Kayla was still trying to absorb the implications of this information when their reunion was abruptly interrupted by the distant sound of horses splashing in the surf.
Alarmed, Troll drew his sword. “Hurry, Lady, you must take the babe and leave before they catch you!”
“But where can she go,” asked Reed anxiously. “Where will you hide from one such as the Lord High Warlock?”
Turning to her friends, Kayla faced the truth she’d been too afraid to ‘til now. “There is no place I can hide that Garth cannot find me. Not on this world anyway.” Looking from one worried face to the next, she asked them, “What of you? Who will protect you from his wrath when I’m gone?” Kayla had learned enough about Garth’s true nature to know that he would not let this kind of treachery go unpunished.
“Don’t worry about us, Lady,” said Troll bravely.
The sound of horses was growing closer. “Please! You must go!”
Ignoring Troll’s urgent plea, Kayla grabbed Lori by the arm and boosted the girl into Hawk’s saddle before passing the babe up to her. “You’re coming with me, and we’re all getting off this world together,” she said as she sent Reed up behind his sister.
“But you’re not even sure you can leave. How?” questioned Troll.
“I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to do this, but I do know that I am not leaving without all of you,” declared the young witch. And somehow, the sound of iron determination behind her words made them believe in her.
Garth chose that moment for him and his troops to appear.
The soldiers garbed in royal red dragged their longhaired mounts to a stop in the shallow water of the channel, but Garth continued to spur his frightened mount on until he was within several feet of the shore.
Signaling his men to wait where they were, the Lord High Warlock drove his mount up onto the shore of the inlet, and with the waves still washing around the legs of his frightened Sasqua, he faced the cluster of people and animals gathered on the beach before him.
Cupping his hand to the side of his mouth to help his voice rise above the sound of his troops splashing about, he shouted, “Kayla! What are you doing? You cannot leave me like this!”
At first, Kayla refused to answer, only huddling closer to her companions, waiting for him to lose patience. Watching Garth like this was too much for her broken heart. Her head was buzzing with feelings she didn’t know how to deal with and fear of the consequences of making the wrong decision.
“No,” she shook her head decisively. “I will not leave like this.” Turning to Troll, she instructed in a low voice, “Grab on to Hawk’s saddle.”
Obediently, he moved to the opposite side of the giant horse and wrapped one hand in the leather straps dangling from the saddle and with his sword in the other, prepared to defend their small party if necessary.
“Don’t come any closer!” Kayla shouted back at Garth even as she sent a short blast of blue flame into the sand and water at the feet of the soldiers who’d been steadily moving closer.
The Sasqua mounts pranced and hiccupped nervously, creating the diversion Kayla had hoped for. While Garth and his guards were busy bringing their mounts back under control, she closed her eyes against the pain and forced her right hand up, jamming her numb fingers under the straps of Hawk’s bridle.
The distraction didn’t last long and seemed to have added to Garth’s frustration. Scowling furiously, he urged Firefly forward until they were as close to the snorting Ral’i stallion as the frightened Sasqua would go without actually bolting in terror.
“No, wait for me where you are,” he ordered his lieutenant when the dozen impatient soldiers tried to follow. Sliding from his saddle, Garth patted Firefly to calm him before walking boldly toward Kayla. He stopped when only a few yards remained between them.
“Why?” he entreated, his arms held wide. “Kayla, I love you. Why do you try to leave?”
“I said not to come any closer,” she told him in a flat voice. A wave of blue energy shuddered across the sand between them.
While she’d been waiting for him, Kayla had come to terms with the realities of her situation and she’d sworn to herself that she was not going to lose control of her emotions. But now the sight of this man whom she’d come to love so very deeply, standing before her as if he had not just betrayed her, was too much!
Blue fire glinted in the eyes she fixed upon him.
“How dare you,” she said in a voice that was nearly a purr, the purr of a cougar about to tear out the heart of her prey. “Did you really believe that I would cooperate with whatever vile plan you and that, that slug, Caleis, had? Did you really think I would ever allow myself to become nothing more than a puppet on your string, or…or are you really so arrogant that you thought my love for you would make me your blind and obedient slave?” Angrily, she spat into the sand at his feet.
“Please, little one, let me explain,” Garth begged as he slid a few feet closer to her. “I wanted only the chance to give you riches beyond belief. Caleis would be nothing but a tool to obtain the power I needed. Don’t you see? Together you and I could wield enough power to rule not just this one world, but many!”
Ignoring or maybe, truly unaware that Kayla’s whole body was now glowing with an aura of blue light, Garth reached a hand out to touch her and was thrown back by a powerful jolt.
He quickly regained his feet, but anger radiated from him in streaks of red at this rejection.
“You can’t possibly think you can find your way back. Especially not with this worthless bunch of mutant flotsam weighing you down!” he jeered. “Why, you’ve already expended a huge part of your energy killing Caleis’ little pets back there, and I know, greedy pig that he is, that Caleis must have been feeding on your life force as well as everyone else’s in that arena!”
Kayla didn’t need him to tell her what she already knew. She’d already done a check on her own system. What he said was true, but desperation had lent an edge to her weary mind as she searched through everything Garth had knowingly, and unknowingly, taught her in these last weeks together.
Garth’s pleas meant little to her, she’d merely been stalling for time to recharge her strength, drawing ever so gently on the life forces of her friends. She’d made her decision before he’d arrived, and he’d shown her no reason to change it now.
Calmly, Kayla relaxed her arm, letting her chin drop for a moment.
Seeing her change of stance as a sign of his success, Garth grinned in triumph. “You won’t be sorry.” He held his hand out to her.
Throwing back her shoulders, Kayla raised her head and looked straight into the eyes of this man she’d come to love so much.
“You’re right, I do need to feed, and I won’t be sorry.” For just a moment Kayla let her eyes roam from soldier to soldier, drawing each into her net, before returning her gaze to Garth, letting her wide, blue eyes lock with his darkly triumphant ones.
And Kayla reached for them all and felt the energy begin to flow, felt her strength return with every breath and build.
Garth’s look of surprise quickly turned to one of desperation as he struggled vainly to release himself from her trap. He tried to fight her even as the soldiers behind him began collapsing to their knees and then to the ground like so many inflatable toys with the air let out of them.
And the warlock began to shake, beads of sweat forming on his face before he, too, fell to his knees at the feet of the powerful, young sorceress.
With his last ounce of strength, Garth reached one hand toward her. “Please…” he begged, his voice breaking, “Please, baby, don’t go.”
Tears streaming down her face, Kayla touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers, fixing his face forever in her heart.
“Goodbye, my love.”
Stepping close to Hawk, Kayla laid her head against his silken neck.
“Please, Shadow Hawk, take us home.”
About the Author
I am a fifty-eight year
young woman who took the long route to becoming who and what I always wanted to be. I am married and have been married several times before which has at times been painful but always educational. I have three children, all grown and living their own adventures now.
I am a profession photographer and worked as a photojournalist for several years. The not so gentle ’nudge’ I received from my first newspaper editor got me started writing and gave me the confidence to continue doing the one thing I had always wanted to. Once the words started flowing I couldn’t stop them. It did not take long for me to see that the barriers between ‘Fantasy’ and reality were barely existent and everything is just a matter of perspective.
Though I have lived most of my life in Florida I now live with my husband, Emory, and a whole lot of Aussies (Australian Shepherd dogs) on a small ranch in Texas. And this is a nice enough place for now but - there is this story that keeps whispering in my head about a sorceress that once lived in the region that is now New Mexico and I know that someday soon I will have to return to this place and listen for just a while.
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