"Just giving him a hard time," Brynn said, frowning. "It's nothing personal."
"Right now, we've got two of your friends missing," Leah said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and fixing Brynn with a solid stare. "It's not the time to be joking. People have died."
"I've always found the best time to lighten the mood is when things are the worst," Brynn replied softly. She met the steel gaze. "It's good to remember that even in the dark, a little light goes a long way."
Leah glanced at Daron, and then nodded, much to his surprise. Martin stood watching the exchange, a smile ghosting across his lips as he watched Brynn.
He deliberately led them in a winding path distantly away from Mediya. The townsfolk had endured enough, and seeing them again so soon would only reopen fresh wounds. Finding Jarod was a much more pressing priority. They trudged through the forest in silence, growing fears and worries pressing down on him. What would they do if his companions couldn't be found? He refused to give voice to the other alternative, but the thoughts plagued him with each leaden step.
It didn't take long to find their trail, cold by only a few hours. From there, it was a simple matter to backtrack, though they moved at a sluggish pace, spread out and eying the surrounding forest carefully for any sign of their missing companions, in case they'd come near by. It was a fruitless effort.
When they arrived, they found the camp nearly untouched. The fires had long since burned themselves out, leaving beds of white, chalky coals behind. Their prisoner was nowhere to be seen, however, the cage's gate swinging with a ear-piercing screech in the morning breeze. They did a more thorough search this time, but turned up nothing useful. He didn't want to stay too overly long. If the other bandits had found their prisoner, they could be returning to the camp at any moment.
"Martin, is there anything you can do to track them?" Daron asked as they met back up in the center of the camp. The open and empty cages gave him shivers. He contemplated hacking them apart, his indestructible sword more than up for the challenge, but it would alert anyone in the area to their presence and take far too long. Still, it galled him that they sat there, a naked testament to whatever sinister things were happening in the area.
"You would have more experience at tracking than I," Martin said. "I'm afraid I don't quite have the knack for it."
"Can't you do something magic? Divine their location, or make some sort of magical compass to lead to them?"
Martin laughed, and Daron felt his cheeks flush. How was he to know what a sorceror could or could not do? Stories his parents had read to him as a kid had all sorts of fantastical elements like that. Given he'd witness the historian blast a hole in a man with lightning, why was this such a far fetched idea?
"Oh, gods no," Martin snickered. "Nothing like that. Magic is about redirecting energy. Taking in some, letting it out in other ways."
Daron frowned. "How is calling lightning redirecting energy? You created that from nothing."
"Certainly not from nothing," Martin replied. He gestured to the tree at the end of the camp, which had withered as Daron had watched the night before. "It took quite a bit of energy to do that, actually. I pulled it from the tree, and transformed it into lightning."
Brynn's eyes lit up, her inner curiosity bubbling to the surface. "Can you do that with any types of energy? Like thermal energy or kinetic energy?"
At this, Leah's eyes grew flat and withdrawn. The others seemed to not notice the change, but Daron could see the set of her shoulders and could almost hear her teeth grinding. Had she some experience with magic? It seemed unlikely, Daron decided. They would have had a better chance the night before if she'd been able to call lightning and consume foes with flame, to say nothing of the night he'd first met her. Still, her demeanor implied something was amiss. He watched her carefully as Martin spoke.
Martin nodded cheerfully, clearly happy to have someone listening and understanding like a student for a teacher. Daron remained skeptical, not entirely sure what the historian was trying to explain. It certainly sounded too much like a few of his classes at the academy.
"I can see you are uncertain," Martin said to him, reading his demeanor. "Allow me to demonstrate. If my beautiful assistant here would punch me?"
Brynn hesitated for a moment, glancing at Daron, and then shrugged. She slammed her fist into Martin's stomach, blasting the breath out of him. He staggered back a few steps, doubling over. Leah barked out a laugh that rang through the small clearing, and then clapped her hands over her mouth, stifling continued snickering.
"That heart much less than it should have," Martin wheezed, placing his hands on his knees and forcing himself to breathe. Daron couldn't help but smile, and even Leah cracked a smile. "I absorbed a portion of the energy of the punch, lessening it's impact." He coughed and looked like he might empty his stomach, but pulled himself up to full height. His face was glowing red. Martin held up one hand, which blossomed into writhing red flames. Leah took two steps back from the group.
"I then convert some of that energy into flame." He frowned at the flames dancing across his hand. "I'm not terribly fond of transforming it to fire," he admitted. "It's usually the first thing you learn to do, and it's simply unimaginative." The flames flared from red down to a deep violet, and then suddenly flared blue. Daron watched in awe. The sky-blue fire pulled together into a sphere, hovering just above his outstretched hand. He lobbed it away disdainfully at a cage, where it vanished in a puff.
