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`Ware attack!
The words rang her awake. She woke to a horse’s terrified neigh and the warning still rolling through her head.
Throwing back her blanket, she sprang up. “Grim!”
“Here.” Facing away from her, he stood with the horses on the fire’s other side. He held Ghost’s reins. Eyes rolling, the dappled grey strained at the reins. He kicked back, throwing dirt into the darkness. The chestnut’s jug head arched forward, big teeth bared, like a snarl at something beyond the ever-shifting light.
She scrambled into her boots then rushed to Grim’s side. “What is it?”
“Don’t know. The horses alerted. That woke me. Then something tested the wards.”
Nothing moved in the smothering dark beyond the sphere of firelight. Ghost made too much noise to hear anything. “Grim, did you use the symbol of chaos that Lady Bone reminded us of?”
“Do you want to be in the Lady’s debt?”
“If I use it, since she gave it to me through her knight, we would risk that. She did not give it to you. Can you not use it?”
“You’ve parsed a fine distinction. She, however, would sense any disturbance in the element and interpret it however she wished. There.”
Twin shards of glowing green gleamed in the darkness. Then they vanished.
“Wyre?” she whispered. “The whole pack of them?”
“Doesn’t smell like that.”
She sniffed. An acrid tang pierced her nostrils. The smell reminded her—no, memory eluded her. “You should have called me earlier.”
“I didn’t call you.”
“You didn’t shout `Ware attack? Look!” Again she saw the twin gleam, joined by another pair. She flashed light.
In the brief seconds of the bright spell, two stunted creatures stood frozen. Open mouths revealed fangs. One gripped a broken branch like a club. The other twisted a coil of rope. Even in the spell’s warm yellow light, their eyes glowed, like the partially-shifted wyre. Sickly green rimmed their eyes, obvious sorcery in use.
Her spell faded. Leaves rustled as the gobbers shifted position.
“How long can you hold that spell?”
Her power might not be great, her hoard of spells might be few, but what she did have, she knew how to use. “As long as you need it.” And she re-lit the bright spell.
He thrust Ghost’s reins at her and drew his sword. In his left hand, he shaped a sphere, ghostly pale, swirling with the energy of controlled Air. “Be ready.”
She remembered the gobber fleeing her camp. “It’s only two. They won’t attack.”
“More than two. Be ready, Orielle.” On the word, he whirled and jumped behind her.
She heard a high-pitched squeal, pig-shrill, and saw a trio of the creatures dodging back from the swing of Grim’s sword.
A fourth gobber flung dirt on the fire. The flames sputtered. More dirt landed on the fire.
Ghost tried to rear. She jerked his head down. “Not now.”
A hard thwack hit her leg. The branch-wielding gobber swung again. She arced the bright spell at it. The creature screeched and dropped the branch to cover its round eyes. It stumbled away, into another, the one with the coil of rope.
Orielle shined the spell toward that one. Scrunching its eyes, it swiped a free hand at her. She dodged the short claws and landed against her horse.
Grim fought a trio of gobbers with the sweep of his sword. Another stood at the fire, dropping dirt on the coals to smother any chance of fire. Two crept behind Grim. She cast a hurried glance for her own safety and saw more gobbers lurking at the verge of the mage light, eyes greeny silver, mouths gaping to reveal triangle-sharp teeth.
The big chestnut stomped a gobber trying to grab his reins. He kicked another behind him. She released Ghost. The horse reared back. A gobber slid off his back. Runnels of blood dripped from his back and rump. With an outraged neigh, the grey fled into the night.
Flicking up more power, Orielle swept away the creatures at Grim’s heels. Then she whirled and blasted Air at the waiting gobbers.
Something dragged on her skirt. A gobber, claws dug into the heavy cloth. It reached for her extended hand maintaining the bright spell. She swiped at it. Chittering, it snapped at her hand. A gust of wind only lodged the short claws deeper into her skirt. Remembering scrunched eyes, she directed the mage light at its face.
The silvery glow left the round eyes. It yowled. Then it snatched away, but those claws dug deep into cloth. Jerking around, it flailed and scrabbled. The shifting weight destroyed her balance. She stumbled to her knees.
A silvery coil dropped over her head. Orielle released the wind spell to hook her fingers in the tightening rope. The gobber shrieked in her ear. His strangling grip didn’t ease.
The mage light faded. She poured energy into it. With the last air in her lungs, she cried, “Sangrior! Sangrior!” The noose tightened, choking the last naming to a mere breath. “Sangrior.”
She toppled and felt fists pummeling her chest, driving out the last breath.
Thunder clapped. Moon-silvered light flooded the campsite. Gobbers screeched. Fists and claws left her body.
