The Eighth Warden Bk. 03 Ch. 13-14

Chapter 13

Sarette blocked Corec's strike, then dashed away before he could close in. They were both wielding wooden staves for their sparring session, but if they'd been using their normal weapons, her staff-spear didn't have a crossguard, and his sword blade could have slid along the shaft and hit her hand. She wore gloves made of a light chain mesh for protection, but she wouldn't have wanted to test them against a blade as heavy as the one Corec typically carried.

"Good," he said. "Do you want to grab your spear and practice taking down someone in heavy armor?"

"For armor with enough metal in it, I'd normally just charge my weapon and shock them," Sarette said, retrieving her staff-spear from where it stood leaning against the stable wall.

Corec grabbed his helmet from a nearby bench and put it on. "Let's wait on that until Treya gets here, and just focus on using the weapon by itself. They taught you how to use the hook on the back, right?"

Including the blade, Sarette's staff-spear stood six and a half feet tall—nearly a foot taller than she herself was. The blade was a foot and a half long, affixed to the side of the spear, with the last six inches tapering to a point beyond the end of the shaft. Opposite the blade was a hook that curved backward.

"Some," she said. "The High Guard practice with it, but the stormrunners don't use it much because we move around too quickly, and have other ways of dealing with armor."

He stood facing her, gripping his wooden staff as if it was a greatsword, his feet braced for an attack. "If you're too tired to cast any more spells, how would you take me down?"

Sarette looked him over, considering the question. Even with a fake weapon, Corec was imposing, especially with the helmet hiding his face. People who could afford the kind of armor he wore usually had others to do their fighting for them.

"If you were mounted, I could hook it around your ankle and pull you from your horse," she said.

Corec nodded. "If Rusol sends the knights after us, they'll likely try to mount a charge. Knock one from his horse and he'll hit the ground hard. You should have a few seconds to move in before he recovers."

"They're your friends, aren't they?" Sarette asked. She knew he'd trained with the Knights of Pallisur, but he hadn't told her much about his past, or anything else personal. He didn't seem to know how to act around her. It was clear he still felt guilty about casting the warden bonding spell on the others, but Sarette was the only one who'd actually asked for it. That put her in a different category than the rest of the group.

She wasn't sure how to act around him, either. Wardens were tales out of legends in Snow Crown, but Corec seemed too normal for the old stories to apply.

"A few," he said. "Some of the boys I trained with. And, the last I heard, my uncle is still with the Order. But I don't think we'll have to fight the knights, not if we can prove Rusol is using magic. The Order may not like me anymore, but they're not going to attack one mage on the orders of another. They're loyal to Pallisur first, before the royal family. Still, we need to be ready for them. So, you knocked me off my horse, but I got up before you could deal with me. What do you do next?"

"Knock you down again?"

He shrugged. "Give it a try."

She swung the blade end of her staff-spear down toward his foot and attempted to lodge the hook around the back of his ankle. He changed his stance and batted her weapon away with his own.

"Try here," he suggested, holding his arm up and patting underneath at a gap in the plate armor where his chain shirt showed through.

She snagged the hook against the edge of the plate below his underarm, but when she tried to pull on it, he wrapped his arm around her spear and yanked it away from her. With his other hand, he tapped her on the shoulder with his staff.

"Most people wearing plate armor will be heavier and stronger than you," he said. "You can still knock them down if you catch them by surprise, but if they're aware of you, they can brace themselves ... and they can defend themselves. It would help if you wore a helmet."

"The Heights are so cold in the winter, nobody wears helmets. Not ones made out of metal, anyway."

"We're not in the Heights anymore."

"I'll think about it," she said. She wasn't ready to mention the other reason—a helmet would cut down on her peripheral vision too much. She'd only mentioned flying the storms to Treya, and she wasn't sure the other woman realized that it involved actual flying. Now that her dream was so close, she couldn't bring herself to tell everyone what she was waiting for. She didn't want to see their pity if she failed.

"Are you ready to try again?" he asked, handing back her spear.

"How would you do it?" Sarette asked. A sword, even a large one, didn't seem particularly useful against plate armor. A hammer or bill would work better.

