Magic Astray (The Llandra Saga) (9 page)

“We must hurry,” the imp chittered. “Hunters were close, but I led them on a chase.”

Nodding, he relayed the news to Nia, and the group made haste breaking camp and resuming their journey. Their progress was slowed by Randall’s injury, but the day passed without incident, as did the next. Randall began to feel the tension ease out of him on the third day as the forest began to thin. Before long, the group found themselves facing a long expanse of grassland.

“Your people are that way,” Nia explained, pointing north. “We will reach them in another two or three days, I believe.” She looked uncomfortable to be out of the shade of the forest, but Randall’s hopes were buoyed. The worst was behind them; now all they had to do was get to the settlement she had mentioned, and everything would be all right.

Chapter 8

Randall had never seen a military fortification before, and he was fascinated by the structure when it came into view. The group was still hours away, but the tall tower rose up from the horizon like a giant stone pillar pointing toward the heavens.

“We probably won’t be able to get there until late afternoon, with the shape my leg is in,” Randall remarked as he limped along. “We’ll have to rest there a few days before I’ll be ready for any sort of long journey, I’m afraid.”

Nia nodded silently. She had become more close-mouthed and glum the further that they traveled from the forest. Randall put his hand on her shoulder for comfort, and he felt her tense beneath his touch.

“I’m sorry I got you into this mess,” he said softly. “I know what it’s like to be so far from home.”

“How can you?” she snorted derisively. “You’re a powerful Mage. These are your lands, and your people. It’s not like you’re out here through no fault of your own.”

“Like hell,” he swore, gripping her shoulder and spinning her so that the two were face to face.

“Three years ago, I was a fifteen year old miller’s son. My biggest concern was finding someone willing to teach a scrawny kid like me a trade so that I wouldn’t have to live under my brother’s rules when he took over from Pa. I didn’t ask to be a Mage. I was forced into it. When my master was killed, I was forced to go on the run. I’ve been scraping by ever since.”

His tone softened as he continued. “I didn’t ask for any of this. But here I am, regardless. All I can do is try to make the best of it.”

Nia met his gaze for a long moment before the tension eased out of her shoulders. “Eighteen. It’s so hard for me to judge your kind’s age by your looks. You’ve been through so much for one so young. Thank you.”

“For what?” Randall asked.

“For reminding me of my duty. We are on this journey together and I help no one by feeling sorry for myself. I shall try to ‘make the best of it’, as you say.”

Nia smiled and tried to put on a cheerful expression, but Randall could still see sadness lurking behind her eyes. He shifted awkwardly as he met her gaze, not knowing exactly what to say next.

“So, how old are you, anyway?” he asked, breaking eye contact. “Everyone I saw in Dyffryn looked like kids to me.”

Nia giggled, and there was genuine amusement in the sound. “Twenty-six. We don’t get all wrinkled up as we age, like your kind do.”

“Then how do you tell how old someone is? Isn’t it confusing?” Randall asked.

“Not to us. Take Rhys, for instance. He’s an elder. You can see it in his cheekbones, his jaw line, and the corners of his eyes. He’s a little taller, and his fingers are longer and more refined. When I look at him, it’s obvious that he’s in his sixties.”

“In his sixties?” Randall cried in shock. “He looked like he was my age, at most! I don’t think we have anyone that old in my entire village.”

“We live a bit longer than you do,” she chuckled. “Rhys has two or three more decades before he becomes too aged to really be an effective leader. Someone will probably challenge him long before that time, though. He’s feeling the pressure of being an old stag in a field of young bucks.”

“Is that how elves decide rulership? Trial by combat?” Randall asked, wrinkling his nose at the strange notion “You said something before that if you could beat him, you would take over his title.”

“It is a little more complicated than that. It is more a matter of creating alliances and gathering enough support that victory would be clear. Actual combat has not occurred in a very long time, but it still remains a valid way to attain leadership. How else would you have it?” Nia asked in return. “Would you have us follow your custom, and have the chief pass title onto his sons? Why would one of his sons make a better chief than someone who has more battle prowess and has the will of the people behind him?”