"You can absorb fire, and then?" Leah asked. Despite her reservations, she'd watched the minor display with a look of awe mixed with revulsion.
"Certainly I could," Martin declared. "But, like the punch, most of the energy would not be taken in, and I would wind up with one severely overcooked fist and one small gout of fire." Leah nodded, her eyes growing distant in a look that Daron was beginning to recognize as heavy thinking. She seemed frequently trapped in her own thoughts, something Daron could sympathize with.
"There is very little energy to be gained from a punch like that, no offense to the talented lady here," Martin continued, winking at Brynn. Daron thought he saw her blush, as unlikely as that was, given his experience. "Further, it needs to be directed. Energy is simply work waiting to happen. If I focus it, it becomes something useful."
"Focus it?" Daron asked, his own curiosity starting to grow. He'd never seen a sorceror up close. They weren't entirely common, and while it had been centuries since the church had declared their kind as abominations, it was still something that was rarely displayed for others to see.
Martin frowned, searching for the words. He then gestured upwards to the overcast slate colored sky. "Imagine the sun. The light shines forth everywhere. It is useful, of course, but hardly focused. Take a lens, say, from a telescope, and focus that light however..."
"You start a fire," Daron nodded. "What is your focus, and then?"
"My body, naturally. That energy focuses through me and into what I will it. I can be further focused with properly constructed devices. A wand or a staff." Martin scowled and waved his hand dismissively. "I prefer not to use one. Besides being horribly conspicuous, not to mention exceptionally tacky, becoming used to doing magic with one and finding yourself without is problematic. Best not to rely on a crutch."
"You can't track Jarod because you're just converting energy," Daron reasoned. "Fire to light, or a punch into lightning. You can't just divine a location, or fly or anything."
Martin poked him in the chest for emphasis. "Precisely." Daron rubbed at the sore spot while Brynn snickered at him.
"Then how did you use the tree?"
"Life is energy too," Martin said quietly. He sounded wistful, almost sad. "It's why they seared all the grass around my cage. I could have used that to blow the lock apart."
"You can pull energy from other people as well," Leah said. Daron was struck by how awed she sounded. While this was his own first brush with such sorcery, the way she spoke sounded reverent.
Realization dawned on him. He'd been too exhausted to think things through when Martin had apologized to him, and thought of the cold sensation he'd felt as the historian had melted the lock.
"That's what you took from me," Daron said, eyes going wide. Martin merely nodded. "Is it dangerous?"
"You've got plenty to spare," Martin snorted. "It's not like I stole a part of your soul. Well, not stole, but maybe borrowed. A minute amount at the most." Daron frowned at the answer, feeling a little taken aback at the idea of his soul fueling such sorcery, but shook the feeling away. He was more rational than that. Giving in to childish superstitions was worthless. Still, he wasn't eager to repeat the experience.
"Couldn't you have used your own?" Brynn asked.
"Alas, it does not work that way," Martin sighed. "From what I know of the Order, you can't heal yourself, but can heal others. Same thing here. We use an external force, mix it with a bit of our own energy, but the majority comes externally."
"It's not all energy you absorb?"
"No," Martin admitted. "I pull from the outside, but have to use a bit of my own energy to ignite it, so to speak. If I do too much, I'll tire myself out drastically, having used up all my fuel. In a manner of speaking."
"Same with myself and cantrips," Daron said, nodding. "We're channeling divine energy from the gods, but we still use a bit of our own energy to cause things to happen. Do too much, and you'll find yourself exhausted fairly quick."
"There's limits on what I can pull in, and how long I can hold it," Martin said. "With practice, I can hold quite a bit, but it slowly fades away. I can always grab more, though."
"That seems exceptionally powerful," Daron said slowly. He looked at the man who claimed to be a historian in a new light, and kept himself from taking a step back. A man who could call fire and lightning, steal energy from others around him, was a force to be reckoned with.
Martin shook his head. "A body is an exceptionally poor focus for such energy. It would be all too easy to burn myself out like a dry thrown in a fire. The range I can pull from is extremely limited as well, as you can see." He waved a hand at the cage he'd previously occupied, with the grass torn clean in a circle around it.
"Still," he said thoughtfully, pointing a finger at it. The grass about them began to wither to gray. Daron unconsciously jumped back, outside the circle Martin was pulling from. To her credit, Brynn simply watched in abject fascination, while Leah scrutinzed the historian, as if trying to see how he did it. Daron saw nothing, but an unseen force reached out and slapped at the cage like swatting a fly, sending the heavy iron box tumbling a dozen feet away into the woods. The bars collapsed in on themselves like a toy made of tin, crushed by a giant's hand.
