Cathexis: Necromancer's Dagger (18 page)

“So it’s safe to assume that they have the
shields up purposely to keep you from reading them, right?” asked
Hetark.

“Yes.”

“That means that they expected that you
would locate them; do you think they knew it when you sensed them?”
he asked.

“Not unless they were better sorcerers than
I am, my touch was very light.
Fortunately,
I was trying to conserve my powers, so I
didn’t push at them enough for anyone, but the best to know it,”
she explained.

“Do you have any idea who they could
be?”

Elizabeth thought for a moment before
answering. “They are Tchulian
mercs
; I read that from some of those who were
unshielded.
Lately,
some Tchulian
officers have been getting some limited aura training, though
they’ve tried to keep it a secret from most of the world. The
Kirnath have learned that much for sure. And at Michael’s
acceptance
dinner,
I noted that
Major Harland Von Dracek had a mind shield. At the
time,
I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just a
natural shield, but now I think it was more than that, which makes
him a prime suspect in the plot against us. It is likely that he is
one of the two shielded men in pursuit.”

“Well,” Gustin put in, “we should decide
what we are going to do quickly. With their extra
mounts,
they’ll eventually catch us if we try
and run."

Drake chimed in and said, "And we should
avoid a fight, we can't risk using the Lady's powers of healing
again so soon. There are a lot of them, even with the element of
surprise on our side.”

Hetark considered their options and then
asked, “Perhaps we should attempt to separate them into smaller
groups? That way, with the element of surprise, we could whittle
them down.”

Drake nodded and said, “If we pretended to
split our group in two maybe they would do the same in an attempt
to follow both.”

Gustin smiled, “That might work, but we’d
need to know if we had succeeded before we engaged one of their
groups.”

“I could use my powers to check and see how
they split,” Elizabeth reminded them.

Hetark turned to Drake, “You grew up in this
forest, tell me about the road ahead.”

“There is a fork in the road about two
leagues from here,” Drake replied.

With that
knowledge,
Hetark proposed a plan, “We can ride to the
crossroads and have Drake and Gustin take the southwest fork while
Lady Ardellen and I continue along the southeast. We will gallop
fast to put some distance between us and the Tchulians that follow.
Then we will cut across through the forest and Elizabeth can use
her aura powers to locate Gustin and Drake so that we can regroup.
If our pursuers split up as planned Gustin and Drake will
set up
an ambush for the group
that followed them and we will join them to spring the trap. Our
horses will be tired, but we can procure some of their mounts and
make a quick run for it to get ahead of the second group. Once we
have rested up we could choose to continue or set up another ambush
for the rest of the Tchulians after Lady Ardellen’s ‘well’ has had
a chance to refill.”

Elizabeth smiled at that reference.

“What if they don’t split up?” Gustin
asked.

“Then we’ll just leave you to finish off the
whole bunch by yourself until we can think of something else to
try,” Drake replied sarcastically and gave Gustin an annoyed
look.

“No problem, let’s do it!” Gustin
exclaimed.

Drake shook his head and said, “If they all
follow us, then you two continue on your way and get Michael to
safety, agreed?”

Elizabeth frowned, but Hetark said, “Agreed,
but if they all follow us, then we’ll have to cut across the forest
to regroup.”

Gustin nodded.

“OK, let’s get moving, and fast; we’ll need
all the time we have to set up a good trap. I just hope we get to
use it,” Hetark said with a sigh.

“They’ve divided up,” the scout named
Mauklar said from where he crouched on the ground at the crossroads
examining the tracks of their quarry. The Tchulian troop had
reached the fork in the forest path.

“Did they really divide their group, or is
this a ruse of some sort?” Von Dracek asked the scout.

After examining the ground again carefully,
Mauklar replied, “As far as I can tell two horses carrying riders
and two spare horses went each way.”

“Can you tell which way the Kirnath bitch
went?” Bante demanded.

