The Sorcerer's Scourge (27 page)

Chain of command was something Miles was very familiar with, thanks to his Academy training. “How is that? Wouldn’t your commander want to know what you were doing and where you were?”

“Your father is a very shrewd man. Do you know anything about Dundalor’s armor?” she asked.

“My father was trying to keep someone from getting it. Ulric as it turns out. His adventurers say it was destroyed.”

Elli nodded. “He and his advisors sent a lot of people after it. First, it was the Blackguard. We were his most trusted and capable. But when entire Blackguard contingents began failing to return, he suspected treachery. It was an easy matter to assign me to one of the outgoing units and disappear with them.”

“You abandoned your unit?” Miles asked, aghast at such a thing even under these circumstances.

“I was only attached on paper. Once the unit got a few days out, I showed the team leader private orders from the King that stated I was on a separate mission and went my own way. If they returned, so did I. If not, then I was to stay at The Academy. It was good luck and bad that they did not return. It allowed everyone to assume I was dead as well so that my identity at The Academy was secure.”

Miles tried to digest the fact that so many people had died over his father’s throne and the fact that it was still happening. How many more would die before the kingdom was settled? Would it ever be?

“Hold up here, Miles. The courier station is just around the bend. Wait behind that thicket until I check it out.”

Miles maneuvered his mount off the road and hid behind the dense stand of slender boles and brambles while Elli rode cautiously forward. Elli guided her mount towards the small shack with a small paddock of horses behind it. A man in plain clothes stepped out as she drew nearer and hailed her.

“Hello there, agent. You need a switch out?” the man asked congenially.

“I need two, actually,” Elli replied.

“Tethered? Or is there another rider coming?”

“Another rider, so I’ll need two mounts saddled as quickly as you can.”

The man gave a small salute and turned towards the paddock. “Alright, shouldn’t be but a moment.”

Elli scanned the outside of the station and surrounding trees for signs of anything out of the ordinary, but she saw nothing out of place. Maybe it was just the paranoia of dodging assassins, but she could not shake the feeling that something was not right. She walked back towards the corral and attached barn where several saddles, bridles, and bales of hay were stored. Elli found the man saddling the second horse and fitting a bit in its mouth.

“Have you heard any news out of Brelland,” she asked.

“Aye. Something about the King being in league with those undead that keeps popping up. They say he and some vampire killed that wizard of his and tried to kill the Bishop. The Bishop ran the two of em off and has taken control of Brelland until they decide who to put on the throne. He’s marshaled nearly the entire military and a bunch of clerics and set off after Jarvin and that vampire.”

“What of Jarvin’s family?”

“They say he let the vampire have them as part of the deal for him getting some dark power.”

Elli did not believe a word of these rumors. She had met the King and found him to be an open and decent man. Caalendor on the other hand seemed like a righteous zealot and often left her feeling uneasy in his presence. She could not afford the time to speculate. She would get thorough intelligence when they reached North Haven.

Just as she stuck her foot in the stirrup to lift herself into the saddle, she chanced and glance behind her. Sticking out from beneath the bales of hay was the tip of a blood-crusted boot. Elli pushed herself up and over the other side of the saddle. The man’s blade struck dully against the leather saddle and rebounded off. Elli dropped beneath the belly of the horse, whipped out her small hand crossbow, and buried its bolt into the man’s gut.

He stumbled backwards clasping a hand over the wound trying to staunch the bleeding. Elli darted beneath the horse and finished him off with a stab through the heart. Several men burst into the stable with swords drawn. Her throat constricted when she saw that several of them were dressed as fellow Blackguards.

Elli grabbed the reins of the second horse, leapt onto her mount’s saddle, and kicked hard into the horse’s flanks. The Blackguard mounts were trained for battle and Elli was able to guide the animal with her knees while she slashed down at the men trying to block her way.

The horse trampled two of the men that failed to clear the wide doors of the stable in time while Elli cut deeply into the neck and shoulder of another. One of the Blackguard managed to duck her second hasty strike as she burst past and delivered a deep cut to her leg just below the knee.  

The two horses and rider burst from the stables and headed south where the Prince waited just around the bend. Elli cut off the road and maneuvered around the thick foliage where she had told Miles to wait on her.

“Get on, quickly!” she ordered as she brought the new mount up close to where he was waiting.

Miles hopped from the back of his horse to the one Elli led without touching the ground. The Blackguard tossed him the reins as soon as he settled into the saddle. He was about to ask why she was so agitated, but then the pounding of hooves from at least a dozen horses rapidly drawing nearer reached his ears.

“Come!” Elli commanded, turned her mount towards the woods, and kicked it into a gallop.

Miles followed without question as the pair blazed a trail through the forest, cutting onto and off deer paths at a speed that went beyond reckless. Miles was a good rider, but at these speeds through dense woods, it was all he could do to dodge overhanging tree limbs and simply trusted the horse to keep its footing as it barreled after Elli and her mount.

The fact that their horses were completely fresh and the riders significantly lighter than those of their pursuers, Miles and Elli managed to put a fair amount of distance between them and the men chasing them. Hour after hour, they galloped through the open trees or along animal trails, slowing just long enough for their mounts to catch their breaths. Surrounded by endless tracts of woods, Miles had no idea where they were or even what direction they still traveled. He assumed north and perhaps slightly east in an effort to stay away from the roads that ran between Southport, North Haven, and a dozen small villages and hamlets in between.

