Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [263]
The wind changed direction with an audible whump, and was abruptly whistling past her, back towards the pursuers that were surely coming. She heard it keening through the trees, followed by the snow, thicker than it had been a moment ago, rushing to fly in the faces of their hunters, while obliterating all tracks.
She felt something go out of her, as if some great reservoir had been emptied all at once – expended in a flood of power sent to batter the very heavens into submission.
But had I been skilled, oh then . . . For in that moment she saw that given a little application, a little care, she might have achieved the same result from so much less effort, and thus have something still in hand to deal with her enemies when they did finally catch up. For now, though, she felt leaden, hollowed out, and could only stumble behind Maure as the magician led her after the others.
The fierce snowstorm that would now be making their followers’ lives a misery was well behind her, and it stayed behind her as she hurried to catch up with Thalric. The air ahead and immediately around her remained crisp and still, the wind itself waiting for her to pass by before claiming another yard of ground.
Her progress was a mad lurch through the forest, the snow always building right behind her, gusting about her heels as though she was the harbinger of a second winter. Maure, helping to take Che’s weight, was shivering, the tips of her ears and nose turning blue with cold, but Che herself felt none of it.
Consequences, she thought to herself. I must be more careful whenever I try to move the world. My standpoint is more solid than I thought. At the same time, though, the scholar in her was considering, And though I believe I moved the weather, yet Thalric would simply claim that this snow was fortuitous. Magic must creep, now. It is not the fire and grandeur of the Bad Old Days.
She heard Dal Arche cry out from ahead of her, his words lost in the wind, but they could mean nothing good. Maure put on an extra burst of speed, without being asked, and a moment later Che saw Thalric, his hands outstretched, looking wildly around. Tynisa crouched at his feet, plainly awake and aware. Her eyes locked on to Che’s and she shouted hoarsely, ‘Look out!’
The snow had not been enough. Even as Tynisa called her warning, a horse thundered between them, close enough to nearly shoulder Che aside. Something whistled by her head, like a large insect, and she only realized afterwards that it was a sword blade.
The horse reared as its rider tugged at the reins to turn it back. Soul Je’s arrow nipped past him, clipping the armour on his shoulder. Then there were more of them. The snowstorm had stripped Salme Elass of most of her force, losing them in the labyrinth of trees and foul weather that Che had turned the forest into. They would have had other magicians, though, to cut a course for them through the wild wind, and now this handful of cavalry had found them, and there would soon be more to come.
Another rider bore down on Che and Maure, a spear couched in his arm, but Dal Arche’s arrow flowered suddenly from the horse’s neck, and the luckless animal rolled forward and over, its rider’s wings flourishing briefly to bring him down firmly on his feet. A moment later Thalric’s sting knocked him down, cracking his intricate armour like an eggshell. A further crackle of stingshot sounded further off, as Mordrec defended himself from more of the Salmae’s followers.
The swordsman had now turned to ride down Soul Je, who kicked himself backwards in a long arc, fifteen feet of leap at least, loosing another shot even as he sprang from the man’s path. Then Che lost track of him, because an arrow drove deep into Maure’s arm, and she cried out in pain and sat down hard.
The archer was