising each time higher and higher on the mountainside. Kelsia’s side began to ache from the exertion and the chill of the air, but each time she looked down their pursuit seemed to be closer. She did not see the wolf, which for some reason worried her even more. At the next turn, though, she took a glance upward and saw something that gave her hope. “There’s a light!” she said, pointing. Shael nodded, too exhausted for words and struggled on.

The ground abruptly grew more flat, and where there had only been bare rock before, grass now lined the sides of the trail. Their path made a final turn and came out on top of a wide shelf of land. Plants and trees grew all around, though Shael knew that they were too high up to be seeing any vegetation. Even the air seemed thicker, warmer and, easier to breathe than before. The path went forward for another twenty paces and stopped at a tangle of trees and brambles. There was no sign of the light she had seen earlier.

Kelsia looked at Shael, the same question exchanged silently between them. What now?

Shael looked to the edge, listening to the dissonant sounds of their pursuit. She removed her bow from her saddle, bending the wood smoothly across her leg and looping the string to the end. She took four arrows from her quiver and planted them in the ground, shouldered the quiver, notched a fifth, and stood waiting.

Kelsia lay the staff at her feet and brought out her own bow. She strung it clumsily, the bow twisting away from her grasp when she tried to bend it. She held it more firmly this time and managed to slip the string over the end. At that moment, the first of them appeared.

Shael drew, paused just for an instant, and released. The arrow zipped invisibly through the dark to find its mark just below the throat of the first beast. The creature staggered back but quickly righted itself. Shael snatched an arrow from the ground and notched it, then took aim more carefully this time. The creature made a squealing cry and leapt forward, but was cut short by the shaft that found its mark beneath one of its glowing eyes. It crumpled to the ground without another sound.

Shael had plucked another arrow from the ground and sighted on the next beast. It and another of the creatures had reached the top of the trail and broke into a run straight towards them. Kelsia shakily drew an arrow from her quiver as Shael let fly her next arrow. This one clanged when it hit, the sound of the arrowhead striking armor, but the boar still went down. The third beast was less than a dozen paces from Shael when she released again, the point of her arrow piercing completely through its throat and out the other side. It gurgled a scream and swung its falchion blindly as it stumbled forward, forcing Shael to retreat a few steps before it body fell to the ground. She snatched her next arrow from her quiver.

Kelsia fumbled an arrow onto the bowstring as Shael loosed another. The beast flailed its arms when it was struck but could not stop itself from toppling over the edge of the shelf. Kelsia finally was able to draw back her first arrow, sighted one of the half-dozen creatures that had now reached the top. She flinched right when the arrow was loosed, throwing her shot wide. Shael's next shot buried itself in the face of another boar.

"Get back! Back!" Shael shouted when she saw that Kelsia wasn't going to be any use in the fight. Kelsia dropped her bow and retrieved the staff without thinking, moving to put Shael between herself and the growing crowd of creatures advancing towards them. Shael sighted and drew, but then screamed, the arrow spinning off into darkness. Kelsia caught her as she fell back, warm wetness spilling onto her hands. Though an arrow jutted from between the plates of armor at its shoulder joint, one of the boars had crawled up close enough to attack Shael. Kelsia dragged Shael backwards with her as it stood up and readied for another attack.

The staff suddenly flared burning hot, but Kelsia felt no pain. She stumbled and fell, Shael half landing on top of her. Her friend's moans of pain were steadily building to shrieks. The beast reached for them with clawed fingers. Kelsia raised the staff as a feeble shield for her friend.

A ghostly streak of white passed seemingly right in front of Kelsia's face, moving without sound. It struck the nearest boar with incredible force, the pair rolling away in a heap of growling, squealing and rending flesh. Kelsia watched in stunned fascination as the massive white wolf pinned the boar to the ground and ripped out its throat in a great gout of blood. It turned to look at her with bared teeth, dark droplets glistening from its jowls. Another pair of wolves glided silently out of the shadow of the trees. They growled in unison, a strange, otherworldly sound. The boars froze in place. Though they outnumbered the wolves, they appeared on the verge of breaking and running.

A new figure appeared from the trail with a growl and a flash of a single yellow eye. The first wolf came forward in challenge and crouched low to the ground, bunching itself to leap. The werewolf snarled furiously at the boars and they regrouped into a tight line. Weapons outstretched, they moved carefully towards the white wolves, trying to herd them away from Kelsia and Shael. The creature advanced towards them as if heedless of any danger the trio of wolves presented to it.

The staff was still burning hot. A litany of nonsense words began repeating itself in her mind. Kelsia tried to think of a something to do, but there appeared to be no way out. The cornered wolves suddenly charged and tore into the line of boars, but none of them moved to stop the werewolf.

Shael twitched in Kelsia's arms and began to shiver violently. Her eyes were blank, the pupils huge and unseeing. Kelsia noticed, for the first time, the jeweled handle of a knife protruding from Shael's side. The werewolf loomed close. Kelsia closed her eyes against the final moments, giving in to inevitability, surrendering to death.

A deafening roar echoed from the mountaintops. Kelsia waited, waited, counting the beats of her heart, one, two, three, four, five, six, still nothing. She opened her eyes. The werewolf could be on them in a single leap, but now it gazed past her, slaver dripping from its teeth. In a moment, a huge shape came lumbering into view from out of the trees, moving towards the werewolf. A vine slithered out of the trees, snaking across the ground. The white wolves silenced the last of the boar creatures with a sickening tearing of flesh and now they, too, advanced on the werewolf. The creature swung its head from side to side, seeing itself surrounded. It gave a final snarl to Kelsia, then turned and ran, vanishing over the edge of the bluff.

The thing that had faced down the werewolf turned to look at Kelsia, its black eyes regarding her critically. Though it stood on its two stubby hind legs, its body was that of a massive bear. It grunted and then changed, its body shrinking down in a matter of moments to a man of normal human proportions. Kelsia blinked. She hadn't imagined it. But now, the only trace of the bear was the hide the man wore. He approached and knelt on the ground next to Shael, not even glancing at Kelsia. He passed his hand over her forehead and down the length of her body. When his fingers brushed the handle of the knife, he frowned in distaste. Without another word, he put his hands under her and lifted her body easily, then moved off into the trees.

Shaking herself into action, Kelsia leapt up and hurried to follow.

[tamrend]

Chapter 4: The Mountain King

Kelsia glanced behind her, worried for the horses, but Copper and Cloud were blithely munching at the grass, oblivious to the bodies of the boar creatures littering the grass toward the edge of the clearing. There was no sign of the white wolves or the vine.

Shael.

The shape changer moved forward effortlessly, carrying her deeper into the brush, and she struggled to follow. Itchy, stinging scratches already covered her face and arms, and her clothing kept getting snagged o*n brambles. The stranger seemed almost to melt right through the undergrowth, like a ghost.

For o*ne panicked moment, Kelsia lost sight of him entirely, but in the next instant she broke through the last screen of branches and into a tiny clearing. Orange light spilled from the windows of a dwelling that perched at the edge of a rock shelf. The modest dwelling appeared to have been hewn right from the mountainside, its flat stone walls smoothly melding with the much rougher rock floor. Kelsia realized that this must be source of the light they had seen o*n their way up the mountainside.

She crept to the door, blinking at the bright sliver of light spilled out. She pushed and the door creaked slowly open, revealing an interior just as strange as the outside. There were no seams where the walls, floor, and ceiling joined and each surface was so smooth that it glimmered with reflected light. A pair of lamps hung from the low ceiling and a crackling fire sat in an odd curving fireplace that bulged out from the wall.

Kelsia stepped into the warm interior of the house and saw Shael at o*nce, draped raggedly across a wooden table. She took another step but then froze before her toes reached the floor, her heart turning over in her chest. The shape-changer stood holding a knife in o*ne hand, staring at her with intense brown eyes. His raven-black hair hung halfway down his back and his face showed a week’s worth of stubble. After a moment, he seemed to forget she was there and held the knife up to the light to examine it.

Kelsia slowly edged closer to Shael, her eyes focused o*n the man. Shael did not respond, even when she tapped her shoulder. Her skin was a ghostly pale and beads of sweat stood out o*n her forehead. Blood soaked the clothes over half her body and though the knife had been pulled out, a sickly green fluid bubbled around the wound.

“Poison,” the man said suddenly, his voice light and cultured, not at all what Kelsia had expected.

“P-pardon?” she asked, her voice shaking.

“This knife is enchanted with a poison spell.” Kelsia flinched when he thrust the knife toward her, but then she looked down and saw the same glistening green oozing from the hilt. “It is very potent. I’m afraid there is little time. Your friend is dying.” He turned and threw the knife into the fire, where it sparked and hissed wildly. He hurried to a cupboard of a small nook that appeared to serve as the kitchen and began to rummage through a collection of ceramic jars. “Put some water o*n to boil,” he said mildly, “quickly now.”

Kelsia searched around until she found an old, dented teapot and a bucket of fresh water. She filled the pot and used a long, hooked rod she found next to the fireplace to hang it above the flames. When she turned around, the man was pouring carefully measured amounts of powder into a bowl. "Here, girl," he said. "Take a bit of the leaves there and chew them, but do now swallow any of it." He went to another cupboard to fetch something, leaving her next to Shael's unconscious body. She picked up two of the leaves and began to chew and at once had to suppress a gag at the taste, something akin to spoiled cabbage. She looked at Shael, whose cheeks were still devoid of any color, and chewed carefully, trying to put her mind off the foul taste and odor.

The man returned with a leafy green vegetable that he chopped up and began to grind together with the powders in the bowl. "Spit the leaves and juice into the bowl," he told her, which she did at o*nce, grateful to have the vile stuff out of her mouth. After, she had to suppress a wave of nausea all over again.

"The water is ready," he said, a moment before the teapot began to whistle. "Quickly, girl, quickly." Kelsia ran to get the pot, singing her eyebrows in her haste to retrieve it. He snatched the pot from the hook with a bare hand and emptied it into the bowl, then began to stir the contents. She looked, but his hands showed no burns from the pot. While she had been gone, he had added a wad of cloth, which he now pulled out and draped over the wound. "Hold her head up," he said, and lifted the bowl to Shael's lips. The bitter-smelling liquid trickled into Shael's mouth and she swallowed reflexively. He finished by dipping more cloth into a bucket of cold water and draping it across her forehead. After, he gave a long sigh. "We've done all we can for her. Now we wait."

Kelsia studied him in profile as he cleaned up the powders and implements he had used. He certainly looked human, but she had seen him change shape from a bear right in front of her. That made her cautious despite the gentle demeanor he has shown so far. Surely he possessed magic, and that made him less easy to trust, in Kelsia's view. "Who are you?" she asked.

Without hesitation, he answered, "I am King Loric."

Kelsia was taken aback. Was he mad?

As though hearing her thoughts, Loric said, "You are wondering why a hermit living in a tiny stone cottage o*n a mountaintop would call himself a king." As he spoke, he placed each jar carefully in its place in the cupboard.

"Well, yes, I suppose," she answered carefully.

He turned around and dusted off his hands. "Much in the world has changed and the memories of men are short. Two hundred years ago, a great city of men lived in the valley below, ruled by a king in a stone fortress high in the mountains. Though his kingdom was small, his people enjoyed great prosperity, thriving o*n the fertile ground of the valley. o*ne year, the rains did not come in the spring, nor in the next year, nor the next. The king saw the people's suffering and fell into great despair. Finally, against the teachings of his kind, he called upon the forces of the elements to bring rain to the dry fields. For a time, there was plenty for all and the city prospered o*nce more.

"But the king had made a terrible mistake, for he did not consider the perils of human greed and treachery. During the winter, a great army from the north made a desperate and dangerous journey over the mountain pass. The king fought against them with tooth and claw, calling up the spirits of the forest in defense of his people, but the northerners were too strong. Just before he was impaled o*n the spears of the men, the spirits carried away his broken body to the safety of the wild. The soldiers found the king's great stone tower and pulled it down. Then they swarmed into the valley below and raided the stores of food that the people had harvested and saved to get them through the winter. Any who tried to stand in their way were slaughtered. When they were done, the people had almost nothing left to eat. Many died that winter, and those that remained began to leave the valley when warm weather came again.

"The king recovered from his injuries, but he saw that his people were leaving him. He knew, then, that it had been wrong of him to try to tip the balance of nature to favor those he ruled. He had been arrogant, and it had been his people who had suffered for his pride. As penance, he built a small dwelling at the base of where his tower had o*nce stood and vowed to remain to watch the valley until people came o*nce again to settle there. Until then, he would be lord o*nly over the beasts and trees and water and earth, to teach him humility." He gave Kelsia a wry smile. "And I have been here, waiting, ever since."

"Two hundred years?" This was too much to believe. "You can't be that king. No o*ne could live that long. Why, you must be...." but she trailed off. She had been about to make a guess at his age, but his appearance seemed to defy any definite age. Though he lacked the lines and creases of old age, there was something in his gaze that reminded her of old Master Gelf from her village, bald and rheumatic but still keen of mind at the age of seventy-two.

He shrugged, apparently not inclined to argue the point. “I have told you who I am, but I still do not know what to call you and your friend.”

Kelsia told him their names as he placed two fingers at the base of Shael’s throat. "Your friend Shael has a stout heart," he said, "and remarkable skill with the bow."

"Yes, she does." Kelsia agreed. Now that she thought of it, Shael's archery had been nothing short of incredible. In the midst of the attack, she hadn't really had time to dwell o*n it, but now it struck her as very odd. Shael was a good shot, but never that good.

O*nce more, he seemed to have read her thoughts. “She had help, fighting those beasts. I knew I would come too late, so I sent the spirit of the wolverine to steady her aim and lend strength to her draw. If o*nly I had gotten there a bit sooner, I might have stopped that slayer from stabbing your friend.”

“Pity it didn’t work for me,” Kelsia muttered, recalling her terrible shot. Then she realized something he had said. “You called those creatures slayers. How do you know of them?”

Loric had gotten a blanket and unfolded it over Shael. “They are demons. In ancient times, they were the foot soldiers of the Lord of Destruction, Baal. I have never seen o*ne up close, and until now, I thought their kind had been exterminated from Sanctuary.”

“And the wolf that walks upright?”

Loric’s expression turned grim. “That creature was o*nce a druid, o*ne of my kind. The stench of corruption is thick o*n that o*ne. Suffering, too, I could sense, though it has been masked by a predominance of primal, bestial impulses. I would guess that it is now more beast than human.”

He walked towards the fire. “Strange, that such creatures would be chasing after two young women.” With a start, Kelsia realized that he was standing in front of the staff. She had propped it next to the fireplace when she had put the pot o*n to boil. She moved toward him, taken by an urge to keep him from touching it. He put out his hand, but stopped short of making contact with its gleaming surface. He drew back quickly. “But perhaps not so strange after all,” he breathed.

Kelsia fought down the impulse to snatch the staff away. “You know something about this?” she asked, keeping her voice level in spite of the irrational nervousness she felt.

He stepped back with a sidelong look at her, and her tension eased. “This staff radiates a great power of magic. It has been puzzling me since I sensed your approach up the mountainside. I had thought that o*ne of you was a sorcerer, but I can see that you are both female. Unless you have another companion that I have yet to meet?”

Kelsia shook her head. “No, it’s o*nly Shael and me. Please, ah, King Loric, do you know what this staff does? My-my village was destroyed the night we left. The man who gave it to me died to make sure that the wolf did not get it. Why? What does it do?”

Loric pursed his lips and gave a long exhale. “I wish I could be of help there, but this kind of magic is foreign to me.” As he walked away, Kelsia wasn’t quite able to stop herself from picking the staff up o*nce more.

“Your friend appears to be breathing better,” Loric announced brightly. “I believe the antivenin is working.” Kelsia came over to have a look herself. She gave Shael’s hand a squeeze, glad to see color returning to her features.

Suddenly, fatigue seemed to wash through every muscle in her body. She had to hide a wide yawn behind her hand.

Loric noticed it, of course, and smiled good-naturedly. “You should get some sleep, Kelsia. I shall keep watch o*n her and wake you if there is a change. There is a bed in the room at the back. I will not need it tonight.” The bed was a simple affair, a wooden box and a large, thick wool bag stuffed with hay, but Kelsia could not recall any bed she had ever slept in feeling so comfortable.

Kelsia opened her eyes and breathed in the delicious smells drifting into the room. A shaft of sunlight shone through the tiny window high up o*n the wall above her head. She stretched her limbs, aching from yesterday’s wild chase. Yawning, she pushed back the blankets and stood up out of bed. The smooth stone floor chilled her feet, but the promise of food lured her out into the main room of the cottage.

Shael was asleep o*n a pallet that Loric had made for her o*n the floor. Loric was busy preparing a place at the table. He had shaved his stubble and pulled his dark hair back into a neat ponytail. He gestured to Shael. “She is doing well. Will you join me for my noon meal?”

“Noon?”

“There was very little left of the night when you arrived, so you slept o*n through the morning. Shael was awake for a moment but went back to sleep after I gave her water. Please, sit.”

Kelsia did not need more encouragement. Though she had eaten o*nly last night, it now seemed like ages ago. Besides, the meal that had been set before her was unlike any she had ever eaten before. There were thin slices of spiced meat that Loric told her were from a bison, mushrooms basted in a garlic sauce, sweet roasted peppers, and bread smothered with a soft, creamy cheese. She looked over at Shael, sorry that she had to miss out o*n such rich and exotic foods.

Loric ate sparingly and left her with a warning to stay close to the house. She finished her meal and then walked through the house, amazed anew at the incredible workmanship of the stone. There was a wall lined entirely with books, a few of them with bindings that were singed or scarred. She took o*ne down to look at, her interest piqued by an intricate design of what appeared to be angels engraved into its thick wooden cover. She opened it and studied a few of the pictures. o*ne depicted a great battle between angels and demons. Another showed a single angel standing above a great gathering of men, all of whom were dressed just like the sorcerer who had given her the staff. The angel’s face was hidden, but it appeared to be speaking to the men, whose faces were turned up in rapt attention. Something rested in the angel's outstretched hands, proferred to the others like a gift. There were words at the bottom of the page, but she could not read them. She returned the book carefully to its shelf.

