Free The Golden Shield of IBF by Jerry Ahern, Sharon Ahern Page A

no idea what he was talking about specifically, but assumed that he was concerned with the quantity of the food that she could provide. “There will be plenty, Al’An.”
    As they’d walked, she’d been thinking, trying to fathom what to do after the immediate needs of shelter and reuniting with the Company of Mir were attended to. Despite her mother’s vastly stronger magical abilities, magic was still magic. To summon, then direct, then dispel the Mist of Oblivion, her mother had used an inconceivable amount of magical energy. And, because of this, her mother’s power would be drastically depleted for at least a day, likely longer. Much of this potentially valuable time was already lost. More would be lost while they rested for the night—and she produced food to fill Al’An s empty stomach.
    But there would still be some space of time left in which she might be able to do something which would later prove useful against her mother.
    The question was, what?
    They were as near to the boundary as she needed to be to find the track, and the nearer they approached the deeper were the drifts of snow. Swan told Al’An that and they began searching for the track...

    Lurking on the crest of a knoll in the darkness of the wood, the blackness of his cloak obscured by the whiteness of the snow fallen over it—he had remained all but motionless for a considerable time—Moc’Dar at last spied not only one item to capture his attention, but two.
    There was movement in the deep snowdrifts along the boundary of the wood, two figures, one so tall that it had to be male, and the other, considerably less broad at the shoulder and a head shorter, almost certainly a tall female.
    There was a development of interest along the track, as well.
    From the hand of the figure which Moc’Dar presumed to be a woman, there emanated a light, blue-white, illuminating the couple’s steps. A similar light shone from the rutted, drifted track, approaching nearer and nearer.
    Moc’Dar rasped to his Yeoman Spellbreaker, “Use your pitiful magic to second-sight me what is behind the light moving along the track.”
    “I am not good at the second-sight, my Captain. I have had very little training in its use.”
    Moc’Dar wished his face could have been visible to the Yeoman Spellbreaker huddled in the snow beside him. But, Moc’Dar was fully uniformed, his features hidden beneath the skintight leather battle mask of the Sword of Koth. “Try very hard, boy, as if your life were to depend upon the outcome,” Moc’Dar urged him, laughing grimly.
    “I, uh—I see riders ahorse. Five, my Captain.”
    “Very good, Yeoman. And, how are they armed?”
    There was a pause, a long one, then, “Each has sword and dagger. One has a ball-headed mace. There is a great sword lashed to the saddle of one of the men. I see a poleaxe. There is a crossbow and there is a longbow with two quivers of arrows.”
    “And how are the horses?”
    “Strong seeming, fresh enough.”
    Moc’Dar was fairly pleased. “Now, to the couple there moving along the boundary. See the face of the shorter one for me and tell me what manner of object is ahand to the taller figure. A weapon or what?”
    “Yes, my Captain. I will try.”
    To try was never good enough, because in trying one accepted the potential for failure as being on a par with the potential for success. Moc’Dar would kill this Yeoman Spellbreaker, perhaps. For the moment, there were more pressing matters and he would reserve his judgment.
    “The Queen Sorceress protect me!”
    “What makes you take the name of the Mistress General of the Horde in vain, boy!?”
    The Yeoman Spellbreaker’s voice trembled as he replied, “I saw her once, once only, but I could take my oath that when the wind shifted the cowl of her hood for a moment that I second-sighted the Virgin Enchantress, Daughter Royal, my Captain!”
    Moc’Dar said nothing. If the boy was right, the boy would live. If not, the boy would die. So