Tarah Woodblade (39 page)

The Prophet finally removed his hands. He stepped back. Wisps of steam rose from his fingers.

Djeri swayed for a moment. He felt the heat inside his mind, almost as if like a hot coal had been left just behind his eyes. It didn’t actually hurt, but there was a dull throbbing. “What did you do to me?”

“More than I intended when I started,” John said, looking at his hands in surprise. “I placed a link between the two of you.”

“Like a bond?” Djeri asked, thinking back to Sir Edge and the other bonding wizards he’d met.

“No. Not exactly,” John said. “You won’t be hearing each other’s thoughts, but . . .” He bit his lip. “Hmm. This may have some unintended consequences.” He slapped Djeri’s shoulder. “Oh well, it’s time you got going. In fact it’s past time. I’m afraid I’ve delayed you too long already.”

Djeri blinked. “But-.”

“Go.” He turned Djeri around and gave him a shove. “Mule, go with him. Tarah needs you. I would go with you, but I have somewhere to be.” He picked up a small shovel and began burying the cook fire. “Evidently I have a gnome to speak with.”

“A gnome?” Djeri said. His mind was muddled and there were strange afterimages in his vision. Neddy chose that moment to bite his hand. “Ow!”

Djeri jerked, startled as if awakening from a dream. John was right. Tarah needed him. He turned away from the Prophet and his enormous rogue horse and hurried away. Tarah was almost directly to the west. He could feel it.

He clutched her staff in both hands and began to run. He didn’t bother pulling Neddy’s lead, knowing the mule would follow. At times he was slowed by drifts of snow, but he plowed through as fast as he could. Tarah was somewhere straight ahead.

It made so much sense now. During their argument that morning, he hadn’t understood why she’d run away from the war. He’d been so fixated on the twisted chains of logic she was spewing that he’d looked right past the truth. Tarah hadn’t run because of fear. She’d run because of unbelief. She didn’t run because she feared her death. She ran because she actually didn’t believe herself capable of winning.

Djeri imagined what his life would be like if he’d believed all the foul things people had said about him over the years. Oh, what that must have done to her. And the guilt afterwards . . . He knew how he would have felt about himself if he had run from the war.

He began letting out a constant stream of curses. He cursed Tarah’s grandfather. He cursed the people of Pinewood. He cursed all the other men and women throughout Tarah’s life that had made her feel unworthy of her name. Then he cursed Tarah herself.  Why had she let them do it? Why had she held on to the belief that she was a fraud for so long? The only thing he could think of was that her grampa had left out a key piece of information in her training. She didn’t understand the meaning of courage.

He stopped at the edge of the East King’s road. It was one of the major arteries of Razbeck, running from the capitol city of Beck up the bank of the river to the farmlands and holds of the north. It was a heavily traveled road, but right now it seemed busier than normal. Djeri gritted his teeth as he waited for wagons and horses to go by, most of them traveling south.

Tarah was somewhere across that road, but Djeri needed to cross unseen. The man in the watchtower had seen him cut that chain. People would be on the lookout for the murdering dwarf in green plate armor and it would do Tarah no good if he were arrested before he could reach her.

Finally the road cleared and he stepped out onto the packed dirt. He made it two steps before he heard the thundering approach of horses. Swearing, he ducked back into the trees and watched as three dwarves rushed by, heading southward. All of them wore wide-brimmed hats and all three had handlebar mustaches.

Djeri didn’t recognize these dwarves. That meant there was another band of smugglers nearby. It was too soon for these new riders to be there in response to the events of the night before and it was too coincidental that they would just happen to be in the area. Djeri frowned as he considered the possibilities.

He hurried across the road and into the forest beyond. Tarah was closer now. He could feel it in that place behind his eyes. It was as if there was a rope pulling him towards her.

He increased his pace, running through the snow and leaves. Djeri was no tracker, but he saw obvious signs of horses among the trees. The soil was churned up and a wide swath of snow was flattened as if something heavy had been dragged along the ground. The track was coming from the direction Tarah was in now.

He came upon a farmer’s field. A long fence line blocked his path. The horse tracks curled around the outside of the fence line, but Djeri didn’t have time for a detour. He climbed the fence and cut across the pasture, running straight for Tarah’s position. The pastureland had been cleared of trees and as he ran, he saw another set of prints in the otherwise undisturbed snow. His heart skipped a beat as he realized these were Tarah’s tracks.

