by Taki Drake
Dascha watched the swirl of colors as the rope stretched further and further into the air. Glenfrey widened his circle, expanding it each rotation to cover a wider area. He seemed to have spied something because the circle was now centering over an area to the west. Dascha crept close to the witch, hoping that he would drop some information on what Glenfrey was doing.
She’d never been this close to either Glenfrey or Hanley in the middle of what looked like a spell. It was if there was a crackling of the bond between eagle and human that touched her skin as soon she got within three feet. She could almost feel the swirl of air on her skin, ruffling her fur and filling her nose with strange sense.
Dascha was confused. She could understand the air and the crackling, but where did the trend of heavy feet come from? Where did the feeling that the earth was trembling originate?
She could see that Henley had closed his eyes and placed the palms of his hand over his eye sockets. Listening intently past the thudding of her heart in her chest, the young cat strained to hear the words that Henley was saying.
“There! There on the left. That one guy that is wearing a short robe, can you see him? Stupid stupid stupid of course you can see him. So many soldiers, too many men. No trade goods. Look at the device, the picture thing on the shoulder of the men. Oh my God, it’s a blood mage! Where is he going? Is he after the village? We have to warn them!”
Dascha could see the aether lines spring from the clouds around Glenfrey feeding into the eagle and a wave of grays and whites pouring from familiar to the witch. Around Henley, once again Dascha could see a pool of green that lapped his feet and flowed up his legs. Touches of additional colors were pulled in this time, a small blue thread and a thicker red one. The bond line swirled as those colors flowed from which to familiar.
Following the colors up to Glenfrey, Dascha saw the exact moment that the eagle was infused with the elements of Henley’s magic. Something that her senses interpreted as smell let her know that the witch was feeding his familiar with Earth energy a little bit of Water energy and, in a surprise to her at least, Fire. Energized anew, the great eagle folded his wings and power dove toward the ground. His target was apparently an area further to the north than they were.
Dascha heard the words as Henley began to mutter once again. “There, there on the left. That’s the headman. Drop in front of him, he knows you. Who cares if they run and hide. That’s right, that’s right. Scratch it in the table. I don’t care if they’re mad. This shape, draw the shape that means blood mage. Okay. Twenty, mark down twenty. Yes. Now they know. Yes. Come back.”
Henley gave a deep sigh and dropped to sit on the ground. Taking his hands away from his face, he rubbed his eyes in a weary gesture. Looking up, he appeared startled to see Dascha staring at him. “Sorry. I needed to have Glenfrey warn the village. It appears to be a blood mage, and he has close to twenty soldiers with him. I have no idea why he would go after one small village. There were hundreds of villages scattered around this area, and he had to have traveled past some of them.”
<< I don’t think he is after the village, I think the target is you. As you said, the village is not unusual. Why would he go out of his way for prey that is easier caught closer to home? But you, Glenfrey told me you were unusual. I bet he’s coming for you. >>
Henley stared at Dascha for a moment, his mouth half open. Straightening his spine with a snap, he sprang to his feet. Dascha heard a roar of sound go out to the familiar. In the distance, she could hear an echoing sound of predator rage. Glenfrey was on his way home.
<< <> >>
A few minutes later, the eagle slammed onto his perch still in battle mode. Henley and Dascha had done what they could to prepare. Dascha ran around identifying things that would be in the way, and Henley had quickly stored them or placed them in safer locations. There is nothing much they could do to make the cottage more defensible. There was no place for Henley to hide, no place for him to go. The isolation from the village was now working against them.
The feel of Glenfrey’s rage radiated out from the eagle. He crouched in a mantled posture looking like death personified. Henley did what he could to calm his familiar, but the unperturbed, calm instructor had transformed into a winged warrior.
Dascha could see the effects of his transformation in his focused rage and increased alertness. However, she was having difficulty reconciling a peculiar type of doubled vision. Every time she looked at Glenfrey she saw two forms. One was the normal eagle overlaid with a much larger bird, one that she had never seen before. Wondering if her near-death experience had broken something, the small cat decided not to say anything. They had other things to worry about.
A few more preparations and they were as ready as they could be. Henley told Dascha to go hide in the small grove of trees a small distance from the house. Trying to be kind, he said, “There isn’t much an 11-pound cat can do. I appreciate your offer to help, but I worry that you would be killed for nothing.”
Dascha couldn’t very well argue with him. She didn’t think that a half-grown cat whose largest battle on her own had been with a small mouse could do anything that was important in a battle with large humans and mages. She found herself worrying desperately about her friends and then was amazed to realize that somehow they had become friends.
