by T J Marquis
He was fully conscious now, no longer a wild animal, but the rage within him had not subsided. There was still evil up ahead. Jon pushed into the enemy ranks along with the Anekan soldiers. Now he had to be careful though. He couldn’t just swing about and kill everything in sight. Worried it might harm an ally, he tried to order the deadly bloodlight to vanish, and it thankfully obeyed.
Malok’s fleshy face twisted with fury. His sense of honor desired a challenge, not this shameful slaughter. Long had the spies and scouts of Nul been studying the land of Anek, and never had there been reports of a wizard in the land. So where had this man come from?
Grudgingly he signaled the retreat and the drummers pounded out a frantic rhythm. Yet he strode toward the danger as his battalions began to flee. A gremlin scrambled past him in terror, and in reflexive anger he roared and cracked its skull open with a gauntleted fist. Immediately he regretted the shameful act, but could not spare a moment to dwell on it. Malok’s personal guard followed him dutifully, firing energy rifles at Anekan riders to clear the way to the wizard.
Jon spun around from a fresh kill to the growl of the largest humanoid he’d ever seen. The thing was huge and muscular, with thick blubbery skin and a face of many folds. It towered above him, and rage was in its eyes. It brought down a fiery greatsword in a one-handed swing and broke Jon’s attempt to guard with his light blades. The huge red sword did not melt upon contact with Jon’s aura, but it also didn’t pierce.
Jon felt the impact ignite fire in his left side as his clavicle cracked. His counter-attack was slow, a wild swing of his right-side blade, and the big monster dodged it easily.
“I am Malok,” the creature boomed, “and you will pay for this slaughter!”
Malok tried to follow up with a strike of his massive gauntlet but screamed in pain as its metal went white-hot on contact with Jon’s aura. He switched stances to bring the greatsword between them, not wishing to make the same mistake twice. Jon took a breath and dashed in close, hoping to get a blade through Malok’s armor, but the ogre fell back preemptively, and all Jon could get out was a short backhand to his gut. Jon’s elevated strength was enough to knock the wind out of Malok, even stagger him, but it wasn’t a killing blow.
Malok bellowed, and Jon prepared to dodge his next attack. The pain in his shoulder was excruciating. He hadn’t expected to be hurt after mowing through the undead like grass.
The strike never came.
Jon’s vision filled with fire and a mass of scales and muscle collided with him. He felt himself launched into the air, time itself seeming to dilate the moment into an age of helpless careening. He tumbled along the ground, striking more times than he could keep track of, spun once on his head like a top, and fell limp to the ground.
Malok had not ordered the dragon released. It should not have been risked against the wizard, though it had probably just saved his life.
In terms of combat skill, this small man was not the ogre’s match, but the power that coursed in and around him was vicious and all-consuming. The man’s reckless rage alone might claim Malok’s life before his task in Anek was accomplished, and that would be exceedingly shameful. He launched into a sprint, making for the nearest air barge, calling for the dragon to be ordered away from danger.
The vanguard was in shambles all around him. The Reds were evading the Anekan cavalry with relative ease, picking them off from a distance with cobalt rifles, but even they had seen the color of things and were gradually falling back.
Malok vaulted onto the barge and signaled the pilot to power it up for take-off. He strode straight to the dragon keeper’s pen, where the animal had been brought back to land.
“Who let it loose?” Malok asked calmly.
One of his ogre brethren stepped forward, Keeper Egresh.
“Keeper,” said Malok. “Refresh my memory. Did I order the dragon’s release?”
“No sir, Commander,” Egresh replied. To his credit, he did not stammer or cower before the larger ogre.
“And was it to be risked in combat?”
“No again, sir. I feared for your life, Commander.”
“Your sentiment is noted. I shall be sure to relay it to the Doom.” Malok addressed the other keepers. “Feed him to the dragon.”
Now Egresh panicked, and as his brothers fell upon him, he thrashed and kicked, but they were four, and he was one. Malok turned away and signaled for take-off. He shut his ears to the gruesome death of the keeper behind him.
