Once the mage clears the crater, he gestures with both hands while staring intently at James. Suddenly, James’ legs begin to cramp, he can feel their muscles knotting and twisting causing him great pain. He cries out from the pain and in desperation casts a spell, one he used many times back home, role playing. He feels it using up the remaining power within him, leaving him weak, barely able to move.
The approaching mage chuckles as he sees a clear, shimmering bubble appear between them, floating in the air. “What’s that suppose to do?”
He casts another spell and the bubble begins sparkling as if fireflies were contained within. The mage’s face loses its look of confidence and begins to exhibit worry. The sparkles begin increasing in luminosity as the man’s face slowly turns to a look of confusion.
Jiron comes to James’ side and asks, “You okay?”
Exhausted from the spell he just cast, he gasps, “Will be.” The effect of the mage’s earlier spell begins to dissipate and the pain in his legs subsides. Jiron turns to the mage and with knives ready, advances on him once more. James grabs his arm as he starts toward the mage, stopping him and warns, “Don’t touch him or the bubble.”
“Why?” Jiron asks.
Shaking his head, he replies, “No time to explain, we’ve got to get out of here. Now!” he shouts, then lapses into unconsciousness and sags to the ground.
Jiron looks to the mage who is shaking his head with a look of horror as he stares into the bubble, the sparks within gaining size and intensity. “No!” he cries in terror, suddenly dropping to the ground. The bubble is getting brighter and brighter by the second.
From out of the darkness, Tinok and the girls come running toward them. “Get the horses!” Jiron shouts as they approach. He begins to untie the remaining horses from the tree.
“What’s that?” Cassie asks as she makes to approach the bubble.
`“Get away from it!” Jiron yells at her. “James said not to touch it.”
He hollers over to Tinok and says, “Help me get James on a horse.” When he comes over, they lift him up and quickly secure him onto the horse with some rope.
Delia mounts a horse and then looks back over to the mage who is by now whimpering in terror. His hair, once a vivid red has now turned grey and he’s beginning to shrivel in upon himself like a grape having spent too much time in the sun.
Jiron mounts and says, “Tinok, you stay next to James and make sure he doesn’t fall off.” He turns his horse toward the southwest, “Let’s stay close together,” he advises, “and maybe we can survive this.” He glances over to the bubble; the sparks have grown until they now fill the entire bubble with a white light whose intensity is painful to look upon. The mage on the ground is no longer moving and appears dead.
Kicking his horse in the side, Jiron rides through the camp, the others close behind. Out of the darkness ahead of him, several men suddenly appear. Holding on tight, he rides straight through them, knocking them over. He looks back toward the bubble, and the light is now extremely bright, illuminating a large portion of the camp. He can see dozens of men running toward it, one of whom is wearing a cowled robe just like the other mage had. They race past the tents and reach the far side of the camp.
They pass numerous soldiers but none seem to notice them, all eyes are turned to the now brilliantly bright light. The guards at the fringe of the camp take notice of them approaching and command them to stop. A crossbow bolt flies past, nearly striking Tinok as they race through. They flee into the dark grasslands to the southwest of town, leaving the guards behind. They don’t get too far before…
Schtk!
They look back at the sound from the backs of their horses, everyone holds their breath in anticipation of what may happen. Then…
Booooooom!
A giant explosion, ten times the force of what they experienced when that building blew earlier. They feel the concussion wave as it washes over them, luckily they’re far enough away that it doesn’t hit them with enough force to knock them over, just causes their horses to miss a step. They stop and look back at the camp.
Reaching toward the sky is a tower of flame, the roar from which can be heard even though they’re now far away from it. The base of the fire extends throughout the camp in every direction, burning everything within.
They sit there in awe as the flame punches through the clouds and then slowly dissipates, appearing as if it’s sinking back down to the ground.
“Dear god!” Cassie exclaims.
They all glance at the unconscious James and then look to each other. Tinok asks, “Just what have we gotten ourselves into?”
“I don’t know,” Jiron replies, shaking his head as he glances again at James. “I don’t know.” Kicking his horse, he leads them out into the grasslands.
Chapter Three
James awakens in the morning light. Sitting up suddenly, his head begins to spin and starts aching as if a hundred little hammers are pounding away on it. He holds his head until the pain has subsided to a more tolerable level and then looks around as he takes in his surroundings. The others are still asleep and five horses are picketed a little ways away from the camp, the saddles had been left on for a quick getaway.
A moment of panic sets in when he can’t locate his backpack, then he realizes he had been using it as a pillow. Opening it up, he reaches in and removes some food along with his water bottle.
Deciding not to wake the others, he sits there and eats while he contemplates the events of the day before. The Empire’s mage almost had me, he thinks to himself. I’m just a rookie compared to them, they’ve probably been doing this for a long time. My spells seemed to be rather ineffective against him, too. Going to have to work on better, more innovative spells, gotta surprise them next time or I’m toast. He remembers his last spell and smiles, I bet he never saw that coming!