“Not with certainty, but I would hazard a
guess that the woman went on the southwest fork. Look at these two
horses hoof prints; you can see this horse is carrying more weight
by the difference in depth of the print. The two horses that were
ridden down the southeast path had riders with close to the same
weight, so those were probably two of the men,” the scout
calculated.

“But are you sure?” questioned the
major.

“No sir, if the woman weighed close to the
same as the man she rode with, I might be wrong, but it’s
unlikely.”

Von Dracek snorted and said, “Not that
unlikely, you imbecile, remember that she rides with three of those
worthless new Knight Protectors, and one of them was big enough to
double as a tusks
nout
. He’s
probably riding the horse that is carrying the most weight, so I'd
guess she is probably in the other pair.”

“Don’t you think it’s a wise time to check
which direction the woman really went using the other means at our
disposal?” the corporal asked his stern commander.

“I would have already done that if I thought
it was a good idea, corporal. There is still the chance that she
doesn’t know we’re behind her. I don’t think she could sense me
without my knowing it and I know for sure that unless I caught her
at the perfect moment she would detect my probe if I sought her by
aura touch. So we'll play the percentages. Unless something shows
that she’s on to us we’ll keep doing this the hard way, but since
we can’t afford to pass up the possibility that she was the other
rider with that ox of a man, I’ll send some of you after them.
Bante, take half the soldiers and follow the two men who went down
the southwest path and I’ll take the other half
after
the woman on the other path. Drop your
shield once each bell and I’ll contact you to compare our
progress.

Elizabeth and Hetark paused for the second
time to let the sorceress use her powers to check on the location
of Gustin and Drake. Elizabeth and Hetark had left the path just
over a half
bell
earlier and
headed across the rough terrain of the forest at the fastest pace
possible. Unfortunately, the going was tougher than they had
anticipated; bushes and brambles often blocked their way making
them detour around, and a stream with high banks blocked them at
one point until they found a place where it was possible to
ford.

“How far away are Gustin and Drake, milady?”
asked Hetark.

“About another league,” she replied and then
held up her hand to signal him to wait a moment as she concentrated
on the dim glow of distant auras. “Our enemies are slightly closer;
we must fly if we are to be of any help.”

“Then we shall fly, somehow, milady,” and he
spurred his horse on through the forest ducking and swerving to
avoid branches.

Elizabeth knew that she was slower than
Hetark since she had to carry Michael, so she called out to the
knight. “Go on without me Hetark, I will be there right behind you,
don’t worry.”

Hetark glanced back then turned forward and
urged his horse to even greater efforts.

“Where are they?” asked an excited and
concerned Drake for the tenth time as he paced back and forth
behind the trees that hid them from the nearby forest path.

“I’m sure they’re fine, I bet they’re just
having trouble traveling across the forest without a path,” Gustin
assured him calmly.

“If they don’t get here in time this trap
isn’t going to work. Shortly the two of us are going to be
breastplate
deep in ten to twenty
Tchulians who think we would look better impaled on a sharp pole,
and two of them may be aspiring necromancers or worse. To put it
simply, I’m not real happy about the situation,” Drake
complained.

“All right, let’s pack it up and think of
something else to try later,” Gustin answered as he started to
stand up.

“No, we put too much work into this ambush,
it will work!” exclaimed Drake, reversing his opinion since Gustin
agreed with it.

“All right, we’ll stay and hope they make
it,” Gustin agreed congenially.

“No, they might not make it and we would
have to fight them by ourselves,” Drake said, still pacing and
shaking his head negatively, unhappy with either choice.

“Look, if you don’t make up that pea brain
soon our group of party guests may get here and make it up for you.
Now I have a suggestion, why don’t you get down near the road as
planned, and keep watch on the path. When you see them approaching
you can decide if there are too many or not. If there are too many
we’ll stay hidden and let them ride by, but if you fire your bow
I’ll take it to mean that the ambush is on, all right?”