The large craft began to rise, retreating troops scrambling to get aboard. Four of the barges had already been overrun by Anekans, only three were lifting away to escape. Thankfully, all the energy cannons were loaded on the barge that Malok now rode. None had been lost to the humans. The ogre commander looked down on the battlefield with pain in his heart. Never before had he been so soundly routed. Better, though, to live this day and have another chance at glory.
What little was left of the Nulian vanguard made a swift retreat across the plains to the south, easily outpacing the Anekan horsemen.
Malok planned to regroup with the army’s main body and recommend that they abandon current plans for invasion. If Anek had a wizard stationed at a tiny fort like Otu, who knew what else they might have up their sleeves. Malok would take the remaining vanguard forces and cut through the mountains to steal more of the ancient artifacts from the base the Reds had discovered there. Then the invasion force could merge with the larger army that was already attacking Enkann, and perhaps Malok could even convince his superiors to commit to the siege of Centrifuge sooner than they’d planned. Better to hit hard now, before Enkann could send for magical reinforcements from Anek.
In the meantime, at least the Road was out of commission, and the destruction of Ota would send a message. The situation was far from satisfying, but Malok had a job to do, and he meant to see it done right.
PART TWO
Chapter 8
Out Cold
Dahm and Bahabe watched, pale and sweating, as Jon lost his fight with the ogre giant. Bahabe tried to rush out to him, but Dahm restrained her with iron arms. He felt her gasp a desperate breath when the dragon hit him, and release it when he tumbled to a stop and the dragon retreated.
“Let me go,” Bahabe hissed, struggling against him.
“When the battle’s done,” he said. “Look, he is alive.” Dahm had begun to wonder if he should have gone out to battle after Jon. It was a near miss, but it seemed Jon had survived his own recklessness.
Dahm marveled at the sheer power in the man. Nearly a thousand of the undead lay in a swath of ruin before the fort. Beyond that, hundreds more had fallen to either Jon or the Anekans. The attackers had the superior force, but Jon’s appearance had thrown them into a panic. There was very little of the Anekan blue lying torn on the battlefield.
What had set Jon off like that? He’d become an animal. His shift from instinctual to calculated violence had been visibly apparent, at least to Dam. The shift hadn’t dimmed his fire, though. That light - it looked pure, but did all this blood stain it? Or was it pure indeed, a consuming fire? He’d never seen its like.
When the last of the Nulians had either fled or been slain, an Anekan trumpeter signaled the all-clear. Dahm took a distraught Bahabe by the hand and they followed the medics out to the battlefield. Bahabe broke away as they neared Jon, and ran to him. As Dahm had said, Jon was indeed alive. He breathed as in a deep sleep, and his body was bruised, one shoulder terribly swollen, but there was no further sign of injury. His burning aura of white had faded.
Bahabe fell on him, weeping with aftershocks of fear. She kept a hand on him while they waited for the medics, and Dahm thought she muttered little prayers.
Harden him, lord of the rock, Dahm prayed to Cenaprim.
Jon was placed on a litter and borne back to the fort, along with all the other injured Anekans. The fallen Nulians were left where they lay, and no prisoners were taken.
Soldiers flocked to see Jon’s body a
s he was brought back to safety. Bahabe overheard a few of them whispering about ‘the Slayer’. She pressed close as Jon was carried into the infirmary.
“Hey, girl. You stay outside. No place for someone like you,” said a gruff medic. Bahabe glared.
“My father’s a healer,” she said.
Probably better than you.
“I was his assistant for years.”
The gruff man grinned slightly, edging on disbelief. Bahabe held her ground over a long silence. Finally, the man shrugged.
“Alright, you wanna clean bloody bandages, be my guest,” he said, turning away. “But you better follow orders, or you’re out.”
Bahabe followed him in and set to work, resisting the urge to commandeer Jon’s care. She was given orders, and she obeyed, fetching bandages and tools and ointments for the army medics. All the while, she kept one eye on Jon.
