Schooled in Magic (50 page)

Bran raised a hand. “Are we going into”–he suddenly looked very nervous–“into necromantic territory?”

“We will remain on our side of the mountains,” Harkin said. “You’re not ready to travel into the Blighted Lands just yet.”

He glanced from face to face. “This march will be hard,” he promised, “so just keep this in mind. You won’t be marching anything like as hard as infantry soldiers trying to lift a siege before it is too late.”

Emily gulped as she hefted the rucksack and pulled it on. It seemingly weighed a ton and she staggered under the weight. The guys had offered to give her one of the lighter bags, but she’d refused, knowing that the Sergeant would mark her down for it. She could take one of the lighter bags later, after she’d completed the first part of the march.

Jade winked at her as Harkin led them to the door and out into the field.

“I think we should have asked them if they wanted to spread the weight,” he murmured to her. He motioned to the Sergeants, who didn’t seem to have any trouble carrying their rucksacks. “Who knows what
they
are carrying?”

Emily looked at the muscles rippling along Harkin’s arms and shrugged. “I think they know what they’re doing,” she said, hoping that she was right. “They would have asked us if they wanted us to carry some of their weight.”

Jade nodded, thoughtfully. “Let’s move,” he said. “They won’t want us to be late.”

The trail led out of Whitehall’s grounds and up into the mountains, the opposite direction from Dragon’s Den. In a very brief amount of time, Emily found herself sweating as she felt the sun beating down on her back; she staggered slightly under the rucksack’s weight. But no one else seemed to be having any problems, so she swallowed any complaints and forced her legs to walk onwards.

The longer she walked, the more she felt as if she were walking through a swamp, no matter how hard she forced herself to move. The weight on her back seemed to double, then triple. She wanted to stop and catch her breath, but her team was forging ahead and she didn’t want to be last. Who knew
what
Sergeant Miles would do if she started to lag behind?

It seemed to grow hotter as they stumbled further up the trail. Glancing to the left, Emily realized that they were already higher than Whitehall, and bare meters from a long drop to the stony valley floor below. In the distance, she could see the towns in the Allied Lands, all illuminated by the bright sunlight. The landscape looked strange without cars and other vehicles, and so quiet. There were no planes flying through the air ...

Bracing herself, she walked onwards as the trail grew harder to follow. Rocks were scattered everywhere and she had to catch herself before she tripped over one, grimly aware that if she fell with such a heavy weight on her back she might not be able to get up again. The pressure grew stronger and she didn’t know what she could do to force herself to take another step ...

...and then she felt herself relax. She’d heard that if she forced herself to keep going, eventually she’d push through her body’s resistance, but she hadn’t experienced it until now. And to think she’d doubted the Sergeant’s word.

The trail reached the highest point it could, then started to descend. Soon, it led into a hidden valley, which concealed a forest from human eyes. Emily heard the sound of running water before they actually saw
it. Crystal-clear water came down from high overhead, where the mountain peaks vanished into the clouds.

On Sergeant Harkin’s barked orders, they stumbled gratefully to a halt. They unbuckled their rucksacks and placed them on the stony ground. Cat managed to break one of the bottles of potion and had to endure a long lecture from Harkin on taking care of his equipment, all the while trying to salvage what he could. Most of it, judging by the smell, had gone off the moment it had been exposed to the open air.

“Break out your bread and eat,” Harkin ordered. “We move on in twenty minutes.”

Emily was surprised to discover that she was hungry and thirsty–and that she’d somehow drunk more than half of her water without being aware of it. How badly had she zoned out during the walk?

The bread and cheese was dry, treated by the chefs to ensure that it would remain edible for months, if necessary. It tasted like manna from heaven, even though the water from her canteen was warm and tasted faintly brackish. After finishing all of her water, she stood up, used a spell to test the water in the stream, and then refilled her canteen.

“Swap bags,” Jade ordered as they started to prepare to leave. “Emily, take this bag. No arguing this time.”

“What a
Captain
,” Harkin observed dryly.

Jade flushed. None of them had been appointed team leader, although Emily couldn’t decide if they were meant to appoint their own or if they should be solving problems together.

Harkin’s next comment surprised both of them. “And are you ready to take on life and death decisions?”

“No, sir,” Jade said.

“You’d better get ready,” Harkin said. He pulled on his own rucksack and glanced at the students. “Follow me.”

The path grew more treacherous as they stumbled down into the hidden valley. Bran almost tripped and fell, catching himself at the very last moment. The walk would have been tricky without the rucksacks; as it was, Emily’s second pack wasn’t light enough to make the walk easy. If the others hadn’t been taking it so calmly, she might have turned and scrambled down backwards as the path grew worse.

It was a relief to finally walk into the forest and relax for five minutes under a rocky ledge that provided shelter. When she looked up at the path, she couldn’t believe they’d walked down it.

“A pool,” Bran called. He put his rucksack on the ground and started to undo his leather trousers. “We can go for a swim!”

“No you bloody can’t,” Harkin snarled. “Have I taught you nothing?”

He picked up a stone and tossed it into the pool. The moment it hit the water, the pool exploded into life. Claws snapped at thin air, clacking away horribly before withdrawing back under the liquid.

Emily almost fell over backwards in shock; Jade let out a swearword ...
everyone
had been badly shocked. She didn’t know what the rest of the creature looked like and she didn’t want to find out. Those claws had looked sharp enough to cut through her body like a knife through butter.

“I’m sure I have told you,” Harkin said into the appalled silence, “that still water is always suspicious.
Always
. And it’s doubly suspicious when it’s in a place where there are no animal droppings lying around the pond. Anything that sticks its neck in there isn’t going to come out again.”

