by Kyra Halland
“It has come to my attention,” the first mage, who seemed to be in charge, went on, “that some of you still don’t believe that my associates and I can do what we say we can do, and that some of you are still complainin’ about the rules we’ve established for your own protection. So I’ve arranged a little demonstration for you.”
The sheriff came out of the building, followed by two other men who were dragging a struggling and shouting Jasik between them. Jasik’s arms were bound behind him, and his face was bloodied and swollen.
“No,” Lainie gasped, and Silas’s anger surged. He started running up the street, Lainie close behind him.
“We caught this blueskin sneakin’ into town yesterday, bent on trouble,” the mage said. “Now watch what I can do to this savage all by myself without breakin’ a sweat, and then see if you still doubt us!”
The men who were holding Jasik pushed him forward. “Run for your life, blueskin!” one of them shouted, laughing. “This is your only chance!”
Jasik stumbled, recovered his footing, then turned towards them, feet apart and knees slightly bent as though getting ready to launch himself against them in spite of his bound arms. “Demons of the underearth take you!” he retorted with a feral grin on his face. “I don’t run.”
Lainie and Silas found their way blocked by the crowd gathered in the street. They could only watch as the boss mage thrust out his hand, which now bore a ring that hadn’t been there the day before. A beam of dark orange light shot out from the mage’s hand, wrapped around Jasik, and jerked him to the ground.
“Wizards!” someone shouted from the crowd. The men who’d been holding Jasik backed away, eyes wide, as though suddenly anxious to distance themselves from the mages.
Lainie started towards where Jasik lay thrashing and snarling in the grip of the magical rope, but Silas blocked her way with an outstretched arm. Sooner or later she was going to have to get involved in a fight, but he didn’t want her to put herself in danger unless it was absolutely necessary. “I’ll handle this.”
She pressed her lips together in a grim line, but nodded and stepped back without arguing.
Silas switched his mage ring from his wedding finger to his left forefinger and focused on the feel of the earth beneath the soles of his boots. Without hesitation – there could be no holding back this time, no matter how uncertain he was or how awkward using his new power felt – he pulled up a thread of his own power, reached into the earth with it, and drew in as much amber Wildings magic as he could in the space of a single breath.
In answer, the threads connecting his own power to him flared up, and he pulled more blue power through them to join with the amber. Magic lit him up inside like lightning in a night sky; he hadn’t felt this strong in months. This wasn’t the time to revel in the feeling, though, and he quickly suppressed the power until he was ready to use it.
He drew his gun, shouldered his way through the shocked crowd, and strode over to stand in front of the boss mage, aiming his gun at him. “Stop.”
The mage gave the glowing orange rope around Jasik another hard jerk, then let it fade. The warrior lay curled up and heaving for breath. “I thought I warned you not to make any trouble,” the boss mage said.
“It’s just like back in Granadaia!” someone called out. “Damned wizards telling us what to do!”
“Who was it that destroyed Thornwood and Stone Creek?” the boss mage demanded, letting his fake Wildings drawl slip. “Was it wizards? Or was it blueskins? Were the Plain folks in Thornwood able to fight off the blueskins themselves? How about the people of Stone Creek? The blueskins have their own magic – that’s what makes their warriors so strong. If you want to have any hope of protecting yourselves and fighting back, you need wizards on your side.”
“We didn’t ask you to come here an’ take over,” another man shouted, “but you come anyway, an’ start telling us all what to do an’ not to do, an’ hangin’ our people –”
“Quiet, Jobus!” someone said. “You’ll make him mad!”
“You’d rather have blueskins come in an’ burn us all in our beds?” someone else asked.
“Exactly,” the boss mage said. “You can follow a few simple rules and let us handle the blueskins for you, or you can sit back and let them attack. What’s happening to this blue savage is nothing compared to what his people will do to you.”
