Page 13 of Unexpected Magic

To a veteran of such performances, the stance screamed “battle mage faces danger”. And, of course, the prioress was a mage. Though she worked mostly as a healer, all the sisters of her order had been trained in combat. So, battle mages really do stand like that, Delia thought.

“Miss,” whispered Polly, “I’m scared.”

“No need,” Delia murmured back. “We have the royal guard, the warrior sisters, and Mr. Thornton. We have nothing to worry about.”

She hoped.

*

Jasper devoutly hopedthat his premonition ability was having an off day. He had woken certain that disaster awaited the expedition, but with no idea of what disaster and where it waited.

He could not ignore the possibility of ambush. On this next stretch of the canal, they floated into a lonely stretch of countryside. For much of the way, according to the canal boat man, there’d be poor visibility.

He wouldn’t stop the journey based on an unfocused bad feeling, but he could at least warn Captain Harewood, the prioress, and the two men whose canal boat this was.

He was blunt with them. “I have a bad feeling about this next stretch of the canal. Nothing certain. Nothing fully formed. But I am uneasy, and I need you to be extra watchful. If the enemies of Britain know what we are about, they will want to stop us.”

“Whatarewe about?” asked the canal boat man. “My brother and I did not sign up for fighting and such like.”

“We are escorting someone worth fighting for,” Jasper said. “I shall protect the lady who has been chosen by the unicorn. With my life, if necessary.”

“As shall I and my men,” said Captain Harewood.

“As shall we,” said Sister Joan-Louise.

“Not what we signed up for,” grumbled the canal boat man. “What’s so special about the lady, anyways?”

The answer to that was too complicated for a brief explanation. Jasper ignored the question. “If we do come under attack,” he said, “stay out of danger. Keep the boat from the sides of the canal, if you can, and you”—he nodded to the brother—“get yourself and the horse away from the fighting. You’re not trained for this.”

An hour or more passed peacefully. Jasper stood at the stern next to the man at the tiller, and kept as watchful an eye as he could on the surrounding countryside, given that scrub and trees edged the tow path on one side of the canal and a high bank screened the land on the other.

Soon, they would reach Marple and turn onto the Peak Forest Canal. The closer they came to the junction, the more traffic there would be, and more people meant greater safety. However, the canal was quiet at the moment, with only one other boat in sight and no villages or houses. Not even a farm cottage.

Even as Jasper had the thought, a fast-moving purple mist shot over the high bank on the far side of the canal and slammed into the canal boat. It was a hard blow that shook the boat and was all-the-more chilling because it made no sound.

“A mage bolt,” he said. His first impulse was to send one back, but it was tricky magic—or, at least, he had always found itso. Besides, if they did not think the Jennie Rose was defended by magic, perhaps they would approach with less caution.

Whoevertheywere. The French, most likely, for the king’s scryers had confirmed that Napoleon was determined to absorb the United Kingdom of Great Britain into his empire. But the attack might also be by Cónaidhm Ríochtaí na hÉireann, the Federation of the Kingdoms of Ireland. The CRE had been fighting the English since the twelfth century and assisting England’s enemies for even longer. That is, when they weren’t hiring themselves out as mercenaries to fight for the English.

It could even be the Americans, who had fought their way free of the king’s rule some thirty years ago, and whom Napoleon had been assiduously courting. Or the Welsh, whose battle against occupying forces had dominated their history since Roman times.

All this calculation flashed through his mind as he scoured the surroundings for the attackers’ next move. And suddenly his ability to detect living things by their auras, usually just a dim sense for which he could find little use, flashed into full operation. Shining in his mind like a beacon was the aura of a mage, just beyond the bank but approaching the top. The bank was represented in his aura-sense by the quiet symphony of its cover of lifeforms, all overshadowed by the strong glow from the mage. Chiefly purple—so the source of the mage bolt—it was tinged with red and black.

Another four auras surrounded the purple, smaller and less vibrant. Six more approached from this side of the canal, a group as yet hidden behind the hedgerow but about to break through.

On the canal path, the royal guards and the warrior nuns were unaware of the second danger, their attention all directed at the bank from beyond which the mage bolt had sped.

When he spoke to their leaders, Jasper used a tiny translocation spell—a trick most mages learned as students, topass messages in class. His voice would sound from the air beside the ears of the captain and the nun’s leader. “Captain, Sister, an assault approaches from behind you in the hedge. Six people.”

His next words were to the canal boat man. “Steer to the middle of the canal and keep us there.”

“My brother,” complained the man, even as he obeyed Jasper’s command. But the two military leaders had thought of that, and detached one each of their company to stand guard over the horse and horse handler.

The fight on the canal path was furious, but the enemy had lost the advantage of surprise, and was outnumbered. Before turning his attention back to the danger approaching from the other side of the canal, Jasper had enough time to see from the auras that only one minor mage-gift faced his people, and it was a lesser gift than held by either the captain or any one of the warrior sisters. He could safely leave them to their task.

Here came reinforcements, and just in time. Those who had been off duty were coming out of the canvas door in the center of the canal boat.

Again, he translocated his voice. “Our fight is coming from the off side of the canal. A magic user and four others.”