The Road to Magic (Book 1 of the Way of the Demon Series) (15 page)

Like it or not, a rest was indispensible. They buried themselves deeper in the forest and even decided to light a campfire. Kendir and Clairene assured them they could make one with almost no smoke. Nevertheless, all their attempts were unsuccessful. Their flints and tinder had got soaked when they had crossed the river and refused to bring the fire to life. Oleg’s lighter had suffered the same fate, so he had no choice but to gather the remains of his strength and use Heliona’s lessons.

Oleg spread out his hands and concentrated. It didn’t work very well - his extreme exhaustion after the semblance was taking its toll - but after a minute a blue flame flickered between his fingers nevertheless, and the pile of wood burst into bright flames.

That had taken his last strength; Oleg’s head was spinning and with a soft grunt, he threw himself onto his back.

Oleg came round at the smell of food. It had got dark. The campfire was flickering cosily and the appetizing smell of boiling meat was wafting in the air. Oleg was lying in a smallish two-man tent and Clairene, curled up in a ball, was sleeping next to him. The voices of the hirelings came from near the fire, occasionally interrupted by Ataletta’s ringing exclamations. They were discussing their further route.

‘Along the river we’ll go for three days, then we can go back to the high road and ride into the Barony,’ Olaf said. ‘And – no unnecessary suffering, it leads us precisely where we need to go.’

‘Well, it’s not exactly direct,’ Kendir remarked sceptically. ‘The direct route does go right through the Black Marshes, but why should we loop about needlessly?’

‘Aha, and next you’ll be telling me you intend to take this direct route of yours! You want to ride along the old high road, right into Dead Oner. Cheer up some local Undead, you will, otherwise they have nothing to eat, the poor fellows.’ Olaf clearly didn’t like the idea of going through the mysterious Black Marshes.

‘Well, we might have to. You saw how many patrols there were on the high road. How do you intend to ride past them? If pressed, then we can try to go through the marshes. We’ve got two enchanters with us, with luck we’ll manage to sneak through. I know Clairene well. We’ve worked together more than once. She’s a capable conjuress. And they say that there’s a lot of loot still left in Oner. It might be worth our while to have a look.’

‘Well what of the patrols? You said yourself, we’ve got two enchanters. They cast a semblance spell and off we go, right through the patrols. That is, if they haven’t got rid of them altogether in three days. I reckon it’s far less dangerous to go through them than to try to find our way through the marshes. At least the patrols are made up of humans and not Undead, like there are in the marshes.’

‘That’s as may be, but where are you going to hide your weapons and armour if our sorcerers only cast a partial semblance? And if they cast a full one, well you can see for yourself, they’re flat out resting after less than an hour. And anyway, then how would you go, I’d like to know? Ride through Orvalen under a semblance? There are amulet-gates there – they may be old, but they’re still effective. They’d start wailing when they sensed the semblance. And if you go round, it’s through those same marshes. So wouldn’t it be easier just to go through the marshes in the first place?’

The argument had evidently been going on for some time and Oleg, unable to bear the appetizing smell any longer, decided it was time to get up. No sooner had he approached the fire than they roped him in as arbitrator, justifying this with the fact that he was their employer and he should select the route. They explained that Oner was a city which had, until the advent of the cult of Orchis the Light-Bearer in Fenrian, been one of the magical centres of that world. But when Orchis had decreed his rights over the land of Fenrian, the town had come under continuous attack from his followers. Finally, the light magicians abandoned it, heading for Valensia, while the dark magicians took up a defence. The city fell, but before they perished, the doomed dark magicians managed to lay a curse, not wishing Oner’s riches to fall into the hands of enemies. As a result, the Black Marshes sprang up around the city, inhabited by the Undead and the Unclean. The spirits of magicians who had lived there and loved the city more than their own life stayed in Oner, along with other Undead, and the city became known as Dead Oner. Once he heard this, Oleg said, ‘First we’ll try and go along the high road, and if that doesn’t work then we’ll check out the marshes. I reckon that even if they renew the pursuit, they won’t follow is
in there
.’

Soon Clairene came out of the tent, too. Asked to give her opinion on which way they should go, she tended towards Olaf’s view that they should leave the path through the marshes as a last resort.

