Return To Sky Raven (Book 2) Read online

  I watched the guards reluctantly release the prisoners. Four of them had tears of joy running down their faces. Naton, of course, just wore his habitual ignorant scowl, which promised future problems; he would need to be watched. The crowd dispersed slowly, and Hons and Alera took instantly to their new roles and started barking orders. Captain Jarsin, surprisingly, took his new duties in stride and began organizing the servants, staff, and odd lots of other survivors.

  Maya, Rosa, and I finally got down off the rock and headed toward Rosa’s command tent and, hopefully, some beverages as my throat was killing me. Of course, a pair of young girls followed us as well. Julia was watching Maya in rapt awe, and we all stopped to watch as Lin rolled her eyes and reached over to shut Jules gaping mouth for her. “She’s been like this ever since Maya took off her helmet.”

  Julia reached up and lightly touched Maya’s silver hair. “You’re so beautiful, Maya. I mean you were beautiful in disguise at the First Day dance, but now you’re just…wow!” Maya blushed slightly, unused to this kind of attention.

  Lin just smiled sardonically and said, “Jules, if you keep this up, I’ll be taking someone else to the next dance.”

  Julia’s eyes shot open in alarm. “Lin, you can’t! I promise I’ll stop looking at Maya…but wow!”

  Maya and I looked at each other in confusion. “Um, is there something we should know about?” she asked.

  This time, both of them looked at us in shock and covered their mouths with their hands. “Um…eh…no, nothing going on here!” And they both slid out of sight in a rush.

  “Well, that was odd.”

  We both sighed and opened the flap to Rosa’s tent. We were expecting to see her in there at a table working. Instead, we were looking at the reading room of the Enchanters Hall. Maya looked around the familiar room in wonderment; even I found this to be a bit strange. The only difference was that the furniture was pulled up next to the wall, with the fireplace lit and crackling. And in the middle of the room on cots were five wounded children; judging from their hairstyles, I would say three wizards and two staff. They all looked asleep, and a single young healer boy was tending them solicitously.

  Suddenly, Rosa stuck her head out of a door and waved for us to follow. Through the link we shared, I could feel she was using a door branching off the reading room that was not there before. Opening this door, we were greeted with more unexpected surroundings. Inside was a large rectangular table that looked to have a map of the continent as its surface. Around it were several smaller tables as well as five large bookshelves filled to capacity. Rosa was leaning over the main table reading several scrolls at once.

  “Where in the world did all this come from?” asked Maya as she wandered around the room poking through various books and scrolls. “More importantly, how are we here?”

  Rosa looked up from her books and papers, smiling at us. “You didn’t think I would just leave my home to be ransacked, did you?”

  I know I am getting rather good at all this enchanting magic, but I don’t even have a clue how she did this one. Still smiling smugly, she came over to me. “Impressive, is it not?” Then she glanced at Maya who was across the room now. “This space was actually one of the first rooms I added to the hall about 500 years ago. It’s always been here, I just take away the door when I don’t need it so no one can find it. I store a lot of my important papers here as well as the rare books and scrolls.”

  Maya had her hand on her hips and glared sternly at Rosa. “Ok, spill it! What is this place, really?”

  Rosa was looking more uncomfortable by the second. “Well…you see, its complicated.” Maya wasn’t going to give an inch. “Fine!” Rosa said, throwing her arms in the air. “The Enchanters Hall was never really a building! Ok, there, are you happy now?”

  Not really a building? How does that work? Seeing the looks on our faces, Rosa sighed and continued, “The Hall has no real physical place in our world; it resides in a pocket universe, similar to the workings of a bag of dimensions. With that being said, I can now turn just about any door into the entrance to our Hall, but only one door can be active at any time.”

  Maya was clearly surprised. “I’ve been sleeping in a different dimension? What about the windows?”

