Chapter

11

Daretor was upon the snow lion in a moment, dragging its head back with a locked forearm while its claws slashed rock, bedding and air.

Lions are far more powerful than any human, and a moment later the huge cat had twisted free. It stood back for a moment, taking in Zimak’s body, Jelindel standing ready with her staff, and Daretor crouched and ready – hands empty. As it sprang for Daretor he rolled aside, snatched up his axe and chopped hard across its face – too low!

The snow lion crashed into him, legs flailing, and again Daretor rolled away still holding his axe. For a few moments the snow lion staggered, gurgling and coughing, then it collapsed, dying through loss of blood. Daretor’s swing had missed its head but slashed its throat.

The badly winded Zimak soon revived, and Jelindel’s probing fingers revealed that he had a broken rib. Daretor was still shivering with shock as Jelindel cleaned and sewed up two ugly but shallow gashes in his arms by the light of the newly stoked fire and the moons.

‘It was leaping for me, yet you were awake to strike at it,’ Daretor said to her in amazement. ‘Are your senses so very keen?’

‘I saw through its own eyes as it approached.’

‘You – you what?’

‘Like Zimak, I have no formal training, yet in the arts of enchantment I have learned a few tricks. I probably rate middling well as an Adept.’

‘Well why didn’t you warn us?’ demanded Zimak.

‘I didn’t think you would pay me any heed!’ she snapped back. ‘You were hardly encouraging to me.’

Daretor sat thinking as they argued with each other, and at last he spoke.

‘Zimak, I think you are badly wounded and cannot walk.’

‘Oh no, I’m in a little pain but I can –’

‘Just shut up and listen! Pretend that you are badly wounded, understand? Now Jaelin, can you really tell when the accursed thief of a linkrider is watching us through some animal’s eyes?’

‘Well yes, but I need to be in a type of trance.’

‘Good, do it now. I’ll begin digging while Zimak strips off his clothes.’

‘What? My clothes? That’s too much. It’s not just cold here, it’s bloody freezing and –’

‘Do it, Zimak! We must be clever or we’ll be dead! Jaelin, take off the mailshirt, I must bury it.’

‘Bury it? Daretor, I can manage to get into the right trance by myself, but I need the mailshirt to get back to my own body. It acts as a sort of beacon.’

‘Damnation! Damn Black Quell and damn his arse! Can you … Look, what can you do without the mailshirt?’

‘Nothing. My vision and control remain separated from my body – except for hearing and speech. If nobody looked after me I would soon waste away and die.’

‘Damn.’

They sat in silence, all three looking at the dead snow lion. Zimak threw some more brushwood onto the fire’s coals and flames blazed up cheerily.

‘Would you need to bury the mailshirt for long?’ Jelindel asked.

‘I – I can’t say,’ replied Daretor. ‘Three hours, perhaps a whole morning or even a day. Why do you ask?’

‘Because there may be a way. I’ll need a lot of faith in whatever you have planned, though.’

The sky was already brightening with dawn when the linkrider sent a lark over to spy on them.

Zimak was lying on a stretcher made from bedrolls and their staffs, and Jelindel was curled up beside the fire, patrolling a paraplane for the glow of enchantment points. Because it was the countryside, there were very few. Suddenly one blazed up, not far away, but quite high in the air.

‘He’s back,’ Jelindel said in a voice flat from her trance. ‘He must have needed some sleep, but now he is riding a bird high above us. Through the bird’s eyes I can see Daretor scraping a hole in the soil.’

‘Good, now tell me what it sees,’ said Daretor.

‘You are picking up the glowing mailshirt, putting it into a bag, and dropping it into the hole. The bird is circling and dropping lower. He’s definitely interested. Now you are trying to move a boulder. Are you sure it’s not too heavy?’

‘Just tell me what he sees.’

‘You’re rolling the boulder over the hole. Now he’s looking at Zimak’s body.’

‘I’m done; we’ll go now,’ said Daretor.

The sun was clear of the horizon as they set off with Zimak and Jelindel lying as limp forms on an improvised stretcher that Daretor dragged along the road. Once they were well clear of the campsite, Jelindel told Daretor to stop. Her perspective was still from high above, for the linkrider was still watching them by means of a bird overhead.

‘Put a waterskin to my lips, please,’ said Jelindel.

Daretor made a show of tending her, and the linkrider abruptly lost interest in them and broke off. The bird flew back to their campsite, first flying in low to check that all was clear, and that there were no traps.

