Usara’s shoulders sagged and he scrubbed a trembling hand over his face, a pathetic figure with his breeches around his knees, shirt grubby beneath the soiled front of his gown. Testing one’s magic against the wider world is all very well, I thought, but that’s a wizard who’s going to be mighty glad to be safe on his hidden island again. I wondered if he’d make it with one leg or two.
“There are herbs we can poultice to promote healing,” continued Harile. “We can dull the discomfort and you must rest for your body to mend itself.”
“You’ll be fine, ’Sar,” said Darni briskly as the mage eased his breeches up painfully. “Now, where were you attacked and by what numbers?”
An older man with wiry white hair fringing a bald pate above a lean, keen face pushed past Bera. “What do you know of the storm that has burst over us?”
“This is Apak,” said Bera hastily. “The eldest of trackers.” He was backed by a double handful of people looking just as hard for answers.
Darni looked down with unconscious arrogance. “I am an agent of the Archmage of Hadrumal, Planir the Black. Usara is a mage deep in his confidence and Gilmarten is a wizard of Solura, traveling with us.” His tone forbade further inquiry but Gilmarten bowed hastily.
“Are mages to blame for this calamity?” Apak returned
Darni’s haughtiness in full measure, thumbs tucked in his belt. “We know the Men of the Mountains are backed by magic, make no mistake.”
“I can assure you their enchantments are none of our doing.”
I was relieved to hear a more moderate tone in the big man’s words but Apak snorted, unimpressed. “And what of you three?” His eyes and those at his back were hard and distrustful. I felt ’Gren stir beside me, reacting badly to the palpable hostility coming from all sides.
“We were looking to trade in the Western Ranges,” said Sorgrad soberly, accents of Col resonant in his words. “We were summarily expelled from the heights and we have been pursued with murderous intent.” He indicated Usara and the rest of us still spotted with blood in our stale clothing, his expression neutral in the face of accusing stares.
“What do the Men of the Mountains want with us?” demanded Apak, pent-up frustration finding a target in us. “Why are we fugitives in the wildwood that should shelter us?” He was spitting and stumbling over his words, Forest accents distorting his fluent Tormalin. “Me and mine were grazing our donkeys in the upper margins while the grass was good, the women harvesting herbs, the rest hunting hare or fox. We set our sura in the customary places; the Mountain people have turned their flocks to the upper pastures by now and are busy at their diggings, but some always travel down to trade metal goods and pottery for herbs and woodwork.” The anger in Apak’s face faded to perplexity. “When we saw some men coming, we thought nothing of it, but they carried swords and spears and outnumbered us two for every one. They called us thieves and parasites, cursing us for hunting their lands, saying we stole their pelts. They burned our sura, broke whatever they could lay hands on or cast it into the flames. The women were taken against their will, those who resisted whipped raw.” Burning rage surged in his voice. “We hunt those slopes both sides of Solstice but leave them willingly when the season turns. Mountain Men come down from the heights and we move south before the snows.” His voice trailed off as he gazed into some evil memory. “We fled, what else could we do?”
We were the center of attention, Folk moving closer, abandoning their low-voiced conversations.
“And then?” prompted Darni with more gentleness than I expected.
“Not enough for them to drive us from the margins,” spat Apak. “They followed us deep into the greenwood. Every time we halted, we were attacked, no matter how we sought to hide or evade them. Those standing firm were cut down and those who fled were trapped with magic.” The word was a curse on his lips, echoed in murmurs from those ringing us. I was looking for the fastest way to get clear. Sorgrad and ’Gren could take care of themselves and Darni and his mages would just have to take their chances.
“What was the nature of the sorcery?” demanded Usara.
“What do I know of magic?” Apak glowered at Usara before turning his wrathful gaze on Sorgrad, who was doing his best to look wholly inoffensive, and ’Gren, who was fidgeting with growing defiance.
“Just tell us what happened,” I requested politely.
“People ran mad.” Apak’s voice shook. “Men who know every bend of branch between here and the southern seas were utterly lost. Some ran in terror from sister or brother, straight onto the blades of the uplanders. Others turned on their own, striking them down with hand, knife, fire irons, cook pots.” His perplexity and trepidation was mirrored on faces all around. “The Men of the Mountains laughed to see it and then they killed them.”
“Our beasts turned crazed as well.” Bera picked up the tale somberly. “We were by the streams above the marsh where the Forest narrows, cutting rush and reed, waiting for the moons to bring the mickelfish to spawning. They came down from the heights, called us foul names and killed all they could catch. But Mountain Men never come to the marshes, never once, not in all the years I have traveled that way!” He remembered what he had started to say. “We might have fled through the mosses, but our animals turned against us. They went wild, kicking and biting anyone who dared approach. It was worse than the cursed thirst.” Bera shook his head, bemused. “Some died where they stood, hearts burst with the terror.”
“That’s what happened to our horses,” I told him, “when we were attacked.”
“That is no magic I could work,” Usara spoke earnestly. “My powers are over the elements that make up the world that you see, the air, the earth, fire and water. Had I wished to attack your Folk as they worked in a marsh,” he turned to Bera, all fervent honesty, “I would have raised the water against them, turned the mud to liquid beneath their feet to trap them, woven a fog to baffle—”
“That’s not exactly reassuring them, Usara,” I interrupted. Apak was fingering a dagger at his belt and an unease encircled us like the cold wind presaging a storm.
“Wizardly magic has no power to reach into the mind,” Gilmarten spoke up suddenly, his Soluran lilt turning heads. “This is a new and evil enchantment.”
“Or an ancient one in the hands of evil men,” I corrected him. Guinalle and her scholars might be using their Artifice this side of the ocean someday.
“If you are wizards, can your magic help us?” demanded a voice from somewhere. Ominous expectation hovered like a threat of thunder.
“My vows to Lord Astrad, that is, we are forbidden—and I don’t think I would be able to argue that the Forest is without the King’s laws—” Gilmarten looked stricken.
Usara’s pallor wasn’t only due to his wound. “I could not act without sanction from Planir.”
“Not to attack these Mountain Men,” continued Darni smoothly. “Clearly, any mage may act in defense of himself or the helpless.” He nodded politely to Usara but the smile that curled his lip looked more like the warning snarl of a mastiff to me.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible for Usara to go any paler but he managed it. Harile leaned forward to bruise a pungent leaf under the mage’s nose. The wizard coughed with irritation but it struck a spark of color from his angular cheekbones.
“Scrying can tell us where the Mountain Men are camped,” Darni spoke on with barely a pause. “Their movements will hint at their plans and we can certainly make sure we keep out of their path. But isn’t it time we started taking this fight to them?”
Bera and Apak exchanged uncertain looks but a fair few of the rest looked at Darni with new hope rising above their despondency. He could play this hand if he wanted, I decided. At least it should keep people from measuring Sorgrad and ’Gren for a shallow grave.