Wrath Games

by B. T. Narro

  I had looked up as I’d ascended, but I hadn’t noticed being too close to any thick branches. “It’s hard to control,” I admitted. “I must’ve careened without realizing it.”

  Her mouth closed, her smile remaining. “It is something, though. I see why Jaymes thought you would do well spying on the army. You could hide in the trees where no one would expect to look.”

  I suddenly realized the rope I’d brought was to hold me in place while I slept up there. I certainly wasn’t looking forward to that.

  “How far is the river from here?” I asked. “I didn’t see it while I was above the trees.”

  “There are hills in the way. It’s two to three miles, perhaps. I’d wager ten ruffs that I know the exact location of Marteph’s men. There used to be two rivers west of here, but one is now a ravine. There’s a mountain range near it. If I were them, I would stay between the ravine and the mountains. There’s only one entryway to that spot and it’s about a half-mile past the river, leaving them close enough for water in case collecting the rain isn’t enough. It’s the best place for a waiting army.”

  “It doesn’t sound like it’ll be easy for any of the other scouts to get eyes on them without being seen.”

  “Impossible, I’d say, especially given they’ll have patrols on the lookout for our troops.” Shara stopped walking. “It’s going to be dangerous even for someone who can do what you just showed me. Remember your promise. You just have to figure out where they’re going. Then come back.”

  When I imagined watching ten thousand enemies march off without doing one thing to stop them, I began to regret my promise to Shara.

  It wasn’t long before we arrived at the raging river, the days of rain adding to its power. It split the entire forest, making it easy to find yet difficult to ford. I could lift myself and Shara over it with pyforial energy. But our horse, not even close.

  We spent a few hours riding downhill, following nature’s watery beast until it became wide enough to flow calmly. Once on the other side, I drew my seescope. There weren’t many clear lanes through the trees. I spotted someone a half-mile out. He had his own seescope, looking elsewhere while turning toward me.

  I cursed and grabbed Shara’s hand. “Move, there’s an enemy scout.”

  Casp tossed his head, fractious from the force at which Shara pulled him down the hill. Gods, it took too long to get the horse out of sight, and the scout had been seconds away from seeing me before I let down my seescope.

  “You need to go back now,” I told Shara. “They’re sending someone after us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, but I’m not willing to risk it.” I took the birdcage from her hand, set it on the grass, and lifted her up onto the horse’s back. “This area you described before, between the ravine and mountain range, it’s up ahead isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” She pointed in the same direction as the scout.

  “I’m sure I’ll find them, then. Go. I’ll hide in the trees.”

  She bit her lip.

  “Go!” I said again.

  “Be safe!” she whispered in haste. She drove her heels against Casp’s sides and was off, the river splashing in complaint from each slap of the animal’s hooves. She shot one quick look over her shoulder, her eyes telling me how much she hated to leave.

  She wasn’t even out of sight before I found a swordsman on horseback coming at me from the west. Another man rode behind him, an archer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  I perched on a branch high in a tree. My arm held onto the trunk for balance as I searched below.

  The archer had gone on east, in the direction I’d first run before diverting behind a rocky hillside. I’d lifted myself up to the tor and caught my breath. From there, I soared above the trees.

  After choosing one at random, I had come down through its leafy top and nearly split my body in two as my ass crashed against a branch—the same branch I was aiming for, yet I couldn’t seem to slow myself enough before I reached it.

  The swordsman on horseback was nowhere in sight, although I could hear the patter of hoofs somewhere west of me. I waited in the tree until the pain in my rear subsided and my thrashing heart finally pacified.

  I was alone.

  I thought of the act of killing. I might need to before my task was done. They would kill Shara, given the chance, and they certainly would kill me.

  I’d killed that rapist. I could do it again.

  I adjusted my grip on the birdcage. It won’t be as easy as in the prison, especially while holding onto this thing.

  I needed to get somewhere I could see the army without being caught. The mountain range would be my next step.