Through the bird’s eyes Jelindel now saw the linkrider for the first time. He was a tall, gangly man riding a grey mare and leading their three fugitive horses. He dismounted. Leaning on a staff he limped in among the boulders, carrying what looked like a makeshift hoe.

Daretor had chosen the campsite well, for the ground was a triangle with a deep gorge on two sides and the road on the other. Defending the place would have been easy had humans been the attackers, but the snow lion had been able to jump across the deep, narrow gorge.

The bird flew up, watching the scene from above. The linkrider limped over to where the mailshirt was buried, stopped, and kicked the boulder. He bent down and heaved at it, but he was not as strong as Daretor and it did not budge. He began digging with his hoe.

Jelindel saw Zimak dart out from among the rocks behind the linkrider and snatch up his staff. The man whirled about and drew his sword. Zimak caught the blade with the staff, pushed it to one side and lashed a back-step kick into the linkrider’s ribs.

The bird dived, fluttering about Zimak’s head as the linkrider wrenched his blade free of Zimak’s staff and threw an overhand swing at the youth’s head.

In spite of the bird fluttering in his face Zimak swung his staff one-handed to clout the linkrider across the temple, then drew it back and thrust its end into his sternum.

Abruptly there was a change in perspective, and the view changed to high overhead again. Jelindel could see the linkrider staggering back, outclassed even though his smaller opponent was naked and armed only with a staff.

Zimak padded after him over the sharp rocks and freezing ground. Jelindel now realised that the second bird was an eagle. It was diving, confident and arrowswift, straight for Zimak. It struck, tearing at his ear and shoulder with great sharp talons.

Zimak swung at it, missed, dodged a thrust from the linkrider’s sword and brought the staff around in an overhead swing to clout the linkrider over the head again.

The eagle returned to slash Zimak’s scalp with its talons, flapping in his face and screeching. It seized his staff as he thrust at it through blood-blinded eyes, hanging on like a leech as Zimak pounded at it with one hand.

The linkrider chopped overhand but Zimak dodged behind the staff rather than moving it and the blade severed the eagle’s head and stuck in the wood for an instant. For a moment everything went blank for Jelindel.

Another eagle overhead gave Jelindel its view as it too dived. The linkrider had dropped his sword and Zimak was advancing on him with a shower of kicks from his bloody feet. The eagle must have screeched as it dived, for Zimak turned.

The linkrider drew a knife and flung it, hitting Zimak in the forearm. The man had only one moment of triumph, for in his jubilation he had not realised how perilously close he had strayed to the edge of the ravine. He lost his footing, flung his arms up to balance, then slowly toppled over the edge.

The eagle wheeled and flew to the linkrider who seized its legs as he toppled. An eagle can support the weight of a lamb, but not a fully grown human. Jelindel saw the side of the precipice hurtling past, faster and faster, then her view was obliterated.

‘Well, has the linkrider arrived yet?’ Jelindel heard Daretor ask. His words came from beyond the void where she now floated.

‘The linkrider’s dead,’ she said in monotone.

‘What? Why didn’t you tell me when he first attacked?’

‘Zimak’s wounded. Go back and help him, then bring the mailshirt to me.’

‘Damn that; we stay together,’ Daretor replied.

He began jogging along the road, dragging the stretcher behind him. Without the mailshirt Jelindel floated in blackness, hearing the scraping of the poles on the ground and Daretor’s footsteps, but unable to return her perspective to her body.

The mailshirt was a dull lump of solidity in the distance, and the link of the dead linkrider was a speck nearby. There was nothing else to see, nothing familiar to touch. It was like trying to catch smoke.

Jelindel noticed the mailshirt move a little. Hampered by his wound, Zimak was probably slowly digging it up. Soon he would bring it to her and drape it over her body. It was to this reference point that she would return. Without such a beacon she was lost and she knew with dread how easily she could become trapped within this enchanted paraplane.

Enchanted! Jelindel suddenly had a new thought.

She spoke the word of binding for her own lips, using the softest, weakest intonation that she could. At once a point of light flared before her senses. She moved back towards herself, using the aura of the coils binding her own lips as a reference. She opened her eyes!

Now awake and within her body, the relief was so great it was almost painful. The mid-morning air was cool around her, the sun was warm, the stretcher was bouncing all over the place and the reek of Daretor’s perspiration was very strong.

Experimentally, Jelindel lifted her hand before her face, then slumped down limp on the stretcher. But at least the binding on her lips was fading.

‘The mailshirt – I’ve dug it out,’ Zimak called in the distance.

‘Bring it here, quickly,’ Daretor called back as he approached.