Loric soon returned, soaked in sweat and short of breath, to tell her what he had found. “There is no sign of the beast but for footprints leading north," he told her. "You and your friend are welcome to stay as long as you like. My home is well defended.”

“Thank you,” Kelsia responded with a bow, trying to give a semblance of his polished etiquette. “I appreciate your hospitality.” She didn’t know how long it would take for Shael to recover and she was not eager to brave the road again, knowing that the werewolf was out there waiting for them.

“Why don’t we take a walk?” he suggested. “I will show you the rest of my home. And have no worries for your friend,” he added quickly. “She will be protected as long as she resides within these walls.” Kelsia agreed that a walk would feel good.

Compared to her first impressions from last night’s chase, Loric’s mountaintop looked far less forbidding by daylight. The variety of trees and plants that grew here was amazing. Great, spreading oaks and slender white birch grew right alongside towering poplars, as well as dozens of others she had never seen before. Loric chatted about the scenery as they walked, pointing out and giving her the names of plants and animals along their path. He had an engaging tone that made the simplest statements seem interesting. Kelsia learned about several edible roots and berries that were common in this part of the world, as well as plants to avoid and a few that could be used in medicine.

Their conversation had lulled to a break and Kelsia noticed Loric regarding her silently. “What is it?”

“I see that you brought your staff with you,” he commented.

He was right. “I thought it would be safer with us,” she lied. She couldn’t remember actually having picked it up and had o*nly noticed when Loric pointed it out. The way it seemed to keep jumping around was starting to unnerve her.

Loric gazed at her with a look of deep concern. “I fear that you are dealing with forces more powerful than you can imagine. Demons do not simply appear from the air, Kelsia, and the staff that they were looking for is not a mere wizard’s tool. I suspected from our conversation last night that it has been manipulating you, and your reaction just now confirms it.”

A wave of dread she couldn't explain went through her at hearing his words. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“Think, Kelsia. Why are you so protective of it? I checked o*n you last night while you slept. You held the staff clutched against you. Yet most of the time you don’t even seem to be aware that it is there. It wants to stay with you.”

Kelsia was shaking her head as he spoke. "No. No, it couldn't--"

His fingers gripped her shoulder hard. "Kelsia, I don't know why this task has been placed o*n you, but if you are ever to make it through, you must never underestimate the power of magic. You must not allow your mind to be clouded by its influence. Be aware at all times of your own thoughts and feelings and you will have control of your own destiny."

"Alright," she said uncertainly, "I'll try."

"Good," Loric replied with a half smile. He pointed ahead. "Ah, I believe those are your horses." They had come upon a lush meadow and a clear, deep pond where a trio of ducks paddled lazily. Copper and Cloud grazed near the water's edge. Their saddles lay o*n the ground nearby and their coats shone as though newly brushed. "They seem quite happy here."

Copper lifted his nose and snorted, then trotted over to them. He stopped in front of Loric and bowed his head. To Kelsia's amazement, Loric began to make noises that sounded exactly like a horse. Copper answered him in kind. "Your animal is exceptional for his species," he told Kelsia. "He shows rare intelligence. He is glad to see that you are well. I told him that you are on a very important errand and that he must do his best to look after you."

Kelsia scratched the top of Copper's head. "You've done a very good job of that already, haven't you, boy?"

Loric made a few more noises in horse-talk and Copper went to the pond for a drink. "They have both already recovered from their long ride. They will be ready o*nce you and Shael are able to travel. Let's go check o*n her, shall we?"

The stone cottage turned out to be right nearby the meadow. Entering its warm, inviting interior felt like coming home. Shael had turned o*nto her side o*n her pallet, showing that she must have awakened, if o*nly for a short time. Loric called her name and she opened her eyes and smiled weakly. "How'd you like my shooting last night, Kelsy?"

Kelsia dropped to her knees and pulled Shael into a fierce hug. She laughed through her tears. "Don't let it go to your head. Loric already told me that you had help."

"Oh. Spoiled it, didn't he?" Shael said in mock indignation.

By the next morning, Shael was able to sit up o*n her own and the day after she was able to walk, though o*nly for a short distance before she needed to rest. Each afternoon, Loric went with Kelsia to feed and care for the horses and he would tell her more of the history of the valley and the mountaintop. o*n o*ne occasion, their talk turned to his origins. According to Loric, his father had ruled the valley before him for some four hundred years and his grandfather had first settled the valley a century before that. "Most of the druids make their home far to the north now. We do not have the numbers of the Vizjerei to the east. We are solitary where they prefer the strength of numbers and the structure of the clan system. With very few exceptions, our teachings are passed from father to son, along with our rulership."

Kelsia paused in her brushing of Cloud's mane. "What do you think happened to the druid hunting us? You said that he was corrupted. What did you mean by that?"

"Magic is a very powerful force, Kelsia, but it must always come at a price. It is in trying to cheat or circumvent the paying of that price that o*ne is corrupted by it. You saw me take the form of a bear, but I cannot hold that shape for more than a few minutes and the change is a drain o*n my mind and body. The thing that hunts you must have found a way to make the change more permanent, but the price was his own humanity.”

Kelsia mulled that over. "You are saying there must be a balance. But how do you know what the balance is?"

Loric grinned. "Now that is a prickly question. I'll tell you what I believe. I believe that this world and everything in it tends to seek out a balance. Consider the wolf and the elk. Each depends o*n the other for survival. The wolves eat the elk, yes, and that seems unfair to the elk. But think what would happen if the elk were allowed to multiply unchecked every spring."

Kelsia thought about it for a few moments. "They would eat all of the food?"

"Precisely. The wolves limit their number. If not for that, the elk might graze the land clear of food and then all would die, the other plant-eaters too. When food is plentiful and the elk herds begin to swell, so too do the wolf packs. This ensures that there is plenty for all.

"Humans are not like this. Humans seek dominion over nature, rather than a partnership, and they often succeed. The fact is, man is no longer a part of nature. If he so chooses, man could quite easily destroy everything that nature has built. He has risen above nature, by virtue of his ability to reason. He has entered into a struggle far more ancient and violent than those waged between the creatures of the natural world. He is now a part of the battle between good and evil. And in this, too, there is a balance. For just as even the most vile murderer must have some shred of good left within, so too do even the most virtuous among us have the potential for evil."

"Humans, you see, always have a choice. They have control of their destinies, which is something no angel or demon ever had. You know that the balance has been destroyed when you no longer have a choice. That is what it means to be less than human."

Loric fell silent to let Kelsia contemplate his words. She watched the ducks trolling for food in the cold, clear water. They were unaware from moment to moment of anything but the simple need to remain alive.

The next day, Shael came with them to the meadow. She had regained a great deal of strength in a very short time and was eager to attempt the short walk outside. It was hard to imagine that she had nearly died less than five days before, but Loric had already hinted that his home had unusual healing powers. Shael took a seat o*n a rock near the water.

Once the horses were groomed, Kelsia sat next to Shael, who sat skipping rocks across the pond. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“A little tired, but I’m alright. You're looking great. How are Copper’s hooves?”

“Much better since we came here. This place is so nice, so peaceful. We’ve been here o*nly a few days and it already feels like home.” She stopped abruptly, swallowing back the hard lump at the base of her throat. She hadn’t thought of the village, her real home, for days now.

“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” Shael asked softly. “That they’re all gone? I’ve tried to convince myself that my dad, my mother and my brothers could have gotten out. It’s possible, right?”

“It is possible,” Kelsia agreed. The effect of that small admission o*n Shael was dramatic. She gave a long exhale of relief and rubbed at her eyes. It made Kelsia wonder. Who could say what had really happened that night? It was a faint hope, but o*ne she could cling to for now.

“What’s he doing?” Shael asked, blinking at Loric. He was standing alone, hand outstretched, staring up at the sky. He put the fingers of his other hand to his mouth and made a high, piercing screech.

Kelsia helped Shael to her feet so that they could get a closer look. Above them, a dark shape circled across the sky. Suddenly, its lazy flight stopped short and it plummeted, unfurling huge wings to beat at the air just moments before it would have crashed into Loric. The eagle settled itself o*n Loric’s outstretched arm and tucked its wings back along its body, beak swiveling to look at the three of them in turn. It uttered a few croaks and waited. Loric answered with a few clipped chirps and a warble, then flung his arm up, launching the great bird into the air o*nce more. He stared after it with a grim look. “Your hunter is returning with help: slayers and worse. They are less than three day’s ride from us. I’m afraid you must leave tomorrow."

[tamrend]

Chapter 5: Magic

Kelsia awoke from a fitful sleep, her dreams haunted by snapping jaws and glowing red eyes. Loric stood in the doorway, silhouetted in the glow of lamplight. “Wake Shael,” he said. “You both need to get ready.”

Kelsia sat up and shook Shael to wake her. Through the room’s window, she could see stars shining in a sky of deep twilight. Though tired from a night of poor rest, anxiety helped fuel her actions. Shael fared worse, as she was still throwing off the aftereffects of the poison, but Kelsia coaxed her out of bed and helped her dress.

They emerged into the main room and sat down for the small meal that Loric put o*n the table for them. He would not touch the food himself, but kept pacing the room silently and casting glances through the window overlooking the valley. The food had been prepared with the same care as all their other meals here, but Kelsia barely tasted it. She knew she would need her strength, so she forced down as much as her roiling stomach would allow. Shael continued to pick at her food for a bit after Kelsia had finished. Loric spoke as soon as she set down her fork. “Get your things. I’ve already packed the horses.”

Kelsia observed her own movements carefully, picking the staff up consciously from its place next to her. She still wasn’t so sure about what Loric had told her, about the staff actually manipulating her, but she would try to follow his counsel.

There really wasn’t much to gather. She had fashioned a new tunic and breeches for herself and Shael from leather and twine that Loric had given her, and she had already put those o*n. Her old clothes she had washed and left to dry overnight, but they were gone from where she had hung them. She guessed that Loric had already packed them. The o*nly thing left to bring was her bow and quiver. Shael looked wistfully at the broken remains of her own bow that Kelsia had retrieved. o*ne of the tips had snapped when she had fallen, after the slayer had stabbed her. “Here, take mine,” Kelsia said, knowing that the weapon would serve them much better in her hands.

“There’s no need for that,” Loric said from the doorway. He stepped inside, a leather case swinging from o*ne hand. He set the case o*n the bed and snapped open the fastenings. Inside the padded interior was a bow that was so thin that it looked like it should break as soon as it was drawn. Rather than a being crafted from a single carved piece of wood, it appeared to be composed of layers of different materials. Midway out toward the tips, the bow was bent in an elegant reflex. He handled the bow easily, bending and stringing it in a single motion. He handed it unceremoniously to Shael.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, running her fingers over the translucent snakeskin covering that protected it from water. It gave the bow a distinctly scaly look. She took it from Loric reverently, turning it to examine it from every angle. She held it by the grip with her left hand, testing the heft, and then pulled the string back next to her jaw and held it. She slowly let out the tension o*n the bow, a look of disappointment o*n her face.

“Do not be fooled,” Loric chided, “for this is no ordinary bow. The draw may feel weak, but I assure you it is not. You will be able to fire it faster and with less effort than any normal bow because there is less resistance. It was a gift for my father’s grandfather, created by o*ne of the finest weapon smiths of his time, or any other. Nearly a dozen enchantments were worked into the creation of it to make it lighter and stronger and to steady its aim. Other, less subtle enchantments, too, it has, such as the ability to pierce metal and to deliver a bolt of lightning to its target. I have thought long about this and it is with no small trepidation and reluctance that I give it to you. As with any magical weapon, it carries great power and great responsibility.”

It appeared to Kelsia for a moment as though Shael might refuse the gift, but then, with a look of grim determination, she closed her fist firmly around the grip. “Thank you, Loric. I will use it well.”

He closed the leather case and beckoned them to follow him to the main room. “I also have something for you, Kelsia.” He hauled open the lid of a massive oak trunk. Inside was a curious assortment of weaponry, clothing, and old, faded documents. There was even what appeared to be a carefully folded flag, though she could not make out what the device o*n its face was. Loric set a few of these items aside and withdrew a light gray cloak. "I'm afraid that this gift is far less grand than the o*ne I have given Shael, but I have little else of value remaining from when my tower was destroyed. This is called a thiefshroud. If you will it, the enchantment o*n this cloak will help to conceal you. It is not perfect and works best when the light is dim, but there may be occasion that you will find it useful."

He shoved the cloak at her in a manner that suggested that she had no choice but to take it. He then dug into the trunk again, this time bringing out a small leather sack. He tipped out a handful of coins, shuffled them around with the fingers of his other hand and then returned them to the bag. Before he did, she saw a few glints of gold among the silver. He pulled the drawstring shut and held out the sack toward her.

"No," she said, thinking as she did that she had just seen more money in a single moment than she had over her entire life. "You've done so much already, Loric."

"Take it," he said, grasping her wrist gently and dropping the coin purse into her hand. "As I said before, I don't know why you were chosen to carry out this task, but I wish to do what I can to aid you. You have no coin of your own and will have need of it when you reach Dalmers Ferry."

Kelsia felt a surge of gratitude that settled into a nice, warm flutter at the bottom of her chest. "Thank you," she said simply, unable to think of a sentiment to match the kindness he had shown her.

The cottage and its comfortable island of warmth and light dropped away behind them as they walked. The meadow was strangely quiet as they emerged from the tree and a low mist hung just above the surface of the water. Copper seemed eager to leave, pawing the ground almost impatiently as she mounted. Loric led the way, not towards the trail they had taken to get here, as she had expected, but taking them deeper into the overgrowth.

Somehow, no matter how thick the foliage, there always seemed to be room for them to pass. o*nce, Kelsia looked behind and was almost certain she could see the branches of the trees slowly bending to close off the way o*nce more.

Kelsia knew the moment they stepped outside of Loric's domain. The vegetation simply stopped. She found herself taking deeper breaths and the cold began to seep through her clothes at o*nce. She looked back wistfully, remembering the warmth of the cottage and the wealth of natural beauty of Loric's gardens. The road ahead seemed all the more cold and lonely. Slowly, she turned away and set her bearing to the journey and the task ahead.

The land began to slope downward, at first quite shallow and gradually more steeply. A trail soon took shape, meandering across the face of the slope while weaving among the boulders and outcroppings. The footing grew more treacherous until Shael finally slid from her mount to walk alongside, prompting Kelsia to do the same. Soon the land began to rise again, carrying them across the face of another peak, then down the other side. Kelsia had a painful stitch twisting in her side when Loric called a rest.

Shael sat down heavily by the roadside and slumped forward, her elbows o*n knees and head down. "Are you alright?" Kelsia asked, taking a seat beside her.

Shael took a few deep, labored breaths. "I was feeling a little dizzy, but I'll be fine. I just need to rest."

Kelsia patted her shoulder. "Take your time." She reminded herself to keep a close watch o*n Shael and to call a rest the next time she began to look weary. Loric was paying them no heed. He paced and sniffed the air while they rested.

The next climb was longer and more sheer than the others, carrying them to the top of a wide, rocky ridge. The morning dragged o*n into afternoon, but Loric would not stop and besides, there was nowhere to rest o*n the vertical slope. Kelsia checked o*n Shael frequently and each time she looked worse. Finally, Kelsia decided she had to call for a halt. Each step Shael took seemed to pain her. She stared at the ground, her teeth gritted in concentration, while o*ne hand clutched the knife wound. Then, to her surprise, she realized that Loric had stopped, and moreover, they had come to the end of their climb. They looked down upon a great expanse of green stretching in all directions. The road was a tiny ribbon of brown snaking away into the distance.

Loric allowed them a short rest and a chance to appreciate the view, but they were off again all too quickly, hurrying to keep up with the massive strides he took descending to the plain. Scraggly grass began to appear among the rocks as the air warmed. By late afternoon, they had reached the foot of the mountain and were following a slender trail towards the road. Loric urged them to mount and press their horses to a trot. He ran alongside them at a brisk clip that should have tired him after o*nly a few minutes, but which he seemed to manage effortlessly.

Their trail soon joined the road going north. They travelled until nightfall and made camp near a tiny spring that Loric found for them not far from the road. While they cared for the horses, he brought out cooking implements and food from their stores. Soon a mix of appetizing smells--roasted duck, o*nions, and peppers among them--was calling them back to the fireside.

The food turned out to be a variety of vegetables and duck meat speared o*n thin sticks, seasoned, and roasted over the fire. It was like a stew without the broth. Loric ate the contents of o*ne of sticks quickly and then sat, legs crossed, looking south. Kelsia took time to enjoy what would probably be their last good meal for several days, at least. Loric had warned that, other than the occasional rabbit, there was little food to be found here. The rest of their supplies consisted of food that was meant to last the journey and longer if necessary and it was altogether rather bland.

Shael spoke around a mouthful of potato and o*nion. "Kelsia, what's going to happen o*nce we get to Dalmers Ferry and deliver that thing? Where are we going to go next?"

Kelsia sighed. "I hadn't really thought that far ahead. I suppose I would want to return to the village and find out what really happened."

Shael nodded. "That's what I was thinking. The sooner we find this Seith and give that staff to him, the sooner we can return. I keep worrying about everyone. I have to know that they're safe."

Kelsia had to admit that she would be glad to when she no longer the burden of carrying the staff. She felt like a child that had been entrusted with a task well beyond her years and ability to perform. She didn't understand magic, and though Loric had given her a newfound appreciation for the uses to which it could be put, she would just as soon be rid of it.

Loric woke them o*nce again in the morning, though this time he let them sleep until the sun had begun to creep above the horizon. “I must leave you now,” he said as they prepared for the day’s ride. “Dalmers Ferry is thirty leagues due north. Your enemies will be coming from the east, but will reach the road well south of here. I intend to mask your trail and try to draw them off. If you travel swiftly, you will reach your destination long before they realize that they have been diverted.”

Kelsia had known that Loric would not be with them all the way, but that did not lessen the impact that his leaving had o*n her, or her confidence. “Goodbye, Loric, and thank you for everything.”

