“This way,” he whispered.
“Someone’s coming, right?” Lakeo whispered back.
“A mage, yes. Probably more.”
They couldn’t see the front of the house or the road to the gate from here, so they would have to trust Yanko’s senses. He led the way down the path toward the greenhouses and the orchard, at a pace that was less than ideal. Falcon did his best to swing along on the crutches, but he had to be biting his tongue not to cry out every time he jostled his leg or shoulder.
The path curved, and Yanko got his first look at the gate and the village beyond the split-rail fence. Several armored carriages were rolling along the cobblestones, lanterns burning at their fronts and rears. One had already passed through the gate and onto the property. It had stopped about two dozen meters from the house. Two people stood outside, having a discussion, one in simple traveling clothing but another in a robe. Even with the lanterns on the carriage, Yanko struggled to determine its color, which might have given him a clue as to the mage’s specialty and possibly who he worked for, but all he could tell was that it was dark.
A third figure crouched atop the carriage, as still as a statue, almost like an animal testing the wind. From this distance, Yanko couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but he or she wore light colors, a flowing garment that wrapped around the body and covered most of the face too. A matching cloak hung from the person’s shoulders. Yanko didn’t recognize the style or color as being part of a uniform. The garments almost appeared white, an unusual hue in color-loving Nuria. The hilts of two swords poked over the same shoulder, someone who favored a pair of long blades rather than the more typical combination of longsword and kyzar.
Falcon hissed softly. “That’s a mage hunter.”
A chill went through Yanko at his words. He had heard of mage hunters, but mostly in legend. He hadn’t been certain they truly existed, at least not in the modern world.
“A what?” Lakeo asked.
“An assassin who specializes in hunting mages,” Falcon said. The darkness hid his features, but Yanko could feel Falcon’s frank eyes turning in his direction. “I’m surprised he or she—I’m not sure of the sex, are you?—is traveling with a mage. They’re reputed to absolutely loathe magic users.”
“Something that we can have fun discussing once we’re far away from here,” Yanko said, waving everyone onward, wanting to reach the orchard and from there head to the pines and firs that rose from the hills above the lake. The darkness alone was poor camouflage, especially against a wizard. Maybe he was delusional in thinking they could elude their pursuit under any circumstances. Mage hunter. He hadn’t read a great deal about the secretive organization of assassins, but he knew they weren’t called hunters for no reason.
“Some of them are going inside,” Lakeo whispered as they slipped behind the greenhouses, using them for cover.
“Looking for us? Or for something in the house?” Falcon paused to wipe sweat from his brow, but he was the first to lead them up the trail toward the apple and pear trees.
“Uh, they didn’t tell me.”
Something brushed at Yanko’s senses, a probe sweeping across the foothills. “The mage is trying to find us,” he whispered, then paused, his hand against the trunk of a tree. He closed his eyes and groped for a way to hide his group. His aching brain protested, and he lamented that he hadn’t found any time to sleep since the attack at the mine. If he blacked out again, he would be a tremendous burden on the others. Still, if the mage sensed them out here, he would have no trouble leading his people in the right direction.
“Stop moving for a moment,” he whispered.
Yanko had played hide-and-seek games with one of the tutors who had taught him for a short time, and he had learned to disguise himself to her senses, making her believe he was a tree. Sometimes it had worked, but usually she had been too sharp to be fooled by his boyish attempts. Wishing he had practiced the game more, Yanko did his best to mask their three auras, to give off the impression that they were simply trees in the orchard.
He felt the probe sweep across them again, and he wondered if his attempt was coming too late, if the mage had sensed them before he had attempted his camouflage.
But the presence left his mind, and nobody rushed around the corner of the house.
“I think they’re all inside now.” Lakeo pointed to lights moving behind the windows.
“Better try to reach the forest then,” Falcon said. “Yanko?”
“Yes. I think... I may have fooled the mage, for the moment. I’ll keep doing my best.”
