by D. Levesque
“Yep, I have to admit, that ball of wood at the top of the staff is becoming quite handy,” I say. Then I look at Leeha guiltily. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she says with a scowl.
I had hit her in the back with the ball of the staff earlier, not too hard, but it seems hard enough. She’s still wincing in pain when she moves around. I told her I would heal her later, and I know the hot tub will help.
Sara walks over to her dagger that I had snapped out of her hand and picks it up, wincing. Then, before I can react, she throws that same dagger she had just picked up at me, and I can’t stop it with my staff and bat it out of the air. Shit! It hits my bare chest, as I had taken my shirt off from all the sweating, and falls to the ground, the impact making me wince.
“Fucking Hell,” I tell her with a scowl.
“Sorry, not sorry,” she says with an enormous grin on her catgirl face. “I wanted to test that skin of yours.”
“Well, it works, but I can still get bruises,” I tell her, wincing after touching the spot the dagger had hit.
“Good! Then we are all injured. It wasn’t fair that the two girls were the only injured ones. Shall we—,” starts Sara, but suddenly a dagger appears in her shoulder, and she goes down screaming in pain.
“What the hell,” I cry out, looking around to see who had thrown the dagger. Walking down the beach towards us is a group of men, and they look pissed.
“Bridget. Sorry, love, but I need you,” I say.
“What’s up?” she asks me, stifling a yawn.
“We’ve got ten men, no nine men, walking up the beach towards us, and one of them just threw a dagger at Sara and hit her in the shoulder. She’s down, but alive. I see two Mages, Fire and Air, I would say, based on their robe colors, but they are extremely young.”
The two Mages look to be in their early teens. They are in the middle of the rest of the men and they look nervous as Hell.
“I’m here,” Bridget says from right behind me. I don’t turn, as I know she showed up there so that the men would not see her showing up out of nowhere. She moves from behind me and stands next to me.
“Fucksakes, Martin, you missed one. You said there were only three of them. One guy with two animals, play fighting,” growls the bigger of the men. But he is still shorter than me, and he’s carrying a sword on his hip.
“There were only three when I checked Alwin, I swear to the Gods,” says one of the younger men, who I now see has an empty dagger sheath on his left side, and another dagger on his right. He also has another one somehow tucked ridiculously across his front belt, and it looks like it’s holding his pants up.
“So, are you the ones that killed our leader Brakan?” asks the man with the sword. The rest of the men all have different types of weapons on them, primarily daggers, and two with small clubs.
Sara, who had removed the dagger from her shoulder, stumbles up to me and I grab her quickly. She looks at me and says, “He’s a Master Swordsman,” before collapsing on the sand next to me, and I help her down gently.
I look up at the man in question, but there isn’t anything specific that stands out to tell me that he’s a Master Swordsman. I mean, he has a sword, but I doubt that is the qualification.
“The sword,” Sara says in a voice tinged with pain.
Squatting down so that I am blocking her, I put my hand over hers and whisper, “Don’t freak out, but I’m going to heal you, just not all the way, so act like it still hurts.”
She looks deeply into my eyes to see if I am bullshitting her, but then I focus on her and think of healing. A small green glow appears on my hand, but thank God, because of the surrounding sunlight, it’s barely noticeable.
You are healing your target. Time to fully heal, 00:00:05:00.
Shit, I can only heal her slightly. I can’t wait for the full five minutes.
“Occupy them,” I tell Leeha.
“What do you want, human?” Leeha says, catching on quickly.
“I want to know if you were the ones who killed Brakan,” the Master Swordsman asks her with a growl.
“Wait. Is that your camp over there?” Leeha says.
“Yes, that’s our camp,” he growls at her again. “I asked you, did you kill Brakan?”
“Who’s Brakan?” Leeha asks him.
This goes on for the next two minutes, until I remove my hand from Sara and say apologetically, “That’s all I can do for now. I will finish it later. Promise.”
