Sorcerer of the North (19 page)

"Nothing like a brace of snowshoe hare or the odd grouse to liven up a meal," Will told him, and the man raised an eyebrow as he indicated the bow.

"You'll need to get mighty close with that bow," he said. "Mind you, there's precious little in the way of game at the moment."

Will grinned easily. "Ah, well, they say hunting is just a way to ruin a pleasant ride," he said, and the sentry smiled at the old joke.

"Good luck, in any event. And be careful. There's talk that a bear's been sighted hereabouts."

"I never eat bear," said Will, completely straight-faced. For a moment, the guard didn't realize he was joking. Then he chuckled as he caught on.

Will took the northwest road away from the castle, reflecting on how his reactions to people had changed since he had assumed an entertainer's role. As a Ranger, he was accustomed to remaining silent around people, and never making an unnecessary remark—certainly never a joke. It was part of the Ranger mystique, he had been taught. There was a practical side to it as well: people who weren't talking found it easier to listen to what others were saying, and information was a Ranger's stock-in-trade. As a jongleur, however, it was totally in character for him to make jokes at the slightest opportunity. Even bad ones. Especially bad ones, he amended.

He went northwest for several kilometers. The dog loped silently along, in the lead as usual, glancing back from time to time to make sure he and Tug were following. The little horse watched their new companion with good-natured tolerance.

They had planned the rendezvous in Alyss's chambers the night before, poring over a chart of the area that she had produced. "I'll leave at first light and go east," she had said. "You go northwest an hour later. Then loop around by this track here and meet me at the edge of Grimsdell Wood."

He found the narrow track she had indicated and turned Tug onto it. It was an overcast day, with a wind keening through the bare treetops, but there were still glimpses to be had of the watery sun. He caught sight of it now and decided he was a little behind schedule A slight pressure with his knees and Tug broke from a trot into a slow canter. The dog, hearing the change in gait, sped up her own pace accordingly. Will looked at her with interest. She showed a great deal of economy of motion, never going faster than necessary. He guessed that, like a Ranger horse, she could maintain that steady pace all day if asked.

It was the dog who first registered Alyss's presence as they approached the outskirts of Grimsdell Wood. The bushy, white-tipped tail began sweeping back and forth in greeting and she ran up to the girl, half-hidden in the shadows beneath a grove of trees. Tug stirred, as if to say
I saw her too,
and Will patted the little horse's neck.

"I know," he said.

The previous day, Alyss had dressed as a noblewoman, in a fine, fashionable gown. There was no sign of that elegant creature now. Today, she wore a short tunic, gray tights and knee-high riding boots. A waist-length cloak swung from her shoulders and her gleaming blond hair was held in place by a feathered hunting cap. The gray tights showed off her long and very shapely legs to great advantage and Will found he preferred this Alyss to the perfectly coiffed, elegant Lady Gwendolyn. Her long dagger, in a beautifully worked leather scabbard, hung from a wide leather belt that gathered the tunic around her waist. She grinned up at him as he approached.

"You're late," she said, holding up her hand to him. He took hold of her by the wrist and heaved as she sprang up behind him. She settled herself on Tug's withers and put her arms around his waist.

"Where's your horse?" Will asked—not that he minded having her ride with him and not that he minded her arms around his waist either.

"It's riding on with my escort," she said. "And with an excellent dummy of Lady Gwendolyn tied in the saddle, covered with her riding cloak."

Will half-turned to look at her. "Was that totally necessary?" he asked. Alyss shrugged.

"Perhaps not. But shortly after they rode off, a couple of men-at-arms from the castle rode past after them. It might have been coincidence, but who knows? Is this Grimsdell?" She pointed to the grim, dark line of trees in the near distance. Will nodded.

"That's it all right," he said, feeling a tightening in his stomach.

They rode back south along the fringe of the wood until they located the split oak tree that marked the spot where Will had entered Grimsdell two nights previously. By daylight, he felt no need to dismount. They rode into the trees, occasionally bending forward to avoid branches and creepers that grew across the narrow trail, the dog moving silently ahead of them.