Another rope of dark orange power lashed out from his hand and coiled around Jasik. Silas fired at the second mage, the flunky, to get him out of the way, even as that mage threw a shield in front of himself. The shield slowed that shot; without pausing, Silas focused his intent, fed power into his gun, and fired twice more. The magically powered bullets shattered the shield and one hit the second mage in the chest.
Even before that mage hit the ground, Silas aimed at the boss mage, shaped a different attack, and fired. A bolt of amber power threaded through with blue wrapped around the mage, crackling and flashing, and threw him to the ground. He screamed, and his attack on Jasik broke off.
“Where’s Madam Lorentius?” Silas demanded.
“Who – How – You!” the mage gasped. “Heard – you died – avalanche – in Gap!”
Interesting. Had the Mage Council put that story out? Something to think about later. “Tell me where Elspetya Lorentius is,” Silas repeated. “She’s out here in the Wildings, right?”
“I don’t know!” The magical truth-binding tightened around the mage. “Stop!”
“I’ll stop when you tell me what I want to know.” The truth-binding spell was by far the most advanced magic Silas had done since Lainie repaired his power. Managing it felt awkward, like he was grappling with something a little too large for him to handle; the amber earth-magic seemed to have a life and mind of its own. But at the same time, the combination of the Wildings power and his own seemed more sensitive to his intent and to his prisoner’s truthfulness, or lack thereof, than did his power alone.
The mage’s voice cracked with pain. “I don’t know exactly where she is –”
“Don’t tell him, Umberton!” shouted a man who came running down the street. A ball of dark blue-green power flew from his hand towards Silas. A rose-colored bolt pierced the attack and shattered it, followed immediately by a gunshot. The mage fell to the ground, blood spreading across his chest.
A man who had been following the fallen mage shot a beam of pale orange power at the blue and amber magical rope binding Umberton, the boss mage. Silas poured more power into his binding to strengthen it. The orange beam hit Silas’s rope; instead of breaking it, the burst of orange power sent a shockwave along the rope. Silas nearly lost his grip on the rope as the sharp, burning shock hit him. The length of magic wrapped around the boss mage sent a much greater amount of the colliding powers into him. He let out a shriek of agony. “Damn it, Kevlin, you know better than that!”
“Sorry, Lord Umberton!” Kevlin fired a second beam of pale orange at Silas. A ball of rose power knocked it off course, and a gunshot to the gut brought that man down.
Good work, darlin’, Silas thought, proud and grateful. So far they’d seen four enemy mages; were they going to have to deal with even more? He turned back to Umberton. “Tell me what you know.”
“I saw a list of places,” Umberton gasped, compelled by the truth-binding wrapped tightly around him. “She was going to set up her headquarters somewhere, but I don’t know where – we’re only told what we need to know!”
“Tell me what you saw on the list.”
“I wasn’t supposed to see it – I didn’t get a good look –”
He wasn’t lying, but Silas pulled the bindings even tighter, to encourage him to be more forthcoming. “Tell me what you did see.”
“All right, all right! Just let me breathe – it’s too tight!”
“If you’ve got enough breath to whine, you’ve got enough to talk. Now talk.”
“You’re a hard man.”
What little patience Silas had left snapped. “I didn’t
rape and murder A’ayimat children.”
“That wasn’t us, it was one of the other –” The mage cut short his words, but the curtailed admission was enough for Silas.
“You folks heard that!” Silas called out to the people gathered in the street. “That’s why the blueskins attacked those towns – because this man’s gang ravaged and murdered blueskin children and set it up to look like it was the settlers that did it!”
A tumult of confusion boiled up from the onlookers. “How do we know which of you wizards is lying and which one isn’t?” one man shouted.
“Don’t say that; they’ll hang all of us!” a woman protested.
“Tell me,” Silas said to Umberton. He gave the magical bindings a hard jerk. “What towns did you see on that list?”
“All right!” the mage cried. “Forn’s Crossing, Honeybee, and Strawdale, and Bitterbush Springs, and also Bentwood Gulch and Canyon View –”
“Look out!” Lainie cried.