Sara doesn’t say anything, but only nods. I get back up and look at the scene. Leeha is in front arguing with the Master Swordsman, who is red-faced in rage.
The two Mages are still standing in the middle of the group of men, and they are still looking nervous. Which to me means they don’t even want to be here, but they are surrounded. I would guess they are barely trained, since Leeha says that Mages come into their power young.
“Oh, so you finally decided to join us again?” the Master Swordsman says, leering at me.
Ignoring him, I turn to the man with the missing dagger and ask, “So, you threw the dagger?”
“I did,” he says with a grin, showing his missing teeth. “And I want that dagger back if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, of course,” I tell him. I walk over to the dagger and pick it up off the sand, and then, through our connection, I speak to Bridget. “Can you use Air Magic and make the dagger go fast and true? I want this fucking thing in his forehead.”
“Of course,” Bridget says, and I can feel the delight through our connection.
Suddenly the dagger in my hand feels light, and knowing there is Air Magic around it, I turn around and throw it without aiming, except in the general direction of the group of men. The damn thing speeds off so fast that I am sure it breaks the sound barrier. Suddenly, the man who had thrown the dagger has his dagger back. In the middle of his forehead, embedded a good five inches into his skull.
“There you go, you got your dagger back,” I tell the dead man.
Suddenly the Master Swordsman pulls his sword out. And whoa! It looks almost like a Katana! Some of the other men have their weapons out as well. The two Mages I see are looking even more nervous.
I speak to the group. “I would put those away. The next weapon thrown at me, or even coming my way, will end up in your forehead as well,” I tell them in a threatening voice.
The Master Swordsman sneers at that and takes a step forward, putting his sword up in a ready position. “Fight me.”
“What?” I ask him, tilting my head sideways, seemingly slightly confused.
“Fight me. You have skills with weapons. I didn’t even see that dagger leave your hand. You aren’t a Master Swordsman as I don’t see a sword, so you must be some other kind of weapons expert.”
I look at Leeha as if to confirm something. “Did he just ask to fight me when I have no weapons?”
“You have that walking stick in your hand,” he says with a bark of laughter.
Sighing, I look at him and say, “I will give you ten seconds to put your sword down.”
“Or what?” he says, with a big grin on his face.
“Nine,” I tell him.
“Pfft, you think you can scare me? I’m the best Swordsman in Prithgar. Why do you think I worked for Brakan?”
“Seven.”
“Maybe after I kill you, I will kill your pets slowly, even roast them over a fire to smell their flesh.”
“Five,” I tell him, ignoring his taunts. Dude, that is fucking messed up. Seriously?
The guy takes another step forward aggressively. But he doesn’t come any closer after that.
“Four,” I say, looking down at my nails as if checking for dirt under them.
“You aren’t scaring me. You’re just afraid to fight me, aren’t you? Especially in front of your pets?”
“Two.”
Just then, he moves as if to come at me again, but I’m done. Fire. Fire Bullet. I don’t want to show all six though, so I make it
so only one appears. Next to me is a single Fire Bullet, which I send speeding off.
You have used the spell Fire Bullet. You have used 10 points of power.
The thing hits true and nails the man right in the forehead, entering the front of his head and blowing out the back; steam coming out of the large hole in his skull.
“One,” I say redundantly.
The men standing around the now-dead dagger man and the dead Master Swordsman all look at me with fear and alarm on their faces.
One man lifts a hand to throw a dagger, but suddenly he sprouts a Water Arrow in the middle of his throat, and gurgles as he dies. The rest of the men, including the two Mages, who now have abject terror in their eyes, stare at him as he dies.
“Now,” I say, making them all whip their heads back to me. “Anyone else have a problem?” I don’t get an answer, just blank looks of fear. “You,” I point to one of the smaller men. “Bring me his sword and sheath,” I say, pointing to the dead Master Swordsman. No way am I going to leave such a magnificent sword with them. I mean, it looks like a freaking Katana!