Emily found her voice. “What ... what
is
that thing?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Harkin said. “It could be some necromancer’s idea of a joke. Or it could be a creature that has been mutated by exposure to
mana
. Or it could be something the Faerie left behind to discourage visitors to their city.”

Emily stared at the still waters and shivered.

Harkin allowed them a few moments to relax - and contemplate their near-disaster - before leading them on a dog-leg around the forest’s edge. Cat asked why they didn’t simply walk
through
the forest and Harkin, in a tone that suggested he was running out of patience with idiotic questions, pointed out that the forest
wasn’t
uninhabited. Even with that warning, it took Emily several minutes to spot the spiders lurking in the darkness, following the team as they walked. It was impossible to escape the sense that the spiders were part of one vast hive mind, just waiting for unwary victims to enter the forest.

“We need to get CT out here,” she muttered to Jade as they avoided a suspicious-looking patch of shadow under an isolated tree. “Or maybe burn the entire forest to the ground.”

Jade nodded. “My father used to tell me stories about hunting,” he said. “There was a ... creature that had escaped the mountains and started to hunt near a town. We never knew if it had been sent to terrorize us or if it were merely trying to survive, but father told me that killing it was difficult. Eventually, they had to burn down a house after trapping the monster inside. And even then he had his doubts. They never found a body.”

“Consider it a lesson in what lurks where human life is scarce,” Sergeant Miles put in suddenly. Emily would have jumped if she hadn’t been carrying the rucksack; she hadn’t known that he was listening to their conversation. “If you go on to be combat sorcerers, you will be expected to fight such creatures as well as dark wizards, necromancers and other unpleasant problems. You cannot afford to relax for an instant.”

The opposite side of the valley was a sheer cliff wall, utterly impossible to climb even without the rucksacks. Emily thought they might be trapped before Harkin silently led them around a rock and pointed out a hidden tunnel that was concealed by a very strange form of magic. Every time she looked at it, she felt her attention being subtly diverted elsewhere, so slyly that she would have missed it and never noticed the tunnel if the Sergeant hadn’t pointed it out. The others had similar reactions.

Inside the tunnel, all she could see was darkness. After what she’d seen in the zoo, it was unnerving.

Rupert seemed equally nervous. “Are there more spiders in there?”

“Of course not,” Sergeant Harkin said with a nasty grin. “The scorpions ate them all.”

Emily blanched. “Scorpions?”

“Giant mutated creatures with lethal stings and bad attitudes,” Harkin informed them. His grin twisted into a smirk. “But don’t worry about them. They’re actually quite friendly as long as you leave them alone.”

His smile melted away. “Cast an illumination spell that only works for you,” he ordered, his tone darkening. “When we’re in the tunnels, walk up the exact centre; do
not
try to enter
any
of the side tunnels. The scorpions will
not
like you wandering into any of their nests. If you
see
one of them, which is unlikely, keep your distance. They’re very territorial and they might mistake you for a rival.”

Jade coughed. “What if they mistake us for prey?”

“Use a fire spell if there is no other choice, and be prepared to kill,” Sergeant Miles said. “If you do have to fight one, you can’t force it to back away. Kill it and then leave the carcass strictly alone.”

Emily was still trembling at the thought as Sergeant Miles cast a light spell, then stepped into the tunnel. Jade followed him; Harkin pushed Emily to go immediately afterwards. Darkness dropped on her like a physical blow, reminding her to cast her own spell to light her way. Slowly, she followed Jade up the tunnel, feeling an uncomfortable itching sensation pressing down on her mind. It was impossible to escape the sense that they were being watched.

The passage was far more than just a tunnel, she realized, as she glanced around. It looked as though someone had carved out an entire town which had then been buried under the mountain. But she couldn’t tell if it had been an accident or if someone had started to carve into the rock deliberately. Strange writing was scattered everywhere, all completely indecipherable. In the distance, she thought she heard something scuttling in the darkness. A scorpion, perhaps, or maybe it was something else. What little she’d read about
mana
-touched creatures suggested they evolved very rapidly.

Sergeant Miles led them onwards, passing a set of dark doorways that led further into the mountain. As instructed, Emily kept her distance from them, although she couldn’t resist peeking as they passed. She saw nothing, apart from vague hints of something lying there, watching them. The tunnel narrowed as they left the doors behind, forcing them to walk in single-file. It wasn’t very reassuring.

Before Emily knew it, the tunnel widened to reveal a river running right
through
the mountain. If they hadn’t been casting charms to light their way, they would have walked right into the water and been swept away to their deaths. It was hard to tell in the strange light, but the river looked to be the color of blood ...

...And it was completely silent. The running water made no noise. Which was impossible, wasn’t it?

“The bridge is there,” Miles whispered. It sounded deafeningly loud in the confined space. “I will cross it first; follow me one person at a time. Do
not
clown around while you’re on the bridge.”

Emily shivered as she saw the bridge for the first time. It seemed solid enough, but it was barely forty centimeters wide, seemingly too thin for safety. Jade followed Miles as he crossed the river, but Emily hesitated for a long moment before she stepped onto the bridge. It felt fragile as she advanced; she kept her eyes off the drop and on her destination, and hoped that the bridge would hold up. Somehow, when she reached the far end, it felt as if she had been crossing the bridge for an eternity.

“We don’t know where the river comes from,” Miles commented. “A team of explorers set out to map these caves some years ago. We never heard anything from them after they left.”

“The scorpions got them,” Jade suggested.