Before Silas could react, a blast of power from behind and to his right struck him and sent him flying. His grip on the magical bindings around Umberton slipped loose, and he hit the ground hard. He rolled with the impact and up onto his knees, then a blow against his back flattened him again. A heavy, booted foot came to rest on his back, pressing him to the ground.
“Silas Vendine, or, should I say, Siyavas Venedias,” a man’s voice said. “I knew we’d finally catch you if we hung around here.”
Chapter 18
MAGE HUNTERS. DAMN, just what he needed right now. Silas tried to get up, but the hunter pushed down harder on his back. He craned his head, searching for Lainie. The crowd in the street between them had thinned out, and now he could see a second hunter, a man he thought he might have met before, gripping her in a chokehold from behind and holding his revolver to her head.
Silas’s rage boiled up even hotter. How dare that bastard threaten Lainie? He reached into the earth beneath him and started pulling in more power, warm amber shading to brown.
“Do you have any idea how much you’re worth, Venedias?” asked the hunter whose foot was on Silas’s back. “Fifteen hundred gildings. And another fifteen hundred for the woman. She’s even more dangerous than you, if you can believe it. Seems she can do things no one should be able to do.”
Silas felt like he’d been punched in the gut and had all the breath knocked out of him. Three thousand gildings for him and Lainie. “Dead or alive?” he asked. Not that it mattered; he had no intention of giving up. But if the mages needed to keep them alive, that would give him and Lainie an advantage.
“Either way. Dead would be easier than hauling your renegade ass back through the Gap. Maybe we’ll kill you and take the woman.”
Silas fought back another surge of anger. He didn’t want to provoke the other hunter into pulling the trigger. “Listen. We’re in the middle of something big here. We may have broken some rules, and yeah, she’s got some unusual talents because she’s Wildings-born, but we’re no threat to the Mage Council or to Granadaia. These fellows are the ones you should be worried about.” He jerked his head towards Umberton, who lay on the ground gasping and writhing, unable to get up even though the binding had disappeared, and the bodies of the other mages. “They belong to a group of renegades calling themselves the Hidden Council –”
The hunter who had his foot on Silas’s back spat on the ground, dangerously close to Silas’s face. “I’ve heard of the Hidden Council. Bunch of Plain-loving softheads, but harmless.”
“Not any more. This gang took it over. They’re out here in the Wildings stirring up trouble so they can move in and set up their own dominion. I think in time they mean to overthrow the Mage Council and take over Granadaia as well.”
“Why should I believe you?” the hunter asked. “When we both know you’ve turned against your own kind?”
“Anyhow, there’s no bounty on those fellas,” the other hunter – Kort, Silas remembered his name was – called over.
No bounty? The Mage Council really thought Silas and Lainie were more dangerous than Elspetya Lorentius and her gang of rogue mages? Either they had no idea what was really going on, or they were even bigger fools than Silas had thought.
Umberton had struggled to his feet while Silas and the hunter were arguing. The other mages didn’t move, but now two more men had joined him and were helping him over to the covered sidewalk in front of the sheriff’s office. The sheriff and his two deputies hung back, looking from the Hidden Council men to Silas and the mage hunter, clearly at a loss as to whose side they should take. Jasik was slowly scooting towards the sidewalk across the street from the jailhouse. At least for the moment, the warrior was safe and the Hidden Council mages were no longer a threat. Now to deal with these sons of bitches who were after that three thousand gilding bounty.
Silas went limp beneath the hunter’s foot, then suddenly rolled over, catching the hunter’s leg and pulling him down. He rapped the hunter on the back of the head with his gun, then threw a shield around himself and got to his feet, now planting his foot on the hunter’s back. Right away, two magical attacks, one from Umberton, who was more recovered than Silas had thought, and one from Kort, came at him at the same time. They crashed into the shield with bone-jarring force. Silas called up more power, let the shield down, and blasted Umberton and his two cronies back against the wall of the saloon next to the sheriff’s office. Glass shattered as one of them slammed through the front window of the saloon.
