The Blood of a Dragon

Chapter Twenty-Four

The witch and warlock had left hastily, without even a word to the innkeepers at the Blasted Pine-Adar’s only hope of escaping the Calling was to get far enough from the Source to resist it before Teneria passed out from exhaustion, so there was no time to spare. Teneria quietly rebuked herself for wasting time in explanations and histories, while Adar cursed his own stupidity, and his insensitivity in not seeing how tired Teneria was. He levitated both of them effortlessly and began flying north.

He found that he could not move quickly, though; the Calling was fighting him every inch of the way, slowing him, trying to pull him back south. If he sped up he found himself turning, his path curving back toward the southeast; if he kept himself firmly on course it was like fighting a strong headwind, forcing himself northward yard by yard.

And Teneria was fading; she had put in a long day walking, had carried Adar a quarter-mile on her back, and now she was maintaining a tricky and unfamiliar spell constantly. The meal and brief rest at the inn had helped, but weariness was closing up around her.

If Adar had been a witch, Teneria thought, he could have passed her some of his own energy-but of course, if he had been a witch, she wouldn’t have needed to stay awake. And warlocks did not seem to be able to transfer energy as witches could; Adar was completely unfamiliar with the concept.

After all, why should warlocks need to share energy? They all shared the same inexhaustible Source.

All the same, despite the differences, Teneria thought that she might have been able to tap Adar’s energy if she weren’t so tired, and if she weren’t doing anything else.

She couldn’t possibly do it in her current state, though. And she certainly couldn’t do it without dropping her defenses against the Calling.

If they had met elsewhere, under other circumstances, Teneria was sure that they could have done much more, could have shielded Adar against the Calling with his own energies-but that wasn’t what the gods had wanted.

So they flew unsteadily northward, Teneria in Adar’s arms like a bride being carried across the threshold, and she might have enjoyed the sensations and the novelty had she not been so desperately trying to stay awake.

Perhaps half an hour after their departure from the inn she dozed off for an instant, only to be awakened by a shriek from Adar.

Quickly, she restored her dropped spell, but both were shaken by the incident.

They survived that one.

They had survived that one, but it wasn’t the last.

Teneria never did know exactly what had happened; the events blurred in her memory, lost in a fog of fatigue. She knew that she had finally lost consciousness somewhere over the forested hills, in the black depths of the night-that much she remembered.

But that was all she knew until she awoke atop a bed of pine needles, lying on her back with dawn’s golden light in her face.

She lay on a hillside, surrounded by trees, their shadows black on the ground around her, the sun bright in the east. Her cloak was draped over her.

There was no sign of Adar.

She guessed that when she had passed out he had been unable to wake her, and had had enough control to put her down gently before being carried off to the southeast.

She hoped that they had gotten far enough north to be safe, and that he had put her down and gone on home by himself-but she didn’t believe it, no matter how hard she tried.

And when she used her magic to locate herself, and realized that she wasn’t north of the inn at all, but east, she knew that she would never see Adar again.

Maybe he had headed back, and had been able to stop partway and put her down.

Maybe, in the darkness and fighting against the compulsion, they had drifted off course or unwittingly circled back even before she passed out.

Whatever had happened, here she was, alone and lost in the forests of Aldagmor, and Adar was gone. She had only herself to depend on.

Despite her night’s rest she was still worn and weak from witchcraft overuse.

She needed food and drink. She pushed herself up on one elbow.

A squirrel chittered overhead; startled, she looked up. The animal was sitting on a branch above her. Desperate, she managed to summon the strength to catch its attention, to work a quick little spell.

The strain was more than she had expected for so small a piece of witchcraft; she lay back and shut her eyes, recuperating, unsure whether the magic had worked.

It had; a moment later she was showered with carefully-hoarded nuts. Relieved, she rolled over and gathered a handful, then cracked a walnut on an exposed root and ate the meat.

Even that tiny morsel helped; she ate another, and another, as the squirrel above her realized it had been tricked and protested loudly.

Within an hour she had found a small brook, and was no longer worried about whether she would survive, but only about how long it would take to return to inhabited lands.

With her witchcraft to guide her she reached the Blasted Pine by noon the next day. The innkeepers-the two women and an old man whom she hadn’t met before-were startled to see her again, and greeted her enthusiastically.

They didn’t inquire after Adar, and she didn’t volunteer any explanation.

She ate a proper meal, and as she ate she spotted the spriggan peeking out from behind a nearby table, watching her anxiously.

She smiled at it.

The little creature grinned back, then ran out and leaped up on her lap. She petted it, soothing its nerves, as she ate. Although it babbled incoherently, she could see that it had been terrified, had had no idea what was going on.

It was very relieved to have her back; it had more or less adopted her as its protector.

She grimaced slightly at that. She hadn’t been much of a protector for poor Adar.

When she felt sufficiently fed and rested she gathered up her pack, put the spriggan up on her shoulder, then picked up Dumery’s trail and headed off along the south highway.

She wasn’t really very interested in Dumery any more, but what else could she do? Adar was gone; there was nothing she could do about that. She was still supposed to be fetching Dumery safely home for his parents-it would complete her apprenticeship and make her a full-fledged journeyman witch. She would follow the little nuisance and find out what he was up to, and then she would go home and figure out what to do about what she had learned about warlocks.

It did not escape her attention that Dumery appeared to be heading directly for the Warlock Stone.

Nor that she was heading toward it herself.