He ruffled her hair with o*ne of his huge hands. "Remember everything I have taught you, wherever the road ahead may take you. Know that I have done all I can to ensure your safety, but you must brave the road ahead with steadfast hearts. Fare well, both of you."

“Fare well, Loric,” answered Shael. She touched her side at the place where she had been wounded. "Thank you for saving my life."

He nodded to her in a way that could have been a bow, then turned and started away down the road at a run. He had disappeared from view by the time they mounted and resumed their journey north.

With nothing but blue sky and an endless expanse of green in all directions, it soon began to seem as though they were making no progress at all. Kelsia tried o*nce to judge their progress by counting the horse’s steps, but had to stop at o*ne hundred, unsure of what came next. Listless boredom set in, but she still had peace of mind enough to scan the horizon from time to time.

The first time they stopped for rest, Shael decided to test her bow. She sighted a hollow place near the edge of the road up ahead. Kelsia judged that it was maybe eighty paces. She drew the arrow back, frowning o*nce more at how easily it pulled. Then her expression changed to o*ne of puzzlement. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

Kelsia listened carefully but there was nothing. Then she turned her head to look around and suddenly heard it. It was a very faint hum. “Yes! Where is that coming from?”

Shael released the tension o*n the string slowly and the hum disappeared. “Draw it back again,” Kelsia suggested. The hum came back, easily detectable now that she knew what to listen for. Shael gave her an unreadable glance, then tilted the bow up and released.

The bow gave a quiet twang and the arrow shot forward. The hum turned into a sizzling buzz, the arrows path marked by a faint white glow. Its arc carried it over Shael’s target and dropped it into the grass a fair distance beyond. There was a tiny flash and a moment later a sharp snap that made Copper and Cloud flinch.

“Amazing,” was all Shael said, flashing Kelsia a grin.

They began to walk down the road to retrieve the arrow. Suddenly, Shael began to run, and Kelsia saw the reason. A thin column of smoke rose up out of the grass. Shael reached the spot first and stamped furiously at the ground. Most of the glowing embers were out by the time Kelsia arrived, but they had burned out a spot of blackened earth around the spot where the arrow had landed. Shael pulled the arrow up out of the ground and held it up to inspect it. There were sooty patches here and there, but she pronounced it fit for at least another shot. Not surprisingly, Shael elected not to try another practice shot.

They pressed o*n through the day, intent o*n covering as much ground as possible before nightfall. They spent the night in the open air o*nce more and woke for an early start the next morning. As the sun neared its zenith, they came upon a red pole jutting out of the ground near the road. Pausing to investigate, they discovered that the pole marked the site of a well. A rope and bucket lay to the side, tied to the pole. After hauling up several buckets for the horses, they sat in the trampled area next to the well to rest.

Shael took a long draught right from the bucket and passed it to Kelsia. “How much farther is it, do you think?”

Kelsia shook her head. “I wish I knew. Thirty leagues, Loric said. I suppose we could travel that in three days. That would put us halfway there now.” She took a swallow of water.

“Have you ever been to Dalmers Ferry?”

“No. But my da went there to trade a few times a year. o*nce he brought back sweets for Matias and me, little spice cakes with creamy white frosting. I can almost remember how they tasted. He also bought me a doll with a face made out of porcelain.” She smiled fondly. “Her name was Rosie. She was so beautiful. I was afraid of breaking her, so I almost never played with her. But what I remember is what I felt when he gave her to me, like I’d never been happier.”

Shael frowned. “Well, what happened to it? You never showed it to me.”

Kelsia drew in a deep breath and dropped her gaze. “My father got sick right after that. Seeing Rosie reminded me too much of him, so I put her away in a closet and tried to forget about it.” She felt as though she danced at the edge of a precipice, shielded from grief o*nly by a veil of numb disbelief. She remembered how much it had hurt to lose her father. How could she go through that all over again?

“We should get going,” Shael said, standing and helping Kelsia to her feet. Kelsia was grateful for the distraction from unhappy memories and focused her mind o*n the task of riding and watching the road.

Late in the afternoon, the sky began to darken, angry gray clouds rolling in from the west to blot out the sun. Rain began to fall, a quiet drizzle at first, but building quickly to a steady pouring. The thiefshroud seemed to repel the water quite well, but it was not long before Kelsia’s leggings became soaked through. She was cold, clammy, and miserably chafed after an hour of riding.

Kelsia reined in Copper and called to Shael to halt. Though it was not yet dusk, Kelsia knew that they needed to have shelter for the night. Loric had given them a tent, but they needed what light was left of the day to put it up. Shael dismounted and helped Kelsia drive the stakes and spread the sheets of cured hides. She seemed to have fared a bit worse for the cold and wet and was shivering the whole time. O*nce the tent was erected, they crawled in, stripped off their wet clothes and huddled together under a moist blanket for the night.

By morning the rain had stopped, but Shael woke with a ragged cough and a stuffy nose. She suffered through packing up their mud-drenched camp in wretched silence. The horses, likewise, milled about and watched their riders dejectedly, their manes beginning to dry in muddy clumps. It was nearly enough to make Kelsia feel guilty for having spent the night in relative dryness.

Though the sky had begun to clear, their boots sank in up to their ankles when they stepped out o*nto the road, each footstep emerging with a wet, sucking sound. The horses splashed through mud and puddles for the rest of the day at a pace barely above a walk. Kelsia had hoped that this would be the day they would reach their destination, but at the crawling pace they had made, it was hardly surprising that they were still trudging through the wilderness by nightfall.

If there was a positive side to their day, it was that the terrain was beginning to change, with oak trees now dotting the landscape from time to time. Scouting around at the bases of a few of them, they were able to gather enough dry wood for a fire. They made camp a stone's throw from the road, near an ashy pit where former travelers must have had occasion to build a fire. They shared a small meal from their stores while the horses munched oats in their nosebags.

Kelsia was just finishing up the last of her bread when a strange and powerful sense of fear and foreboding took hold of her.

“What’s wrong?” Shael asked, staring at her.

Kelsia shook her head to try to clear it. “I don’t know.” The fear was getting worse, a steady pulse of icy dread that clenched her insides with a pain that was very much physical. She looked down and saw the staff clutched in her fingers. She remembered Loric’s advice to her, to be aware of her own thoughts. She focused, struggling to make sense of the jumbled impressions that kept pushing her towards fear.

One thought, Run, came suddenly, clearly to the fore, followed by another, Danger.

“I think we should go,” Kelsia gasped. She stood, using the staff for support, and it seemed to bend and twist to aid her movement. But Shael’s painful grip o*n her arm stopped her. She looked to her left, where Shael was staring in rapt terror.

The wolf-druid bared its teeth when Kelsia laid eyes o*n it, slaver dripping from its jaws. It stood perhaps a dozen paces away, its single eye glinting in the light of the fire that stood between them. It glanced to its left where Shael had carelessly left her bow among their saddlebags and snarled. Were it not for the twisted, bestial features, the look might have resembled a smile.

“Go, run to the horses,” Shael whispered, staying perfectly still. “It’s your only chance.” Kelsia glanced at her friend’s earnest expression with an odd mix of guilt and reverence. Shael was ready to die for her. "Go," she repeated.

Before Kelsia could form her next thought, a vicious growl sounded, but not from the druid. The white wolf was a blur of motion as it raced to out of the darkness, leaping high in the air to pass right over her head. The werewolf came o*n, charging towards Kelsia with single-minded intent, but the spirit wolf was faster, its leap bringing it down nearly o*n top of the other. They met in a flurry of snarling and flashing teeth.

“Run!” Kelsia shouted, grabbing Shael out of listless shock and dragging her toward the horses. Two steps, though, and Shael wrenched free, turning and dashing back before Kelsia could think to stop her. The druid and the spirit wolf were locked together in a deadly embrace. The white wolf’s jaws clamped tightly o*n the throat of the other, but its underbelly was being ripped open by the raking of the werewolf’s claws. Shael dodged well to the side of them and snatched up her bow and quiver, then turned and ran back to Kelsia and the horses.

Kelsia looped a leather strap to the staff, tying it down to the saddle, then vaulted o*nto Copper, her feet finding the stirrups easily from days of experience. Shael's mounting was slower, as she was encumbered by her bow, but after a few moments they were moving quickly towards the road, picking up speed towards an all-out gallop.

"What about the mud?" Shael cried suddenly.

She was right. They would never make good speed o*n the road. "Let's go overland," Kelsia said grimly and turned Copper o*n a path to run parallel to the road. The spongy grass was not the best terrain for riding, but it was far better footing than the soupy road surface. The danger in that was that, in the dark and traveling at a near gallop, o*ne of their horses could put its foot in a rabbit hole and break a leg at any moment.

The camp had nearly passed from sight behind them when a mournful howl sounded and was cut short. Kelsia guessed that the fight between the werewolf and Loric's spirit wolf had ended. She had little doubt as to the result of that encounter, but the battle had bought them valuable time. Kelsia kept her eyes forward, praying from moment to moment that the horses' footing would remain firm.

They fled over the silent gray plain with the rush of the wind in their ears and fear in their hearts. Kelsia wasn't sure whether it had been just moments or hours when she heard a rustling and the pounding of feet behind her. She turned her head to look, already knowing what she would see. The druid ran on all fours, edging closer with each great, loping stride. It had already closed to less than twenty paces away. With a cry, Kelsia slapped the reins and dug her heels into Copper's side, getting from him a surge of speed that began to open the distance o*nce more between her and the werewolf.

Shael saw what was happening and matched Kelsia's speed, but drew Cloud away to the right. Gripping her mount hard with her knees, she let go of the reins and unslung the bow from her shoulder. She fumbled with an arrow several times before she could notch it to the string, then she drew back the shaft and held it. Kelsia could see her brow furrowed in concentration as her bow bounced up and down to the beat of Cloud's gallop. She released, but Kelsia could hear her curse and whipped a glance over her opposite shoulder to see the arrow glowing with bluish light as it arced too high and plummeted into the grass to the left and behind her.

And still the wolf came o*n, grunting with effort now as it ran harder, o*nce more closing the distance between them. Kelsia slapped the reins o*nce more, but Copper had nothing more to give.

Shael loosed another arrow, this o*ne sizzling past Kelsia so close that its magic made the skin of her back and the top of her head tingle. She flashed a look at Shael, who had frozen for a moment with a look of horror at where her shot had almost landed. Suddenly, Shael gave a cry of alarm, pointing.

White fangs and the single, baleful eye gleamed in the moonlight less than a pace from where Copper's hooves kicked up and back. The rippling muscles of the wolf's shoulders bunched taut and then released, throwing it upward and forward. Kelsia flung herself sideways in a desperate attempt to dodge, felt herself teeter over some unseen edge, her feet coming out of the stirrups. She heard Copper scream.

There was an instant when she looked upward at the stars and then she struck the ground and her wind left her. She rolled over a few times, the sky and ground seen in quick flashes. Then she lay still. Her thoughts were muddy and slow, her vision a doubtful haze. Pain began to throb all over her body. Meaningless words chanted in her head. A shadow moved over her, blocking out the light of the stars.

Say the words.

Kelsia's vision drew suddenly into focus. Somehow, impossibly, she held the staff in her hands. The werewolf stood over her, hunger in its feral eyes. It pounced, its jaws driving for her neck. She screamed as she felt the jaws fasten o*nto her, driving jagged teeth into her body.

Say them!

She forced her eyes open. The staff! It was the staff that the wolf had bitten. She had shielded herself with it. Realizing its mistake, the wolf released its hold. Kelsia focused o*n the words that kept repeating themselves in her head. They burst from her mouth on the wake of a scream. The wolf's jaws opened as they descended, this time going for her face.

A wash of heat passed through her, from her center, out to her arms, into the staff. There was a rushing in her ears loud enought to be painful. Something connected, shot through her and out, hitting her attacker with incredible force. The werewolf was thrown completely off of her and landed with a sickening crunch some distance away.

Kelsia sat up, fighting a wave of nausea, and pushed herself backwards from her foe. The words in her head had o*nce more faded to incoherence. Whatever she had touched was out of reach again. The wolf sprang to its feet once more, cradling one of its paws while it clenched and unclenched the fingers. It eyed her carefully, but the hatred burning in its eye blotted out all semblance of reason. It lunged toward her once more.

Something white-hot sizzled past Kelsia's ear and buried itself deeply in the werewolf’s throat. An instant later, there was a flash of light and a snap as a tiny bolt of lightning formed out of thin air and arced into the wolf. It fell, limbs convulsing and smoke rising from the wound.

Shael, astride Cloud less than a dozen paces behind Kelsia, snatched another arrow from her back and fitted it to string. As the werewolf rose unsteadily to its feet o*nce more, she released. The arrow flew true, striking the beast this time in the chest. It took o*nly a single step before the lightning struck it. It fell to the ground o*nce more and this time, it did not rise.

Shael leapt down from her mount and helped her to her feet. She gripped her hand so tight it hurt, but Kelsia could also feel her trembling. Her voice, too, was unsteady as she spoke. "When I saw that beast stooped over you, I thought you were dead. I couldn't move. I thought it had killed you."

"It's alright, Shael," Kelsia said, sounding more calm than she felt. The scent of scorched meat and hair combined with fear made her want to retch. "I'm fine, just a little bruised and scraped. Tell me what you saw."

"I heard you scream something, some words that I couldn't understand. There was a flash of something I felt rather than saw, and then that thing was lying o*n the ground away from you, and you were still alive. It was then I noticed that I already had an arrow notched."

"You did good, Shael," Kelsia said, hugging her close. "You saved my life."

They approached the felled beast warily, Shael with her bow still at the ready. A limb twitched as they came within its sight, but it was a feeble movement. Its head rose from the ground and oriented o*n them, sniffing the air to get their scent. Its lips and mouth began to move awkwardly and it made gurgling noises. It was trying to speak.

“Fay-ol,” it said, “Fay-old.”

Kelsia moved closer. “Failed?” she said.

“Staff.” Its tongue lolled from its mouth, blood dripping from the tip.

“You failed to take it,” Kelsia prompted.

“Fay-old,” it agreed, nodding slowly. Its single eye gazed at her and something seemed to change. Madness faded from its depths, like the flame of a candle burnig low. “Others will come.” It reached out a clawed hand toward her, grasping, then went limp. Its eyes stared past her. No breath rose in its chest.

“Come o*n,” Shael said, pulling Kelsia away.

Copper had wandered, but not far. Blood spilled freely down his flanks where the wolf’s claws had scratched him. He danced away skittishly when Kelsia approached, but she talked to him in soothing tones until he let her get close enough to examine him. She looked over the long, jagged furrows anxiously, but she could see that the cuts were not deep. “That’s a brave boy,” she said, scratching the top of his head.

They led the horses back to the camp at a walk, giving them a chance to rest from their wild ride across the plain. Shael turned to Kelsia suddenly. “What really happened back there, Kelsy? Those words you said. I saw that thing get thrown right off of you. We both know that’s impossible.”

Kelsia tried to remember it as it happened, to put into words what it had felt like. “I’m sorry, Shael. I really don’t know.”

Shael reached over and tugged Copper’s bridle, bringing him to a halt. Kelsia was astonished to see that the look Shael gave her was o*ne of fear. “That was magic, Kelsia. Nothing else could have done that.”

“I heard a voice,” she said, sighing. “It kept telling me words and told me I had to say them.”

“A voice,” Shael repeated, starting forward again. “A voice told you and you made it happen.” She glanced at the staff Kelsia hefted in her hand. There was no mark to show where it had been bitten. “I don’t know which frightens me more, thinking you may've gone mad or knowing you haven’t and that the truth is what's worst of all.”

"I'm not crazy," Kelsia said. No, it was the whole world that was turning mad.

[kidonfire]

This is still my favorite fan fiction. Tamrend did you lose the rest of the chapters?

[tamrend]

Originally Posted by kidonfire

This is still my favorite fan fiction. Tamrend did you lose the rest of the chapters?

Nope, just taking this opportunity for a bit of editing and revision. I'm also working towards completing the next chapter. Hopefully it will go up right after chapter 11 (the last one I posted before the crash).

[tamrend]

Chapter 6:
Dalmers Ferry

Kelsia's idea of a city had always been that of a place very much like her own village, only larger. This was something else altogether. Dalmers Ferry spanned both banks of a great, wide river flowing east to west over the plain. Beyond the sprawling gathering of buildings near the riverbank, farming plots made a patchwork of the surrounding countryside for miles around. And the closer they came, the more immense the city seemed to grow.

For the first time since their flight from the village, they began to see travelers on the road, moving toward or away from the city by horse and cart. Kelsia smiled at seeing a group of children playing tag near the roadside. Though she had given up on such games only a few years before, it seemed like much, much longer.

To the left, a road drew in, converging on the city. Across the river, another road snaked eastward, a tiny ribbon in the distance. One last road went due north.

"I think that one goes to Kurast," Shael said, pointing to the road running southwest. Compared to the road they traveled, the traffic there was nearly constant. Kelsia could not even guess where the other two would lead. No one she had ever known had gone far in either direction. The Far East was a mystery shrouded in a hundred tales, all too fantastic to believe. She knew nothing of the North except that it was cold, and that it was said the mountains there touched the sky.

Up ahead and a fair pace from the edge of town, a line of wagons had formed in the road. Men were scrambling around and over the cart at the head of the line. As they drew closer, they saw that the men wore helmets and chain mail. One of them, an officer by the way he ordered the others around, wore a green cloak with the standard of a hawk in flight embroidered on it. The soldiers presently finished their inspection of the wagon and waved the driver through. The officer looked to the next traveler with a bored expression.

Kelsia gave Shael a sidelong look. "My father never spoke of anything like this in Dalmers Ferry. What do you think?"

Shael frowned as the soldiers searched between and underneath the barrels sitting inside the cart that had just pulled forward. "They're obviously looking for something. Maybe someone."

"We have to get inside the city," Kelsia said firmly. Her words did little to ease the dread that had tightened into a lump she couldn't quite manage to swallow.