  I’d get as far west as I could on foot because the effort it took to lift myself with py was worse than running, and I couldn’t go much faster.

  Jogging, I looked over my shoulder so often it made me dizzy. I went on for an hour without a break, constantly feeling the weight of enemy eyes on me whether or not they really were. My path led me to an incline that stretched on for about a hundred yards before evening out.

  Halfway up, I heard boots pressing against the wet dirt.

  Just as I stopped, so did whoever wore the boots. I drew my knife and stifled my labored breaths, creeping toward the edge of a thick line of blackberry bushes between us.

  A man wearing a black jerkin jumped out. We each had the same reflex, reeling back for a blink and holding our weapons up in defense. His was a sword, mine just a dagger.

  He looked down at the covered birdcage, his eyes going wide. “Scout!” he screamed for anyone else nearby. He charged before I could get pyforial energy beneath my arms. Leading with his sword, he seemed to be aiming at my chest. I jumped to the side and used the py I’d gathered to throw him back. It was as easy as scooping up a child. He crashed into the blackberry bushes yet bounced right off them.

  The use of py didn’t shock him. He lunged with a quick slash that surely would’ve sliced through my neck if I hadn’t ducked. I dropped the birdcage and rolled before he could bring down his weapon into my back. A battle cry tore out of his throat as he yanked his weapon free from the wet dirt.

  From my knees, I got py around his sword and pried it backward, twisting his wrist. He let go, the bloodthirst in his eyes never diminishing as he leapt on top of me. He pressed down on my wrist, practically burying it in the soft ground, my dagger as well. Our other arms fought for leverage while my legs flailed.

  He slammed his forehead into mine, my whole body lurching in reaction to the sting of pain. He grabbed his own dagger from his belt. As he raised it over my chest, I flung him off me with py, toppling him backward.

  Before I gave him the chance to get up, I pinned his weapon arm with py and fell down onto him with my dagger, driving it into his heart.

  An arrow pierced the blackberry bush behind me before my current enemy stopped struggling.

  The archer was loading another arrow as I turned and found him and two mages through the trees downhill, fifty yards out. I snatched the fallen birdcage and squeezed my body into the blackberry bush, twisting through deeper as I heard another arrow slice into it.

  Just as I came out the other side, an explosion cracked—a fireball striking the bushes. A wave of heat knocked me to my knees.

  I popped back up and ran, following the incline of the forest.

  Soon I’d put myself behind a thick tree and gathered py. Then I hoisted myself up. I stayed behind the trunk as I rose, keeping my eyes on it to make sure I went straight. They wouldn’t see me.

  I broke through the forest canopy and carried myself west, following the incline of the treetops beneath me. I moved through the air as quickly as I could, soaring for nearly a minute before exhaustion mandated I start my descent.

  I came down through the trees, clinging onto the py with my mind in the same way my hands would grasp the ledge of a cliff from which I was about to fall. I barely had the strength to slow myself, so I aimed for a patch
of grass and nearly let myself go completely.

  The ground came at me too quickly. I put all of my efforts into one last upward lurch. My momentum came to a complete stop, pain biting my arms and shoulders as the weight of my body tugged on them. The py slipped out, breaking free of my mind’s hold. Luckily, my legs and one free hand managed to keep me from falling onto my head as well as keep the birdcage from crashing into the ground.

  I realized where I was and puttered forward, fearful the archer and two mages might find me if I didn’t keep moving. The middle of my back felt like it had been pelted with a rock. Then I realized I’d been wrestled to the ground with my bag on; my spine must’ve crushed my seescope.

  Please don’t be cracked. When I was far enough to feel safe again, I checked on the bird first. It seemed scared, its little head darting about, but it didn’t look injured. The bronze scope seemed fine, but then I looked at the glass at its tip. Cracked.

  I looked through it for a test. The image of the forest was too distorted for me to tell the difference between trees and bushes no farther than twenty yards out.

