“Um, I have a problem,” Chi said nervously behind me.
Bannen gave a grunt as he slammed two zombies aside with both swords, felling them in one go. “Does it start with a P and end with an ahahahaha I told you so?”
I dared a look over my shoulder and found Chi glaring at Bannen. “You are so not funny. Why did we bring this guy again?”
“They’re sort of a matched pair,” Maksohm intoned sarcastically. “What’s your problem, Chinny?”
“I’m running out of arrows.”
Well that sucked the humor right out of the air. “Do you have a backup weapon?” I asked nervously because frankly I had never seen Chi with anything else aside from a bow in his hand.
“A long knife and for some reason I feel very reluctant to do any hand-to-hand with zombies. I think it’s the squishiness that’s getting me.”
“Don’t be a baby about it,” Bannen retorted, spinning and twisting like a dancer, blades flying. “Give me the knife, I’ll trade you a sword. On three; one, two, three.”
If I hadn’t known better, I would say these two had also fought alongside each other for years. On three, Bannen tossed the sword hilt first toward Chi and the knife sailed also hilt first directly for his open palm. The transition went perfectly smoothly, and neither man missed more than a beat before they had a new weapon in their hand and went right back to fighting. From the way that Chi handled that sword, he knew how to use it, but it wasn’t with the same sort of confidence as with the bow that now rested over his back.
I glanced up at the sky. We’d been here at least two hours. No wonder he had run out of arrows. A new sense of urgency took hold of me and I looked even harder, trying to see through the buildings, even though I knew that was useless. My sight was good, but even it has limits.
“This is as far as we got last time,” Yez announced. “At this point, any direction we go is uncharted, as far as I’m concerned. Rena, have you seen anything?”
“Too many buildings,” I growled in frustration, looking in every direction. We stood on a four-way street with three open directions to us and I didn’t know which one to take. “Usually, the minions heavily guard the shard.”
“So we should take the path of strongest resistance?” Maksohm asked almost rhetorically. “It’s a valid point. I’ll take it as I don’t see any better indicators of where the shard will be. I think the street dead ahead has more minions than any other.”
“I agree,” Vee stated, and since she stood at least a foot and a half taller than everyone else, we believed her. She had the best view after all. “Let’s move. Rena, should I try lifting you up?”
“I won’t be able to see anything with the buildings blocking my way,” I responded, although I felt grateful she offered.
“Ah. True.” Shrugging, Vee waded back into the fray.
While I felt that I was right about the great resistance being a sign, it made our lives so much harder. I tried to help as much as I could, to keep us all from being overwhelmed, but twice Maksohm called a temporary halt and found us a moment to just stop and catch our breath. Then I would clear out everything I could see, opening the street again, and we’d forge forward. No one’s speed dropped, their reactions as quick and strong as in the beginning, but I could see the signs well enough. Sweat poured off of them, their breath a little too harsh and quick in their lungs, and Bannen kept ducking in closer to me so that our shoulders almost brushed before he would take a half-step outside the shield again. He only did that when his energy started to flag and he felt insecure about the situation. That told me more than words that we needed to find the shard sooner rather than later.
With no other choice, we forged ahead.
I lost track of time, then abruptly realized I’d done so and frantically looked toward the sun, estimating how much light we had left. Five hours left. Then four. Then three, perhaps two, the sun being obscured by clouds rolling in.
“Kind of glad to see the clouds,” Bannen panted out. It was the first thing anyone had said in two hours at least. “Maybe it will cool down a little.”
“Unless they’re rain clouds,” Chi grumbled but I noticed he didn’t look at the sky. He didn’t dare with two zombies trying to tear him apart.
“Situation can’t get worse—” Bannen retorted only to be cut off.
Vee and Chi yelled at him in unison: “Rule four!”
“Wait, what?” I demanded. “What’s rule four?”
“Never say that things can get worse,” they explained, again in perfect unison.
Maksohm let out a sharp huff, what could have been a laugh if the situation wasn’t so strained. “These two have rules they’ve concocted over the years. Pay them no mind. I do agree, though, that I’d rather not to do this fight in the rain, so don’t call bad luck on us, Bannen.”
“Not trying to,” Bannen riposted and I could tell that on some level he was rolling his eyes.
I hoped for his sake that it really didn’t start raining because if it did, they’d never let him hear the end of—wait, what’s that? I lengthened my stride, although my aching calves didn’t appreciate that, ow, and strained my eyes to see farther ahead. Was that? A surge of victory and relief raced up my spine. “Yes!”
Bannen turned to me automatically, ducking back into the shield, hand at the small of my back. It was a defensive measure he’d learned to do when I say something in that tone because he knew I stopped paying all attention to my surroundings when I saw something. “How far?”
“Hundred and fifty-three feet,” give or take a few inches, “straight ahead.”
I could hear the silent relief pour out from the other four. “Almost there, team, hold steady for a little longer,” Maksohm encouraged.
