Centaur of the Crime: Book One of 'Fantasy and Forensics' (Fantasy & Forensics 1) (32 page)

“Can you…I don’t know, levitate him out of there?”

“No such spell exists in my world,” Galen said ruefully. He patted one of his many pockets. “But I do have a length of string. Properly enchanted, it should serve as a rope that can hold you.”

“‘Should’ being the operative word?”

“I’m sorry, Dayna. I’ve not put this spell to the test before.”

I swallowed, hard. Behind us, the fires from the pickup, the SUV, and the grove of trees burned with a chestnuts-roasting crackle. In the distance, I heard a helicopter approaching.

Nothing else, though. We were really far up in the hills. It was anyone’s guess when a real rescue team would show up.

“Then I guess it’s time to test it,” I said.

Galen held out an ordinary coil of horsehair string. He pressed it between his palms. To my eyes, in my fearful state of mind, it looked as if he were about to offer up a prayer.

“
Bättre kan star trep,
” he recited. The coil glowed a soft, mint green for a moment. “It is done, Dayna.”

Working together, we tied it in a weave pattern along my waist and thighs, into a rappelling harness. Assuming it held, I’d at least have my arms free to grab Liam.

Assuming it held. My mouth went dry at that thought.

Galen backed ten feet away from the edge. He firmly planted his feet on the road asphalt and wrapped the string about both of his wrists. The hot wind from the fire tousled his dark, shaggy locks.

“Let us begin, Dayna.”

I turned my back to the precipice. Skin crawling. The string in the palm of my hand felt insignificant, like a child’s toy.

The sound of something slipping a notch came from below me. Prince Liam emitted a gasp. No more time left. I leaned back, straddle-legged, and went over the edge.

The makeshift rope held. Galen paid the line out for me as I descended. Then I saw it. The cliff had a slight overhang. In that space, creosote bushes and tangles of western ivy grew in profusion.

Liam hung head up, neck canted painfully. His bound legs stuck out at odd angles, but his eyes remained calm and alert. As I watched, one of his antler nubs slipped free of one twist of ivy.

I swung down another two feet and over to him. I grasped his torso under his forelegs with both arms. Liam’s breathing sounded harsh and fast in my ear. His breath carried the scent of fresh-cut grass and dark pine.

“I’ve got him! Galen, pull us up!”

I heard the centaur grunt as he engaged his muscles. We inched our way back up. It was all I could do to not rivet my eyes where the string rubbed against the raw gravel at the lip of the cliff.

And then we stopped. I heard Galen strain. But Liam’s antler, which had been slipping free a moment ago, now refused to come loose from the tangle of vines.

“Dayna…” Galen gasped, “it feels like we’re stuck. Can’t…pull any harder.”

I stuck one hand out, tried to reach the tangle at the end of Liam’s antler. I could barely get two fingers over the closest snarl. No way out there.

“You’ve got to try!” I called up. “We’ve got no other choice!”

Suddenly, we moved sharply upwards with an extra-strong tug. Liam’s antler tore free from the vines. Bits of leaf matter swirled in the wind as they drifted down.

One more mighty heave, and both Liam and myself were pulled back over the edge. I lay on my belly, gasping, coughing. Liam shook, his bonds still constricting his legs, and he gratefully pressed his cheek to the solid earth.

“You really found your second wind,” I said to Galen. The centaur half crouched, half knelt on the road asphalt. Rivulets of sweat ran down his face. He shook his head.

“I had help.” He moved to one side.

Shaw opened his beak and let loose his grip on Galen’s belt. I let out a cry of joy as I saw him. The feathers along one side of his proud eagle face had been blackened, and his right eye had swollen shut. His wounded wing now lay folded by his side, streaked with red.

“No longer am I in battle prime,” Shaw said. “And my flying days are over, I think. But I may still serve thee as best I can.”

“That you have, Shaw,” I said, trying not to choke up.

I turned to Liam now. I couldn’t see where the ends of the knots were on his bonds. I tried to wedge my fingers into the tight coils of rope that bound the Fayleene’s slender legs.

No luck.

Galen knelt at my side. He pulled out the same pair of cutters I’d used on Liam’s ear tag. I managed to work the blades into a spot where I could cut a length of the rope, not Liam’s skin.

The blades simply slid off the slick fibers.

I stared at the cutting tool, uncomprehending. Galen took it from me, tried the same thing. Once again, we didn’t so much as mar the rope’s fibrous twists of material.

Liam squirmed, and then finally spoke up, as cross as I’d ever heard him.

“Just leave me!” he cried. “More than my life is at stake here!”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The Fayleene prince lay trussed up on the ground in front of us, thrashing futilely against his bonds. I did my best to calm him, but Liam wouldn’t have it. His voice held an edge of despair and desperation.

“You must keep moving,” he said. “You’ll never catch Duke Kajari’s impersonator in time if you don’t go.”

“Actually, ‘Kajari’ goes by the name of Magnus Killshevan,” Galen said. “He has proven to be a rather disturbed centaur.”

“Whoever he is, you need to leave!” insisted the princeling. “I’m…I’m of no use to you!”

“Look at me,” I said, and I made sure that he was truly focused on me before I continued. “I need you to understand this, Prince Liam of the Fayleene. I’m not going anywhere…without my good luck charm.”

Liam blinked.

Twice. As if processing what I told him.

“Thank you, Dayna,” he murmured. Liam lay back with a sigh, and no longer struggled.

