I told the old man and Kendra what was happening.
Kendra agreed with me.
The old man didn’t. He said, “Bring one horse, and all your people. Have your best men row, and the boat will carry two more. I’ll row back by myself, and we’ll ferry your horses one at a time, but you’ll all be safe over here and we’ll be in the boat where they can’t get to us.”
That was a better plan. I started to give instructions to Anna when Kendra took my arm in an iron grip. I followed her gaze. To the east, or on our side of the lake, in the direction of Dagger, a plume of dust rose.
The fisherman looked too. He said, “Horses, coming fast. At least ten, maybe more. Got to be an army.”
Kendra said, “What now?”
“Ride,” the old man said as he pointed south. “Lose yourselves out there, then head directly east. Find the fishing village called Ander and ask for Thom. He’s my brother.”
“What about the others?” I asked. “Our friends?”
“Use your witchcraft to tell the others to take to the water. Leave the horses. There are no other boats near here. They will be safe there.”
Kendra said as she strode to the horses and leaped for the saddle. She snapped at me, “Come on. Tell Anna we’ll meet up in a few days. Right now, we either ride or are captured.”
I turned to the old man. He stood calmly, showing neither fear nor excitement. With a slight shrug, he said, “Go.”
“What about you?”
“I will be fine. This is not the first time my enemies have tried to find and capture me.”
The barren ground offered no hiding places for him, he had no horse or boat, but from the slight twitch at the corners of his mouth, he had a plan. My horse was nervous and ready to run. I gave it my heels and turned it to follow Kendra, who was keeping to the vegetation to avoid raising a dust cloud of our own. Smart. As usual, she was a full step ahead of me. No, make that two.
Looking back over my shoulder, I watched the old man wade out into the water and slowly begin swimming with long, easy strokes. By the time the army arrived, he would probably be so far from shore they wouldn’t see his bobbing head. If they did, most of them probably couldn’t swim, and he could just swim away from the shore where they couldn’t reach him. But the easy thing was that he didn’t have to swim all the way across the lake, only far enough from shore where they wouldn’t spot him. After they left the area, he’d probably swim back ashore and wait for his sons to rescue him.
Not for the first time, I felt the least intelligent of the three of us on this side of the lake. I reached out to Anna. *Riders are coming our way. A lot of them.*
*Get out of there.*
*We are. On the coast, a little south of Dagger is a fishing village called Ander. The man there named Thom is the old fisherman’s brother. He will help you and us. We’ll meet you there.*
*The father fisherman? The boys want to know where he is.*
*Tell his sons he went into the water to hide. He’s swimming where they won’t see him. They will need to row there to get him when it is safe.*
I looked over my shoulder again. The old man was already so far from shore I barely saw his splashes. If he were to stop and tread water, I might not see him at all, but what I did see was Kendra’s dragon flying low and fast. It flew on an angle, heading directly for the dust cloud growing closer to him. She had detected it, of course. It seemed that when there was fighting, the dragon protected us.
That idea was not new, but the implication was almost negative. Was that all a dragon was good for? It seemed a waste of a magnificent creature. I searched the sky for Wyvern and saw none.
Anna’s mind touched mine, another feat that was becoming routine. *We are all safe but abandoned our horses on the shore. More soldiers arrived as the princess was boarding the barge. She made her horse get off and ordered all of us on so we could escape. The two boys rowing are taking us way out into deep water where arrows can’t reach.*
*Then what?*
*I’m a little girl. Nobody tells me anything or asks for my opinion.*
Kendra’s lead had extended, and I couldn’t shout the new information to her, but it would wait. The slope of the land rose slightly, and I could still see the lake behind, but there was no sign of the old man, the barge filled with our people, or the army that had been riding to intercept us. Even the dust plume was gone, and I assumed the dragon had attacked or scared them into hiding or dispersing.
There seemed nothing to do but follow my sister and try to keep up with her. I pooled a fist-full of magic and reached ahead. It shook a low branch on a scrubby juniper to make sure my increased magic was working. The branch was farther away than I’d ever attempted, so lacking anything else to occupy my mind, I spotted a low, rocky ridge running parallel a hundred steps away and decided to attempt another use of magic.
I swirled dirt up there on the ridge into a twisting funnel and made it keep pace with us for a while. Then I levitated a rock and made it float alongside me. My small-magic at Crestfallen had been limited to slightly directing an arrow in flight perhaps the space of a hand or deflecting it by the same. I condensed water to wet material, shifted a foot enough to trip, tipped tankards of wine enough to spill, and little more. The limits were such that I was an infant in my skills when around true mages.
We had called it small-magic since children, an accurate name in practice. I’d once managed to raise a single sheet of paper above a tabletop and hold it there for a few moments but to lift a stone the size of my fist was impossible. To make it float alongside a running horse impossible. A few grains of sand to cast into the eyes of an enemy, or puff of breeze to put out a candle in a corridor I wished to travel without being seen, were the maximum uses of my powers. The stone I held in the air still rode beside us, keeping up. It seemed to take very little effort and I felt I could do the same with one much larger.
In frustration, elation, or perhaps terror, I gave the stone a mental shove away from me as if offended. It streaked away, flying twice the distance I could have thrown it by hand. That stunned me.
The pounding of the horse’s hooves, the beating my butt was enduring, and the fact that my sister was still outpacing me, caused me more physical and mental pain. Behind us, the lake was no longer in view. Not that we’d traveled so far, but the upward rise had ceased long ago, and we now rode on level ground. The lake was below the dip of the horizon.
Any soldiers back there couldn’t see us any more than we could see them. My horse was laboring now, breathing in gasps, and its gait was uneven with exhaustion. I pulled back on the reins and came to a stop before dismounting. I walked ahead as the horse recovered and easily kept pace with me as it rested. If needed, it could run twice as fast and far as a few minutes ago.
*Did you escape?* Anna asked.
*We did. We are heading south before turning east to the sea because any searching for us will follow the shore. How about you?*
*Will says three more groups of soldiers have arrived. He said that they probably sent messages to their headquarters that we’ve gone out onto the lake in a boat and they will capture boats and come after us.*