Delver Magic I: Sanctum's Breach by Jeff Inlo (read novels website .TXT) 📕

no more than an instant. It picked up a stone, held it up to its nose, and tossed it away indifferently. Finally, it placed its hand upon the last markings of Ryson’s knife. It looked back down the trail where similar markings abounded. When it turned its head forward to the high hills and to where Ryson remained perched, it only tilted its head.

Apparent indecision and confusion hindered the shag as it considered the change in the trail. It could easily see the scuff marks of Ryson’s shuffling boots, but it could not find any scratches which it first identified and followed when it spotted the group of travelers crossing its territory.

“A little slow witted,” Ryson murmured. A smile crossed the delver’s lips. His enthusiastic enjoyment grew with every new shred of knowledge he procured from watching and analyzing the movements and reactions of the monster. A delver’s blessing was before him; an entirely new species to examine.

The shag continued to move about with indecision, its nose and eyes passing across the broken path. Eventually, it spotted the lighter trail to the small tree where Ryson used the sleeve cloth as a marker.

“Very impressive,” Ryson conceded. “I wonder if it found it with its eyes or its nose.” He spoke a little louder each time, testing the range of the shag’s hearing.

Still, the shag showed no sign of picking up the sound. Instead, it followed the nearly invisible trail which led to the tree with the marker.

“I’m not sure, though, if I want it to find that. It may figure out what I’m doing. Maybe I can confuse it a bit more.”

With steady, deliberate motion, Ryson moved his arm to the ground and felt for a stone which fit the palm of his hand. His movement was so controlled, so steady, it would have barely attracted the attention of someone standing right next to him. With rock in hand, he cocked his arm back with the same preciseness. With one quick fluid movement, the stone sailed across the sky. It split the air, a screaming missile, as it soared away from the hill top. Its direction would lead it to the ground a good fifty paces away from the shag, but in the opposite direction of the tree.

Before the stone hit the ground, the shag spun and fixed its glance directly upon Ryson’s position. It stood taller than it had before, its shoulders pulled back. The thick hands opened wide, the fingers trembled with apparent anger.

Through his spyscope, Ryson watched the shag’s indecisive expression roar into an angry sneer. Its yellow eyes never left the ridge where Ryson crouched motionless, even when the stone finally hit its mark.

“So it can spot movement pretty quickly,” Ryson whispered, his lips did not move. He watched the monster with a growing understanding of the developing situation. “It knows something is here, but it’s not sure what. That means it can see fairly well, but it’s better at spotting motion than at focusing over great distances. It’s going to wait for me to move first so it can figure out what it’s up against. Let’s see if I can’t use that to make sure Holli gets to the trees with no trouble.”

Ryson remained absolutely still, as did the shag. The furry monster could sense Ryson’s presence, but it waited for the delver to move before it would make an advance. For now, it had the location of its quarry. It was apparently willing to let the prey make the first move, hoping and expecting it to be a critical mistake.

The delver waited with monumental patience. He felt no urge to run, no anxiety over being watched so intently by the shag. He was accomplishing his mission, for if the shag remained in his sights it could not be chasing Holli or the algors. He allowed the day to pass with the two of them locked in this battle of inactivity. He judged the elapsing time by watching the shadows extend. When the sun reached a point halfway between noon day high and sunset, he decided it was time to end the stalemate.

Certainly by now, Holli and the others were safely within the trees and heading toward the heart of Dark Spruce Forest. All that was left was to secure his own safety and all would be well.

The obvious option was to escape toward freedom as quickly as possible. He could leave the shag behind by running off at top speed. Considering his own abilities, he believed he would be halfway to the forest before the shag could make a decision. Being a delver, however, Ryson considered other alternatives, options he chose to pursue.

There was so much to left to learn of this creature, so many questions left unanswered. Ryson had only observed a fraction of the shag’s tracking and hunting abilities. If he would face this new world with shags and goblins, if this was what the re-emergence of the magic dictated, he would need greater knowledge of each new dark creature in order to survive as a delver. With a shag in sight and upon his preferred terrain, he could not let the opportunity pass by.

With his own decision cast, Ryson leapt upward and darted over the hilltop behind him and out of sight of the shag. He did not continue down the slope. Instead, he dropped to the ground upon his chest. He kept his spyscope in his hand. He waited. One breath. Two breaths. Stomach to the ground, he slithered back over the peak and brought himself into view of the shag’s position.

Nothing. The shag had moved, and moved quickly.

“So it can make a snap decision when it has to,” Ryson noted.

Turning his head slowly, Ryson scanned the ground closer to the base of the hill. The shag moved furiously at full speed. It covered ground in amazing time. Two thick, hairy legs pummeled the ground ferociously as they propelled the shag forward.