Hearing one of the sleepers stirring, he looks over and sees Cassie as she leans up on one arm and looks over in his direction. He holds up some of his food, silently offering it to her, but she just shakes her head no. She grabs her pack and gets up, coming over to sit next to him.
She opens her backpack and takes out some of her own rations and then asks as she begins eating, “You okay?”
“Better,” he replies through a mouthful of food. “The more powerful the spell, the more it takes out of you. Sleeping last night has helped a lot. After I’m done eating, I should be fine, if a little fatigued.”
“That’s good,” she says. “We were all worried about you last night, after you passed out.”
“It’s what happens sometimes,” he tells her. “Just how long did we ride last night?”
“Several hours, I think,” she guesses. “It seemed like a long time. Everyone was getting too tired to stay in the saddle so we stopped here and made camp.”
“We probably shouldn’t stay here too much longer, the Empire will want to find us in a bad way,” he says.
During their conversation, everyone else awakens and joins them for breakfast.
“What was that thing you did last night?” Tinok asks when he settles down next to him.
“You mean the bubble?” James asks.
“Yeah,” he answers. “When it went off, it must’ve taken half their camp with it.”
“Really?” James asks, surprised. “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to tell you the truth. I’ve never actually done that one before. What happened, exactly?”
He sits there and finishes eating while Tinok relates to him the events after he passed out. When he gets to the description of the explosion, James is quite astonished.
“You see,” he explains when Tinok is done telling him, “I designed the bubble to do two things. One is to absorb the power from any magic spells currently active in the area, and the other is a little more complicated. You see, when a mage casts a spell, he opens a conduit from his core of power, usually only enough to accomplish whatever spell he intends to do. My bubble grabs that flow, pulling
the power into itself, while at the same time preventing the mage from closing the conduit. The result is that all the mage’s power is sucked out of him and absorbed into the bubble. That must’ve been what was giving the bubble the light, the mage’s power that it had absorbed.”
“Now here’s the part I’ve never been able to really test before,” he explains. “What happens when the bubble is filled to capacity and reaches critical mass?”
“Critical mass?” Delia asks, confused. “What’s that?”
“Critical mass is when something is filled to capacity and ready to ‘pop’, for lack of a better term,” he explains. “In this instance, it could no longer hold the power, so it exploded. I would guess the size of the bubble and the amount of power it had absorbed would determine the intensity of the explosion.”
“You could wipe out an entire army with one of those!” Tinok exclaims.
Shaking his head, James says, “Not necessarily, after all it would only work if there was a mage present. Also, if everyone ran away before it exploded, it wouldn’t be doing too much harm.”
“I see your point,” he says, somewhat disappointed.
“Now,” Jiron interjects, “what are we going to do about rescuing my sister and your friend?”
“Well, first of all, where are we exactly? Which way did we go when we left the City?” he asks.
“We headed southwest,” Jiron answered.
“So it’s safe to assume that we are currently in enemy territory,” James concludes, “and will continue to be for a long time.”
“Yeah,” agrees Tinok.
“I propose we continue to head south and try to find out where the slavers intend to take them,” he suggests. “Once we know that, we’ll have a better idea of what we can do.”
“Let’s get going then,” Jiron says, anxious to get started.
“I agree,” James says, shouldering his backpack as he stands up. He goes over to one of the horses and swings up, head spinning from the exertion. When it calms down he scans the surrounding countryside and is relieved to find nothing moving across the grassland, except for the tall grass, waving in the breeze. The southerly breeze feels good as the summer sun begins to warm the day.
He notices that Delia needs Tinok’s help in climbing into the saddle and that she is favoring her left arm. He walks his horse over to her and asks, “Are you okay?”
“A stone hit me when the building exploded last night,” she explains. “It hurts, but I don’t think it’s broken, just bruised.”
Feeling guilty at being the cause of her pain, he says, “I’m sorry.”
She smiles at him and says, “Hey, don’t worry about it. We got out didn’t we? This is pretty minor compared to the fate I would’ve had if we hadn’t.” She pats him on the arm with her right hand and gives him a reassuring smile, then continues, “So don’t feel bad. I don’t, okay?”
He smiles back at her and says, “Alright, I won’t” Glancing around to see that everyone has already mounted and is ready to go, he turns his horse to the south and breaks into a canter. The others follow along behind.
He takes the lead with Jiron next to him, the girls in the middle, and Tinok eating their dust at the rear. After they’ve traveled a ways, he asks Jiron, “Just where did you and Tinok learn to fight so well?”
“The Pits,” he replies.
“Pits?” James asks.
“Yeah,” he says, as he continues riding. “They’re not altogether legal, but many of the wealthy pay to have people fight one another with weapons for their amusement. It pays pretty well, but you usually don’t survive long.”
“I always did the knives, so did Tinok. We both rose up through the ranks quickly, you see we both kind of have a knack for this sort of thing. We never were set against each other and were able to become friends. Friendship with another in the Pits is rare, because often you have to face them; many don’t even bother. But we got along well, even though we knew a day would come when we would be set against one another.”
