Penric's Mission

XV

As the light leveled toward evening, the woods dwindled to scrub, the farmsteads gave way to shepherd’s huts, and the road narrowed to a winding, stony track. At a bend, Pen encountered a rider leading two saddled horses back the other way.

The rider stopped to stare in surprise. “Five gods, man, someone rented you Pighead? And you’re still atop?”

That alone was enough to identify the man as the small livery’s groom-and-guide. “Is that its name? Very fitting. We’ve had some debates along the way, but I’ve won so far. Tell me, were you escorting a man and his wife, traveling? Where did they go?”

“Oh, aye. I told them they’d never get over the pass before nightfall, better to find shelter and continue in the morning, but they were having none of my advice, so I suppose they deserve what they find. I took them as far up as the horses could get, where they insisted I leave them off.”

Pen was still on the right track, five gods be praised. “How much farther? I need to catch up to them.”

“Maybe a mile?”

Pen nodded relieved thanks. “Oh, I should warn you—there’s a troop of soldiers behind me that are conscripting horses for the army. If you don’t want to end up walking home, you’d probably best get your beasts off the road and find a place to hide them till they pass on.”

“Oh!” The man looked startled, but he swallowed down the lie. “Thanks!”

“Ah…” Pen’s conscience prodded him. If he could only ride a little farther anyway… “Do you want this one, to take back as well?”

The groom grinned. “Naw. Let the army enjoy him.”

They each hastened on, in opposite directions.

Indeed, after about a mile of scrambling over slippery scree, footing more suitable to a donkey than to a tired, nervy horse, the trail gave way to outright climbs over stair-like stones, narrowing to a scrubby defile. To Pen’s relief, he saw a flash of movement above: a pair of figures, one in a green cloak.

To his dismay, as he turned to look back down the valley before dismounting, he could just make out a troop of mounted soldiers, trotting relentlessly single file. He counted—yes, the whole thirteen. A flicker of white confirmed that Velka had brought his sorcerer. Pen sucked breath through his teeth. The horse, its head hanging in weariness, made one last halfhearted attempt to bite him as he dragged out his belongings from the saddlebags, unbridled it, and turned it loose.

He hoisted his burdens and began clambering up the slope. In a few minutes, Nikys glanced back, spotted him, and touched her brother’s sleeve. After a brief debate, they sat on boulders to await his arrival. They both looked nearly spent, but equally determined. Arisaydia still had the sword, naturally.

Penric heaved his way up to them, brandishing the sack. “You forgot your food,” he wheezed. “Among other things.”

Arisaydia glowered, but Nikys looked tentatively delighted, saying, “After Adelis—after we left you in Skirose, we thought you would certainly go back to Adria. You decided to join with us after all?”

Her smile at him, Pen decided, made up for that vile horse, if not quite for her brother. Not much question whose idea Pen’s abandonment had been. “Not exactly. But Velka and a troop arrived in town barely an hour after you’d left. By coach, just as you predicted.” He allowed Arisaydia a conceding nod, not received with any discernable gratitude. “They’re only a few miles behind us right now.”

Nikys’s breath drew in. Arisaydia’s expression turned a much cooler shade of grim.

By silent, mutual consent, they shelved their differences for later in the face of this news. Arisaydia surveyed the landscape, ending by looking up toward the narrowing defile. “Then we keep climbing. There might be a cave.”

“To hide in? He brought his own sorcerer. So maybe not,” Pen cautioned.

“Huh.” At least Arisaydia took in the warning without argument. “I admit, I don’t like putting myself in a bottle.”

“Neither do I,” Pen agreed, heartfelt.

“Climb, then.”

They did so. It took nearly all their breath, but Arisaydia spared what he could to ask after the numbers and condition of their pursuers, seeming peeved that Pen had no more detailed inventory of their arms.

“You took down, what, seven at the villa? That would leave six for me. It may be better to turn and face them here than letting them catch us later, at a worse vantage, even tireder, in the darkness.”

Pen didn’t care for Arisaydia’s arithmetic. Alone, he thought he might be able to bolt up the hill, turn and dodge, climb, vanish. Run away. But not the three of us. And so the tactician prevails. In a sense. He observed, voice flat in his concession, “Velka’s Temple-man is going to tie up a lot of my attention, once we get within range of each other. This isn’t going to be the kind of fight you think.”

Arisaydia’s red eyes narrowed. “Can you take him?”

“I… won’t know till I see what he brings to the table. We won’t exactly be trying to kill each other. Jumping demon problem, there.” Among other theological concerns. Bastard’s teeth, what a mess.

At last Arisaydia stopped, glanced around, and said, “Here. We won’t do better.”

Pen copied his inspection. The steepest part of the trail zig-zagged down behind them, giving them a height advantage not unlike being atop a rampart. The scrubby slopes to either side allowed no cover for a man to advance and circle them in secret. The defile ahead might not be a good place to be pressed into if anyone did manage to get above them, but it wasn’t entirely out of the range of some rabbit-sprint retreat.

