She began to press down on nearby bushes and brambles with her feet, ignoring the scratching and pricking of the thorns until, several paces from where she had first felt that wisp of magic, her foot went through an apparently solid shrub and sank a few inches into the mud. She moved her hands forward into the shrub’s leaves and branches, and they passed through. It simply was not there.
“What is it?” Choson said.
“An illusion,” Amelia said. “This is powerful Blood Magic.”
“How do you do this?” Roos said.
“I’m not doing this. I couldn’t do this if I wanted to. Not without years of—”
A sudden stabbing pain shocked her feet, and she leapt back out of the illusion.
“I—I think we need to move on,” Amelia said. “I have no idea of its purpose … but if I were her, I would lay traps. Stay behind me; I will sense what I can.”
Choson put a hand on his sword handle, and Roos did the same. Amelia beckoned them to follow her, and they all pushed through the undergrowth and continued eastward. As she moved, one hand clasped on her short sword and every nerve and muscle tense, she willed her eyes to pierce farther into the trees and bushes. At the same time, she pushed her magical senses to their limits also, which turned to a headache that pressed against the back of her eyes as the minutes passed. Eventually, after seeing nothing out of the ordinary, and feeling nothing else like the strange illusory bush, she gradually relaxed her magical senses and her grip on her weapon. Choson drew level with her.
“Has the danger passed?” he whispered.
“I cannot say,” she said. “But I’ll exhaust myself if I turn my senses to the utmost on every leaf. We should leave this forest—I am not prepared.”
“Do you think Min-Yu’s path could be near?”
“There is every chance.”
“You do not sound pleased,” he said. “We are fortunate to find something to investigate so soon.”
“ ‘Fortunate’ is not the word that comes to my mind,” she said. She craned to look upward at a large, tangled spider web. A spider with long, thin legs was perched at the center, busily wrapping a bundle of prey in silk. Watching it made Amelia’s neck prickle.
“Where do we go now?” Roos asked as he caught up to them.
“The coast, I think,” Amelia said. “I will climb up and see how far off it is.”
She chose a tree far from the spider and its web, and climbed to its top branches. The mountain loomed in front of her, and a sliver of the sea—more distant than it had been earlier—sparkled in the sunlight behind. She twisted around on the branches, looking behind and ahead again, craning her neck to see the forest floor below and the mountain above. A hot feeling rose through her neck and traveled to her head. She climbed back down the tree, cursing.
“What is it?” Choson asked.
“We’ve been turned around since we found the illusion—we’ve muddled it and gone west,” Amelia said.
“But … no, we can’t have done. I was watching the sun,” Choson said. “We have been going east.”
“Well I thought we were too, but we’ve still managed to go the wrong …”
She trailed off as a thought struck her, and the spider in the branches above drew her eye again. The longer she looked, the more threads she could see—threads that anchored the web to distant branches, taut enough to quiver at the slightest touch.
“We haven’t made a mistake,” Amelia said. “We have been tricked.”
“A spell to make us lost?” Roos said.
“What can we do?” Choson said.
“We can still make for the coast,” she said. “But do not follow your eyes—follow me instead. And we cannot stop moving … the spider does not linger when a fly is snared in the web.”
“How will you know which way is east?”
“Momaentum here flows west-to-east. I will follow that—her spell might fool our eyes, but she cannot disrupt the flow.”
Amelia led the way due east, feeling the coursing Momaentum by her magical senses. The sun was at different times ahead of them, behind them, to their left or right. All evidence of Amelia’s eyes pointed to them walking in circles—but the flow was ever eastward. They even passed the same handful of trees and brambles over and over again, though Amelia knew this was part of the illusion.
They reached a clearing covered in sunlit grass. As they stepped out of the tree-line, the sun fell on her skin with gentle, refreshing warmth, and it came with a cool breeze. Paired together, they made her feel rested and content, ready to go on traveling for hours on end without rest. The pleasant feeling, so alien compared to the tension of the previous hours, struck her as suspicious. She held out an arm to stop the others.
