by Stephen Wolf
With the sleep-mist spell ruined, some of the healers broke ranks and charged at Dariak with weapons. Staves, daggers, and a mace came lunging for him all at once. He rummaged quickly through his pockets for a root of blackwood, which he could use to cause blindness, but his hand struck something else, and a flurry of words burst forth from his lips: “Sassrathallian vornier habberleese!” It was an unexpected spell he had never heard of before, and in the time it took to cast, the healers had battered his protective shield into uselessness, then swung their weapons into him.
And through him, he noticed. His entire body reacted with the consistency of water. The mace pressed into his nose, then slowed down as it went through him, but it left him unscathed. He swung his arm out to block a dagger thrust, but he slid right through the attacker. The healers swung a few more times but started to panic, for they had never seen such a spell before. They weren’t meant to be fighters anyway, and many of them fled.
Feeling a sense of success, Dariak grinned, realizing he had touched the new crystal he had confiscated from the museum. While his first crystal was of earth, this one apparently had powers of water. The water spell faded away, leaving behind an odd, deep exhaustion. He couldn’t dwell on it for long, though, because a new, enraged foe appeared.
Master Elgris strode forth from the sanctuary, his eyes alight with anger. His arms swung up and around, and Dariak could feel the pull of the energies from the man. He struggled to pull them back, to somehow prevent the healer from casting whatever spell he was conjuring. But the healer pulled forcefully, and several balls of violet light glimmered within his fists. He spiraled them around in an intricate pattern that mesmerized some of the healers who were supposed to be fighting with him.
Dariak was too focused to be caught by a mere light show, however. He observed the pattern in a detached sort of way and then did his best to duplicate the motion. Mimicry was a vital skill for an ambitious mage, for if the magic user could not adopt specific body patterns quickly, then it wouldn’t be feasible to learn more than just a few minor spells. Fighting his exhaustion, Dariak bent his knees and swayed his body in time with the motions, then swept one hand down to his left pocket, pulling out a shard of glass. He wouldn’t be able to create a protective shield with it, but it wouldn’t help him anyway against the power being drawn now.
Gabrion and Kitalla bounded about as if they had fought together for years. She dove low as his sword swung high; then she sprang up as he spun about to kick out at another foe. Her daggers flashed like lightning, striking her opponents fiercely, while Gabrion’s sword glided through the air like a gleaming moon, casting wider arcs of reflected torchlight that were just as deadly. Slowly, they took steps back toward the mage, where the sounds of chanting irked them both.
Elgris’s muttering grew louder, but Dariak couldn’t focus on the words the old man was using. He wouldn’t be able to anticipate the intended effects of this spell, but he knew that Elgris thought Dariak was an instigator of war and deserved to die. Dariak continued to follow the motions of the master healer while also sputtering a few words of his own, and he clenched his fist on the glass shard and cut himself deeply, saying, “Suocillipus mirollia petrica!” The glass shimmered and vanished, but Dariak’s left hand glowed dimly.
Roaring, Elgris shot his arms forward with a face creased in such fury he looked like a monster. Purple blasts of energy lashed out at Dariak with malevolent force. The mage held out his glowing hand while curling his whole self into a semicircle. The light struck his hand, and he felt the effects of the spell run through him. The energies called for the cessation of all of his life functions, the truest opposite to healing that there could ever be. He pulled the energies in thoroughly and allowed the shape of his body and the spell he had cast to act as they must. The power coursed through him, sickening everything and then racing back up and around to the glowing hand, where the violet light was reflected back out, seeking its originator.
Elgris didn’t see it coming. He couldn’t have fathomed that anyone could reflect such a spell back to its source. The light struck him with nearly the full blast he had released. The old man crumpled to the ground, instantly dead.
Dariak was badly weakened but very much alive, thanks to the reflective power of glass and the spell he had used to call to it. But he couldn’t stand anymore.
Gabrion saw the mage fall to the ground. He slashed his sword behind him into one more foe, then turned to Dariak’s aid. Kitalla sensed the shift in the warrior’s focus, and she too altered her strategy. She slew the sentry before her and, seeing six more on the way, turned to help Gabrion. They hoisted the mage onto the warrior’s back, and then she scrambled for a fallen torch.
