Protector Of The Grove (Book 2)

by Trevor H. Cooley

  “Oh! Ho-ho! I have an idea, Willy!” said the axe suddenly. “Oh, it’s a good one. Oh ho!”

  Great. Willum said. What is it?

  “I’ll surprise you, Willy. Just say ‘force’.”

  I’m kind of gagged here, Willum reminded him. Can you skip that rule for now?

  Then say it in your mind, Willy, Theodore said irritably.

  Fine. ‘Force’.

  With a rush of air, the axe flew up out of the wagon, flipped once, and landed splat in the pool of Esmine’s blood. Willum was confused at first. Then he smiled in understanding.

  “Oh, yes,” said the imp, drinking in the magic. “Willy-Willy-Willy, this is blood magic. Oh, there’s dragon in it. Ho-ho, and others. This is power I haven’t felt in a very long time.”

  One of the dwarves had seen the axe fall out of the wagon. He went over to pick it up. By the time he got there the pool of blood no longer shimmered with magic.

  “Oh-ho, and I’ll take yours, too, dwarfy,” Theodore said. The dwarf was startled by the sound of the imp’s voice. He turned the ax over in his hands, inspecting it. The axe turned translucent in his hands.

  Slice, Willum commanded.

  The dwarf jerked and fell in two pieces, sliced down the middle. But the axe didn’t fall. It stayed suspended and translucent, nearly invisible to the naked eye. Willum switched to mage sight and saw a figure standing there holding it. The figure was made up of golden air magic in the shape of the imp. It turned and walked towards him.

  “Dwarf blood is nothing compared to rogue horse blood, Willy. Oh-ho, but it’s still blood magic,” said the imp as the golden figure bent, slicing the ropes that bound Willum. “I’m pretty sure this is what a god feels like, Willum. Ho! This is more power than I ever held when I was alive!”

  One of the stewards cried out at the gruesome sight of the dwarf’s corpse. The camp was a sudden flurry of movement as the stewards backed away and dwarves and gnome warriors looked for assailants. The only ones that didn’t move were the prisoners and Aloysius. The scholar’s face was pinched with concentration. Cletus took a step towards him, watching the scholar carefully.

  Willum didn’t let on that his bonds had been cut. Free the others. We all need to make our moves at once.

  “What about that Steward Gray guy?” asked the imp. Arcon was looking in their direction raising a squirming gloved hand. “He has magic and I’m pretty sure he sees me now.”

  Down him, Willum said. Slice!

  A vertical blade of golden air magic shot from the axe, carving a furrow in the ground and slicing the arm off of a passing dwarf. Arcon saw the attack coming and threw up a hurried shield, but the shield did not stop the powerful attack completely. The blade of air struck Arcon’s shield and shattered, sending a dozen deadly shards into the mage’s body, tossing him to the ground.

  “Ho-ho, if only rogue horses grew on trees I would harvest one every day.”

  Not funny, Willum said. He didn’t like the sound of power-drunk Theodore. Now free the others. Hurry!

  “Now-now, don’t rush me, mortal,” the imp laughed. But he did move quickly. The invisible axe sped through the air, freeing everyone in seconds before returning to Willum’s hands.

  Just then a column of fire erupted from around Arcon’s fallen body, obscuring him completely and setting several of the stewards on fire.

  Everyone drew back from the heat and Willum took the opportunity to run to the wagon and start tossing his companions their weapons.

  * * *

  Arcon lay on the ground, fire burning all around him. He looked up through the pillar, seeing the lightening sky far above him, and knew he was dying. Blood pooled around him and he couldn’t feel his body from the chest down.

  “Listen to me, blast you! Turn the power of the rings inward!” Mellinda pleaded. “You can live. We can come out of this unscathed!”

  No, Arcon thought, unable to speak aloud. I don’t want that. I remember what it did to Ewzad.

  “What it did? His powers lessened maybe, but they became refined. He gained control. The rings became part of him, yes, but he regained his beauty.” She paused. “Oh why am I cajoling you? There is no argument to be made here. We are both going to die if you don’t do it, so shut up. No self pity!”