Jelindel sat up as soon as the mailshirt was in contact with her. The risk of what might be discovered if someone else tried to get the mailshirt onto her was too great to contemplate.

‘I’m back,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Zimak cheered as he wrapped a trail cloak about himself, then he and Daretor threw their arms around each other.

‘We got the bastard; we got one!’ Daretor shouted in triumph. ‘Honour has prevailed.’

Jelindel stood up shakily and they both hugged her as well.

‘Tch, don’t we make a good team!’ said Zimak. ‘My skill, Jaelin’s magic and Daretor’s brawn.’

Daretor suddenly broke away and stamped to the edge of the ravine. Peering down, he spat at the body of the linkrider far below.

‘I once had skills that I’d gained honourably,’ he shouted furiously into the echoing gap, ‘but one such as you robbed me of them!’

Zimak stood regretting his words while Jelindel shook the mailshirt on over her head again. Some instinct warned her not to mention that the mailshirt had not been needed for her to return to herself. This way she had a good excuse to wear the mailshirt most of the time, and she was anxious to discreetly explore its properties.

Jelindel now went to the edge and looked down. She saw the smashed bodies of the linkrider and eagle on an outcropping several hundred feet below.

‘All our ropes together could not reach that far,’ said Daretor.

‘The skin is flayed from my feet by those rocks, and my arm stopped his knife,’ said Zimak, unprompted.

‘I fought off a lion last night,’ Daretor added. Then they both turned to Jelindel.

‘Me? Go down there?’ bleated Jelindel. ‘I’ve been hours exploring a paraplane. I’m exhausted. Do you think it’s easy for me, floundering about in all that sparkle and nothingness?’

They both continued to stare at her.

‘All right, then, I’ll go,’ she said finally, bending over to shake off the heavy mailshirt.

Jelindel slowly edged her way obliquely towards the linkrider’s body. She had had to walk a mile along the edge of the ravine until she could find a shallower incline. Daretor went part of the way with her, but most of the seven-hour approach had to be made alone. Zimak’s encouragement echoed from hundreds of feet above.

The linkrider’s body had been smashed into a madly contorted shape by the hard, jagged rocks, and feathers from the dead eagle were scattered all around. Blood that had trickled from the linkrider’s mouth was now dry and black, and flies buzzed about lethargically in the cold, thin air. He was wearing the link on the outer finger of his right hand, which was still wrapped around the legs of the eagle. He had been a man in his forties, and his well tanned and lined face suggested a lifetime spent mostly outdoors.

Jelindel made several attempts to touch the dead skin. Help was far away, and she could not be sure that he would not somehow come back to life.

When she finally did touch the linkrider’s hand, annoyance soon replaced revulsion. His death-grip was as firm as a smithy’s vice, and she had to work the finger free with her knife. The link came off easily after that, and she tied it to her belt with a piece of thonging. The revulsion returned when she began to search his body for anything else of value.

Jelindel cut through the body’s robes rather than trying to remove them. There was a purse which she untied and tossed aside, but she found nothing else in the way of crests or papers to identify the linkrider. He had been handsome before falling three hundred feet onto the rocks, and was dressed well and stylishly as a lay pilgrim. His belt seemed to be of soft kid leather, but was wide and thick – too thick. She drew the point of her knife along it and peeled the leather back to reveal a calf leather spine and several strips of folded parchment.

The writing was in Hamarian, but the style of the script was more like that of Hamatriol or Gratz. Jelindel began to read, and did not notice the time passing until Zimak began calling again.

‘Jaelin, are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you get the link?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he have any money?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much?’

‘Didn’t count it.’

‘Jaelin, what the frickash are you doing down there?’

‘Reading.’

There was a long silence.

‘Well, the bloody library is going to close in half an hour when the sun sets,’ Zimak eventually shouted. ‘Start back now or you’ll be doing the climb by Blanchemoon’s light and with frost on the rocks.’

She started back, taking the purse and parchments but leaving the linkrider’s body where it had fallen. The path was now more familiar, but sunset soon removed that advantage. Jelindel was drained of energy by her hours in the paraplane, and searching the linkrider’s body had been a harrowing experience. She stumbled continually, cutting her hands every time she fell against rocks made sharp by frost shatter.

Zimak walked along a path above, keeping her distant company.

The link was glowing brightly from the mailshirt that Zimak carried, and the orange glow helped to cast light on handholds shadowed by Blanchemoon.

