Age of Mystics (Saga of Mystics Book 1)

by Chris Walters

  “You did,” Nat replied. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, it just took everything out of me. That last part was all of my fear and anger and rage.”

  Natalee just nodded and smiled, “I could see that.”

  Kim smiled back, “I will be okay. Just go finish them.”

  Natalee looked back at the burning men and those who were aiding them. They had done what they came to do, these men would not be a threat this day. She needed to get Kim back to the walls before dawn. She helped the woman to her feet. “No, let’s get back inside the walls.”

  Helping Kim back was the right choice, and Nat knew it, but she also wished she had finished off every last one of them. She would like to have met Eric Fine in that field today, but that would have to wait for another day.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  Jenny walked by Natalee and Kim. Kim was exhausted and her clothes were singed with fire, but she and the teen beauty were huddled together on the middle level telling Kin Ko about what they had done. Jenny wondered if Nat noticed the adoration that young man had for her, she thought it was probably obvious to everyone else.

  As Jenny kept walking, she passed by Ted and Kayla trying to clean Max up. The little girl was absolutely covered with blood, though apparently most of it wasn’t hers. Jenny didn’t even want to think about that. The little girl was bawling and mourning the loss of some of her dogs. Near them was a group of cadets mourning over the bodies of their fallen friends, about half of the group that went with Max had not made it back alive. The stench of death was growing. It was not quite dawn and the night had already taken its toll.

  This is my fault. Jenny thought to herself. If I had just let that Fine guy take me, none of this would have happened. That is what this army of men had wanted, just her. Apparently they had said they would leave if Ted gave them Jenny. Ted Craven was a good man; it would never enter his mind to give her up. But the question that haunted Jenny Martinez was whether or not she could still consider herself a good person if she didn’t do all she could to stop this bloodshed. She needed to find a way to give herself up.

  “Hey, Jenny, could I get a hand?” Erica called out as she headed toward Kim and Nat.

  Jenny nodded and followed.

  “I was just thinking,” Erica started, “You can read the people right?”

  “Their auras, yes.” Jenny had no idea what Erica was getting at.

  “So can you tell when they are emotionally depleted?” Erica asked, and Jenny still wasn’t getting it.

  “Yes, the auras become more translucent. At least, that is the only way I can describe it.”

  Erica grinned at her, “Great! Let’s try something on Kim. I am going to restore her power a little bit. You tell me when it is opaque enough that she can function again. What do you say?”

  Jenny looked over at Kim, laying against a tree trunk. “Yeah, that would work.”

  Erica continued, “That way I don’t spread myself too thin and we are sure to have everyone at good levels of power, maybe not max levels, but good enough.”

  Jenny nodded, it was a good plan and they got to work on it right away. Rich came out with his guitar and started playing, which also helped, as Jenny could see everyone’s auras firming up. Jenny and Erica went from group to group for a while healing up people’s power, all the while Jenny was more and more realizing that she could make this all end.

  She knew what she would have to do, and as the morning was approaching rapidly, she made up her mind. Making an excuse, she cleared away from Erica, and then the rest of the group and silently made her way down to the ground gate. Seeing only one guard, she made no attempt to explain herself, just saying she would be right back and slipped into the blackness of the night. She knew she would have to avoid detection, because her friends would come after her. She also knew that Fine was south of the Hillside, so that is the direction she headed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  As soon as Eleanor’s aide had arrived at the Academy, Kyle had told Commandant Casco of his need to go. Britton had allowed him to take a dozen of his trainees with him, so he had taken the twelve best. He had to argue with Jessica to get her to stay at the Academy, and with Casco to not force him to wait for a larger group. Kyle and Britton Casco had become good friends in the last couple of weeks, and had a natural rapport that served their alliance well. It had also made Casco bend to Kyle’s need to go immediately.