Will's training reasserted itself. In spite of his growing nervousness at entering this unfriendly place again, he was able to retrace the path he had taken.

"Where did you see the lights?" Alyss asked, and he hesitated, thinking for a second, before pointing.

"They were moving in that direction," he said. "Hard to tell how far away they were."

Alyss looked critically at the tangle of trees and creepers around them. "Couldn't have been too far or you'd never have seen them through all this. Come on," she added, and slid down from the saddle. Will dismounted and she pointed in the direction he had indicated.

"Let's take a look in that direction," she said. Will signaled for Tug to stay on the track. He clicked his fingers and pointed, gesturing for the dog to move ahead of them, and she slid easily though the undergrowth and beneath the lower branches. The going was harder for Will and Alyss, however, and before long he found it necessary to unsheath his saxe knife and hack a way through the tangle. Alyss smiled quizzically at the way the heavy blade sliced through tough creepers, thick vines and even small saplings.

"That's a handy weapon to have," she said, and Will nodded, grunting as he chopped through a thick branch and tossed it aside.

"It's a weapon and a tool," he said. Then, unexpectedly, the way ahead was clear.

"Well, what do you know?" Alyss said, nodding her head in satisfaction.

The dog waited for them, sitting on a narrow, but unmistakably man-made, track through the woods, running parallel to the main trail they had been following.

Alyss glanced from side to side along the narrow lane that had been cut through the trees. "Which way were the lights moving, do you remember?" she asked. Will was already nodding in anticipation of the question.

"I can't be totally sure," he said, "but I'd say they were moving along this track."

Alyss pointed to the ground. "I'm no tracker," she said, "but they say Rangers are. Any sign of traffic along this path?"

Will dropped to one knee and studied the ground. He frowned after a moment or two. "Could be," he said. "Difficult to say, really. There are faint marks here. But you'd expect that on a track like this, wouldn't you?"

"But not the sort of thing you'd expect if someone were running back and forth carrying a lantern?" she asked, a slight tone of disappointment in her voice. Will shook his head. Then, remembering one of Halt's earliest lessons, he looked up into the forest canopy above them.
Always remember to look up,
his mentor had told him.
It's the one direction most people never think to check.

Now his eyes narrowed as he saw something in the trees, something out of place. Alyss, seeing the change of expression on his face, looked up as well.

"What is it?" she asked, as Will moved toward one of the larger trees his eyes seeking and finding the hand- and footholds he would need.

"Vines," he said, at length. "I've seen them growing down from the higher parts of trees. But I've rarely seen them growing at right angles to them."

He was a natural climber and he swarmed up the tree in seconds, seeming to Alyss to glide up the apparently smooth trunk. Four meters from the ground he stopped, and she saw he was studying a green creeper that grew along one of the larger branches, then led off toward the neighboring tree, sagging in a loop between the two of them.

"It's rope," he called down to her. "Dyed green to look like a vine, but rope sure enough." He traced the line of the rope as it led from one tree to the next, running along above the track they had discovered. He nodded to himself, satisfied, then slid lightly down to the ground beside her again.

"No need for someone to run up and down with the light," he said. "They could sling it on that rope on a pulley and haul it back and forth with a light line."

Alyss ruffled the dog's head affectionately. "And this young lady sensed the people doing it—maybe scented them or heard them. That's why she growled," she said. "My bet is if we looked we'd find other trails like this and other horizontally growing vines."

"It doesn't explain the Night Warrior," Will pointed out, and Alyss smiled at him.

"Perhaps not. But if he were real, why bother with trick lights?" she said. "Odds are he was another trick—even less substantial than the lights, judging by the dog's reaction. Now show me exactly where you were when you saw it."

She led the way back to where Tug waited on the main trail The little horse looked at them quizzically, as if wondering what he'd missed. Will reached up to the bedroll behind the saddle and untied it. Alyss watched curiously as he withdrew the component parts of the recurve bow. He fitted them together and strung the bow in a series of deft movements. Then he tested the draw and met her gaze with a look of fierce satisfaction.

