The Orb of Wrath

by Nic Weissman

After Erion's jump, Mithir followed almost immediately, with Ithelas and Thost on each side, raising their shields and trying to protect the group. Samar then jumped. When the moment of crossing the threshold of the window came, she hesitated only for an instant, and then jumped after them; therefore, as they fell, Samar was a little delayed from the group.

  Several arrows began to rain on them from different directions. Thost managed to stop two with his shield. The others, although they passed close by, did not reach them. They passed very close to the soldiers at the base of the cliff as they fell, but the trajectory of their jump took them away, directly into the valley. The speed of their fall began to accelerate significantly, and that was when, suddenly, the pace of the decline slowed. They continued to fall into the void, but did now at a steady pace and not an excessive one. It was very strange. Mithir was certainly responsible.

  They no longer felt arrows around them; the angle of their position had been left outside the scope of the archers guarding the castle. After a while, which seemed eternal to them, they saw the valley floor nearby. Erion landed deftly placing his feet first, slightly apart. While he landed, he finished braking with a brief run of four or five steps. This way he avoided any harm to the young woman he was carrying. Thost then fell and couldn't stand as he did, so he ended up prowling without serious consequences. Ithelas fell, however, in an unfavorable position to land without difficulty, his body slightly shifted toward the cliff. He hit himself. He got up shortly after and complaining of a sore hip. Mithir then landed without problems. He had the most appropriate position for landing. It was obvious that he had practiced the maneuver before. Despite his soft landing, the impact with the ground was about to reopen the wound in his side, which, fortunately, did not happen. Samar arrived a moment later, falling to the ground and giving a double somersault. She stood below, shaking dirt from her clothes.

  “Are you okay, Ithelas?” Mithir asked, seeing the grimace on the cleric's face.

  “I'm hurt, but it's nothing serious,” said the young man. “It was incredible. How ...”

  “Take cover behind that bush,” urged Erion. “We are not safe here.”

  His friends responded immediately, following the young man and entering a group of large shrubs. Ithelas walked, but was visibly limping. Erion had thought to ask the young cleric to carry the young woman for a while, since his neck was starting to hurt. But he thought it would probably be asking too much, after the rugged fall he had had.

  “How are you? I see that you're limping. Can you get to the clearing?” Erion asked Ithelas.

  “Yes. But I can't go very fast. The place where we left our backpacks is not far, fortunately.”

  “Let's go; no time to lose,” said Thost while starting the march.

  This time, Thost and Samar led the way. They followed a slightly less direct route, to search all the protection they could, hiding in the vegetation. They tried to avoid offering a clear shot at the soldiers of the castle. At the same time, it was possible that a party of guards was descending into the valley to hunt them down. So they should leave immediately. They arrived a little later to the formation of trees where they had left their equipment. Although the place was, indeed, more or less close, Ithelas, Erion and Thost arrived almost exhausted. Thost still felt extremely weak, so getting there with a loaded pouch had been a great effort.

  At the back they saw the clearing where their backpacks waited for them. It really was not a matter of life or death to recover them, but they preferred not to leave any trace of their visit there. They wouldn't leave any chance of the soldiers discovering the equipment as this would give them clues on where and how to find them. Besides, that small clearing among a group of trees was the closest place where they could open the portal without raising any suspicion and escape from that cursed valley.

  They moved to the clearing. Erion was the first one to see their equipment against a tree. They had made it. They could almost smell Dreshpho's roast back in the mansion when Samar asked them to stop with an almost violent gesture. She made the sign for them to keep silence and then pointed to the opposite side of the clearing. Two tugrims rested peacefully near a tree. They felt their blood run cold. The whole group, under normal conditions, could have faced and overcome those two monsters. Surely they would have had some difficulty, but without any fatal injuries. However, the condition of the group was quite bad; they had exhausted virtually all their magical energy, they had no special ammunition, they were starving and thirsty, and several were wounded; they wouldn't stand a chance against the tugrims. They didn't even have the advantage of surprise. Samar could shoot and surprise the monsters, but her peculiar system of concealment made impossible to know the exact place where they were, let alone hit them with an arrow from a distance. Moreover, the tugrims were too close to their equipment, so they couldn't reach it without alerting the beasts.

  “Let's go back. Let's leave the equipment. It's very risky,” Samar said in a whisper.

  “Wait. Let me try something,” Mithir said with gestures.

  The young magician prepared the last spell of the day. It was a simple cantrip, one of the first spells he had learned long ago. Some dim lights, like several dragonflies of good size, appeared floating across the clearing, above the tugrims. The beasts were still asleep, resting. Mithir began to move the lights in ever-widening concentric circles around the image they saw of the beasts. Probably he'd have to put the lights above the animals to awaken them. So they'd have to reach the exact point where they were resting. Soon they saw the images of the tugrims opened their eyes and looked up. It was strange, because over the two images of the beasts there was nothing, but at this point everyone understood what was happening. Mithir then began to move the lights slowly northward toward the castle. The beasts began to follow the lights and, after a while, there was no sign of them. Mithir, still guiding the lights further and further away, opened his eyes and smiled. He had exhausted all his magical energy. He wouldn't be able to even do the simplest spell until the following day.

  “It's our opportunity. Hurry!” pleaded Erion.

  They walked quickly to the backpacks, while the magician was pulling the carefully folded scroll that was stored in one of the inside pockets of his robe. He started making gestures as he was muttering what was in the scroll. The murmur was unintelligible to everyone and it was very dim, too, hard to hear. But the magic seemed to work anyway. Moments later, a portal had opened before them, similar to the one they had used two days earlier. They all picked up their backpacks and entered the portal one by one.