Neither of them commented on how bolstered they felt by his statement. Maybe he should have sounded less uncertain, but he didn’t want to promise something that might not be true.
They reached the end of the orchard and clambered up the trail and into the woods. It grew narrower and rockier as they traveled up a path that wasn’t used as often as those around the house and gardens. Falcon’s crutches slipped off rocks, the clunks and scrapes making them all wince, and Yanko had to keep him from falling more than once.
“Some bodyguard I am,” Falcon muttered to himself.
“It’s dark enough that any of us could trip and fall off a cliff,” Lakeo whispered.
Since Yanko had to stay behind his brother and steady him when needed, she was leading. He wished he could provide a small illumination orb, but that would stand out like a lighthouse to anyone below. He wasn’t sure what the men in the carriages still in the village were doing, but the occasional shouts of a search party came to his ears. Maybe the people thought Yanko and his brother would hide out in someone else’s house? He hoped they didn’t find the carriage he had stashed, not that it mattered right now. They couldn’t reach it without revealing themselves.
“Take a right at the first fork,” Yanko instructed. “There’s a cliff that way.”
“Oh, good. My falling dream can come true.”
“It overlooks the village and the homestead. We can watch them from there.” Now that they had climbed into the forest, Yanko couldn’t see much behind them, and he didn’t dare reach out with his senses.
The darkness made them slow, and it took twenty minutes of huffing and grunting before they reached the fork and another ten to reach the cliff. As soon as Yanko stopped, crouching so he wouldn’t stand out on the bare rocks, Falcon flopped to the ground. Lakeo came and knelt beside Yanko.
“It doesn’t look like anyone has thought to look for us in the forest yet.” Lakeo pointed to a couple of lanterns bobbing along the lakeshore toward the dock and canoes.
“No. I wish I’d thought to untie one of those canoes and send it out there as a decoy. As it is, once it’s morning, they may be able to visually follow our trail.” Yanko didn’t say it, but Falcon’s crutches would make distinctive marks in the earth.
“This isn’t quite the soft, leafy bed you promised me.” Lakeo patted the cold rock beneath them. The temperature lay only a few degrees above freezing, and they hadn’t had time to grab blankets.
A lone figure stepped out on the path behind the house, the clothing lighter than everyone else’s. That mage hunter? The person faced the hills, and Yanko shivered as the gaze passed over them. He told himself the hunter was simply hoping to see something and that was it. Still, he couldn’t help but hunker lower, trying to blend in with the rocks.
“Almost positive that’s a woman,” Lakeo whispered.
“What?” That had been the last thing on Yanko’s mind, but he had been wondering earlier.
“The way she walks, stands. I thought I saw some boobs when she was crouching up there on the carriage. Probably bound so she doesn’t bounce when she’s fighting.”
Yanko didn’t know whether to find the information useful or to be indifferent. He couldn’t let himself assume that a woman would be less dangerous. Not when his mother had reputedly been an unstoppable force during the wars. Surely anyone trained to be an assassin could slice his entrails up into mince meat an
d leave them on the rocks for the buzzards.
A second carriage, one that had been back in the village, rolled through the front gate. Unlike the armored vehicles, this was an open-air bamboo one, the kind common down in the warmth of Red Sky. Something dark moved around inside. It—or they—didn’t look like people. Yanko wished he had a spyglass—or that he dared use his powers. Perhaps he was far enough away now that the mage wouldn’t sense him if he did.
The carriage rolled to a stop behind the first one, and a dark head thrust out of the window. The ringing bay of a hound pierced the night.
Yanko almost laughed. Oh. He had been imagining a soul construct or some other huge, mutant creation of a wizard.
Lakeo groaned. “Hounds. They’re going to be able to track us easily.”
“Yanko?” Falcon asked.
“Yes, we’ll see. If they have some magical compulsion, they won’t be easy to communicate with.”
