Thraxas and the Oracle

Chapter Ten

It seems darker on the return journey. Perhaps the afternoon sky has clouded over, though the canopy of trees reaching over the narrow path makes it impossible to tell. We travel in silence, broken only by a bird cawing somewhere in the forest, a sound that rapidly becomes irritating. I try and forget my annoyance, and concentrate on getting us back to our base camp as swiftly as possible. I still have a very bad feeling about this mission, and I trust my feelings. They’ve helped me survive through many campaigns. I don’t like the noisy squawking from the unseen bird. It stops. I don’t like that either. I hold up my hand, bringing us to a halt, then dismount and squeeze my way past the others till I’m standing next to Lisutaris. She asks me why we’ve halted.

“Someone’s watching us.”

Lisutaris turns her head, scanning each side of the pathway. “I can’t sense anyone.”

“I can.”

“Let me check.” Coranius the Grinder holds up his hand and mutters a few words. After a few seconds there’s a faint flash of light.

“What was that?”

“Standard scanning spell. I can’t sense anyone nearby. We’re alone in this forest.”

“I don’t think we are. I don’t like the way that bird went silent.”

“Maybe it’s having its dinner,” says Coranius, with some degree of sarcasm.

Lisutaris frowns. I’m not her favourite person at the moment, but she doesn’t dismiss my concern out of hand. She speaks a few words in some ancient language. “I’ve scanned the area too,” she says, seconds later. “I didn’t pick up anyone either.” Lisutaris never seems to need much preparation to perform her spells. They just happen instantly. It’s impressive. That doesn’t mean she’s always right.

“Can we move along?” comes Hanama’s voice, from the rear of the column. “There’s no point wasting time here.”

“I’d listen to Thraxas,” says Gurd. “I’ve marched through a lot of forests with him. He can recognise danger.”

I ask Lisutaris if she can put up some sort of sorcerous protection around our group. “I don’t want someone firing a crossbow bolt into you.”

“It wouldn’t touch me,” replies the sorcerer.

“It might if it comes with a spell attached. You’re not invulnerable.”

“I’m aware of that,” says Lisutaris. “But it’s not easy to maintain a barrier when we’re moving. If I put up defences, it will slow us down, and we’re short of time.”

“Time which we’re wasting here,” grunts Coranius. “There’s no one around.”

The Head of the Sorcerers Guild frowns, as she scans the trees again, then turns back towards me. “Are you quite sure this is necessary?”

“Yes. We’re in danger.”

Lisutaris nods. “Ibella, protect our right. Coranius, the left. I’ll protect the front and the rear.”

“Really?” Ibella Hailstorm isn’t pleased. “In this terrain? We’ll be slowed down to a crawl. It will take us hours to get out of here.”

“Do as I say,” Lisutaris tells her. Ibella and Coranius start muttering spells to put up a defence on each side. There’s a slight but noticeable drop in temperature as their sorcery comes into effect. A barely visible blueish light now extends along side our column on each side. Lisutaris does the same, taking on herself the more difficult task of maintaining a barrier in front and rear, a barrier which has to be constantly moved as we progress.

“Makri, get close to the Commander and stay there.”

Makri nudges her horse towards the sorcerer. I squeeze my way along to my horse, mounting it with difficulty in the confined space. We set off, now travelling much more slowly. Ahead of me I can see the faint blue light of Lisutaris’s barrier and I make sure I don’t get ahead of it. No doubt the rest of the party think I’m a fool but I don’t care. It’s my responsibility to look after our War Leader.

We ride like this for around half an hour, without incident. Even so, I still have the feeling we’re being watched. Ibella mutters to Coranius that maintaining the sorcerous barrier is tedious and unnecessary. As soon as she finishes her complaint there’s a great flash of yellow light, blinding in the gloom of the forest. The yellow light changes to green as it hits Ibella’s barrier on our right. For a fraction of a second it seems as if there’s an almost physical struggle between the two intangible forces.

