I was thinking about the eastern kingdoms, wondering why the wizards’ school had never tried to influence them, when I heard a sudden grunt before me. I looked up in disbelief as Whirlwind reared, screaming. There were not one but two men on his back.
Someone had Dominic around the throat and was trying to wrestle him off and keep his own seat. This must be what he meant by excitement and spice.
Hugo and Ascelin turned sharply around and raced back to Dominic’s aid, their swords out. I madly tried to shape a spell that would bind only one of the wildly thrashing men before me-if Dominic fell off, his own stallion would trample him.
“Hang on, Dominic!” bellowed Ascelin. “I’ve got the scum now!” He had the bandit by one leg and was tugging. Hugo had seized Whirlwind’s reins and tried to hold him down.
The men before me had sorted themselves out enough that, in two more seconds, I would have had a binding spell working, when I heard another grunt and thump.
“Stop!” came a ringing voice. We all stopped and looked, even the bandit trying to choke Dominic. A second man was behind Joachim on the chaplain’s horse, an arm across his chest and a knife at his throat. “Drop your swords, or the priest dies.”
Ascelin and Hugo turned very slowly and dropped their swords. The bandit behind Dominic jerked the prince’s sword from the sheath and sent it clattering to the ground.
“All of you!” yelled the bandit at King Haimeric. “And you, Wizard, don’t even think of starting one of your spells.”
“I am unarmed,” said the king. “I am on pilgrimage.”
I doubted this would make much impact. I sat my horse as though paralyzed while a third bandit appeared out of the trees and yanked the king’s and my cloaks back to look for weapons. I tried to give Joachim a look of encouragement, but his eyes were cast down and his lips moving. His horse kept shifting, and he was having trouble controlling it without moving his head even slightly.
I didn’t dare try any spells. Bound or paralyzed, the bandit behind Joachim might cut his throat as he fell from the horse, and a flash of light or a clap of thunder would make him jerk the blade. I didn’t dare try turning him into a frog for the same reason.
I should have known at once that the lord of the red sandstone castle was not a real bandit. These men were ragged, weather-worn, and filthy, and one of them was missing an eye.
“Get down, all of you!” said the first bandit. Dominic was now sitting slack before him, and the bandit had managed to gather up the reins. “We’re taking your horses. Move!”
There didn’t seem to be any alternative. We all dismounted, Dominic managing to slide down on his own though rubbing his neck.
“Where’s your money?” yelled the bandit leader.
“There in my saddle-bag,” said King Haimeric. The bandit jerked the bag open and pulled out a small jingling pouch with satisfaction. The king didn’t mention that that was only a fraction of the money we had, as all of us had other pouches tucked into our belts.
The third bandit, who had collected everyone’s swords, now gathered up all the reins and tied the horses together single-file. He mounted my mare. “Don’t try to follow us!”
The leader kicked Whirlwind into motion. All the horses surged forward, Joachim still mounted and still held hostage.
With a great clatter of hooves, they disappeared up the road ahead of us and around an outcropping of rock. I flew after them, not daring to let them get away while they still had Joachim.
As I rounded the outcropping, I saw a dark figure lying stretched across the road. Paying no attention to our horses disappearing again around the next rock, I dropped to the ground beside the chaplain.
“Joachim! Say something! Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”
The chaplain, to my intense relief, started to sit up. “I’ve had all the breath knocked out of me. The bandit said something about me not being the one they wanted after all and tossed me off.”
“Thank God you’re alive,” I started to say, then stopped short. Joachim hesitated when almost sitting, then slumped again to the ground. A crimson stain spread rapidly across the collar of his vestments.
IV
The others ran up behind me. Ascelin dropped to his knees, pulled the knife from his boot, and sliced the cloth away from Joachim’s neck. A jagged cut was oozing blood.
“It’s a vein, not an artery,” he said over his shoulder. “But he’s losing blood fast.” He held the edges of the wound together and tried to apply pressure.
“A good thing it’s not an artery,” commented Hugo. “You can’t very well put a tourniquet around someone’s neck.”
I found the remark distinctly unamusing, and so did Ascelin. “Start a fire,” he told Hugo, “and go find some water. You’ll have to boil it. Well, I don’t care! Use your armor if you have to.”
Joachim lay perfectly still, his eyes closed and face white. Blood kept oozing from his neck as fast as Ascelin wiped it away. In a few minutes, though it seemed like hours, Hugo returned from having found a spring among the rocks, carrying water in his breastplate. He lit a fire with the flint and steel at his belt and, without a word but with a loud sigh, balanced the breastplate over it, to have all the shiny finish scorched and darkened.
“I’m supposed to be a hunter,” said Ascelin bitterly. “I should have known better than to lead us straight into ambush. Trust bandits to grab the one man who couldn’t protect himself.”
“I think they wanted Arnulf, not the chaplain,” commented Hugo, adding twigs to his fire. “These must be the same bandits who attacked him last fall.”
“Shall we try to get him back down the mountain?” said Dominic when the water had boiled and Ascelin carefully cleaned the chaplain’s wound. “I could carry him.” The blood had finally stopped flowing, but Joachim had not opened his eyes again.
“It’s too late in the day,” said Ascelin. “It would take us hours to get to the castle, and I hate to move him at all.”
“And I don’t trust King Warin,” I said. “He must have told those bandits we were coming. This road’s used little enough that it wouldn’t be worth their while waiting for stray travelers.” I thought but didn’t say that if Elerius had wanted more challenges here he should have tried getting rid of the bandits-unless Warin liked them.
King Haimeric looked at me in real distress, but Ascelin nodded. “We’ll spend the night here. The chaplain’s in shock from loss of blood and must have something to eat. Try to keep him warm, and give him water if he wakes up. I’m going hunting.”
He had lost his sword but still had his bow, slung over his shoulder. He strung it and strode away, leaving the rest of us looking at each other wide-eyed.
The air was warmer than the ground. I used a lifting spell to raise Joachim about a foot, and then we wrapped our cloaks around him while the sun sank toward the western horizon away below us. Dominic and Hugo gathered more wood to keep our fire blazing hot. With what little attention I had left from keeping my lifting spell going, I kept probing to see if the bandits were coming back. We would be helpless, except for my magic, if they did.
But the first mind I sensed approaching was Ascelin, and he had shot three rabbits. Joachim opened his eyes at last and said something so softly I couldn’t hear. I bent over him to listen, then realized he was apologizing for giving us so much trouble.
I adjusted my spell to sit him up at an angle, so that he could eat a little rabbit once Ascelin had skinned and roasted them. Everyone on the mountain, I thought, would see our light and know we were here.
But with our horses and all our baggage, the bandits might well have all they wanted of us. I took a bite of rabbit myself, so hot it scorched both my fingers and my tongue, and was surprised to discover how hungry I was.
It was now full dark. “I’m going for a doctor,” said Ascelin, rising to his feet. “All my ointments are gone with
