“I’ll have you know my wyverns think quite well! And they’re loyal—once they decide you’re a friend, they’re true for life!”
“How would you know? You’ve only had them for a few weeks,” Blaize objected.
“At least they’re real friends, not allies out of convenience!”
“I wouldn’t call having a mutual enemy convenience—”
“Wouldn’t you?” Mira challenged. “As soon as that mutual enemy’s overcome, your ghosts will drift away and ignore you—if they don’t find a reason to turn on you first!”
Blaize smiled. “I’ll have to learn to persuade them not to, won’t I?”
“My friends,” Mira pointed out, “don’t need persuading—not once you’ve befriended them, at least!”
“Hold!” Blaize raised a hand, looking off into space. “My friends are sounding the alarm!”
Sure enough, Conn and Ranulf appeared in the shade of an oak, dim and watery in daylight, but their faces were hard and angry. “Up and away!” Conn cried. “Your enemies are on the march!”
“How far away?” Gar came to his feet.
“Perhaps half an hour, at their rate of march. Off with you!” Blaize and Mira leaped up in alarm.
Gar stood, scowling.
“The better part of valor,” Alea reminded him.
“It’s the same five magicians.” Gar read distant minds, his gaze remote under lowering brows. “But they’re bringing fifty guards each this time. They’re planning to let brute strength and strong brutes do the worst of the job for them.”
“The worst?” Alea asked in alarm. “I thought they fought with magic!”
“Not when they’re outspelled.” Gar’s eyes sparkled with anger. “This time they’re going to sit back and wait while their little army of two hundred fifty charges in to catch us and tie us up.”
“Two hundred fifty?” Conn said with a vulpine smile. “Then half of them are fresh from the plow with scarcely enough training to hold a spear! One sight of a ghost, one moan, one clank of a chain, and home they’ll run!”
“He’s right.” Blaize squared his shoulders even though his eyes were wide with fear. “And if one ghost should scare them, a dozen will rout them utterly. I’ll call up a few I’ve come to know—”
“And I shall summon a dozen of the friends I’ve made these last few weeks!” Mira cried. “Let’s see how their courage holds in the face of claws-and claws in the face!” She trembled, but she stood firm.
Alea smiled at both of them, then turned back to Gar. “Do you still doubt the worth of these serfs?”
“Not these two, at least,” Gar said with an answering smile, “but I don’t think we can fight off this many without some getting hurt, even a man or two dead.”
“Let them die!” cried Ranulf. “They knew the risk when they became soldiers!”
“Yes, but only a few of them actually chose their trade,” Gar answered, “and we’re preaching peace and harmony, not slaughter. We’ll fight if we have to—but so far we don’t have to.”
Alea nodded. “Time for discretion.”
“What does that mean?” Blaize asked, puzzled.
“In practical terms, it means we strike camp and see if we can march faster than the magicians’ little army,” Gar told him. “You don’t mean we’re running away!”
“I mean exactly that,” Gar said. “If they don’t give up the chase, we’ll choose high ground and a narrow trail to make our stand and fight them off. If we fight them here, though, the battle might spill over onto the villagers, and they may not deserve to be free, but they don’t deserve to die, either.”
“No, that’s true,” Blaize said, frowning. He turned away to start stuffing his pack.
“No amusement here,” Conn said in scorn. “Let us know if you decide to stand up for yourself, laddie!”
He and Ranulf disappeared.
Mira looked up at the half-dozen wyverns circling above. “There’re friends for you! I didn’t even call—they came because they felt my alarm.” She raised her voice. “Not yet, little ones! Go and hide, but stay near. If the soldiers attack, I’ll call on you quickly.”
The wyverns wheeled and glided away toward a stand of trees, squawking in disappointment.
“Not as good as ghosts, perhaps, but they certainly could prove useful,” Blaize said, his eyes on the little dragons.
“Not as good! What’s better about your ghosts, I’d like to know?”
“They can’t be knocked out of the air by crossbow bolts, for one thing,” Blaize said. “Here, I’ll pack your tent. You drown the fire.”
Off they went as quickly as they could into the forest and along the stream, but the woods-ghosts told Blaize that the soldiers were still coming. Slow they might be and wary of the shadows and overhanging limbs, but their masters wouldn’t let them stop, driving them ahead with fire and shaking the earth behind them.
“Might bandits find us?” Mira asked, looking about them wide-eyed.
Gar gazed off into the shadows. “They already have—and they’re thinking about attacking, but they realize they’d have to fight the soldiers for us. They’re pulling back to watch and wait.” Then he straightened, smiling. “One of them has a boat moored nearby! We’ll borrow it.”
They found a rowboat moored beneath an overhanging bank. In they went and took turns with the oars. The current quickened and bore them out of the forest much faster than the soldiers could march, but as they came out of the trees, they found themselves in a gully.
“Over to the side,” Gar directed. “I don’t like traveling where somebody can throw rocks down at me.”
His friends allowed as how he had a point and moored the boat to a root. Up the bank they climbed, then across a meadow to the shadow of some hills. They climbed as the sun sank behind them, and when they reached the top, they looked down the far side and saw, in the gloom of the hills’ shadow, a grim outcrop of angular shapes where two rivers met. Clusters of lights glowed in its darkness.
“A city!” Alea exclaimed, staring.
“Yes, one of the graveyards of our ancestors,” Blaize said, shivering. “I wouldn’t like to try to sort out the hundreds of ghosts I’d find in those towers!”
“Somebody lives there,” Gar pointed out “Somebody alive, I mean.”
Alea looked back sharply. “Do you hear that?”
The others fell silent, listening, and heard the clank of steel behind them. They turned to look anxiously and saw Conn in the shadows below them, waving and calling, “They found your boat and are climbing after—much more quickly now that they’re out of the forest!”
“Try to slow them down, will you?” Blaize asked.
“We’ll try.” Conn shrugged. “But their masters have ghosts of their own, and any fear we inspire will be balanced by those behind them.”
Ranulf appeared beside him, calling, “Go quickly! Go to ground! Hide while you may!”
“Hide?” Blaize asked in a quandary. “Where?”
“There’s a city below you to the east! They’ll never come after you there.”
“Neither will we!” Mira shuddered. “I’ve no wish to be plagued by the ghosts of our ancestors—or hunted by the maniacs who are too mad to fear them!”
“You’ve small choice!” Conn said impatiently. “Besides, what’s to fear from a few ghosts?”
“But these are the ghosts of centuries of madmen!” Blaize protested.
“Aye, and some might have rage so intense as to cause a mortal pain,” Ranulf conceded. “Still and all, lad, it’s phantom pain and means nothing. Spectral swords don’t really pierce you, limbs aren’t truly broken. Ignore and plow ahead, and they’ll leave off.”
“I don’t think I like the sound of this.” Alea turned to Blaize. “Nonetheless, lad, I think we can summon anger to equal their own. If they can cause us pain, we can return it.”