  His team had camped for a couple of hours in the night at some abandoned house along the way. They had passed various people who had come together in camps, and some of those gave them information about the best place to make camp and such. There was now nearly a foot of snow on the ground and it was that bitter cold time when the sun outlines the horizon to the east. The eight men and four women stomped their feet to get warm, and get the blood moving in their legs. Kyle had only allowed them a few hours’ rest, so worried was he that they would return to find an abandoned hillside or worse.

  “Ok, folks, let’s move.” Kyle called out and the group gathered their swords, the sabre now a sign of the cadet of the academy, and marched out. In another hour or so, they should be able to round the high ground and see the lights of the Hillside.

  As dawn broke, they came within view of the Hillside far away, but the light that shone atop the plateau were not lit. A sense of deep dread fell on Kyle, and he picked up the pace to get there. He hoped he just could not see the lights through the blowing snow, but feared there was some other reason. Half way to the restaurant, they found the site of a battle of some kind. He saw corpses with the telltale marks of dog bites, but this also didn’t seem one-sided, though there were many corpses there. The cadets seemed concerned.

  Cameron Bridges, one of the more gifted fighters in the bunch, stepped forward. “Sir, are any of these yours?”

  Kyle searched through all of the bodies he could find, and did not recognize one. But he saw that some had been dragged away, there were various drag marks in the dirt. He had to chase away a few coyotes that were scavenging the dead, it was a disgusting sight. His head was reeling. When he took it all in, there were more than one hundred corpses here, maybe as many as one hundred and fifty. How could his family and friends have survived?

  One of the women let out a low hiss, which turned out to be a warning and they all ducked down and hid themselves.

  “This way,” came a call out of the growing dawn light to the south. “Jesus. Will you look at this? Looks like we should have sent Tigers with them. These soldiers didn’t stand a chance.”

  “We’ve got company.” Said another of the men as they came into view. They wore a mixture of gi and camo, that just looked ridiculous to Kyle.

  Kyle stood to face them, some in the group had already been seen anyway. “These your men?”

  The man who was clearly the group leader turned and looked at him. “Well, look here. Academy Cadets! Why don’t you all hand over those weapons before I shove them up your ass?”

  Kyle’s squad were disciplined, and he knew they would not take the bait. “I asked you a question?”

  “Yeah, kid?” asked the man next to the leader, “And who the fuck are you to ask us anything? Now hand over the swords and we may let you live.”

  Kyle made a quick hand motion and the cadets pulled their swords in unison. “I will ask one more time. Are these your men, and did you do this?”

  The leader made his own hand motions and the twenty men behind him hit a stance and shouted “Kiai!”

  Kyle’s ability was not in fighting, but in light, and his squad knew it. It was interesting that he was one of the people best suited to train fighters, due to his training growing up, but he did not have that gift. He was, however, a second degree black belt. It was clear to him almost immediately that these men were trained and had powers. His squad had weapons, but their squad had numbers, outnumbering them twenty to twelve. Kyle dropped back into line with his people.

  “Fuck this,” said the leader and he rushed. K
yle did his best, but the man’s power was overcoming Kyle’s superior training. The rest of the squad was fighting all around him, their weapons evening the odds. But it was the thought of powers that saved Kyle’s life.

  He was getting hit hard and fast, parrying about two thirds of the blows and he knew he wouldn’t last when he remembered that he had powers of his own. With each punch he threw, Kyle now also threw light. The distraction was enough and he started to get through the man’s defenses. He had to focus on his own problem, but he was aware of people dropping nearby. He could only hope they weren’t his men. The flurry of punches and kicks both men threw was stunning, Kyle’s flashes and balls of light were finally gaining him an advantage as the man was overusing his power. If he could keep up the fight, Kyle was starting to realize he could win.

  He was suddenly hit with a massive blow in the back that sent him reeling and found that he was being attacked by a man on each side of himself. He was losing ground; the blows were taking their toll. He thought of the grief his mom would bear losing him as well as his dad, and suddenly he stopped getting hit.