  “Those were just images, that’s why none of the windows would open. And since it has no real mass, I can add things whenever I want, like how I taught you to do it, Alex. Now, Maya, I know what you’re thinking and sadly, that won’t work. There is a limit to the size we can make this place. I can change it all I want, but I can’t make it bigger anymore with all the extra rooms we added. So keeping everyone in here won’t work; besides, living corporeal beings require the Hall to expend energy maintaining stability and it’s finite. Should it fail, the chances of the whole thing collapsing or someone walking out with the wrong head increase.” Maya swore under her breath. “But don’t worry, my girl, there are plenty of tents for the others. It may be slightly cramped, but everyone will have food and shelter for the trip. I have the special medical cases in the reading room as you noticed.”

  Noticeably impressed, my dark elf continued to walk around the bookshelves. “So if the building was a fake, then how did you add the stables?”

  Rosa smiled, “I had Darroth put those up; he’s rather good with wood as well. I always wanted a stable, so I asked him to put them up the week before but he was just too busy. As it turned out, it worked great in helping pass the Hall off as just enchanted instead of a decoy. Even fooled you, Alex.”

  Rosa was obviously very proud of herself and the work she had put into this place. I complemented her heavily through the link so Maya couldn’t hear as she still didn’t seem at ease with things. Rosa just smiled and sent her thanks back to me. “So what’s our next move?” I asked as we gathered around the large table.

  Rosa cleared away the papers she was working on. “Ok, here is where we are.” She tapped the map twice and, suddenly, it zoomed into that location. The mountain we were on and the surrounding forest and lake now took up the entire table. Mesmerized, both Maya and I tried tapping the map and it refocused on the area that we tapped each time.

  “I sooo have to get me one of these!” Maya grinned as she continued playing with the map.

  Rosa laughed at us. “This isn’t even the best part!” She tapped the mountain again and then seemed to pinch the map and pull up. Amazingly, the map moved with her, forming a three dimensional model of the area, complete with trees and flowing water.

  Maya was just awestruck. “Ok, now I definitely want one, can I have it for my birthday?”

  “I'll see what I can do. But in the meantime, here is where we’re at.” She pointed to a flat area halfway up the mountain. “We need to scale down the mountain and into the forest to find the river here.” She pointed to a dangerous fast-moving river that wound its way through the forest. “We then follow it upstream until we come to the back edge of the forest were we will have what looks like our only major land obstacle.” She zoomed in on that area, and instantly I knew what she meant. We were on the wrong side of the river. “We will need to cross here where the mountains end and the first plateau begins. I know it doesn’t look like the best place to cross, but it is actually the safest place. This is where the water is the slowest, so if someone falls in, the water wizards will have time to get them out safely.”

  Maya interjected, “I scouted all the way to the river crossing today, even getting across at that point isn’t going to be easy. But we shouldn’t have any problems up to that section, the forest is a dead zone.”

  Rosa looked uncomfortable and I knew she had accessed the day’s events from my mind and was aware of what had happened at the pixie camp. She was also concerned about the prospect of whatever kind of monster that killed the pixies catching our party of wizards out in the open, but she put that concern aside. “As you both know, I’m counting on you two to lead the group. I may be 700 years old, but I am not a real leader. If it hadn’t been fo
r Winya, I’m sure I would have messed up today’s meeting beyond repair; her counsel will be invaluable to us all on this trip. I also need you both to be able to deal with anything that would be in our way, be it troll, undead or dragon.” Maya growled under her breath at the mention of dragons, but Rosa continued, “I would be up at the front with you but the captains both insist that I stay in the middle so the guards can protect me.” She huffed a bit. “Stupid men, the safest place I could be is behind you two.”

  “So what do you need us to do now?”

  Rosa looked stern. “I need you two to get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be trying for everyone and I need my best people able to function.”

  “We can find a tent or just sleep outside in our armor if Alera needs our rooms for more patients,” I suggested.

  Rosa snorted, “No, I’m going to be selfish on this one, and you two are staying here tonight. As I said, I want you rested and out front tomorrow. Besides, I don’t want any civilians past the reading room in this place; who knows what would happen if someone wandered down into the workshop!”