“Wait a minute,” says one of the other men. “You can’t be taking that. It’s ours.”
“Hmm,” I say, as if thinking it over. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s mine since I killed him,” I say, pointing to the dead body.
“You can’t be taking,” he begins again, but knowing that answer was coming, I think Fire. Fire Arrow. Again, I only let one appear, and then I send the Fire Arrow to slam into the man’s right thigh, dispelling it right away.
You have used the spell Fire Arrow. You have used 10 points of power.
The man screams in pain, grabbing his leg with both hands and falling over sideways, after losing the use of one leg. Damn, that did actually look painful.
“I wasn’t asking for permission,” I tell him with a smile. The man who I had asked to get me the Sword Master’s weapon decides, I guess, that his health and life are more important, so he rushes to the dead body, grabs the sword, and pulls on the sheath, but it doesn’t come off. Of course, it’s attached to the man’s belt. He looks up at me in a panic.
“Cut his belt, not the strap,” I tell him with a smile. Hey, I can be nice if I want to.
The man nods quickly and goes to take out his dagger, but his hand pauses on it, and he looks up at me quickly.
“It’s fine.”
He nods and cuts the belt, and the sheath comes off. He gets up and rushes to me with the sword in one hand and the sheath in the other, but stops suddenly when a Water Arrow is blocking his path. Leeha walks forward until she is standing next to her arrow and puts both hands out. The man, almost gingerly, gives Leeha the sword and sheath. She takes them both, and suddenly the sword is back in its sheath.
The man scrambles back to the group of men, who had been watching all this without moving a muscle. Leeha comes to me, hands me the sword with a big smile on her face, and waggles her eyebrows.
“You’re such a badass,” she whispers.
I can’t help it, I grin at her. “Hey, they started it. Well, the dead one did.”
She shakes her head, but she has a big smile on her face. Turning back to the crowd, I ask them, “So now what?”
“What?” one of the men asks me stupidly.
“What now? I mean, do any of you want to attack me?” I ask them all.
They all quickly shake their heads no. I look at the two Mages, and they are still looking nervous. But what’s odd is, they aren’t looking at me with that nervousness. It’s directed at the men around them. Shit, have they been captured?
“Well then, you can all leave,” I tell them, waving my hand. “Oh, those Mages stay, though.”
“What? You can’t have them. They’re ours—” one of the bigger men says, and suddenly there is a Fire Arrow sprouting from his eye. The arrow had gone in so far that it pretty much cooked his brain instantly. The man falls over dead, with steam coming out of his punctured eye socket, and then the Fire Arrow disappears.
I look down as I had not been the one to fire that one, and Sara looks up at me. “Sorry, I just wanted to kill someone since you sort of killed the one who stabbed me.”
I smile down at her. “All good.”
“As I was saying, you may all go, but leave the two Mages,” I say.
The two Mages look elated at first, but then their fear comes back. I’m guessing it’s because I technically just told them they were staying with me—a man who killed two, no wait, three men with ease. I mean, I didn’t kill them all. Apples and oranges. Semantics.
I see one of the men about to open his mouth, so I beat him to it. “Next man who opens his mouth, dies.” The man closes his mouth with an audible snap. “Now, be good and fuck off. If I see any of you around here again, you die.”
That gets to them, and the rest of the men quickly take off running down the beach to wherever they had come from, leaving the two nervous and scared-looking young Mages looking our way, as if waiting for their deaths.
I motion them to come forward, and they both look at each other and swallow. They look to be about 13 years old, if that. They are both skin and bones, or maybe the robes are too large for them. The taller of the two comes forward slowly, almost as if fearing a blow from me. Or fearing his death, I am sure.
Once they are both in front of me with their eyes downcast, I ask, “Were both of you their prisoners?”