  It wasn’t self pity Arcon was feeling. It was remorse. He had made his choice, betraying the academy force and the rogue horse had died because of it. Now he was paying the price. Surely this would be better anyway. No more running. No more serving others. No more Mellinda. It would be freeing really.

  He allowed himself these comforting thoughts until his body came out of shock and spasms of pain hit him. Arcon screamed, or he tried to, but what came out was a gurgle as blood poured from his lips.

  “This hurts, you fool,” Mellinda growled. “I feel it too. I don’t want to die! Turn the blasted powers inward!”

  Arcon no longer disagreed. Dying hurt too much. Okay-okay. What do I do? he asked and raised his shaking and squirming hands. Just lifting his arms hurt. Muscles in his chest had been cut by the attack.

  “Use the rings like you were looking into the body of another person,” Mellinda instructed. “Like you did with the creatures we experimented on. Just turn those powers on your own body.”

  Arcon did as she said, though he felt himself weakening every moment. He closed his eyes and focused his mage sight. Suddenly he saw inside himself. The damage was bad. He had a partially severed lung and arteries and organs were damaged everywhere.

  I’m going to screw it up, he said in a panic. I’ll try to fix the damage but it’ll be clumsy work. I could leave us like one of those failures in the lab.

  “Then let me do it,” Mellinda said. “I know exactly what to do.”

  I’d rather die, he said, but he realized he might be lying. The wounds really hurt.

  “Just-!” she calmed her voice. “Remember the day you broke into Aloysius’ office with one of your ‘bold’ moves? You gave me just enough control to activate spirit sight in your mind. It worked. You didn’t lose control. Remember that?”

  Yes, Arcon said dubiously and another spasm wracked his body. He nearly passed out.

  “Damn it! There’s no time to argue. Give me partial control. Just over the magic. Do it! Please!”

  Arcon gave in. He had no choice. Give Mellinda control or die. He tried to give her control of the magic only, but that seemed difficult to differentiate. In the end, he let her use his arms and hands too. It was hard to tell exactly what he had let her use and what he hadn’t, but he was fairly sure he still had most of the control. He felt every bit of the pain at least.

  Mellinda started on the most serious wounds first, repairing his lungs and spine. Arcon felt his legs again, though that was little improvement. They had been sliced up badly. Mellinda moved her focus to the other internal organs, splicing several loops of intestine back together and reattaching a kidney. She healed arteries increased blood production, funneled all the bile that had escaped his stomach out of his chest cavity.

  She did it within minutes. He was healed. He was whole. It felt good.

  Arcon tried to move but nothing happened. He tried to sit up, but continued to lay still, looking up through the funnel of fire towards the slowly brightening sky above. Mellinda raised his hands and took off his gloves. The sight was disturbing. His fingers still writhed bonelessly, in fact his entire arms undulated, but the rings and the chains that linked them were gone. They had been absorbed into his flesh so that only the gemstones remained visible, embedded on the back of each finger.

  “They’re kind of pretty really,” Mellinda remarked aloud. She used his lips, his voice.

  Arcon tried to move. He tried to wrest control back from her. Stop it Mellinda. I’m healed. Give the control back.

  She sat up, folding his legs snakelike under him. He could feel his toes moving independent of each other. “Arcon, we’ve known each other for a long time now, yes?”

  Yes, Arcon said. />
  “Did you ever really believe I’d give you back control?” she asked using his voice.

  For a moment, he replied, finally understanding. He should have let himself die.

  “That was a foolish moment. Now be a good boy and go away for awhile. I have business to attend to.”

  She shoved Arcon deep down in his mind to the small cell where he had once kept her. A void, empty of feeling or sound.

  Mellinda stood, taking a deep breath. The air was hot, but it didn’t matter. It felt wonderful to breathe when she wanted to breathe, not being captive to Arcon’s whims. She stretched and nearly toppled as her legs bowed bonelessly beneath her.

  She was going to have to learn to control that and quick. She had an entrance to make and she would look quite ridiculous if she couldn’t keep her balance. Now, how had Ewzad done it? She tried to think back to the moment after he had been named by the Dark Bowl. He had been able to control his body after that. How had that felt to him?

