Rulers of the Darkness

Clouds scudded across the sky. Every so often, he got a glimpse of the moon, riding high in the northeast. Stars appeared, twinkled for a moment, and then vanished again. Obilot came up alongside Garivald. "Sadoc had better be able to hide our trail," she said in a low voice. "If he can't, the traitors will follow us home."

Garivald nodded. The earflaps on his fur cap bobbed up and down. "I've been thinking the same thing. I wish I hadn't."

Sometimes, the snow was deep, drifted. The irregulars had to bull through the drifts or else find a way around them. Garivald kept muttering under his breath. Even if Sadoc could sorcerously erase footprints, could he get rid of these signs of passage, too? Had Munderic thought about that? Had Munderic thought about anything but hitting the Algarvians a good lick? Garivald doubted it.

If a Grelzer company on patrol caught them out here in the open, they'd get slaughtered. He hung on to his stick- which had once belonged to a redhead who now had no further use for it- and hoped that wouldn't happen.

After what seemed like forever but the moon insisted was well before midnight, the irregulars came to the lines of shrubbery that marked the path of the invisible ley line. The shrubs kept men and animals from blundering into the path of an oncoming caravan. Garivald's heart thudded as the irregulars pushed through them. This time, no Grelzer guards shouted a challenge. Munderic had known whereof he spoke there, anyhow.

Some of the irregulars carried picks and spades as well as their sticks. They started digging a hole in which to conceal the egg they'd brought to destroy the caravan. The ground was frozen hard; they had a demon of a time excavating. Garivald could have told them they would. They probably knew it for themselves, too, but had to do the best they could. They planted the egg and heaped snow over it. With luck, the Algarvians in the lead caravan car wouldn't see it till too late.

"Let's go," Munderic said when the job was done well enough- and when he didn't feel like waiting anymore.

"Back the way we came, as near as we can," Sadoc added. "I'll get rid of all the footprints at once."

"He'd better," Garivald murmured to Obilot as they started off toward the forest. "We're in trouble if he doesn't, unless a blizzard blows up and sweeps our tracks away."

"I don't think one's coming," she said. "This isn't a hard winter, the way last year's was. Just- cold." Garivald nodded. It felt the same way to him. That didn't mean he couldn't freeze to death out here, only that freezing would take longer.

He was weary by the time the irregulars got back to the edge of the woods. Twilight hadn't touched the edge of the sky, but couldn't be far away. He hadn't heard the egg burst. Neither had Munderic, who was unhappy about it. "Something's gone wrong," the leader of the band kept saying. "Powers below eat me if something hasn't gone wrong."

"Maybe the caravan got stuck in a snowdrift," someone suggested.

"No, I'm sure something's buggered up somewhere," Munderic said fretfully. Garivald feared he was right. Munderic rounded on Sadoc. "Even if it didn't work, we don't want the foe to know we've been out. Get rid of those tracks, like you said."

"Aye." Sadoc nodded. He stooped in the snow and began to chant. The tune was one children used in a hide-and-seek game. Did that mean Sadoc was a fool, or that he truly could hide the footprints? Garivald waited and hoped. Sadoc chanted and made passes. With a last dramatic one, he cried out in a loud, commanding voice.

He'd gathered power to him. Garivald could feel it in the air, as if lightning were building. All at once, it was released- and every footprint, all the way back to the ley line (or at least as far as the eye could reach) began to glow with a soft, shimmering iridescence.

Munderic stared, then howled like a wolf. "You idiot!" he roared. "You dunderhead, you turd-witted son of a poxed sow, you-" He leaped at Sadoc. The only thing that kept him from murdering the inept mage was realizing- after he'd been pulled off- that glowing tracks in the snow weren't too much more visible than ordinary ones. The irregulars fled for their shelters in the clearing. Their new tracks didn't glow, for which Garivald thanked the powers above. He didn't think Sadoc would be working more magic any time soon. He thanked the powers above for that, too.

***

Krasta's foot came down on an icy patch on the sidewalk of the Avenue of Equestrians. She sat down on the pavement suddenly and very hard. An elderly Valmieran man started toward her to help her up, but she was cursing so foully, he beat a hasty, embarrassed retreat.

Her curses didn't bother a couple of Algarvian soldiers on leave in Priekule. The kilted redheads hurried over to her and hauled her to her feet. "You being all right, lady?" one of them asked in Valmieran with a trilling Algarvian accent.