Randall thought about it for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. “Beats me. But you know what? I guess that I really don’t know anything about your kind at all.”

“Of course not,” Nia retorted, and giggled again. “Come on, I want to get to your people before nightfall.”

Randall hesitated. “I’m a bit worried about what’s going to happen when we get there,” he said. “I haven’t figured out yet how I’m going to explain you. Berry will be hard enough. People will be nervous enough with him around. I don’t know how they’ll react if I have an elf with me too.”

“If anyone asks, you can just tell them that I’m your girlfriend.” Nia grinned mischievously.

“If you, uh, think it’ll be all right then,” Randall stammered, blushing.

“Of course it will. Berry will already be the cause of much discomfort. Will it be so much stranger that you have an elven girlfriend?” Nia asked nonchalantly. But the way her eyes shifted and the tension in her shoulders gave Randall the impression that she was as worried as he was. But what other choice did he have?

They reached the fortification by late afternoon. Randall’s injury wasn’t healing nearly as fast as he would have liked, and the strenuous exertion had caused the wound to start seeping again. It wasn’t likely he could travel all the way to Paranol until the wound had more time to heal.

The tower was surrounded by a tall stone wall, and there was a lone guard standing outside, in front of a massive wooden door. Randall guessed the door was easily wide enough to allow a company of mounted knights to ride through, should the need arise.

The guard stood silently at attention as the group approached. He certainly had more military bearing than any guard Randall had seen in Geldorn, that’s for sure! When they were a dozen yards away, he called out in a commanding voice.

“Halt! State your name and your business.”

“Randall Miller, and uh…company,” the young Mage replied, trying to give his voice the same sense of confidence that the guard had evidenced. “I am injured, and we are requesting shelter for a few days until we can journey on.”

“Stand fast,” the guardsman ordered, before turning his head and calling back toward the tower. “Alert the commander. He’s got fae with him.”

Nia tensed, but remained silent. Randall felt just as nervous standing exposed out in the open and awaiting word from the fort’s commander, but as the minutes dragged on, he found his mind wandering. His eyes drifted up and down the structure, taking in the details. The tower was tall, and narrow cross-shaped windows were placed regularly along its surface. The surrounding wall was topped with battlements.

As he scanned the wall, he noticed something else: arrow heads. Behind the battlements were at least a dozen men crouched down, crossbow at the ready. Randall felt his own back tensing up, and he quickly looked away. At this range, the group was an easy target.

He took a deep breath and waited. Nia had spotted the crossbowmen as well, and was eyeing them nervously. Berry, on the other hand, sat nonchalantly on Randall’s shoulder, chittering happily while playing with a lock of his hair. While he normally would have laughed at the tickling sensation, the imp’s antics were more annoying than amusing under the current circumstances.

“Hsst, Berry! Cut it out!” Randall hissed.

At that moment, Randall was startled by a pulse of power from behind the fortification door. Someone was using magic! He found himself instinctively reaching out to Llandra in response, but clamped down on the impulse. He didn’t want to give the Mage behind the walls any reason to suspect that their presence here was anything other than peaceful.

After a moment, the door opened, and a tall woman stepped out. It was hard for Randall to judge her age at this distance, but Randall guessed that she was an older woman, perhaps in her forties. Her ashy blonde hair hung straight to her shoulders, and the sharp, angular features of her face gave her a severe expression. As the captain spoke to her in hushed tones, her piercing green eyes never left the travelers.

She was dressed in the same snug-fitting skirted leather cuirass and breeches that the guardsman wore, as if she were part of the military.
Surely she’s not the commander
, he thought. Randall had never heard of a woman in a military position before, and the notion seemed absurd. Whoever she was, though, the power Randall had felt before was emanating from her in waves.

She was carrying a charge large enough to fight with, and it was having the characteristic effect on everyone around her. The guards on the wall shifted nervously in their positions, and the man at the door looked ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. Without power of his own to counteract the effect, Randall found himself breaking eye contact and toeing the ground nervously. Even Berry grew still under her gaze. She listened to the guardsman for a moment longer, before striding forward to meet with the travelers.

