CHAPTER TWELVE
“Oh, no!” Jade groaned. She sank down onto a log and dropped her head into her hands with a sigh. “So now we’ve got Zhudai after us already as well as half the Roman army? This is not what I was expecting when I started this.”
Marcus crouched before her, his eyes troubled by her worry. “I’m sorry I have placed you all in greater danger. I should leave.”
“No!” Jade grabbed his arm. “Don’t go! I’m just overreacting. We’ll….we’ll cope.”
He looked at her for a long moment then nodded slowly. She blushed and released him. Her heart thudded uncomfortably as he stood up and faced Phoenix.
“What about you? Do I stay with you or go?” the Roman boy asked with quiet pride. “I know you have some mission to achieve and I don’t want to jeopardise that or your lives with my presence. It’s your decision.”
Jade jumped to her feet. “It’s all of our decision, not just Phoenix’s. We’re in this together.” She stared defiantly at the two warriors, annoyed at Marcus’ automatic assumption that Phoenix was leader, just because he was a boy. She looked at Phoenix. “But I don’t think Brynn and Marcus can make a decision without knowing more. We need to tell them.”
Phoenix stared at her, obviously caught off-guard. “Tell them what, exactly?”
“I think if we tell them what our ultimate aim is then Marcus and Brynn can decide for themselves if they want to help or not,” she said uncertainly. “It’s not fair to drag them around the countryside without knowing what they’re getting into.”
“Sounds like great advice to me,” Brynn encouraged. “I always like to know what I’m getting myself into - especially if it involves being killed by four hundred and eighty Roman soldiers and a mad foreign wizard.” He held up his hands in surrender when Phoenix scowled at him. “Hey,” he said, “I only signed on to guide you to Carega Amgarn and maybe help you steal the Jewel of Asgard and nab some treasure for myself. If there’s more to this, it’d be nice to know now.”
“Fine then.” Phoenix scrubbed a hand over his face, as though the last three days had finally caught up to him.
Jade could almost feel his exhaustion and impatience. He just wanted to get on with it. He probably thought she was making things more complicated than they needed to be.
“We’re here on….a great Quest.” He seemed to be struggling to put it into words. Jade kept quiet with an effort as he continued. “We have to complete five Quests in five different parts of the world. The first is to get the Jewel from the Druids at Carega Amgarn, as you mentioned, Brynn. If we manage that and the other four lev….quests then we should be able to achieve our ultimate goal - to kill Feng Zhudai.”
Brynn’s jaw dropped. Marcus frowned. Jade watched them both anxiously.
“But such tasks could take years,” Marcus noted. “It takes many weeks to get just from here to Rome. Why should you have to travel all around the world to defeat Zhudai when he is already here?”
“Well, I’m fairly sure we won’t have to travel overland to get to our next destination. The ga….” Phoenix stopped, glanced at Jade then began again. “Jade has a way of getting us to the next place by magic.”
“There are only three of you.” Marcus glanced at each in turn. “How are one warrior, a boy and a mere woman going to defeat Feng Zhudai?”
“Hey!” Brynn scowled back and Jade had to press her lips firmly together to stop herself from echoing his outrage - ‘mere woman’ indeed.
Marcus flushed and bowed toward them. “I apologise. In Roman society children and women are not expected to go into battle. Please remember: I have seen what Feng Zhudai can do and, although you are both skilled, you cannot defeat him.”
Phoenix grimaced. “To be honest, we weren’t expecting him to be here. We are supposed to complete four other tasks before even meeting him. Doing the other tasks is meant to give us enough skills and strength to face him and have a chance of killing him.”
“So you’re saying that if you meet him in battle now you will lose?” Marcus stated.
Phoenix shrugged.
Jade nodded, “Probably.”
There was a long silence as the four companions thought and waited.
“So what do you want to do?” Jade finally asked. “We’d totally understand if you decided it was too risky to travel with us.” She laid a hand on Brynn’s shoulder and smiled down at him. “You can just take some of that money and go, if you want.”
The boy gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I’ve got nothing more to lose. Zhudai himself ordered my family’s execution and watched them die.” His young face was grim. “I’d be perfectly happy to wander around the world for years if we could kill him in the end. I’m with you all the way. Besides,” he added slyly, “I’ve always wanted to travel.”
Jade opened her eyes wide and exchanged a shocked look with Phoenix. She glanced at Marcus, wondering how he would take this latest revelation. Marcus’ air of hesitation left him. He straightened up, took a firm grip on the hilt of his sword and pulled it from its sheath.
