The Storyspinner (30 page)

Chapter 92

Leão

Leão doubled back the instant he heard Jacaré’s whistle, knowing that something was amiss. He urged his animal to gallop, and it did for ten body lengths before smashing headfirst into an invisible wall.

Its neck broke on impact, twisting far to one side and throwing Leão into the barrier. His right arm bore the brunt of the collision, crumpling under the force.

He felt the bones shatter, he heard the ominous crack, but the pain didn’t register. For a moment his mind was perfectly clear; every sensation, every detail slipped into acute sharpness. Pine needles fell from a tree, spinning in the air before coming to rest on his cheek. Their smell sharp and pungent. A few poked through his shirt, jabbing him in the back.

The
essência
of another Mage, powerful and unfamiliar, was impossible to ignore now, as were the fainter sensations of other people nearby.

The deer,
he realized.
All the deer around our camp last night were masking the Keeper’s presence.

Then the pain hit.

Leão groaned, keeping his teeth clenched shut to stop himself from screaming. He tried to find his
essência
, but it slipped away.

“Relax,” he said aloud. “Ignore the pain.”

Something shrieked in the distance. Smoke filled the air. Jacaré’s voice filtered through the woods, but Leão couldn’t make out the words.

With a deep breath he tried again. The power to mend his arm was there, just out of reach, but pain blocked his access to it.

“Come
on.
”

There was a twang of crossbow bolts. The sky south of him flashed orange.

Fireball.

He forced himself to sit up as images of his crew, burned, bloody, and dying, raced across his mind. They’d all try to protect Johanna, with Pira as the last line of defense. Her blue eyes would narrow with concentration. She’d use every skill, all her power, and it wouldn’t be enough.

“No.” Leão smashed his uninjured fist against the dirt.

She’d disappear in a flash of flame, nothing but blackened bones remaining.

“No.” The earth crumpled as he punched it again.

Johanna would be killed, and their mission would fail.

“No!” The next blow exploded before his fist met the ground, shaking the trees around him. The trail buckled, rolling away from the force of his raw, unfiltered
essência
. The energy forced his bones into alignment, replacing one pain with another.

Under his freshly repaired hand, the transparent wall felt as solid as granite. It shattered under Leão’s touch.

He rushed past his horse’s corpse, toward the screams and smoke.

I’m coming,
he thought.
And someon
e’
s going to die.

Chapter 93

Johanna

“How far have we come?” Johanna slid off Breaker’s back and knelt next to the stream. The horse drank greedily as she filled her canteen.

“Not far enough.” Pira cupped water and poured it over her head, letting it drip down her shirt. “You better hope your friends are actually following us. I can’t stand against power like that alone.”

Who could?

The stream of fire had been so bright that it marred Johanna’s vision for hours. She wasn’t certain anyone could survive such intense heat.

And now what?

Johanna was exhausted; the horses were heaving. They’d ridden so far, but their mounts couldn’t take any more punishment, and Pira said she wasn’t capable of healing more than a few scratches. They couldn’t cover any ground until the animals recovered naturally.

Worse, Johanna doubted they’d make it to Santiago without something awful following her into the state.

“We
could
cross the marsh,” Pira said, but her eyes were distant, focused inward.

“That will slow the horses down. We’ll spend more time hauling them out than moving forward.” Johanna had traveled all over Santarem and knew exactly how dangerous the marshes could be. Her troupe once spent an entire day strengthening a bridge so that the wagons could cross without sinking.

“You’ve never crossed a marsh with a Keeper like me.” Pira’s face broke into a crazed sort of smile. “With any hope, whoever is following us hasn’t either.”

The road had been built to circumvent the marsh completely, and Johanna couldn’t see any way to cross without sinking into the murky black sludge that hugged the roots of mangrove trees. Patches of grass looked like stable territory, but most wouldn’t hold Johanna’s weight and would swallow Breaker in a matter of heartbeats.

And if the stagnant water wasn’t bad enough, the creatures inhabiting it certainly would be. Black caimans were notoriously hazardous to people who tried to fish the marshes. The giant reptiles would wait for the perfect moment before lunging out of the water and crushing their prey with crocodilian jaws.

Johanna shuddered. “This is a very bad idea. We could be bitten or poisoned or drown in this mess—”

“We die if we get caught.” Pira waded into the murk. “We might die this way too, but I’ll choose ‘might die’ over ‘will die.’ ”

Johanna watched as Pira carefully threaded her way through the trees and over a weed-covered landmass. She never sank deeper than her ankles, and despite her horse’s rolling eyes, it didn’t disappear into a sink hole.

Pira’s path wasn’t straight, but she moved forward with purpose. “You coming?” she shouted over her shoulder.

“Won’t someone just follow our tracks?”

“There are no tracks in this mess.” There was a challenge in Pira’s tone, and while Johanna hated to admit it, she saw no other option.

*    *    *

For hours they moved forward at a steady pace. “How are you doing this?” Johanna finally asked. “Is this a special Keeper power?”