  No problem. I just had to take one from an enemy. I cursed at the thought.

  After some consideration, I decided I’d still get to the mountain range Shara had talked about. I needed to find it first, nothing a simple lift out of the forest couldn’t accomplish.

  I took to the sky. Above the trees, a bird passing by let out an annoyed squawk as if complaining I didn’t belong there. The river flowed north and then twisted to the east. Two mountains lay a mile or two to the west from its bend.

  I decided to go back to the river, refill my water pouch, and then follow the current. It would lead me to the mountains. Somewhere on the other side of them had to be the enemy camp, so long as Shara was right.

  I floated down and began my trek, staying vigilant. By the time I reached the bend of the river, evening had set in. The rain had become a nuisance by then, but the wind was my worst enemy for the moment. I told myself I’d find shelter near the mountains and picked up my pace.

  Night came too quickly, a blanket of darkness falling upon the forest. Without light, I was almost entirely helpless. Luckily I was at the peak of one of the mountains by then, pyforial energy carrying me all the way from its base to its top. The terrain was too treacherous, though, wet and rocky with no even surfaces. This made the mountain impossible for my enemies to climb, I realized, putting me at ease when I’d found a spot just level enough for my feet. I was surrounded by rocks jutting out, one leaning far enough over me to create some shelter from the rain.

  I fed the bird some seed, ate a bit of bread, then attempted to sleep. Images of the man I’d killed fought to appear behind my closed eyes, the feeling of my knife piercing his heart bubbling up with them. I wrestled them back, putting Shara there instead.

  She would have made camp somewhere out of the forest by now. I liked to think I was in her thoughts.

  A fear came that something had happened to her before she’d made it out of the forest, but I shooed it away. There was no point in letting it bother me, for there was nothing I could do about it.

  The rain greeted me in the morning as it had each of the countless times I’d awoken during the night. A light stream ran over the rock above me, arcing and splattering a few feet past my little sanctuary.

  In the morning light, I realized I could see above the forest from here. A sea of mist seeped through the treetops. There was no seeing below it, no way to tell if anyone might be on the ground.

  I stretched my sore spine, then began my descent. I floated slowly through the mist, unable to spot branches until they were near enough to touch. Coming through the treetops, I found myself to be descending above a doe and her kin. The mother fled at the sound of me, though slow enough for her fawn to keep up with an inelegant run.

  I walked along the base of the mountains for hours, following the same direction as the path through the ranges would’ve led me if I’d been bold enough, or perhaps stupid enough, to take that route.

  After figuring I’d gone about three miles, I lifted myself up once again. The morning mist was gone, allowing me a clear view as I hovered above the mountains.

  A man leaned against a tree watching the only route between the ranges. I was behind him by a few hundred feet. He held a seescope to his eye, a bow strapped to his back.

  I found a place to land on the mountain peak and searched for signs of anyone else. Trees and other forest growth blocked my view deeper down the path. I couldn’t imagine anyone physically able to climb the mountains surrounding the path, but I checked anyway. There was no one.

  I hardly made a sound as I floated down toward the only person in sight. I’d never descended at such an oblique angle before. After the initial push of my mind to get the py moving forward, it wasn’t difficult to maintain. All of my focus went toward keeping myself on track to slam into him, not slowing as I’d normally do when landing.

  He spun just as I got there, nearly jumping out of the way as I came down on him feet first.

  “Scout!” he screamed.

  I drove my knife into his chest before he could stick me with his weapon. His struggling lasted for a breath. Remembering what happened last time, I looked behind me. No one. I spun around to check the mountains. No one. But that didn’t mean they weren’t coming.

  I pried the seescope out of his dead hand and grabbed his bag. It didn’t take longer than a minute to float up and get back on the other side of the mountain, where I found my birdcage.

