A Tapestry of Spells (10 page)

They ran for the rest of the night, walking only when she couldn’t run any longer. She suspected the mage, despite his advanced years, could have run all night without pause and still continued on far into the next day. She didn’t consider herself particularly weak, but she had to concede that after two days of flight and a terrifying awaking during the third night of her quest, she had finally reached her limit. Fortunately, at the very moment she opened her mouth to beg the man to stop, he slowed, then stopped and leaned over with his hands on his thighs.

She took the opportunity to fall to her knees in the snow and wheeze. She waited until the stars had stopped spinning in front of her eyes before she dug the heels of her hands into those eyes.

Hands were suddenly on her arms, dragging her to her feet. She hadn’t managed to gasp from the pain of her injured arm being touched before she found herself being jerked behind her companion and heard the sound of a sword sliding from its sheath. She opened her eyes in time to see something stumbling from the woods they had just left.

“Stop, if you have any sense,” the mage commanded.

The footsteps stopped immediately and a squeak was the only answer. Sarah peeked around his shoulder and found, to her surprise, that the beginnings of dawn revealed nothing more nefarious than Ned, looking very much worse for the wear. He looked at her in alarm, then drew himself up and brandished his own version of a hunting knife.

“Oy, you let her go,” he said, taking a firmer grip on his blade. “Don’t make me do something you’ll regret.”

The mage rested his sword point-down in the snow. “I wouldn’t dare.” He turned slightly. “Is he yours?”

Sarah nodded. “My mother’s farm boy, Ned.”

Ned leapt forward suddenly and pulled her over to stand next to him. He frowned, then put himself in front of her. Sarah would have smiled, but she was just too tired.

The mage resheathed his sword. Ned lowered his knife, which was likely a good thing considering how badly his hand was shaking. Sarah couldn’t blame him. The shadowy man standing five paces away was, she had to admit, terrifying. He didn’t look to be on the verge of casting any spells, however, so she wondered if she might manage a question or two. But first things first. She turned to Ned.

“I sent you home.”

“I went home, but me sire took me coins and tossed me into the barn to await the gypsies he’d sold me to.”

She could hardly believe it. Ned was another mouth to feed, true, but he was a hard worker. When he managed to remember what he’d been told to do, that was. And assuming he could manage the task. She sighed deeply. In truth, he was just short of helpless, though it wasn’t from a lack of intelligence or diligence. He was just a dreamy lad who would likely have been better suited to the life of an artist than a farmer.

It said something for his cleverness, though, that he had escaped his father’s clutches. Farmer Crodh’s barn was, rumor had it, an impenetrable fortress built for the express purpose of protecting his very rare and valuable milch cows from marauders who might want to liberate one or two of them and lead them astray. Nothing got free of that barn that Farmer Crodh hadn’t let out himself.

“I’m impressed,” Sarah said.

“There isn’t a place built I can’t escape,” Ned boasted. He hesitated, then looked at her. “It might be my only skill.”

Sarah didn’t want to agree, so she said nothing.

“You didn’t perchance bring anything to eat, did you?”

She shook her head. She wasn’t about to ask the mage for anything else. Ned would have to wait until Bruaih where she could buy breakfast for him. She glanced at her unwitting defender, then glanced at what was behind him.

And she caught her breath.

The sun had begun to rise, and she had the most remarkable view of farmland that was... lush. There wasn’t a clutch of sagebrush, or scrub oak, or stubby, spindly trees of other indeterminate make in sight.

She walked past her companions, feeling as if she’d opened her eyes for the first time. The mist that hung over the land in front of her, the beginnings of spring grasses, the rich earth of early ploughed fields ... It was enough to render her mute and still.

“Duck!”

She realized the mage wasn’t speaking to her only because when she turned around, he had his back to her. She watched as he pulled his knives free of their scabbard and flung them toward Ned.

Or over Ned, rather.

Her mouth fell open. It was one thing to see what she’d thought she’d seen the night before; it was another thing entirely to see a monster clearly in the growing light of dawn. The beast sported knife hafts in uncomfortable spots in his head, but still he fumbled for Ned, who was crouching in front of him, shrieking like a girl.

The mage drew his sword and heaved it. It found home in the troll’s chest and quivered there as the beast fell backward and landed with a crash. The mage walked past Ned, gave him a rather smart slap on the back of the head that, blessedly, silenced him, then retrieved his weapons and cleaned them. He resheathed them all, then squatted down by the creature and studied it for a moment. Sarah didn’t have the desire to get any closer to one of them than she had been already—twice.

“What an unpleasant-looking bugger,” Ned breathed after he’d scurried over to hide behind her, “and I was talking about the beastie.” He paused. “Though I
could
have been talking about the mage—”

“Ned!”

“But I’ve heard he’s terrible scarred, Mistress Sarah. And that he avoids magic for fear that if he uses any, he’ll undo the world.”

Sarah wasn’t one to give credence to tales told at the end of the evening down at the pub, but she couldn’t deny that while ancient the man might be and powerful he might be, in the light of day he was nothing short of frightening. Hooded, cloaked, bristling with all sorts of pointy things he obviously knew how to use very well. Perhaps that was why he kept his face covered. If his visage was as fierce as his reputation, it might just be too much for those he happened upon.

Daniel, for instance.

She was tempted anew to ask him if he’d changed his mind about aiding her or he’d merely decided on a bit of a journey for pleasure, but he straightened and turned toward her before she could. The picture he presented, along with what Ned had just told her about his magic, was intimidating in the extreme. If she’d been a more timid soul, she might have taken a step backward.

