“We had thought all of the true bloods were gone in these lands. It was my mistake not expecting someone to have such skill. Now that we know of you, there are ways of countering what you can do.”
A surge came from her, and it was powerful, sudden, and it slammed into him.
He froze in place.
Every attempt to focus on himself, to focus on the power that was within him rather than what she was doing to him, failed. She was strong—stronger than what he could overcome, especially as he still didn’t fully understand his abilities.
The woman stood. She stalked around him, circling him. “Impressive. You managed to destroy most of my men. It’s a good thing that you’ve left me with one capable soldier.”
Nick grunted.
Fes ignored her, focusing only on himself. If he could manage to free himself—even if only a little—then he might have a chance of breaking free from whatever it was that she was doing to him. But his body didn’t respond. It was so much like what Arudis had done, and he hadn’t been able to break free of that.
The woman appeared before him. “When we return to my homeland, you will be trained. You will be broken. And you will serve.”
Fes tried to open his jaw, but it wouldn’t work. He could speak without doing that. He could still breathe. “I. Will. Not. Serve.”
She smiled. “You are an animal. And you are mine.”
Something slammed into him from behind, and Fes staggered forward.
One of his swords pierced her belly, and she gasped.
With that, her control over him faded and Fes jerked his sword up, carving through her. Her eyes darted past Fes to Nick.
He kept the sword in her belly and leaned over her. “Who are you?”
“You have no right to speak,” she said.
“No right? Seeing as how you’re the one dying, I think you have no right.”
She met his eyes, holding her gaze with his. “Animal.”
She gasped, taking one last breath before dying.
Fes shook himself, finally free from her influence. He wiped his sword on her and turned to Nick. His face was ashen, and he stared at the fallen woman.
“I wasn’t in control.”
“I know.”
“What was that?”
“That was a Calling.”
“How did she do that?”
Fes shook his head. “I don’t know. However she did it, she’s gone. We need to find the others.”
Nick looked around at the fallen bodies. When the woman had said they had killed most of her men, she had been mostly accurate. Between Fes and Nick, all of the men fighting for her were dead. Fes found no sadness within him. He took a deep breath, tapped Nick on the arm, and turned away, guiding him away from the sea and to the north.
Chapter Fifteen
It was near midday when Fes saw the collection of people moving across the rolling plain. They ambled—moving far more slowly than what Fes would have suspected—and he worried that they had been attacked, but none of them seemed injured.
It dawned on him as they reached them that they move slowly because they were tired. They had been walking the better part of the entire night, and most of them would be incredibly tired. For that matter, Fes was exhausted. Somehow both he and Nick managed to continue going.
“This is them?” Nick said.
“These were all the captives.”
“And they all are Deshazl?”
Fes nodded. Nick had seemed to struggle with what that meant when Fes had shared it but had quickly gained acceptance. Fes was impressed by how fast he adjusted. Would he have been able to do the same if it were him?
There wasn’t much choice. It was either adjust or die.
Neither of them wanted to die.
They hadn’t found any others as they made their way north, and partly that was intentional. He had guided them around where the campfire had been, not wanting to get too near to it. They had killed fifteen of the soldiers, and from what he’d remembered from sitting near the campfire, there had been nearly fifty, so there would be quite a few remaining. More than enough that Fes would struggle to stop them.
The boy might be good with a bow, but how many of the others that they’d rescued would be capable fighters?
Probably not enough to be valuable.
When they reached them, the boy aimed his bow at Fes, pointing it at him.
Fes waved his hand, not able to do much other than that. He was exhausted, and though he didn’t want to get shot by the boy, he wasn’t sure that he could come up with any other way of proving who he was.
“They don’t seem like they’re excited about you coming,” Nick said.
“I told them to shoot anybody who got too close,” he said.
“Even you?”
Fes shrugged. “I should have known that he would have taken that literally,” he said.
When they reached the group, Nina looked at him and glanced at Nick before turning her attention back to Fes. “What happened? I thought you were going to join us before now?”
“I got a little sidetracked trying to keep them from following.”
Her eyes widened. “What did you do?”
“We led them south.”
“Just the two of you?”
“We managed to reach the shore before they caught up to us.”
“How did you get away?” Dobrah asked.
Fes shook his head. “We fought. They died.” He looked around at the others. “Did everybody make it?”
“As far as I can tell, everybody from the wagons is here. They all talked about a strange man who freed them and said to run north. When they came our way, Joey thought to shoot them, but we had to keep him from targeting everyone.”
“I would’ve shot you,” Joey said.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Fes said. “You still may have to use that bow of yours.”
Joey’s eyes widened. “Do you promise?”
“I wouldn’t be too excited about that,” Fes said.
“Where should we go?” Nina asked.
“There is a place, but it’s part of the north. It will take some work reaching it.”
“What kind of place?” Nina asked.