There was no special point that she had started to label them that, just a realization of the moment. Their kindness and generosity, and in some cases extreme patience, had been given freely and without expectation of repayment. That was nice, but she wanted to be an equal. She wanted to pay them back.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a new smell. It seemed to ooze between the trees and crawl across the ground. It was like rotting meat. Something that no predator would eat. Glenfrey sprang into the sky. There was almost an audible snap as the bond between the witch and familiar established itself across the distance several times. Some sort of reinforcement was going on there that Dascha did not understand. She only hoped she had enough time to learn about it. And she hoped that she would learn about it from Glenfrey and Henley.
There was no more warning. In an instant, Glenfrey’s perch post was on fire, and the rocks where Dascha usually sat exploded in a fiery ball of flame.
“Knock, knock! Anybody home?” announced a man in a short mage’s robe as he walked confidently into the opening. Totally ignoring the fires that burned on either side of him, the mage looked around lazily. Not seeing anyone moving in the area, the man took a few more steps forward and stopped. Planting his feet about shoulder width apart, he raised his voice slightly and projected towards the cottage.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you or taught you that is bad manners to keep visitors waiting?”
Henley appeared in the doorway of the cottage. He stared for a moment at the man in his courtyard, framed by flames on either side. Dascha also looked, even though her perspective was slightly different. What they both saw was a man of middle height and build. Obviously Mongolian in heritage, his slightly golden skin, and hooded eyes proclaimed him a son of the steppes. Unusual for most from that area, he was not bow-legged.
Dascha was not picking up the smell of horses from anywhere, and realize that unlike most of his countrymen, this Mongolian was not a horseback rider. His beardless face and single long braid were more usual. But the expression on his face and the scent of old blood and rotting meat that clung to him gave him a presence that was very unlike most of the Mongolians that Dascha knew.
Henley finally responded, “Visitors do not announce themselves with destruction. Therefore, you’re not a visitor, just a common thug.”
The blood mage flicked his hand at the small shed that had been built to house visitors’ horses. It went up in a “Whoosh” of flames that reached 20 feet in the air. “Now you’ve hurt my feelings! I guess you just can have to pay for that, weatherman.”
“Quit the posturing. What is it that you want? Say your piece and then get out of here. You are not welcome.”
“You’re mistaken. I am not going with you, and you’re going to leave this land and not come back. You will not touch the village, you will not encroach on us, and you will stay far away.”
“How amusing. You actually think you can dictate to me?” The blood mage turned his head to the right and started talking to empty air. “Marcus, isn’t it funny that this silly little witch thinks that he can dictate to us? What you think of that?”
There was a shimmering in the air, and a scar-faced soldier became visible. The grin that was on his face made Dascha’s fur stand out. Her claws dug deep into the soil, but she held motionlessly. Her caution was rewarded when all around the clearing other sparkles resolved into soldiers. The one closest to Dascha was a mere couple of feet away. She could smell him now in addition to seeing him and had to work hard at not spitting to get rid of the taste of his smell. It coated her mouth and throat like rancid grease.
Henley had known that the blood mage had brought others with him. He knew that they were dangerous and that the most likely place to deploy them would be around the courtyard. Dascha hoped that his defenses were going to be effective. And hope was her only weapon at this point.
The blood mage seemed to be disappointed that Henley was not frightened or surprised. Disappointed and denied a point of amusement that he had apparently planned on, the blood mage continued to poke at the witch.
“You can see that it’s going to do you no good to resist. I have too many men, and you stupidly have no one. Of course, you couldn’t protect the village either, and the village certainly can’t protect you. Face it old man, you’re defenseless. So come along now like the little sheep that you are.”
“No. You are not welcome, and your soldiers are not welcome either. Leave immediately.”
“Or what? The only thing you’re good for is a little bit of weather and an occasional heal. You have no way of getting rid of my men or me.”
Henley made a small hand gesture. The man standing by Dascha was suddenly not there. The ground had opened and pulled him down, so quickly that he had no time to cry out. There is no sign that he had ever been there. The forest floor, bracken and all, was pristine and showing no signs of disarray.
Glancing carefully around, Dascha could see no sign of any soldier in the clearing except for the man standing closest to the blood mage. The magic user was intensely focused on Henley. He had not seen yet that his soldiers were gone. However, the scar-faced man, Marcus, noticed immediately. With an inarticulate shout of rage, he reached for his sword. It never cleared the scabbard.
With a heavy thud, the silent, steep dive of a full-grown steppe eagle delivered a powerful blow to the back of his neck. The man’s head made an impossible bend backward from the momentum of the strike. There was an audible crack as his spine separated right below his head. It was a perfectly executed death strike, and Glenfrey barely slowed down as he plowed through the man and flew back up.
Roaring in disbelieving rage, the blood mage yelled at the top of his lungs as he reached for the rod tucked through his belt, “Attack!”