The driver stepped out of the carriage and opened the door. The hounds flew out, barely restrained by their leashes. A handler stepped out after them, followed by several men with bows. Yanko thought he picked out a couple of Turgonian firearms in the mix too. The mage hunter walked around the house toward the group. The robed mage strode out of the house shortly after. He carried something dark in his hand. A shirt?
“They’re giving the hounds your scent,” Lakeo said. “Should we run deeper into the hills? Is there a stream out here where we might walk in the water a ways, so they lose our trail?”
“You sound like you’ve been tracked by hounds often,” Falcon remarked.
At first, Lakeo didn’t respond, though a sulkiness seemed to radiate from her. Maybe it was the hunch of her shoulders. “I had to steal some after my mother died, before I figured out people would pay me to carve. Not everybody gets born onto a big plantation or whatever you call that place.”
“You sure you want a bodyguard who steals, Yanko?”
“I don’t steal anymore.”
Yanko didn’t point out the canteens; these were extenuating circumstances. Besides, he was more interested in the hounds, in trying to ascertain if they had any magical aura about them. But he dared not probe openly, not with the mage right there. They might be out of his range, anyway. He would have to wait until they got closer, possibly a dangerous proposition.
The mage came close to the light of the carriage, and the garment he held came into view. “Those are your discarded bandages, Falcon,” Yanko said.
“Great. It’s my blood they’re after.”
“Probably because I didn’t leave any bandages lying around the house.”
The handler unleashed the dogs, and they tore away, the pack splitting, two going around one side of the house and two going the other way, their noses to the ground. Seeing them made Yanko nostalgic for his own hounds. They had been a concession to his father, a way Yanko could help with the family hunts, even if he couldn’t do the actual killing. He had taught the dogs to track and help Falcon and the others, but mostly they had been friends. He hoped that wherever the family had gone, they had taken the pups, and that everyone was all right.
“We’re not staying here, are we?” Lakeo whispered. “They’re already on our trail.”
The hounds had disappeared into the darkness behind the house, but their bays rose above the trees, traveling ahead of them. They were in the orchard, and they would be in the forest soon.
“Yanko.” Falcon touched his shoulder and pointed past him, so he wouldn’t miss it. “The other carriages are going to join in. They’re leaving the village. Where did you say you put the carriage?”
“Thero’s shed behind the bakery.” Yanko waved toward the far end of the village, the end closest to the pass and the road they needed to take to escape.
“If you two take the loop trail, you can probably get to it without being seen.”
“We’ll never stay ahead of the hounds,” Lakeo said. “Unless you’re going to divert them? You can’t keep ahead of them, either. They’ll be on you in minutes.”
“I’m hoping I won’t have to divert them. Yanko?”
“Yes. I’m trying.” Yanko had already closed his eyes and was stretching out with his mind, passing the myriad wildlife bedded down for the night, the owls and wolves on the prowl, and finally encountering the eager minds of the hounds.
They seemed normal to him, like all other excited dogs on the hunt, and he greeted them with the friendly exuberance of a comrade. As animals usually were, the hounds were surprised by his touch, but they slowed down, paying attention to him. He showed them the image of his own hounds and tried to imply that he, too, was a hound of sort, one of their brethren rather than a handler. Then he imparted a message that he hoped would appeal to them.
When he opened his eyes, a wave of dizziness washed over him, and blackness danced before his eyes.
Hands gripped his shoulders. “Yanko?”
If not for his brother’s grip, he would have fallen backward. Or forward. He grimaced at the cliff that dropped away a couple of feet in front of him. He truly did need a bodyguard, and not simply for battles.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve just been overexerting myself. I need a long night’s rest.”
Lakeo snorted. “That’s not going to happen. Listen. They’re getting closer.” She fingered the bow she had taken from the house.
“Are they?” Falcon asked. “It sounds like... I think they went left at the fork. Yanko, did you talk to them?”
“I think I convinced them to visit that old oak at the end of the lake, the one where those squirrels enjoy frolicking.”