  Mellinda tried to recapture that same feeling. She stood on one leg and stretched her other leg out. Now don’t squirm. My bones are solid. I am in control. It worked. Well, to an extent. There was still a bit of quivering. She would have to work on that.

  She raised one hand, letting Arcon’s fingers writhe as she pulled up a wall of air. She then caused it to shimmer, turn opaque, and finally, to show her reflection. It had been a long time since she had created a mirror spell. It was going to be difficult getting used to Arcon’s particular set of talents. He was so air and fire heavy. The rings helped, of course. They would give her extra power in the other elements as needed.

  The column of fire shook as something heavy collided with it, but she ignored the disruption. The spell would hold.

  Mellinda looked Arcon’s body up and down in the mirror. His clothes were shredded, but that was easily mended with magic. He really was a pretty boy. Still, there were things that needed tweaked. Mellinda sighed. So much work to do. She turned the magic inward again and started making some changes.

  * * *

  Cletus watched his friends fight. They were all moving and battling. All but for Pretty Tarah and the helmet girl. They weren’t moving much. Tarah was looking at Scholar Aloysius and Scholar Aloysius was looking at her as if they were trying very hard to think things at each other.

  Cletus worried that Pretty Tarah was going to get stepped on. Pretty Djeri was in his shiny armor, fighting against the poofy mustache dwarves and he kept stomping all around her. Luckily the other two gnome warriors, Harry and Larry, didn’t join the fight. They stood by Scholar Aloysius, protecting him as was their duty.

  Then again, something kept coming back to his mind. Was Aloysius really a scholar? Willum had said he wasn’t. He had called him a warrior. That was funny, but Aloysius did have a sword and he did use it sometimes. Cletus had seen him stab a man with it a long time ago. He had made the man sign his name on some papers.

  But then again, Scholar Aloysius did wear a robe and the other scholars called him a scholar. So did the stewards. Surely they would know. Then again, Willum was pretty smart too and his imp axe could see stuff that other axes couldn’t see. Maybe he knew something the other scholars didn’t.

  Then again-. Oh! Cletus looked at the fire. It was so hot. It stretched so high in the sky. Could it burn the clouds? He wondered if it would hurt Chainy. Part of him wanted to try putting Chainy’s sharp end into the big fire, but he decided against it.

  Chainy was his weapon. Chainy was his friend. Cletus hadn’t liked it when Scholar Aloysius had told him he couldn’t have friends anymore. Was the scholar going to try to take Chainy away?

  “Move it, you fools,” said Shade, addressing Cletus and Harry and Larry. “I’ll stand guard over the scholar. You three help the dwarves. Kill the prisoners.”

  “Okay, steward,” Harry and Larry said in unison pulling swords and advancing.

  Cletus hesitated. Boring Swen didn’t see them coming. He would get killed.

  Not completely understanding why, Cletus grabbed Chainy and started after them. He snapped a blade onto one of Chainy’s ends. It was Cletus’ favorite blade. He called it Really Sharp. It was three inches long and slightly curved and made a whistling sound when it spun through the air. On Chainy’s other end he put a heavy ball. It was a lead one with a strengthening rune. He called it Very Heavy.

  He twisted and spun Chainy in a high arc. Very Heavy landed on top of Harry’s head. Harry fell with his skull caved in and Larry looked back at Cletus. Larry’s eyebrows were crinkled because he was angry about Harry being dead.

  “Sorry, Larry,” Cletus said. “I have to kill you now, too.”

  * * *

  Djeri soared about ten feet into the air before falling to the ground. The fall was jarring, but his armor absorbed the impact. More than ever, he was grateful to his uncle Lenui for letting him borrow the armor. He had been honored when it had been offered to him, but he had thought it overkill at the time. Of course, back then he hadn’t known he would be facing Blayne Cragstalker one-on-one. Djeri pushed up to his knees, looking at his enemy, grateful that he wasn’t relying on the tiny viewing slits in his helmet. The faceplate was translucent from the inside.

  “How’d that feel, ya corn-jiggin’ son of a human?” Blayne roared. The veteran dwarf smuggler didn’t even have a weapon in his hands. He didn’t need one. Blayne had been working in magic items for centuries. He had gathered an impressive collection of his own along the way.

