They set out at a jog, but eventually had to slow down for Timothy and Eleanor. Aidan was grateful when they called for a stop, because a few minutes more and he would have had to do the same.
They continued walking and jogging until they came to the campsite Aaliyah had told them about. She knelt down and examined the tracks that continued north.
“They left almost as soon as I did. I don’t know how fast they were going. We need to hurry.”
She kept pushing their little group to go faster, but to no avail. Timothy and Eleanor had been stretched to their limits over the past few days, and they still hadn’t regenerated all of their magic. Only Kyra was able to keep up with the amogh without losing her breath. She seemed confused at first when Aaliyah took her rope from the tree and started running, but as soon as the witch realized they were following the soldiers she became almost impossible to hold back.
It’s funny, Aidan thought. It’s our magic that makes sorcerers so powerful, but it is also the thing that is making us the weakest now.
They came to the split with two of their members gasping for air. Aidan was almost happy to not see soldiers ahead of them. He honestly wasn’t sure what their magic-deprived team could do against fifteen soldiers armed with Rakka steel weapons.
Aaliyah swore and threw her dagger in the ground. “They’re pushing those kids hard. I don’t know how much of it they can take.”
Aidan sat down. “What do we do now?”
“Well it’s obvious isn’t it?” Aaliyah said. “We split up.”
Eleanor shook her head. “We’re already weak. If we separate, we won’t stand a chance. What will we do when the hellhounds find us?”
Everyone was quiet for a moment, then Timothy spoke up. “Actually, that might be our best chance. Give me that map.”
The blond wizard flattened the parchment on the ground. “Hellhounds track by sensing magic in the air. If we split up, we might be able to confuse them enough to give the egg a chance.”
Aidan could feel Timothy getting more exited as a plan blossomed in the younger wizard’s mind.
“Look, Wyvern’s Roost is dead north. The gold mines are northeast and the coal mines northwest. All of them lie next to towns large enough to have griffins that we could buy or steal, and they might have people in them who know where to look for the phoenixes. If we went down each route with equal amounts of magic, we might be able to confuse the hellhounds and free Kyra’s people, all at the same time.”
“Okay,” Aidan said. “But who goes with whom?”
Eleanor knelt down next to Timothy. “Well, you should be fully recovered by the time we reach any of these places, so you’ll start attracting more nasties the longer we take. Timothy and I will also be regenerating magic, though not at the same rate as you. Kyra won’t be making any magic, so we don’t have to worry about her. Aaliyah can block a little bit of magic from someone, but she will also make them weaker. The biggest problem is the egg. It’s emitting a lot of power and I can’t hide it with spells forever.”
“Well it seems obvious to me,” Aaliyah said. “Timothy and Eleanor, you should head towards the coal mines to free the elders. I will take the egg and go after the children. Aidan, you can follow the last group of soldiers north, and once your magic is better, you can kill Garret.”
Aidan frowned. This felt very, very wrong. “I don’t like leaving the egg with one person. The plan was for us to stay together.”
“No,” Aaliyah said, “the plan was for one amogh and three sorcerers to fly all the way to a magical place where phoenixes still live and meet a magical man who will magically make everything better and magically win the magic war before anything can go magically wrong. The plan didn’t work. This is reality. We’re in my world now.”
Aidan clenched his hand into a fist, the Phoenix Ring pushing against his palm. He wished terribly that he could ask Marcus for advice right now. He looked around at his friends, all of them ready to go except Kyra, who mostly just seemed tied up and confused.
“Fine,” he said, “but who’s going with Kyra?”
“You are,” Eleanor said, “Until you get your power back in a day or so, you will want someone who can handle magic. Also, you are the only one who can talk to her. And I don’t think you want her anywhere near the villagers.”
“How will we contact each other?” Timothy asked, pulling out a communication crystal. “Aidan and I can each take one of these, but Aaliyah will be on her own.”
The amogh grabbed the rock from Timothy’s hand. “If I take a normal person and make him hold the egg in one hand and this hunk of jewelry in the other, will it work?”