Pira snorted. “You could say that.”

“So what makes this possible?” Johanna couldn’t figure out how Pira chose where to put her feet. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the path she picked.

“I can sense metal, where it is, and how much there might be.” Pira moved like she could see a road that was invisible to Johanna. “I only take a step where the concentration is the heaviest, because I know there is something under the water besides more water or weeds or roots.”

Twice as they crossed the marsh, Pira couldn’t find a spot dense enough to support their weight so they had to back up. The delays made Johanna’s teeth chatter with fear, knowing every second brought an unnamed enemy closer. And yet, they eventually emerged from the marsh—filthy, bug bitten, and exhausted—but otherwise unharmed. The animals and snakes kept their distance, sticking to the banks, and absorbing the sunshine. All unfazed by two women moving through their territory.

More importantly, they’d managed to cut a day’s ride in half.

“Are we far enough ahead now?” Johanna asked as she cleaned mud out of Breaker’s hooves. Even with the lead they’d managed, they couldn’t risk a lame horse slowing them down.

Pira grabbed a handful of weeds and did the same thing for her horse. “I doubt it.”

Chapter 94

Jacaré

Jacaré knelt among the dead, leaning against his sword to stay upright. He was responsible for four of the bodies. The fifth, lying a little farther from the rest with a loaded crossbow at its side, had been Leão’s doing.

The younger Keeper had saved Jacaré’s life, slaying the bowman with a bolt of lightning before disappearing into the woods to hunt the Mage.

“Anything?” Jacaré asked as Leão returned to the trail. “Any sign of them?”

“No. After the fire and the wall, he may not have had enough
essência
left. But Jacaré . . .” He paused and ran a thumb over his eyebrow. It left an ash mark on his forehead. “I found Tex.”

“Oh.”

Dying in one blast from some unknown Mage?
Jacaré shook his head, cursing the cruelty of Mother Lua. Tex had lived through so much.
I should have left him in Olinda, given him the chance to die in his bed. Not that Tex would have appreciated that.

The sudden loss was a knife keenly edged. Tex’s death cut deep, tearing a thread from the tapestry of Jacaré’s life. He’d been one of the only people alive who understood Jacaré, who remembered what life had been like before.

Unless this enemy is an old one . . .

Using his sword like a crutch, Jacaré pushed himself to standing. “Lead me to Tex,” he said, fighting off waves of dizziness and emotion. “We’ll take care of his body.”

“And then?” Leão asked, his voice soft in the failing light.

“And then we finish this.”

Chapter 95

Rafi

Every night Vibora disappeared into the woods to collect the materials she needed for fresh “medicine” for the horses. Her servant, Lucas, stumbled along a few steps behind her.

What a fool I’ve been,
Rafi thought as he listened for her step to fade away.
I didn’t even ask what she was giving the horses because
I was so grateful that it worked. Why was it so easy to trust her?

Snout knelt over the fire, boiling water for their evening meal. His two guardsmen gathered wood at the camp’s perimeter. Rafi waited till he was sure they were out of earshot to begin.

“Snout, I think Vibora is working some sort of magic.” The words sounded insane as soon as they left his mouth. “I don’t know how it’s possible—”

“I think she’s taking energy from Lucas and using it to fuel the horses,” Snout said. “Every time she goes off into the woods with him, he comes back looking like he’s one step closer to the grave. Minutes later, the horses are stomping and twitching like they’ve been penned up for days.”

“Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“I was trying to work out a plan before I mentioned my suspicions.” The tracker shrugged. “I don’t know anything about witches, but I know she’s not a good person.”

“What is she capable of?”

“I don’t know that, either, Lord Rafi.” Snout scratched the side of his nose and straightened. “If we’re going to stop her, it will have to be a surprise. I’ve been thinking that we might be able to take care of her while she sleeps.”

Rafi called the guardsmen over. One stood close enough to hear, but with his back to the fires so he could see when Vibora returned. They worked together to lay out a plan. Snout would incapacitate Lucas, and the other three would knock out Vibora. While she was out, they’d drizzle a sleeping tincture into her mouth. It wasn’t brave and it wasn’t honorable, but it might work.

As they were finalizing the details, a dark figure stepped out of the woods, and all of Rafi’s carefully laid plans evaporated.

Chapter 96

Johanna

Johanna smelled of rotten leaves and marsh sludge. Her hair hadn’t been washed in days and stood all over her head at crazy angles.

And she didn’t care.

“Rafi.” It was said on an inhale and the sound couldn’t have carried very far, but somehow he heard her voice across the clearing.

He moved slowly at first, blinking and shaking his head, like he couldn’t believe who stood in front of his eyes. Then he was sprinting, hurdling saddles, startling the horses, and crushing her in his arms.

She dropped Breaker’s lead rope to return the embrace, pressing him as close as physically possible.

“Johanna, Johanna.” He whispered her name like a secret, his lips moving against her hair.

