Mystic: A Book of Underrealm (4 page)

Loren wanted to scream but was struck dumb. Her eyes darted to the last man, the sentry on foot, his arrow nocked and drawn to the ear. He stood too far for Jordel to reach with a sword, and finally Loren raised her voice in a shout, trying to warn the Mystic, even though it was surely too late . . .

The sentry let fly. The bowstring
twanged
. The arrow sailed for Jordel’s heart. But the Mystic’s free hand leapt up, faster than a lightning strike, and he batted the arrow aside. It sank deep into the ground yards behind him, buried up to the fletching.

Loren joined the sentry in awe, even as Jordel lunged, even as his sword took first the archer’s hand, and then lay open his chest, and finally split the man’s head nearly in half down the middle.
 

Red spurted Jordel’s body, spattering his face, his silvery hair, his light tunic. But Loren had grown numb to the blood, to the fighting and killing she had wanted so badly to miss. She could only see Jordel batting the arrow midair and could only think that she had heard of Mennet doing the same in one of Bracken’s ancient tales.

Jordel turned and came to her quickly. Loren shied away, but he dropped to his knee beside Gem and drew the dirk from his boot. In seconds, the boy’s bonds were severed and the gag removed from his mouth.

“Thank . . . thank you,” gasped Gem.

“Up,” said Jordel, but he did not wait before raising the boy by the shoulders. He took the reins from Loren and leapt into the saddle, seizing Gem’s wrist and dragging the boy up to sit before him.

“Come, Loren. Quickly.” Jordel held out a hand, ready to pull Loren up behind him.

She could only stare, unable to move.

A horn blast split the air. A sentry had seen the carnage, and now a second raised his horn. Another blast cut the air, and the sellsword camp was an anthill, with many men leaping to horseback throughout.

“Loren!” barked Jordel. “I am sorry, but if we do not leave at once our corpses will join theirs. Come!”

Loren hated it but could see the truth in his words.
 

She raised her hand and let Jordel pull her up, sliding into the saddle behind him. She wrapped herself around his wide chest, linking her hands so she would not have to press her palms against him. Gem bounced back against her wrists as the Mystic spurred the horse in a circle, climbing over the hill and down the other side, riding east as fast as they could while the army erupted to life behind them.

five

THEY CAME UPON THE CAMP in a clatter of hoofbeats to find Seth standing by the carriage, a naked sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. The driver’s blades dipped as he saw them, but his face did not relax.

“We are pursued,” said Jordel quickly. “Leave the carriage. Load the horses with whatever we cannot do without.”

Seth said nothing and went to follow his order. Loren slid from the horse, suddenly eager to be away from Jordel. The Mystic dismounted next, and finally Gem jumped from the saddle, his spirits high.
 

“You were like a great warrior from the old tales!” cried Gem. “You went through them like they were only children!”

Jordel did not acknowledge Gem or so much as glance at the boy. Instead, he fixed Loren with a pointed gaze.
 

“I did not wish it,” he said.

“I have heard that said before.”
 

“Do you think I am like the merchant? Have I given you cause to fear for your life? Poisoned you? Sent the constables to hunt you down like a dog, to lock you up like a murderer?”

“Not yet,” Loren said. “But Damaris, too, killed others long before she turned her wrath on me.”

Seth came to Jordel before he could reply. The driver had cut the carriage horses free and both bore saddlebags packed with supplies. In one hand he held Jordel’s red cloak.

“Ready we are, and the sooner gone the better, I say.”

Jordel took the cloak and fastened it about his throat. “I shall ride with the boy.”

“You are heaviest. I shall take him.” Seth put one set of reins in Jordel’s hand and went to Loren with another.

Loren took a hasty step back. “I have not enough skill in the saddle.”

Seth growled, “Can you keep from falling off, at least? Any horse that bears you and one of us will be caught. You will ride alone or doom us all.”

“I will ride beside you and keep a ready hand on your horse’s reins,” said Jordel. “We must travel with speed, but you need not fear.”

Loren bit her tongue before telling the Mystic that her fright did not stem from the horse. Instead, she seized the reins and swung herself up into the saddle.