“A place where you can begin to understand why you were targeted. A place where there is someone who should be able to protect you.”
“How do you know about this place?”
Fes stared off into the distance. Arudis had wanted him to stay, and she had promised that she could help him understand what it meant to be Deshazl, and he had suspected that she would teach him to use his abilities, but had she known that by going off on his own, he would encounter others who needed him?
She must have known. She knew that there had been other Callings. She knew that there had been other attacks.
And some of these people might have been from there.
“How much do you know about these people?” Fes asked Nina.
She shrugged. “We haven’t talked a whole lot. Most of them were scared, and they wanted nothing more than to get to safety. When you didn’t come, we kept walking. We weren’t willing to simply stay in one place, not wanting to be caught.”
“That was a good idea. Keep moving as long as you can. They don’t know which direction you headed, but—”
“But they aren’t on foot,” Joey said.
Fes shook his head. “I don’t think that they will be. They’ll be mounted, and that’s why we need to get some space between us and them. We need to have someplace that we can hunker down if it comes to it to let them move past.”
And Fes suspected that they would keep moving. They had been discovered, and though Fes and the others had escaped, maybe they would return, thinking to Call others like him.
Then again, how much did they risk the empire? How long would it be before someone managed to find them?
Joey was looking behind Fes, and his eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”
Fes turned to look and saw what Joey was pointing at.
<
br /> Behind them, moving quickly, came several dozen riders. None of them had wagons, but why would they? The wagons would only have slowed them.
Fes glanced over at Nick, and they met each other’s gaze for a long moment. “That’s too many,” Fes said.
“That’s too many for both of us,” Nick said.
“Were you planning to fight?” Nina asked.
“I don’t know that we can outrun them,” Fes said. Worse, with everyone as tired as they were, they might not even be able to outrun them.
They were out in the open, with no place to go and no place to hide. Somehow, they needed to find a way out. Somehow, they needed to get free, but how would they do it?
“Get everyone moving as quickly as they can,” he said. He turned to Nina. “Round up as many of them who have fighting ability. They can be useful.”
“There aren’t many who have much fighting ability. Most of them are young women. The men are either too young or like Joey.”
“Hey!”
Nina shrugged. “I believe that you have some skill with a bow, but do you really think that you can face down a dozen soldiers? Two dozen?”
“It’s more than that,” Fes said softly. “But we might need as many as we can who have some ability to fight. We need to find out whether we can withstand them.”
He didn’t like their chances, but what choice did they have?
Nina had a knack for organizing people, something that he had suspected considering the quick way that she had adjusted, keeping Dobrah safe when she had wondered whether Fes was a threat or not. She organized people into lines, pairing them off, getting everyone together so that they could keep tabs on someone else. Anyone with any fighting experience was sent to the back of the line, and Fes was surprised to find two women among them.
“You fought?” Fes asked looking at a younger woman. She had strawberry blond hair braided on either side of her head. She couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen. There was a time when Fes would’ve considered her pretty, but she was too young for him now.
“I have some experience with fighting,” she said. “My father always wanted to make sure that I could take care of myself.”
“And your father?”
“He served in the army for two terms.”
Fes studied her. She was lean, and he hoped that meant she would be quick. Often times the smaller the person, the faster they were. Surprisingly, he saw that she carried a sword, which she must have rescued from the wagons. They viewed them as animals, nothing more than that, so why wouldn’t they have left their weapons behind?
It was to their advantage that they viewed them as animals.
“What of you?” He asked the second woman. She was tall, and her brunette hair was thick and wavy. Freckles dotted her face. There was something distinctly feminine about her, and he was surprised that she would volunteer to fight. She didn’t strike him as the kind who would have.
“I have brothers,” she said.
“A lot of women have brothers,” Nick said.
The woman lunged at Nick, grabbing his wrist and swinging it behind him, pinning him and pushing him down. She glanced up at Fes. “I have brothers.”
“What are your names?”
“I’m Celine,” the strawberry blonde said.
“I’m Sarah.”
“Celine and Sarah, I don’t intend for us to have to fight, but if it comes to it, we need to be able to defend not only ourselves but the others. There are only a few of us who have any fighting experience.”
In addition to Celine and Sarah, there were three other men—if they could be called that. Two of them were boys not much older than Joey, and neither had anything for weapons other than a broken stick that they must’ve grabbed somewhere along the way. One of them was an older man, and he was the one Fes had rescued who had moved off slowly.
Somehow, these few would have to protect the many.
Was it even possible?
Nina got them moving and guided them quickly, heading across the land as quickly as possible, but Fes could tell that everyone that he’d rescued was tired. They had run off more quickly than this, and now they struggled to put any distance between themselves and the Damhur.
It wouldn’t be fast enough. If it came to a fight, he didn’t like their odds, not with as few of them as there were, and not after seeing how someone with the ability to perform a Calling could turn some of them against the others.
