The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1) (36 page)

Finally Owen sighed, hung his head and responded in a sad voice, “I know you’re right. The same thoughts have been going through my head for the past couple days. I just did not want to say them out loud. I’ve been worried about Jack as well. If he had made it through ahead of the gorn, he’d have been back weeks ago. Since he isn’t, that must mean that the gorn have been looting and killing the farmers for some time now. It also means that they are all still in the countryside between here and home.”

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know, Marian. We can’t go back to our old camp, so we’ve got very little food and other gear. I guess we’ll have to cut through the hills from here heading northeast and do our best to make it back alive. Sooner or later, we’ll hit the old road and that will take us back to South Corner. I just hope that the weeks that we’ve wasted here haven’t made things worse for the villagers or our friends back home.

“Let’s cut a few boughs and build a temporary shelter for tonight, and start back in the morning,” Owen sighed. “At least by then we’ll be dry, if not actually warm. I think that it’s going to snow again tonight, and I’d hate to get caught out in it with no more shelter than we had last night.”

Owen’s weather forecast was right on. Late that afternoon, the snow began to fall. This time, the clouds were dropping big wet flakes at a greater rate than the previous night, as if that earlier fall had just been a rehearsal.

The two sat glumly in their shelter, watching as the temperature continued to drop and the world turned white around them. Owen was examining the staff head once again to pass the time, and it occurred to him that the quarterstaff that the Old Wizard had given him just might fit into the hole in its base. Sure enough, the fit was perfect. So tight, in fact, that once Owen had joined the two he had to struggle to pull them back apart. When he examined them in an observation state, he was amazed to see the concentration of lines of energy that now flowed through his newly formed staff. The staff head alone had concentrated the lines, but the combination of the two appeared to be many times more effective.

Once the excitement of assembling the staff had abated, Owen sat dejectedly with the staff in his lap rearranging the lines of energy which joined the earth to the sky above, causing the snowfall to concentrate in one area while avoiding the ground nearby. It was the same trick that he had done without the aid of the staff head days before when he had made it rain harder over his sister, but with the help of the staff, the trick was almost effortless. Over the past half hour, he had built up a pretty impressive snow drift not far from their tree.

“I’m going to turn in,” Marian said, with a yawn. “Let’s hope that you don’t bring an avalanche down on us before morning.”

“Yeah, okay. I’m not far behind you. I just wish that we had had better luck and managed to do something to help the folks of South Corner rather than heading back home with our tails tucked.”

The brief conversation ended there.  Marian crawled down as deep as she could get into her bedroll, and turned to face the other way.  Both she and her bag were still a little damp, and she had to tuck herself into a ball to keep from shivering.

Marian was just starting to get warm and about to fall asleep when Owen suddenly exclaimed: “Damn! That’s it!  Come on, Marian, pack up your gear, we’ve got to go, now.”

“What are you talking about? We’re more likely to get lost and freeze to death in this storm than we are to find our way back to South Corner, especially in the dark.”

“We’re not going to South Corner; we’re going back to the castle. I know how to get us past the sentries,” Owen said, and briefly explained his plan to his sister.

Even with Owen parting the falling snow in a wedge before them, so that they could see with what little moonlight filtered down through the clouds, the trip back to Carraghlaoch was long and difficult.  They dared not drive their horses above a walk, despite their excitement at finally having a plan that had at least a small chance of success.  It was past midnight, and the faint glow of the moon had all but disappeared over the horizon when they finally reached the small ridge overlooking the valley of Carraghlaoch.

Marian picketed the horses in the nearby woods, while Owen studied the walls of the castle, barely visible through the falling snow, using his newly acquired skills. The storm had continued through the night, so far, and he prayed that it would not choose this time to finally stop. It seemed to him that the snow fall had lessened somewhat, but he wasn’t sure. It might just be the effect of standing still instead of riding through it. It had definitely become drier and more powdery with the increasing cold.

Cautiously, the two walked toward the castle. They had not been this deep into the valley before, and they were both interested in and a little afraid of the collapsed skeletons of the old houses that clustered at the bottom of the approach ramp. In all of their previous observations, they had never seen the soldiers show any interest in these ruins, but they could not help but worry that a lookout might be hidden there, or perhaps the ghost of some long forgotten ancestor.

Owen was concentrating his attention both ahead and behind. Ahead of them, he was using his skills with the lines of force to direct a gradually increasing density of snowfall between themselves and the castle walls where he was reasonably certain that any lookouts would be. Behind them, he was inducing a little chaos in the already fallen snow so as to cover up their tracks. The masking wasn’t perfect, but with the continued snowfall, it should suffice to eliminate their tracks before an observer might see them at first light.

By the time they had reached the bottom of the ramp that climbed up along the face of the northern city wall, Owen had gradually concentrated the snowfall all along that wall to the point that they could barely see a few feet in front of them. What with the snow in the air, and the snow on their heads and shoulders—he could no longer afford the extra energy his trick of keeping himself and his sister in the clear required—they were effectively invisible from any guards who might be on the walls above. It was Owen’s hope, that what guards there were had sought shelter long since.