When their time came, two soldiers stepped forward and took hold of the reins of their horses. Another man glanced at each of them in turn and shook his head. "It's just a couple of girls," he called to the officer. He waved at the pair who held the reins to move back. "Let them pass." Kelsia urged Copper forward up the empty roadway. It took all of her resolve not to look back to see if they were being watched or followed. It was a relief to hear the sounds of the next traveler being scrutinized.

The noise in front of them steadily increased the closer they came to the edge of the city. A few merchants had set up carts on the roadside out in front of city entrance and called out their wares as the pair of them passed by. It was difficult not to stare at the variety and oddity of goods available, from the huge, flattened green spheres that a trader proclaimed as squashes to a collection of intricate wooden dolls with joints and strings. A vendor demonstrated the latter by making one dance on the strings hanging down from the end of a pair of sticks.

They passed through a wide stone archway that marked the entrance into the city proper. The roadway changed from dirt to brick as they crossed the threshold. Kelsia felt as though she had been plunged into another world. A constant babble of voices assailed her from all directions. Conversation, argument, and laughter all merged into a nearly incoherent buzz. More distressing still was the smell, a vile blend of food, human bodies, excrement and rot. Mercifully, she soon became used to it and was only aware of it as a vaguely repugnant undercurrent.

As they made slow progress through the marketplace, Kelsia glanced over from time to time to be sure Shael was still with her. They had to stop for long moments to wait for an opening to go forward. Soon, though, they realized that people would move aside if they simply pressed on through and began to make better speed.

Gradually the crowd thinned, the street vendors dropped behind and the street narrowed. The clopping of the horses' hooves echoed down the alleyways to either side, making it sound as though a host of riders flanked them. Some of the buildings towered two or even three stories high. Glancing upward at these gave Kelsia a nervous, disquieting feeling. She feared that they might topple over onto her at any moment. They passed by a few smaller inns, but none of the pictures on the door signs depicted a shepherd.

The ground sloped gradually downward as they traveled. Abruptly, they emerged into sunlight. The sky opened up above them and the river before them. The street ended at a kind of wooden platform extending out over the water. Boats bobbed gently in the current, floating next to the same wood structures upstream and down from them. A brick road paralleled the waterfront, intersecting roads leading back in among the buildings at even intervals.

"We're never going to find the inn like this," Kelsia said. "It could take hours--days even--to search all the streets."

Shael nodded her agreement and looked around. Sighting a passerby, she trotted Cloud over and leaned down to ask directions. The man nodded and said a few words, then pointed across the water. Shael thanked him and returned. Kelsia did not need to ask to know what it meant. "We need to cross the river."

They began to search the waterfront for a ferry. Out on the river, a single-masted sailing vessel coasted upstream, pacing them. As it approached a dock, the sails were quickly furled. A pair of crewman leapt to the pier and secured the boat with rope to the decking. Almost at once, four soldiers started down the wooden pier toward the ship. Sharp orders were issued to the men, who lined up on the deck. Three of the soldiers searched the ship while the fourth looked the men over carefully.

"I don't think that's normal," Shael remarked as they watched the spectacle unfold.

"Don't stare," Kelsia warned. The soldier inspecting the crew had caught their looks and was peering back at them. They feigned disinterest as they rode by the end of the pier, though Kelsia could feel his gaze on her back like an itch she wanted to scratch. When they were well past, Kelsia risked a glance back and saw that the soldier was no longer watching them.

They soon came to a ferryboat and dismounted to walk the horses on the less sure footing of the dock planking. At the boat side, they had to pass another checkpoint before being allowed onboard. The soldiers barely looked at them, waving them on almost at once.

The ferryman put up his hand to stop them. "That'll be, eh--" he glanced at the two of them and their horses. "Three silver pennies for you and your beasts." Kelsia counted out the coins and handed them over, trying not to think of what such a small fortune could have bought her back home.

Copper balked at the unstable footing as they stepped onboard. Kelsia tugged his reins, careful not to upset him, drawing him forward in small steps until his rear hooves stood upon the wide, flat top of the ferry. Cloud gave Shael far less trouble, following Shael's lead carefully but without fear. Since his encounter with the werewolf, Copper had been skittish and ill-tempered, though his behavior had been improving steadily as the day went on.

A few more passengers came aboard after them, the ferryman scanning the shore for any more potential customers before hauling in the gangplank and untying the moorings. He pushed off from the dock and picked up a pole that must have been six times his own height. Another man, much younger, took up station at the front of the boat with a similar pole. They moved out deeper into the river channel, the current taking them with a mild lurch. They drifted downstream as they crossed, coming to a smooth rest at a pier on the opposite shore.

Yet again, a soldier was there to observe them disembarking. Before getting off, though, Kelsia asked the ferryman for directions to the Shepherd's Hearth. "Four streets over, that way," he said, pointing. "Go on up 'til you see the tailor's shop. Then go right and you'll find it soon enough."

Even with directions, they missed the turn and had to backtrack. Kelsia spotted what she guessed to be the right inn. A sign of a shepherd's crook hung above the door. "This is it," she said, feeling both relief and anxiety at having reached their destination at last. They tied their horses to the railing post at the front before entering.

The common room of the Shepherd's Hearth was crowded, nearly every seat at the tables and bar filled. Almost half of the customers appeared to be soldiers. Kelsia peered around in the haze of the smoke-filled room. She spotted the innkeeper, a rail-thin old woman dozing at the end of the bar, a small locked box sitting next to her. Kelsia and Shael waded carefully through the maze of tables, chairs, and people. The innkeeper was asleep sitting up, her head ****ed over at an angle. Over the din of laughing and conversation, they could clearly hear the woman's snores. Kelsia exchanged an amused glance with her friend, and tapped the edge of the bar loudly to wake her.

One of the woman's eyes snapped open and darted back and forth between the two of them. The other eye opened slowly, as though less eager to be pulled from sleep. "You want rooms, yes?" she said, then grimaced as she got a look at the humble cut of their clothing.

Kelsia had to raise her voice to be heard over the other noise. "No, we're looking for someone. Seith. Does he have a room here?"

"Seith. Seith," the woman muttered to herself. She ran a finger down the page of the book in front of her. "No Seith staying here, girls."

Kelsia looked down at the book. The letters were so much nonsense to her. "Are you sure?" she asked, her spirits falling. "He was supposed to be here. This is the Shepherd's Hearth, isn't it?"

"That it is. I'm sorry, but if he's here, he isn't renting a room."

"Maybe he just isn't here yet," Shael whispered to Kelsia.

Kelsia addressed the innkeeper again. "We'll take a room, then, and stable for our horses."

The price was less than she feared, but still seemed outrageous by her own sensibilities. They made a quick circuit of the room, hoping that Seith might yet materialize. When nothing came of it, they began to think about more practical matters. "It's been four days now since we had a hot meal," Kelsia said, her mouth watering as a steaming bowl of stew and warm, fresh-baked bread were set on the table next to where they stood.

They found seats in a corner away from the thickest part of the pipe smoke. Kelsia leaned the staff against her side and covered it discreetly with her cloak. The server brought them their food and cups of hot tea sweetened with honey. They set into it immediately. Kelsia was coming to the bottom of her second bowl when Shael leaned close and whispered to her. "There's a man over there watching us."

Kelsia swept her gaze across the room, but no one seemed to be looking their way.

Shael looked into her stew as she spoke. "The tall one, black hair, a chunk missing from his nose."

Kelsia saw the one she described, leaning against a wall and sipping from a mug that could have been a small jug. He was a soldier like the others, wearing a scarred breastplate. He turned and looked right at her. Kelsia dropped her gaze, her appetite suddenly gone. "I think we're in trouble," she said.

"Maybe we should go to our room?" Shael offered.

Kelsia shook her head almost imperceptibly. "He'll just follow us. The back door is close. Let's see if he comes after us. If we need to, we can make a run for it and lose him in the streets."

They took a few more token bites of the meal and then stood up from their chairs. Kelsia left several coppers on the table for the server and they moved together along the edge of the room towards the door. When Kelsia glanced back, the soldier wasn't even looking in their direction.

They emerged into a small courtyard near the stable. It seemed, at first glance, that there was no way out, but then they saw that there was an alley that led back toward the front of the inn. Relieved, Kelsia chided herself for worrying. There had to be a way for the workers at the inn to get the horses from the street into the stable.

The sun's last rays glinted off the tops of the buildings in a blaze of crimson. "Let's get the horses and find another inn," Kelsia said as they hurried along the narrow passage. It was right at the end, when their next step was about to carry them to freedom that a hand shot out from around the corner and grabbed the scruff of Kelsia's tunic. She was borne backwards as the man stepped into view, the very same stranger that had stared at them inside the inn. Shael had only an instant to cry out in alarm. She tried to dart around him and into the street, but he thrust out a leg and swept her feet from under her. She went down hard, unable to stop her face from striking the cobbles. The stranger grabbed her ankle with his free hand and gave her a rough tug, dragging her back away from the street.

Kelsia opened her mouth to scream, but as soon as the sound began to emerge, he lifted her and threw her back against the wall so forcefully that the wind was knocked from her. His nails dug in painfully as he squeezed her cheeks. "Don't," he hissed in her face. His breath reeked of ale.

From the corner of her eye, Kelsia could see that Shael had been released for the moment and had risen to her knees. She shook her head, recovering from the stun of her fall. Blood trickled down from a gash on her forehead. Her gaze fell on Kelsia and she immediately snatched the bow from her shoulder and reached for an arrow.

The man's sword was out of its sheath in an eye blink, leaving her mouth uncovered but still holding her pinned with the other hand. The sword swung around and for one heart-stopping moment, Kelsia knew that Shael was going to die. But instead of sinking into flesh the blade struck Shael's bow and sent it flying from her hands to clatter against the opposite wall. In the next instant, Kelsia felt the tip of the sword pressed against her ribs. His other hand released her tunic but instantly clamped down on her neck. She couldn't breathe. Spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke in a furious whisper. "Don't move, and don't scream, or I'll run you through."

The staff was trapped behind her back, still clutched in her hand. Her knuckles stung where they had been crushed against the rough-edged bricks that made up the wall. She gripped the staff tighter and tried to focus her thoughts, to catch hold of the voice that had given her the magic last night.

The man turned his head to look at Shael. "Who sent you? Did someone pay you?"

Shael spoke haltingly. "I...I don't understand--"

"Don't play games with me, girl," the man said in even tones. His grip tightened on Kelsia's throat. Spots of red began to dance at the edges of her vision. "You're a bit young to be spies. Just tell me the truth and no one gets hurt. Lie to me and you'll be dead before the body of your friend here hits the street."

Shael stood silent for what seemed like minutes. Kelsia fidgeted, the need for breath becoming more urgent than her fear of the sword pointed at her heart. "She can tell you," Shael said finally, "I'm just her friend."

The fingers abruptly loosened from Kelsia's neck. Her head throbbed as blood began to flow once more. She took a deep, painful breath through her bruised neck. Before she could do more, the man snatched the bow from her shoulder and took hold of the back of her collar. He motioned with his sword for Shael to follow. "Stay in front of me, both of you. Don't think of trying to run."

Shael cast a glance at her bow. "Leave it!" he barked. Kelsia used the opportunity to tuck the staff under her arm, hidden beneath the cloak.

He paced them as they walked, Kelsia wheezing and Shael dabbing at the cut on her head with the edge of her cloak. The man hadn't said anything about the staff and Kelsia did her best to hide it from him. What he had said didn't make any sense, so she had to assume that it was the staff he was after. She tried to think of a way out of their predicament, but as long as he held that sword up to her, her options were few.

Shael started to whisper something, but was cut off by the man's order, "Stop here." They stood before a door at the back of the inn. He pounded a fist against it. A few moments later, there was the sound of a latch being pulled and a tiny flap opened in the middle of the door. Through the opening, a pair of eyes peered out, crow's feet showing around their edges.

"It's me," the man said. "I need to borrow the wine cellar. No questions."

The peephole clicked closed and the main door opened from the inside. "You first," he said to Shael, tilting his head towards the door. Kelsia followed in her wake, pressed forward by the prick of a sword point at the small of her back. She caught a glimpse of an old man partially hidden behind the door, staring down at nothing. Across the room was a closed door that must lead into the kitchen. The room was furnished with a writing desk and a few personal items. She took this in at a glance, and then lost her balance as she was thrust into a darkened stairwell. Shael, just a step ahead of her, steadied her before she fell. They descended the stairs single-file, and their captor's footfalls stopped at the top.

Shael took Kelsia's hand as they reached the bottom of the steps and tugged her back from the thin shaft of light coming from the doorway. The man stood at the top of the stairs, talking in a low voice to someone on the outside. Kelsia's eyes slowly began to adjust to the darkness, but there was little to see in the cellar but a dirt floor and barrels stacked along the far wall.

"Do you think he means to kill us?" Shael asked in a whisper.

"No," Kelsia said, her whisper made still hoarser by her injured neck. "He could have killed us already. He must want the staff."

Shael shook her head slowly. "I don't think so."

A creak from the stairs cut off further conversation. Kelsia put the staff behind her back as the man entered and pulled the door closed behind him. He carried a lamp that cast the tiny room in a palid orange. Never taking his eyes from them, he hung the lamp on a hook next to the stairs. He sat on the bottom step and put his sword across his knees. His hand, though, still rested on the hilt. "Better find a seat," he said. "We could be here a while."

Kelsia's stomach fluttered somewhere near the middle of her throat as she took a step toward him. She swallowed and spoke in a voice that sounded surprisingly steady to her own ears. "Tell us who you are. And why did you attack us?"

He gave her an ugly sneer. "You're on dangerous ground, girl. A more cautious man would have slit your throats and been done with it. Now, I need to know who gave you that name, the one you gave the innkeep. Did someone tell you to bandy it about and hand you some silver?"

Kelsia considered her options. Their only chance to live lay in telling him the truth. She could hand over the staff and pretend this had all been a big mistake. He would take it anyway, once they were dead. Or would he? Shael might be right, that the staff did not concern him at all. She had to take a gamble. "I guess you're going to have to kill us," she said. "We'll die before we'll betray Seith."

His eyes narrowed. He stood up and walked toward her, sword held ready to strike. Kelsia held her ground, though her knees felt like water and her head spun giddily. Slowly, the man rotated the sword, slipped the point into his sheath and slid it home with a muffled clack. "You're brave, I'll grant you that, though you could use a bit more sense. I'll make you a deal, girl. I'll answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine."

Kelsia nodded at once. "Fine. Do you know who Seith is and where he can be found?"

He snorted. "That's two questions, girl. Well, so be it. Yes, and yes. Now you need to tell me why you are looking for him."

Kelsia brought out the staff for him to see. "I have to give him this."

He took a step closer and she again resisted the impulse to move back. She had to raise her eyes to continue looking at him, as he loomed more than a foot taller than her. The tip of his nose was a jagged mess of scars, with the outer part of one nostril cut away. A thin line, shiny like a slug trail, slid across and down his cheek. He gave the staff hardly a glance. "Your friend stays here," he said. He snatched her arm in one of his huge, callused hands, "You'll come with me."

"Don't, Kelsy," Shael said, coming forward to grab her opposite shoulder. "You don't know what this brute might do to you."

"I think it's alright," Kelsia said, prying Shael's hand away from her arm. "Wait here for me. I'll try not to be gone long." She tried to sound nonchalant, as though she were stepping out for a walk.

He kept hold of her arm as they went up the narrow steps, twisting it around behind her back, though not painfully. She opened the door and found the study empty. Shael's bow, though, had been retrieved from the alley and sat propped neatly in a corner next to her own bow. A gash sliced through the snakeskin covering, but it was otherwise undamaged. After a moment's reflection, she guessed that the old man must have brought it back.

Her captor kept a firm grip on her arm as he turned and locked the door to the wine cellar. Kelsia watched to see where he put the key, but it just seemed to disappear from his hand, no doubt slipped into a pocket somewhere on his person.

Finally, he released his grip on her arm. She pressed against the place tenderly with her other hand. There would be bruises by morning. "Stay close and be quiet," he ordered.

Without Shael to back her, it was harder to maintain her courage. Her voice trembled when she spoke. "Are you taking me to see Seith?"

He shoved a grubby finger in her face. "Don't ask stupid questions and don’t mention that name again until I tell you it’s safe. Let's go."

To her surprise, he didn't go out the back way, but took her through the inn's common room toward the front door. No one gave them a second glance as they passed. She thought of running or calling for help but dismissed it. Fear of his sword was only part of it. For better or worse, right now this stranger was her only chance to find Seith. She had to go along with him.

They wound through the streets seemingly without purpose or reason. After only a few turns, Kelsia was hopelessly lost. After they rounded one corner of a deserted street, he caught her sleeve to stop her and put his finger to his lips. He pressed his back against the wall next to the corner, hand resting on his sword, and craned his neck slowly to peer down the street. He stood completely motionless, so quiet that Kelsia found herself mimicking him, not even daring to breathe.

"Alright," he said at last, drawing back from the corner. "I don't think we've been followed. Your name is Kelsy, then?"

"Kelsia," she corrected him.

He frowned. "A country name. I'm Marius. Listen, Kelsia. I need to know I can trust you."

It was the strangest thing he had said yet. He had already threatened her life more than once. Now he was asking for her trust? "First tell me why you attacked us."

"You'll know soon enough," he said. "The name you used is very dangerous. Let me just say that if the wrong people had heard what you said in that common room, you might be dead right now, but more likely just wishing you were. I took a risk in leaving your friend at the inn, but it would be too conspicuous to bring both of you." He dug a piece of cloth out of a pocket and threw it to her. "Wrap this around your head to cover your eyes."

Kelsia did as she was told, tying the two ends together at the back of her head. It was thick wool and made the sides of her head itch. Her view was completely dark except for a sliver of moonlight that crept in at the bottom of the blindfold. She flinched as Marius pulled at the fabric, adjusting it until the last of the light was gone and only a faint glow marked the bottom edge of the cloth.

Marius grabbed her wrist and pulled her along. This time, their walk was surprisingly short. She counted three turns and then they began to climb a flight of stairs. He said, "Stop here," and she heard the sound of a door being opened. She was pulled inside and the door was closed behind her. "You can take that off now."