A large snarling dog came over the hill, barreling towards him. Djeri glanced at the animal and knew it had been trained to attack. Knowing it would go for his arms, he gripped Tarah’s staff and waited until the last possible second. As it leapt towards him, he turned and struck it behind the ear with the tip of the staff, slamming it to the ground. The dog rolled through the snow a short ways before lying there unmoving, Djeri ran on, hoping he hadn’t killed the beast.

He followed Tarah’s tracks to the far side of the pasture and at the edge of the fence saw two more dogs. They were standing at the fence line, paralyzed, their jaws open, frozen mid-bark. The smugglers had been this way.

Djeri climbed over the fence and found the long drag-mark running along the fence line for a short distance. Then it turned and led into the forest right towards Tarah. Djeri started down it and heard the approaching clomp of hooves. He stepped off the trail and ducked behind a tree just in time to see Neddy approaching at a gallop. Being unable to jump the fence with Djeri, the mule had followed the smuggler’s trail around the fence line.

Djeri stepped in front of the mule, stopping him. He grabbed Neddy’s lead. “Shh! There are smugglers somewhere up ahead. Follow along behind me, but do it quiet, okay?”

The mule snorted in agreement and Djeri jogged ahead. Tarah was very close. It wasn’t long before he saw two horses tethered to a tree on the side of the tracks. He slowed down, being as stealthy as he could in his damaged platemail. One of the tears in the metal caused it to creak.

He crept between some trees and saw two dwarves come into view. Both of them wore bandages under their hats. Djeri’s lip curled as he realized they were Mel and Leroy. They were squatting over something on the ground. Djeri had a hard time making out what it was. The object on the ground was . . . blurry.

“What’re you planning on doin’ with that?” Leroy was asking.

“What do you think?” Mel replied. He was pulling on some kind of lacing. “It’s invisible armor! It’ll sell real good.”

“It’s only invisible on the front side,” Leroy said skeptically. “‘Sides, we don’t know how long that magic will last.”

Mel stood, folding his arms and Djeri noticed that Tarah’s bow and quiver were lying on the ground next to him. A few feet away, Djeri saw the hilt of the Ramsetter, seemingly extending out of solid air.

Mel scowled. “We’ll find out, then, won’t we?” He continued pulling at the laces and then yanked at some invisible material, exposing the pale yellow of a woman’s undershirt. The body inside was limp as the dwarf tried to remove the armor.

Djeri snarled. It was Tarah. He had no idea why he couldn’t see the rest of her, but that place behind his eyes was screaming that she was right there. More importantly he knew that she was alive.

“Boys!” Djeri announced, coming out of the trees towards them. He held Tarah’s staff at the ready. “I’m here to kill you!”

They took a step back, startled. Then Mel let out a laugh. “So there you are! When we woke up on the dock and you wasn’t there, I was hopin’ that gnome’d tossed you in the river.”

“Idjit,” said Leroy. “I told you he just scampered off.”

“I was out retrieving this,” Djeri said, spinning the staff in his hands. He charged them, his jaw set, his eyes blazing with anger.

Leroy reached into his holster and drew his rod. With a sharp pop, Djeri was frozen. “Man are you stupid!”

Mel laughed and reached down to grasp the hilt of Tarah’s father’s sword. He drew the long blade out of an invisible sheath. “I wanna cut him in two.”

“Naw, Mel, you wait,” Leroy said. “I got this.”

Djeri concentrated on breaking the spell. Leroy was right. He had been stupid. Instead of announcing his intentions, he should have ran straight in. He cursed his love of theatrics.

Leroy approached him, his paralyzing rod in one hand, his thick cudgel in the other. The cudgel seemed like a crude weapon to be in the hands of a smuggler as experienced as Leroy, but Djeri had seen the runes carved into its haft. They were air runes. Whatever they did, Djeri knew he didn’t want to be hit by that thing.

He shoved at the paralyzing spell as hard as he could. Then, as if by some unknown trigger, he felt that place behind his eyes flex. The spell dissolved.

Leroy’s eyes went wide as Djeri suddenly surged forward, extending the staff in a savage swing. The smuggler brought up his cudgel just in time to block. When the two weapons met, there was an explosive flash of energy from the cudgel, but that wasn’t enough to stop Djeri’s attack. The staff knocked the cudgel aside and struck Leroy in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards.