  Blayne wore trinkets in his hair that enhanced his strength and bracelets on his wrists that provided a field of protection over his skin. Djeri could see them all now. The first punch Blayne had landed on him had jarred something in Djeri’s mind and that strange place behind his eyes had flexed.

  A new spectrum had opened within his vision. Djeri saw magic everywhere. The pillar of fire was a solid mass of red and yellow. Dinnis’ sword had an angry mix of red and white flashing through its hilt, while Benjo’s spear was black with a yellow tip. Djeri’s own sword blazed black and red, but it was lying on the ground several feet away, knocked out of his hands by one of Blayne’s first blows.

  Djeri rose to his feet as Blayne approached him again and said, “You think you can kill my dag-gum son and get away with it?”

  Donjon lay motionless on the ground next to the wagon. Djeri had stabbed him pretty deep at the beginning of the fight, but Donjon was nearly as tough as his daddy. Djeri was pretty sure he was faking it. At any rate it seemed Blayne believed him.

  Djeri swung his fist in a punch that landed on Blayne’s nose, but the protective spell on the ringmaster’s body flared and Blayne grabbed Djeri’s arm. With a roar, Blayne swung Djeri up through the air and slammed him to the ground. Then the ringmaster climbed on top of him and began throwing punch after punch at Djeri’s helmeted head.

  “How many dag-blamed, blasted punches can yer friggin’ helmet take, huh?” Blayne shouted. “Well let’s find out!” One of Swen’s arrows splintered against the side of the ringmaster’s head, but the dwarf didn’t even notice.

  Djeri watched the beating take place almost as if removed from it. He could see the blows land against his faceplate. He could feel them to an extent, but the armor protected him. Still, he had never felt so helpless.

  Blayne had been tossing him around like a rag doll while his companions were fighting all around him. He saw that Cletus had re-entered the fray and was dancing around another gnome warrior, his chain whirring. Helmet Jan still hadn’t moved from her spot on the ground, and Tarah . . .

  He let one of Blayne’s blows knock his face to the side so he could get a better look. Tarah was engaged in a different kind of battle altogether. She had been freed but she wasn’t moving. She remained kneeling, her eyes locked with the gnome scholar’s. The place behind Djeri’s eyes flexed again and he could tell that the two of them were locked in a kind of tug-of-war, their wills locked together. Ropes of white and black magic stretched between them and were tied like a
knot in the middle.

  Blayne grew bored of his ineffective attacks and decided to try another tactic. “Maybe I’ll just have to burn you the hell out!”

  He stood and pulled Djeri to his feet and started dragging him towards the great pillar of fire. Djeri dug in his feet and punched at Blayne’s arms, trying to break free, but the dwarf’s trinkets made him too strong. Djeri was pretty sure his armor would protect against most fire attacks, but that pillar was made up of extremely strong elemental magic.

  He looked around for anything that might help and that’s when he noted a small flaw in Blaynes protective shields. The magic covered his skin in flickers of black and blue elemental magic, but the shields only covered his skin.

  Djeri changed his tactics. Instead of resisting Blayne’s pull, he ran towards the fire. The surprising move caught Blayne off guard and the ringmaster stumbled. Djeri twisted and yanked forward, pulling Blayne into the pillar with him.

  They struck the pillar with a thud, rebounding off a barrier of air at its center. Djeri felt a flash of heat and backed away immediately, not wanting to test the armor’s capabilities further. Blayne came out with him, cursing wildly, his clothes and hair had been set ablaze.

  The ringmaster leapt to the ground and rolled, but the magically charged flames were difficult to extinguish. When Blayne stood, he was unharmed, but his hair and clothes had been burned off completely. The only things he was still wearing were the protective wrist bands that generated his protective spells.

  “Dag-blast it!” Blayne shouted.

  “You look like a big naked dwarf baby,” Djeri said.

  The ringmaster roared and came at Djeri swinging, but this time there was no extra strength behind the blow. His magic trinkets had fallen off when his hair had been burnt away. Djeri’s academy hand-to-hand training kicked in and he grabbed the ringmasters arm then, using his newfound leverage, threw Blayne to the ground, climbing on top of him.