Kneeling on the damp earth in front of Jade and Phoenix, he laid his sword at their feet and bowed his head. “I swear fealty to you both.” He looked up, into their eyes, his expression earnest and determined. “My sword is yours. My life is yours. I will do anything in my power to help you achieve your goal for it is mine, also.”
Phoenix put a hand on his shoulder. “There’s no need for that, Marcus. We aren’t your masters, we’re your friends.”
Marcus stood and sheathed his sword. He bowed. “Thank you for your trust, I know it wasn’t easy to give. Still,” he added, “I’m sure you would feel better if you allowed me to swear an oath – or if we all took an oath to each other, perhaps?”
“Er….?” Phoenix looked at Jade.
She grimaced and glanced around. Inspiration hit and she dashed a few steps off the path, returning moments later with her hands full of vines.
“Everyone put your left hand into the middle, palm upwards,” she ordered. “If you’re truly willing to be part of this group, that is. You don’t have to.”
After a moment’s hesitation, they all did so. Using her right hand, Jade twined the vine around and around all of their arms, binding them loosely together in a green-and-flesh knot. Tucking the ends in, she instructed them all to lay their hands atop each other’s, palm up. Then she fussed for a second, arranging their hands so that each palm was squarely on top of the last in a stack of hands – Phoenix’s on the bottom, hers on the top. Next, she picked up a small amount of mud from the wet, puddled path and rubbed it into the middle of her palm.
“Er…. Jade?” Phoenix asked, looking like he thought she was insane. Nothing was happening except that they all looked very silly with a vine wrapped around their wrists.
“Hang on,” she frowned at him. “OK. Now everyone stare right at the middle of my hand and don’t look away until I tell you,” she instructed. They did so.
Jade spoke; soft Elvish words that would make no sense to the others. She blotted out their puzzlement, their breathing, their presence and drew on her inner connection with the great forest around. She allowed her voice to rise and fall in a hypnotic chant; a song that entwined them in the lazy warmth of summer; the blazing colours of autumn; the frost-white chill of winter and the green newness of spring all intertwined at once. Somehow, the scents of cut hay and ripe berries; new snow and fresh green peas teased their noses. The sounds of birds singing filled their ears then faded away only to swell again in different songs. On Jade’s chest, her amulet glowed.
The vine twisted about their limbs began to pulsate and glow a rich, dark green. Her body throbbing with earth-power, Jade pointed a finger and a small, green flame appeared, dancing just above her palm. The vine seemed to slide down their arms, toward the flame. Weirdly, it wasn’t getting tighter.
In fact, it seemed to be disappearing somewhere. Somehow, it was being absorbed into the flame at the centre of Jade’s hand. There was a green, sort of misty look about their hands now.
She finished the spell, feeling the power ebb from her body as the green mist vanished. The others stared at their hands. The vine was completely gone. They glanced at Jade and she nodded, drawing her hand back and inspecting it. Phoenix and the others did the same. There was no green mark; no sign of the vine or the mud. Their hands were perfectly clean – apart from the grime acquired while travelling, fighting and not bathing.
“What exactly was that?” Phoenix asked, sounding like he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know.
“Well,” she blinked at him, “a Binding spell.” She swayed on her feet, feeling lightheaded. Marcus put a hand under her arm to steady her.
“Uh huh.” Phoenix paused, still staring at his hand. “And that is?”
“It just means that we four are bound together until the end of our mutual quest,” she explained, sinking back onto the log with a sigh of relief. “It’s like an oath but a bit deeper. It means that we are sword-companions; oath-brothers and sisters unbreakably bound by the powers of the four Elements – Earth, Air, Fire and Water. We will do all we can to aid each other. If one of us is in trouble, the others will know it. If one is lost, I should be able to sense what direction to go to find him.” She looked at them each in turn as the depth of this bond sank in. “Only treachery or death can break this spell. If it’s broken, you’ll get a sharp pain in the hand and the vine will reappear around mine.”
There was a long silence while the others stared at her and digested the implications of the Binding Spell. Brynn looked at Jade with something akin to hero worship in his big brown eyes. Marcus rubbed his thumb across the palm of his hand and shuddered in superstitious reaction. Phoenix shook himself as though trying to rid himself of the clinging sensations of her magic.
“O…K… then….. Well,” he clapped Brynn on the shoulder, “let’s get on with it, shall we? Lead on, oh faithful guide.”
*****
In his sleep, thousands of kilometres away, Long Baiyu smiled. The purple-blue shimmering aura of magic around him brightened. Strength pulsed faintly in his cold, curled body.