She pressed her cheek against his neck, dark scruff scratching her skin. It felt perfect; it felt safe.

“I should have known that if anyone could,
you
would find a way to escape.”

“And I knew you’d be out here looking for me.”

Before she could question propriety or decorum, Johanna did what felt right. Rising up on her toes, she brushed her lips over Rafi’s.

It was a simple kiss, the merest contact. She pulled back, face flaming, heart skipping, but Rafi didn’t let go. Kissing her once, twice. Nervously, then hungrily.

If the men watching murmured, she didn’t notice. If Pira, lurking in the shadows, growled her distaste, Johanna didn’t care. His arms were around her waist; her fingers were in his hair.

It didn’t last long enough.

Someone cried out; Johanna and Rafi jerked apart, turning as one of the guardsmen stumbled into the fire. Snout grabbed the man’s shirt and rolled him to the side. The quick action saved the tracker’s life as an arrow whisked over his head. The second guardsman wasn’t as lucky. A bolt shot clean through his throat, exploding through the back of his neck.

“Run!” Snout shouted. The arrow that caught him in the back spun him in a tight circle before he dropped to the ground.

Rafi took one faltering step forward and froze. His shirt was pasted against his chest as if he was caught in a stiff breeze, no part of him moved except his wide-open eyes.

Johanna yanked on his arm, trying to force him into action, but even her strongest pull did no good.

“There’s no use trying to move him,” Vibora said as she strode into the camp. A collared slave with a loaded short bow followed a few steps behind. He aimed the arrow at the center of Rafi’s chest. “I’ve got him wrapped in a pocket of air. It’s so tight he’s probably having a hard time breathing.”

Instinctively Johanna reached for the dagger always in her sleeve. But her wrist had been bare for days. Pira hadn’t returned Johanna’s weapons. She had nothing, no way to defend herself except feet and fists, but with any hope she had
someone.

Pira, please be close enough to hear me. Please know I’m in trouble.

“Let him go!” Johanna shouted, using her stage voice to fill the clearing with sound.

Vibora clicked her tongue. “You are a vehement little thing.”

“Please, you don’t need him. You’ve been after me the whole time.” Johanna stepped out from behind Rafi, holding her arms out wide. The slave swiveled, training his weapon on Johanna as she moved. “I’m here. Kill me, take me, whatever you want, but let him go.”

Vibora stepped over Snout’s body, worked her way around the fire, and stooped next to a black saddle. “What in the world do you have to offer me? I hold all the cards.” Digging around for a moment, she found a collar just like the one her slave wore.

“Not quite. I have information I know you’ll want.” If Pira still waited outside the camp—that had been their plan till Johanna could explain why she brought one of her kidnappers with her—she’d have to be close.

“About the Keepers you’ve been traveling with?” Vibora opened the clasp on the collar with a small key she wore around her neck. “I knew it had to be someone with magic. They couldn’t have covered so much distance without it.”

“If you let Rafi go, then I’ll tell you everything I know about them. Their names, their powers, where they are now.” Something smacked into the back of Johanna’s hand.

What was that . . .

It fell to the ground with a tiny plink, but in the firelight she saw that the pebble sparkled with metallic speckles.

“As soon as I get this around your neck, you’ll tell me anyway.”

A second pebble caught Johanna in the cheek, forcing her head to turn to the camp’s north side. She couldn’t be certain, but something Pira-size moved between the trees.

Keep talking. Keep Vibora distracted till Pira can do whatever she has planned.

“Oh, I think you’ll want to know everything about these men before you turn me into a mindless slave.” She tried to smile, to keep Vibora guessing. “Especially about the Keeper who has known you since before he crossed the wall.”

That did get Vibora’s attention. “He must be incredibly old. And probably just a weak soldier. Anyone on assignment from the Mage Council is a Keeper they could afford to lose.”

Whatever Vibora had done to the collar was finished, and she straightened from beside the saddlebag. “Now let’s just get this on—”

“Even if it’s Jacaré?”

The woman’s confident smirk melted into a soft O of surprise. She recovered quickly. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Johanna didn’t either, but it didn’t matter, because at that moment Pira let loose a storm of rocks that pelted Vibora. The woman took one shot to the head and fell to her knees. The bowman immediately followed, his weapon clattering to the ground beside him.

Rafi gasped; his lungs filled with air as Vibora’s hold on him disappeared.

Pira materialized from between the trees, a short sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. “Get on that horse and ride,” she commanded. “You know where I’ll meet you.”

“But—”

“If I’m not there by dawn, tell Jacaré I’m sorry and Leão—”

The rest of her words were cut off by an angry growl. A dizzy Vibora struggled to her feet, one hand pressed to the back of her head, blood streaming from every place her skin was bare.

“Go!” Pira shouted, dropping into a defensive crouch.

Rafi didn’t let Johanna stay to watch. He grabbed her arm and yanked her toward Breaker.

The startled horse rushed out of the camp with the sound of a tornado on his tail.