Timothy nodded. “Yes. Though he will have to do the talking. The magic behind it is interesting, it actually has to do with the vibrations—”
“Yeah, yeah, magic abracadabra; I don’t care. If it works I’ll take it.”
Aidan sighed. The plan did make sense, and talking to people at the three towns would be helpful.
“Can you all take care of yourselves in the woods?” Aaliyah asked.
Timothy nodded. “I’ve seen over ten different types of edible roots and vegetables. We’ll live.”
“Yeah,” Aidan said, “I can hunt. And I’m sure Kyra knows the animals and plants better than anyone.”
“It’s settled then. We split up, contact each other when we get there, one of us gets transportation, and we can start the magical happy ending again,” Aaliyah said.
She pulled off her bow and quiver and handed them to Aidan. “Here, you need this more than I do, until you get your magic back. Besides, I like the soldiers’ crossbows. I think I’ll take one.”
Then, for the first time, she hugged him. Suddenly all of his emotions became very, very confused.
“Be safe,” she whispered in his ear before pulling away. She reached into Timothy’s pack and pulled out the phoenix egg, then placed it deep in her own.
“Well, I’m off then. You can keep the map. Good luck everyone.”
With that, the amogh girl started jogging down the path. Aidan watched her until she was out of sight.
The three sorcerers and witch walked slowly down the main path, reluctant to reach the point where they would also have to part ways. When they reached it, Eleanor started trying to explain to Kyra what they were doing. While the girls were talking, Timothy grabbed Aidan’s arm and pulled him aside.
“Mate, there’s something I need you to know,” the younger boy said.
Aidan frowned. His friend was scared, more scared than he had ever been. “Yeah, you can tell me anything.”
“Kyra had another prophecy when I took her back to that village,” he said. He hesitated a moment before speaking again. “I don’t have time to explain most of it, but I know that Garret is supposed to kill Eleanor.”
Aidan felt his blood begin to boil. Garret had taken far too many lives.
“Does she know yet?” he asked.
Timothy shook his head. “What would I tell her? I just want you to make sure he’s dead. If you have even a second of doubt that you can kill him, call me on your crystal. I will find a safe place to leave Eleanor and I will come kill the son of a goblin myself.”
Aidan nodded. “I’ll make sure he’s so dead that even a vulture won’t be able to find what’s left of him. If you need anything, let me know.”
Timothy gave a weak smile. “Thanks mate. I know I can count on you. I think splitting up is a good idea. Until Garret is gone I want to keep Eleanor as far away as I can from Wyvern’s Roost.”
The girls finished their conversation and walked up to the boys. Kyra held her hands out expectantly.
“She knows what is going on, I think, and she has promised not to run or try to stop you. She wants Garret dead as much as anyone, so she is happy to help you go to Wyvern’s Roost and kill him. She has asked that you untie her.“
Aidan pulled his dagger out of his cloak. The Rakka steel felt strange, but it reminded him of his old staff. Well, it
was also Malcommer’s old staff, but he tried not to think of that. The blade was sharp, and it slashed Kyra’s ropes as if they held no more substance than fog.
Eleanor embraced Aidan, and Timothy awkwardly gripped his arm, then the two younger wizards linked arms and headed off down their own paths.
Aidan turned to Kyra. “Are you ready?” he asked. The witch nodded. “All right,” the young wizard said. “Let’s go kill an angel.”
***
Aaliyah caught up to her targets in an hour. That part had been easy. Even if they weren’t hauling a village’s population of children around, they would still have been burdened by armor, weapons, and tents. (Though they were forcing the children to carry the last.)
Now came the hard part. Aaliyah was just one amogh, who currently didn’t even have her bow. The five soldiers were more organized than she would have expected. One crossbowman and one swordsman were each at the front and rear of the group of children, and the mace-man was in the middle. The children were tied in two long rows, with several ropes connecting the two rows. Every child had one knot around their hands, and another around their necks. Cutting them loose when the soldiers weren’t looking would not be an option. That was okay. Aaliyah didn’t want to have ten kids following her, with twenty more held by the soldiers, and there wasn’t exactly a place she could send them. No, she had to rescue all the children at once or not at all.
