Eye Spy Page 30

  “Kaw?” Jicks said incredulously. “You named your crow Kaw?”

  “It’s his name,” said Korlak indignantly. “I didn’t name him, he named himself.”

  Jicks gave him an incredulous look but didn’t comment further. Clearly, though, she thought he was making it up.

  “Can they scry in the dark?” she asked instead.

  “They won’t see anything more than they’d see if they stood out there in the dark themselves,” he said with confidence. “They probably won’t bother, so I told Kaw to come back to us at sunset.”

  “That means we’ll actually get a good night’s sleep,” Jicks sighed.

  “Unless they send the demons back instead,” he reminded her.

  At sunset, Kaw came winging back in a leisurely way that suggested no alarm on his part. Jicks moved the hinnies so they could resume browsing and made sure they couldn’t wrest themselves free if overcome by fear. After some thought, Abi settled into her bedroll. After all, if the night remained quiet, she might as well get as much sleep as she could, and if the demons came back, she might as well be relatively comfortable while terrified. Jicks still had her second dagger, Stev had his sword, and hopefully Korlak had figured out some sort of protective magic he could use on himself.

  As soon as the sun set, she closed her eyes.

  She woke up in the middle of the night; by the stars, it was about midnight, which was when the last attack had taken place. She couldn’t help herself: She tensed up, waiting for a repeat of the previous night.

  But nothing happened, and eventually she dozed off again.

  They were all awake in the predawn. No one said anything, but Abi could tell from the furtive, restless movements under the blankets that no one could sleep anymore.

  As soon as it was light enough, Korlak sent Kaw out again.

  Finally, she spoke. “It’ll be today if they actually decide to check for themselves. So what do we do if they don’t?”

  “Original plan,” Stev suggested. “With the added benefit that they might be more careless, thinking they’ve gotten rid of us.”

  “But do you think they’ll still follow their own original plan?” Abi countered.

  “They’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.” Jicks seemed quite sure of this. “They’ll thoroughly destroy Valdemar’s reputation down here, and they’ll have gotten rid of four of her best Masters. They might as well. They’re following the same course they’d be taking to head home anyway.”

  “It takes less time to wreck something than it does to build it.” That was Korlak, sitting up in his bedroll. “I’m going to get up and keep studying the spellbook. I’ll send Kaw back out to the wagon.”

  “Dare I suggest something unorthodox?” Abi asked, “If they, and we, follow their original plan, that we make every attempt to avoid a confrontation? And, yes; I’m suggesting we don’t confront them, just go along fixing their messes.”

  Jicks regarded her as if she thought Abi had gone mad. “That makes no sense.”

  “There are four of us and at least four of them, since there are supposed to be four Master Artificers coming to the selected places to help,” Abi retorted. “And we know they can summon at least two demons. That makes us outnumbered and out-maneuvered. If we attack the demons, how do we protect ourselves from the priests? And if we attack the priests, how do we protect ourselves from the demons?”

  “Korlak can cast a shield to ward us from firebolts,” said Jicks confidently.

  “Korlak is busy researching things against demons, not shields,” came the retort from where the Mage sat with his nose apparently in the book. “Korlak can research shields or demons, not both.”

  “It’s not a terrible idea,” said Stev unexpectedly. “We know the route. We know the last place with problems. We could follow them to make sure they aren’t going to continue their antics and then let them go when they seem to be well on their way home.”

  “But—that’s like letting enemy scouts come and go as they please!” Jicks sputtered.

  “They’re not in Valdemar,” said Stev. “They’re in a strip of land that might decide to join Valdemar. Not my problem.”

  “And what if they do decide to join Valdermar?” Jicks crowed in triumph.

  “Then whatever drives Mages out of Valdemar will keep them and their demons out,” Stev said serenely. “Still not my problem.”

  Jicks seethed for a moment, then shook her head. “I must be getting soft,” she said. “I’m not getting paid to make it my problem either. All right. If they decide to believe their scrying and wander off to make trouble again, we’ll do that. It means I won’t have to risk my skin fighting them.”

  But she looked peeved, and Abi had a good guess why. Abi had pointed out there were at least four priests, and Jicks had mentally leaped from “two bounties” to “four bounties.” Abi was pretty sure Jicks figured none of the others would have the inclination to collect blood money, which meant she also wouldn’t have to share those bounties. And now she could see all that money slipping away.

  Then again, Abi had just reminded her she wasn’t going to have to put herself in danger, either. Hard to spend money when you’re dead.

  Jicks made a show of getting up to check on the hinnies and making sure they had water. Korlak’s crow sat, a tiny, black dot on a larger beige blob that was the wagon.

  And then it wasn’t. It was speeding off, at right angles to the direction it would have taken to them.

  Korlak frowned. “I wonder if he saw something, or if he’s felt someone scrying. . . .”

  Well, that answered my question about Animal Mindspeech, Abi thought.

  But as they continued to watch the wagon, the crow came flying in under the branches, to land on Korlak’s hunched shoulder.

  “That mean’s they’re scrying,” Korlak proclaimed. He closed his eyes, frowning in concentration. “Yes, they definitely are.”

