The wagoners paused at midday to water the horses at a spring. A rude wall of fieldstone surrounded the waterhole. Tol and Darpo had been riding in the vanguard position; they sat on the wall watching the drivers tend to their animals. The black-haired wagoner who drove Faranu’s prison carried two buckets. One was shared by his team, the other he passed to Yull, who took it into the back of the wagon. A short time later he emerged; the bucket was empty.
“Thirsty fellow,” Darpo remarked curiously, and Tol nodded.
Yull went to the front of the wagon and hauled a heavy burlap bag out from behind the driver’s seat. He filled the bucket from it, spilling part of the contents on the ground. Then he went inside again with the laden pail.
Tol inspected the spill. Grain-oats, to be precise-trickled through his gloved fingers. The wagon jounced as Yull stepped down from its rear, and Tol dusted his hands and sauntered back to the spring.
Darpo queried him with a look. “What do apples, water, and oats suggest to you?” Tol asked.
“Horses,” the scarred warrior replied immediately.
Tol agreed. “Something odd is going on,” he said but had no firm idea yet of what.
They moved on. Nothing untoward happened until midafternoon. Tol and Darpo were trailing in the rearguard position, and Kiya was riding in front of the wagons. Frez and Miya were scouting ahead when a man on horseback approached, the first rider they’d seen.
A slight fellow wearing a leather jerkin, he cantered by Frez and Miya without appearing to notice them. As he drew near Kiya, however, he veered slightly toward her. Without warning, the Dom-shu woman nocked an arrow, drew, and shot the man from his horse.
The lead wagoner hauled back on his reins. The caravan lurched to a stop, beasts stamping and wagoners cursing the abrupt halt. Tol and Darpo galloped forward, ignoring the cries of the lead wagoner that Tol’s “savage” had shot an unarmed traveler.
Kiya dismounted and rolled the dead man over. She yanked back his hood, revealing the shock of braided hair and pointed ears of a woodland elf. When Kiya parted his jerkin, they saw he wore a ring mail shirt. Strapped to his back, its pommel only barely visible above the neck of his jerkin, was a concealed sword.
A warrior skilled in such a method of carry could wait until he was abreast of his target, then draw and stab in one lightning-fast motion. Kiya had acted to save her own life.
“How did you know he was armed?” Frez asked.
“I saw the shoulders of his jerkin rise each time his horse put a foot down. Something under his jerkin was bouncing slightly. A sword, a mace, something.”
Yull appeared, gesturing angrily at them to move along. Not knowing whether the dead elf was a lone warrior or someone’s scout, they rolled him off the road and tied his horse to the back of a wagon. The caravan continued on its way.
Around the next big hill, the road straightened, and they could see ahead almost half a league. Not another soul was insight.
Frez and Miya pulled their mounts to a halt. The Ergothian drew his saber.
“Woman,” he said, “tell Lord Tolandruth we’re in trouble.”
Miya wasted no time questioning the veteran soldier but wheeled Pitch in a tight circle. The wagons rolled slowly up behind Frez and stopped. Miya cantered down the line. As she passed her sister, Kiya nocked another arrow.
Before Miya reached Tol, the air around them flashed as bright as a sun. Pitch balked and reared, but Miya held on. The draft animals neighed in fright and yanked against their heavy traces. The wagons were suddenly burning!
Drivers and guards leaped for their lives. Pitch shied away, nimbly climbing the hillside sideways to escape the billowing flames. Miya held on for dear life and shouted, “Husband! We’re attacked! The wagons burn!”
From their place forty paces back, Tol and Darpo had seen the caravan halt. With a cry of “Fire!” Darpo pulled his sword and galloped ahead.
Tol drew his new dwarf-forged saber and followed quickly. In spite of the cries from his people and the wagoners, he saw no flames. The rearmost wagon, slightly askew on the road, looked the same as always. The driver was crawling away in the dust, beating at his pants legs. Yull emerged from the canvas enclosure yowling and slapping at his head and face with meaty hands. Neither man was on fire, though they obviously thought they were.
“It’s a trick!” Tol shouted, as Shadow galloped toward the beleaguered caravan. “There’s no fire! Watch out for an ambush!”
He left Darpo to guard the rear wagon. Ignoring the screeches of Yull and the driver, Tol spurred Shadow up the hillside and caught the reins of Miya’s terrified horse. Fumbling for the millstone, he clapped a hand to Pitch’s neck, and the horse calmed. Grasping Miya’s wrist, Tol broke the illusion for her as well.
“It’s an illusion,” he said. “There’s no fire! Are you all right?”
She was and very angry at being tricked. “I’m going to crack some skulls for this!”
“Fine! Follow me!”
Tol also broke the spell for Kiya and her horse. Likewise furious at being deceived, Kiya joined Tol and her sister as they rode to relieve Frez. They found him beset, surrounded by eight attackers on foot. He was keeping them off with sweeps of his saber. Her horse at full gallop, Kiya rose in the stirrups and loosed an arrow, taking down an opponent armed with a billhook.
A shower of stones fell on Tol and the Dom-shu. On the crest of the facing hill stood foes with slings whirling. Leaving Kiya to drive the attackers back with swiftly loosed, well-placed arrows, Tol and Miya rode to Frez’s aid.
Their opponents were nothing more than a rabble, armed with whatever arms they had gleaned from earlier victims. Tol’s dwarf blade-”Number Six,” as Mundur Embermore had called it-split iron and bronze with equal ease. He struck down two robbers with only two blows, cleaving a helmet (and skull) in twain and piercing a brazen buckler.
Having lost the element of surprise, the raiding party fled, leaving three of their number lifeless on the road. Kiya got another, a sling-wielder on the hillside, at a range of two hundred paces. Frez had a few cuts, as did his horse, but those were the only injuries among Tol’s party.
They rode slowly down the line of wagons, which had been abandoned by drivers and guards alike. Frantic to escape the phantom flames, the draft horses had torn free of their traces and run away into the distance.
Darpo was waiting by the last wagon. His eyes were wide as he hailed Tol and gestured to the wagon he guarded.
“My lord,” he said, “you must see this!”
Tol peered through the parted canvas. Lying in the bed of the wagon was what appeared to be a young horse, a colt, with a coat the color of clover honey. That made sense, given the rations Yull had been feeding their prisoner. Then the colt lifted its head and all such prosaic thoughts fled.
A single horn, white as cream, protruded from the animal’s forehead.
“Mishas save us!” breathed Frez. “A unicorn!”
The men stared in open-mouthed shock, but the Dom-shu women fell to their knees, gasping. Among their forest-dwelling people, the unicorn was revered as a demigod, the living embodiment of the wild.
“Sacrilege!” Kiya said, her voice choked with fury. “The young Forestmaster must be released!”
Tol did not share the Dom-shu’s reverence for the rare animal, but he pitied the hobbled beast and was angry at Orlien for lying to them. He climbed inside the wagon and drew his dagger. The unicorn watched him with soft, sad eyes, fringed with golden lashes.
“Easy, there,” Tol said soothingly. “I’ll not hurt you. Let me cut those bonds-”