“Hold the barrier!” yells Coranius. Next thing I know there’s a dart heading for my face. I duck. There’s a fierce rattling sound all around. When I look up, a multitude of darts are crashing and rebounding off our defensive walls. My sword is in my hand but with the flashing lights, darts everywhere, and our enemy concealed somewhere in the trees, it’s impossible to know where to attack. Makri has positioned herself right in front of Lisutaris. I think Lisutaris has reinforced Ibella’s barrier, holding off the darts, but in the confusion it’s hard to tell what’s happening. As another flash of light erupts on our flank, I catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure in the undergrowth.

“Gurd!” I scream. “To me!”

Gurd leaps from his horse. I do the same, and we prepare to plunge into the trees. I shout at Makri and Hanama, telling them to stay where they are. At that moment there’s a burst of purple light, brighter than any that have gone before. This time it’s coming from our party. It blasts into the trees with such force that branches are ripped off and the air is filled with whirling twigs and leaves. Somewhere in the distance there might be a scream, unless it’s just the birds. There’s a moments silence. I look round. Lisutaris is standing in her stirrups, her hand still outstretched from casting whatever dread spell she just sent into the forest. Her eyes have turned completely purple, and a few purple sparks are still flickering around her fingers. There are no more spells or darts flying at us. Whoever our attacker was, Lisutaris seems to have repelled them.

“Let’s move!” I shout, and start getting back on my horse.

“Wait,” cries Coranius.

I turn my head angrily. “We have to - ” My voice tails off as I see Coranius holding the limp figure of Ibella Hailstorm in his arms. Lisutaris shakes her head to clear it. After casting such a powerful spell, even a sorcerer like Lisutaris can take a few seconds to recover her normal senses. “What is it?”

“Ibella. She’s dead.”

“What?”

I force my way along the line. Coranius is still holding the Abelasian sorcerer’s limp frame. The only wound I can see is a small dart in her shoulder.”

“What? How?”

Coranius studies the wound. “Poison,” he says.

“You said she was immune to poison!”

“Not this poison, apparently.”

Lisutaris curses loudly. She dismounts, and puts her hands on Ibella, checking for signs of life. From her distressed expression it’s obvious that Ibella really is dead.

“We have to go,” I say, loudly. “Right now. Put Ibella’s body on her horse and we’ll get out of here. Gurd, back to the rear of the column. Makri, stay with Lisutaris. Lisutaris and Coranius, get your barrier up again.”

“I can’t,” says Lisutaris. “Not yet. I’ve used that spell and I’ll need to learn it again.”

Even our most powerful sorcerers can’t keep an infinite number of spells in their minds. If Lisutaris has fully used up her barrier spell she’ll need to refresh herself from her grimoire before she can use it again.

“Then we’d better move quickly and hope for the best,” I say. “I’ll tie Ibella’s body to her saddle.”

“No need,” says Coranius the Grinder. He places her back on her horse, lifting her quite easily. Physically, as well as magically, he’s stronger than he looks. He intones a brief spell, still touching the body.

“She’ll stay in place now.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

We mount up quickly and move on, traveling as fast as we can in the confined space. The expedition has turned into exactly the disaster I feared. A waste of time at the Oracle, and one of our sorcerers dead. If there’s another powerful attacker waiting for us further along the path we could lose Lisutaris and probably the war before we’ve even left Samsarina.

After we’ve ridden for another ten minutes or so, I notice there’s a little more light filtering through the trees. We’re coming out of the densest part of the forest. The path begins to widen. My leather tunic is scratched and torn from twigs and thorns from the cloying undergrowth, and I have a few scratches on my face, but we’re almost out of it now. When we find ourselves back at the point at which the thick woods give way to grassy slopes I breath a sigh of relief, though I don’t let my guard down. We ride downhill for almost a mile. No one speaks. Eventually I raise my hand, bringing us to a halt under a small copse of trees. It’s now evening. I ride back a few yards towards Lisutaris.