  Abi was not inclined to doubt him, though Stev looked skeptical.

  He was probably thinking that Korlak had seemingly been the worst Mage in the city, and now he suddenly was claiming to be able to do, or learn to do quickly, all manner of magics. That either Korlak was lying, or he was another Karsite agent.

  He doesn’t have my experience. Abi had been taught how to see and analyze the smallest details of people and their behavior. Korlak wasn’t lying, and he wasn’t an agent. For the first time in a very long time, Korlak had gotten regular meals, as much as he wanted to eat, and suddenly his mind, numbed by starvation, had sprung to life again.

  Stev was good, but he wasn’t a son of Mags.

  “Go back out and come back to us when you don’t feel the scrying anymore, please,” Korlak said to his crow, who bobbed his head, and flew off in quite another direction than the wagon. And, eventually, a crow appeared, coming from the opposite direction in which it had disappeared, to land on the wagon in a slightly different spot.

  It wasn’t there long. Whatever examination the Karsites were making, it had to be a cursory one. The crow roused, as if from a stupor, shook its feathers, and flew directly back to them.

  “Now,” Jicks said with satisfaction, “we set up our ambush.”

  She directed them to put the hinnies on a much lighter line, something that, if they got too hungry or thirsty, they could snap by all pulling in the same direction—which they would. Then they carried their burlap disguises out into the bracken past the wagon, putting the wagon between themselves and where the Karsites would be coming from, according to the daggers.

  “Now comes the hard part,” Jicks said, her voice muffled by the camouflage. “Trying not to die of boredom or bug bites before they show up.”

  Abi had tucked the edges of her cloth in under existing plants, which was probably an unnecessary detail, but it gave her something to do. Following Jicks’s orders, she cut two
eye flaps out of the side facing where the Karsites would come from. And after that . . . it was just waiting.

  18

  It was surprisingly warm under all that grass and bracken. On Jicks’s instructions, they had all cut eyeholes in the front of their hides, and she had a fine view of the wagon and the field beyond. Now it was a matter of waiting.

  She was glad she’d had a good night’s sleep, or she’d have nodded out under all this.

  Should I have negotiated with Jicks to abandon the ambush? she wondered. If they come here and don’t find anything, wouldn’t it be better to just let them go?

  Then she realized she was not only second-guessing herself but that this was totally wishful thinking. These priests would, of course, have some way of telling whether or not humans had died here. It would be ridiculous of them not to; Stev had made the point that this kind of indifferent slaughter was what they did. And given what a mess the demons had made with a few wild creatures, the priests would want to verify what they’d torn to tiny pieces.

  Plus, there is no way I could have stopped Jicks once she had heads with bounties on them in her sight. Jicks might have said at the outset of this trip that she was happy, it was easy money for not killing anyone, but the longer they had gone without a fight, the more restless she had become. She had welcomed the chance to hunt down these Karsites. She’s probably so used to being in fights that if she goes without one for too long, it’s like a regular drinker being without a drink.

  Combine that restlessness with the bounties available . . .

  Then something occurred to Abi. Huh. I think she knows herself better than I thought. She said she wanted to buy a very particular pub. I bet it’s one that gets rough customers. So she’d be breaking up fights and throwing people out regularly, which would solve her need to periodically break skulls.

  A crawling sensation distracted her from her thoughts. Was that a bug? Was something moving around her leg? She worked her hand around to the spot and tried to squash whatever was between her leg and breeches. Hard to tell if she was successful, but at least the sensation stopped. It’s a good thing I have a lot of practice at waiting. This isn’t that different from shadowing someone Papa wants watched.

  Then movement at the edge of her vision made her lose interest in bugs or anything else. There was something bobbing up and down on the horizon, moving above and below the bracken. Someone was coming.

  Heads. Those were definitely human heads.

  Two someones. Now two figures against the horizon. Then three. Then four.

  At least the odds are—

  Five and six.

  Oh . . . hell.

  She tensed, ready to throw the hide aside and attack. The ambushers would become the ambushed. Even though the odds were not in her favor, if the three of them with bows could take out three of the priests on the first volley, they’d bring things back in line. Her breathing shortened and her heart raced. Wait for the signal. Wait for it. Wait for it . . .

  An owl hooted. She threw herself erect, sent the hide flying off her shoulders with a gesture, bow in hand, sighted, and shot. And hit.

  And her heart sank. Oh, hell!

  She, Stev, and Jicks had all picked the same target. One of the strangers went down, well feathered with arrows. She picked another, but something like a bubble had suddenly shimmered into existence around him, and the arrow she loosed literally bounced off.

  Not good!

  Her next internal curse was one Amily would not have approved of, as she switched to another target, only to find all of them surrounded by those same shimmering bubbles. Fear—of the energizing, not paralyzing sort—galvanized her entire body.

  She dropped her now-useless bow, but everything was happening much too quickly to properly react, as four of the five men shouted something in unison, the air opened up in front of them, and out stepped four—things.

  She almost vomited when she saw them, they invoked such complete revulsion in her.