"I'm not without my strengths," he finished, his voice dripping with smugness. Daron swallowed reflexively at the display, and wondered how he'd ever manage to fight someone like that, if it came to it. If whoever was behind the abductions was a sorceror, he likely had possession of the same abilities.
"Can anyone learn it?" Brynn asked.
"Sadly, no," Martin said, shaking his head. "Most come to it in their early teens, though a few gifted individuals may discover it much later in life." He paused thoughtfully, like he was about to continue, and then sighed and shook his head.
"What about using the bodies of the departed?" Daron thought out loud. "Or magic that uses a living person as part of the spell?"
Martin laughed, shaking his head. He clapped Daron on the shoulder. "No such thing. There is only sorcery, and it only changes energy from one type to another. I'm honestly a bit surprised you haven't been educated in this manner. It wasn't too long ago the church had Witch-Hunters burning my kind down."
"That was a long time ago," Daron said, a little hotter than he'd anticipated.
"Wholesale slaughter of a particular people tends to leave a lasting impressing," Martin said dryly. "It's one of the things that drove the Takarians away from the church."
Daron knew that Takarians in general had significant differences with the Order on a variety of dogmatic beliefs, but generally they still were similar. He realized that aside from the sorceror's timely help the night before, he knew little about their new companion. He'd have to correct that. He reminded Daron a lot of Brynn and her myopic pursuit of knowledge, always fascinated by things he found uninteresting. Something about the jovial man put a smile on his face, though he felt something acidic behind the comments about the church. The detached analysis of a historian, or something more personal?
"No, certainly there's never been any recorded use of such magic, anyway. In seven thousand years of well documented history, it seems unlikely to have slipped through. I'd say it's more likely someone is pretending to have power to hold sway over, ah, less intelligent people."
It seemed sound to Daron, though it paid to be cautious. The historian was likely right. He had to admit, he liked the man, despite everything. Could he really blame the man for holding differing beliefs? Aiden certainly would. He made a mental note to keep the two separated once the group was reunited. He could only imagine the arguments that would spring forth if both were given leave to speak their minds.
"Now what, venerable leader?" Leah said after a moment. Her eyes were still locked on the broken and mangled cage. She seemed less withdrawn. Enough to have a quip at Daron's expense, anyway.
"Brynn, can you find where you ambushed the sentries last night?" Daron asked.
"Of course, sir."
"Be careful making me the leader," Daron said gravely. "You'd make a perfect shield against bullets if I ordered you to walk at the front."
She fixed him with a mocking smile. They desperately needed to find the others. Then someone competent would be in charge. He had no idea why they were looking to him, but he wanted nothing to do with it.
"Walk, Justice," he commanded, shooing her into motion with one hand.
Much to his disappointment, rain began to fall as they left the camp. The wind had picked up slightly, driving the stinging cold right into them. The trees were of little protection with most of their leaves already shed. He'd weathered worse, but usually with some good sleep and warm food in the near past.
Daron's heart quickened as he spied a body laying face down amidst well trampled leaves. He held up one shaking hand, battling down the fears that threatened to overwhelm him. Everyone came to a reverent halt without a word. Daron hesitated, and then squatted beside the form.
With one hand, he flipped the figure, and let out an explosive breath of relief. Sightless eyes gazed upwards into the pattering rain, but they didn't belong to his friends. He almost laughed as a giddy feeling rose within, but quickly squashed it, offering a quick apology to the gods.
"Daron?" Leah called from a few yards away, around the trunk of a gnarled tree. Patting the shoulder of the dead man, Daron rose and approached. The feeling evaporated. Two Oathblades jutted from the forest floor, rain dripping down the worn leather grips.
"This means nothing," Daron said as emphatically as he could. It sounded hollow to his own ears. "No one but them could have put those blades in the ground. They left here alive."
Without waiting for a response, he started a meticulous search of the dead leaves and underbrush, looking for any sign where they might have gone. The busywork helped keep his mind focused. It was all too easy for his thoughts to drift to what might befall their companions. Kerris apparently needed live people for some purpose, and they had taken almost fifty away from his grasp. Retaliation was inevitable.
"Over here," Leah called, squatting and looking at the detritus that littered the forest floor. Daron half ran over to her, thankful for any distraction. He could see the leaves disturbed where she gestured, but how it differed from the general chaos churned up during the fight was beyond him.
"They lead off this direction," she continued.
"Your ability to tell one pile of mangled leaves from another is impressive," Martin said.