“I can outrun it, but I can’t fool with it,” Ryson gave the creature its due. “If I get cute, it might actually catch me.” The delver watched for but a split second more as it assessed the shag’s direction. “It’s circling the hill and expects me down there. I shouldn’t disappoint it.”

Again, Ryson leapt over the hilltop but this time with the intention of running all the way down. With fluid yet powerful strides of his own, the delver plowed downward. Ryson forced his eyes open as wide as possible and increased his peripheral vision to a greater range. He reached the hill’s base, crossed a small gorge which rested in front of a second and taller hill, and started up that slope just as the shag rounded the first hillside and came into his view.

The delver allowed for one quick glance up the hillside he ascended. In that moment, he noted all potential hazards and the quickest path to the top. With that image painted crisply in his mind, he slowed his speed and turned his head over his shoulder to watch the pursuit of the shag.

Ryson watched with interest to see its next decision. Would it follow him up this hill or try yet again to intercept by cutting around the base?

The shag showed no reluctance this time at following the delver’s path directly. It must have believed its speed superior and it bounded upward directly behind the delver.

The creature has confidence in its speed, Ryson thought. If it didn’t think it would catch me, it wouldn’t follow and waste so much energy.

The shag handled the incline of the hill without the slightest difficulty. If anything, moving on a slope, even an ascending slope, added to the creature’s speed and dexterity. The uneven ground aided the shag’s movements, movements which were designed for even the taller slopes of mountains. A tractable joint at the creature’s hip actually allowed the shag to proportion the extension of each leg to adjust for the slope of any hill or mountain, an attribute duly noted by the delver. Level ground rendered this sliding joint rather useless, but slopes in any direction allowed for full utilization and an advantage over those with fixed hip joints.

Ryson, however, ran at a pace which matched the shag’s exactly. Their current pace was perhaps slightly more than half Ryson’s top speed. It was a pace Ryson could maintain for long periods without any true stress, and the creature could not gain even a step as they rose to the top of this second hill.

Ryson charged over this hilltop. His head swirled to allow for another quick scan of the back slope. The descent offered a few obstacles, a patch of loose rocks, a few areas of tall weeds, but nothing to be overly concerned about.

A wide-mouthed grin enveloped his face - a delver’s true dream; pure exhilaration. Not only was he defining and categorizing the abilities of a mountain shag, he was now locked in a thrilling competition. This was as much a test for his own abilities as it was a learning experience. He would not be content in simply outdistancing the shag. There was more to be gained here, a greater opportunity at stake. The charging shag afforded him the chance to pit his greatest skills and cunning against a mysterious monster with unique abilities of its own.

For safety sake, however, Ryson would influence the decisions of the shag; he would impose his own restrictions on the options afforded to the monster. The shag might believe that it determined the pace and direction of the chase, indeed Ryson hoped it would, but it was the delver who would decide where they would go and how they would proceed.

The shag fell mindlessly into the delver’s will. It moved as much on anger as it did on instinct. It growled and roared as it raced behind the quick moving delver. It showed only minor ability for tactics and strategy as Ryson dictated more and more of the struggle.

If the delver felt the shag slowing, Ryson reduced his own pace. The gap between them closed and the shag would experience renewed energy at the prospect of ending the chase. With but a snap of his boots, Ryson would extend the gap once more. Thus, the chase continued over several hills. Influenced highly by Ryson’s maneuvers, the shag at times followed directly behind, otherwise it circled around the base of a hill trying to cut off its intended victim. On such occasions, Ryson answered with different tactics. Stopping at the top to challenge the shag to ascend or changing directions and descending over the same path he used to climb, he would then wait to see how the shag would react. Ryson monitored the shag’s apparent willingness to follow over certain obstacles as well as its tolerance for frustration. The shag showed mostly perseverance, almost stubbornness, even as the chase lingered.

Ryson marveled at the shag’s endurance. No signs of heavy breath, no signs of muscle fatigue. Except for a few fleeting moments of indecision as to how to follow, the shag maintained its pounding stride.

The delver forced the chase northward, towards higher elevations. All the while he kept his own strength and ability in check. Hiding the full extent of his own endowments, disguising what he could truly do, he forced the shag to reveal every secret of its own.

By the time they were charging across long valleys thick with vegetation, Ryson acquired a wealth of information. He understood that a shag’s abilities would vary in degree from individual to individual, but there were certain attributes he now understood with great consciousness.

As the pursuit continued, Ryson noted they were closing upon the Fuge River. The benefits of the chase dwindled as the delver found little else in the way of useful