  They were the color of rancid butter. They were vaguely human in form, but that was where the resemblance stopped. They were naked, sexless, and their hairless heads were mostly mouth. The mouths were full of needlelike teeth. They were muscled in some obscene parody of a carnival weightlifter or wrestler; their arms were longer than a human’s, their legs shorter, and hands and feet ended in claws as long as Stev’s middle finger. And almost as soon as they appeared, they launched themselves into an attack.

  Oh, gods. We’re all going to die.

  Abi drew sword and dagger, hoping against hope that at least one of them would be of some use, and knowing the thing had reach on her. Unless she was extraordinarily lucky, it could lacerate or grab her before she could reach it even with the sword. Her body tensed to throw her out of the way in a desperate dodge, but the thing was faster than she’d thought and it was going to—

  —bounce off the shimmering bubble skin that suddenly appeared between her and it.

  The thing clawed and bit at the barrier, to no avail. Everything it tried slid off. It even backed up and rammed its shoulder into the protection that had saved her, but it just bounced off again.

  That didn’t seem to make any difference to it. It continued to raven at her, a mere double-armlength away. As Stev had said, the things clearly weren’t too bright. It had a target, and it had fixated on that target.

  I guess Korlak found something that works against demons and is a shield. We might survive this! If this shield stayed up, she could just ignore the demon and go straight for one of the Mages—

  But then, the thing opened its mouth, howled right at her, and the terror began. But this time, she had the dagger in her hand, and instead of rendering her helpless, the terror remained within bearable levels. Barely, but she could think and move, which was better than nothing!

  Ignoring the demon clawing to get at her, she fixated on the Mage nearest her. He had been smirking until he saw she was looking at him. He frowned.

  And then he made a throwing motion, and she had to dodge as a small ball of fire hurtled toward her.

  It hit the place where she had been standing and set the bracken smoldering. She barely had enough time to roll away to her feet when the second fireball hit where she had landed. Around her the air filled with fireballs, aimed at her and presumably the others, and she prayed that the spell that protected her was not something that Korlak had to concentrate on. And she prayed he’d had the sense to stay in his hide as he’d been told to do when she, Jicks, and Stev had leaped to their feet in what Jicks had been so certain was going to be the perfect ambush.

  The dagger in her left hand burned whenever a fireball hit the shield. The demon followed her every step of the way, alternately tearing at her shield and howling at her. Smoke filled the air, an acrid smoke that made her eyes water and fight to keep her coughing under control. How soon before we have to dodge a wildfire? If these Mages were smart, they would realize all they’d have to do would be to start one behind their foes, and all four of them would be trapped between the fire and the Mages. And the fire would win the fight for the Karsites.

  Do something! she screamed at herself. Anything!

  And in desperation, when she saw the next fireball coming at her, she swatted at it with the dagger, as if it were a ball in one of those games her friends hated to play with her.

  Finally a burst of luck! It connected, squarely, on the flat of the blade near the hilt, and it went scorching back toward the Mage that had cast it.

  She got a glimpse of his startled face before the fireball cut through his shield as if it weren’t there and exploded in his face. She got a sickening glimpse of burning skin and bubbling flesh, and he dropped, screaming for a little while, as he continued to burn.

  With a popping sound, the demon attacking her vanished.

  Before another of the Mages realized she was free, she made a run for the
next nearest. He saw her coming for him and switched his barrage of fireballs to her, but she made a dive for the turf and got under them. She hit the ground, rolled, and stabbed him in the groin with her dagger.

  It went right through the shield.

  He collapsed with a shriek, blood fountaining out of the wound, a lot of it splattering all over her.

  His shield vanished.

  She gagged, rolled to her feet, continued on past him, and only paused to look back when his shrieks took on an entirely new level of pain.

  One of the two demons that had been attacking Stev had turned away from him, thrown itself at the downed Mage, and—

  —“eviscerated” was too mild a word for what the demon was doing to the Karsite. Blood and bits of flesh and organ flew everywhere, and within moments, the Mage stopped screaming, and that demon, too, vanished with a pop.

  She gagged again, but there was no time to be sick. Things could turn against them again as quickly as they had turned in their favor.

  She pivoted to look for the third Mage that was left; he had just realized that his companions were down—but not necessarily what had happened to them. He flung a fireball at her and quickly realized his mistake when she batted it back at him with her dagger.

  It skimmed past his head, neatly piercing the shield, landing behind him and setting a smoldering fire in the bracken. His eyes widened, he shouted another word—

  —but never finished it, as Jicks’s dagger lodged in his throat. More blood spurted everywhere, but at least this time she wasn’t in range of it.

  She dashed past Abi to snatch the dagger out of the body. This time there was no pop, and one of the demons was still following Jicks, ignoring Abi.

  Jicks executed a move worthy of Master Leandro. She grabbed the dagger, turned the grab into a somersault, turned, and lunged at the demon with all her strength.

  The demon bounced off her shield and into the wagon, which now had only rags of burning canvas on the supports. With a glance at Abi, Jicks turned and ran. Abi intuited what that glance had meant. While Jicks ran for the second Mage left, Abi pinned the demon between her shield and the wagon.