Silas looked back to see Lainie dig an elbow into Kort’s gut, twist herself free, and knee him in the groin. The hunter let out a yowl and dropped to the ground, curled up around himself. Silas sent magic and intent into his gun and fired a paralyzing bolt, blue swirled with dark amber, at him. The bolt of magic wound around Kort and sank in, leaving him stiff and unmoving. More power, to replace what he had spent, flowed into Silas through the connection he had opened between himself and the earth, darkening to golden brown as the amber layer wore thin and the power within him reached deeper.
Lainie ran to him, her gaze going behind him to where Umberton and his two men had fallen. “They’re getting back up,” she said.
Stubborn bastards. “Cover me,” Silas said. She nodded and took a position standing back to back with him, protecting him from the mages behind him. Silas reloaded his gun and aimed down at the hunter he had thrown, lying stunned at his feet. He didn’t want to kill a mage hunter, one of his own, even if that man had tried to capture him. But he would if he had to. “If you were hanging around here and paying any attention at all, you should know what these men are up to. Why in all the hells did you think I’d come after them, otherwise? And you heard what Umberton said. Now, if you and Kort will use your brains and agree to help us with these renegades, I’ll let you go.”
“Forget it, Vendine!” Kort shouted from where he lay helpless on the ground. “We’re not giving up that bounty!”
At his back, Silas felt Lainie move suddenly. He shifted his gun into his right hand and spun around to see a ball of rose-colored power collide with three attacks thrown by Umberton and his cronies. A second set of attacks flew towards Silas and Lainie; Silas met this one with a blast of his own, golden brown only lightly threaded through with blue.
And still the power flowed into him from where he had tapped into the earth, darkening to a deeper brown and then to black. A chill began to flow up Silas’s legs, massing in his chest and spreading through his arms, a frigid pain he recognized well. A mist of darkness formed over his sight. He knew he should cut off the flow of power; he had entered into very dangerous territory. But instead of making him feel weak and sick as the bullets had, the raw, unrestrained Sh’kimech power filled him with even greater strength. The Sh’kimech’s voices, once filled with agony and rage, now sang in his mind, eagerly offering him their power to destroy the ones who dared to threaten their sister. Almost of its own volition, a dense black ball of power gathered in his left hand.
The three Hidden
Council men hastily shielded themselves. Undeterred by the shield, Silas threw the cold, heavy mass of power at them. It hit the shield and engulfed the wall of magic and the mages behind it in an explosion of utterly black power. Screams ripped through the air and quickly died, then the blinding darkness cleared to reveal three bodies lying broken and still on the sidewalk in front of the smashed wall of the saloon.
Satisfaction, hot and powerful, surged through Silas. He could do anything; he could destroy anyone with hardly more than a thought. No one could stand against him. The knowledge was as intoxicating as it had been that other time the Sh’kimech had given him their power, in that cavern beneath Yellowbird Canyon.
He turned back to the mage hunter lying at his feet, who had rolled over and was staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes. “What in all the hells is that power?” the hunter asked, his voice strained with terror.
Silas gazed down at him through the black mist over his vision. He moved his gun back to his left hand and aimed down at the hunter, savoring the moment as he prepared to destroy the infestation…
“Silas!”
From far away, Lainie’s voice pierced his thoughts. He turned to her, not angry at the interruption – neither he nor the powers within him could ever be angry at her – but determined to get on with what needed to be done.
Stop, she said. It was the Sh’kimech she was speaking to now and not him, but the sound and feel of her voice in his mind entranced him anyway. He isn’t yours, she said. He’s mine. You can’t have him.
But, Sister, the voices inside Silas replied, he is willing to do our work for us.
Sudden remembrance of the danger he was in clashed with the heady sense of power the Sh’kimech gave him. He should speak up, control them. But it was so hard to stand against their desire and their will and everything they offered him, especially when it was so close to what he himself wanted.
He only wanted to stop those wicked men, Lainie said to the Sh’kimech.
He invited us in! He wants to serve us!