"That depends. If I was sparring in front of my teachers back when I was with the knights, I'd grab my sword like this," he said, sliding his left hand two-thirds of the way along where the blade would be, "and try to stab into the gaps. Neck, knees, underarms. But in an actual fight, unless the fellow was a lot bigger than me, I'd probably just knock him over and pull his helmet off. If the helmet won't come off, I'd stab him through the eye slits with my knife."

"What should I do?"

"If they're distracted and you think you can knock them off balance, use the hook. If they're ready for you, and wearing heavier armor, don't try to face them directly. Use the tip of your blade like a halberd's spike. Aim for the gaps, then dodge out of the way."

Sarette nodded. Stormrunners depended on flight for combat, and even the ground-fighting style she'd learned during her training was still highly mobile, intended to take advantage of the same skills she would later need for stormrunning. The High Guard taught techniques for going head-to-head with heavily armored opponents, but Sarette had never attended the High Guard's military academy.

A voice came from behind her. "Are you ready for me?"

She turned to find that Treya had joined them.

Corec said, "If you're ready, we are."

Sarette bit her lower lip, then tightened a coat strap that didn't need to be tightened. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked him.

"We tried it with fire and it worked," Corec said. Then he shrugged. "Mostly." He rubbed at the singed hair behind his right ear.

Treya winced. "I'm sorry."

"No, it was good practice. We needed to know." To Sarette, he said, "But you can control how strong it is, right?"

"Somewhat, yes."

"Then make it as weak as possible for this first try."

"What if you took off your breastplate? We could prop it up and practice against that instead."

"I can only cast the protection spell on a person," Treya said. "It won't work on just his armor."

Sarette sighed and nodded, then rapped the butt of her staff-spear against the ground, charging it. Blue and white light flickered over the weapon.

Corec cocked his head in Treya's direction. She touched his shoulder, then stepped back. "It's done," she said.

He drew in a deep breath, then exhaled noisily. "All right. Let's try it." He pointed to Sarette.

She grasped her weapon in both hands and tentatively thrust toward his chest. Just before the blade made contact, the lightning magic it carried discharged into the air around him, shimmering across the surface of a rounded barrier. The blade continued on, tapping against his breastplate.

"It worked," Treya said, sounding relieved.

Corec nodded. "It blocked the magic but let the spear through. I thought it might stop them both as long as Sarette's spell was active."

"No, the barrier only blocks the lightning itself," Treya said. "It should work against regular lightning, too, not just magic. Though it probably won't be strong enough to block an entire lightning strike."

"Really?" Corec asked. "Your fire barrier stayed up for five or ten seconds after Shavala started."

"I think the two spells work differently. If you swing your hand through a campfire quickly enough, you'll feel the heat, but you won't burn yourself. Burning takes time. Lightning happens all at once, but in that instant, it's much stronger than fire. Shavala's flame drained the fire protection spell over time, but if Sarette hit you with something as strong as real lightning, it would drain it all at once."

"Well, let's not do that just yet. But I think we can try again—a little stronger this time."

#

Leena was in a spare room at the inn, inventorying the supplies that the others were bringing back, then crossing them off the master list. Waiting for the next delivery, she started separating out twelve piles by weight and size, to be distributed across the pack saddles for the twelve mules. There would be saddlebags on the horses too, but those would mostly be filled with personal items, with only a little room for excess supplies. She'd never had to organize a load for a pack mule before, but it seemed simple enough and Boktar had given her some tips.

She hadn't anticipated remaining with the group this long. She'd expected to part ways as soon as they arrived in port, but ever since reaching Nysa, her Seeking had told her she needed to go roughly east, in the exact same direction as the road leading to Lato. Perhaps that was why the magic had paired her up with these people. Maybe they were going to the place where she needed to be.

There was the sound of light footsteps coming down the stairs, and then Ellerie stood in the doorway.

"Leena, would you saddle a horse and ride out to find Boktar and Corec? Let them know we only need six more horses, not seven. Josip has his own. Take Razai—she knows where they went, and I'd be more comfortable if you had some protection."

Leena looked down uncertainly. "I don't know how to ride."

Ellerie stared at her. "Why didn't you say anything? You know we're riding out in two days."