“Don’t forget to pull the rope at the right
time,” Drake reminded.

“Don’t worry,” Gustin promised.

“And you’ll be right down? I mean, I
probably could take them alone, but I don’t want to leave you out
of the fun!” he exclaimed, trying to make Gustin think he wasn’t
nervous.

“How thoughtful of you to leave one or two
for me,” Gustin replied with a sarcastic smile.

Grinning back at the big man, Drake replied
with false bravado, “Just don’t try to
oink
up more than your fair share, understand?”

“No problem, need a boost up onto your
horse?” Gustin asked with a smile and a bantering tone.

“No thanks, my horse doesn’t like other
large animals too close,” replied Drake with a wink.

Once he was mounted up Drake turned and drew
his sword. He raised the blade and stood in his stirrups. His
warhorse pranced in the soft sod of the forest as Drake called out
to his friend. “Ho Gustin, if we’re going to do this, let’s do it
right! We’ll teach them not to threaten Michael and show them why
we are the Knight Protectors.” He finished with a salute, “For
Michael!”

“For Michael,” Gustin agreed and smiled at
his small friend while pulling his own sword in salute. “Send them
to the Dark Plane, Drake.”

“You can count on it,” he answered and
wheeled his horse around to
canter
proudly down to the path.

Sensing that he was closing on his quarry,
Corporal Bante pushed his men along at a fast pace. The Tchulians
galloped around a bend in the road and found a horse standing
sideways on the path with a very small man sitting calmly in the
saddle. With a swift
move,
the
mounted man brought up a concealed crossbow and fired at
Bante’s
men. The streaking bolt
hit the throat of a soldier to
Bante’s
right and knocked him off his horse
backward
.

The small man on the horse then saluted them
with the empty crossbow before wheeling his horse and riding off at
a gallop.

When the Tchulian officer finally recovered
from his initial shock Bante screamed orders at his men, “Run him
down and kill him!”

The troop of mercenaries had slowed, but at
the corporal's
command,
they
kicked their mounts back into a full gallop and followed the
fleeing man down the forest path.

In a perfect move that could have been used
in a clinic on horsemanship, Drake slid his horse to a sudden halt
and spun it around sideways in front of his charging pursuers. He
brought his crossbow up again and calmly inserted the crank to
begin the loading process, as if totally unaware that ten wrathful
soldiers were storming down the path only heartbeats away from
trampling him under their thundering horse hoofs.

The horseman’s strange attitude finally made
Corporal Bante realize that something was wrong, but his
realization came one instant too late and the trap was sprung.
Bante tried to yell for his men to stop, but a rope suddenly came
up out of the path and went taut at neck level only a
half-length
in front of the charging troop. A
few of them saw it and tried to react, but there just wasn’t enough
time. The group plowed into the rope, which bowed, but did not
break. Men were yanked off their horses as if an invisible angry
giant had reached from behind and grabbed them by the head and then
yanked hard.

Confusion reigned supreme as horses reared
and ran every direction. Only one man had managed to stay on his
mount and a crossbow bolt struck him in the chest a moment later
knocking him to the ground with the rest of the men.

Bante got to his feet and yanked his sword
out as he looked
at
the man on the
horse; he was just in time to see him raising his crossbow to his
shoulder again. Bante dove to the ground and the bolt took the man
standing behind him in the leg. Bante waited on the ground a moment
longer, he expected another crossbow bolt from whoever had pulled
the rope and he wasn’t disappointed. The bolt hit another one of
his men who had been standing and looking around for the foe, which
made him an excellent target.

Bante jumped back to his feet and yelled for
his men to charge the trees off to the right before the hidden
crossbowmen could reload. His men were trained soldiers and once
they heard the voice of a commander giving them an objective they
could understand, they reacted. The six remaining soldiers
leaped
up and brandished their
weapons as they charged the thicket.