Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [137]
"But less than that for horsemen or for a flying beast," the mage observed grimly.
"Keane!" Alicia said suddenly. "Do you have some way you could get us to that well quickly?"
"I wish, Princess, that I did," replied the sorcerer with a shake of his head. "I have a spell-teleportation-that will take me there in an instant. But it will not benefit anyone else."
"Isn't there something you can do?" demanded the princess.
"As I said, I can go there myself," he said curtly. "And it may be that we have no other tactic available to us."
"Not good enough," grunted Brandon. He seemed to have shaken off his despair. Once again his voice was commanding and controlled. "You have great power, but alone you could fall to a single arrow, or even a well-thrown rock. No, we must travel together."
"Those who can march, at least," Tavish noted, with a look at the dozen or so injured men who were having legs or arms splinted by their companions.
In another hour, a bedraggled band of castaways shivered under a steady rain. The injured had been moved to the village, quartered in as much comfort as possible. Finally those who could walk started across the lowland moor. In minutes, the buildings of the tiny community had vanished into squall and murk.
Surrounded by the storm, the companions marched on.
* * * * *
Larth and his twenty-five mercenaries rode as if all the beasts of the Abyss pursued them. The ponderous war-horses lumbered across the rough country of the highlands, carrying the knights to their mountain goal. The captain allowed them four or five hours of rest during the night, but cursed and kicked them back into the saddle before first light. Fear gripped Larth, a fear such as he had never known. He feared that he would be too late-that he would fail his master.
The thought of facing that softspoken robed figure, the Nameless One, and suffering the brunt of his wrath as penalty for Larth's blunders sent cold daggers of ice into the knight's belly. So he drove himself, and he drove his men.
And they rode through the rain toward the Moonwell.
* * * * *
"Hold thee, beast!" shrilled Pryat Wentfeld, brandishing the Eye of Helm as he crawled from beneath the felled trunk of a massive cedar.
The whirlwind of his air elemental subsided into a great humanoid-shaped being of translucent gas. Now the thing pushed and ripped its way through the huge woodpile in search of the cleric who had summoned it here.
Finally the priest shouted a command word, even as the animated mass of air loomed before him, ready to pull the stout body apart in a cyclonic death swirl, and this time the force of his magic held the beast in check.
The clang of swords against steel still rang from the shore as the two knights battled both each other and ever-increasing exhaustion. But neither could gain the edge that would allow him to win the fight. At the stake, an invisible Newt busily chewed at Danrak's bonds, and slowly the druid tried to work himself free.
"There!" shouted the cleric, his voice shrill with bubbling fright as he tried to control the being from another plane he had summoned. Pryat Wentfeld pointed at the staggering form of Hanrald. "Kill him! Destroy him!"
The air elemental, subject to the pryat's will, swirled toward the battle at the same moment that Danrak finally pulled his hands free. Swiftly he untied his feet, grateful that his guards still gaped at the fight. Then abruptly the druid sprinted toward the well, breaking past the surprised men-at-arms who had ignored their presumably helpless prisoner in lieu of the spectacle of battle around the pond.
Danrak took out a talisman, a round, grape-sized object that he squeezed between his fingers. He saw the whirlwind waver, pausing in its single-minded pursuit of Hanrald. Obviously the cleric had seen the druid, for the elemental now veered toward Danrak.
"Aquais!" cried the druid, popping the tiny vessel, which contained a small amount of pure