Lisa Smedman - Heirs of Prophecy

With a sinking heart, Larajin realized her magic had not been powerful enough to subdue the brigand. Was his will really that strong-or had she done something to displease the goddesses?

No time to wonder about that now. Klarsh had already begun muttering a spell. Determined to go down fighting, Larajin drew the magic dagger Tal had given her and assumed one of the fighting postures he’d taught her. Enik looked scornfully at her and laughed. As he started to speak, Larajin steeled herself, trying to close her mind to the magic she was certain was about to be unleashed upon her.

“Hey, now, missy,” Enik said in a low voice. “Have you forgotten that old Enik’s your pal? Why don’t you give me that pretty little dagger before you hurt your-”

A hissing noise, like the switch of a whip through the air, cut off his words. Enik’s expression changed, his eyes widening and his jaw dropping open. For a moment, Larajin thought something had gone wrong with his spell, then she realized that that other objects were whistling through the air all around her.

Arrows.

Enik looked stupidly down at the bloody barb of the arrow protruding from his chest, let his breath out in a bubbling sigh, and collapsed to the ground. Behind him, the other sellswords cursed, drawing their swords and whirling to face the threat. The wizard hurriedly cast a spell, and disappeared with a soft pop .

Larajin saw slender shapes flitting through the woods and caught a glimpse of a tattooed face. Elves!

Whirling, she clutched her bag to her chest, uncertain which way to run. From behind her came the screams of men and the whinnies of startled horses. The caravan was also under attack. She could hear arrows burying themselves in the sides of the wagons with harsh thuds.

She started to run up the road, but just ahead of her an arrow hit one of the brigands, causing him to howl in pain. Skidding to a stop, she decided to dash for the woods instead, but collided with Dray. He steadied her, then bent down and grabbed a sword from the lifeless hand of one of the brigands.

“Run!” he shouted. “I’ll hold them back.”

Before she could suggest that he, too, should run, an arrow struck Dray’s arm. He doubled over in pain and nearly dropped the sword. A second arrow buried itself in the ground near his feet.

Seeing that it was hopeless to stand and fight, Larajin turned and did as Dray had bade her. She ran.

A driverless wagon thundered past, pulled by terrified horses. Larajin sprinted beside it, using it to shield herself from the elves’ attack. Blighted vegetation cracked underfoot as she ran, and another arrow, fired under the wagon, narrowly missed her legs.

Realizing that she was still a target, she turned and sprinted for the woods on the side of the road opposite the one the arrows were coming from. Mist still hung in patches here and there between the trees. She zigzagged around it, fighting her way through the blight-slimed underbrush. Branches ripped her bag from her arms and tore open the mouth of her money pouch, spilling its coins. Larajin winced at their loss but kept running, one hand still clutching her dagger. She dodged around a tree, putting its massive trunk between herself and the elf archers.

Distracted by the screams of fighting men and a loud groan that might have been Dray’s voice, she stumbled over a root, then recovered and ran on. Behind her, the curses and shouts were getting fainter-and fewer. A moment more, and they were replaced by silence, then came the sound of bottles being smashed.

Larajin ran on through the forest, angling north to parallel the road, all the while casting nervous glances over her shoulder. It sounded as though the elves were sacking the caravan-would that keep them so busy they would forget about pursuing her?

Out of the corner of her eye, Larajin saw something whipping up off the forest floor toward her-a rope? It coiled around her leg. Jerked to a sudden halt, she crashed to the ground, the wind knocked from her. A snare! The elves must have set a trap.

Her dagger lay beside her, where she’d dropped it. Head still spinning from her fall, Larajin groped for it, but as her fingers closed around the hilt, another snare whipped around her forearm, preventing her from using the dagger to cut herself free.

No-not a snare, she realized, looking down. That wasn’t a rope around her arm; it was a leaf-covered vine. It looked like ivy, but it moved with a sinuous grace, and a purposefulness that suggested sentience. She realized that it must be the choke creeper the caravan drivers had spoken of it. This infestation was the reason the wizard was clearing the road.

She watched in horror as the loose ends of the vine coiled their way up her arm and leg like constricting snakes. Struggle as she might, she could not pull herself free. The vines were as strong as braided steel. More of them were questing blindly toward her, drawn by her frantic motions. She had blundered onto a wide patch of the creeper. The entire floor of the forest seemed to have come to life, to be reaching for her. Under that tangle of greenery, she could see the white of bones. She was not the first creature to have been caught in this trap.

Something tickled the back of her neck. Larajin jerked away, throwing herself violently to the side, but to no avail. One of the vines was around her neck. Larajin forced the fingers of her free hand under the vine, struggling to prevent it from crushing her throat, but this gave only momentary relief. Unable to rise, to flee, she wished now that an arrow had found her, instead. Knowing that she was about to die, she began choking out the words of a prayer.

As if in answer, an angry howl came from somewhere above. An instant later Larajin heard the fluttering of wings and saw the tressym swooping down through the trees.

“No,” she choked out, as a strand of the vine rose into the air, questing for the tressym. “Don’t…”

The vine around her neck tightened, forcing her fingers into her throat. Unable to speak, Larajin could only weep, certain that the tressym would be lashed from the sky.

But the tressym proved more agile than the questing vine. A leafy tendril caught and bent one of the feathers at the tressym’s wingtip-but then she was swooping back up into the sky with powerful beats of her wings. She repeated the action, and with each dive and ascent more and more of the vines followed her-and Larajin found that her hand, which still held the dagger, was free.

She sat up, slashing at the vine around her throat. The sudden movement triggered the rest of the tangled mass, which rippled toward her, but the tressym had bought her the time she needed. With a single swift stroke of her dagger-whose magical blade parted the vine as easily as rotted twine-Larajin was free.

Scrambling to her feet, she leaped back from the tangle of vines, onto a clear patch of ground. Sobbing with relief, she glanced up and saw the tressym perched safely on a branch, watching her with large, round eyes.

“Thank you, my little friend,” Larajin said. “You and I are balanced now-one rescue for another. If that’s why you’ve been following me all this time, consider your debt to me paid. You are free to go, but if you do decide to follow me farther, I think you should have a name. Certainly you’ve displayed a heart of gold today-and so, I grant you the name Goldheart.”

She pointed the blade of her dagger at the tressym, like a king bestowing honors on a knight, then she bowed.

When she rose, Goldheart was gone. A single bent feather, fallen from her wing, drifted down through the branches. Larajin ran and caught it-then jumped back in alarm as a wild elf stepped out from behind the trunk of the tree in which Goldheart had been perched, bow at full draw and arrow nocked. Larajin thought about raising her dagger, then realized what a futile gesture that would be. If the elf had intended to shoot her, Larajin would be dead by now. Instead the archer just stared.