Thus having eaten well and resolved all their problems – at least theoretically – they allocated watches and lay down to sleep. Oleg and Clairene, as the most exhausted, were given the last and the second-last watches to give them a chance to rest properly. Ataletta, as the youngest and least experienced, was given the first.

The next day they swiftly broke camp and set off. They tried to keep to woods and thickets, avoiding open ground wherever possible and giving villages a wide berth. Nevertheless, they didn’t particularly try to hide.

During their breaks, Oleg sang songs not known in that world, and learnt how to use a bow and arrow. He wasn’t too bad at it--harnessing the great strength and accurate eyes of a demon. Admittedly, he always had to be in a state of partial transformation to do so; when he tried to shoot with Kendir’s bow as a complete human, he could hardly draw back the string. The bow was incredibly taut. After that attempt, Oleg had the highest respect for the archer. Having weighed the possibilities of this weapon, Oleg promised himself that as soon as he had the chance, he would get himself a good bow.

And so three days went by. On the fourth day they turned onto the high road. Kendir, who’d been sent as a scout, informed them that he hadn’t seen any mounted patrols ahead. Forging the Black River once more, they rode the high road again.

The road was deserted. Not only were there no mounted patrols to be seen, there were no other travellers, either, which as Ataletta pointed out, was very odd indeed. Clairene remembered a couple of cases when a particularly large horde of the Unclean had come out of the Black Marshes and the merchants had kept off the high road till they’d been exterminated. Whatever the reason, the empty high road seemed to be in the hands of our travellers, allowing them to significantly increase their progress.

After about six hours on the road they passed a little stone bridge thrown over a largish brook with unusually dark, almost black water. Nodding towards it, Kendir said to Oleg: ‘That’s the source of the Black River we crossed. Now do you see how it got its name?’ Then he waved his hand upstream, to the right of the travellers. ‘And the Black Marshes it flows out of are over there. Soon there’ll be the fork with the Old High Road which once led to Oner, and then on to Irinia. They say you could still ride it if it weren’t for the Unclean and the inhabitants of the Dead City.’

Just then they heard a desperate cry from Clairene, riding ahead: ‘An ambush!!!’

Everyone grabbed their weapons, but it was too late.

Six people in green tunics emerged from the high bushes. Three of them were holding arbalests at the ready. Their blunt snouts were aimed at Oleg, Olaf and the retreating Clairene. The other three were armed with swords. One of them, obviously the leader, took a slight step forward:

‘Forest Guard of Orvalen. In the name of the Regent, you are under arrest.’ As he said this, he put himself between Olaf and the archer aiming at him, blocking his line of fire.

Oleg seized the opportunity; lately he’d become adept at quietly and discreetly protecting his skin with his extremely robust demon scales. The procedure complete, and sure of his own armour, he sent a flickering ball of flame at the arbalester aiming at Clairene. He immediately ignited without discharging his weapon. Oleg just managed to catch sight of Kendir hurling his knife and the laggardly arbalester aiming at Olaf, when a strong blow to his left shoulder knocked him out of his saddle. The arbalester aiming at him had discharged his weapon pretty accurately.

Finding himself on the ground, Oleg grabbed his sword and brandishing it furiously, rushed into battle. His left arm was numb from the blow and didn’t work properly, and his shoulder ached badly so he had to fight with one hand. Entering the fray, Oleg thought fleetingly that it seemed he had somewhat overestimated the robustness of his scales.

The huntsmen were not taken by surprise. Three of them rushed to the attack, while the surviving arbalester hastily reloaded his weapon. The terrible death of one of his friends obviously made him nervous and, looking constantly at Oleg, he couldn’t seem to get his heavy infantry crossbow loaded.

The hunstmen had reason to fear. Angry from the pain in his wounded hand, Oleg rotated his sword above his head, so that the huge espadon with flashing light resembled helicopter rotor blades. The commander, trying to shield his warrior, barely had time to block to Oleg’s sword and was thrown into the bushes with a fractured hand and a completely useless weapon.

“That’s it,” said Oleg with an evil grin as he started increasing the speed of his sword and moved toward the pale arbalester.

At that moment he was startled by Clairene’s desperate scream. She was lying on the ground, cowering, and one of the rangers held a sword over her head. Olaf was rushing to them, having just finished with his opponent; his heavy armor, which rescued him many times, this time hindered him. He could not get to Clairene in time ...