Jordel took her reins, and together they led their horses out of the trees and onto the road. There the Mystic spurred his mount to a gallop. Loren flung herself down and seized her beast’s neck, clinging for dear life as its muscles bunched and thrust beneath her. Every jostle threatened to pitch her from the saddle, but somehow she held on.

They rode on and on, slowing to a trot once an hour to keep the horses from collapse. Loren turned to look back whenever they slowed but never caught a glimpse of the sellswords. As the sun neared the horizon far to their right, she felt herself almost relax. It seemed they would not be pursued, or that their pursuers had left them behind. By sunset, Jordel allowed the horses to walk.
 

He turned to Loren. “They do not pursue us. Why?”

Loren was surprised and not entirely pleased by the question. “I am in no mood for your riddle games, Mystic.”

Jordel gave a heavy sigh. “Loren, I understand your concern. But if I had not struck when I did, they might have alerted the others. If they had, we should not have rescued Gem so easily.”

“Easily? Three bodies lay soaked in blood behind us. Their bones will rest forever far from their homes, untended by their families. Mayhap they had wives, brothers, sons, who will never know how they died.”

“And yet that is the lot of a sellsword, and no man signs the company bill without knowing that truth.”

“A fine excuse from the man who laid them to waste.” Even as she spat it, Loren pictured him stopping the arrow midflight.

“I make no excuse,” said Jordel quietly. “I have killed fewer men than I could in my life, and yet over many years the number has blistered like a wound. There is always a way to avoid it. But I am like any man, and prone to error.”

“It was fury not error that drove your blade. And no words of yours will tell me otherwise.”

Jordel left Loren alone after that, though she often caught him looking. Soon, Seth found a clearing not far off the road but near the river and hidden by a rocky rise. There they made a camp with no fire, for Jordel feared detection. Seth chose to erect a tent, but Jordel went without as did Loren. Gem still felt drawn to lie and look at the stars.

The air hung thick and silent with tension, broken only by occasional, meaningless words from both Mystic and driver. Gone were any thoughts of asking on Jordel’s childhood. She didn’t even wish to look upon him. After a bland meal swiftly eaten, Loren stood. “I shall be back.”

“Where are ye going?” Seth eyed her with suspicion.
 

“Nowhere that is your business,” she snapped.

“To make water, then?”

“Let her be, Seth.” Jordel looked up at Loren and studied her for a moment too long. “Will you return?”

Nostrils flaring: “I said I would.”

“Good.” The Mystic nodded, and that was that. Loren headed for the river, following it south until she could no longer hear the murmur of Seth and Jordel exchanging words.

She found a log jutting out into the river, and there she sat with bare feet dipped in the water, boots behind her on the bank. She tilted her head back to stare up at the stars, but they seemed to glow red. She imagined them doused in the blood Jordel had spilled that morning, and the image was slow to leave her mind.
 

“He had no choice, you know.”

Gem’s quiet voice startled her, and for a moment Loren thought she might slip from the log. But she regained her balance with a quiet curse as the boy sidled out to sit beside her.

“There is always a choice. Always. Even choosing to die, rather than kill, is a choice.”

“Not one I would ever make,” Gem snorted. “I value my own neck above another’s. Even yours, if you will forgive my saying.”

“I do forgive your saying.” Then, with a sharp shove, Loren pitched Gem into the river.

He sank beneath the current with a yelp, and Loren let herself laugh. His head broke the surface a moment later, arms thrashing. She heard him cry,
“Help!”
before he sank again.

She realized her mistake immediately. Gem had grown up in Cabrus. The city’s filthy waterway was not fit for swimming, and he had likely never learned. She pitched herself into the water, her arm finding his thrashing form almost immediately. She seized it before swimming for the riverbank. A few strokes brought Loren to standing depth, and she only caught Gem’s elbow in her ear once or twice before she had him safe on the dirt, sputtering and coughing.

“You crazy witch! Were you trying to kill me?”

“Oh, leave off.” Loren gave him another shove, and he fell into the sand. It stuck to his soaked clothes as he stood. “How was I to know you could not swim? Besides, the river’s practically shallow enough to stand all the way across.”