Yez spun around to my other side, protecting my right while Bannen served as a guide, and I was glad they did, because honestly, the energy from the zombies mixed in with the energy from the shard and the overlap played havoc with my eyes. Normally I would blink out of that magic oversight and back into normal vision but I couldn’t right now; I needed every second to analyze the shard as quickly as I could. These people were exhausted and they not only had to guard me on the way to the shard but hold even after I’ve arrived for several more minutes. When people were this tired, even minutes could feel like a small eternity, and I didn’t want anyone injured because I wasn’t fast enough.
Eighty feet.
Seventy.
Sixty.
Fifty. Close enough for me to see but the zombies were so thick, so incredibly ferocious in their attack that I didn’t have the height to see over them, and their energy patterns were messing with my eyes. I closed them, shook my head tightly, tried opening and focusing again but I literally could not see through them and be sure that I had the right schematic. “Bannen, up.”
“Roger.” He immediately went down on a knee and I straddled his shoulders before he stood, his hands gripping my shins to keep me balanced, my hands automatically on the top of his head.
There, now I could see. “Alright, team,” I said with a fierce smile of anticipation on my face, “give me three minutes.”
It seemed almost anti-climatic. It normally did when Rena dealt with a shard. The hardest part, always, was just getting her within range of it. Then she spoke her spell, and three minutes later, poof! No more shard, no more minions, just a strange and eerily quiet landscape.
No one felt comfortable staying there, despite the danger being well and truly gone, so we trudged slowly back toward the boundary shield. I kept pace with Rena, feeling my shirt stick to me in sweaty patches, my body thrumming with exhaustion. It had literally been an all-day fight. While exciting, it did sort of take it out of a man. From the corner of my eye, I studied her. My Rena’s much tougher and hardier than the first time I met her. She didn’t get those breathing attacks anymore, thankfully, but I’ve never forgotten that her magic does an insane amount of damage to her on a daily basis. Days like this, when her magic had been used extensive
ly, it meant that she didn’t have as much magical energy to repair herself with. I kept an eye on her because if she was going to relapse, it would be under these circumstances.
On a different level, I worried about her mental health too. She said these zombies weren’t people anymore, and she was right, but they had been people and we all knew that. On some level, this was going to bother her. Right now, she didn’t look that disturbed by it. I hoped it held true, for her sake—I just had a feeling it wouldn’t. Sometime in the dead of night her subconscious would prey on her.
“So what do you think, Yez?” Chi prompted, strolling through the street as casually as a man would on market day. “You’ve now seen her in action with your own eyes.”
“I think her magic is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” Yez responded readily before shooting Rena an apologetic look. “No offense meant.”
“None taken,” Rena replied with a smile that said she found the conversation more amusing than anything. “It is strange compared to conventional magic. Void Mages are only born once in every generation so there’s not a lot known about us. Of course you find my methods odd.”
“Have you encountered anything that you can’t destroy?” Vee asked curiously.
“Not yet,” Rena denied. “I don’t think I will, either. Everything has form, structure to it. As long as I can see the way it’s designed, I can destroy it.”
Some sort of look passed between Yez and Maksohm that reminded me of a certain whispered conversation Nora and Maksohm had back at the cave. Apparently Yez also thought along similar lines, at least if that exchange was anything to judge by.
I didn’t have time to dig into it, certainly not now. As hard as it had been fighting our way inside, we had an easy walk back, Chi gathering up arrows as he went, and we reached the edge of the barrier in short order. Yez stretched quickly ahead of us in a lope, speaking to the agent that waited for us on the other side. I looked at the waiting crowd and winced at their expressions.
Not to mention their voices.
More than one swore openly, vicious curses, and most faces were wet with tears. They didn’t understand why we hadn’t saved anyone, why we didn’t even try. No matter what story the MISD fed the public, it would look like a cover-up to them. Or an outright lie. I didn’t envy whoever had to face them.
Rena hesitated, looking over that growing sea of outraged people and asked Maksohm quietly, “Should I try and say something?”
“Not to them,” he denied immediately. “In fact, please don’t, it will make the situation needlessly complicated. We’ll handle that part, we have people dedicated to public relations.”
I think part of her felt guilty, as Rena didn’t immediately agree, staring at the people for another long second before dipping her chin a fraction.
For all of our sakes, I prayed that the next shard we had to deal with wasn’t anywhere near a populated place. I wasn’t sure my nerves could take doing this again.
Yez said something that made the agent call to the other barrier specialists and in a moment the shield dropped entirely. I half-expected this to relieve tensions, as it meant the city had been reclaimed, but it seemed to make people angrier. No pleasing this crowd, eh?
The bond didn’t like the tension, or at least, it didn’t like the perceived threat that these angry people brought near my mage. I tapped a palm to my heart absently, telling it silently to settle down. If we did need to move, having a bond demanding blood wouldn’t be helpful.
We all stopped with Maksohm, eyeing them, and I realized belatedly that we basically had no way out of here. They were pressing in from every available street and alley. I didn’t want Rena anywhere near that mob. We’d be lynched.
“Time to split up, I think,” Chi announced casually, as if speaking of the weather. “Maksohm, I have these two.”
Maksohm gave him a slight nod. “Go.”