Kendir was facing a strong opponent, and Ataletta, armed with only a small, almost toy dagger, couldn’t help Clairene either.

“…If there are no other tools around,” said Oleg sadly, and the huge sword flew through the air and pierced Clairene’s attacker.

Seeing that his opponent had thrown his weapon away, the eyes of arbalester glimmered with hope. The arbalester threw away his crossbow, pulled a short sword from his belt, and rushed impetuously to the attack.

Oleg laughed contemptuously, sidestepping the arbalester’s rush easily. The arbalester’s attack was, in the demon’s eyes, similar to the movement of a heavily crippled turtle. He briefly considered growing claws and stabbing them in the warrior’s back.

“Surrender,” suggested Oleg, lazily pulling out a dagger. “It’s the only way you can stay alive.”

“Death to the enemies of the regent!” the arbalester croaked, turning for a new attack. This time, he walked carefully, frozen in a strange sort of fencing stance.

“Well, as you wish,” Oleg shrugged his shoulders and nodded to Kendir, who had killed his enemy with Olaf’s help, and was looking inquiringly at Oleg. Kendir held his faithful bow with an arrow on the string ready to shoot. Oleg nodded to him.

“You’re a scoun—” The arbalester rushed Oleg, but Kendir’s arrow pierced his chest and did not give him time to complete this movement. – “...drel,” he muttered as he fell to the ground.

“I just do not like extra work,” said Oleg with an evil grin, staring at the lifeless eyes of his recent enemy. Putting the dagger in its sheath, he went for his sword.

***

It was over. Five bodies in green tunics lay lifeless on the road. Their commander was trying to bandage a deep gash in his thigh. Ataletta was helping Clairene to bind her wounded arm – one of the huntsmen knew how to wield a knife, too – and Olaf was mournfully examining new scratches on his armour. The battlefield had fallen to Oleg’s companions.

Looking at his shoulder, Oleg whistled. The bolt from the arbalest had literally pushed one of his scales into his shoulder, making a tear in his demon skin, which was far from thin or fine. The thought flashed through his mind: ‘better not to get in the way of arbalest fire in the future, especially not at close quarters.’ Still, the wound in his shoulder wasn’t so great, and after it was transformed back into his human skin, it was just like a common cut, the only difference being the deeper ray-shaped scratches left where the scale had caused the crack.

Having looked over his wounds and deciding they didn’t call for any further attention, Oleg headed for the verge where Kendir and Olaf were already questioning the captive, who turned out to be most talkative. They were soon joined by the enchantress and Ataletta who had finished their bandaging.

In the course of the interrogation, they discovered some very unpleasant things. It seems that no-one had decided to call off the search for the princess. Guessing where his niece might be headed, Victor Kreghist had ordered all roads leading to the Iron Baronies closed. Hidden ambushes like the one the travellers had run into had been set up everywhere under orders to capture anyone on the high road, carry out a thorough search and establish their identity. The ambushers were equipped with amulets capable of dissipating charm-guises, so being able to cast a semblance wouldn’t help them much. They had to make a decision.

They rode some distance away from the captain of the Forest Guard, whom they had tied up in gratitude for his information, and began to look for another road. It seemed they had no choice. The Old High Road, the road through the Black Marshes and Dead Oner, laid down when they were still the Enchanted Forest
¹
(So called because many of the magicians residing in Oner liked to release the most attractive and good-natured fruits of their magical experiments into this magnificent and ancient forest which still remembered the elves.) and Great Oner, lay beckoningly under their horses hooves.

Chapter Seven

The Dead City

Everyone was wary as they set out along the Old High Road. Kendir, whistling cheerily and chatting about his many acquaintances who’d apparently travelled along that very high road unharmed and had even rode into Oner itself, nevertheless kept his hands on his bow and arrow, ready to shoot at any moment. Olaf had lowered his visor, put on chainmail gloves and didn’t take his hand off the hilt of his sword. Clairene was riding as if in a trance, lips moving, and with all his newly acquired senses, Oleg felt waves of magic energy streaming from her.

Infected by their anxiety, with an effort of will now familiar to him, Oleg covered his body in protective scales, regretting he could not fully demonize himself. Suddenly he had an unexpected thought. He thought that he was becoming too dependent on the body he’d acquired in the world of the Elementals; he was actively using its capacities in any unpleasant situation.