"I was going to watch how the rest of you did it."

A flicker of emotions crossed the elven woman's face—annoyance, then amusement, then something Leena couldn't identify.

"That won't be enough," Ellerie said. "Not for a full day of riding; you'll just make yourself and the horse miserable. Come with me and I'll teach you. Marco can run these messages back to the Senshall office without my help."

After stopping to talk to Marco, the two of them headed out to the stable. Ellerie demonstrated how to saddle the horse she'd chosen for herself, then helped Leena with one of the others before showing her how to mount the beast.

Leena managed to get onto the horse's back, but then she made the mistake of looking down. The ground was much farther away than she'd expected. She swayed with dizziness, locking her body tight and grasping the saddle and reins for support.

"You've really never been on a horse before?" Ellerie asked. "Keep the reins loose. Sit up straight and push your weight down into the stirrups. Use your legs for balance, but don't squeeze the horse unless you want her to move."

"My uncle had a horse when I was little," Leena said, attempting to follow the other woman's directions. "He helped me up and let me ride it for a few minutes, but I cried until he set me back down again."

Ellerie snickered. "You should practice here in the city today and tomorrow. I learned to ride, oh, about eighty years ago, I think—I was still very young. I rode regularly, but it was still nothing like the first time I spent a whole day in the saddle. You're going to be sore. Treya can heal you if it gets bad."

The stories said that elves lived for a long time, but Ellerie seemed quite young, barely into adulthood. Finding out she was older than Leena's grandmother was unsettling.

"Thank you, but why are you helping me? You could have just told me to leave."

The elven woman had been looking her way, but turned the other direction before replying. "Because I've been on the road for a long time, and I can't take my friends' cooking anymore," she said with a laugh. "Or my own. Variety is good. Why did you join up? Didn't Boktar tell you we'd be riding?"

"He did, but I needed the job. I thought I could learn."

"You will. Let's get on our way. We'll keep it slow."

Ellerie continued giving her directions as they rode out into the city. With a topic to focus on, the awkwardness of their previous conversations disappeared, and Leena felt more comfortable asking questions.

"Why does everyone look at you like that?" she said. The people out on the street had stayed clear of them, eyeing Ellerie's rapier fearfully.

"Marco says the Lords' Council only allows nobles and their guards to have weapons, plus foreign visitors, and both groups are allowed to get away with a lot. The people in the city are worried we'll push them around. Josip can only carry his own weapons here because they're not really weapons. The city guards still give him a hard time, but working for a foreign trading house gives him some protection."

"Oh," Leena said, not having any other response.

"What is Sanvar like?" Ellerie asked. "I've never been there."

"It's ... like anywhere, I suppose," Leena said. "Everywhere I go, the people dress differently and talk differently and eat different things, but underneath, it's all the same. It's hot, though. I never thought it was hot until I came north for the first time, and found out what cold actually meant."

"You should try Terevas. The weather's perfect, not too hot and not too cold. After the Storm Heights, I'm almost tempted to go back there myself."

"What's it like?" Leena asked. The group talked about their trip to the Storm Heights frequently, but Ellerie had never mentioned Terevas to her before.

The other woman was silent for a moment. "Unfriendly. Polite on the surface, but unpleasant underneath. Or maybe that was just the people I knew. They wanted me to be something I'm not, and do something I can't do." Her tone was quiet and wistful.

It didn't sound like she wanted Leena to inquire any further. "I think I know how you feel. I was supposed to do something but I wasn't any good at it. My family was disappointed in me for quitting. But now, I guess I'll have to do it anyway."

"There are some things I won't ever do," Ellerie said flatly.

The mask slipped back into place and the easy conversation disappeared. They rode on in silence, except when the elven woman was correcting Leena's riding technique.

#

"The Bancyra Mountains," Josip said when Ellerie joined him at the top of the rise. He pointed along the road. "You can see Lato below. We should reach it tomorrow."

Ellerie frowned, staring at the gently rounded mountains. "They're not as tall as I expected."

"Not as tall as some, but they're rougher going than they look. This is the best route through them—Lato marks the start of Vansaira Pass. It winds around quite a bit, but it's flat enough to get wagons through."