  “What the fuck? Where did he go?” said the man directly behind him.

  The man before him looked around blindly, clearly not seeing him. Without wasting a moment, Kyle drew a knife from its sheath at his waste and buried it to the hilt under the man’s chin. Blood spurted out of the man’s nose and mouth as he fell to the ground dead, the knife having gone all the way into his brain. Kyle did not have time to react and pull the blade out, so he turned to face the other man who put his hands up and fell to his knees.

  “Stop, stop, okay.” The man shouted, loud enough that even the other men and Kyle’s squad broke off their fighting. “You win, I surrender.”

  The man’s eyes focused on Kyle finally, and he said, “How did you do that?”

  Kyle knew that he would need to make this stick. “It is not the only thing I can do,” he said, though he wasn’t entirely sure what he had done.

  The man called out to the rest of his group, “They can go invisible boys. Give up, we won’t win this one.”

  The men all stopped fighting and gave up, and his group looked at him inquisitively. “Bind them, we will take them to the ground gate.” Turning toward the man kneeling before him, he added, “Now, I asked you a question. Are these your men, and did you do this?”

  Kyle leaned in close and put the most intimidating look he could muster on his face. The man gave him the answer, “Yes. These were our men, and no, we didn’t do this.”

  “Where are those who you fought here?”

  “I don’t know; I didn’t get here until we found you.”

  Kyle looked around. Six of his dozen, including Cameron Bridges, lay on the ground dead. Twice that many of the enemy were dead. So he had seven remaining, including himself. The others had eight, including the man before Kyle. The team bound the men’s hands behind their backs. Just as Kyle finished tying up his own captive, he looked up to see a small dog watching them. He smiled at it and said, “Tell your dad I will be home in a few minutes.”

  The dog ran off.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  As the light steadily grew toward the day, Jenny walked on. She was rounding the area toward the south side of the cliffs over which hung the Hillside Restaurant, and no longer needed to hide. Her friends might be able to see her now, but they could not get to her in time to stop her from ending this violence. If she could put an end to it by anything, up to and including sacrificing her life, she would do it. She didn’t want any more people to die on her behalf.

  As she got close to the cliffs, she smelled something similar to meat cooking on a grill, but with a slight hint of foulness. She saw the burnt shrubs first, and then the charred corpses, three of them under a tree. She stopped in her tracks at the sight of it, the flesh burned off of the faces of these people lying there, seemingly where they had caught fire. She turned away and continued on, seeing so many burnt bodies, some partially charred and some complete charcoal. Nearby, she heard someone move and ran forward to try to help.

  Kneeling over one of the corpses was a portly man with peppered hair and a goatee. He turned as she came up. It was too late by the time she saw the dojo patch on his jacket. She turned to run, but was stopped by another man in the same garb who had been behind her and she didn’t even realize it.

  “I am Jenny Martinez.” She blurted out, “I am giving myself up to Eric Fine. You stop all of this butchery now.”

  The man smiled, a twinkle in his eye. “Good luck for us. I was going to have to tell Shogun that we had lost the whole company, but now I have you to bring to him.”

  “Fine, I am ready to go. You can call off the attack now, let my friends live. I gave myself up before dawn.”

  The men all laughed. “Cute idea, Jenny. But your friends are all dead.”

  “I just left them. They are not dead.”

  “They might as well be,” said the man on her right, “They will be soon enough.” The men chuckled again, but not the portly man, who was looking at something past her.

  “No. It can’t be, you are dead!” The man said.

  Jenny cowered as he moved forward, but it was like he had forgotten entirely that she was there. He pushed his way past her and the other two men turned around to see what he was looking at. Standing at the edge of the clearing she had just come through was the homeless man who had saved her before. His beard was a little longer, but other than that he looked the same. His hood was up and even in this light; he wore those sunglasses. Cliff called him the Hermit, the portly man called him something as he ran at him and swung a huge punch at him.