My mind did its strange
clicking
thing again as I ran my fingers once more over the slick surface of Liam’s bonds.

“Wait,” I said, turning to Galen. “If you’re able to enchant something like string, doesn’t it stand to reason that Magnus might have the same skill with rope?”

“It does stand to reason,” he mused, putting the cutters away. He placed a palm to each of Liam’s bonds. “
Na téada!
”

The ropes went slack and slid off like a pair of gym socks. The Fayleene stumbled to his feet with a triumphant cry.

“You did it!” Liam bowed to each of us in turn. “It appears that I owe my life to each of you.”

“We may still owe the ending of this war to you, Liam,” I replied. “Can you trace what you called ‘the spoor of the spell’ with Magnus, right now? So that we can come out where he did in Andeluvia?”

“That I can do,” he said confidently. “Just grant me a minute.”

Liam walked to where Magnus had vanished. The princeling lowered his head. Closed his eyes, concentrating. As he did so, I absently swiped at an itch on my cheek. My palm came away coated with smoky black specks. Great.

“Is this necessary?” Galen asked quietly. “I can return us to the palace without issue. Shouldn’t that be our destination?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “If the war’s about to start, no one’s going to be at court. And Magnus will want, above all else, to be there when the fighting starts.”

“I am forced to agree with you, Dayna.”

“While Liam works, is there anything you can do for Shaw?”

Galen nodded and moved to run his hands over the griffin’s bent and broken wing. It was Galen that winced, not Shaw, as the wizard examined the griffin’s flanks.

Once again, Galen pulled out the gel he’d used in the apartment above Grauman’s courtyard. He emptied it out as he swabbed the worst of the burns. The tingling scent of pepper jelly coated the stench of the griffin’s singed fur and feathers.

“Shaw, I won’t mince words,” Galen said. “You will need more extensive care than I can give you here.”

The griffin shrugged noncommittally. As if he and the centaur were discussing the weather.

“I have been burned before, wizard.”

“These wounds need treatment, and soon. Your eye and your wing, in particular.”

Shaw cocked his head so he could face Galen directly.

“Doth any of my wounds appear to be imminently mortal?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Then you shouldst worry not. I shan’t.”

“I have it,” Liam announced. “Magnus has crossed over to a vast grassy field. A quarter league to the east of the Grove of the Willows.”

“Then let us return with all speed,” Galen announced.

The wizard’s voice rose to a crescendo as he spoke his magical incantation. The red glow of the fires, the blackness of the smoke, the gold-green of the hills around us vanished.

Once again, we were plunged into an ocean of sparkling white foam. The smell of burnt plastic assaulted my nose, burned my tongue. My ears popped as if we’d changed altitude.

The dry grass crunched beneath me as I fell to my knees. My head spun, but I fought off the sick feeling this time. Shaw let out a painful groan as he got up.

I followed suit, checking the magazine of my gun as I did so. Empty. Of course. I stuck the Glock back in the shoulder holster. Maybe I could get close enough to Magnus to bean him with it.

Galen made a horsey, whinnying sigh. He gestured, and with a shimmer, changed back into his strapping centaur form. I couldn’t help but smile as he practically pranced in place.

“You have no idea how good this feels,” he said, shifting his weight back and forth onto each chestnut-colored leg.

The sun stood high in the morning sky. In the same spot that it occupied in my world. But here, instead of sheer drops and rolling hills, we stood on a tall-grass prairie plain, one that sloped up gently towards the east.

Downslope, the plain gave way to dotted copses of trees. Then the dark rim of a forest on the horizon. In the middle distance, I could make out the gray-green leaves of the Grove of the Willows.

Liam craned his neck above the chest-high grass. He squinted in the direction of the sacred grove, and then nervously pawed at the ground.

“There is movement within and around that piece of forest,” the Fayleene said. “A great deal of it, as a matter of fact.”

On cue, a triple-noted blast of a hunting horn rippled up the slope. The distant sound of clinking, the tramp of many booted feet. The predatory cries of griffins echoed for a moment, and then I saw them.

The scarlet and black banners of the Andeluvian army emerged from the grove and took up position in front of it. I spotted armored knights on foot, most every man I’d met at the Andeluvian court, and a contingent of over a hundred fully armed and armored griffin mounts.

“Vazura’s Air Cavalry is out in full force today,” I observed.

“That is not all,” Galen replied. He pointed upslope, to where a massive dust cloud boiled into the sky.

Now I heard it. The jingle of the centaur’s chain mail and the clatter of their armor. The ground rumbled as their hoof beats shook the plain. I made out what looked like, at first, to be a gleaming forest of leafless silver trunks.

A second later, I realized I was looking at a hedgehog’s row of brightly polished lance points. The centaurs had come in full force, just as King Angbor had promised.

And of course, we were stuck smack in the middle of both forces.

“Where is Magnus?” I asked, as the thunder of the approaching centaurs rose in volume.

“Down there!” Liam said. “He’s almost to the Andeluvian lines.”

Sure enough, I spotted Magnus—still in his guise as Kajari—moving at a quick jog downslope towards the kingdom’s front line.

“What are thy orders, Dayna?” Shaw said, canting his head so that he could focus on me with his remaining eye.

I put my hands on my hips, considering. Given how fast the centaurs were moving downslope, I didn’t think we had time to do more than get to one of the two armies.

Which one to speak to?