They hugged the wall as they made their way up the ramp. The moon had set, leaving the land in near total darkness, and in the near whiteout conditions, it would have been all too easy to walk right off the side of the road. They slowed as the huge timber gates loomed into view ahead of them. They remained sagging on their hinges, just as Owen had seem them through his avian eyes what seemed like months ago. Unlike repairs that the soldiers had been able to make elsewhere along the fortifications, the pure mass of these gates and their lack of manpower had frustrated any of their attempts to put them back into service.

Owen stopped, put his mouth next to Marian’s ear, and spoke as softly as he could. “You’re on your own from here, little sister.  I’m sorry that I have to leave you, but I think that this may be my only chance.  If I don’t take it now…”

“Don’t worry Owen. I’ll be alright. Just go. Go while you still can.”

“Try to find a good, unused vantage and stay hidden until you can determine where the remaining villagers are kept and how to get them free. Remember what I told you about the dungeon side of the escape tunnel. When you next see dad, please tell him I did my best.” With that, Owen strode away from the gates and towards the drawbridge across the river while Marian slipped around the corner, and into the castle grounds.

After crossing the drawbridge, Owen paused and looked in the direction in which the majority of the villagers had been taken. He knew that he should try to do something for them; he knew that he should not be abandoning his sister to the soldiers in Carraghlaoch, but with a sigh and a pang of guilt he turned toward the arch that led over the Wizard’s Moat—the arch that led to Sarah.

Chapter 14

Breakout

Marian cautiously passed through the open castle gates. Thanks to Owen, snow was swirling violently around her, and under the gateway arch. In the chaos of the storm, Marian could not see where she was going and had to trail a hand against the stone wall on her left in order to keep from wandering. The murder holes over her head were, of course, unmanned since the soldiers had no concern of invasion, but even if there had been someone overhead, nothing would have been seen through the dark and blowing snow. This was her one and only chance to get into the castle, find any villagers still being held here and free them from the armed men who held them captive. ‘
Nothing that any seventeen year old girl couldn’t do on her own,’
Marian thought ruefully, groping in the dark.  She couldn’t help but be scared almost to death at her undertaking, but what else was she to do?  She couldn’t stay outside the castle; the soldiers knew that they were there now and were looking for them.  She couldn’t go with Owen and just abandon the captives that they were both sure were being held in the castle.  She couldn’t go back to South Corner to get help; there were at least thirty gorn between here and there and the chances of making that trip on her own did not seem very good.  So, she swallowed her fear and pressed on.

Visibility was so poor, that Marian almost stumbled right into the first soldier that she saw. The man was passing across the inner opening from Marian’s left to her right, and only failed to see Marian because he was holding the collar of his jacket up around his throat and keeping his head down in an attempt to keep the wind, which seemed to be blowing in all directions at once, from blowing the snow down his freezing neck. As a consequence, he failed to notice Marian who was just exiting the tunnel from the gate even though he passed her by no more than a few feet.

Marian’s heart was in her throat, and she almost froze in her tracks, startled by the near disaster. It took a real effort of will to recover and pass quickly and silently behind the guard as he continued by, rather to run screaming back out the gate. Trying to maintain a straight path, Marian hurried directly across the square away from the gate. She nearly fell when her foot hit a timber of an old, collapsed, well cover that was hidden under the blanket of heavy snow. She side stepped around it and, in a panic, hurried on until she came upon a narrow alleyway that she ducked into.  The “blizzard” had been gradually subsiding as she got further onto the castle grounds, and as Owen had presumably moved further away from the castle, and although it was still snowing heavily, visibility was improving and Marian thought that she had better find a place to hide as soon as possible.  The tracks that she was leaving behind her were still being obliterated by the whirling, dry snow, but soon only the elements natural processes would serve to hide them, and by first light, any obvious traces of her passage would undoubtedly lead to her swift capture.

At the end of the alley, Marian could just discern a tall stone building looming above her across a narrow street.  She hurried up its granite steps, and passed through a doorless entry into a large empty room.  There was a staircase that she could just make out in the dark, so she took it up to the next floor where she found a small windowless room, or perhaps a large closet, that was protected from the weather.  There was a partially open wooden door, sagging on its leather hinges that had survived the ages.  Marian began to open the door enough so that she could pass through, but the hinges disintegrated as soon as she began to move it and the door twisted and almost fell out of her cold hands.  She cursed quietly, but managed to catch the door before it fell to the stone floor.  She stifled another curse as a bottom corner swung around and smacked her in the shin.  Probably no one would have heard it, unless she had been unfortunate enough to choose a building that was being occupied by the few soldiers still bivouacked in the castle town, but the thought had definitely gotten her heart pumping again.  Marian entered the room, and propped the door in the doorway in as natural a manner as she could devise in the dark.  Exhausted, she unpacked her damp bedroll, and rolled herself up in it in the furthest corner from the doorway, and almost immediately fell asleep.