Ellerie had planned on going around the mountains rather than through them, but now she wasn't sure.

"Vansaira Pass?" she said. "Not Bancyra?"

"In Nysan, Bancyra and Vansaira are the same word, but in Doravi—and trade tongue—the pass kept the old pronunciation because it's a major trade route for foreigners. Bancyrans speak Nysan, mostly, so it doesn't matter, but the Doravi use the new pronunciation for both the kingdom and the mountains."

"Are all the Bancyra Mountains similar to these?" Ellerie asked. Perhaps they could rule out this range already and move on to the next. "Or are there spots where they're taller and more jagged?"

Josip's brow furrowed. "Sure, some, I guess."

"To the north or south?"

"Both, I think. I don't really follow the north-south road much."

Ellerie wanted to snap at him, but it wasn't his fault. He was knowledgeable about local terrain and wildlife, and about roads and Senshall's trading caravans, but she couldn't expect him to have memorized over five hundred miles of mountain range. He wasn't a dorvasta ranger, who could spend hundreds of years learning every tree in the Terril Forest. She'd never told Varsin she'd prefer a guide who knew the local mountains, not wanting him to guess why.

Should she risk showing Josip the amulet? It would save them weeks of travel time if they could skip the Bancyra Mountains and just head through the pass. It would mean she'd have to tell a Senshall employee what they were looking for. Worse, Josip hadn't sounded too certain about what the mountains looked like. Even if he said there weren't any peaks that matched the amulet, she'd never be sure she'd made the right choice unless she checked it out for herself.

"But there is a north-south road?" she asked instead. "Does it follow the mountains in both directions?"

Josip furrowed his brow. "We're not going through the pass? I thought that's why we came to Lato."

"We're looking for a clue on where to start our search," she said. Marco and Josip already knew that much. "The clue might be in the mountains." She wouldn't be able to keep that part a secret any longer, but she still didn't want to draw any attention to the amulet.

"Well, on this side, it's more a path than a road. It doesn't even have a name. It does take you all the way from the northern hills to the southern hills, and from there you can get around over to the Bancyra side, but we're in the worst spot for that. We're about in the middle of the range—we'd have to backtrack quite a bit if you want to see both the north and south ends."

Ellerie nodded. The location was why she'd chosen Lato. "We're going to split up and meet again on the other end of Vansaira Pass. There's a road on that side too, right?"

"Yes, a good road there, but it's still mostly just villages. Some bigger towns near the major rivers, but not as big as Lato. Bancyra's huge, but the real cities are farther in."

"All right. Let's get back to the others."

They returned half a mile back along the way they'd come, finding that the rest of the group had finished setting up camp.

Ellerie dismounted and passed her reins to Nedley, then sought out Corec and drew him away from the group. She wanted to talk to him privately while Josip was gossiping with Marco about what she'd been up to.

"It's probably not these mountains," she said in a low voice, "but I'm not sure of it enough to skip them. I think we have to check them over just in case."

Corec patted his side, where she knew he kept an extra coin pouch hidden. "I've got the sketch you gave me. I'm just looking for matching peaks, right?"

"Yes, but the shape of the mountains may have changed over time, so pay more attention to the relative heights and locations. Oh, and the road you'll be following is likely too close to the mountains to match the size and angle you see on the sketch. If the nearest peaks seem like good possibilities, you'll probably have to ride out quite a ways to see if the whole thing is a match."

Corec nodded. "I've got the idea."

"We'll resupply in Lato, then split up and meet again in two or three weeks. I'll take Josip if you'll take Marco, so we'll each have a translator."

Corec laughed. "Wait, you're already taking Leena, aren't you? You get the guide and the cook, and I'm stuck with Marco?" He'd kept his voice down so nobody could overhear.

"Well, I figured Shavala would want to go with you," she said. Until Leena had joined the group, Corec, Shavala, and Boktar had been the best camp cooks they had. They probably still were. Leena was a better cook, but she was having to adapt to cooking for large groups over a campfire. Intricate meals were giving way to stews and roasts.

He laughed again. "I suppose we can take care of ourselves for a few weeks."