Kelsia pulled the blindfold up from her eyes. The room was dim. Only a few small candles burned here and there and dark, heavy curtains covered the windows. It was very neat, very clean, with little to show that anyone lived there. A voice echoed from an adjoining room. "Marius, there you are. I was beginning to grow worried..." Coming through the door, he stopped when he saw Kelsia. He was young, a man grown but only just barely. Kelsia had never seen hair like his, a rich, deep red. He was taller than most and had broad shoulders. His pale skin reminded her of the sorcerer who had given her the staff.

He gave a questioning look to Marius, then his gaze snapped back to her. His eyes opened wide. "It cannot be," he breathed. He closed the distance between them in a few quick strides. His hand stretched toward the staff and Kelsia snatched it back from him, her grip tightening nearly to the point of pain.

"This is Seith," Marius said, breaking up what was about to become an awkward scene. "Seith, this girl is called Kelsia. She showed up at the Shepherd's Hearth today asking for you."

Seith shook his head slowly. "No, that doesn't make sense. Garron might send someone to find me, but he would never entrust the staff to another. How did you get this, Kelsia?"

She told him her story quickly and without embellishment, choking quickly past the part about their flight from the burning village. Seith took her back to her meeting with the sorcerer, asking her details about his appearance, manner, and speech. Many of them she couldn't answer, but what she could was apparently enough to bring him to some conclusion. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. Kelsia could hear his ragged breathing. "Is something wrong?"

"Forgive me," he said, his voice unsteady. "The man you saw killed by the werewolf was my master. His name was Garron."

She waited while Seith struggled to master his emotion. Marius patted his shoulder and left the room without saying a word. She kept thinking of Shael, locked up in the wine cellar. Finally, though, he seemed to relax, calm settling over his features. "May I see the staff?"

Her teeth clamped hard together, as though her whole body strained to keep its grip. At first, her hand would not obey her command to release, but slowly, she did. Seith peered at her with a quizzical expression. She got her hand opened completely so that the staff was only leaning against her fingertips. It was a great effort to keep it that way. "Take it," she hissed through her teeth.

He picked it gingerly from her fingers. His hand might as well have been closing around her leg. They were strong hands, but soft. They were the hands of someone who had never worked a field from sunrise to sundown. She flinched once as the staff passed beyond her grasp. She felt the urge to follow as he moved toward a candle to examine it more closely. "Incredible," he exclaimed. "This is it. There's no question."

Kelsia gave in to her urge and walked up behind him. She felt better at once. "What is it?" she asked.

"The Source Key," he said, as if that explained everything. He turned it in the light and peered at it from an angle. "Ah!" He squinted and traced a finger along a length of the shaft. The touch raised goose bumps on Kelsia's arms. "There's a script here."

Kelsia looked, but could see nothing but the smooth, metallic surface and twin grooves twisting down its length. She imitated Seith's slanting look and suddenly she saw it, a string of blocky letters running down half the length of the staff. Seith was muttering to himself, sounding out words that were obviously unfamiliar to him. "What does it say?" Kelsia asked. She started to reach, to snatch it away from him, but stopped herself in time. "What is the staff for?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, blinking. "I'm not sure what it says, to tell the truth. I suppose you deserve an explanation about the staff, though. You risked so much to bring it here. How much do you know about magic?"

Kelsia shook her head. "I don't."

Seith frowned at that and peered around the room. "Here," he said, proffering the staff. "Can you hold it just a moment?" Kelsia took it from him gladly.

He picked up a washbasin and a pitcher and placed them on a table. "Imagine that this water is magic," he said, pointing to the pitcher. "Now, let's pretend that this bowl is a wizard. A wizard is able to create a pull, to—well--tilt magic towards him, like this." He tilted the pitcher so that some of the water spilled into the basin. "The more skilled he is, the more a sorcerer can pull on magic and use it to his own will."

He righted the pitcher again. "Do you understand so far?" He waited for Kelsia's nod and then continued. "Now, imagine if there were a way for a sorcerer to get to the water in the pitcher without having to have it poured through the spigot. What if there were a way to access the magic all at once?" He picked up the pitcher and placed it inside the partially filled washbasin. "That is what we think the Source Key does."

Seith picked up the dripping pitcher and set it back on the table. "Of course, that is all just theory. No one knows if it really even works at all. It has been hidden for over two thousand years, the fact of its very existence has faded to myth except for the accounts of a very few texts."

"Maybe that's how I was able to use magic," she said.

Seith gave her a sharp look. "No, that's not possible."

"I hadn't told you that part of the story yet. When the werewolf attacked us, I fell from my horse. It was right on top of me, then a voice told me words to say, and--"

"You don't understand," Seith cut in. "Women can't use magic. They never could."

Kelsia's brow furrowed. "But I'm certain of it. You can ask Shael what she saw."

"I'm afraid I won't get the chance. I'll have little time left as it is. I'll have Marius release you and your friend if you promise not to mention us to any of the soldiers you see on your way out of town."

"I promise," she agreed.

Marius approached from behind him and offered Kelsia a drink. "I hope you can forgive me for the..." he cleared his throat, "the rough treatment."

"I understand why you did it," she said graciously. Marius nodded, but Seith was looking at her strangely. "What's wrong?" she asked.

He gestured with his fingers. "Let me have the staff and Marius will take you back to the inn."

How had she forgotten the staff? "Here," she said, but when she tried to hand it to him, nothing happened.

Seith stepped toward her, but she stepped back at the same time.

"Give it to me," he said, irritation creeping into his tone.

She tried again to hand it to him, straining to complete the motion. Her face grew heated from the exertion. It was like trying to move an impossible weight. Panting, she relaxed from the effort. After all the strange things that had occurred with the staff, this was the first time she had felt completely helpless and it truly frightened her. "I don't think I can," she said. "It won't let me."

"It?" Seith asked with a raised brow.

"Loric, the druid, told me that this staff had a will of its own. He said that I needed to be careful not to let it control me."

Seith looked thoughtful. "I admit, my knowledge of the Key is limited. There might be something to what you say, but the staff must be kept out of the wrong hands. If you cannot give it over willingly, I'm afraid I'll have to take it."

"I'd like nothing more," Kelsia assured him.

Marius started forward and this time, the decision to back away was all hers. However her perceptions of him had changed, he was still intimidating. "Don't worry," he said, "I won't hurt you." She stood still except for a flinch when she felt him grip the staff. He pulled, but her hands would not let go. He strained and Kelsia dug in her heels. She began to slide across the floor as he pulled on it.

"That's enough," Seith said. Marius released his hold and backed away. Seith closed his eyes and put his palms together in front of him. He spoke a few words and suddenly it felt as though the air around her had grown thick and began to press in on her. It tightened until the pressure became so intense she thought that surely it would crush her. Abruptly, it released.

Seith looked shaken. He drew the back of an arm across his forehead where his hair was damp from sweat. "There is some kind of enchantment between you and the Key, something very strong. I could try to break it, but I don't dare."

"Why?" Kelsia asked in a strangled voice. "Just try it, please."

"If I did, it might kill you. Or it might just kill me. I've never seen magic like this before."

"What is to become of me?" she asked.

Seith stared at the staff in her hands. Kelsia’s hands tightened on it against her will. "You'll have to come with us,” he said at last. “The staff must go east. The Horadrim can provide the kind of protection that it needs. Perhaps one of them can unravel this spell that was cast over you."

Kelsia's head was spinning. "Have to sit down," she said, stumbling forward. Seith rushed to steady her and help her into a chair. She suddenly felt so very far from home. Things were not supposed to happen this way. She wished she had never gone out hiking with Shael that day. She wished none of it had happened.

She looked down at the staff, the Source Key. There were still so many unanswered questions. She was being borne along like a leaf caught in a current. What choice did she have but to press on? "We'll have to bring Shael, I think," she said. "She won't let you leave her behind."

[tamrend]

Chapter 7: The Fog

The cellar appeared to be empty when Kelsia descended the stairs. "Shael?" Kelsia whispered into the darkness.

A scuffling sounded from one corner and Shael's head peered out from behind a stack of barrels. "Kelsy!" she cried, and squeezed herself out through a narrow gap between the barrels and the wall. She threw her arms around Kelsia and hugged her tightly. Then she drew back and stared at Marius suspiciously. "He didn't do anything to you, did he?

"It's fine, everything's fine. He took me to Seith but..." she swallowed back a sudden pang of loss, "but I have to go with them, into the East."

Shael gave her a searching look. She nodded. "Let’s go, then. You can explain on the way. Where's my bow?" She turned to glare at Marius as she said it.

"It's here, I'll show you," Kelsia said. She tugged Shael's sleeve to break off the cold stare she was giving Marius. "There are reasons for what he did, Shael. I don't know why yet, but Seith is in hiding from those soldiers we saw. Marius here was protecting us." Shael's attitude did improve when she picked up her bow from the corner of the study. Marius exchanged a few words with the old man, apparently the inn’s owner, explaining what had happened and warning him to be careful over the next few days.

They stepped outside and Kelsia began to shiver. The clammy air seemed to sap the warmth right out of her. She pulled the thiefshroud closer against her, but the cold still bit into her cheeks. The lamps lining the street glowed in a murky sea of fog. Marius froze suddenly in front of them, his hand hovering above his sword hilt. Kelsia could hear the thump of her pulse in her own ears. Marius’ growling voice startled her. “Get the horses,” he said. “We won’t be coming back.”

Copper seemed a bit grouchy at having been tied up for several hours, but his ears pricked up when she offered him a carrot she had taken from the kitchen. After a few moments of contented crunching, he decided to forgive her and nuzzled her hand.

Marius trailed behind them as they walked the horses. In whispers, Kelsia told Shael of what had happened when she left the inn. Neither one heard Marius’ footsteps as he came up next to them. Kelsia turned at his light tap on her shoulder. “Quiet, both of you,” he said sharply. “We’re almost there.”

They entered a much narrower side street and plunged into darkness as they left the street lamps behind. Marius brought them to the bottom of a staircase that climbed the side of a two-story building. “Bring the saddles inside, and work quickly. You’ll have to leave the horses here." Marius watched both ends of the street while they unfastened the saddles. As soon as they were ready, he climbed the stairs ahead of them and opened the door. Shael trailed behind, her slighter frame unbalanced by the weight of the saddle.

Seith was waiting for Kelsia when she came through the door. He seemed agitated. "Inside, quickly," he said.

Marius stood at the top of the stairs, looking out. "The fog. Is it magic?"

Seith looked thoughtful. "I'm not sure, but the weather is not right for it. It's definitely not natural."

At that moment, Shael reached the top of the steps. "Is that Seith?" she asked, pointing to him.

She waited for Kelsia's nod before dropping the saddle and advancing on him. "We've ridden almost forty leagues, been attacked by slayers and werewolves and probably worse, and all of it to bring you this staff. Then your man nearly strangles Kelsia to death." She had counted off each item on a finger, her voice going up each time as well. "Now you say we have to go with you to who knows where. I think you have some explaining to do."

"You don't have to go," Seith began.

"If Kelsy goes, I go," Shael retorted. "But you haven't told me why she has to leave. Now explain."

Seith sighed. "Where to begin?" He went over his explanation of the Source Key once more, for Shael's benefit. "No one is quite certain who created it, or why. Our best guess at its age would put its creation before the time of The Binding, when the Horadrim captured the three greatest of Hell's Evils and put a stop to centuries of war and destruction. There are very few extant records of the staff. So few, in fact, that most scholars consider the scattered references to be little more than myth. All of that changed last winter."

Marius entered the room, carrying blankets for each of them. His timing was apt, as their breath had begun to fog in the deepening cold of the room. He spread some of them out on the floor for them to lie on and busied himself with building a fire. Seith continued his story.

"An Assassin, a mage slayer, arrived at the keep of the Horadrim last winter. You must understand how unusual that is. There was a time, long ago, when their order made frequent visits to all of the mage clans, checking for signs of corrupted individuals. Once a mage has been corrupted by evil, the only cure is death. That is their purpose, and they carry it out ruthlessly and efficiently. Things have changed over the centuries, and a rift of unspoken hostility has arisen between the mage clans and the mage-slayers. Now they visit infrequently, if at all, though many believe that they have simply made their investigations more secretive.

"This Assassin was acting very strangely, strange for their kind, at least. She was agitated, even fearful. She requested to speak to a member of our council named Pallas, refusing to say more to any other. She met with him, and then he called a meeting with a handful of trusted mages. My master Garron was among them. She revealed that the Source Key does indeed, exist, and that it has been in the care of the Assassins for well over a thousand years, perhaps since the time of its creation."

The fire was crackling nicely now and Kelsia settled back, lulled by the warmth and beginning to relax from their days of hard traveling. She took a glance at Shael, who stared at Seith with a perplexed frown.

"There was an attack on one of the Assassin enclaves. Hellspawn descended upon them by the thousands and wiped them out in less than a day. It appeared to be some kind of resurgence in the powers of Hell, but Assassins who visited the site later saw that the ruins had been carefully picked over. Someone had been looking for something, and this struck fear into the hearts of those who headed the order of mage-slayers. Just one year earlier, the Key had been moved from its place at the now ruined enclave to another much further west, following a kind of rotation set up some centuries ago. It was only by a twist of fate that the staff was kept out of the hands of whoever attacked the enclave.

"The Assassins realized that someone had discovered the existence of the Key and staged the attack. Their order lacks the numbers and the organization to stand up to any person or group powerful enough to summon such an army of Hellspawn. The problem was simply too large for them to handle. That is why they sent one of their number to enlist the help of the Horadrim in bringing the staff to a place where even a horde of Hellspawn would be challenged. Pallas and the others conferred and my master was chosen to bring it back."

Kelsia interrupted him. "But why did he go alone? Why not send a dozen mages? Two dozen."

"It is rare for mages to travel in large groups, as you suggest. Doing so might attract the attention of whoever seeks the staff. Besides, Garron was to have a group of mage slayers for escort on the return journey. However, the most compelling reason came again from the Assassin. She believed that the enemy might have ties to any or all of the mage clans. That seems likely, given that it would be nigh impossible for a powerful group like that to remain hidden from us otherwise. If we brought too many into our confidence, we risked betrayal from within."

"Maybe you were betrayed," Kelsia said. "Maybe one of those that Pallas trusted was one of them."

Seith nodded slowly. "It would seem to be the most likely possibility. We mages have access to certain magical conveyances, but it was assumed that they would be watched. Therefore, Garron was to travel overland to avoid detection. The route he should take was the subject of long discussion among Pallas and his group. He used a portal stone to instantly transport to Kurast on the pretense of other business, and from there went south to the enclave. I started away at about the same time for Dalmers Ferry. I was to meet him here, about halfway into the journey, to re-supply and procure horses for the rest of the trip by the eastern road. Only, when we arrived the city was swarming with soldiers from the kingdom of Ganting."

Marius spoke up for the first time. "Dalmers Ferry is a free city and historically of little importance to the rest of the world. Other than proximity, it makes no sense for them to be here, as conquerors or otherwise. I suspected something was amiss and bade Seith to stay clear while I made a few inquiries with the town guard. It seems that the new king in Ganting is searching for a pair of criminals by the names of Seith and Garron. It was good fortune that my name was not in that list as well. Once we knew what to expect, it wasn’t too difficult to sneak Seith in over the wall.”

Seith continued. "We've been here for more than a fortnight, awaiting my master's arrival. We had to hope that he would be able to avoid the soldiers, as we did. We rented these rooms from the shopkeeper down below, and Marius spent every day waiting at the Shepherd's Hearth while I stayed in hiding here. When you went there and began asking about Seith, Marius took notice, since no one should have known the exact meeting place except us and Garron."

Shael looked between each of the three of them. "It's a fascinating story, but no one has given me any reason why Kelsia has to go with you. You have the staff now. You don't need us."

Seith rubbed a finger across his temple wearily. "Let me show you, then. Get the staff and bring it to me."

Shael jumped up and went to Kelsia. She tugged upward on the staff but Kelsia's fingers were once more locked around it. "Let go of it, Kelsy," she said.

"I can't," Kelsia told her. Shael tried to pry her fingertips away, her expression growing more desperate. "Ow!" Kelsia hissed as Shael's fingernails dug into her. "Ow! Stop it, Shael. You're hurting me."

Shael let go and stared down at the red marks she had made on Kelsia's fingers. Her eyes shimmered. "What have you done to her?" she demanded in a choked voice.

"They didn't do anything," Kelsia said gently. "It's the staff. It won't let anyone else take it, but Seith hopes that we can do something about it when we reach the Horadrim."

Shael sniffed and blinked her eyes rapidly. "Alright. So we have no choice." Somehow, the admission seemed to give her strength. “Where do we go from here?”

"We won't be taking the eastern road," Seith said. "If they've known our path this far, that way will certainly be watched."

"The fog is getting thicker," Marius interjected. He was standing in the doorway looking out. "I can't see more than a few feet in this. Do you think we should chance it?"

Seith looked at the two young women. "You two should get some sleep," he said. "There's time for a few hours."

"We're leaving tonight, then?" Kelsia asked, catching a glimpse of the billowing gray wall outside.

"After the moon sets," Seith agreed, "when it is darkest. We should be able to slip away from the city in this. The sentries will never spot us." But Kelsia did not miss the look of uncertainty on his face. She wondered if he knew something more about the fog than he was telling them.

Kelsia faded in and out of waking, but each time she slept, she returned to the same nightmare. She was running through a morass of clinging vines and branches, the sounds of a pursuer crashing through the brush behind her. She knew that if she made a single misstep, it would have her. It closed on her, the sound of its breathing harsh and inhuman. It spoke her name, but not her name. Without thinking, she turned to look back. Her feet caught in a tangle of undergrowth and she began to fall, down, down, the ground opening up to swallow her. The hunter called her name again.

“Kelsy, wake up.”

Kelsia blinked to bring focus to her eyes. Shael drew back. “I’m sorry I shouted,” she said, “but you looked like you were having a nightmare. I tried shaking you and you wouldn’t wake up.”

“I’m awake now,” Kelsia said, though her limbs felt like dead weights as she sat up.