“You hear that?” she said.
There was a distant rushing sound, and a smell of salt to the wind.
“That is the sea,” Roos said.
“Back into the trees,” she said with a hard edge to her voice.
“You said the sea was still a day or two’s travel,” Choson said.
“It still is. The sound, the breeze—they are illusions. Come, we mustn’t go through the clearing.”
Amelia led them around the edges of the clearing with its beguiling sunlight and breeze. That is where they would spring the trap, she thought. The steady eastward flow of Momaentum continued as ever, even though the sun seemed to be sinking to their right. The clearing was soon behind them. Amelia pushed through bushes and brambles one after another, despite the thin red lines that scored her forearms and their constant stinging.
She reached out to move aside a particularly thick bush, throwing her weight forward in anticipation, but stumbled through thin air. Another illusion. The next moment, her magical senses were struck with what felt like a snapping bowstring. All at once her head was flooded with heat as though she was in the peak of a fever, and bile welled up from her gut, rising almost all the way to her throat.
She turned to the others and yelled, “Run!”
They crashed forward through the undergrowth as a warm, coppery scent like blood filled Amelia’s nostrils. The air became thicker, humid, and harder to breathe. Her steps slowed and her eyes drooped heavily, but still she pressed on. There was no way to see far enough into the tangled undergrowth ahead; she half expected to tumble headlong over a hidden cliff or collide with a boulder, but she did not slow her pace. It felt as though the snapping jaws of a wolf pack were at her heels.
She vaulted over a mid-sized boulder and landed on smooth grass. Looking up, she saw they were in the clearing they had been before. The same cool, inviting wind touched her cheeks and eased the feverish feeling that had taken hold of her moments ago. She let out a low groan of rage just as Choson and Roos came over the boulder and stopped short beside her.
“But … we were going east …” Choson said between heaving breaths.
Roos was drenched in sweat and panting with his mouth wide open. The three of them scanned the trees, and drew their weapons. There was a sound, and Amelia saw a sudden movement on the opposite side of the clearing. Amelia twisted at once and stepped into the cool flow of Momaentum, and as the world slowed around her, she stepped two full paces to the left and saw a crossbow bolt flying lazily through the spot she had just been standing. She left the flow, and the bolt snapped past and into the trunk of a pine.
The leaves of the bushes around the clearing burst into movement, and thirty or more armed figures poured out of the gaps between trees, brandishing spears, swords, chains, and crossbows. Even as she thought to reach into her satchel and throw a vial of Sleeper at them, she saw that they all wore cloths tied around their noses and mouths. They must be Min-Yu’s slavers—who else could have taught them to protect themselves like that? she thought. The slavers barreled across the clearing toward the trio.
Amelia cinched her satchel tight across her back as Roos and Choson held their greatswords out, to meet the charge. Amelia darted toward the slavers in bursts of Momaentum. As she mo
ved through the flow, like stepping through cool veils of waterfalls, there were moments when she could see the slavers moving sluggishly. She dodged and weaved past the first few that had broken from the main pack, and left the flow in the midst of the main group. While some still ran with weapons aloft at Choson and Roos, others turned back and leveled their spears and swords at Amelia. She had used a great deal of Momaentum in her approach, and could now only use it in flashes and bursts, but that would be enough. More concerning was that they did not fear her demonstration.
She faced them, sword in hand, as they edged toward her. Their weapons were clean and well-cared for, and their armor was of thin metal sheets joined by leather bands. They advanced in a tightening formation, their spear tips closing in on her on all sides. She scanned for an opening. On the other side of the clearing, Roos and Choson were loudly clashing with the slavers that had broken from the main pack.