  I searched inside his bag—food and water. A voice of guilt tried to torment me for killing him as I bit into the dried beef, but I just scoffed. This is war. They’ve marched all this way to kill us. Save your regret for something that matters.

  Usually my guilt had absolute power over me, shaming me whenever it spoke about Eizle or my mother. Now, however, it cowered like the fawn, slinking off until it was out of my mind.

  It seemed that these men knew there were scouts like me searching for them. Did they just assume that would be the case? I hoped so. The alternative was that someone had told them.

  I walked along the outer base of the mountain range for a few hours more, then floated up to see what I could glimpse over it. The ravine Shara had mentioned caused the whole forest to dip about three miles out. The mountain range on my side continued all the way to the ravine, where it fishhooked around the ravine’s edge. The other range ran parallel to the mountains beneath my feet, but it ended just one mile more from where I hovered, becoming small hills.

  I counted four men and one woman in the few miles of clear land that stretched out beneath me. I was certain ten thousand more were somewhere behind them, probably exactly where Shara said they’d be.

  I decided to stop exerting myself and just walk all the way to where the mountains curved around the ravine.

  Eventually I made it and lifted myself into the air. I rose quickly until I neared the apex of my mountains. Then I slowed and looked for somewhere to land. My feet found little purchase along a slight incline with rain running down its slope. I tried to steady myself, but then I fell sideways and grabbed onto a rock with my only free hand. I could hear the bird coo as the cage wobbled in my other fist.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  After I regained my confidence that I wasn’t going to fall, I climbed the short distance to the top. The peak of this mountain wasn’t even much of a peak, just a series of treacherous bumps, all either too sharp or too slick to stand on. I made a bed of py, lay on it with the bird cage dangling over the side, and hovered until I found a place that seemed suitable enough to stand.

  I removed both seescopes from my bag, discarded the broken one, and peered through the good one with a relieving lack of guilt. I was losing grasp over my old self, unsure if it was the war, the killings, or a combination of Swenn and everything I’d been through. Whatever it was, I embraced it.

  I could see only through small pockets between the tree branches
below me, but in every pocket I found at least one enemy. There are ten thousand of them, I reminded myself. This had to be their camp. Now all I had to do was wait and prevent them from seeing me.

  I found a more suitable spot nearby where I could sit and be completely hidden. Whenever I wanted a look, I just needed to lean and stretch my neck to peer around the rectangular slab of mountain sticking up in front of me.

  The men and women of Marteph’s army always seemed to be busy with something every time I saw them, though I couldn’t tell exactly what they were doing because trees prevented me from fully seeing more than two people at a time. It wasn’t long before night settled in and nothing could be deciphered below, ending my task for the day.

  I awoke many times, as usual, always rubbing my eyes and then peering down to see what I could find. There was nothing but a few fires and some people scattered around them.

  By morning I was certain they’d found the man I’d killed in the path between the mountain ranges because they’d doubled their efforts to search for scouts. Unless there was a pyforial mage among them who could lift himself with energy, I wouldn’t be found. But I still worried for the safety of my fellow scouts, wherever they may be.

  Near midday, the rain stopped. I waited, dubious the storm finally was over. Below me, Marteph’s men held out their hands and looked to the sky.

  Is that Swenn? My mind put him there, but I doubted it was actually him. Whoever it was conferred with a man in a red robe. As both walked together, I tried to keep my eyes on them, losing them for longer periods of time than I’d find them again. The man in red appeared to be a priest. He held a long staff in his right hand like the man Eizle and I had killed with the diymas.

  So I’d found the leader of this battalion. Unfortunately, it would require more than a little luck to keep him in sight with all the trees in the way.

  He and the man who resembled Swenn stopped when someone approached them. They exchanged a few words before a fourth man was thrown at the red priest’s feet, his arms bound behind him with rope. My stomach twisted when I noticed someone handing the red priest an uncovered birdcage. This was a scout who’d been captured. What could I do? The answer came quickly—only watch.