There was no movement close to the cottage. All of the attackers had been pulled into the ground and made as if they had never been there. Finally, the blood mage realized that something was very wrong. This is not going the way he had envisioned it. Yelling once more, the mage called more loudly, “Second squad! Attack!”
Charging into the clearing in front of the cottage, the mage’s reserves committed themselves. There were only four men, but they were armed and not surprised. One ran to the side of the blood mage while the other three charged toward Henley.
The mage had his rod out. Once again focused on the three attackers that were swarming Henley, a cocky grin had reappeared on his face. As the soldiers neared the witch, one of them tripped and fell to the ground. The trip was too orchestrated, too planned, to be anything but a defensive spell. With the slither of small stones, the man disappeared into the ground. Yelling in rage, the soldier next to the blood mage ran toward the area that had swallowed his man. He never made it as the diving shape of an eagle with a 9-foot wings span smashed into his back and clutched him in its talons dragging the screaming man up into the air.
Yanking the rod up to point at the departing eagle, the blood mage loosed a spell through his rod. An oily black beam of light came out of the end of it, cleaving its way through the air.
Dascha made a small involuntary sound of protest. Worried for her friend, she saw the beam barely missed him but clear saw the effects of the fearsome weapon as it touched the legs of the man that Glenfrey was towing. The lower half of the carried soldier disappeared in an explosion of blood and body parts. The touch of the beam was enough to utterly destroy the structure of his body and spread a blood rain over the area.
Glenfrey dropped the corpse and went into a sharp climb. Dascha hoped that he would get out of range from that horrible weapon. She heard a snarling sound from the mage and tore her attention away from her friend’s silhouette to look at the battlefield that had totally changed.
The battle had not gone well for the soldiers. The four that had started out as the reserve was now down to one. Henley had accounted for one with his quicksand trap. Glenfrey had captured another and discarded him when the blood mage had mistakenly killed him.
The other two soldiers had been in the process of attacking the unarmed witch. Dascha had only looked away for a second, but now there was only one man fighting with Henley. There was no sign of a corpse and no apparent wound on the witch. Just two men, one trying to kill the other.
The face of the blood mage was set in a silent snarl. His eyes were glowing with a dull red color, and his hands were trembling in rage. His rod was out, and he had started to move to the area in front of Dascha’s position. She thought perhaps he was trying to get a clear shot at Henley. Dascha knew that Glenfrey would be unable to attack the mage easily where he was now positioned. The blood mage had walked under cover of the edge of the forest, eliminating the eagle’s ability to make an effective strike.
A flash of what looked like reverse lightning drew Dascha’s gaze back to Henley. Lines that covered a rainbow of colors descending into deep purple erupted from the witch’s hands and into the ground. Gigantic stone hands erupted from the ground and grabbed the remaining soldier. He beat at them uselessly with his sword, crying out in horror. Dragging the sobbing struggling man downward the hands pulled him beneath the surface of the ground and silenced him forever.
The blood mage erupted with a guttural, vicious sound of anger. Steadying his rod, he took aim at Henley.
The witch was shaking with exhaustion, almost spent. Locking eyes with the blood mage, Henley set his shoulders in determination. The blood mage fired, and Henley dove to the side. The oily beam barely missed him, destroying a corner of the cottage. It exploded in a cloud of fractured stone and splintered wood. The blast carried the debris even into the woods were Dascha crouched. The blood mage in front of her was peppered with the particles, raising small flecks of blood on his exposed skin.
Dascha had crouched down and closed her eyes. The vegetation around her was shredded, but she was fine. She could see where Henley was painfully climbing to his feet. The blood mage was muttering over his rod. The peculiar colors and lights that she saw gave her a glimpse of the rod that surprised her. She could actually see the dull light growing in it as the blood mage talked. Taking two more steps toward Henley, the blood mage once again aimed his rod.
Those two steps had just been enough to come out of part of the cover of the forest trees. Glenfrey’s dive was not perfect. He couldn’t get his favorite strike zone because the mage had his back protected but he could slam into the rod and rip it from the hands of the wielder. The
eagle moved so rapidly that the mage had no opportunity for response.
Dascha crouched close to the ground in a futile attempt to protect her ears. The scream of fury from the blood mage made all of his other sounds small whispers in comparison. It was the noise produced by someone going into a total and complete rage. There was no thinking behind that reddened slathering visage. The mage had become a berserker out to rend and destroy. Whatever his plans for Henley had been at the start, now only death was possible.
There was an explosion at a distance. It was the direction that Glenfrey had taken the rod. Dascha whipped her head up to see what had happened. There was a huge cloud of smoke in the air, and she watched with her heart in her throat until the eagle’s form emerged. It was obvious that the bird had taken damage. His flight was shaky, and he seemed to be favoring one wing. The foot that had held the rod was curled up next to his body as if damaged. He had fought his own battle and had emerged but not unscathed.