Amelia started toward the nearest slaver, a broad man with a long spear, at a walk. When she drew close, she felt for the cool Momaentum flow and joined it, then lunged forward, leaving a crackling wake of shimmering blue air. Even as the world slowed, she saw the slavers cross their swords and spears together to halt her approach, but she was faster. She sliced one neck and pierced another before the heaviness of normal movement returned. The two slavers dropped to the ground, and the rest attacked at once. They swung and jabbed their weapons at Amelia from all sides, one after the other, but she batted them each away in turn. She turned and leaned on the spot, as fluid as water, dancing away from every weapon with ease. She shifted into Momaentum only for brief flashes, enough to keep moving, enough to evade death for another moment, but not enough to unsettle or even slow her attackers. When she found a chance, she struck them, snake-like with her sword or curved dagger, plunging deep into necks and armpits and eyes and guts alike before returning to the dance. Her arms quickly grew heavy.
This is just like what happened with Pauloce’s pack of bastards, she thought. They’d been trained to fight Momaentum too. All I can do is keep from getting overwhelmed … too quickly. That was the mistake last time.
She had killed ten already, and she tired with each additional one. The slavers did not. They came at her with the same energy as before. A spear-tip grazed her leg. A sword pommel caught her sharply on her left elbow, and she almost dropped her dagger as the tingling explosion of pain radiated to her fingers. Still she turned and twisted and ducked and weaved between the weapons, but her feet were growing unsteady. Her head began to spin from the constant turning. She struck them now in the arms and across their legs, small wounds, but enough to buy some space to breathe, some time to act. Her eyes took in nothing but movement and vague impressions of grim-faced slavers advancing on her. Her fingers, stiff from holding her weapons so desperately for so long, were weakened by each jarring blow she was forced to parry. Soon she could not halt the blows, only redirect them, and soon after that she could not spare Momaentum for anything but evasion. She was covered in their blood as well as her own.
Though the fighting went on as loud as ever, Amelia’s hearing receded until the only sound was her own pounding heart. Her skin had gone clammy, first on her hands and face and then along her arms and legs. There was still the satchel, which had the vial of Fireball in it. Go on, you bastards, she thought, just try to finish me and see what you get.
The butt of a spear caught her shoulder, and she staggered into another slaver, who struck her cheek with their fist.
But they aren’t trying to finish me, she thought as a hollow, sinking feeling passed through her. They want me for a slave. They made the path this close to the mountain on purpose.
She summoned the last grain of her will and forced herself to plunge into Momaentum, and then with a blinding blue pulse of light she was outside the group of slavers. Her limbs shook, and she fell to her knees. The slavers, covering their eyes from the especially bright flash, turned to see her and formed a semi-circle to approach her. She had the vial of Fireball in her hand then, ready to detonate it the moment they drew near enough, and within her mind she dared them: Come on, come get me. I’ll end every last one of you if you dare touch me.
There was a great clashing and clamor, and the slavers’ attention was turned away from Amelia. Two greatswords flashed in the sunlight. Roos and Choson had charged the group from the other side and looked like they would soon be surrounded and overcome. Fools, Amelia thought blearily. They should have fled.
Amelia searched through her satchel. There was nothing she could use that would not kill Choson and Roos as well as the slavers. She got to her feet and limped toward the fighting, trying to ease the stiffness from her bruised leg.
Are you really spent after this little sparring match? she jeered at herself. Pathetic.
She was running now, and only a few paces from the group. She took out her throwing daggers, braced herself, and hurled them with Momaentum. They punched through the temples of two slavers and burst out the other side in a shower of gore. Some turned away from Roos and Choson, and charged at Amelia. She plunged forward into the cool blue flow, took her sword in both hands, and slid it across the exposed neck of each slaver that dared approach.
Roos and Choson had cut down a few each, and only a half-dozen of them remained. Amelia’s arms burned as though on fire, and she could not catch her breath, but she hobbled on toward the last slavers.