"My uncle taught me a bit about tracking," Leah said, blushing. "Enough to know a half dozen went off in this direction, anyway."
"Keep together and silent," Daron snapped. He paused and sighed. Emotions were getting frayed, and if he was going to be the damned leader, he couldn't start snapping at them now. It wasn't their fault. He took a shuddering breath to calm himself, and glanced around. The three were watching him, clearly worried. That just angered him more.
He motioned for Leah to take the lead, not trusting himself to speak again. She nodded and drew her sword, setting off at a slow and determined pace. Daron and Brynn produced their own weapons. Martin shrugged and followed behind, hands stuffed blissfully in his pockets, as if he were on an afternoon stroll.
The rain continued to hammer down, driven by the wind. The leaves grew slick under their feet, threatening to spill him with every few steps. At least the rain helped cover any noise they might make. A small comfort in the miserable weather, but at this point he'd take any help that could come their way. It wasn't until lightning flashed that he realized how bad the storm was getting. The forest lit in reverse for a moment, dark becoming brilliant white, leaving a glow across his vision.
Time passed in one long waterlogged blur. Leah paused every few dozen yards, checking at signs that were invisible to his eyes, but always seemed sure of the direction to take. She led in silence, the same haunted look locked onto her face once more. She might be tracking, but she was barely here with them. It was a bad situation for her. She'd just lost her uncle, and was now dealing with some dark things thrust upon her.
I should send her away, Daron thought, watching her as she glided along. He doubted she'd be willing to leave, but how could he ask her into this situation when she already had a mountain of her own troubles heaped upon her? He needed every bit of help he could with this, though. Even if that meant straining her further, he needed her. Somehow, he'd have to find a way to make it up to her, but as he watched her slumped shoulders and hollow eyes, he wondered if the damage was too much already.
Gods forgive me, Daron thought. I'm doing what I have to, but is that enough? There was no answer in the vault of his mind.
Finally she paused and motioned for the others to gather. Daron blinked the water from his eyes and strained to see what she was pointing to. Apparently copper eyes also gave a supernatural ability to see better. He saw nothing but more drenched forest, identical to the last few miles they'd slogged through.
He was about to urge her forward when he finally saw movement. A patrol of three men, walking briskly through the trees perhaps half a hundred yards further on. They moved with purpose, heading on an angle from Daron's hidden group, in the direction the tracks had led them. They vanished into the dense trees a few moments later.
"We're close," Leah whispered, hunkering down next to Daron. "We'll have them back soon."
"As long as there's only a handful to deal with," Daron muttered.
"If there's more?"
"Then we have a serious problem," Daron said. "We'll have to try and get help. This has to be far from Upper Terrin's jurisdiction, so there won't be any help from the guards. Maybe Tel could figure something out."
"You rely on others too much," Leah said, frowning. "Trust in yourself. You're the only always there for you."
"I'd trust myself better if I had a small army behind me," Daron said dryly. "Besides, I have you."
Leah smiled, which suddenly made the biting cold less miserable.
Daron glanced around one last time, making sure that Brynn and Martin were ready. They nodded their assent.
They gave the patrol a few minutes of lead time, and then set off to follow. It was easier to find their tracks, enough that Daron could clearly see the path they'd taken. They moved at a quicker clip, eyes darting about for any further signs of life. There were none.
The forest dropped away to a large clearing beyond a gentle rise in the ground. Daron motioned for the others to stay hidden, and worked his way up the small hill, bent low to the ground. Voices carried through the air to him, vague and indistinct. He felt his throat tighten. That wasn't the sound of a few men.
Sliding forward on his belly through the grass, he peeked over the rise. His eyes widened as an encampment came into view.
"Wodyr's damned hand," Daron swore.
An army sprawled out before him, nestled in the bowl of the clearing. Campfires were being put out as men gathered into marching formation at the edge of the clearing, rows upon rows of soldiers preparing to move out. In their direction.
Behind the forming army Daron could just make out two forms, arms shackled behind them, standing before a large pavilion tent. Even at this distance he could make out Jarod and Aiden, though Jarod sagged where he stood, barely supporting his own weight. Any thought he had of rescue evaporated as a clear trumpet called through the clearing, and the men began to surge forward in lockstep unison. Far beyond the open expanse of the camp, Daron could see shapes shifting in the trees, moving in slow, angular steps. More men?
Ignoring any stealth, he sprinted back down the slow rise, gesticulating frantically as he ran. The others stepped out from behind trees, clearly concerned by the trumpet call. He dashed past them, urging everyone to follow.
"Run!" he bellowed without slowing. "An army marches!"
Chapter 17.