“For you, perhaps, you great tree,” Gem grumbled. He ducked into the shallows again to get the sand off. “My body was built for wisdom and cleverness, not for height.”

Loren laughed, and soon Gem had wrung himself as dry as he was going to get. Together, they climbed to the top of the bank where grass formed a cushion to sit. Loren cast her hair in the warm summer night’s breeze, thankful the air had not cooled overmuch since daylight.

Gem spoke first. “In any case, what do you mean to do about it? If you would sooner take a blade than use one, that is your way. It is not Jordel’s, nor most people’s. Will you abandon anyone who dares fight for their life? You will soon find yourself more alone than you might wish.”

“I will not bandy about with a killer. Nor excuse those who take a life when they could spare it. You saw the way he fought. He could have struck those men unconscious without spilling their blood.”

“He acted quick, out of fear. And without knowing half what he was doing, as you did when you threw me into the drink. I might have died, but would you have spent your life moping?”

Loren looked over in shock. “Of course. Do you think you mean so little to me that I would not mourn your death? I mean to see your old age, Gem, a rich and lazy scholar who spends his days reading books.”

Gem scoffed and turned away.

Loren placed a hand on his shoulder and turned him back towards her. “I mean it, Gem. I would have done anything to save you, from the water or from the riders today. I only think it could have been done without murdering men whose names we know not and who did us no harm.”

Gem pursed his lips. He slowly looked up into Loren’s eyes, his own glinting with starlight.
 

“I will tell you something now, Loren, and speak to you true. No one has ever stuck themselves out for me before, certainly never so far as you. It takes getting used to. But those men today would have killed me, and not honorable or quick. Given a choice, I will take the man who spills blood for me over the girl who takes an hour figuring out a way not to injure, and the decision will not cost me a moment.”

Loren’s heart felt suddenly frozen. Slowly she withdrew her hand. “Well, perhaps next time I shall let them carry you off to die, then.”
 

“I meant no offense. Only . . .”

“Only nothing. Come, we should be getting back.”

Though he followed, Loren could see the misery in his expression and gait. Yet she could not find it within her to care. Was she mad for holding that each life was sacred? That no one, man or woman, held the right to kill with ease?

If I am the only one, then curse them all
.
I would rather stand alone on the side of right than with an army at my back on the wrong.
 

But that did not calm Loren’s roiling doubts nor help her to sleep. She lay awake staring up at the moon for a long, long time before slumber finally claimed her.

Loren came awake with a start, a rough and dirty hand covering her mouth. She was instantly alert and tried to pry off the hand to let loose a scream. But in the next instant her eyes met the face above, and her body fell to sudden stillness. Dark locks swung from the man’s head, and a quiet smirk painted his lips.

“Greetings, Loren of the family Nelda,” said Xain. “Now come quick and quiet, before the Mystic opens his eyes.”

six

IT WAS A MOMENT BEFORE Loren felt fit to reply.
 

When her nerves calmed and her heart found its usual pace, she reached up, pried the wizard’s fingers from her mouth, and whispered, “What are you doing here?”
 

“Not now,” said Xain. “Come.”

The wizard vanished, and Loren could hear his heavy footfalls fading into the night’s ink. A flash of starlight glimmered off his long brown locks as he crested a rise to the camp’s south, and then he was gone.

Loren gained her feet without a sound, glancing at Gem. The urchin’s snores joined the gurgling river as the otherwise silent night’s only sounds.
 

Gem would keep. If need be, she could return for him. But the boy always woke with a clamor and might rouse Seth or Jordel.
 

She crept away, far more quietly than Xain. As she neared the rise, she saw the driver lying in the grass. For a moment, she feared him dead, until she neared him enough to hear his heavy breath wheezing out against the turf below. Xain had subdued him, then, but had not struck to kill. That was a comfort—she wished to deal with murderers no more.

Xain waited just over the rise. He looked at her expectantly and motioned her forwards with a furtive wave. Together, they walked towards the river, where the water’s whisper might mask their voices.