“You’re a fool, then,” said Tracy. “They’ll kill you and us too just for talking to you.”
“Told you,” said Selene coolly.
Will managed to disentangle himself from Annabelle. “We’re leaving. It’s up to you if you want to come with us.”
Annabelle answered immediately, “I’m in. Tracy?” She looked questioningly at the older woman.
Tracy Tanner seemed uncertain, but then her jaw clenched, and her eyes shut tightly. “I’m only doing this for Joey,” she said finally.
“Joey?” asked Selene.
Annabelle explained, “Her son.”
Will was afraid to ask, but he did anyway. “Is he…”
“Dead,” said Tracy, her voice cold and empty. “The warehouses take up most of the southeast quarter.”
“What do they look like?” asked Selene.
“The only things in this town that aren’t tents are the warehouses, the brothels, and the commander’s residence,” said Tracy. “The southeast quarter is nothing but large warehouses made of rough timber.”
Will felt like laughing. They had entered through the southwestern quarter, narrowly missing the area of their objective. If they had just turned right before reaching the center lane, they would have found them almost immediately. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“How?” asked Annabelle. “They sounded an alarm not long ago. That’s why we were all on the porch, trying to see what was going on.” She glanced at Selene. “The mist, was that you?”
Selene nodded.
“How are we going to do this?” asked Tracy.
Will was full of anger over what the Darrowans had done to Annabelle and Tracy. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I’ll go down first and surprise Stan. Then Selene can re-summon the mist and we’ll head for the warehouses.”
“You’ll have to kill the other girls too,” said Tracy, her tone unforgiving. “The old hag would stick a knife in us as easily as breathing. Marcy is almost as bad.”
That gave him pause. Could he kill Stan and then drain the girls? Selene gave him a glance that clearly said ‘idiot.’ Then she wiggled her fingers. Oh, the sleep spell. He nodded.
Selene led the way down the stairs, and before Will reached the ground floor, Stan and both of the other women were out cold. Annabelle began rummaging through Stan’s clothes and held up a bag of coins triumphantly.
Selene gave will a sour look. “We aren’t here to steal.”
“It’s our money anyway,” said Tracy, before spitting on the floorboards. “Bastards.”
Will shrugged, and Selene summoned her mist again. The four of them stepped outside. “I can’t see anything,” complained Annabelle, grabbing Will’s hand. Will noticed a look on Selene’s face that could have peeled paint from a wall.
Adjusting his vision again, Will told them, “We’ll form a line. Annabelle, hold onto my belt. Tracy can hold onto you, and Isabel will take the rear.”
“Good plan, hero,” said Selene, her voice thick with sarcasm.
They left the porch and threaded their way down the lane, taking the first right they came to. At the next intersection of lanes Will saw a large group of soldiers, but he was able to lead them around it without problem. Further on he saw a massive wooden building looming, along with another large group of soldiers. As they got closer, he could see that the warehouse was nearly a hundred yards across on its nearest side. In the distance a similar building rose from the mist behind it. “How many warehouses are there?” he asked.
“Seven or eight?” said Annabelle uncertainly.
“Nine,” answered Tracy. “They’re all about the same size, built side by side. If you can see the closest one then there’s two more to the left of it, and two more past it. They form three rows of three each.”
“Damn,” said Will. The first one was huge. He could only imagine how much grain and other foodstuffs might be stored in buildings of that size.
Someone called out from the group of soldiers, “They’re approaching! That mist isn’t natural.”
Will focused on the source of the voice and saw a man with a burning flame above his shoulder. Shit, a sorcerer, he swore silently. He moved back along their line until he was close to Selene. “There’s a group of soldiers in the intersection ahead and they have a sorcerer with them.”
“What sort of elementals does he have?” she asked.
“Just one, fire.”
She thought about it a minute before replying, “I could kill the soldiers, but the sorcerer will kill the rest of you. If I drop the mist so I can see him the soldiers will be all over us, but if I don’t drop the mist, I can’t use my water blades.”
“You can’t use them at the same time?”
“No,” she said dryly. “And you wouldn’t want me to anyway. Think about what would happen if I started whipping them around while blind. I’d be just as likely to kill you and your girlfriend as I would the enemy.”
She’s definitely jealous, thought Will, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “She isn’t my girlfriend,” he whispered.
“Say it a little louder,” returned Selene. “She can’t hear you.”
Exasperated, Will replied, “Neither can the soldiers. Isn’t that the point?” Selene said nothing, but her eyes were as hard as stone. “Can you set the warehouse on fire?”
“I don’t have a fire elemental,” she said, her tone implying he was stupid for asking.
“With a spell. Can’t you just absorb some turyn from them and make a spell to blast it?”
“First, if I wanted to destroy something, ordinarily I’d just use one of my elementals, so I’ve never spent any time studying destructive spells. Second, most spells are small. Even at Wurthaven they don’t teach things like that.”
Will was dumbfounded. “Why not?”
“Because any wizard that attempted one would just wind up killing himself and no sorcerer would bother. Elementals are much better for that sort of thing.”
Will had a feeling his grandfather would have disagreed, but it wasn’t the time to argue. As he watched the soldiers, he realized the sorcerer had walked to one edge of the group, and Will had an idea. “I’m going to leave you for a moment. When you hear them start shouting, or me shouting, drop the mist and come save me.” He walked away, letting the mist take him out of sight.
“Save you?” Selene hissed. “Will! Wait. What are you doing?”
He moved closer to the group of soldiers and shifted his vision back to normal so he could tell exactly how well he was obscured. Crouching low, he drew his sword and crept forward until he saw his first hint of a human figure, then he moved back a step and adjusted his vision until the mist vanished again. He was roughly ten feet from the soldiers. Any closer and they might spot him.
The sorcerer was talking steadily, trying to reassure the soldiers with him. “They’re bound to be close, in the middle of this fog. Stay alert.”
Will’s hand was hurting, and when he looked at it, he realized he was gripping his sword too tightly. Stay calm, he told himself. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled slowly, then he expanded the outer boundary of his personal turyn, so that he would begin absorbing more to fill the emptiness around him. Inhaling sharply, he lunged forward.