So instead the amogh followed them at a distance, sticking to the forest on the right. She knew where they were going and she knew the path they were taking, so there was no reason for her to maintain a visual. Instead, she stayed just out of earshot, relying on her amogh ability to alert her if one of the soldiers decided to hang back.
Very soon Aaliyah noticed a change in elevation. She knew that the northern edge of Aranumis ended on a mountain range that was covered in snow year round. She guessed they must be heading that way now.
The soldiers stopped when they came to a stream, a few hours after midday. It was running down from the mountains, and its water was fresh and very cold. Aaliyah happily filled her skin while the soldiers set up camp. As they finished, Aaliyah edged closer to the tents so she could hear what was going on. The children were completely silent, as every time they spoke one of the soldiers would whack them on the head.
After the tents were complete, one of the mace-men stood up in front of the children.
“Congratulations, brats,” he said. “You survived your first day. What follows are another two like it. If you want to still have your heads at the end of it, you will not complain. You will not ask for food, water, or breaks. Any of you falls out of line, and we do the same thing to you that we did to that boy back at your village.”
Aaliyah heard one of the little girls sniffle, and the amogh’s hand clenched in rage. The soldier kept talking and making threats, but Aaliyah forced herself to focus. Her knives were good weapons, but she wanted something more effective against armor. Amoghs were assassins, not soldiers, and so they rarely used any protection and never used metal armor, but they were well trained to fight someone who wore it. Camp Ward had three sets of chain mail that the amoghs would sometimes wear during battle training.
When Aaliyah had first tried a suit on, she had wondered why the amoghs didn’t use armor. Sure, it restricted her movement a bit, but that was easily offset by how weapons bounced off of it. Then she’d gone up against Joshua. She’d charged him with her sword drawn, but he just laughed and stepped aside. As her momentum carried her forward, he had brought the hilt of his knife down on her helmet with all of his force. Aaliyah’s ears had still been ringing a week later.
Now, as Aaliyah looked around their camp for a weapon, she saw the one she wanted. The mace-man’s ball and chain, tied to his side. Its wooden handle connected to a strong steel chain that was in turn connected to a ball of pure Rakka steel. This particular mace didn’t have any spikes in it, but that didn’t matter for Aaliyah’s purpose.
Unfortunately the mace-man kept the weapon on him at all times. Before she could get to it, she would need to take him down, preferably with a ranged tool.
The obvious answer was a sling. They were easy to make, easy to use, and very, very deadly when correctly implemented. And Aaliyah saw the perfect material.
She pulled out her sharpest knife and made a long cut in the tent nearest to the forest, taking far more fabric than she needed. Then, in case it wasn’t clear that someone had been in their camp, Aaliyah cut a message into the side of the tent. Let the children go or die.
She smiled and slipped out of the campsite while the mace-man raged about how angry children made him. Maybe it was stupid to let the soldiers know she was there, but she wanted to give them a chance to repent.
And if they wouldn’t, then she wanted them to be very, very afraid when they died.
***
Aidan and Kyra walked at a leisurely pace. There was no need to catch up to the soldiers, as there was little the two could do until Aidan’s power regenerated. There was also no point in stopping them before Wyvern’s Roost, as Garret was the true target.
Wyvern’s Roost, from what Aidan could gather on the map, was a fortress designed to serve as a stables for Malcommer’s serpents of the air. Aidan wasn’t sure how they would infiltrate the fort, but he was determined to try.
At about midday, Aidan suddenly heard a noise that made his blood run cold. Flapping. Twice the wizard had fought dragons, and twice he had won, but the sound of leathery wings fighting the wind still terrified him.