Indeed, even as they spoke, the baying of the hounds moved away from them, paralleling the lake instead of heading farther up the hill toward their cliff. The hunters with their lanterns had passed through the orchard and started up the trail. The intervening foliage hid their lights, but their shouts were audible. They were following the hounds’ lead.
Falcon thumped him on the shoulder. “Good. Now’s your chance. Get as big of a head start as you can. They’ll probably see the carriage drive away, and they’ll be after you as soon as they realize it’s you.” His grip tightened on Yanko’s shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”
No, Yanko wasn’t sure at all. But he managed to say, “Yes. Find our father, Falcon. He may need you. They all might.”
“All right. I’ll head up to the Bree place. I can make it up there, even on crutches. Ma Bree has some rudimentary healing skills if I recall correctly, and if nothing else, they have donkeys. They should let me borrow one.”
Even though Falcon was a trained soldier now and capable of taking care of himself, Yanko hated to let him go off alone wounded. He hoped he wouldn’t one day regret that they had split up.
“Be careful,” he whispered.
“You too.” Falcon pulled him into a one-armed hug, favoring that injured shoulder.
Yanko squeezed him back.
Lakeo was already standing, ready to start down the trail, but she didn’t rush their farewell. Yanko made sure Falcon got to his feet and was heading away before trotting past her to lead the way. Wondering if this might be the last time he would see his home, he turned back toward the house and the lake before jogging into the trees.
He almost tripped. Smoke and flames were leaping from the roof of the old house, brightening the sky and the fields in all directions. His shoulders slumped. They were burning his home.
Chapter 6
The setting sun blazed red across the sea when the carriage rolled into the Port of the Red Sky Wars almost two days later. Along the journey, Yanko and Lakeo had alternated sleeping and watching their backs, afraid the wizard, the mage hunter, and all of their cohorts would come barreling down the mountain and catch up with them.
Fortunately, he and Lakeo had slipped out of the village without being noticed. Yanko had used the last of his strength to camouflage the carriage as it rolled out of the shed and onto the road. Then he
had passed out, his mind refusing to manipulate another atom of energy. Lakeo had managed to figure out how to steer the contraption, keeping it on the road and heading toward the coast until Yanko woke up the next morning. He didn’t know what they would have done if they’d had to walk all the way to the city.
“I’ve never seen so many buildings in my life,” Lakeo whispered, opening the hatch in the top to stand up and watch their approach, even though the front window showed the white-washed houses sufficiently. “Do multiple people live in each of them?” she asked. “What’s the population? I can’t even imagine. All the touching, brushing of arms. It must be so crowded.”
“Yes.”
Yanko barely heard her. They had crested the last of the ridges, and the harbor had come into view. He was looking for signs of the trouble Zirabo had written about. A line of warships stretched across the entrance to the sea, and he wondered if it was a blockade. He hoped not. They needed to get out that way. The streets seemed much quieter than when he had been here a week earlier for his test. The lizard skeleton still rose from the shallows near the docks, but no young applicants were swinging from its rib bones today.
“We’re going to sell the carriage, right?” Lakeo called down. “And buy passage aboard a ship?” Her hips wriggled, as if she were dancing at the idea. Was she that eager to leave Nuria?
Yanko supposed if trouble was spreading across the continent, then a person with no loyalties to anyone might not have a reason to stay. He couldn’t imagine not having loyalties. He patted the faded blue velvet seat, recalling rides in the vehicle with his family as a boy. His brother had found out there were storage cupboards beneath the seat and had tried to stuff Yanko into one. That had been before Falcon had decided his little brother was worth protecting.
“Yes,” he called back, as if he knew where one went to sell magical carriages. He had a vague notion of standing at a busy intersection with a sign. He might have traveled more than Lakeo, but his father had always been in charge of money and accommodations. As they rolled toward the city, Yanko keenly felt his youth—and his lack of worldliness. “We’ll head for the waterfront.”