Spellscribed: Conviction by Kristopher Cruz Read Free Book Online Page B

room enough to go around it.
    "Okay!" Endrance called back. "It's clear enough to go through!"
    Bridget grabbed her horse by the lead, and walked forward. "I'll go first. I need to stretch my legs." she said.
    She pushed through, followed by Tanya. Joven followed next. Endrance then walked his horse around the obstacle. He came to a stop almost immediately on the other side, seeing Joven's horse in the way and not wishing to risk getting kicked.
    "What's going on?" Endrance asked.
    There was a dead human underneath the rocks.  Gullin explained, circling above.  Joven is examining the body.
    "Who died? Endrance called back.
    Joven slipped alongside his horse, holding something bulky in his hand. "I don't know, but what worries me is that this was in his hand." he said, holding out the object. It was a pickaxe, battered, bent and crushed by tens of thousands of pounds of rock, but recognizable nonetheless.
    "What?" the mage asked. "Why would he have that..." it dawned on him.
    Joven nodded, affirming his realization. "The man must have caused the landslide. He intentionally tried to close off the pass."
    "Damn." Endrance cursed. "But Gullin did a pass of the ravine! It was clear!"
    I did. I saw no environmental hazards or threats.  The familiar admitted.  There exists the possibility that I have missed something, though.
    Joven shrugged. "Tanya and Bridget are checking to see if the rest of the pass is clear." he shook his head. "I was curious about that collapse; the rock here was far too stable to just give out like that."
    Minutes later, Tanya and Bridget returned, reporting that they had managed to clear the rest of the way into the ravine. Selene collected Giselle and the men from Ironsoul, and they followed Endrance through the pass. There was only the one body, and it looked to have been dead for several weeks by Joven's estimation, so they left it where it was. They were already pressed for time, and didn't have the ability to perform a proper burial or burning.
    The ravine was large enough, and had steep enough walls, that it was easily defended on all sides. A large scattering of trees grew in the fertile soil, fed water by a near constant trickle of snow melt year round. Some woodland creatures had taken up residence in the pass, but it was only about a day's walk from one end to the other, so not many predators would fit inside it.
    "We need to get to the campsite soon." Joven said, pushing everyone to get mounted up and move forward. "We're losing days light."
    The group moved as quickly as they could risk in the dimming light, and made it to the campsite an hour after the suns disappeared under the horizon. Quickly, they set up camp with Endrance's light spell providing the illumination they needed, and soon they had food heating up over the fire.
    "At least we can have fire, and food." Ezeilo said. "When we passed through here before it was raining."
    "Ah." Endrance said. "You had a rough trip."
    "Not nearly as rough as when I got to Balator." Ezeilo responded. The man had been trending on the overweight side when he had first arrived, but it looked like he'd lost quite a few pounds since. The man and only two of his escort squad had survived an invasion by undead wolfmen nearly a month prior. It had been a frantic week, to be sure, but the capitol and most of it's people had made it through.
    Now was not the best time to leave the city, but Endrance had a warrant on his head, and if he properly remembered the laws he had been instructed on, he would only have a little while before they dispatched other mages to retrieve him. Idly, he wondered if they would adjust the time, considering how far Balator was from Ironsoul.
    Joven wanted to take first watch, and Endrance planned on doing some fine tuning of the modified spell he had developed. Shortly after eating, everyone had settled down to sleep. Endrance wasn't sure how much time had passed before a deep, ululating sound echoed through the ravine; low in