“Finally, the day came when we were set to face off in the pit. You never know who you will be facing until your name is called. When our names were called, we both marched out into the pit and by this time, our friendship had grown very strong. We both could see that the other’s heart was not in this. When the order was given, Tinok opened himself up to me, didn’t even try to defend himself, he was willing to sacrifice himself rather than strike me. The crowd was not happy, they had come to see blood spilled. They began calling for me to kill him, but I couldn’t.”
“I came and stood next to him and cried to the gathered people, ‘We will not fight each other.’ You can imagine what happened next, they sent in the bruisers, the ones who deal with problems in the pits. Two came in, wielding clubs. We stood our ground and in no time at all, they were dead at our feet. We stood defiant before the crowd, side by side.”
“Next, they brought in two armored guards with swords, and to the shock of everyone there, they soon laid dead at our feet too. After that the crowd began to realize what they were seeing, and started applauding us. Two upstarts, who wouldn’t play their game, ended up playing their game.” He breaks out into a laugh. “So from then on, they paired us up. They would send two, three, sometimes four against us at a time, but none could match us.”
“Incredible,” James says.
“Yeah,” agrees Jiron, “it was.”
“What made you start in the first place?” James asks.
“My sister and I used to live on the streets,” he explains. “And one day, a man came to me and told me about the clubs and that he thought I might have some talent at it. He offered me a silver if I came and at least tried some sparring with him. I did and found I actually did have some talent for it. I’m pretty good with any weapon as it turns out, but with the knives, I’m very deadly.”
“The man trained me for six months and then I had my first fight. They put me against another knifer and I took him relatively fast and received coins for winning. After several fights, I was able to get a small place where my sister and I could live, a place she would be safe until she could hopefully find a good man. She never wanted me fighting, but you gotta do what it takes to survive.”
“I understand that,” he says.
From behind them, Cassie interrupts and asks, “Do you think they’re going to follow us?”
James turns into his saddle and says, “Most assuredly, it’s only a matter of time. I’m just hoping they won’t think that we’re escaping further into their territory. Most likely they’ll think we’ve already headed north or due west toward the Silver Mountains and Cardri. That’s where I would think to look if I was them. I doubt if anyone will remember which way, exactly, we were heading. They were a little preoccupied at the time.”
Next to him, Jiron breaks out into a laugh and nods his head.
They ride on for another hour before they begin to see a town appearing on the horizon. They keep an eye out for movement but the place appears to be abandoned. As they approach they can see why, buildings stand empty, gutted with flame and dead bodies are scattered around the area. A road passes through the center of town going from east to west, though there appears to be no one upon it.
“Do you think the Empire did this?” Cassie asks, as they stop well away from the town.
James says over his shoulder, “Most likely they did it on their way to the City.”
“Shall we go see if anyone is alive?” Delia asks.
“I think anyone who’s alive would’ve gotten away before now,” James replies. “Besides, we can’t take the chance that we will be discovered here.”
“But someone there could need our help!” she insists as she points toward the town.
“Sometimes,” he begins to explain, “you have to think of…”
She gives him a dirty look and kicks her horse, galloping toward the town before he even has a chance to finish.
“Damn!” Jiron exclaims as he races after her.
The rest hurry after, attempting to catch up with Jiron and Delia.
“Are you crazy?” Jiron yells at Delia when he catches up with her.
Getting down from her horse, she goes over to one of the bodies lying on the ground to see if they’re still alive. Not paying Jiron any attention, she moves on to the next.
He dismounts and goes over to her, grabbing her by the arm and turns her to face him. “We cannot stay here! The Empire will use this road and it’s only a matter of time before they get here.”
Staring him in the eye, she says, “Let go of my arm!” and continues staring him down until he does. When he lets go, she says, “Then help me, but I’m not leaving until I know there is no one here to help.” She turns her back on him and continues on to the next person.
James rides up and says, “We gotta get out of here.”
Jiron looks at him and says, “She won’t leave until she’s sure there’s no one to help.”
“Damn!” James curses, and then looks up and down the road, making sure no one is approaching. “Alright, everyone fan out and search for survivors. Cassie,” he says to her, “you keep a lookout and if anyone comes from either direction, you let us know, fast.”
She nods her head and then finds a position where she can keep both directions of the road in view. It’s not too hard as this is a rather small town with only a dozen or so buildings.
The others move from body to body but are only finding dead ones. Jiron goes through the buildings, but again, no one alive is found.
“Someone’s coming!” Cassie yells as she hurries back toward them.
“Where?” yells Jiron and James simultaneously.
She points off toward the west and says, “There.”
James looks and asks, “Did you see how many?”
“More than one,” she replies. “But I didn’t count, I felt you needed to know as soon as possible.”
“Delia!” James hollers over to her. When he has her attention, he points to the west and says, “We’ve got company!”
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