The Wandering War by Cindy Dees

Author:Cindy Dees
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

CHAPTER

18

Raina, no stranger to dryads and their effect on men, leaped forward to speak for the four men with her. “Well met, Lady Callisia. We are friends of Rowan. She gave us a wand from her own tree to use if we ever got into trouble.”

Kadir muttered from behind her, “How did you know what it was and where it came from?”

Gawaine had recognized the wand in one of her dreaming visits to him and regaled her with hilarious tales of Rowan and her fellow dryads bringing low great, tough male warriors who thought themselves immune to the charms of mere forest sprites.

Raina explained, “We just escaped someone who was trying to kill us and used the wand rather haphazardly. Can you tell us where we are, exactly?”

“I’ve heard your kind call this place the Machaira.”

Raina stared at the dryad. The wand had taken them from Alchizzadon, which she believed to be somewhere to the south and west of the Sorrow Wold, all the way to the northern shore of the Estarran Sea? It was going to take her months to make her way back to the Sorrow Wold. Worse, she’d left it with her friends that, if she had not returned from Alchizzadon in a few days, they should continue on without her. How she would find them now, she had no idea.

In the meantime, she had a dryad to make nice with. Raina knew from previous experience with them that the forest creatures were partial to men and could get very touchy with human females who said the wrong thing.

“You’ve been kind enough to introduce yourself, Lady Callisia, and we should do the same,” Raina said courteously. “My name is Raina, and I’m a healer. This gentleman is Proctor Kadir. He’s a very important mage and the keeper of the Wand of Rowan. This is my longtime friend and also a mage, Justin Morland. This elf is Cicero, a kindari warrior. And this gentleman”—she gestured at the bearded, filthy, alleged Royal Order of the Heart member in rags—“is…”

She didn’t actually know the prisoner’s name.

He bowed gracefully, surprising Raina. He was a big, burly man, every bit as large in stature as Kadir, and spoke in a deep, mellifluous voice. “Sir Lakanos of the Fen, Knight of the Royal Order of the Sun, at your service, my lady.”

A knight? Raina was shocked speechless. Everyone stared at him, and he fingered his beard ruefully.

“You are Royal Order of the Sun?” Kadir exclaimed. “How on Urth did you manage to gain entrance to the mages’ tower?”

The knight, Sir Lakanos, shrugged. “I was taken there as a prisoner and being held until someone got around to stealing my spirit or killing me, I expect.”

Raina wondered if there wasn’t more to the story than that. How had he known the mages existed or crossed paths with them in the first place? Was he some sort of spy, put there by Lord Justinius? Or had it really been sheer luck that placed him in

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