“So, you are Randall Miller, then?” she asked bluntly, ignoring Nia completely. She spoke in an unusual syncopated pattern, with an odd roundness to her vowels that gave her speech a sort of sing-song rhythm. It wasn’t anything like the way people talked in this part of the country, nor did it match the more refined tones that he had heard during his time in Ninove. It was as if she had grown up speaking another language entirely.

Randall puzzled over her accent for another moment before realizing that she had asked him a question. “Oh. Yes ma’am. I’m Randall Miller,” he answered quickly.

“According to some, you are a Mage of some great power. Is it true?” she asked, a small smirk teasing at the corner of her mouth.

Randall shrugged. He couldn’t really say if his ability was ‘great’ or not. He was largely self-trained, and didn’t have any real method for comparison. He knew he could draw forth more magic from Llandra than this woman currently wielded, but he had no idea whether or not she was at the limit of her ability. He could see the power euphoria dancing behind her eyes, however, and he knew he had to tread carefully.

“Well, are you a Mage or aren’t you?” she snapped.

Randall flinched at the harsh tone. “Yes,” he answered meekly.

The woman snorted derisively, and took a step backward. “Show me,” she ordered, spreading her arms wide in invitation.

“I’m not..I don’t,” Randall stammered, not sure what was being asked of him. He risked reaching out with his mind and touching Llandra. It was the faintest of connections, a bare whisper of contact so tenuous that he barely felt it himself. He didn’t want to fight, but if this woman were challenging him, he wanted to be ready.

The woman’s lip curled up in a sneer. “Show me!” she commanded, barking out a word that raised the hairs on the back of Randall’s arms. A jet black sphere that seemed to be made of smoke and cinders materialized and shot toward him. It moved impossibly fast, and struck Randall in the shoulder as he tried to dodge it. Randall steeled himself against the pain, but instead of searing his flesh, freezing cold traveled down his arm, numbing him to the elbow. Berry dropped off his shoulder, and landed heavily somewhere behind him.

Gripping his bicep with his free hand, Randall threw open the floodgates to Llandra and let the power pour into him. His opponent’s eyes widened as the amount of power he drew rapidly surpassed her own stored reserves. The power crooned to him to crush her completely and prove that he was the more powerful Mage, and for an instant he almost gave into it. Barely holding onto the rational part of his mind, he drug up a Word from deep within his memories.

“Alwyn-vysha,” he cried at the top of his lungs, the echoes of his spell bouncing off the fortification’s walls and mingling with the gasps of surprise from the guardsmen there.

The Mage’s eyes grew wider still, and she quickly spun in a circle, her eyes darting to and fro. “Where did he go?” she asked in alarm. “Where is he?”

A number of crossbowmen on the wall stood up in shock, casting around for him. Even Nia spun in a circle looking for him, bewildered, her hand held to her open mouth. Everyone within the sound of Randall’s voice seemed to be searching for him in a panic, looking everywhere around them except for where he actually stood. Everyone except Berry—Randall never could get that spell to work on the wily imp. The donnan quickly clambered up Randall’s leg and up to his shoulder, which still throbbed with a dull ache.

Randall stifled a chuckle. If the situation weren’t so serious, the scene unfolding in front of him would have been the funniest thing he’d ever seen. He wasn’t invisible, but the power of the spell prevented anyone under its influence from looking directly at him or noticing him. Choking back another laugh, he walked up to the panicking Mage as she deliberately turned her back on him, screaming to anyone who would listen to find him.

Pushing aside his amusement, he drew the elven dagger that he carried on his belt. Dropping his hold on the spell, he whipped his arm around the woman’s neck, placing the point against her windpipe.

“I don’t really want to fight,” Randall whispered in her ear, nudging the dagger slightly to drive the point home.

Cries of alarm rose from the battlements as guardsmen scrambled to get their crossbows aimed back in the proper direction. Randall felt the remaining power drain from the Mage as she stood stiff-backed and motionless.

“You are a Mage of great power after all,” she said calmly, a hint of respect in her voice. “If you put aside your weapon, I would like to invite you and your companions to join me for dinner inside the keep.”