Kitalla spun the fire around her body, kicking one leg into the air, then swinging her arm out to the side. She brought the torch down across her torso and then twisted so she could follow the flame with her empty hand. Around and about she shifted, pouring her concentration into every movement. She knew she was completely exposed now, with no hope of defending herself, but Gabrion and Dariak were both out of the battle now. If this didn’t work, they all would die.
She leaped into the air and landed gently, bending her knees and folding over at her waist, dragging the torch in a graceful pattern with every maneuver. As the fighters approached, they were caught in her enchantment, and their eyes focused only on the fire as it moved about. But she couldn’t stay there dancing forever. If others came too soon, their appearance would break this stage of the trance. Yet she also couldn’t rush the effect, for that too would ruin it. Down and around the torch went, simulating the sun on its path through the sky, twisting and weaving as if affected by weather.
And then at the last, she threw the torch forward to startle them. What she didn’t expect was the blazing fireball that erupted in their midst, severely wounding them. Stunned, she turned around to see Dariak hanging desperately on Gabrion’s shoulder, his hands outstretched in one last spell before he swooned.
Not waiting for any more of the king’s reinforcements, they ran.
Chapter 13
Departure from Kaison
Gabrion bolted from the battle site with Kitalla at his heels. They didn’t have a plan of where to go, but they knew they needed to escape the town at all costs. Alarms flared all over, and though they had successfully dealt with a whole contingent of fighters, they knew they couldn’t outlast them all. Kitalla didn’t know of any other safe locations in town anyway, so if they remained, it would all be based on luck. Kitalla never chose to do much based solely on luck. The town wall was too high to scale under these circumstances, so dashing through the guard station was the best route.
Gabrion carried Dariak’s limp body on his back, which greatly limited his mobility. His arms were under the mage’s knees, and the mage’s arms were hanging down Gabrion’s chest. The warrior had to lean forward slightly to keep the mage from falling off. He pretended for a time that Mira was on his back and that he needed to get her to safety. He simultaneously thought of her waiting up the road and needing to reach her quickly. It helped him focus on anything but the pain he was feeling from the forced run, and it allowed his body to fall into the drill routines that Andron had put him through.
“Keep at it, son,” Andron had said. “That wood has to get to town somehow.”
“On my shoulder?” the young warrior had grunted in complaint. “At this pace?”
“Trees don’t walk on their own, do they?” The soldier had laughed.
Gabrion grinned at the memory, for Andron had challenged him to cart back larger and larger branches across the field after a hard wind had torn some trees down. And Andron hadn’t carried a single branch, making Gabrion and two others do all the hard work. They had all been sore for days, but now Gabrion realized that it was the hard training that had prepared him for moments like this.
His feet pounded along the ground as the guard station c
ame into view. Gabrion had been practically unconscious when Dariak had driven them through on the war-horse days ago. He thought it ironic now that he was the war-horse and the mage was incoherent.
Kitalla wasn’t thinking of anything at all except getting through the gate without losing a limb. As they approached, she could see that the guards had heard the alarms in town, and so their weapons were at the ready. But she also saw something that would make a stop here worthwhile: horses.
Having been to the town numerous times before, cataloging everything she saw each time, she had never seen more than six guards here. With a failed attempt at a public execution that morning, followed by an immediate break-in at the museum, she wasn’t surprised to see that the complement of guards had doubled even that.
Gabrion was encumbered with the mage, so she knew the first attack would be hers. She pulled out half a dozen of her remaining knives and prepared them for assault. Sprinting ahead of Gabrion, she swung her arms in powerful arcs, releasing one dagger per foe with each pass. Only two of the daggers missed vital organs, but they still caused some damage. She reached for two other daggers and readied them for close combat.
Two of the uninjured guards spun around and faced the attackers. Kitalla drew their attention with a vicious cry and leaped toward them, daggers slashing wildly. She caught a lucky strike against one man, killing him instantly, but the other one stubbornly refused to give her an easy win. She faced off against him, bringing one arm up, then kicking out at his knee. He slapped her across her face with his free hand as he brought his mace around to finish her. Tucking low, Kitalla barely dodged the mace and followed up her move by slashing into his knee, taking him down. She tossed his mace to the side so he couldn’t attack, but she didn’t have time to finish him off.