Another pop rang out, this one from Mel’s rod. Djeri was frozen again, but he focused on that spot between his eyes and flexed again. He burst through the spell and walked towards Mel.

“Hah! You don’t scare me, academy boy,” Mel said, hefting the Ramsetter and giving him a gap-toothed grin. “Yer tough, but that ain’t yer weapon and I been fightin’ with greatswords fer a hunnerd years.”

“You don’t know me very well,” Djeri replied, twirling the staff.

Mel came at him, swinging the sword. Djeri knocked the blow aside and sent the staff down low. Mel had to jump backwards to avoid being tripped up and Djeri thrust the staff forward like a spear, jabbing the dwarf in the sternum and knocking him back further.

Leroy chose that moment to charge in at Djeri’s back, but Djeri sensed the attack coming. He spun, his hands in the middle of the staff. One end collided with the cudgel, igniting another explosion, and the other end shot up, cracking Leroy in the jaw. The dwarf stumbled back again, this time falling on his rear.

“I might not be as good as Tarah Woodblade, but I’m more than good enough to drop you two,” Djeri said.

Djeri had a large collection of weapons back home and he’d had an even bigger one back at the academy. A defensive specialist, he was well-versed in the use of polearms, especially in the pike and halberd. The quarterstaff was much easier to use than any of those.

“We’ll hit him together, Leroy,” Mel said, wincing as he rubbed his chest. “C’mon, Leroy, get up!” The blond-mustached dwarf tried to get to his feet, blood streaming from his lips.

Djeri glanced down at Tarah. Her body was mostly invisible, just blurring at the edges, but where the dwarf had opened her armor, he saw her chest rise and fall with each breath. He also saw blood staining the side of her undershirt. His hands tightened on the staff.

Djeri didn’t wait for the smugglers to regroup. He charged at Mel and knocked the dwarf’s hasty attack to the side. Djeri struck him once in the chin, knocking his head back, than struck him twice in the hand, causing him to drop the sword.

One more crack to the side of the skull and Mel went down. Djeri bent and picked up the sword, then turned to see Leroy coming up behind him, pointing his paralyzing rod. Djeri dropped Tarah’s staff and raised the sword over his head.

Pop! Djeri was frozen just long enough for Leroy to bring his cudgel to bear. The magic weapon struck Djeri’s weakened breastplate. The explosion of air that accompanied the strike tore his breastplate open, pieces of metal scattering into the snow.

Djeri felt like he had been punched in the chest. His mind flexed and as the spell broke, he launched his body forward and kicked Leroy in the chest, sending the dwarf reeling.

Leroy recovered quickly, but Djeri didn’t give him time to fire the rod again. With a growl, Djeri rushed ahead and slashed the Ramsetter diagonally across the smuggler’s body. The blade cut deep, opening Leroy’s torso from collar to hip.

The dwarf’s bloody jaw dropped open and he gave Djeri a look of shock. Then he fell face first, blood pooling beneath him.

Djeri stood there for a moment, breathing heavily. Then he bent down and picked up Leroy’s cudgel.

“Stop!” said Mel behind him and Djeri turned to see that the dwarf was kneeling over Tarah. The dwarf’s bandages were blood-soaked, but his eyes were clear. He was holding his belt knife over her chest, its sharpened point aimed at her ribs. “Put yer weapons down or I’ll kill her!”

In one quick motion, Djeri twisted his body and threw the cudgel. Mel raised his hands defensively, but he didn’t react in time. The weighted end struck him right in the nose. An explosion of air sent blood and flesh flying and Mel fell to his back.

Djeri grunted and pulled at the leather straps holding his breastplate in place. With a creak, it fell from his body. He looked down and saw a piece of metal sticking out of his chest. Gasping, he pulled it out to find that it was a jagged shard almost two inches long.

Djeri tossed the metal to the ground and knelt at Tarah’s side. He reached out and touched her invisible face to find that something sticky was covering her skin. Concerned, he pulled back her armor and found the shoulder wound. A sigh escaped his lips. He didn’t know how long she’d been laying there, but the wound was no longer bleeding and it didn’t look to be infected.

“It’s okay, Tarah. I’m here,” he said. He gently patted her face, but she didn’t wake. “Hey, I brought your staff.” He reached for her translucent hand and placed the staff in her palm. “See, it’s right here. It’s . . .”