Part 28 (1/2)

Prospero completed his spell just as the flap was moved by a guard outside. Dewar grabbed the canvas and stepped under it, face-to-face with the guard, blocking his view of the interior.

”Time's up,” said the sorcerer to the soldier, who, startled, nodded and stepped back.

Prospero, unseen, brushed past Dewar, jostling the tent as he did.

”Thanks,” said Dewar to the guard, dropping the flap, ”and have a quiet night.”

246.

*EfisofirtA ”Good night, SIT” said the guard, stepping back to his position, and Hurricane stamped and snorted.

Since the horse was right in front of the guards, Dewar supposed it was impossible for Prospero to mount now, and so he took the animal's bridle in his right hand and walked away. The ring told him Prospero was on the horse's other side.

When they were away from the guards, Prospero moved around to Dewar's left.

A whisper in his ear: ”Smartly done. Give me that ring; I'll see it returned.”

Dewar reluctantly tugged the ring from his hand; it was plucked out of his fingers and vanished.

Prospero's voice murmured, ”I shall not leave my sword here.”

”Oh, s.h.i.+t.”

”Mend thy tongue. Who comes?”

Dewar heard the footsteps as Prospero did, and turned to see Ottaviano in s.h.i.+rt, pants, and boots, jogging up to the tent, speaking to the guards, ducking inside.

”Otto. Mount and get out of here!”

”And thee! Hurricane - ”

Ottaviano shot out of the tent and started toward them at a run.

”Mount! Go! I can manage him!”

Prospero mounted, then bent and grabbed Dewar's arm, hauling him halfway up. Dewar cursed and stepped on Prospero's invisible foot in the stirrup, swung his leg over the horse's back behind Prospero, and Hurricane sprang forward, ”What about your sword?”

”I'll fetch it later!”

”Dewar! Get back here, you son of a b.i.t.c.h! Guards! Stop them!”

”Hark, the cur gives tongue,” Prospero said to n.o.body in particular, and leaned low on Hurricane's neck. ”Ah, my kingdom for a Gate, a Way, a Road!”

Ottaviano, surprisingly, was still in sight where he ran after them, and his shouts were rousing the camp. Three Sorcerer and a (jentteman 247.

sentries with halberds ran to intercept Hurricane; he gathered himself as he approached them (Dewar felt the Well flow into the horse) and leapt, a wondrous flight-like jump, over them, past them, landed running, a miracle, and one he repeated a few seconds later.

One of the halberds, swung high by an angry guard, clipped Dewar's head on the second leap, grazing invisible Prospero too. Prospero grunted; Dewar gasped and clutched Prospero to stay on the horse. Warm blood grew cold with the wind of their travelling on his face. People were shouting alarms; hastily-aimed arrows pa.s.sed them, though one stuck in Prospero's unseen thigh, a weird sight; they seemed to pa.s.s through Hurricane or perhaps they only missed. Dewar shook his head; blood flew and his vision darkened momentarily, then stayed dark. Or was it shadows? Hard to say. Dewar drew on the Well and felt clearer-headed. He could see Prospero now greyly in the moonlight. They were racing through the camp, pursued by shouts and somehow dodging all the attempted interceptions.

Hurricane leaped again-the dry moat, Dewar realized- and flew through the air. Was Prospero making for his own headquarters, for reunion with his captured forces? Or fleeing? If only they'd had longer to talk-Hurricane galloped now- Herne was beside them, on his huge dull-red horse, edging closer, closer- Prospero was shouting something, and Herne shouted back. He had a naked sword in his hand and he was pacing them as Hurricane took a low rise at an impossible speed. Prospero was pulling Hurricane away, gesturing, and a fire left his hand and sizzled in a line through the air to splash off Herne's whirled sword.

”Ariel!” Prospero bellowed.

”Master!” rang from the air around them.

”Keep our pursuers back!”

A true hurricane joined Hurricane, blowing in his wake, a screaming headwind that slowed Herne's horse no matter how he fought against it. Prospero bent Hurricane's head to the west again. Dewar could not quite focus on the Well 248.

'Widey now. Confused, he thought that might be due to Ariel's turbulence. He let the Well go from him and slumped forward against Prospero's back. Hurricane's muscles gathered and stretched beneath him, and the cold air flowed past his face. He was flying, he thought, and flew on alone into blankness.

22.OTTAVIANO WOKE WHEN THE TINGLE RAN OVCr his body.

Something is wrong, it told him, and he lay, keeping his breathing soft and even, listening acutely and reaching with another sense for an explanation.

Nothing had broken the covertly-laid Bounds of his tent. Something else.

Otto tensed and sensed, eyes still closed.

The Bounds he had forged around Prospero were gone!

He shot out of bed, grabbing at his breeches and struggling into them, getting his boots wrong-footed and then getting them right. He stuffed his s.h.i.+rt into his breeches as he ran out into the freezing night, racing past sentries through the moonlit camp toward the guarded tent where Prospero had been confined.

”Has anyone been here?” he demanded of the one who moved to intercept him.

'The sorcerer, sir, with Prince Gaston-”

Otto half-screamed an obscenity and tore the tent flap aside, seeing what he knew he'd see.

The guard gasped.

Otto held up his hand and said ”Stay out!” as he ducked inside. Once in, he closed his eyes and swept a hand, extended by a strand of Well-force, through the interior: Prospero was gone indeed, not just invisible.

But not long gone. The disturbance of the spell's breaking still quivered in the world; they could not be far off. Otto ducked back out. Prince Gaston would have a lot to answer -J3 Sorcerer and a Qentfeman 249.

for at Court, he thought, and the Emperor might just lose his temper- ”Prospero's gone! Which way did they go?” he demanded of the guard, but then he saw the movement of someone mounting a horse a few hundred paces away in the shadows, and he sprinted toward them, away from the shocked guards.

”Dewar!” he shouted.

Dewar leaned forward and the horse leapt and started away, accelerating quickly to a gallop.

”Get back here, you son of a b.i.t.c.h! Guards! Stop them!” bellowed Otto, seeing the horse race past three who simply stared at it. In the cloud-patched moonlight, he saw that there was only one man visible on the horse's back, Dewar from his cloak, but that he was seated far back and thus Otto was sure Prospero sat before him, invisible.

He kept them in sight as they raced through the camp. Dewar looked back once to see him. The sentries at the perimeter, alerted by Ottaviano's shouts now, tried to intercept them; Otto saw a halberd-swing that must have connected, but Dewar lurched and grabbed unseen Prospero for support. Otto shouted ”Arrows! Use your bows!” at the men. At the ditch, he lost them. Prospero's supernatural horse jumped the d.a.m.ned thing.

Herne thundered past Ottaviano as he jogged to a halt, unable to follow them over the ditch, but Herne's roan horse, as fast as Prospero's black, swerved, tore over the bridge, and galloped after the fleeing sorcerers into the night.

”Ottaviano!” shouted someone; was it Josquin?

”Baron!” another said. ”The Marshal wants you.” He stood beside Otto and waited, the Fireduke's right-hand man, Captain Jolly.