“We’re about a mile from the camp. We’ll be running into the outlying sentries soon. We planned to drift back into camp in ones and twos to avoid attention but now we’ve got a dead sorcerer with us. What would you suggest?”

Ibella hailstorm is still propped up on her horse, held there by Coranius’s spell. It’s going to be difficult to explain. Lisutaris hesitates.

“Could you animate her?” suggests Hanama. “Make her look alive?”

“No. And that’s a distasteful suggestion.”

“If you ride back into camp with an obviously dead companion someone will notice. You can’t trust all the sentries to keep quiet about it.”

“What else can I do? I’m not going to be able to keep Ibella’s death a secret. Her Abelasian colleagues are probably already wondering where she’s gone.”

“Are you still intent on keeping it secret that you visited the Oracle?” asks Hanama.

“Yes.” Lisutaris is insistent. “That can’t be known. The Niojans just wouldn’t stand for it, and we need them.”

“Surely you and Coranius have enough spells between you to get her back into camp without any of the sentries noticing her? You’ll still have to explain her death to your officers but at least the troops won’t see her.”

“I suppose we could do that. We could carry her in the magic space.” Lisutaris doesn’t sound enthusiastic. Not surprising, I suppose, as it involves walking into the camp with her dead friend hidden in her purse.

“Who attacked us?” asks Gurd.

“Deeziz the Unseen,” I reply.

“You don’t know that for certain,” protests Coranius.

“Who else would have the power to fight you, Lisutaris, and Ibella? And kill Ibella with a poisoned dart when you’re all supposed to be immune to poison?”

“We are immune,” says Lisutaris. “To every poison known to sorcery, herbalism and biology.”

“It seems that Deeziz the Unseen knows some things about poison that we don’t.” Coranius is once again grim. As he directs these words towards Lisutaris, I notice a hint of accusation in his voice.

“Apparently she does.” Lisutaris frowns. “Thraxas is right. It can only have been her. No one else could disguise her presence so completely from our detection spells. That means the most dangerous Orcish sorcerer is right in our midst. She’s somewhere close enough to know our plans, even the most secret.”

“How could she possibly know we were going to the Oracle?” wonders Coranius.

“I’d guess that’s she’s in our camp, using the identity of someone we trust,” I say.

“Isn’t it your job to find her?”

“Yes. So far I haven’t. But I did keep us alive along enough to have another attempt.”

We dismount close to the camp. In the darkening evening, we can see the torches at the sentry posts, and the camp fires within. Gurd dismounts and walks alongside me. He has a few scratches on his face but is otherwise unharmed.

“That didn’t go so well,” he says.

“I knew we shouldn’t have wasted our time visiting an oracle.”

“You won’t be saying that when I’m queen,” says Makri, a few paces behind us.

“Queen of where?”

“Who knows? Somewhere good, I hope.”

“I wouldn’t pin your hopes on it. That High Priestess was a fraud. Look what she said about me. Throw down my shield and flee. Outrageous accusation. I’ve spent twenty five years protecting Turai and I’ve never fled yet.”

“She did get it right about Ibella Hailstorm. Warned her about poison. And what happened? About an hour later she was dead from poison. Gurd, you’d better watch out. The oracle thinks Thraxas is losing his nerve. Probably disappear from the battlefield at the first sight of an Orc.”

“I’m going to be fighting an Orc in about fifteen seconds if you keep on like this.”

“Are you calling me an Orc?” demands Makri.

We separate before reaching the camp, arriving in ones and twos, maintaining our secrecy for now. I catch up with Gurd once we’re safely inside.

“Will Tanrose be cooking tonight? I need something hearty.”

“No time for that,” says Lisutaris, appearing out of the gloom. “I need you for a meeting in my tent.”

“Am I meant to starve to death?”

“If necessary. Be there in ten minutes.”

Lisutaris hurries off. Makri follows at her heels.

“She not that great a War Leader,” I tell Gurd. “Everyone knows you have to give your best warriors time to eat.”

Gurd laughs. He promises to save me some stew, then heads off to his unit.