“Marius went to get their horses. We’re to be ready to leave when he returns.”

“I’m getting tired of running,” Kelsia sighed as she got to her feet.

Shael shrugged. “I think I would prefer that to getting caught.”

Seith was seated at the table, staring at a map spread across its surface. He looked up and watched her as Kelsia yawned and stretched. “What is it?” she asked.

“There’s food,” he said, ignoring her question, “and if you need to urinate, there’s a chamber pot in the closet in the next room. You’d better do it now. We won’t be stopping for a few hours.”

Kelsia felt her cheeks grow heated. Seith had mentioned a subject that was simply not brought up in casual conversation. Fortunately, he didn’t appear to notice her embarrassment. He had returned to poring over the map with a look of intense concentration. Shael gave her a scandalized look before getting some tea for herself. What made it worse was that she really did need to use the chamber pot, but she wasn’t about to go in there after what he had said.

She sat down at the table next to Shael, who tore a piece of bread for her. Kelsia glanced at Seith’s map several times but held her tongue. Finally, she was unable to contain her curiosity any longer. “That is where we are, isn’t it?” she asked, pointing to a tiny sketch of houses on either side of a river.

Seith actually appeared relieved for the distraction from whatever he had been contemplating. “Yes, Dalmers Ferry. And this is Kurast.” He pointed to a city at the edge of the map, where a number of thick lines converged.

“So the village must be…” Kelsia spotted what had to be Loric’s city, at the tip of a horn-shaped valley. Further south was only a great, empty expanse. “It’s not there,” she said haltingly.

“Too small,” Seith explained, “and probably too young. This map is a copy of a copy. The original was drawn more than three centuries ago.” He gave the map one last, long look, nodded to himself, and rolled it up. He stowed it in a pack and then crouched on the floor with his hands out towards the glowing embers of the fire.

Kelsia chewed through the piece of bread and gulped a cup of lukewarm tea. When she could stand to wait no longer, she stood up and hurried discreetly to the other room. When she came back, Marius was hauling their belongings out the door. Seith fastened a hooded cloak over his shoulders and pulled the cowl down and forward to hide his face. She followed him outside.

The stairway and the edge of the building hung suspended in a void of gray. Though the ground was less than a dozen paces below, Kelsia could see nothing when she looked over the railing. The street only became visible again once she neared the bottom.

Kelsia cinched up the saddle straps around Copper's body and checked the fit carefully. When all was ready, they mounted and set off at a walk, Marius in the lead. They stayed off of the main streets, though Kelsia began to wonder if that was even necessary. They could have passed within a few paces of someone going the opposite direction and never even known it. More than once, Marius slowed their pace and wandered back and forth across the road. The second time, Kelsia realized the significance. He was confirming their surroundings, getting a bearing on where they were. The possibility of getting lost hadn't occurred to her until that moment.

"You'll reach the gates soon," Seith said quietly. "If the guards speak to you, act like you don't know anything. If there is trouble, follow Marius' lead. I'll meet up with you later." He slipped down off his horse and handed Marius the reins.

"Where are you going?" Kelsia asked.

Marius turned and fixed her with a stern look. "Best if you don't know, in case we're questioned. We have to take the horses out through the main gate. Seith will take another way. That is all you need to know."

"Now listen here--" Shael began, but stopped at Kelsia's exclamation of surprise. The staff had begun to glow with heat.

"There's something here," Seith warned, reaching for a gnarled length of wood tucked into his belt. Marius held his hand up for silence. Ponderous footsteps sounded from the street up ahead of them falling like the slow, heavy beat of a drum.

Marius threw back his cloak and drew his sword from its sheath. "Back, behind me," he said quietly, but with enough force in his tone that even Shael didn't seem ready to question him. Kelsia moved Copper around to shelter behind Marius. His horse pranced nervously as he waited. The footsteps came on.

Suddenly, Seith whirled and pointed back with his wand. He spoke three words and a bright red flame sprang to life at its tip and shot forward. It disappeared into a dull glow and then flashed brilliantly, revealing a handful of vaguely human shapes behind the mist. The low moan that followed sounded angered rather than hurt. "Undead!" he cried. "They've surrounded us! We’re trapped!"

Seith began to climb back onto his horse. As he did, the first of them shambled into view behind them. Shael had an arrow already notched and loosed it on the first to appear. Kelsia had a glimpse of a slack, gray face and a ravaged body, before the arrow spun it around and toppled it to the ground, the lightning strike following an instant later.

"Stay close! Everyone stay close!" Seith shouted.

More of the grotesque creatures stepped forward, treading right over the one that had fallen. Marius wheeled his horse to face the new threat, but Kelsia saw the dark outlines of a massive figure appear behind him. She shouted a warning, but too late. Marius turned just as a huge, bony fist swung into him. The impact drove him from the saddle and sent him tumbling across the ground. His horse screamed and bolted, disappearing instantly into the fog.

The skeletal giant towered half again as tall as she was while mounted. Kelsia looked up into a pair of empty eye sockets and a mouthful of dagger-like teeth. It took a great, jarring step forward and reached for her. Copper reared back, striking out with his fore hooves at the massive arm bone. He dropped to the ground again and backed up, for the moment completely out of Kelsia's control. A sizzling, glowing arrow zipped past on her left. It hit the monster's skull but glanced off and buzzed away out of sight. Copper reared again, this time nearly throwing Kelsia from her seat. She had a fleeting view of Marius, on his feet once more and charging madly at the monster, sword flailing. Then a cold hand locked around her ankle and hauled her from the saddle.

She slapped the ground facedown, shock saving her for the moment from the pain. The stones of the street scraped against her as she was dragged backward. She kicked out in desperation with her other foot, the blows landing on soft, yielding flesh but having no effect at freeing her. She flipped around to her back and swung the staff with all of her strength at the zombie. Her blow struck the ribcage with a wet crunch. Mercifully, the grip on her leg released and she scrambled away on hands and knees.

Kelsia paused, listening to the high, fast sound of her own breathing, nearly loud enough to drown out the sounds of fighting nearby. She tasted bile and warm, metallic blood. How far had she strayed? She scanned her surroundings slowly, but it was the same in every direction. Blank, impenetrable gray. All at once her arms, legs, and chest began to ache from her fall.

“Kelsy!” Shael shrieked, her cry seeming to come from a great distance.

“I’m here! Right here!” she shouted back, but her words sounded muffled and weak.

Suddenly the ground shuddered once, twice. Her heart leapt to her throat as a massive shape took form out of the fog. She threw herself sideways, a glimpse of white descending toward her as she rolled. It struck the ground with a thunderous crash barely a hand’s-breadth from her. Stinging chips of stone sliced at her face and arms. The creature straightened as Kelsia scrambled backwards, small, frightened noises coming from her throat.

Kelsia forced limbs weakened by fear and pain to move, rolled onto hands and knees, pushed herself up to her feet. She ran for a few steps, turned and moved in another direction. Stop she told herself, resisting the urge to just keep running. If she did, she could run right into a wall or trip over an unseen obstacle. She stood still, listening. The ground still shook from the skeleton's footsteps, but they shambled off in another direction, seemingly without purpose.

She was safe, at least for the moment. Safe, but lost. She could hear the hum of Shael's bow and the crack of lightning when the arrows struck. Seith's voice rang out, speaking words in an unknown tongue that resonated with power. And now, Marius' fierce cries and the clang of metal and the crunch of bone. Every few moments, Shael called her name again.

Slow, uneven footsteps shuffled over the cobbles to her right. Kelsia walked calmly, quietly away, and the steps did not follow her. A wall materialized out of the fog in front of her and she put her hand against it, grateful to touch something solid. Her only hope was that the rest of them could fight through and find her. She had no idea which direction to take.

The longer she stood there, though, listening to the fighting, the stronger her shame and frustration became. What if they died while she waited there? What if they managed to fight off the undead but got caught once more trying to find her? Was her life worth more than theirs?

You are not safe here.

Kelsia spun around and pressed her back to the wall, frantically looking for the source of the voice.

He will find you in a moment.

Kelsia remained silent, certain that this had to be a trick. Then she realized that the voice was not coming from anywhere around her.. She spoke in a whisper. "You're the voice that showed me the magic." She could sense some kind of contact, the touch of a presence in the midst of her own thoughts. She tried to take hold and strengthen that contact, but it began to waver and melt. The voice spoke a string of nonsense and faded completely.

She knew that the words were magic, but did not know what they would do. Steeling herself, she said them aloud and tried to will whatever was supposed to happen. Warmth flowed through her and out. A golden glow rose in front of her and faded, that was all.

No, she could see. The fog had not gone, but she was looking right through it. Shael and Seith still fought against a ring of attacking zombies, only a few dozen paces away. Marius' sword burned with ghostly orange flames as he circled the massive skeleton, keeping just out of its reach. A number of its ribs had been sliced off and one of its massive leg bones had been partially hacked through. Marius looked little better. He gripped the weapon in his left hand, his sword arm hanging broken and useless at his side.

Copper wandered in the fog, making short bursts of movement anytime a loud noise sounded from the fighting. Kelsia ran to him, speaking low when she got close to keep from spooking him. "Come on, boy. We'll be alright. Just stay still a moment." He let her climb to his back and guide him back toward the others. Seith and Shael were surrounded, the living dead pressing in on all sides. Kelsia could see, though, that there was one side where their circle was thinnest. She came as close as she dared and called out. "Here! Cut through them!"

Seith turned at once and loosed a jet of flames from his palms, the wand held between them. Three of the zombies were swallowed into the flames but continued to shamble forward. Finally they fell, one by one, a trio of blackened skeletons. "Come on!" Kelsia called.

Shael drove Cloud through the gap, sliding past the hands that reached out for her. Seith threw another blast into the closing circle and then followed her. Blundering through without seeing, they would have crashed right into her had she not moved aside. Kelsia saw the wondering looks they gave her, but there was no time to explain. "Marius needs our help," she told them. Without waiting for answer, she wheeled and led them, maneuvering around the zombies scattered about in the fog.

She approached the giant skeleton cautiously. She knew it had heard them because its elongated skull swung towards them suddenly. "Careful," she said, "it's just ahead."

Marius had used the distraction they caused to rush in and strike at the already damaged leg. His sword made a sound like an axe striking hard oak and the cleft in the bone grew deeper, but he did not get clear in time. A swipe of the massive hand knocked him off his feet. He came to rest half a dozen paces away, arms and legs sprawled at odd angles.

Now, Seith and Shael had come close enough to see the skeleton's towering back. Seith threw a ball of flames, but it seemed to have no effect except that the creature pivoted towards him. "Aim for the heart, Shael!" Seith shouted. "It should break the enchantment!"

Shael paused in the act of drawing back an arrow. "What? It doesn't even have a heart!"

"Do it!" he shouted, as the monster came at him.

Shael loosed her shot and it sailed true, smashing through the plate of bone that joined its ribs together and embedding within the ribcage. It appeared for an instant to have been ineffective, but then the lightning arced into the same cavernous space. A blast of heat struck Kelsia in the face and a bright flash dazzled her eyes. The skeleton froze in the act of swinging a massive fist at Seith. All at once, the bones fell apart from the monster's body, clattering together into a heap.

"Marius!" Seith shouted, casting about blindly.

"He's here," Kelsia told him, heeling Copper to where Marius lay.

Marius did not move even when they approached. Seith leaped down from his horse and put his ear to his chest. Straightening, he fumbled in his pockets for a tiny bottle. He poured the contents down Marius’ throat and tossed the bottle away. "Help me!" he said, looking around, looking right past her. Kelsia hurried forward so that he could see her. "Help me get him on my horse."

Kelsia glanced at the street behind them. The clarity of her vision was beginning to fade, the fog once more encroaching, but she could see that they were not in immediate danger. It seemed that the undead could see no better than they could in the fog. She leapt down and helped him hoist Marius onto the back of his horse while Shael kept watch with her bow. They returned to their mounts once more, Marius draped ridiculously across the shoulders of Seith's horse. Some impulse made Kelsia look back again. The zombies appeared to have regained some direction and were now moving towards them in a group.

And then she saw something else, something behind the main mass of undead, a figure that was not moving like the others. Though its features were indistinct, appeared to be facing right toward her and she could feel its gaze on her like the touch of cold fingers. She blinked and the figure had disappeared, obscured by the fog that was growing steadily thicker to her eyes. She tried to stare through the mist, but Seith's urgent cry finally tore her away.

They rode to the eastern gate as fast as the fog would allow, no longer concerned with hiding Seith's identity. They found the gate unguarded, only a pair of bodies lying on the ground next to the gate. Seith paused for a moment to look at them and rode on without comment. They drove hard to the east until the fog broke at last, then turned north and walked their mounts across the sodden plain.

Kelsia did not miss the puzzled glances that Seith threw her way. Maybe he was beginning to believe her about the magic. If he was, he didn't appear to be very happy at the prospect.

[tamrend]

Chapter 8: Brimstone

The three of them worked together to lower Marius to the ground. By the ruddy, pre-dawn light, Kelsia could see that most of the scratches that had lined his face last night had healed, but he mumbled incoherently and his eyes flitted about wildly beneath the lids. Bits of vomit clung to the edges of his mouth. Seith listened to his heart and held open each of his eyes to peer at them in turn.

“How is he?” Kelsia asked.

“He suffered a blow to the head. It didn’t break the skull, but he’s only now regaining consciousness. The healing potion I gave him has helped with that. Right now I’m more concerned about this arm.” Seith repositioned the limb carefully across Marius’ chest. “If the ends of the bone are not set, it will heal poorly. The potion works against us, I fear. I’m going to try to reset the bone.” He gripped Marius’ arm in both hands. “You’d both better hold him down. We need to keep this arm still. He’s confused but I’m sure he’ll feel this.”

Kelsia took hold of Marius’ legs and Shael held down his shoulders. Seith made a quick movement and Marius did indeed react. One of his feet caught her chin, but she hung on grimly. It was all they could do, between the three of them, to keep him still. When he had calmed down, Seith motioned for them to let go. “I need to make a splint. Find me some bark, two pieces as long as your forearms. I’ll need some strips of cloth, too.”

They found the items he requested and returned. Kelsia tore a blanket into strips and Seith used them to bind Marius' arm between the pieces of bark. While they were working, Shael had begun to collect wood, but Seith called for her to stop. “No fires,” he said. “Unless you want to shout our location to every pair of eyes within twenty leagues.”

Shael dropped the bundle of sticks. Without a word, she stalked over to Cloud and began tending to her. Kelsia stood up from her place next to Marius and went to her. “He’s got a point, you know,” she said.

“He’s a thoughtless ***,” Shael retorted, easily loud enough for Seith to hear.

"Shael!" Kelsia said sharply, but quietly enough that her voice would not carry. "We’re going to have to depend on these people for our lives. You should try to be civil."

Shael stared past her, her mouth in a thin line. This time she kept her voice low. “He didn’t have to speak to me like I’m a witless fool. We risked our lives to bring this stupid staff this far. He could show some appreciation. And he still thinks we're lying to him.”

Kelsia's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"About the magic. Listen, I don't know how I should feel about it, but I know what I saw. I spoke to Seith about it last night while you were asleep. He told me I was mistaken. That's all he would say." Her look became pensive. "What did happen last night, anyway?"

Kelsia nodded, answering the implied question. "Magic, I think. It doesn't make any sense. How could I have magic? It must be because of the staff, but that doesn’t sound anything like what Seith told us."

Shael shrugged. "Maybe he doesn't know as much as he thinks he does."

Kelsia smiled. "Somehow I knew you would say something like that. But listen, Shael. We're going to be traveling with Seith and Marius for a long time. I need you to try to get along with them. Please."

Shael looked over at Seith, who was doing trying his best to pretend to ignore their conversation. "I promise to try," she said at last.

Kelsia had to be satisfied with that. She knew that Shael was frustrated with their situation and blamed much more of it on Seith and Marius than she let on. She just hoped that Shael would come around before she did anything foolish.

Seith decided to wait until Marius was coherent again before striking off. As it was, the first indication that he was returning to normal was when he asked where his sword had gone. Seith had fortunately possessed the presence of mind to pick it up and stow it in his saddlebags. Marius accepted the weapon back and went right to adjusting his sword belt to put the sheath on the right side so that he could ready it more easily with his off hand. He frowned when Seith fitted his arm with a sling, as though he were concerned about it limiting his movement.

When it came time to ride, Kelsia again had to halt a confrontation between Seith and Shael. Since Marius' horse had been lost during the fight, Seith suggested that Shael and Kelsia double up on Copper and give Cloud to Marius. Seeing the beginnings of a heated argument, Kelsia stepped in and offered to let Marius ride Copper instead. She and Shael would take Cloud. It was reasonable, she explained to Shael, that the two of them that were lightest should ride a single horse. Shael did not appear completely mollified, but she had the decency to look abashed when Kelsia mouthed the words "try harder".

They traveled overland for a few more hours, turning northeast and then cutting back west to intersect the northern road. Seith expressed some hope that the wide deviation would throw off their pursuit, but he didn’t hide his doubt of that very well. They traveled much faster on the road, and Kelsia and Shael took turns at the reins. More than once, Seith and Marius struck up a discussion as they rode side-by-side. By the way they spoke, they appeared to be in disagreement over something, but with their voices held low, Kelsia could not make out their words. Once, when she began to edge Cloud closer to listen in, Seith glanced over at her and cut off the conversation immediately.

They stopped to rest and eat at around midday. Half of their provisions had been lost along with Marius’ horse, so their meal was rather meager and with the promise for more of the same. Shael ate quickly and slipped away with Kelsia’s small bow in hand. Game was scarce in this region, so it was unlikely she would find opportunity to hunt. Kelsia guessed that she just wanted some time alone. Marius walked a short ways south and stood gazing at the horizon.

Seith had taken a seat on a fallen log. He stared at nothing as he ate. He didn’t notice her presence until she spoke. “What are you thinking about?”

He turned to her, startled. “Oh, it’s you. I was…” He swallowed. “I was just thinking of Garron. It’s still hard to believe he’s gone. How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Scared. I wanted to ask you about what happened last night. The giant skeleton, the zombies, how do such things come into being?”