She dragged in a blessed breath and jerked the noose choking her.
A lightning-bright flash of power re-ignited the doused fire. Orielle winced and gobbers shrilled anger and fear.
Cold hands lifted her. Cold hands tugged the noose from her neck and over her head.
Her bleary eyes cleared. The sword knight knelt before her. “You came,” she croaked.
“In good time, Lady Aiwaz.”
Grim knelt beside him. “Are you hurt?” He fingered the rents that the gobber had left in her skirt.
“She does not bleed, not even a scratch. Did you spill gobber blood, Rhoghieri?”
“Not a drop. They’re too fast. They stayed back from my sword.”
“The gobber cannot bear Fae-wielded steel. It is very well for you that you did not hurt them. They are the Lady’s.”
“Not with those green eyes rimed with foul silver,” she claimed, voice still hoarse as her throat recovered. Talking hurt, but Sangrior needed to know the sorcerer had controlled this attack by the gobbers.
“Green eyes rimed with foul silver? Lady, are you certain?”
“I was eye-to-eye with two of them.” She coughed at the remnant of their acrid odour, the fetid breath that flooded her face when she tipped over. She pointed at the rope Sangrior absently coiled. The braided hemp shed sparks of eerie green as it passed through his hands.
He hissed. Those black eyes reflected the flames. “Sorcery. The one who tries to use the gobbers, he will the Lady punish.”
Remembering the wight’s fear, Orielle shivered. Grim pressed his shoulder against hers
“You are fortunate to have survived, Lady Aiwaz. The sorcerer targeted you.”
“We are fortunate that you came when called. Did you warn me, earlier?”
He didn’t answer. He coiled the rope tightly, shedding more sparks of sorcery.
“Why do you help us, Sangrior?”
That odd look returned, far from now in time and place. “I remember—.” The long fall of his white hair sifted over his shoulders like cocoon-spun threads. “Do not kill the gobbers. The sigil of chaos will protect you.”
“We’ll not be using that.” Grim remained firm. “We do not wish to be in the Lady’s debt.”
“I may not be able to come when next you call. The sigil offers additional guard.”
The Rho started to argue, yet when she touched his hand, he fell silent. She wished their own disputes were so easily ended. “The sigil will limit chaos. It controls the element for our purpose rather than allows its energy to run free.”
“The Lady gifts this knowledge,” Sangrior added. “In the Wilding, power protects. You wish to avoid debt to the Lady? Be in debt or be in Neothera. The choice is yours.”
“As it was yours,” Grim gritted out.
Pale lids closed over those black eyes. Sangrior sat still as marble, cold as bone. When his lids lifted, his eyes were flat, without any glimmer of light. “Use the sigil. It will not bind you to the Chooser.”
On the words, spoken like a vow, Sangrior backed away from them. He turned edge-side then seemed to fold upon himself. Wind swirled. Leaves and twigs spun about. Then the wind swooped toward him as he folded again and vanished.
The fire lost its lightning ferocity and faded to flames trickling over half-smothered wood.
With a muttered oath, Grim refueled the fire. “See if my horse is injured.”
The chestnut rolled its eyes at her. Speaking softly, she shined the mage light with amber-glow to reassure him. Once she caught the reins, she could examine him. No sliding claws and pointy fangs had cut him, but he shivered at her touch. She ran a reassuring glow over him, adding warmth to her soothing magic, for the night had grown chill.
Or their narrow escape had kicked through her body, giving her shudders worse than the horse.
The fire blazed up, adding true warmth to the campsite.
Grim spoke softly as he joined her. The horse flicked his ears and turned his head to look at his rider. Adding his touch to hers, he patted the horse’s neck then offered a handful of oats from his stock. The horse snuffled and, in the way of animals, cast off the memory of the attack for present comfort.
Orielle stepped back. “I will renew the wards.”
“And use the chaos sigil?”
“We are foolish not to use it.”
“Lady Bone will know.”
“Then I will pay my debt to her when she comes to collect it. Or do you wish to have another attack from gobbers? Or trolls? Wyre with gobbers, eager to feast on us. Or the sorcerer driving an ogre in?”
“They would feast on me. The sorcerer will want to play with his captured wizard. I’m expendable.”
She shuddered. “I shall definitely use chaos now.”
“When you finish, we need to talk.”
Guessing his interrogation would be worse than anything her tutors pealed over her, she hunched her shoulders. Then she shook off the worry. Gobbers are worse. Trolls. Ogres. Keep perspective, Orielle. She tossed her head and blinded him with her smile before walking to the edge of the firelight and carefully drawing the first ward, linking the next with the sigil of chaos.