  “Yeah, they might accidently clean something,” I muttered.

  Rosa pulled back her hand like she was going to whack me a good one but then noticed I was still in my armor and thought better of it.

  Maya smiled, “Well, if Alex and I don’t get out of this armor soon and get baths, everyone is going to want us out front - way out front! I have to admit the thought of a good night’s sleep in a real bed has some attraction too; it’s been a long hard day.

  “There might be a little food left in the kitchen if you search,” Rosa commented, and then went back to scrutinizing her papers, dismissing us with a wave.

  I dumped my outer armor, made a tray of sandwiches in the kitchen, and brought them up to check on Nia. As I expected, she was sound asleep on her warm pillow, wrapped up in her blanket on the fake window ledge. I knew she needed to eat, but I didn’t want to wake her. Sleep and time would be her friends in getting over the shock and grief of what happened to her people. I left a thick cucumber sandwich, her favorite, near her bed. After a much-needed bath, I came back to the room and found a clean, gorgeous dark elf sitting cross-legged on my bed devouring all the remaining sandwiches.

  “Wow, it didn’t take you long to find those,” I quipped.

  “I just didn’t want you to feel guilty about having good food to eat while everyone else outside is eating iron rations.” Maya smacked her lips, wiping some errant cream cheese from the corner of her mouth.

  “Oh, and I suppose you have no such qualms?”

  “Nope, I figure I earned it after the kind of day I had today.”

  “Hmm, and might I inquire where your eminently entitled self plans on sleeping tonight?”

  “Sleeping only, and right here,” she said, patting the bed with a yawn. “It’s gonna be another long day tomorrow, and I don’t need any bad dreams to spoil things. Besides, Nia might need me in the middle of the night.”

  And with that, I resignedly crawled under the covers with her and took a deep appreciative whiff of her hair. Is it really possible to feel like the luckiest man alive and the most deprived at the same time?

  Chapter 4

  As the sun just started peeking up over the horizon, it found us back in armor and heading out the tent flap with Nia in tow. I noticed the cucumber sandwich was conspicuously absent from the plate I had left next to her bed the night before, but she said nothing about the sleeping arrangements, so neither did I. As soon as we stepped outside, two servants immediately started taking down the tent, undoubtedly not knowing what it really was. Rosa told us to mount up and take the lead so everyone knew where to start the lines. Much to my genuine surprise, it looked like just about everyone was packed up and ready to move. Alera and Hons started lining up wizards directly behind us in two rows. The boxes of supplies were spit up between the servants and the wizards, with the heavier boxes loaded on the donkey carts already laden with wounded, leaving Maya and I and all the guards free to move without encumbrance.

  The twins quickly joined up with us, followed by Lin and Julia, who seemed to be over their first bout of awkwardness from the night before. About twenty minutes later, newly promoted Captain Higs gave the signal that everyone was ready and we could start our trek down the mountain.

  The path down was made even easier when Hons and a few other earth wizards used spells to restore the old road and clear away any remaining rubble, leaving behind a rather nice road that was wide enough for any cart. The forest itself was a bit slower going; the closeness of the trees and the uncertain footing through the leaf litter made walking with the boxes a dangerous game and the healer corps had to fix a couple bad ankles along the route. Passing the spot where we would turn off to the pixie village, Nia flew up and paused for a bit, nodding as if to respectfully acknowledge their presence, and then regretfully streaked forward to land with a thud on my shoulder. She seemed better, but I knew the healing process would be a long and tearful one.

  Finding the river was easy; you could hear the roaring water from a considerable distance. We took a break when we reached it so everyone could rest up and take a much needed drink from the calmer pools of the river. Before they knew it, it was time to move out again. The early afternoon passed quickly and soon darkness would be falling. But we had one last obstacle in our way, and that was to cross the river. Maya was enjoying herself ranging out far and wide ahead of us in her ghost form, the suit allowing her to run effortlessly for long stretches. This left her mare back with us with nothing to do but follow along so at one of the rest breaks, I picked up several of the youngest mages and put them up on the warhorse. They loved it and she was big enough to hold five of them at once. Doggedly, we followed the path along the river into the afternoon.

