Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

‘All right,’ Steven answered, ‘just wave an arm or something.’

Gilmour did, and suddenly Brand pointed in their direction.

All Garec’s fears were realised when instead of coming at a gentle trot they plunged into the trees at a gallop. They were still a hundred paces out when Garec heard Brand shouting. ‘Mount up! Get in the saddle now!’

‘What is it?’ Gilmour said as Steven let the cloaking spell dissipate; Brand reined in, a little surprised at suddenly discovering Garec, the foreigner and the spell table all secreted amongst the trees.

‘How did you-? Never mind. It’s an infantry company, at least one, maybe more – there were several mounted officers, so it might be an entire battalion.’

‘How far?’ Steven asked.

‘An aven, maybe less,’ Kellin said. ‘They’re coming south along the west bank.’

The Larion spell table was balanced on one side, leaning against the slat rails of the little cart. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide it, not within an aven.

A battalion.

Garec’s hands were clammy; he wiped them on his leggings and looked up at Kellin. She was pale, obviously nervous. He shot her a half-hearted smile; she grimaced back at him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered. ‘There’s good news too.’

‘What’s that?’

‘We can’t fight a battalion,’ he said.

Kellin frowned. ‘How is that good news?’

‘All we can do is run.’

Steven rinsed his mouth with snow and spat it out. ‘We can’t leave the table here,’ he said.

Garec brightened. ‘Let’s drop it back in the river. You two hauled it out with no trouble at all. We can come back for it after we slip past Mark and the soldiers.’

‘He’ll know right where it is,’ Gilmour said. ‘He has Lessek’s key; when Mark gets closer, he’ll sense the table, no matter where we put it. It will knock his legs out from under him.’

‘Like hitting a speed bump,’ Steven agreed.

‘Then let him have it,’ Garec said.

Brand said, ‘Kellin, check him for a pulse, please.’

‘No, I’m serious. Let him have it. He’s got at least a company of soldiers working for him. Let him haul it back to Wellham Ridge.’

Steven stared, then smiled. ‘And then we steal it.’

‘Exactly.’

‘It’s too risky,’ Gilmour said. ‘He has the key; he might clear a space right here and begin using the table against us.’

‘Then we destroy it,’ Steven said.

‘We won’t be able to seal the Fold without it.’

‘We might,’ Steven argued, wishing he had more time to experiment with his own magic. He had been able to cast spells that took form when his magic worked in tandem with knowledge he had of his environment, or the quandary at hand. A college physiology class had saved Garec’s life in Orindale, a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry destroyed the acid clouds above Sandcliff Palace and a childhood memory of a loosely woven blanket had hidden them from Nerak outside Traver’s Notch. ‘We might just be able to do it, Gilmour.’

‘The maths and compassion thing?’ Garec asked.

‘Yes,’ Steven said. ‘I know it can work.’

‘And if it can’t?’

‘At least he won’t be able to release his evil master,’ Steven argued. ‘Eldarn will be saved. And afterwards we can find some way to destroy the evil controlling Mark.’

‘Without killing him,’ Kellin said.

Brand shrugged slightly; Mark’s survival was immaterial to him. Garec was glad Steven had been looking the other way.

Gilmour closed his eyes. The air was damp and cold, like a wet cloak. He thought of the lump of folded cloth lashed to the back of his saddle. Lessek’s spell book was hidden there, protected. The ash dream. Nerak had used the book to reach across the Fold. Could Mark use it to usher an unthinkable evil into Eldarn? It was too great a risk. ‘No, we can’t destroy it yet,’ he said.

‘Why?’ Steven said. He cleared his throat, trying to control the tone of his voice. It would do no one’s confidence any good to hear him whining in fear. ‘He can’t open the Fold without it, Gilmour.’

‘I think he can.’ The Larion sorcerer pointed at his horse.

‘What? The book?’

‘Can you open the Fold, Steven?’ Garec asked. ‘Isn’t that where you tossed Nerak?’

‘It is,’ Steven said, ‘but I need more time, I need more practice. I need some frigging paper, a decent pen and a couple of days to think it through. If Eldarn’s fate boils down to a fistfight here in the woods, ankle-deep in the snow, we’re going to lose. I’m not going to kill my friend; it’s my fault he’s here at all.’

‘But that’s not what-’ Garec began.

Steven interrupted, ‘We can win, Garec, I know we can. But I’ve no idea at all what that book’s about. If there’s something the rest of us need to know, Gilmour, the clock’s ticking. As for Nerak, if he could have used that book to open the Fold, I’m betting he would have done it Twinmoons ago. He wouldn’t have hidden the table; he wouldn’t have hidden Lessek’s key, and he wouldn’t have committed himself so diligently to running us all over Eldarn. I know it’s a gamble, but we have to assume the book is secondary to Mark’s goals. We can’t have come this far just to change gears now. The book may be powerful; it may be cruel or beautiful or as pernicious as a bad case of crabs, but we have to focus on the table, because we know that can ruin us.’

‘We can’t destroy it.’ Gilmour was adamant. ‘We would be cutting off our own hands.’

Like a cheap vaudeville magician, Steven thought.

‘So what do we do?’ Brand asked. ‘We can’t roll this cart fast enough to escape, and if we can’t destroy the table, we have to stand and fight.’

‘Against a whole battalion?’ Kellin looked as if she might tumble from the saddle after all.

‘What option do we have?’ Brand asked. ‘Gilmour needs the table. Steven claims we don’t. What should we do? We’re not sorcerers. If Mark gets it, he’ll use it, and we’ll all be dead; Eldarn will be lost. If he waits to use it in Wellham Ridge or even Orindale, we might be able to steal it back from him – especially after the soldiers return to their normal duties. But there are no guarantees he’ll wait.’ Brand looked at Gilmour. ‘Is that right? Have I missed anything?’

‘That’s it, and we’re wasting time standing here, my friends.’

‘So we fight,’ Brand said. A battalion of soldiers can’t stand against these two. Even if you don’t want to kill them, Steven, you can-’

‘Drop trees on them, catch the forest on fire, bring the river down on them, flood the whole rutting place,’ Garec suggested.

‘Vivid imagination, Garec,’ Steven said wryly.

‘I’d make a great magician.’

‘And we’ll run south with the table,’ Brand said, ‘while you delay the soldiers here.’

‘West,’ Kellin corrected, ‘no one would expect that.’

‘How far west can we go?’ Garec asked. ‘We’re backed up against the foothills right now.’

‘Exactly,’ Kellin said. ‘It might be slower and harder, but with all the horses working, we’ll be hidden in the hills before they get here.’

‘Unless they have scouts spread out to the west,’ Garec said.

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Kellin said. ‘If even one of them sees us, we’re lost. We’d never manage to escape uphill.’

‘Then we cross the river.’ Garec gestured east through the trees.

‘No,’ Steven said.

‘No, what?’

Steven ignored them. Turning to the wagon, he allowed the magic to seep from his body, covering him like a bank of fog over a lakeside village. He reached between the wagon slats and pressed his palms against the spell table.