He grabbed Kyra and ducked into the bushes. Above them the wyverns flew south toward the Nefarious Lands. Toward Sortiledge. Aidan couldn’t see much against the harsh sunlight, but he was sure at least a hundred of the creatures flew overhead. They called out to each other with terrifying sounds, somewhere between an eagle’s cry and a dragon’s roar.
They’re going to war, Aidan realized. He hoped his friends and mother would be able to defend themselves until the little party hatched their phoenix.
Eventually the last of the wyverns passed—Aidan saw that it was a runt flapping hard to keep up with its brethren—and Aidan and Kyra stepped out of the bushes. As they did so, Aidan felt something snap inside him. Maybe it was the adrenaline from seeing the wyverns, but for some reason his body had decided to relinquish a little bit of power. The wizard smiled. He could use magic again, albeit in small doses.
They had barely started walking again when they heard another sound that Aidan was learning to hate. Hellhounds. Still in the distance, but clearly on the hunt.
The wizard turned to look at the witch.
“Guess we’d better run again,” he said, pointing forward.
The two picked the pace up to a jog. Aidan sighed. It was going to be a very, very long day.
***
Aaliyah finished cutting the tent canvas to her liking and gave the makeshift sling a couple of twirls. Perfect. She was sitting in a tree near the soldier’s campsite, watching them eye the woods suspiciously as the sun dipped below the horizon. They had found her little surprise a few hours earlier, when the mace-man had tried to climb into his tent for an afternoon nap. They had spent the rest of the afternoon searching the nearby trees. She had been tempted to pick them off while they looked for her, but they traveled in pairs. Killing one man quietly was easy. Killing two men was easy. Killing two men quietly was not so easy. Besides, the amogh wasn’t yet sure whether all of the soldiers deserved the death penalty. Some of them had probably been forced into service, their families threatened and sometimes killed.
All five of the soldiers were male. Malcommer did force just as many women into the army as men, but they filled different roles. There was little point in putting a one-hundred-pound woman into a suit of armor designed for a one-hundred-and-seventy-pound man.
The age range of the soldiers was apparent. One of the crossbowmen seemed to be the oldest, with white beginning to show in his beard. After that came the mace-man, who was probably
somewhere between his thirties and forties. Then came the two swordsmen, who seemed very young but sat with the discipline that comes from being a soldier for a few years. And the youngest was clearly the last crossbowman, if man was the right word. He couldn’t have been much older than Aaliyah, and nervously fidgeted with his bow, glancing at the woods as if the unknown intruder was going to jump out at any moment. Aaliyah would save him for last. He seemed more keen on running that fighting.
Eventually the mace-man stood up. He had slowly been sipping a bottle of something that the soldiers had taken from the village, and from the way he stood Aaliyah guessed he didn’t hold his liquor very well.
“This is stupid,” he said, swaying a little bit. “I bet one of them did that.”
He thrust his bottle at the children, spilling some over the side. Most of them were sleeping, but one little girl was awake. She seemed to be about seven years old, and her eyes were open wide with terror. The mace-man swaggered over to her, almost tripping a few times.
“Is you the one that done it?” he said.
The little girl whimpered.
The mace-man grabbed her by the hair and pulled her face up to his. “If you done it, imma kill you nice and slow, just like I killed your grammy. Gots it?”
The girl began to cry, and it was all Aaliyah could do not to leap from her hiding place and cut down the intoxicated brute.
“That’s enough, Peter,” the oldest crossbowman said. “You’re drunk. Go to bed.”
The mace-man let go of the girl and grumbled something to himself.
“Gonna water a tree,” he said.
Aaliyah sat up straighter. This was the chance she had been waiting for. She unsheathed her longest knife, made of pure Rakka steel, and dropped down from her hiding place.
The mace-man walked into the woods a little bit, out of the sightline of the rest of the soldiers. Aaliyah stayed behind him, crouched in the bushes. He found a tree that seemed to suit his purposes, and the amogh heard a steady stream of liquid bounce off the wood.
The Phoenix King: The Thunderheart Chronicles Book 2 Page 12