Reminding Pen a bit of the prudent sergeant, Arisaydia had them all sit down and share out bites of food from Pen’s sack, and mouthfuls of water from the leather bottle he carried, and when had he acquired it? He glanced at Pen’s case. “You dragged that all this way?”

“Its contents were expensive, and would be hard to replace. Good steel needles and scissors and scalpels. Clean gauze, the remains of my ointments… had some trouble getting them compounded correctly, you know.”

Nikys eyed it, and him. “I’d have thought you’d be glad to leave it behind.”

Yes, no, I don’t know, maybe sorry later… “Frugality is a hard habit to break.”

Looking thoughtful, Nikys bestirred herself and began gathering up a pile of throwing rocks. Adelis blinked, then went to assist her. Penric wished wanly for his good hunting bow, back in Adria, but joined the foragers.

He stopped when the first of Velka’s party, their horses slipping and snorting, cleared the last ridable turn below, looked up, and saw them. Shouts, excitement, bustling back and forth as the ten men and the sergeant dismounted, secured the horses, arrayed themselves and waited. Four of them were archers, Pen saw, even now stringing their short bows and looking up warily, awaiting orders. All their quivers bristled with arrows.

“That’s going to be a problem,” sighed Arisaydia, watching them.

“Not really,” murmured Pen. Nikys glanced at him sidelong and picked up a rock, turning it in her hands. She, too, seemed to be waiting for orders.

“Now I’m sorry you were drawn into our disaster,” she said quietly to Pen.

“Wasn’t you who did it. And I mean to share that regret around, if I can.”

Her little smile reminded him of that scary smirk of her brother’s. “Good.”

They were just out of bowshot, at least for men shooting uphill. The archers were also out of range for Pen’s sorcery, certainly of the finely tuned variety he hoped to use. Landslides remained an option, although there wasn’t a great deal of scree poised in just the right places.

More debate below among Velka, the sergeant, and the sorcerer. Then the man in the white robes turned, seemed to steel himself, and began climbing the jagged trail with the aid of a stout staff.

He looked everything a Temple sorcerer and learned divine should be. Tall, grave, mature, powerful, his beard trimmed neatly around his face, though he could have stood to take the scissors to his eyebrows as well; black eyes glared up from their bristling shadows. Both Arisaydia and Nikys stared down in muted alarm.

“This one’s my part, I guess,” sighed Pen, without enthusiasm. Des, are we ready?

Ooh, she cooed, what a cute little baby demon!

What?

The lad with the beard as well, but his demon is just a youth. Only two animals before him, and this is its first human incarnation. All it will know is what he knows.

“Bastard be praised,” breathed Pen, and tapped his lips twice with his thumb. Then twice again, because everyone here was going to need His luck to get through the next minutes alive. He stepped out a few paces from where his companions crouched, and let the approaching man get puffed closing their mutual range. He wondered what he looked like in turn. A tired, skinny, sunburned young man with hair escaping its knot—he blew a strand out of his mouth—wearing an odd assortment of castoffs, sweaty tunic, green jacket, mismatched riding trousers all over horse. Long feet unhappy from his hike in these falling-apart sandals, and he had to get some good boots soon.

“Hedge sorcerer!” the man stopped and shouted up. “I am Learned Kyrato of the Bastard’s Order in Patos, and in the god’s name I order you to surrender to me. Come peacefully, and no harm will come to you!”

“Demonstrably not the case,” Pen shouted back. “Ask Velka what he did to me in the bottle dungeon!”

The man’s head went back in perplexity, quickly mastered. “For the second time, I demand your surrender! Or your life will be cast from the Temple’s shelter!”

Penric glossed to those at his back, “It’s a ritual he’s obliged to try. No point in interrupting him before he gets through it.”

Kyrato repeated his warning three more times, each more strongly worded. Arisaydia drew his sword and looked even more untrusting. Nikys’s dark brows bent in dismayed curiosity.

“I am sorry,” said Kyrato solemnly, signed himself, and opened his hand as he attempted to set Pen’s clothes and hair on fire.

Pen snapped up the arriving impulse with his cold skill. Kyrato’s body jerked slightly, then he tried again, to the same end. And a third time.

It only took that horse two bites to learn better, Des observed, amused.

The sorcerer stared nonplussed at his own hand, then made to ignite Nikys and Arisaydia. Pen whipped those efforts aside even faster, and flipped out the chaos to land where it would; a few rocks worked loose around them and began to tumble downhill. Kyrato dodged, startled. Des was humming like a bowstring released, Let me, let me, let me…

“What are you?” Kyrato cried, his eyes widening in real fear at last.

“I told Velka I wasn’t a hedge sorcerer,” Pen returned impatiently. “Didn’t he pass you the word? That was really unfair. I swear the man doesn’t listen to a thing one tells him.”

Pen wondered how inexplicable this intense contest looked to outsiders. Two eccentric men standing on a slope making faces and gesturing at each other…

Velka bellowed up the hill, “Arisaydia! Surrender or be slain!”