At last Jelindel reached a place where the top was only sixty feet away and Zimak called for her to stop: Daretor had found their horses nearby, where the linkrider had tied them. Now he was splicing together a length of rope.

Jelindel spent an hour in cold but welcome rest on the rocks. Finally Daretor lowered the end of his rope to Jelindel, who tied it beneath her arms and allowed herself to be raised by one of the horses.

Zimak had a brushwood fire going by the time she came over the final ledge. She gladly huddled up close to the flames.

‘Well, what did you get?’ asked Zimak.

‘The link, as you see, and some fascinating parchments –’

‘You said he had money.’

‘Ah yes. I’ve not opened the purse yet.’

‘What? You’re mad! Give it here.’

As Jelindel handed the heavy purse to Zimak she thought she felt something squirm within the soft leather. But her hands were numb and lacerated from the long climb back and her mind was as chilled and lethargic as her body.

Zimak fumbled with the drawstrings. There were coins in the purse, so it could not squirm unless –

‘Zimak! Drop that!’ Jelindel screamed as he loosed the drawstrings.

‘What? You’ll get your share –’

She spoke a word of binding and blue coils flashed from her mouth to bind Zimak’s hands about the purse. They also bound a long, reptilian head and neck covered in fur, whose needle-sharp fangs hovered just above Zimak’s fingers.

Jelindel collapsed, a large portion of her already depleted life-force having poured into the coils.

‘Jaelin, what the hell is that?’ bellowed Zimak, frantically trying to pull his hands free.

Daretor came running over, and held Zimak down while he peered at the strange animal.

‘A jh’arat, a Lycellian snake-mouse,’ he declared. ‘Warm blooded but venomous and quite intelligent. They are left in purses by some folk to make sure that no thief does any thievery. Death is within minutes.’

‘Get it away from me.’

‘Jaelin saved your life with his coils, but he also bound the jh’arat to you for many hours to come.’

‘Hours? I can’t stay like this for hours. What happens when the coils vanish?’

‘We’ll make sure the jh’arat is dead by then. There’s a meltwater stream back yonder. We can drown it for you.’

Jelindel dozed by the fire while they were gone, and by the time she woke it had become no more than dying coals. The return of her life-force was what had jolted her awake. She sat up and stoked the fire, sending a cloud of red sparks up into the cold night air.

Footsteps were crunching towards her in the distance, and Daretor and Zimak soon came into sight. Zimak was rubbing his hands together, while Daretor was holding a purse in one hand and something that looked like a yard of thin cord in the other.

While Zimak warmed his completely numb hands in warm ashes and sand, Daretor and Jelindel examined the jh’arat. It had scales on its belly, but very fine fur elsewhere.

‘Had I opened this on the cliff face, it might have bitten me before I could speak a word of binding,’ said Jelindel.

‘So?’ Zimak said tersely.

‘So too much interest in money might have killed me, as it nearly killed you.’

‘We all make mistakes,’ Zimak said hotly. ‘Daretor made one when he threw those tools into the river. He must have known that the dragonlink needs to be joined into the mailshirt before it will stop glowing. Can we do it? Oh ho, no! We have no tools to split the link or re-join it. How do we tell if another link is nearby if the mailshirt is blazing bright orange every minute of the day? Meantime any other linkrider will see his ring glowing when we approach. We’re blinded, don’t you see?’

‘These parchments will help,’ said Jelindel. ‘The linkrider had plans to collect together all the links after he stole the mailshirt. He names the Passendof capital, Dremari, and a place called the Valley of Clouds as having other linkriders. He must have been loitering near Fa’red’s house, studying it for weaknesses when Thull and Daretor did the job for him. It took him a few days to find our trail, but he managed.’

Jelindel waved the parchment for emphasis. ‘His notes mention that each of us has a price of 1000 silver argents on our heads back in Skelt. Apparently we’ve caused a dozen deaths and committed two acts of arson in D’loom.’

‘You mean I’m worth 1000 argents?’ breathed Zimak, genuinely flattered.

‘Dead or alive, but preferably dead,’ replied Jelindel, pointing to the relevant part of the parchment. ‘We’re officially safe here in Baltoria, but bounty stalkers will be after us and they know no laws.’

‘Meantime we need tools to join in the link,’ grumbled Zimak. ‘Every smithy in the entire east half of the continent will have watchers on the alert for three youths trying to get stray links joined into an antique mailshirt.’

‘We can keep it muffled under your sheepskin coat,’ said Daretor to Jelindel. ‘Slowly we’ll buy tools, but until they are all assembled we must keep the link and mailshirt safe while looking for the next link.’