Warrior Mage (Book 1) (11 page)

“That’s because you’re not a soldier,” Falcon said as he turned into the great room and headed for the kitchen. “They don’t trust anyone to be competent, so there’s a handbook for everything. Washing your uniform. Polishing your boots. Cleaning your weapons. Personal hygiene.”

“The army has to teach soldiers how to wash?”

“Oh, yes. That’s another thing you should look for in a bodyguard. Good hygiene.”

“Glad to hear that your sense of humor is improving,” Yanko called after him, then lowered his voice. “Either that, or Grandmother’s draughts are making him loopy.”

He knocked on Lakeo’s door. He wasn’t expecting it to open promptly and for her to be standing there, scowling at him. “I heard a bunch of yelling and thought invaders had come. Then I heard you talking about hygiene. Loudly.” Her scowl deepened.

“Yes, I hope your nap was comfortable. We’ve decided staying here tonight isn’t a good idea, that we’ll be easy to find. Fortunately, it’s autumn, so there are plenty of cushy leaves on the forest floor to lie on.” Yanko smiled and braced himself for an argument.

“I wondered if you’d want to stay here, if there might be people coming to finish what they started on your brother’s carriage.” Lakeo hefted a bag. “I’m ready if you don’t have a problem with me borrowing some things. It’s just clothes and food. And a bow I found out in that shed by the smokehouse.” She plucked it from where it was leaning against the wall, a sturdy ash staff that had yet to be strung. She nudged a quiver of arrows with her foot too.

“That’s fine. That’s Falcon’s hunting bow. I doubt he’ll mind.” Unless he wanted to take it with him into the woods. No, there was an armory in the attic, weapons from the generations of White Foxes who had lived on the homestead, or at least visited it seasonally. There were dozens of bows up there.

“I could borrow yours instead if you think he wants it,” Lakeo said.

“I don’t hunt.”

Her brows rose, and he felt the need to explain.

“I can’t. I wasn’t very good at blocking my ability to sense others’ emotions when I was a boy, and I had a special affinity for animals. I could feel what they felt when they were dying, and it made me throw up.” His mouth twisted, remembering Father’s disappointed look the first time they had gone hunting and that had happened. As a non-Sensitive, he couldn’t have understood. He hadn’t tried to, even when Yanko explained it.

“Huh. I’d call you a wimp, but I saw you pull down a hundred tons of stone with your mind.” Lakeo put on her boots and grabbed her gear.

Yanko hurried to pack his mother’s robe and amulet and was debating what else to bring when a cold, unpleasant whisper slid across the back of his neck. It was the sensation of someone powerful using magic nearby.

Cursing, Yanko ran into the hallway with what gear he had, little more than the clothes he had packed and his saber and
kyzar
. “Someone’s coming,” he called as loudly as he dared. “Put out the lamps. Meet outside, out the back. Lakeo, Falcon, do you hear me?”

He raced through the house, cutting out lamps by hand, afraid to use his powers and alert the other mage to his presence. Next, he ran to the kitchen to make sure Falcon had heard him. Lakeo was already striding for the back of the house. Yanko hadn’t checked a window yet, but he didn’t need to. If he felt someone calling upon the mental sciences, that someone couldn’t be far away.

Falcon limped out of the kitchen on his crutches, a bag slung over his shoulder. “Thought I’d have a
little
more time to pack,” he muttered.

“Sh, hurry.” Yanko took the bag. “Mage.”

As he made it down the now-dark hallway, listening to the thumps of his brother’s crutches as well as his ragged breathing, Yanko felt guilty about telling him to hurry, but if they were caught in the house when a mage hurled a fireball at it, he would suffer far greater injuries.

A cold breeze battered them when they stepped out onto the back porch. Full darkness had fallen, and the moon hadn’t risen. Clouds had come in, too, and the lake and mountains were barely visible. Though Falcon knew the land as well as Yanko—and far better than any stranger could—his injury would cause him to struggle. They would have to stick to the paths until they reached the tree line, instead of creeping through the waist-high grass that swayed in the fields as Yanko would have preferred.

“This way,” he whispered.

“Someone’s coming, right?” Lakeo whispered back.

“A mage, yes. Probably more.”