They both look up at me in surprise, their mouths open. The older one, who judging by his robes would be a Fire Mage, nods quickly. He clears his throat, and it comes out as a squeak. “Yes. We are new to our powers, so could not defend ourselves against all of them.”
Leeha suddenly pipes up, “When was the last time you both ate?”
Their gazes suddenly move to Leeha, and the shorter of the two Mages, the one in the blue robe, blurts out miserably, “It’s been days.”
“Alex, we need to feed these boys. They might be human, but I don’t enjoy seeing anyone starving,” Leeha says in a no-nonsense tone that tells me she isn’t asking for permission. I nod to her, and while the boys are still looking at her, I put my free hand into my bag and think of the sword disappearing into it.
“Let’s go see what we have,” I tell them and turn around, and then I bend down, grab Sara in my arms, and lift her up, causing her to squeak in surprise. Once I straighten up, I head towards the makeshift campsite.
I hear the two boys follow me, and I walk with no concern as I know Leeha and Bridget have my back.
Chapter Thirty-Three
As we walk back, I look down at Sara and whisper, “Put your arms around my neck. I need a free hand to heal you while they aren’t looking.”
Sara nods and puts both her hands around my neck as instructed, leaving me able to free one hand. With my body hiding it from the young mages, I heal her some more.
You are healing your target. Time to fully heal, 00:00:02:00.
It will take us at least a minute to walk back to the campsite. She won’t be fully healed, but I can heal the rest later. I can hear the two boys whispering behind me enthusiastically, but it’s too low for me to hear what they’re saying.
“Bridget, are they trying to figure out how to escape?” I ask her, since I know she is back there and has amazing hearing in her Elf form.
“No,” she says with a laugh. “They are wondering if you are some powerful Mage. And one of them is wondering what kind of food you have.”
“Well, I’m not sure what I will feed them. I only have the fruit in my bag,” I tell Bridget.
“I can hunt for something if you wish? I’ll disappear when I get into the woods and make sure to get something big enough for all of us. I’m sensing a wild boar about two hundred feet in.”
“You can sense that?” I ask her with a bit of surprise.
“Yes. It’s like there’s a protective ring around you. As your Elemental, I can sense things. It’s like when you ask your Earth Elemental to protect us at night. It doesn’t actual
ly walk around. It can sense what’s around you. If I had been here with you,” she says angrily, “I would have sensed those men when they came closer.”
“Bridget? It’s all good. It sucks what happened to Sara, but at least she didn’t die. I would have killed the lot of them if she had, and I would have felt bad for losing her.”
“I would have felt bad as well. I like Sara,” Bridget says in agreement.
“If you’ve got this, Leeha,” I hear Bridget say behind me, “I am going to go hunt for something for us to eat.”
“Yes. I am sure,” there is a pause, and I can just imagine Leeha staring at the two boys pointedly, “that they will behave. Make sure to bring us something big.”
“Done. I will head into the forest and see what I can get,” then I hear Bridget run off, and I assume she’s heading into the woods.
When we get back to the camp, I remove my hand off Sara’s shoulder and place her down on the carpet. The two boys, when I look over, are standing at the edge, seemingly nervous to go any further. I look at them closer and realize that though I had assumed they were roughly 13 years old, that assumption might have been generous.
“Your names?” I ask them both.
“My name is Leo,” says the taller one in the red robe.
“I’m Tommy,” says the shorter one in the blue robe. Then he blurts out, “How come you aren’t wearing a robe?” and Leo slaps his arm, making Tommy wince in pain.
“Am I required to wear a robe?” I ask him with a raised eyebrow.
Leo is the one that answers. “Yes. The Mages Society requires all Mages to wear a robe the color of their Magic.”
“Well, Tommy, Leo. I don’t wear a robe because I am not part of the Mages Society.”
“That makes no sense,” Leo says, confusion on his face.
“How so?”
“Because you’re human,” Leo declares, as if stating a fact.