She walked a thin line between desperation and caution, sitting near Jon later that day, probing him with her empathy.
“Come on, wake up. Open your eyes,” she whispered.
Deep, brown, alone, his eyes remained lidded.
In those long moments, trying to decide what she could do for him, she first realized the depth of her feelings for him.
It had begun back on the island, with a selfish and perhaps childish possessiveness that she’d been quite aware of. She’d wanted his attention, his novelty, all to herself, and read him wrong a few times due to jealous feelings toward her sister. She’d clung to him when it was time to leave the island, forced him to ignore the potential dangers of bringing her along with him.
She found that she wanted to be near him, always.
The thought sat heavy in her heart. Either of them could end up anywhere. Further, he was older than her, more experienced with life. A relationship wouldn’t be inappropriate, but in her village, the age difference would have been uncommon. How would he feel about it? How did he feel now, if he’d thought about it at all?
Certainly he cared for her. For her safety, her search for her own destiny. But was she beautiful to him? Or just a young woman in need of protection?
You’re being stupid, she thought. You’re going to have to split up either way, and who knows if you’ll see him again.
It was true. Jon marched toward war, if his vision was to be trusted. Bahabe moved toward, what? She didn’t know, but it was something else.
Still, there might be one thing she could do for him, in the meantime.
Hand on his heart, she reached into him. If he could do it, maybe she could too.
She’d only ever explored people’s feelings, so exploring Jon’s physical pain filled her with needles of anxiety. Emotions were a maze of shadows and mirrors, a landscape of chasms and peaks, but without a person’s thoughts to guide her interpretations, their feelings remained nebulous, abstract.
Pain would be specific, pointed in identity, and that might be blessing or curse. Concealing mist could be burned away or left to its mysteries, but there was no escaping the pierce of a sharpened knife.
As expected, the pain was sharp, defined. She found it quickly. Periodically a wave of fire would crest and then fizzle out slowly. She moved beneath his skin - a broken clavicle. Bahabe heard it now, a high-pitched whine, interlaced with a grating sound. She began to understand it, its plea for help, relief. Jon’s body was responding to the call, but Bahabe could be faster. She touched the bone with her fingers from above, her heart from within. She felt the fire in her own bones, not just in her clavicle, but spread among them all, making the sensation barely tolerable. Could she do this? She’d never practiced healing before, never even thought about it before now.
Resolve steadied her mind. She owed Jon this.
Bahabe embraced the pain, soaking it in, pulling it away from Jon. It was sticky, roots grown like mold into his body, but the girl had a will, and the pain did not. Pain itself was merely a tool, a signal, a call for action. Bahabe won the tug of war, and the pain was torn away. Immediately she felt its ache and fire fully enter her bones, and sensed its absence from her friend. Jon’s broken bone no longer cried out.
Weariness took her then, and she lay head and arms across Jon’s stomach to catch her breath.
Dahm found her that way when he came to check in again. She had fallen asleep, streaks of dried tears down her cheeks. He noticed that Jon’s shoulder was no longer swollen. He smelled the green scent of healing.
Bahabe looked better when she woke, and Dahm had brought a meal for her. He said the medics had come in and were surprised to see Jon’s clavicle had already healed. Bahabe told him what she had done.
“Well that’s a mysterious thing,” he said. “How do you feel?”
She thought a moment. “I fell out of a tree once when I was little. I didn’t break anything, but I lost my wind and I was sore for a day or so. It feels like that.”
“Not bad, considering,” Dahm mused. “Did you have a sense of when he’ll wake? Is his mind damaged?”
Bahabe laid her hand on Jon again and reached in. He twitched, dreaming. “I didn’t feel anything serious other than the bone and bruises,” she said. “I don’t think he hurt his head. But no, I can’t seem to touch his consciousness. Maybe it’s just beyond my power.”
“Either way, I know he’ll be glad to be whole when he does wake,” Dahm said.
“What do we do if he doesn’t?” Bahabe asked. “Now we know the war is on. Do we keep moving?”