But if she did that, she knew she could never make that step up. Not that it mattered, perhaps, to anyone but her. After all, it wasn’t as if she had any intention of traveling much farther with the man facing her. Still, there was no sense in not at least presenting a picture of strength and confidence.

She stepped forward and folded her arms over her chest. It hid their shaking quite nicely, truth be told.

“I appreciate your aid in dispatching those ... things,” she began, “um ...”

“Ruith,” he supplied.

“Lord Ruith—”

“Nay,” he said mildly. “Just Ruith.”

“Very well,
Ruith.
I appreciate your aid last night and this morning. I’ll be happy to repay you for the bread and return your cloak—”

He shook his head. “There is no need.”

Sarah knew a good turn when she saw one and she wasn’t about to spurn it. Perhaps that was his way of apologizing for throwing her out of his house. She nodded, accepting his gift, then cleared her throat.

“I must carry on—”

“Aye, because her mother’s house fell down,” Ned interrupted.

Sarah elbowed Ned firmly in the ribs, then turned back to the mage, er, Ruith. “I must carry on with my quest.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t think anything else.”

She imagined he would—and had. “I’m going to Bruaih, for I need a mage to aid me in my particular bit of business.”

“Many kings have likewise auditioned their mages,” Ruith conceded, “so you are in good company.” He pulled his bow across his chest, then looked briefly over his shoulder. “I think we should be away quickly,” he said. “I’ll come with you to Bruaih, then wait for you to decide your course.”

She started to protest, then made the mistake of looking again at their very dead foe.

What if he wasn’t the last one of those sorts of lads?

She reconsidered her plan to leave the mage behind. The truth was, he was handy with a blade, even though he should have been leaning on a cane and waggling his fingers to subdue his enemies. But since he seemingly wasn’t, perhaps she would be a fool to refuse the companionship of his very sharp blades. Perhaps when the time came, she could simply put her foot down and remind him who was in charge. Perhaps she would hire instead the mage in Bruaih and have no need to remind him of anything at all.

“Very well, then,” she said carefully. “I thank you for your aid.”

He merely inclined his head. And waited.

An auspicious start, she supposed. She nodded briskly, then turned and wrapped Ruith of the mountain’s cloak more closely around the skirt she had stuck her head through. She marched on ahead, as if she were truly about some noble quest, and left her companions to follow. And she hoped she was going in the right direction.

She tried not to think about the fact that since she no longer had all her gold, the wizard of Bruaih might not be at all amenable to going off on a little explore. Or that since Daniel had all her gold in his greedy hands, he might have gone anywhere in the great, wide world, and she might not find him before he destroyed everything he could see. Or that her help included a horse masquerading as a dog, a lad whose only skill was escape, and an ancient mage who apparently preferred steel to spells and fought with the agility of a man a tenth his age. All led, of course, by she herself, who had no idea how she would ever manage the task laid before her.

She was tempted to sit down and surrender.

But since she never surrendered, she would do what she’d always done in the past. She took a deep breath and began to string her loom with what warped threads she had to hand.

She could only trust that she would find the wool for the weft, and that the proper pattern would emerge in good time.

She put her head down and walked on.

S
omeone was daft and Ruith was beginning to suspect it was him.

He walked next to a woman who had decided not a half hour ago that she would move about more easily if she attempted to pass herself off as a lad. The lad who had previously been attempting to pass himself off as a man was now wearing a skirt and a hood pulled forward in order to hide as much of his face as possible and avoid unnecessary brawling. He, however, was wearing the same disguise he’d worn for years, which meant that his gear alone would leave anyone with questions thinking that perhaps those questions were better left unasked.

Somehow, it didn’t seem a very auspicious start to the present business.

He supposed some of his unease could be credited to weariness. The journey hadn’t been difficult physically, though he would freely admit that Sarah had traveled at a pace that had left him spending most of his time running after her.

Nay, it was that he’d spent the past three days thinking on his past in an effort to find answers for things that perplexed him, such as why he’d lived in happy obscurity for a score of years only to find himself assaulted on the same day by creatures from hell and a witch’s get from down the way.

Coincidence?

He suspected not.

He hadn’t found any answers, his forays into memories he would rather have left unexamined aside. By the time he’d reached Sarah—and been felled by her—he’d almost convinced himself that the two brutes he’d slain had been aberrations.

Unfortunately, that hope had been dashed quite handily by the troll looming over Sarah the night before and the one lurking behind Ned earlier that morning. That added to the fact that he hadn’t noticed Ned during any of his previous three days’ travel had left him more unsettled than he wanted to admit. Perhaps the boy had simply taken a different road, or benefited from Ruith’s weariness. Or perhaps he was simply adept at keeping himself undetected.

That seemed to be his only skill, though. That and blurting out whatever seemed to enter his wee head before any sort of guard he might have put on his tongue could convince him to do otherwise. At least he was fetching enough to pass for a gel, though slightly too tall.

Sarah, on the other hand, was far too lovely to be a lad and perfectly incapable of walking like anything but a wench. Ruith glanced at her, then closed his eyes briefly. No one would mistake her for anything but what she was because she carried herself like a gel. That and her hair—the color of cognac, he decided abruptly—kept escaping her braid, which she had managed somehow to wrap around her head and tuck under Ned’s hat.