"That has been troubling me also," he admitted. "There is a small religious sect far to the south whose practitioners are said to possess the power to make the dead walk. They have a kind of religion based around the teachings of someone or some being called Rathma. I wondered if the appearance of the undead last night may indicate their involvement, but it seems unlikely. They are a very reclusive group, for one thing, and have never shown even a hint of ambition in their very long existence."

"But are they mages like you?"

"It seems that they are. There are references in the older histories that hint of a time when there was only a single mage group, though it is unclear whether it split to give rise to the priests of Rathma, or whether they appeared later. What is clear is that they posses magic of a sort that is completely foreign from anything we know. However, we do know of one other group that once spawned a great host of undead upon Sanctuary."

She knew the answer by the look he gave her. "The Prime Evils."

"Yes. Hellspawn attacked your village, and now undead have appeared in Dalmers Ferry. Both point to the use of demonic magic. Black magic, you would call it, the powers practiced by the minions of Hell itself. Long, long ago, two mages from the clan Vizjerei, Horazon and Bartuc, were corrupted by the evil influence of this magic. The struggle between them very nearly destroyed the Vizjerei, all of it part of a careful plan by the hosts of Hell. The practice of demonism has been forbidden ever since, punishable by death and enforced by the mage-slayers. To any mage, even the most innocent study of such magic is unthinkable."

She shook her head slowly. "What is unthinkable is that I got caught in the middle of this, a silly country girl, too curious for my own good. What do you think of our chances?”

“They’ve lost the advantage of knowing our path, though they still know where we must go eventually. I’m afraid it may not be enough. Any mage of even middling ability would be able to track us easily, from several leagues away, at least. The staff is like a beacon of power. Once you brought it and I knew what it was, what to look for, I could point to it with my eyes closed.”

“You mean,” she broke in quickly, “you can feel right where it is even when you can’t see it?”

He stared hard at her for a moment. “Shael seems to be quite certain that you can use magic. You yourself said the same, though you weren’t as certain. Are you telling me that you sense the staff, too?”

She nodded slowly. “And I can feel it when someone touches it.”

He sighed. “Perhaps the Key has effects we don’t yet know about. You have had possession of it for close to a fortnight now. That could explain what you did last night.”

She had to gather her courage to ask her next question, dreading the possible answers. “Seith, what makes you so sure about women not having magic? You don’t even want accept the possibility. I have to know why.”

He chewed his food while he considered what she had asked. “You wonder whether my feelings come from a belief that women are not men’s equals? I can assure you that my reasons are not so crude. Quite simply, there are no women mages that we know about, anywhere. There is no reliable record of their existence in all the books in our library. Surely if a female wizard could exist, someone would have heard of them.”

She arched her eyebrows. “But you have another reason?”

He drew a deep breath and sighed again. “There are myths. There is one tale that tells of women who gave their souls to the Hell in exchange for power. The legends name them as witches. The story goes that the witches betrayed the demons during the Sin War and that when the Three arrived on the mortal realm, they sought out these women and destroyed them.”

“But that’s just a myth.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps, but myths almost always spring from a seed of truth. Though I’ve known you only a short time, I would not want to believe ill of you, Kelsia. That is the other reason I have been reluctant to accept what you suggest, in defiance of the evidence you have shown me.”

A rustling from behind them brought Marius running with sword drawn. In a moment, Shael appeared from the thin screen of trees, holding aloft a rabbit. She looked inordinately pleased with herself, despite Marius' disapproving scowl.

The rest of the day passed without incident and their progress actually picked up as the road continued to dry from the recent rain. That night, Marius insisted that he and Seith would take watch so that Kelsia and Shael could sleep. Shael grumbled to herself but held her tongue.

They set out the next day at a steady pace, giving the horses plenty of opportunity to graze and saving their strength for when they might need it. However, it seemed as though Marius cast just a few more looks over his shoulder at the road behind, as though the lack of pursuit thus far was simply a sign of deeper deception by their enemies.

By nightfall, the unease among the group was almost palpable. The four of them talked little and without much enthusiasm. Marius allowed a small cook fire for the rabbit Shael had caught, but then fussed incessantly over the building of it, insisting upon checking each piece of wood for its type and moisture to ensure that there would be no smoke. Kelsia hid a smile behind her hand when Shael muttered that she’d like it if he dried up.

The next morning dawned cold and bright. The ground was cloaked in thin layer of mist hovering just below the tops of the grass stalks. Kelsia crawled reluctantly from her bed and stumbled towards the edge of camp and the screen of privacy. Marius glanced at her when she stood up, then went back to watching the road.

In daylight, she was able to get a better look at their surroundings, which had become very strange indeed. The scattering of trees had grown quite suddenly thicker, and in among the low dogwoods and great, spreading oak and beech grew strange, narrow trees with a very dark green, almost furry coat of leaves. Upon closer inspection, Kelsia saw that where there should have been leaves there were instead clusters of stem-like needles. Where the other trees were dropping their leaves, these trees held on to their foliage.

She met Shael on her way back to camp. She was looking up into the branches of one very tall member of the new trees. “What do you see?” Kelsia asked, coming up next to her.

Shael flashed a grin. “Nothing yet.” She walked forward to the base of the tree, reached up to grab hold of one of the lower branches, and began to climb.

“What’s that fool girl doing?” Marius grumbled, coming up behind Kelsia.

Kelsia was wondering the same thing. Shael had climbed high enough that a fall could mean grave injury, but she continued hoisting herself up from one handhold to the next.

Marius called up to her. “Get down here, Shael.”

She looked down over her shoulder. “In a moment.”

Seith had joined them at the base of the tree. “Stupid wench is going to give us away,” Marius muttered, pointing.

The screen of branches finally obscured their view of her completely. Kelsia backed up and caught sight of her once more, straddling a thin branch near the top of the tree. She had braced herself against the dangerous swaying of the narrow trunk and peered intently southward. She spotted Kelsia and gave a confident wave, then descended carefully, branch by branch, to the forest floor.

“There was no one there,” Shael said excitedly. “I must have been able to see for ten leagues from up there, but the road was empty.”

Seith’s tone was cold. “That was stupid. Next time Marius or myself gives you an order, you follow it.”

Shael's hands balled into fists as she stared at him. Kelsia opened her mouth to speak, to try to defuse her anger, but Shael just made a disgusted noise and swept past him, moving toward the camp. Kelsia stared after her, feeling as though she should have done something to prevent what had happened.

“She’s headstrong,” Seith said, frowning.

“You should apologize to her,” Kelsia scolded him, suddenly angry herself. “Try to get along with her and she might start listening to you. This bickering between you all is beginning to grow tiresome.”

His frown deepened. “You’re right,” he said vaguely. Kelsia wondered darkly what part of what she had said he was agreeing with.

“What do you think this means?” Marius asked. “Have they lost the trail?”

“I’m not sure,” Seith said. “But we should still keep our guard up. Now is hardly the time to grow complacent. We should break camp. We’ve got some difficult terrain ahead of us today.”

Shael chose not to mention the morning’s incident as they packed their gear and mounted up. In fact, she seemed to have decided that the best course was to simply pretend that Seith no longer existed.

Kelsia was surprised then, when she directed a question his way, though her expression made it look as though she had just swallowed something unpleasant. “What is the date?”

He thought for a moment, counting silently his fingers. “Today is the nineteenth.”

“I knew it,” Shael groaned, clapping Kelsia on the shoulder. “Your birthday was three days ago, Kelsy, the day we got to Dalmers Ferry. It was your sixteenth birthday and we missed it completely.”

Kelsia laughed. “I’m glad you thought of it, at least. With everything going on, I would never have known. Yours is coming up in a few months, too. Maybe we’ll get the chance to celebrate it properly.” That is, she thought, if they weren’t still slogging through the wilderness.

It was strange to think how much her outlook had changed. Back home the whole village would have given her gifts and congratulated her on making the journey from child to womanhood. She had been looking forward to it for months, but now that it was behind her, it seemed like it had been a lot of anticipation for nothing. She certainly didn’t feel any more an adult now than she had before.

When they stopped for the noon meal, Seith approached Kelsia. Shael leapt up with an excuse about checking on the horses. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said. “Where did you get this cloak?”

She hadn’t actually mentioned it before, she had told him about Shael’s bow. She had all but forgotten its significance over the last several days. “It is called a thiefshroud,” she told him. “Loric gave it to me. He said it was enchanted.”

Seith nodded. “I’ve heard of these. It’s based on a spell that absorbs light, but the artificer that made them died centuries ago and took the secret of their making with him. No one in modern times has been successful in replicating the effect. It isn’t true invisibility, but then, most scholars agree that that is impossible.”

“Absorbs light, you said? What does that mean?”

“It is difficult to explain. You know that when light falls on something, you can see it, right?”

Kelsia nodded uncertainly. That was how lamps worked.

“Well, what you are actually seeing is light bouncing off of objects and arriving at your eyes. This cloak lets light strike you, but instead of bouncing out in all directions, it gets absorbed, the same way water would get absorbed. The magic is enchanted right into the material. You just need to activate it. Try imagining yourself fading out, your whole body going dark.”

She tried it, Seith giving her patient feedback as nothing happened for several minutes. She closed her eyes and listened to his voice, letting it lull her into a more relaxed state.

“There! You did it!” he said suddenly.

Her eyes snapped open, but she didn’t feel or look any different to herself.

“For just a moment, your image seemed to waver and grow darker. I don’t think it will work so well in daylight, but it should hide you very effectively at night. You should keep practicing. It might be a useful ability to have.” Oddly, the cloak seemed to be warmer, as though it had been hung before a fire for a time. Now that she thought of it, the air seemed to be colder.

Before they struck out again, a breeze had begun to blow, worming its way through the spaces in her clothing to chill the bare flesh underneath. Despite the sun’s steady ascent into the sky, it continued to get colder. Shael and Kelsia huddled close in the saddle for warmth and Kelsia wrapped as much of the thiefshroud around the two of them as she could. Even Marius seemed perturbed by the frozen air, his breath turning to fog as he searched the sky and tested the direction of the wind. Only Seith seemed at ease, his cloak held close but showing none of the others’ surly discomfort. Sometime in the afternoon, high gray clouds began to roll in from the north, blotting the sun from the sky in less than an hour. Now, the cold only increased further, though the freezing wind had mercifully grown less.

They were bumping along, Shael’s cheek resting against Kelsia’s back, when tiny motes of brilliant white suddenly began to fall all around them. Kelsia stared at them, certain that she had nodded off and was having a dream. She reached out a gloved hand to catch one of the first of the little fairy lights to come down near her. It landed so softly that she didn’t feel anything. Then, it began to disappear as she watched, leaving just a tiny spot of wetness where it had been.

“Wake up!” she cried, nudging Shael with her shoulder. “You have to see this!”

“Wha-“ Shael said sleepily, blinking at the slow shower of white dots.

“It’s snow,” Seith told them. “I didn’t expect to see snowfall this early. We’re not even halfway through autumn. We should pray it doesn’t get any thicker than this.”

As though his words had hexed them, the snowfall did increase and began to cover the ground. At first, it merely outlined each and every rock and leaf with a tiny dusting, but soon the ground had disappeared entirely, swallowed up by a coating half a hands-breadth deep. The cold, too, grew more bitter, and the wind returned. Kelsia’s neck ached with cold where individual flakes had somehow darted inside of her hood. Her teeth chattered incessantly, in time with her shaking arms and legs. Soon, the wind was driving the flakes into her face like hundreds of stinging pinpricks.

“We have to find shelter!” Marius cried above the howl of the wind. “Seith!” he shouted when the other didn’t respond. Seith brought his horse to a halt and looked at him. “We’ll be in the middle of a blizzard soon. We can’t travel in this! The girls are nearly frozen to death already.”

Seith stared at him with a look of stubborn defiance. He looked at Shael and Kelsia, huddling miserably together on Cloud’s back. Finally, his shoulders sagged in acquiescence.

Marius wheeled around and led them back the way they had come, spurring his horse to a canter now that the wind was at their backs. What little light remained faded from the sky as they rode at a clip that threatened to dump Kelsia from the saddle with each jarring step. Seith lifted his wand into the air and a globe of yellow flame sprang up to light their way. Soon, Marius slowed to a more uncertain pace and began to search the road to either side. “Here!” he cried, and slipped down from Copper to lead him off the road. Kelsia nearly fell from the saddle as she dismounted. Her legs were numb and her knees cramped and weak. They stepped into the screen of the trees and the wind grew a bit less biting, but the snow still fell relentlessly from the sky.

A massive trunk loomed ahead of them, pushing up boldly from the choking blanket of snow. While living, it must have been an impressive tree indeed. Kelsia could not begin to guess how old it was or how tall it had once stood. Now, lying next to a jagged stump and covered in fungus and lichen, the hollow trunk opened up before them, large as the mouth of a cave. The roof of the trunk sagged above them and the footing underneath was spongy and uneven, but the inside was noticeably warmer than outside.

They led the horses single-file, deeper into the bowls of the trunk, until they came to a place where the walls began to close in. Kelsia fumbled with the saddle straps, but Seith stepped in and deftly loosened them. She slumped against the inside of the trunk and was pleasantly surprised to find that, though damp, it gave off a fair amount of warmth. She was barely conscious of Shael flopping down next to her. Sleep claimed her before her eyes had shut completely.

She awoke in darkness and was startled for a moment by the strangeness of her surroundings. The wind warbled and moaned past the trunk and finally trailed off to silence. Dredging through murky memories of last night’s endless, miserable cold, she managed to remember that they had finally gotten to shelter. She began to yawn but then quickly stifled it behind her hand. Whispers came from the faintly lit opening at the end of the log.

“And what do you plan to do about the girl?" The surly voice belonged to Marius.

"We've had this discussion before," Seith said wearily.

"And you have failed to give me an answer. I’m warning you, there’s going to be trouble.”

Kelsia held her breath as a few moments of silence passed. “We will deal with the problem when the time comes.”

Marius started to reply, but at that moment Shael shifted and groaned loudly. She settled into a new position and her breathing returned to a steady rhythm once more, but Seith and Marius did not resume their conversation. Kelsia lay in the dark thinking over what she had heard. Were they talking about her, or about Shael? What could it mean? A cold, tight pit of worry settled into her chest. Only questions, but questions of the worst sort. She waited for what seemed like a long time, listening as the wind gradually died down. When she felt that enough time had passed, she made noises to sound like she had only just awoken.

"It is still early," Seith said, coming up next to her. The light had grown brighter, though it looked oddly diffuse, coming in through the open end of the log. "There's food for you if you're hungry."

"Has the blizzard stopped?"

"Yes, but we'll have to dig our way out. The wind has piled a drift at the mouth of the log." He pointed, but for a moment she wasn't sure what he meant. Then she realized that the light she was seeing was coming from a sloping wall of white.

Next to her, Shael sat up and rubbed at her face. "Where am I?"

"Inside of a tree," Kelsia answered matter-of-factly. She tugged off her blankets and stood awkwardly on the uneven surface of the log. The air was cold, but still far from the deep, biting chill of last night. Seith joined them in eating a cold breakfast of stale bread and dried fruits while Marius began the task of digging them out. Considering that their horses would have to fit through as well, Kelsia judged that the double handfuls that he was pulling away could make the job take all morning. Quickly finishing her food, she tugged on her riding gloves and stepped up next to him to help. The staff resisted her efforts to put it down, but she tried propping it up next to her, within sight and easy reach, and that seemed to appease whatever force it was that tied it to her.

Marius glanced at her and nodded his approval without saying a word. The exertion helped to stave off some of the chill, but her fingers began to ache from the cold. Between the two of them, they began to open up a sizable hole by the time the others joined in.

Kelsia dropped to her knees and leaned in work at deepening the tunnel, but after only a few handfuls, a hand grabbed her collar and pulled her roughly backward. She stumbled and landed flat on her back, staring up at Marius’ grim countenance. Then, with a grating squeal, the packed snow above the tunnel shifted and fell, covering over the hole and spilling down inside the log. Her feet disappeared beneath the edge of the mass. Had she still been crouched there, she would have been swallowed completely beneath it.

“Thank you,” she gasped, accepting Marius’ hand up.

“Just be careful,” Marius said gruffly. “I’d rather not waste the time to dig you out.”

“Look at this.” Shael stood at the base of the collapse, peering up. There was now a sizable gap between the edge of the trunk and the snow blocking the entrance.

With a bit of work, it became wide enough for Shael and Kelsia to wriggle out. Patches of morning sun filtered through the canopy and lit up the ground so brightly that it was painful to the eyes. The snow over most of the ground came up to just below Kelsia’s knees. They scouted the area quickly, looking for traces of enemies hiding nearby, but it seemed that they were alone. The only thing that seemed out of place to her, though, was a black column of smoke rising lazily into the northern sky.

Working from both sides now, it still took half the morning to dig a hole large enough for the horses to scramble out.

"A pity the snow didn't linger," Seith remarked as he scanned his surroundings.

Kelsia turned to him. "Why is that?"

"Because now we'll be leaving tracks that anyone with a pair of eyes and half a brain can follow. A good heavy snow might have covered up our traces, given a few hours. We should reach safety today though, if our luck and this weather hold out."

“What is that smoke?” she asked, pointing. “Is there a fire?”

“There is,” Seith agreed, “but not like one you’ve ever seen before. We will pass close by there, probably tomorrow. Then you will see for yourself.”

They saddled the horses and resumed the journey north. As the sun climbed higher, the air began to warm, softening the snow into a wet, sticky slush. The plain was finally giving way to more uneven terrain. In some places, the road narrowed to little more than a track, and they could ride no more than two abreast. Here and there, jagged stones rose up from the ground. They passed one large stone that stood out in stark relief, shiny and black with barely a dusting of powder anywhere on its smooth, sharply edged facets. More of the black stones appeared as the day wore on, varying in size from the large rock she had first spotted to tiny stones that could be seen only because the snow tended to melt around them. Kelsia wondered if they somehow generated their own heat, but when she touched one cautiously, it felt no different than any other stone.