‘Aren’t I taking on my demon form too often?’ he thought. ‘After all, Heliona warned me that if I did that too often, and if a lot of people believed in my demon nature, then I’d become a demon through and through. I should be more careful!’

Turning this idea around in his head, he still didn’t remove his scales. Transformation or no transformation, they’d already saved his life once. It would be stupid to hang about in a perilous place and reject his only possible form of protection.

Lost in these thoughts, Oleg didn’t notice that Clairene had stopped her magic and been riding alongside him for some time, curiously eyeing his left shoulder. Finally her glances caught his attention.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘Well, I’m just curious as to how you can avoid being seriously wounded after being hit from an arbalest at almost point blank range. At that distance the bolt would puncture even heavy armour forged by gnomes. But as far as I can see, you’ve only come away with a bruise. And you can’t hide even a light chainmail shirt under your jacket. You don’t even have one. So I’m curious: what kind of armour do you have, and is it possible to get hold of one like it somewhere?’

Oleg pondered his answer for a while. He didn’t want to lie to a girl who had entrusted her life to him, nor did he want to offend her by not replying. But on the other hand telling her the truth was clearly not desirable. So he chose his words very carefully when he replied.

‘I don’t think you’ll be able to. It’s not armour in the usual sense of the word. It’s more like a characteristic of my own body, which unfortunately I can’t share. I obtained it quite by chance, along with a few other useful abilities, in a very nasty tight spot. You could say it was an unrepeatable side effect of the combination of two powerful spells (he was thinking of the spell he had pronounced in the quiet comfort of the university library, not so long ago after all, and the gratitude spell he had murmured with numb lips as blood flowed out of the wound inflicted by the thug’s knife) and an unforeseeable, fatally dangerous confluence of events. I survived thanks to a miracle.’ (As he said that Heliona’s gay face appeared in his mind’s eye and the thought immediately flashed through his mind: “Well I’m not lying – that smiling Elemental is really nothing short of a miracle!”) He added out loud: ‘Believe me, I’m really sorry, but I can’t help you there.’

‘Understood. In other words, I’ll have to make do with my little chainmail shirt, as always.’

Just then Ataletta rode up. She’d been listening in on their conversation attentively, and now she joined in: ‘And I’d like to know how you managed to burn the arbalester?’

‘How? Well, you saw me – I threw a fireball at him.’ The conversation was obviously getting unpleasant for Oleg. The wild shriek of a man being burned alive was still in his ears. He comforted himself with the thought that if he hadn’t done that, Clairene, and maybe even all of them, would be dead now, but it didn’t really help. He certainly didn’t want to remember it. ‘The simplest of fire spells. What’s not clear about that?’

‘Nothing,’ Ataletta agreed rather too easily, ‘Except for one small nuance: all the warriors of the Forest Guard are part of the Royal Guards and the Temple Guards and they are obliged to undergo an initiation as novice priests of Orchis and wear the relevant amulets. And that means that they are immune to magic.’

‘Maybe that huntsmen’s amulet was broken?’ said Oleg naively. ‘And anyway what do you mean, “immune”? They managed to curse your father, didn’t they? So that means the amulets don’t provide total protection. So maybe my fireball got through some such hole in their protection?’

‘My father was cursed by Valdes, a graduate master of Dark Magic. He was cursed by the force of True Darkness. He damned him with the power of True Darkness, having given his life for that! Only the power of the True Elements can overpower the protection of a god.’

‘Ah-ha. And what if my little fireball was in fact one of those True Elements? Let’s say, fire?’

‘True Fire? But that’s not within hum…’ Ataletta bit her tongue, obviously remembering who he was, and added in quite a different tone: ‘Yes, that’s it, it probably was. The amulets are powerless against True Fire.’

And so saying, she spurred on her horse and shot ahead. Clairene followed her, giving Oleg a very odd look.

Pondering over this conversation and lost in puzzling over what the enchantress’s gaze might mean, Oleg stopped looking where he was going. It was only when there was a loud “squelch” and his horse slipped, sitting down on its back legs, that Oleg turned his attention to the surrounding countryside. A considerable change had taken place meanwhile. The magnificent pines standing along the verges of the cobbled road had disappeared. In their stead were low, sparse birches and aspen bent into fantastical forms. The road itself was covered with a thick layer of greasy mud, and that was what his horse had slipped on. Pools of mud were everywhere, overshadowed by tall tussocks of sedge grass.