They couldn’t see the front of the house or the road to the gate from here, so they would have to trust Yanko’s senses. He led the way down the path toward the greenhouses and the orchard, at a pace that was less than ideal. Falcon did his best to swing along on the crutches, but he had to be biting his tongue not to cry out every time he jostled his leg or shoulder.

The path curved, and Yanko got his first look at the gate and the village beyond the split-rail fence. Several armored carriages were rolling along the cobblestones, lanterns burning at their fronts and rears. One had already passed through the gate and onto the property. It had stopped about two dozen meters from the house. Two people stood outside, having a discussion, one in simple traveling clothing but another in a robe. Even with the lanterns on the carriage, Yanko struggled to determine its color, which might have given him a clue as to the mage’s specialty and possibly who he worked for, but all he could tell was that it was dark.

A third figure crouched atop the carriage, as still as a statue, almost like an animal testing the wind. From this distance, Yanko couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but he or she wore light colors, a flowing garment that wrapped around the body and covered most of the face too. A matching cloak hung from the person’s shoulders. Yanko didn’t recognize the style or color as being part of a uniform. The garments almost appeared white, an unusual hue in color-loving Nuria. The hilts of two swords poked over the same shoulder, someone who favored a pair of long blades rather than the more typical combination of longsword and
kyzar
.

Falcon hissed softly. “That’s a mage hunter.”

A chill went through Yanko at his words. He had heard of mage hunters, but mostly in legend. He hadn’t been certain they truly existed, at least not in the modern world.

“A what?” Lakeo asked.

“An assassin who specializes in hunting mages,” Falcon said. The darkness hid his features, but Yanko could feel Falcon’s frank eyes turning in his direction. “I’m surprised he or she—I’m not sure of the sex, are you?—is traveling with a mage. They’re reputed to absolutely loathe magic users.”

“Something that we can have fun discussing once we’re far away from here,” Yanko said, waving everyone onward, wanting to reach the orchard and from there head to the pines and firs that rose from the hills above the lake. The darkness alone was poor camouflage, especially against a wizard. Maybe he was delusional in thinking they could elude their pursuit under any circumstances. Mage hunter. He hadn’t read a great deal about the secretive organization of assassins, but he knew they weren’t called
hunters
for no reason.

“Some of them are going inside,” Lakeo whispered as they slipped behind the greenhouses, using them for cover.

“Looking for us? Or for something in the house?” Falcon paused to wipe sweat from his brow, but he was the first to lead them up the trail toward the apple and pear trees.

“Uh, they didn’t tell me.”

Something brushed at Yanko’s senses, a probe sweeping across the foothills. “The mage is trying to find us,” he whispered, then paused, his hand against the trunk of a tree. He closed his eyes and groped for a way to hide his group. His aching brain protested, and he lamented that he hadn’t found any time to sleep since the attack at the mine. If he blacked out again, he would be a tremendous burden on the others. Still, if the mage sensed them out here, he would have no trouble leading his people in the right direction.

“Stop moving for a moment,” he whispered.

Yanko had played hide-and-seek games with one of the tutors who had taught him for a short time, and he had learned to disguise himself to her senses, making her believe he was a tree. Sometimes it had worked, but usually she had been too sharp to be fooled by his boyish attempts. Wishing he had practiced the game more, Yanko did his best to mask their three auras, to give off the impression that they were simply trees in the orchard.

He felt the probe sweep across them again, and he wondered if his attempt was coming too late, if the mage had sensed them before he had attempted his camouflage.

But the presence left his mind, and nobody rushed around the corner of the house.

“I think they’re all inside now.” Lakeo pointed to lights moving behind the windows.

“Better try to reach the forest then,” Falcon said. “Yanko?”

“Yes. I think... I may have fooled the mage, for the moment. I’ll keep doing my best.”

Neither of them commented on how bolstered they felt by his statement. Maybe he should have sounded less uncertain, but he didn’t want to promise something that might not be true.

They reached the end of the orchard and clambered up the trail and into the woods. It grew narrower and rockier as they traveled up a path that wasn’t used as often as those around the house and gardens. Falcon’s crutches slipped off rocks, the clunks and scrapes making them all wince, and Yanko had to keep him from falling more than once.

“Some bodyguard I am,” Falcon muttered to himself.