It was nearing late afternoon by the time Elli began to relax. That changed when the wind brought the baying of hounds and the sounds of horses to their ears. Elli cursed loudly and kicked more speed into her mount. Miles could hear dogs barking and men shouting not just from the west, but from groups to the north and south as well. Their pursuers had gathered in number and formed an open box with which to capture their elusive prey.

“How can there be so many people after us? Did they think they would need this many men just to get me? I thought you said no one knew you were at The Academy?” Miles called out to the woman’s back.

“A couple of people knew you were there and probably had multiple plans in place to ensure you did not escape,” she answered back. “They knew that if you escaped Southport you would likely flee towards Brelland or North Haven. They probably have every courier station between Southport, North Haven, and Brelland watched.”

Despite resting several times, their mounts were exhausted and their speed was rapidly flagging. The baying of the hounds was drawing closer every minute. It would not be long before their pursuers caught up to them. The ground was rising steadily as they approached a long, rocky bluff that ran for what looked like miles in both directions.

Elli reined in her horse and leapt from the saddle. “Our horses are done for. Climb that and make your way towards North Haven. I’ll catch up to you.”

Miles knew Elli was lying and knew that she knew she was lying. The woman was going to make a last stand to buy him time to get over the escarpment and possibly avoid capture. It was an act of desperation, but the only real chance he had of escaping.

“Just come with me!” Miles cried out. “We can both climb it and run!”

The Blackguard shook her head. “They are too close. They can ride around or use ropes to lift the dogs up and over that ledge and run us down. I have to kill those dogs if either of us is going to have a chance. Now go!”

With a tightness deep in his chest, Miles scrambled up the steep hill and began climbing the cliff face. It was not a cliff in the true sense of the word, but a near-vertical rocky ledge about thirty feet high. It was as though the entire hill beneath it had simply dropped thirty feet, leaving the rocky escarpment behind. It was not a great challenge to pick out a path and carefully ascend the stone face.

Sensing that their quarry was near, the dogs rushed forward of their human handlers and bore down upon the woman standing atop the steep incline, ready to match her steel with their fangs. Elli took careful aim on the lead dog with her small crossbow and planted the quarrel deep into the animal’s throat. The dog let out a yelp and tumbled down the hill as it snapped at the object that caused it so much pain.

The steepness of the slope slowed the animals enough that she had enough time to reload and shoot one more of the dogs before pulling her blades free of their scabbards and bracing for the attack. The first dog to reach her got a foot of steel thrust into its chest as a reward for its efforts. She swung her second blade at the next animal, cutting it deeply across its left shoulder. Pulling her blade free from the dead dog, she swung viciously as a third hound lunged in but managed to dart back out of reach.

Distracted by the other animals, the dog she cut in the shoulder charged in and clamped down hard on her left forearm, shaking it so hard she nearly lost her grip on her sword. Elli tightened her grip, knowing that to lose a weapon was to lose her life, and swung her right blade, cutting the dog mauling her arm deeply in its neck.

This gave the remaining dog the opening it needed. It charged in and bit down on her right ankle. Whipping its head back and forth, the dog managed to pull the woman’s legs out from under her. Sensing her vulnerability, the hound released her leg and tried to clamp its jaws around her throat. Elli managed to intercept those white, slavering fangs with her already wounded left arm. She cried out as the dog’s teeth crushed down on the flesh and bone beneath the leather-studded sleeves of her scale armor hauberk.

“Elli!” Miles shouted as he looked down and saw the dog savaging the woman’s arm.

Elli locked her muscles in place and thrust her sword, penetrating deeply into the dog’s side just behind its shoulder. The animal released its grip with a yelp and the swordswoman thrust her blade into the dog a second time, ending its life. She struggled to her feet and looked up at Miles.

“Elli, hurry! You can still climb up!”

The Blackguard looked from the ledge to the men scrambling up the hill and knew there was no time. Even if she managed to climb beyond their reach before they reached the top of the rise, some were sure to have bows or crossbows and could easily pick her off before she could reach the top and clamor over to safety.

“Keep climbing!” Elli shouted at the Prince.

Elli thrust the points of her two swords into the soft earth and pulled out several throwing knives strapped across her chest. Her right arm whipped forward, hurling all six blades in rapid succession. Four of the blades found vital organs and stopped the ascent of their targets. One hit a man in the shoulder while the last brushed by and nicked an ear. It was a small victory and Elli pulled her swords from the earth and prepared to meet the men that swarmed up the hillside like huge, angry ants.

***

The broad fronds of enormous ferns and the stinging branches of trees slapped at Lucas’s face as he sprinted through the dense forest. The shouts of the men chasing him echoed through the woods behind him as they rapidly drew nearer. What had been a simple foray into the forest to pick mushrooms and berries turned into a headlong flight for his life.

The slavers spotted the boy digging mushrooms deep in the woods over a mile away from the small farming village in which he lived. Normally, their kind did not travel so far inland, but recent activities in the two port cities made it dangerous to ply their trade there for the nonce. Therefore, the more intrepid slavers had begun going inland and picking off the occasional stragglers. Some of the bolder slavers had even taken to raiding solitary farmsteads on rare occasions.