"That's more like it," he said, laying an arrow on the string. "If we're going looking for this damn Night Warrior, I'd rather do it with a bow in my hands."

He led the way forward until they reached the edge of the mere. Even by daylight, it was a sinister place, with curtains of mist rising from the far side. The water itself was like black marble, smooth and impenetrable to the eye. Bubbles rose to the surface further out, hinting at the presence of creatures lurking below in the depths.

"Here," Will said. "As near as I can remember. And the figure was out there ... toward the far side of the mere."

Alyss looked shrewdly in the direction he indicated, then looked along the edge of the mere, where the path ahead of them followed the bank. At one point, it cut inside a small promontory, covered in trees and shrubs.

"Let's take a look over there," she said.

Will followed her, his curiosity mounting. "What have you got in mind?" he asked. It was clear to him that Alyss had formed a theory of some kind. But she held up a hand to forestall his questions.

"It's just an idea," she said vaguely. Her eyes were searching the ground ahead of them and to either side of the path. "You're better at this than I am," she said. "Check the ground in any clear spot."

Will complied, his trained tracker's eye running over the ground. There was faint evidence that someone had been there before them—perhaps as recently as two nights ago, he thought.

"Am I looking for anything in particular?" he asked, his eyes quartering the ground.

"Scorch marks," said Alyss, and as he heard the words, he saw the large bare patch of ground, where the snow had melted and the grass beneath was dry and singed.

"Here," he said. Alyss joined him, dropping to one knee and running her fingers over the dry, brittle grass. She let go a small grunt of satisfaction.

"All right," Will told her. "I've found your scorched grass. Now what does it mean?"

"You've seen a magic lantern show?" she said. As children in the Ward at Castle Redmont, they had often seen a traveling entertainer's magic lantern show, where the shadows of cutout figures—stars, half moons, witches and their cats—were projected onto the wall of a room by a candle's light.

"I'm guessing," she said, "that your Night Warrior is the same thing in principle."

"But he was huge!" Will protested. "And he must have been thirty or forty meters from here. You'd need an awfully powerful light to manage that."

Alyss nodded. "Exactly. And a powerful light would mean an awful lot of heat—hence the scorched ground here."

"But the distance ..." Will began. After all, the shows they'd Seen as children had been staged inside rooms, with the shadows barely a few meters from the light source.

"There are ways of focusing light so it becomes a beam, Will. It possible, believe me. It's very expensive and there are only a few craftsmen who can fashion the equipment for it. But it can be done. A powerful light, a focusing device and a cutout figure, and hey presto, your giant warrior appears thirty meters away."

Will was still perplexed. "On what?" he asked. "There's no wall there to project on."

"On the mist," Alyss said. "It's like a curtain it's so thick, and look how it rises from the mere in a line. That would give the flickering, pulsating effect you noticed too—as the mist eddied and moved."

It made sense, he saw. He was willing to take Alyss's word that it was technically possible. And if that were so, he was ready to pay someone back for the terror he'd experienced in the wood two nights ago.

"Someone is going to a lot of trouble to keep visitors away," Alyss said thoughtfully. "I wonder why?"

The anger was rising in Will now, along with a sense of relief—relief that there might be a logical explanation for all of this, and a living, breathing person to account for it all. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to bring that person to account.

"Let's find him and ask him," he said, grim-faced. But Alyss was glancing at the sun and shaking her head.

"We're out of time," she said. "My escort will be back in a few minutes to pick me up. And since they are being followed, they can hardly ride around in aimless circles while I frolic in the woods."

"Fine," said Will. "You go on back. I'll keep looking for this ... whoever it is."

Alyss laid a hand on his arm, and kept it there until he met her gaze. She shook her head slightly, seeing the anger, seeing the determination in his eyes.

"Not now, Will," she said. "Leave it for now and we'll come back later—together."

He said nothing and she continued. "Let's do a little more research, find out a little bit more about all this. The more we know when we go looking, the better. You know that."