“Come along, ducklings,” Chi encouraged with a wave of the hand, heading straight for the right side of the street.
Frowning, I followed, even though I thought him crazy because the right didn’t look all that safer to me. We stood at a T of the road, with plenty of people pressing in from all three branches. This direction had just as many upset watchers as the other two. But Chi didn’t go for any of the streets, instead heading for a flower shop’s door, where he called out a cheery hello to the plump woman manning the bar. She waved him on with a look of resignation, and he didn’t hesitate, going up a flight of stairs before heading straight back. The building looked old, the type that had been renovated at least eight times and no one really knew what the original structure was. Chi popped a door open and stepped out onto a balcony ledge that connected directly to the roof next door, and I suddenly knew his game plan. “Are we playing cat burglar?”
“Favorite game of mine,” Chi grinned, giving Rena a wink when she giggled. “Harder to pull off against Yez. By the way, do not believe that innocent face he gives you. The man’s part cat himself. Don’t play with him unless he’s dead drunk—you need the handicap.”
I circled a finger in the air as we followed him over the roof. “I sense a story, here.”
“Next time we get dead drunk, I’ll tell you,” he promised. “Or, you know, when we’re not running from a group of very angry people.”
“Grant you, it’s not the time for involved tales of daring-do,” I allowed.
Chi led us through several different interconnecting roof ways, sometimes climbing over iron-wrought railings, sometimes just walking across, until we went down another set of stairs that connected through a butcher’s shop and out into the open street. He stopped just outside the doorway and fixed us with a firm, stern look. “When Vee asks you, we did not take Djagon Road.”
I looked up at the street corner, where the words Djagon Road were stenciled in fancy gold letters on a black sign. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Chi, we followed you along the rooftops. Like cat burglars.”
“I knew you were my favorite for a reason.” Beaming, he turned and resumed walking, although at a faster pace than usual. “Rena, honey, you stick close to us. Not that you look like a working girl, but the drunks on this street aren’t known for being observant. Or amiable to rejections.”
I could tell in a glance that this place was the red light district of the town—the way the women were dressed (or lack thereof) enough of a hint, but the place reeked of beer and stale ale and other, more revolting, scents. Rena’s life had been sheltered enough that it took her a second to connect the dots, and then her cheeks flamed red. “Oh. We’re, ah….”
“Ah, indeed.” Chi chided her along, an arm not quite touching along her back. “Quick, now, we need to get down this street and two over before we can make it to our hotel.”
I put my mean face on, staring down anyone that tried to get too close, and that worked for most people. A few drunks wanted to take it as a challenge until they noted the uniform that Chi wore and then they seemed to think better of the idea. The MISD apparently had quite the reputation in this town.
The bond twanged, throwing its weight more noticeably, unhappy with our location and the general threat it posed. I thumped it back down, not willing to be distracted from our surroundings because it chose now to throw a fit. It took several long minutes before we could leave the street and I frankly didn’t breathe easy until we left it well behind us, changing the two streets we needed to in order to be on the main thoroughfare. Once there, the bond finally settled into a more contented hum. One peek at Rena’s face showed her bright red. “You okay?”
“That was…educational,” she managed. “In more than one sense.”
I snorted on a laugh and Chi cackled like a mad crone.
“Stick with me, kid,” he said with an outrageous waggle of the eyebrows. “I’ll corrupt you yet.”
“No, you really won’t,” I denied, still laughing. I knew his offer wasn’t serious, but if he really tried to pull her through a red light’s distr
ict again, we’d have to have words. Sharp, pointy words.
The look Chi gave me said volumes but he held his tongue and we entered the hotel without another word. No one had to discuss it, we just fetched clean clothes and headed immediately back downstairs, towards the bathing room. Even if we hadn’t been soaked in sweat and gore and other things I really preferred not to think about, I think we would have headed for the baths. Psychologically we needed that scrub down before we felt clean again.
I washed up, soaked for a few minutes then reluctantly got out again. I might have stayed longer if my stomach hadn’t started in on my backbone. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and I’d burned a lot of energy in that fight. Dinner was definitely in order.
When I made the main room, I saw that Vee had joined us at some point, as well as Maksohm and Yez. She loomed over Chi and said something pointed, her partner’s hands held up in a placating manner. Uh-oh, what did he do now? I darted upstairs long enough to throw my dirty laundry into my room before coming back down two stairs at a time.
I was curious, sue me.
“—you did, didn’t you?” Vee said with a growl.
“I didn’t say I took them through Djagon Road!”
“Then how did you get them here so fast that they’ve had time to clean up and you order a drink?” Vee riposted with saccharine sweetness.
Chi looked well and truly caught, like a bug-eyed fish on the line. “I don’t think I want to tell you. You’ll be mad and there’s knives on the table.”
“So you really did use Djagon!”
“Now, Vee, darling, why would I take a sweet, innocent girl like Rena through—”
“Exactly my point, why would you take Rena through the red light district? I know for a fact there’s another route you could have taken them down, and yes, it would have meant doubling back, but it would have been a better way to take!”
“Well, in my defense—” Chi started only to stop.
The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2) Page 13