The Eighth Warden Bk. 03 Ch. 13-14

"And there's a road through it?"

"Josip doesn't know. But southeast from here, near the Skotinos Mountains, is Aencyr. It's the second largest city in Bancyra, and Senshall has a big outpost there. Josip says the caravans go north or south from there, or they'll take boats across Black Lake to the settlements on the other side, but they don't really go through the mountains or the swamp. There isn't enough trade to make it worth the effort."

"Will we be able to find supplies there?"

"Sure. There are people and towns; it's just not as heavily populated until you get closer to Black Lake."

Corec nodded. From what he remembered from the map, the lake was huge—more like an inland sea—but there hadn't been much detail about the area just north of it.

"It seems like a good lead," he said.

"Yes, but even if Bobo's translation is correct, it's not uncommon for swamps to occur near mountains, and swampland from thousands of years ago may not be swampland today. If these aren't the right mountains, we'll have to backtrack all the way to the Belepetras."

"We'd be going back that way anyway, right?" Katrin pointed out. "Unless you've thought of another mountain range to look at?"

"These three are the only good choices if we assume part of the route needs to pass through Bancyra at some point, but Bobo says the winged snakes may have migrated over time. If we don't find a match in the Skotinos or the Belepetras, we'll have to look farther out."

Corec shrugged. "Things might have changed or they might not have. If there's a swamp now, there's a good chance it was a swamp in the past. It seems like we should go with what we know first, and leave what we don't know for later."

Ellerie laughed. "That's pretty much what Boktar said, but he was less polite and used less words. I guess we're headed to Aencyr next."

#

"I thought you'd have left by now," Razai said quietly. She was riding close to Leena. They were a day outside of Tir Shar, on the road to Aencyr. "I take it your Seeking magic is sending you in the same direction as the rest of us?"

"It's more complicated than that," the other woman replied. "When Ellerie was planning on going to the Belepetra Range, my Seeking suggested I go that way. When she changed her mind and decided to visit the Skotinos Mountains first, my Seeking changed too."

"Wait—you knew about that? I didn't hear anything about the other mountain ranges until we got to Tir Shar." Razai had accompanied Ellerie's group, partly due to Marco's insistence, but nobody had said anything about the next leg of their journey.

"Ellerie told me," Leena said, "but she hadn't decided yet, so I didn't think she'd want me to mention it to anyone."

Razai frowned. She had little interest in spying on Ellerie, despite Marco's proddings, but she hadn't expected Leena to start keeping secrets from her.

Shaking her head, she focused on the conversation at hand. "Then the magic isn't sending you to a specific place? It wants you to stay with us."

"Seeking can be hard to interpret, and I haven't had much training. Maybe it just thinks this is the easiest way to get to where I'm going."

Out of nowhere, the whispers spoke in Razai's mind. Danger.

What danger? Razai asked. Where?

Enemies. All around. Ahead.

"Something's happening," she murmured to Leena. "Get behind everyone."

"What?" Leena asked.

Razai didn't stay to reply. She urged her horse ahead, drawing even with Corec. "There's trouble," she told him. "People watching us."

He peered around. "Where?"

"Some are ahead of us. I'm not sure about the others."

He turned his head. "Shavala?" he asked. The elven woman was riding on his other side.

"I sense them," she said. "A lot of them. They're off to the sides, too."

"Everyone, hold here!" he shouted. "Boktar, Nedley, shields out!" He pulled his helmet on and flipped the visor down.

The group came to a halt. In the distance, a line of men armed with hunting bows came out from behind the trees where they'd been hidden, apparently realizing they'd been detected. They quickly nocked their bows and launched a volley.

A dozen arrows arced up and then down, but suddenly slowed and came to a halt in mid-air as they met an invisible barrier. Each hit caused a flash of flickering light. With the arrows' momentum arrested, they fell to the ground. Razai recognized the telltale signs of an arrow shield spell.

"I can't hold the barrier any longer!" Ellerie shouted. Boktar spurred his horse toward her, covering her with his shield.

The archers launched a second volley, but a heavy wind sprang up out of nowhere, pushing the arrows off course to the south.

"I'm going after them!" Corec yelled, his warhorse charging forward. Sarette followed him.

No more arrows came, though. Instead, the rest of the ambushers burst out of the bushes lining the sides of the road. Some screamed while they rushed the group, the commotion frightening the animals. Only Corec and Boktar had warhorses, trained to ignore the chaos of a battlefield.

Razai's own horse reared. She dove off and hit the ground with her shoulder, then rolled smoothly to her feet, drawing her heavy, curved knives. As she stood up, she slashed one man's throat and stabbed another in the gut, then faced off against a third. Unlike the first two, who were only armed with daggers and hadn't realized she was attacking them until it was too late, the third man seemed to know how to fight. He held his buckler out in front of himself and gripped his arming sword, preparing to strike.

Abruptly, Katrin's voice cut across the battle, singing some nonsense song in a discordant tone. Half a dozen men screamed in terror and ran back the way they'd come, then kept going.

Razai's opponent wasn't one of them. He smiled when he realized he was facing a woman. Perhaps he hadn't noticed she was demonborn yet, or perhaps it didn't worry him.

Growling, she threw one of her knives at him. They weren't designed for throwing, but he looked startled when the weapon hit his buckler with a clang. While he was distracted, she closed the distance. With her free hand, she grabbed him by the throat and slammed his body backward to the ground. Humans always underestimated how strong she was. Most demonborn did as well—she didn't have Vash's muscles.

She held him down, tightening her grip on his throat and kneeling on his sword arm to prevent him from attacking. He was wearing chainmail over his upper body, so she quickly slashed deep gashes across his inner thighs, severing the blood vessels there. It would take him a few minutes to bleed out, but he wouldn't be doing any fighting in the meantime.

Razai grabbed her fallen knife and turned to face the battle. She was tempted to call forth a disguise she liked to use when facing a large number of opponents, but she hadn't told her companions about it. It was too risky to try it—they were likely to take her for an enemy.

She'd have to do it the hard way then. She bared her fangs and ran up behind the nearest opponent, wrapping one arm around his neck while she stabbed repeatedly at his kidney. Letting him fall, she searched for her next target.