Curse of the Shadowmage - Mark Anthony [86]
As he spoke, the night wind picked up, whistling mournfully over the jagged rocks. Kellen felt icy pin-pricks stinging against his cheeks. It was starting to snow.
"We'd better get back to camp," Ferret said. "Mari and
Morhion will be wondering where we are."
Together they moved silently through the chill night toward the hollow where they had left the others. They had gone no more than a dozen paces when the wind suddenly turned into a gale. Another dozen paces and the gale became a hurricane. Kellen stumbled, the fierce wind lifting him bodily off the ground. He would have been blown down a ravine and dashed against the rocks were it not for Ferret's quick reflexes. The thief grabbed the collar of Kellen's tunic and pulled him back. Holding on to each other, they tried to make headway against the wind, but the gale seemed to blow them back nearly as many paces as they stumbled ahead. The sound of the wind rose to a keening wail, and the hard snow felt as if it were scouring the skin off Kellen's face. The scar on his left hand throbbed dully.
"I don't think this is a normal storm, Ferret!" he cried over the shriek of the wind.
"Even I could figure that one out, kid!" Ferret shouted back.
Cloaks flying wildly behind them, the two struggled on. Suddenly, like a dark wound, a rift opened in the clouds that had hung for three days over the High Moor. With impossible speed the rift widened as the violent wind ripped the clouds to ragged tatters. As quickly as it had risen, the gale dwindled and blew itself into stillness. The night was utterly silent. Stars glittered like chips of ice in the perfect black sky, and a gibbous moon frosted the land with crystalline light.
"It's beautiful," Kellen whispered, his breath making ghosts in the motionless air.
"Yeah?" Ferret asked softly. "I was thinking more along the lines of'weird' myself." The thief's beady eyes glittered warily in the moonlight.
Then a new sound shattered the frozen air-the hunting call of a lone hound. After a moment, the hound's distant cry was echoed by that of another, and another, then dozens like it.
"I think we might want to hurry a little, Ferret," Kellen said gravely.
The thief did not argue. They started into a trot, then a lope, and finally an all-out run. The malevolent baying echoed all around now, and it was getting closer. Hearts pounding, the two reached their encampment to find Mari and Morhion staring wide-eyed into the night.
"What in the name of the Abyss is going on?" Ferret swore, panting.
"The shadevari conjured shadowhounds to pursue us,' Mari said grimly.
"We managed to escape them in the Reaching Woods," Morhion added. "However, I fear we have little chance of eluding them on the open moor."
Ferret shuddered. "It was a rhetorical question. You didn't have to answer it, you know."
More sinister baying splintered the night, closer than before.
"We can stand here and argue semantics, or we can find a place to defend ourselves. Which would you prefer?"
Morhion asked.
"What do you think?" Ferret snapped in exasperation. "There." Mari said, pointing into the moonlit night. "We'll make our stand there." Less than a quarter of a mile away, a low hill rose against the starry sky. Standing atop the tor was a jagged ring of stones, the ruins of an ancient tower. There was little need to urge the frightened horses into a gallop. In moments, the four reached the crest of the hill and led the horses through a gap into the ruin. The wall of weathered stone stood about shoulder height, and the floor which was covered with a carpet of moss and witch-grass was no more than a dozen paces across.
Morhion muttered the words of a spell, and a blue Incandescence burst to life between his hands. Slowly, the glow began to spread outward in a widening circle. "What are you doing?" Mari asked breathlessly. "This is a spell of protection," Morhion explained.