The Dragons of Dorcastle Read Online Free PDF Page B

seen among the caravan now lay dead themselves. People who had depended upon him for protection. All of them were shadows, so none of that should matter, but it did.
    He sensed something then, and turned to look back at the crest of the ridge. A black haziness floated there, the sort of thing that might drift into vision when physical stress was so intense that a person was in danger of passing out. He knew that type of thing all too well from years of intense training to teach him to ignore what non Mages called reality, but this haze was different.
    It did not waver, and suddenly Alain realized what the haze represented.
Foresight, warning of danger. That skill has finally come to me, in a time of great stress as the elders taught. But the elders also said foresight was an undependable gift at best.
He inched upward cautiously until he could see back down the slope they had climbed. There were figures visible down there, above the dust now as they clambered up the heights, their Mechanic weapons shining in the sun.
    Alain crawled backward rapidly. “They are coming up in this direction,” he reported without letting any betraying feeling into his voice this time.

Chapter Three
    Mari’s heart jumped at the Mage’s words. Her right hand went to the pistol she had holstered, then she took a breath to calm herself.
All right. Time to go. Which way?
“There,” she said to the Mage as she pointed. “Farther into the heights.” She had stopped questioning their weird alliance, which after all was going to be as temporary as she could manage. The Mage was unnerving, with his emotionless voice and face and his strange attitudes. But the fact that these so called bandits were still chasing them made teaming up with him a simple matter of survival, even if she didn’t feel responsible for his fate.
    The Mage gave her one of his impassive glances. “To the west? The ground is more difficult that way and the original attack came from that direction.”
    “Exactly! They’ll think we’re running in panic and taking the easiest route, which is in the other direction.”
    “And you always take the more difficult route,” the Mage said.
    “Well…yes.” She hadn’t expected a Mage to remember that. “Because it makes sense this time. Besides, it’ll be easier to stay hidden up there.” Mari paused, thinking of how Mage Alain had fallen after whatever he had done to the bandits on the ledge. “Can you manage it?”
    What would she do if he couldn’t? Leave him?
No. Nobody gets abandoned. Not by me. Not even one of them.
Touching him earlier to help the Mage to his feet had felt…peculiar, after all that she had heard about Mages. But if he needed assistance again, she would grit her teeth and do it.
    Despite his usually successful attempts to hide his emotions, Mage Alain gave her a look which communicated a trace of wounded pride. For that brief moment he seemed more human, more a boy close to her own age. “Of course I can manage.”
    She lurched to her feet, wishing tools weighed a lot less. Leaving them behind was unthinkable, though. Being a Master Mechanic had qualified her to have one of the limited number of portable far-talkers. It was in her pack, but the range on the device was so limited that Mari figured she would have to be within less than a day’s march of Ringhmon before she could use her far-talker to contact her Guild for help. Until then it was simply a heavy object in her pack.
    “Why do you not leave your treasure behind?” The Mage’s bland tone made the question sound as if the answer held no interest to him.
    “Treasure?” She gave him a baffled glance, then realized the Mage was looking at her pack. “This isn’t treasure. My tools are in here.”
    “Tools?”
    “Mechanics use tools. Didn’t anybody ever tell you that?”
    “No.”
    “I don’t have time to explain,” Mari said, wondering if she should be explaining tools at all to a Mage. “But a Mechanic never loses or