  Eventually, the party came to a halt with me looking down at our selected crossing point, the river thirty feet below us. Here the river plowed recklessly through wagon-sized rocks, spraying huge gouts of tea-colored water high into the air, some of which landed as high up as our vantage point, but most of it turned to mist and spray long beforehand. Unfortunately, the rocks were sharp and the water too wild to even think about fording the passage here. We would have to come up with something else.

  “And this was the safest place to cross?” I mumbled to no one in particular, but I looked back up the line to glare at Rosa. “Any ideas how to cross?” I questioned, turning to the forward elements who were travelling with me.

  Dawn sauntered forward in her white Enchanters Hall robes, which I would swear were getting increasingly shorter and revealed more leg as time went by. Her twin sister Dusk didn’t seem to be having any problems with her robes. “It’s easy, just walk,” she said, stepping right off the edge of the embankment and strolling out over the water as if she were on solid ground…but she was at least thirty feet in the air! A few of the guard contingent clapped and wolf whistled loudly at the display as she did a flirty little shimmy and skipped back to the bank where we stood with a effortless smile.

  “Quit showing off, sister,” Dusk scolded primly. “You know humans can’t walk on mists and clouds.”

  I chuckled; it’s funny how the human mind works sometimes. The guards all know the twins are actually 35-foot long scary behemoths with razor sharp teeth and claws like scythes. But travelling and working alongside two cute young women, one vivacious, one reserved, had broken down the fear barriers that separated them. There was even talk about the unit taking a stylized silver dragon as their banner mascot when we got somewhere with sewing facilities. The guards now saw them as individuals, not monsters, another reoccurring theme that I needed to think about. In the meantime, the girls seemed to relish the attention and it gave the guards a sense of belonging to the journey.

  Julia perked up with an idea. “Lin and I could turn into large trees and lay across the water like a bridge.”

  But Lin was already shaking her head in dismissal. “I’m not having 300 people, two wa
rhorses, and especially six donkeys walk across my face. I’m far too beautiful for that,” she quipped loftily with a huge grin.

  As it turned out, Hons and his people just found it easier to build a bridge, easier being a misnomer. There would be nothing easy about this structure and we had scant hours to get it done. The water wizards in the column diverted the heavy water flow to one side, as Reginaldo stacked stone pilings into the river bottom. The earth wizards then floated and assembled a curved rock archway over to the first stone piling, and Rosa rushed forward to strengthen the structure with her enchantments. We all pitched in, except for a small contingent of about twenty guards for security. Earth wizard after earth wizard collapsed in exhaustion only to be replaced by another, even the youngest were pressed into service moving blocks from farther upstream. Apparently, Captain Jarsin had actually worked on several bridge-building projects earlier in his career and his experience was crucial. The healers busied themselves attending to the battle wounded, healed any cuts or bruises that occurred, and took care of those wizards who overextended. Maya and I used our warhorses to snake trees out of the forest to the site for use as planks, and the guards and school staff did the de-limbing and sawing with Darroth’s guidance.

  Eventually, a fully-constructed, three piling, 200-foot stone bridge stood before us. We all found it humorous that it was a structure that would probably outlive all of us, constructed solely for the purpose of a five-minute walk across by a single group. It was nearly dark and we raced across and hurriedly set up camp, but the look of satisfaction on the faces of the earth wizards and guards far outweighed the time loss. Maya agreed that if we all were going to make it to the fortress, we had to start working as a unit, and this type of project was well worth it. But, undoubtedly, as a unit we were whipped. Wizards stuffed a few mouthfuls of food into their mouths and just fell into their tents in piles. It was weirdly reminiscent of the day after the fall of Xarparion, just no bloodshed.