Arisaydia muttered, “He meant ‘and’, there.” He gripped his sword in an impatience to match Des’s.

The Patos sorcerer put in loudly, “Surrender and your sister will be spared, and be made safe under my authority.” Which he probably imagined to be true.

“Sod you,” snarled Nikys, and heaved her first rock. It was well-aimed, but burst into fragments before it stuck its target. Another followed, to tumble aside in its arc.

“Why don’t they hit him?”

Pen wasn’t sure if that was plea or complaint. Both, really.

Arisaydia dropped a hand on her arm to hold her next launch, muttering, “Useless…”

“No, keep them coming. They’re a good distraction.” Pen cast her a sunlight smile over his shoulder. “Make him work. Heat him up.”

Her eyes flared with understanding. Ha, at least someone had listened to him, and remembered. The next rock whistled through the air. Arisaydia woke up and joined her effort, his rocks hissing more viciously.

The sergeant hadn’t been an idle spectator. The archers, in two pairs, had edged their way up each side of the slope into tolerable range, and loosed their arrows at last.

Have fun, Des.

The arrows, variously, burst into blue flame as they arced, to arrive on target as harmless puffs of ash, or tumbled end-over-end to clatter on the stones. A second flight met the same fate.

Why doesn’t he move faster? Doesn’t he have the trick of it? asked Pen, his senses racing along with Des’s.

He’s controlling his demon tightly. They can only do one thing at a time. It’s almost sad, really.

Remember, he’s a fellow divine, not your plaything.

Then he shouldn’t have threatened you.

The archers had almost worked close enough for Pen to reach, but as long as they were content to waste arrows, Pen was content to let them. A little closer, and he could clip their bowstrings at will, and their hamstrings nearly as easily. Pen trusted Kyrato had more defenses than thus seen, but since Pen hadn’t really attacked him yet, he’d had nothing to demonstrate them upon. Pen was growing adroit with that brutal tweak to the sciatic nerves, if he wanted to render this enemy unable to run away, not really his preference here. But the axilla offered equally distracting possibilities…

The sorcerer shifted the dusty pebbles under Pen’s feet, trying to dump him on his backside presumably; Pen danced aside to solider stone. A formless flurry of hallucinations whirled before Pen’s eyes; an interesting natural talent, suggesting the man could create extraordinary visions someday, with practice. Though not today, alas. Even without Des’s aid, Pen had no trouble ignoring them. The sorcerer was momentarily distracted averting one of Arisaydia’s sizzling projectiles—during which Nikys’s latest lob came down square on his head with a satisfying thunk. That had been a heavy rock she’d heaved, two-handed. He fell half-stunned, sliding down the path and grabbing at his staff to stop himself. With a distraught cry, he flung out his hands.

Pain boomed in Pen’s chest as his heart tried to tear itself apart. He went over backwards as if hit by a ram. Des was abruptly nowhere else but inside him, wrapping herself around the organ, holding it back together. The next flight of arrows fell unimpeded all around them, missing by inches.

Yells from below as the soldiers, taking his fall as their signal, started forward.

Pen climbed to his knees, chest bucking for air, mouth gaping in astonishment. That had been a killing blow.

Kyrato was also on his knees, mouth open in dismay and horrified triumph. He hadn’t quite, Pen thought, intended to do that forbidden thing, but he didn’t look as though he wanted to call it back. His gaze jerked all around, as he struggled to guess where Penric’s demon would jump as he drew his last breath.

Chaos spewed from Desdemona.

Half the hillside shook itself apart and thundered downward.

Kyrato slithered several yards with it, ending half-buried in scree. Sweating and scarlet, he heaved, twisted, drained suddenly pale, and then… passed out.

Heat stroke, Pen diagnosed, from some strange detached plane of continued consciousness, as uncomfortable and unwelcome as his trip to the bottle dungeon. His chest ached. The rest of him wasn’t doing terribly well, either, although there was a nice moment when frantic hands gathered him into a soft, soft lap.

Arisaydia’s boots passed him by; a sudden scrape and clang of steel rang descant over the throbbing echo of the slide.

“Don’t kill the sorcerer!” Pen cried in warning.

A grunt, a scuffle. “I remember,” Arisaydia’s voice floated back, sounding irritated. “Didn’t he?”

“Oh Mother’s blood, Pen, are you all right?” Nikys choked above him. Wet drops splashed his face, although the early evening sky was an impossible deep blue, cloudless. Could tears be also a blessing? But gods, he loved the sky in this country.

“Will be.” I hope. “Don’t you need to keep throwing rocks right now?”

“You just threw all of them. I think Adelis has it under control… the rest are running away. I mean, the ones who can. The sergeant is yelling for them to come back, but he’s running just as hard.”

“Huh. Good.” Des…?

…Des…?

Hsh. B’sy. But then, after a moment, in muzzy indignation: Kyrato was going to sacrifice his demon, in killing you. Let the god take it with your soul. He would have lived.

Aye. War-rules magic. S’why I want nothing to do with war.

…Good.