“It’s dark enough that any of us could trip and fall off a cliff,” Lakeo whispered.

Since Yanko had to stay behind his brother and steady him when needed, she was leading. He wished he could provide a small illumination orb, but that would stand out like a lighthouse to anyone below. He wasn’t sure what the men in the carriages still in the village were doing, but the occasional shouts of a search party came to his ears. Maybe the people thought Yanko and his brother would hide out in someone else’s house? He hoped they didn’t find the carriage he had stashed, not that it mattered right now. They couldn’t reach it without revealing themselves.

“Take a right at the first fork,” Yanko instructed. “There’s a cliff that way.”

“Oh, good. My falling dream can come true.”

“It overlooks the village and the homestead. We can watch them from there.” Now that they had climbed into the forest, Yanko couldn’t see much behind them, and he didn’t dare reach out with his senses.

The darkness made them slow, and it took twenty minutes of huffing and grunting before they reached the fork and another ten to reach the cliff. As soon as Yanko stopped, crouching so he wouldn’t stand out on the bare rocks, Falcon flopped to the ground. Lakeo came and knelt beside Yanko.

“It doesn’t look like anyone has thought to look for us in the forest yet.” Lakeo pointed to a couple of lanterns bobbing along the lakeshore toward the dock and canoes.

“No. I wish I’d thought to untie one of those canoes and send it out there as a decoy. As it is, once it’s morning, they may be able to visually follow our trail.” Yanko didn’t say it, but Falcon’s crutches would make distinctive marks in the earth.

“This isn’t quite the soft, leafy bed you promised me.” Lakeo patted the cold rock beneath them. The temperature lay only a few degrees above freezing, and they hadn’t had time to grab blankets.

A lone figure stepped out on the path behind the house, the clothing lighter than everyone else’s. That mage hunter? The person faced the hills, and Yanko shivered as the gaze passed over them. He told himself the hunter was simply hoping to see something and that was it. Still, he couldn’t help but hunker lower, trying to blend in with the rocks.

“Almost positive that’s a woman,” Lakeo whispered.

“What?” That had been the last thing on Yanko’s mind, but he
had
been wondering earlier.

“The way she walks, stands. I thought I saw some boobs when she was crouching up there on the carriage. Probably bound so she doesn’t bounce when she’s fighting.”

Yanko didn’t know whether to find the information useful or to be indifferent. He couldn’t let himself assume that a woman would be less dangerous. Not when his mother had reputedly been an unstoppable force during the wars. Surely anyone trained to be an assassin could slice his entrails up into mince meat and leave them on the rocks for the buzzards.

A second carriage, one that had been back in the village, rolled through the front gate. Unlike the armored vehicles, this was an open-air bamboo one, the kind common down in the warmth of Red Sky. Something dark moved around inside. It—or they—didn’t look like people. Yanko wished he had a spyglass—or that he dared use his powers. Perhaps he was far enough away now that the mage wouldn’t sense him if he did.

The carriage rolled to a stop behind the first one, and a dark head thrust out of the window. The ringing bay of a hound pierced the night.

Yanko almost laughed. Oh. He had been imagining a soul construct or some other huge, mutant creation of a wizard.

Lakeo groaned. “Hounds. They’re going to be able to track us easily.”

“Yanko?” Falcon asked.

“Yes, we’ll see. If they have some magical compulsion, they won’t be easy to communicate with.”

The driver stepped out of the carriage and opened the door. The hounds flew out, barely restrained by their leashes. A handler stepped out after them, followed by several men with bows. Yanko thought he picked out a couple of Turgonian firearms in the mix too. The mage hunter walked around the house toward the group. The robed mage strode out of the house shortly after. He carried something dark in his hand. A shirt?

“They’re giving the hounds your scent,” Lakeo said. “Should we run deeper into the hills? Is there a stream out here where we might walk in the water a ways, so they lose our trail?”

“You sound like you’ve been tracked by hounds often,” Falcon remarked.

At first, Lakeo didn’t respond, though a sulkiness seemed to radiate from her. Maybe it was the hunch of her shoulders. “I had to steal some after my mother died, before I figured out people would pay me to carve. Not everybody gets born onto a big plantation or whatever you call that place.”