There was movement in the trees on the edge of the clearing again: a hooded man holding a crossbow. Amelia called out a warning and threw her sword at the arbalist, but without Momaentum. Her sword clattered to the ground several feet away from the figure, who took aim and shot—though there was no sudden flash of blue. The bolt struck Choson in the shoulder. He staggered, but did not stop swinging his sword, though he favored the opposite hand and lurched haphazardly. The crossbow-wielding figure disappeared. The surviving slavers, already retreating before Choson’s frenzied swinging, turned and ran into the trees. In moments they were gone.
From the trees near where the arbalist had suddenly appeared, there came a male voice: “I warn you now, do not seek Min-Yu. Do not speak her name. Her bolts are deadlier than mine.”
Choson sank to his knees, his lungs heaving every breath like a bellows. Shortly after, Amelia fell back in a heap on the bloody ground. The sky above her was twisting and swaying, and she felt at times that the world had inverted and she was falling through it. Roos came and stood over her, his enormous figure blocking the sky. Suddenly, she was back firmly on the earth with her hair caked in blood and dirt.
“You need to get up. His veins turn blue and he bleeds very much,” Roos said, his voice wavering and quiet.
Amelia looked at him, but she did not move.
“He is dying,” Roos said.
When she remained still, blinking slowly, he grunted and moved away. A few moments later, the meaning of Roos’ words reached her, and she propped herself onto her elbows. She felt as though she was sobering. For a few moments she cast her attention to her own wounds, gingerly probing each of them with her stiff hands. Nothing was too threatening. There was an icy sting to her teeth, like the shock of drinking from a winter stream. It was Momaentum exhaustion, the same bloody thing that had gotten her captured by Pauloce’s lot. It had been stupid of her to waste it all surging into the middle of the slavers at the beginning of the fight.
She stood waveringly and hobbled over to Choson. He was on his back, and his skin was whiter than snow, his veins and lips a sickly shade of blue. She fell heavily to her knees beside him, drew out a vial of colorless liquid, and began to mutter a long string of incantations. Her hands glowed red for a moment, and the liquid in the vial turned to cloudy pink. She half-buried the vial in the dirt to keep it upright and drew the tip of her dagger across her palm. Squeezing the cut hand, she let her blood drop thickly into the vial, and it turned a rusty red color.
Roos spat on the ground and hissed, “What is this?”
“What is what?”
Amelia said, not taking her eyes off the potion.
“Blood Magic! The most evil, the most dark,” Roos said, searching fretfully for words. “Witchcraft! Wickedness!”
“Calm yourself,” Amelia muttered in between incantations. “He has lost blood and needs more. It must come from somewhere.”
Roos held out his fists as though ready to attack her, but he lingered a few feet away.
“Do not do this,” Roos said. “It is vile.”
“The rumor that Blood Magic is evil was put about by the Mordenari,” Amelia said. “It is just one tool among many.”
“Do a different spell to fix him, or I will cut you down.” He put both hands on his sword hilt.
She nodded quickly and drew out a large vial of white powder. “Very well, a different spell. No blood. But I will need your help, kneel down here.”
Roos knelt beside her, but still eyed her warily.
“It is a long incantation, so repeat after me without pausing. Take a big, deep breath.”
He opened his mouth and drew in a huge breath, and she immediately blew white powder into his open mouth. He dropped back with a heavy thud, instantly asleep.
Without pausing, she turned back to Choson and poured the rust-colored liquid onto his wound. The blood and the liquid from the vial foamed and turned a dark red, then went almost black. The crossbow bolt slowly rose up inch by inch before it fell out of the wound as Choson’s skin knitted together. The color returned to his cheeks, and his veins were back to normal. The vial magically remained full even after pouring it on Choson’s wound, and had not overflowed when her blood was added to it. It was one of the simpler spells of Blood Magic, far less impressive complex illusions that Min-Yu used to hide the path her slavers took through these woods.
Amelia poked around the bodies of the fallen slavers and found a decent amount of goud root tea in flasks, but not much else.
The Tyranny of Shadows Page 15