All of a sudden, Oleg caught a suspicious noise. It was reminiscent of the quiet zing when a taut guitar string is touched. The sound was vaguely familiar and awoke very unpleasant associations in his soul. But just what it was, he really couldn’t remember. Ears pricked, he began to look around him more closely. His concern didn’t go unnoticed. The hirelings and Ataletta gathered around him, drawing their weapons.

‘What’s up?’ Kendir asked, eyeing their surroundings attentively, holding an arrow on his bowstring.

‘Can you hear it?’ Oleg whispered.

The mysterious sound came gradually closer.

‘What is it?’ Ataletta’s frightened little voice cut through the thickening silence.

‘I don’t know. But I don’t like it. It’s a nasty kind of noise,’ Oleg twitched his shoulders.

‘The Unclean,’ Olaf squeezed the hilt of his sword.

The noise finally came close enough for them to determine its source. It was coming from a small gingerish cloud approaching the travellers at a great pace. Kendir was the first to guess what it was. With a gasp of horror, he quickly began rummaging in his saddle bag. He pulled out some sort of dirty greyish rag and quickly began winding it around his head. And then it dawned on the other members of the party what the cloud was.

‘Mousquitoes!’

‘The Unclean would have been better!’ Oleg muttered, hurriedly transforming his skin, blood and inner organs demonic in the hopes that demon’s blood would be inedible for these little vampires. Olaf and Ataletta hurriedly wrapped themselves in some cloths. Clairene mumbled a spell.

The cloud flew up. Oleg swore. The mosquitoes couldn’t drink demon blood, but that didn’t bring him any relief. They all wanted to try! Once they’d bitten him, the insects fell like sand, poisoned by the unsuitable liquid, but there were just as many still waiting for a sip. Ataletta, Olaf and Kendir were wrapped cosily in the bits of cloth protecting them from the thirsty bloodsuckers, while Clairene was enveloped in a dim orange halo which instantly burnt any insect which flew into it. Fiery sparks flashed next to her. However, her companions could see that maintaining the halo cost the girl a fair bit of strength.

And it was that very moment that the local Unclean chose to attack the party. With a smacking sigh a crack appeared in the bog and a weighty, whitish body leapt out at the travellers. If anything, it resembled a grotesquely overfed frog the size of a grown man. The “frog” was out of luck. Enraged to their wits end by the mosquitoes, Oleg’s party gladly threw themselves at a visible and tangible enemy.

The left hind paw was chopped off by Kendir. The right foreleg flew off, cut right through by Olaf. Oleg’s blade slashed open the belly and the face was covered in some sort of slimy green goo hurled by Clairene which burnt out its eyes in an instant. Stunned by such an inhospitable welcome, the “frog” made a strange sort of cry, rather reminiscent of a hiccough, and gave up the ghost.

‘Oof, what a stink,’ Oleg said with a grimace. The party crowded round the dead creature, looking at it attentively.

‘It’s probably a karong,’ Clairene pronounced uncertainly as she eyed the creature lying in front of them.

‘A karong?’ turning to the other travellers, Oleg read similar surprise on their faces, too.

‘In times gone by, before the fall of Oner, they used to live in the water meadows of the Enchanted Stream. They are the creation of a nature magician from Oner. It is said they were almost intelligent, and very kind, that they liked to take children for rides in the stream. They looked rather like big golden frogs with a crown of horns on their head, and they had a pleasant flowery smell.’

‘Well, this one doesn’t really fit your description, somehow,’ and Olaf nudged the slimy flesh with the tip of his boot. ‘It does look like a frog, that’s true: pale stomach, the back’s a shi…’ (He turned to the girls) ‘…let’s say an unhealthy brown. Nothing golden to be seen whatsoever. The same goes for intelligence and kindness, otherwise it wouldn’t have attacked us.’ Olaf turned the creature over with his foot and taking a look at its head, gave a quiet sigh. Growing on the strange creature’s broad bumpy head, which was covered with some kind of growths and warts, was a small and remarkably graceful crown, which looked as though it had been braided from ivory.