Late in the day, they came to a tiny trapper's village set back among the trees. Seith led them to the door of a ramshackle cottage and knocked loudly. They got wary looks from the woman who answered, but her eyes widened when he showed her a handful of silver. She told them to stay where they were and disappeared back into the house, coming back moments later with a leather bag filled with smoked meats. From another house, Seith bought heavy animal furs for each of them. He gave the smallest to Shael, but it still hung so low that it dragged the ground and threatened to trip her any time she took a step. Kelsia's own coat had an odd, musky odor, but she found it easy enough to ignore. The extra warmth was well worth it in any case.

The village disappeared behind them as suddenly as it appeared, swallowed up by the ancient forest. The air warmed gradually throughout the afternoon, but never enough to melt the ankle-deep layer of slush from the ground. They made camp near the bed of a cold, rocky stream and huddled beneath their blankets until Marius roused them at dawn.

Black smoke now dominated the northern sky. Through a gap in the trees, Kelsia got her first look at its source. "The fire's on top of that mountain, isn't it?"

"Not on, but in," Seith answered. "But yes, that is where it comes from. From that mountain seeps forth fire from the deepest depths beneath the ground. Some say it is the very fires of Hell itself that burns within that mountain. In any event, we will not pass close enough to be in any danger. Further ahead, you will get a better look at it.”

The view he had promised them came at the end of a steep climb up a narrow trail cut into the rocky side of a hill. It was like no mountain Kelsia had ever seen. The sloping snow-covered sides rose to a peak of bare rock. It was there, at the top, that the black smoke boiled forth. At the mountain’s base, too, clouds of white billowed up from the ground. “I never knew such things existed,” she breathed. “A mountain on fire from the inside.”

“I don’t like it,” Shael said. “It looks angry.”

Seith gave them just a few more moments to look. “Let’s be on our way. This part of our journey is nearly at an end. There’s sure to be warm food and a bed waiting for us just ahead. Maybe even a hot bath.” The prospect of food and shelter instantly lifted their spirits. Even Cloud seemed to pick up on the mood of her riders. She quickened her pace to a canter without being urged.

Their path soon took them east along a string of hilltops. The land here was a great contrast from the forest they had passed through. Though there was a great variety of life to be seen in the vegetation, it seemed that most of it had sprung up here only in recent years. The scarcity of taller trees gave them all a clear view of the burning mountain. The longer Kelsia looked at it, the more she understood Shael’s discomfort. There was something vaguely threatening about it, as though it truly did possess malevolent will of its own.

With the sun sinking in the west, evidence of the promised relief appeared at last. At the base of the hill they were on, a long strip of land had been cleared and leveled. Nearby stood an orchard of fruit trees. If the cleared space was used for farming, there would be enough food to feed at least a dozen families. Surely it was a sign that there was a village nearby. But rather than going down as she expected, they began to ascend another hill, this one more steep and craggy than any of the last. There was no snow on the ground here. It appeared to have been trampled away by a great deal of foot traffic. Marius pointed this out, prompting Seith to nod and frown in perplexity.

Above them, the cliff side rose sheer for a hundred paces or more, ending in a smoother surface that looked like it had been built by human hands. As they neared the top, her notion became certainty. The wall appeared roughly fashioned, but its surface was almost completely devoid of any cracks or crevices that might be used as a handhold.

Kelsia let go of the reins suddenly to clutch the staff in both hands. The glow of warmth was faint, but enough to feel through her gloves. For that matter, she wondered if the gloves really made any difference at all. "Be careful," she said, remembering the staff's prior warnings all too well. "There may be danger nearby."

As though in response to her warning, Marius spat an oath and spurred Copper forward. In a moment, Kelsia saw what had prompted it. The path ahead led to a tall, narrow gate at the base of the wall, but the door now lay in pieces on the ground. Marius dropped from the horse to survey the damage more closely, then drew his sword and stepped through the opening.

“What is this place?” Kelsia asked.

“An enclave of the mage-slayers,” he answered, not taking his eyes off of the ruined gate. "Get the reins of that horse, Shael," he told her as they neared the entrance. "Both of you stay behind me. Be ready to flee if I tell you." The pieces of the gate showed that it was thick, heavy wood reinforced with iron. The wood had turned a deep, pitted black on one side, as though charred by intense fire, but the twisted metal and splinters lying about made it look like it had simply been ripped apart.

The gate opened onto a large, snow-covered expanse. Dozens of tracks crossed the area, leading to a set of long, low buildings near the other end of the wall. Marius was crouched next to one of the sets of tracks, examining it, his sword once more back in its sheath. He dusted his gloves off as he stood up. "These were not made by human feet. I can't be sure, but it looks like hellspawn. Slayers, I believe, or one of their kin. I'm not certain what made those." He pointed to a massive footprint more than half a pace long. "Whatever they were, they were here recently. After the blizzard stopped, or there would be no tracks to find, but the sun has melted some of the traces. These could have been left yesterday, or this morning at the latest."

The snow in the open yard crunched beneath their feet, hardening now as the air cooled toward evening. “Maybe the mage-slayers got away,” Shael said. “There aren’t any bodies around.” She was right. Except for the footprints, the yard was empty.

Seith glanced at her, looking as though he had something to say but dreading it. Marius spoke for him. “Most hellspawn eat their victims, given the chance.”

Kelsia felt her mouth go dry, and Shael swallowed loudly behind her.

Seith squinted against the glare of the sun setting in the west. “Marius, how long will our food last?”

"Two days, if we ration it carefully. At the rate we've been using it, we'll be out of grain for the horses tomorrow. We may be able to find game to hunt, and there's plenty of grass for the horses beneath the snow.”

“We have another week of travel before we reach Rona.”

Marius nodded thoughtfully. “There might be supplies to be found here."

"We should go," Kelsia said firmly, causing all eyes to turn to her. The staff had been growing warmer since the moment they entered the gate. "Whatever attacked this place might still be here."

Marius spoke. "Dead is dead, whether from hellspawn or hunger. We won’t lose much taking a quick look around.”

Seith surveyed the site once more and shivered. "No, we'll delay here no longer. There is a sinister air to this place. I fear our enemies anticipated our taking this path.”

Shael took the reins this time as they mounted. They descended the trail to the bottom of the hilltop, but Kelsia felt no change from the staff. The track meandered through the brush and rejoined the main road going northeast, well clear of the burning mountain. Snow still lay thick on the road, which Kelsia took to be a good sign. Still, the warmth in the staff never lessened. With every step, it seemed to grow warmer, until it seemed her flesh should sear from the heat. She knew it meant danger, but nothing they had done so far seemed to make a difference. Icy fingers of dread began to tighten around her stomach.

You're walking into a trap.

Kelsia gasped. The voice had never spoken so clearly before. "What is it?" she whispered, and held her breath.

"What did you say?" Shael asked, twisting in the saddle to look back at her.

"Seith!" Kelsia cried. He slowed to let her horse approach. "There's something wrong. We're headed for a trap."

He stared at her. "How can you know that?"

"I...I just know," she stammered. How could she tell him about the voice in her head?

Marius brought his horse to a halt and motioned the others to do the same. He pointed. "She may be right. Look." Up ahead, a great, jagged rock jutted up from the ground across the width of the path. The land rose steeply to one side, offering little handhold and well beyond what a horse could manage. On the other side, the land fell away into broken, rocky terrain, leading down to the foot of the fiery mountain. The only passage through was a narrow slit running down the length of the rock up ahead. "If I were going to choose a place ambush travelers on this road, it would be on the other side of that."

"Is that what you mean?" Seith asked her.

She held the staff a moment. It still seemed to be growing hotter. "Maybe, but I think there's something else. We shouldn't stay here."

"Watch it!" Marius shouted, drawing his sword.

Behind them, a cluster of slayers that had been concealed among the trees now marched onto the road and advanced slowly towards them. She counted as high as she could, but they just kept coming, a river of steel and demon flesh. At their head was one slayer that stood much taller than the others. As Kelsia watched, tiny arcs of light formed between its armor and its mottled green skin.

"There are too many," Marius said.

"Let go of me," Shael murmured, disengaging Kelsia's arms from around her. She took the bow from her shoulder and an arrow from her quiver. The air hummed as she drew back the string.

Marius turned to look. "No!" he shouted, she had already released. The arrow crossed the distance in an eye blink and struck the one that appeared to be the leader. White light flashed from the point of impact, at the collarbone on the demon’s left side, but the creature never wavered. And now, a wave of flickering bolts danced through the air. Wherever they touched, light and searing heat was released. Two of the slayers collapsed to the ground and another was struck by a glancing flicker of energy. A cluster of bolts came their way but dissipated before reaching them.

“That one has been given an enchantment,” Seith explained, “a spell that reacts to any injury.” The creature never slowed its progress, but reached up a hand to smoothly retract the arrow from its shoulder.

"We can't fight them," Marius said. He looked back toward the crevice and grimaced. "And it seems the girl was right about a trap."

A massive shoulder emerged from the rock, followed by a huge and heavily muscled body. Moving sideways, the creature stepped out into the open and straightened to its full height, hand spans taller than anyone Kelsia had ever seen. Its squarish frame was easily twice as wide with a head that seemed tiny compared to the rest of its body. It blinked at them stupidly and hefted a heavy, chain-wrapped bundle.

"This way," Marius shouted, and drove a balking Copper off the edge of the road. At first it looked like he would fall, but the horse somehow managed to keep his feet on the steep incline, though he half ran, half slid to the bottom.

Shael quickly stowed her bow and moved to follow, but Cloud danced away from the edge. "Go!" Seith shouted, standing in the path of the charging slayers with his wand outstretched. The mob of demons took up an inhuman, squealing war cry. "Go on!" he shouted again.

Kelsia gave Cloud's flank a resounding slap and then nearly slid from her back when the mare surged forward. The sky and ground tilted crazily for a moment and then righted. Cloud half ran, half slid down the treacherous slope. Rocks, loosed by their slide tumbled past and dust rose up in a choking cloud. With a jolt and a stumble, they came to the bottom of the slope. Kelsia looked back to see Seith descending, a flurry of the tiny bolts fanning out from the edge but passing harmlessly overhead.

They waited for him to come to rest at the bottom and then were off again, galloping across the rock-strewn ground directly towards the mountain. Kelsia looked back to the top of the hill. Dozens of slayers were beginning to make their way down. Three of the unknown, massive demons were coming as well.

Suddenly, Cloud slowed to a lurching stop and Seith, in the lead once more, swung to face them. The ground up ahead was a strange, uneven blanket of pure black running right to the base of the mountain to a crevice that issued forth thick clouds of smoke. The mountain loomed above, filling their vision. “Get off your horses.”

“What?” Shael shouted back at him. “You’re mad!”

“Do as he says,” Marius said, climbing down from his own saddle.

Kelsia looked back again. The first of the slayers had reached the bottom of the hill and would be upon them soon. “Trust him,” she said, and slid to the ground. Shael followed her, but she didn’t look happy.

“This ground is only a thin crust of rock,” Seith told them, leading the reins of his horse to the edge. “Just beneath it is a pool made of melted rock, hotter than you can imagine. Follow my footsteps and test each step carefully. If your horse breaks through, leave it behind.”

He turned and began to move across the ground at a quick but uneven pace, pausing to tap the ground every few steps. After only a few steps, heat began to seep through the soles of her boots, though that was nothing compared to the heat from the staff. She tried to ignore both and focused on following the path Seith was taking, a jagged diagonal line across the rock and toward the base of the mountain. Despite the seeming solidity of the rock, the horse’s hooves chipped away pieces of the rippled surface.

“They’ve reached the edge,” Marius said. Kelsia looked and saw it was true. The leader of the slayers hung back, but the rest of them charged right on, oblivious to the heat emanating from the rock. They were nearly across themselves, but at the rate they were moving it would be a close thing. The larger demons had moved surprisingly quickly, but they seemed uncertain about crossing the black stone. Finally, one of them took a few tentative steps, then a few more. The ground creaked and groaned as it took another. All at once a great crack sounded and the rock split open. Red flame and great gouts of steam rose up as the demon was plunged below. A terrible roar rent the air and went abruptly silent.

Seith barked a laugh. “That gave them pause.” The other great demons stared at the place where the one had fallen. One of them scratched its tiny head with a finger the size of a ham. The slayers too had been momentarily distracted and slowed their progress.

It may have been her imagination, but the ground seemed more solid when they stepped off the rock flow. “You take the reins,” Shael said, pushing her toward the saddle. Kelsia climbed into the saddle and gave Shael a hand up. The first of the slayers were less than a dozen paces away when she spurred Cloud to a gallop.

“If the terrain stays good, we can outpace them,” Seith shouted over the wind. The ground was surprisingly clear, as if the plants feared to grow too close to the mountain. Perhaps it was just the heat. It seemed to emanate from every surface here and sweat was beginning to slick her skin beneath her thick layers of clothing, clothing that had been warding off the cold only a short time ago.

The steep sides of the mountain and the adjacent hillside began to close in on them, narrowing their passage into a ravine. Neither of the two men showed much confidence in the path they took, making Kelsia worry that they were simply running blindly because there was no other way to go. She feared that at any moment they would find the way ahead closed off entirely, with no way to go but back into the hellspawn.

The last remnants of twilight gradually faded from the sky. The broad silver crescent of the moon shone down from directly above, lighting their path but also casting deep shadows that Kelsia stared into as they passed, looking for enemies lying in wait.

Suddenly, Seith held up his hand to signal a stop. The ground was broken into a jumble of pits and depressions. Wisps of steam rose from the holes, which ranged in size from a less than a handspan to several paces across. In one place, smooth gray mud bubbled. The stench made Kelsia’s eyes water.

“Sulfur vents,” Seith said. “They should be harmless unless you put a foot wrong. Stay behind me until we get through.”

Moving between the sulfur pits slowed their progress to a crawl. The staff began to smolder as the sounds of pursuit grew closer. The ravine made a sharp bend and the four of them came to an abrupt stop. A massive slide of rocks and dirt had rolled down the slide of the mountain into the ravine, blocking off its entire width to the top. Seith surveyed the obstacle calmly. His face hardened. “We can climb this.”

The horses were not happy with the loose terrain, but by picking their way carefully, they were able to make slow, steady progress up the slope of the landslide. Marius pressed Copper into the lead, somehow able to keep his seat with one arm in a sling and the other resting on his sword hilt. Kelsia looked over her shoulder and down, into the ravine. The host of slayers had nearly reached the bottom of the slide. Seith appeared to be having some trouble with his horse and lagged several steps behind.

Kelsia gained the top a few steps behind Marius. Steel flashed silver in the moonlight as he drew his blade. Kelsia looked beyond him to the hulking, black-skinned thing that stood in their path. They could not reach the hillside without going through the spot where the demon stood. "It’s a mauler," Marius said. "Watch closely. When you see an opening, get past it."

He approached it warily, coaxing Copper forward in fits and starts. Suddenly, he swung his leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground. With a fierce cry, he charged the towering demon, red flames bursting forth along the length of his sword.

The creature lifted its bundle of chains in one fist and brought it down in an overhead smash. The ground shuddered and a cloud of dust went up. A hail of stones was shaken loose and rolled down both sides of the slide. Kelsia gasped. Marius was gone. The mauler grinned to itself and started towards Copper, hefting its clumsy club so that the chains rattled together. The horse reared back, kicking out with his hooves, but the thing stood its ground and readied another swing.

"Turn!" Shael shouted, her bow bumping Kelsia’s shoulder. "I can't get a shot!"

Before Kelsia could react, a finger of flame suddenly sprouted from the mauler's belly, and a gout of black blood spilled down its lower body. The flame disappeared and the creature stumbled, falling to its knees. “Go!” Marius shouted, his voice coming from behind the creature.

Kelsia dug her heels into Cloud’s flanks and she surged forward, cutting as wide a berth around the mauler as the terrain would allow. It crouched on all fours, shuddering great heaving breaths. Blood poured from its wound, forming deep black rivulets that seemed to pull in and swallow the moonlight. Marius came into view, circling the creature carefully, sword poised to deliver a killing blow.

The creature moved faster than Kelsia would have believed possible. With a deafening bellow, it swung the bundle of chains in an arc. Kelsia tensed for the blow, gripping tight to Cloud’s main, but it was Shael who was struck. A muffled grunt, a jerk as she came free of Cloud’s back. A stale, fetid odor came from the mauler’s club as it swung past, passing over Kelsia’s head.

Kelsia wheeled Cloud around in time to see Marius plunge his blade into the demon’s heart. Seith had finally reached the top and was hurrying toward her. Dread tightened into a suffocating knot in her chest. She hurried to the edge and looked down, but Shael was nowhere to be seen, only slayers filling the ravine from edge to edge and crawling upward like a many-headed snake. “Shael?” she called down into the darkness.

Seith had finally reached the top and hurried onward. The flames vanished from Marius’ sword as he sheathed it. He snatched Copper’s reins and climbed into the saddle.

“Did you see her?” Kelsia called to Seith, her voice cracking with emotion.

He glanced at her, then gave a second glance. “Shael? What’s happened to her?”

Marius shook his head. “The mauler struck her. I saw her go over the edge. She’s probably unconscious, maybe dead, but it matters not. The slayers will have her now.”

“No!” Kelsia screamed, the knot bursting into a flood of pure terror. “She’s alive. We have to go back for her. Seith, tell him.”

Seith’s shoulders slumped. He would not meet her eyes. “He’s right. We can’t help her.”

The torrent of emotion within her shifted, flaring to anger. “You planned this!” she spat. “I heard you two plotting this morning when you thought I was asleep. You both hated her from the start. You were just looking for a chance to get rid of her!”

“Shut your mouth, girl-“ Marius began.

“Enough,” Seith cut him off. “Shael is beyond our help, Kelsia. We have to save ourselves now. There’s no time left.”

He’s right, you know.

In that moment, Kelsia wanted nothing more than to take the staff and fling it as far as she could. But even that small satisfaction was beyond her. And the magic, if it had ever been there, was as far from her reach as heaven itself.

She was a helpless, broken shell. The river, uncaring, swept her on.