What would Jon want them to do?
“Definitely,” said Dahm. “I say we go on as planned.”
“There was a plan?” Bahabe said. Dahm laughed.
“I was speaking with some of the soldiers,” Dahm said. “They say the tower at the heart of Enkann’s capital really does reach the clouds. We move in that direction until Jon sees fit to rejoin us.”
“Where’s Enkann? I read a book from there, but I never saw a map that showed it.”
“To the east. There’s a long range of mountains, with but one good pass. One of the men drew out a crude map for me,” Dahm said.
“East,” Bahabe said. “That makes the next step easy then.”
“Precisely.”
“But I hope he wakes up soon.”
The fort’s commander summoned the two to his office later that afternoon. Dahm trailed a hand along the stone blocks of the unified structure as they strolled down the way from the infirmary. Bahabe kept glancing back behind them.
Commander Naphte’s office was little more than a closet tucked behind stairs leading up to the ramparts. That did Dahm’s heart good. He’d always loved an ascetic. The man was waiting for them there, perched on a stool behind a ramshackle wooden desk that was piled high with papers. He stood as they entered.
“Yes! Thank you for coming!”
The Commander was long and lean. Dahm saw the iron under his clear brown skin. His boyish face and dark, unruly curls belied his status as Commander. He gave them an easy smile.
“We don’t have much time. Pity, since the friends of a wizard should be greatly honored along with him,” he said. “How is the man doing?”
Dahm saw Bahabe glance at him at the mention of wizard. A good enough description of Jon, considering. Perhaps she expected Dahm to claim the title for himself, to let the Commander know his own status.
“He’s still… well we think he’s just sleeping, in a way,” Dahm said. “Truth be told, we haven’t seen him do anything like that before. But we’re…”
“New friends,” Bahabe finished for him.
Dahm smiled. It felt good to be adopted.
“I see,” said Naphte. “Well consider our every amenity yours, such as they are. An endless stream of hardtack.” He laughed, the skin around his eyes wrinkling. “I’ll have the men clear out rooms for you, too.”
“Actually,” said Bahabe, “we’re thinking of moving on. Our friend needs to get to Centrifuge. We fear now it’s more urgent than he knew.”
“I’d say so,” said Naphte
. He looked at the wall, as if peering through it to the battlefield. “That was some kind of expeditionary force. They came to test us. The bulk of their army is likely awaiting word down south. I’ve already sent my fastest patroller up to Anescama to report.”
“The bulk?” Bahabe exclaimed. “How big do armies get?”
Naphte smiled. “Where are you from? It’s known that the Nulian force numbers at least a few hundred thousand. Maybe more.”
Dahm was surprised too. “I’ve been in my share of battles,” he said. “Never seen an army that large.”
“Nor have we,” Naphte said. “Well, our spies have seen it, sure, but not in combat. They’ve been surprisingly cautious in pushing up into Enkann. They hover at the borders, striking wide, but not too deep. At least, that’s what I last heard.”
The Commander ran his fingers through his hair.
“One wizard. He did make them run. What will you do against the rest of them though?” Naphte asked. “You should stay with us. My General will want to meet Jon. Might even promote me!” He laughed.
Bahabe shook her head. “Jon won’t want to stay. He has to get to Centrifuge.”
“Why?”
Bahabe couldn’t answer. “We don’t know. He… had a vision.”
“Makes sense,” Naphte said. Bahabe’s brow rose. “Makes sense for a wizard to be religious. I suppose I wouldn’t be able to talk him out of it.”
Dahm had pressed his lips together, but he didn’t comment on the slight against religion. Instead, he said, “I think you should come with us.”
Naphte balked. “I can’t leave my post, man!”
“Not you,” Dahm said. “The whole garrison. Load up those barges and rout the vanguard. If they don’t take any reports back to the main body, we might stall their campaign, at least briefly.”
Naphte tilted his head. Dahm smiled. The Commander saw some wisdom in the suggestion. Or, he secretly wanted to fight.