‘A lot of time has gone by. These lands were cursed. But still, it’s a great shame that the karong mutated,’ Clairene pronounced, trying not to look at the dead beast.

The practical Olaf immediately tried to cut off the crown which he hoped could be sold for a tidy sum. Once he’d finished, he put it in his saddle bag and they set off once again.

Oleg rode up to the enchantress. ‘How do you do that?’ and with a nod he pointed to the halo enveloping her and in which the tiresome insects were still being burnt.

‘It’s a normal fire shield, just a very weak one. It only works against mosquitoes. I don’t have enough energy for a stronger one. After all, I’m only a conjuror, not a magician. And I can’t extend it out over you, either.’

‘Teach me. Maybe I’ll be able to.’

‘Watch and listen…’

For an hour Oleg tried to reproduce the spell. At last he was able to formulate the complicated magical ligature as it should be, and a bright scarlet glow surrounded him.

‘Wow,’ the hireling commented on his success. ‘You have great potential. Why didn’t you study at the Academy? They might have made a strong magician out of you.’

‘Well, that’s exactly where I intend to go, actually. I’m just accompanying her,’ Oleg nodded at Ataletta. ‘It’s almost on my way, anyhow.’

‘OK. And now watch how to extend the shield over the others.’

Finally Oleg was able to establish the shield over all the members of the party, and Clairene dropped her own shield with a sigh of relief.

Now they travelled on in comfort. It wasn’t a big job for Oleg to protect all his companions from the tiresome insects.

The day was drawing towards evening. They needed to look for a place to sleep, only there were no suitable bits of high ground around. It was always squelching underfoot and the horses shuffled tiredly along the road which they had to find by guesswork as it was practically invisible. Moreover, Oleg couldn’t shake the unpleasant feeling that someone was following them. And he wasn’t the only one: his companions often turned round, too.

Finally they found a place to camp for the night. It was a low, rounded hillock, rising slightly above the marshes surrounding it. They set up camp and began cooking supper.

‘I don’t like all this.’ Olaf muttered unhappily.

‘You don’t like porridge? Then don’t eat it – we’ll manage fine by ourselves.’ Kendir couldn’t stop himself from teasing.

‘Yeah, and I don’t like that either! Your porridge should be fed to prisoners sentenced to a particularly severe form of punishment. Can’t you tell it’s burning? Here, give me the spoon. You need to stir it, see?’

Judging from how willingly Kendir handed over his chef’s duties, the porridge hadn’t burnt by chance. The brave archer couldn’t bear a chef’s duty and when it was his turn to cook, he tried any trick to get out of this honourable obligation. But this time he was unlucky. After giving the porridge a good stir, Olaf licked the spoon with pleasure and then handed it back to Kendir.

‘Apart from your cooking, I don’t like the fact that we’re proceeding along the Old High Road with such ease. Think about it: the road through Oner is the shortest route between Fenrian and Irinia. But despite that, since the curse of Oner, people have stopped riding along it, not even the merchant caravans use it any more. And they’d ride right into the devil’s lap for profit! And? We’ve covered a quarter of the way now, and tomorrow we’ll come out near Oner, and - nothing! No hoards of Unclean, no crowds of resurrected dead, no dark hounds. Just one crazy karong which we put an end to easily. None of the horrors of Oner we’ve heard so much about. I suspect some sort of huge foul play.’

Olaf’s fiery speech was certainly a cause for concern. It was Clairene who answered him: ‘Well, in one way, of course, you’re right. But you’re forgetting something. First of all, two none-too-weak wizards are travelling with you, and they kept up an active spell all day long. The Unclean are capable of sensing magic and try to keep as far away from it as possible, unless, of course, they’re sent. And what’s more, the curse of Oner was directed at the servants of Orchis. The curse-maker had nothing against other magicians or wizards, quite the opposite, in fact; he considered them allies. Does anyone here have an amulet of Orchis the Light Bearer? No? So there you are, you see. The local Unclean simply don’t count us as enemies of their creator. And what’s more, we’ve only covered a quarter of the way, and that was during the daytime when the Unclean and the Undead are pretty inactive. We still have to put three quarters of the road behind us, so it’s all still to come – maybe the dead, maybe dark hounds.’