  The man sidestepped the punch with ease and cracked the other man on the back of the skull, sending him sprawling into some thorny looking bushes. The other two men rushed, it was a bad idea. The man apparently had a samurai sword on him as well, and with dizzying speed he sliced the air. Jenny saw the man’s bowels fall to the ground in front of him while he was still running. Slipping in his own entrails, he fell to the ground and lay still. The other man might have fared a little better. He lost his head in one swipe of the man’s sword. Just like that, the sword was back in its scabbard and the man just stood there calmly. Jenny lost her lunch on the dirt at her feet.

  “When Shogun hears that you are still alive…” the portly man began. Before he could finish that sentence, the hermit had drawn the sword again and hurled it through the air. It went through the man’s throat and lodged in the tree behind him. He reached up and tried to remove the sword, but there was no chance, he just died there, propped in a standing position by the sword in his neck.

  Jenny wiped the bile from her mouth, trying hard not to look at the carnage that surrounded her. “I have to turn myself in to these men’s boss.”

  The Hermit looked off south and shook his head no.

  She pleaded with him, “You must understand, my friends will die if I don’t.”

  The Hermit pointed to the charred corpses, as well as the ones he had just killed and shook his head no again.

  “Okay,” she said, realizing that he was saying there was no need, “But you can come meet them. You can stay with us, be part of our group.”

  He turned and looked at her, something like pain or regret covering his face and he again shook his head no. He turned on the spot and walked back into the brush. When Jenny tried to follow, she could find neither him, nor any trace of his passing. He seemed to have just vanished.

  Jenny walked back to where the other men died, and one of the dogs was standing there staring at her. She knew that Maxine was now telling her father where Jenny was, that they would all be along shortly to save her. She had also heard the tone and tenor of what the dead men had said. Jenny giving herself up would not save the group, they would either save themselves or perish. This was the way of the world now. She began to make her way back to the Hillside, with just the dog for company.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  Eric seethed
with anger as he rounded up the remaining four hundred soldiers and twenty-nine Tigers for their final attack. He decided he would make an example out of Meyer, since Damiano was no longer available to him. He had been very specific about his orders. He said nothing about burning. Why could they not just do as instructed? He hated when his men got creative. For lighting a fire and ruining his moment, he would burn Zane Meyer alive. This would be an example to those who tried to be creative with his instructions in the future.

  Light was peering over the eastern horizon now, and as the sun bared its corona into the eastern plains, Eric raised his hand to ready the men. He was pleased about one thing. The snow was lighter, and the visibility was better. From his camp, he could now see the Hillside, though it was far away. It would take his men a half hour to get to the Hillside, maybe more.

  Turning back to his men, the extended visibility showed him something else. Far to the south, about an equal distance from how far his camp was from the Hillside, a small band approached. They walked openly, and wore all black, so they were easy to spot.

  “Hold, men!” He called out, “We have company to the south. Give me five Tigers.” Six Tigers came forward and Eric just shook his head, he was certain he had to stupidest force in the history of military armies. “Five, I said five. One of you go back to formation.”

  The last one running up sort of slinked off. It would have been comical, if it were not so tragic. “You five, run to the south to that group of men flanking us. If they are a threat, deal with them. If they are not a threat, wave this.” He handed them a large red flag he had removed from one of the mansions that made up the Inner Circle. “Am I clear?”

  “Yes, Shogun!” The men all shouted in unison.

  “At ease, men,” He shouted out to his force. “We have a short delay and should get back to the attack within the hour. Dismissed.”

  The men all went back to what they were doing before, small conversation and such. Eric sat in his saddle and watched the north and the south for any sign. For its part, the north looked as it would any other day. He could just make out the charred outline of a burn area at the foot of the cliffs below the Hillside. Meyer’s group, he thought to himself and renewed his resolve to kill that man.