“We’re going to have to hide somewhere,” Fes said.
Nick glanced over. “Where you think that we can hide?”
“I don’t know, but somehow we’re going to have to find a place to go.” In the distance, a copse of trees gradually coalesced and became a forest. “What about there?” he asked, pointing.
“Not there,” Nick said.
“Why not?”
“That forest isn’t safe.”
“That forest might be the only thing that can keep us safe,” he said.
“You don’t understand,” Nick said. “I know where we are, and that forest isn’t safe.”
“If you know where we are, then do you know if there’s any other place that we can go? If that place isn’t safe, are there other places that are?”
Nick looked around before shaking his head. “There aren’t any other places for us to go. There aren’t any villages near enough for us to reach.”
“Even if we reached a village, I’m not sure that we should bring this kind of fight to them,” Sarah said.
Fes looked over at her. It was a brave comment and the kind that he was surprised to hear anyone make. “We can’t lead them to a village, but we can lose them in the forest.”
“We lose ourselves in the forest.”
“Are you afraid that it’s haunted?” Joey asked. He smirked at the question.
Nick shot him a hard glare. “When you grow up around here, you come to realize that there are places that are more powerful than others. This forest is one such place. It’s not that it’s haunted, it’s just that people who enter do not often leave.”
“That sounds haunted to me,” Joey said.
Fes looked behind him, staring at the Damhur approaching, moving far more quickly than what they could keep up with. They wouldn’t have much choice. They had to take the forest.
Fes raced forward and reached Nina. “We need to head into the trees,” he said.
She frowned. “There’s something… Dark about that place.”
“Don’t be like Nick,” he said.
“I’m not saying anything other than I don’t like the way that looks.”
“We can’t fight them,” Fes said softly. “If it comes to that, they have a way of turning us against ourselves.”
She glanced over at him, studying his face for a long moment before nodding. “The forest it is then.”
They raced forward and reached the forest with the Damhur riding up behind them. When they disappeared into the trees, it was almost as if the forest swallowed them. A cold chill washed over him and fog settled around the forest floor, making it difficult to see very far.
“This is perfect,” he said.
“We need to stay together,” Nick said. “If we don’t, we can get separated, and that’s how others have been lost here.”
“Then we don’t get separated,” Fes said.
Nick watched him for a long moment before sighing. “I don’t like this.”
“It’s better here than dead.” An idea came to Fes. “Keep moving. I will find you.”
Nina frowned at him. “How do you expect to find us in here?”
“I’ll figure it out. We can use the fog to disorient them. We can use it to our advantage.”
Nick shook his head. “You can’t really think to attack all of them here.”
“I don’t know that we have much choice. If we don’t try something—anything—even if we make it through the forest, we still have to worry about them chasing us.”
“And we move together, and
we outrun them. They’re on horseback, and it’s more likely than not they will get separated before we do.” Nina watched him, her eyes practically begging him to stay together.
If he left them, they would be unprotected. Sure, there were some who had some ability to fight—and Fes had been with Nick long enough to know that he was capable, but what would happen if he died? Would they still manage to escape?
Even if they escaped, what would happen if these others caught up to them?
“All right. Let’s keep going.” He looked around but could barely see everyone through the fog. “Take hands. Stay together.”
He and Nina took the lead, and they plunged into the forest. The fog became thicker, swirling around them. It was strange, almost something alive, and he understood Nick’s reservation about entering the forest in the first place. There was something powerful about it.
“What is this place?” Nina asked.
“I don’t know. Nick didn’t like it.”
“It’s strange. Almost like the forest doesn’t want us to be here.”
“It doesn’t want us to be here,” Nick said. “Do you feel how warm it is?”
Fes frowned. He hadn’t paid much attention to it, but now that Nick said that, he realized that the air had been warmer ever since they had entered the forest. He hadn’t paid much attention to it before then, and now that he did, he wondered why it should be so different.
“What’s that from?”
“It’s from this forest. Like I said, there’s something strange about it. Everyone who’s been here knows to stay away. The forest doesn’t want us here.”
“How do you know the forest doesn’t want you here if you’ve never been in it?” Nina asked.
Fes smiled to himself. It was a funny question, even more so coming from Nina, who he could tell he was unsettled by the forest, but despite that discomfort, she still managed to find a certain strength.
“I haven’t been willing to come here,” he said.
“Maybe the Damhur following us will feel the same way,” Nina said.
“They aren’t from here,” Nick said. “They won’t know that this isn’t a place for them—or anyone.”
They walked on. Even the trees were difficult to see through the fog. Every so often, Fes had a sense of movement, but then it was gone, disappearing into the thickness of the fog. He would pause from time to time, and they would take account of how many of them were still together. He feared to lose even a single person. If they did, there would be no way of finding where they’d gone and no way of getting them back. The longer he went, the more he realized that it was a good thing he hadn’t separated from them. He would have been lost.
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