Gabrion watched as Kitalla raced ahead and then took down half the guards with such fluid grace that it looked like a choreographed dance. He ran ahead, then grudgingly slid Dariak to the ground so he could help the thief in her struggle.
Having taken on the brunt of the assault, the other guards deemed her the greater adversary and focused mostly on her. The one guard who didn’t met a quick end on Gabrion’s sword. The warrior didn’t hesitate to keep plunging ahead. He cut into the sword arm of one guard, then spun around and bashed the man’s head with the buckler, knocking him to the ground. Kitalla was so exhausted she kept screaming as she lashed out with successive attacks. At moments like this, Bostian’s wild charges had been most helpful.
Gabrion heard the sound of shattering glass in his head but ignored it as he turned to another attacker. The man was already wounded from Kitalla’s first strike, but he was furious at these rebels, and his rage propelled him to a massive assault. Gabrion parried an attack that would have impaled Kitalla through the head; then he threw his body into the man to knock him away.
The guard recovered quickly, bringing his sword around and crashing it against Gabrion’s shoulder. The warrior rolled aside and ignored the attack, focusing on ending this struggle quickly. He hacked wildly, and sparks flew as the two swords intercepted each other. The standoff was interrupted momentarily as one of the other guards tried to intervene, but Kitalla wouldn’t allow it, tossing a dagger at the nape of the man’s neck and bringing him down. She turned toward one of the wounded guards, but he held up his hands in supplication, desperately begging for mercy. He found it in the form of a dagger hilt crashing against his head, but it was better than the blade.
Gabrion’s attacker saw that the guards had been decimated, but pride demanded he take down these rogues. He backed slightly away from Gabrion, keeping one hand actively poking and parrying with the sword, but his other hand reached in a pocket and retrieved a vial, which he crushed in his hand, and then he muttered some words. The man’s sword took on a dim glow, and Gabrion noticed that the attack pattern changed. It was as if the guard had exchanged his weapon for one that was much lighter. He whipped it back and forth with increasing speed, and Gabrion was hard-pressed to keep from being hit.
Rather than demoralize the warrior, the illegal use of magic on the weapon infuriated Gabrion. He had never agreed with the tactics the old king had used in the War of the Colossus to secretly strengthen the arrows through magic. Now the act was being carried out against him. In the moment, it didn’t occur to him that he too was protected by magic, for Dariak’s spell was still intact.
Anger welled inside him, and his focus sharpened considerably. He heard the tinkling of shattering glass again and again, but it grew more faint, though he again forced himself to concentrate on his foe. He eased his eyes slightly, trying to follow a pattern of movement from the faster weapon, and he delighted that he found one. He raised his sword and lanced it forward into an opening, causing the guard to jump back defensively. Gabrion dove to the ground and rolled forward, sweeping one foot out, but the guard was ready for the feint. The faster sword came around and down quickly, and it was all Gabrion could do to bat it aside. But the drive of the thrust sent the sword halfway into the ground, and there appeared Gabrion’s advantage.
The warrior turned on his side and kicked one long leg up into the man’s chest, detaching him from his sword. Gabrion then hopped onto his feet and took his foe’s weapon in hand, noting, indeed, that it felt entirely too light for steel and seemed coated in a cushion of air. His assessment of the weapon cost him, though, for the guard threw a knife, and blocking it caused Gabrion to drop the sword. The guard rushed in, diving for the weapon, but Gabrion kicked it aside and then stamped his other foot down hard on the man’s wrist. He followed the move with a boot to the man’s head, ending the fight.
Gabrion turned around to help Kitalla with the rest, but there were no more. She had taken down the others or had accepted their surrenders, after which she quickly bound them. She had awoken Dariak and escorted him to the horses, telling him he needed to be strong enough to ride. To his credit, the mage did as he was told, though in a daze.
“I figured you could finish that one on your own,” she said offhandedly to Gabrion, tossing him the reins to a sandy-brown steed. “Hope you don’t mind.” She then hopped onto a black horse and snapped the reins, Dariak close behind.
Gabrion looked around again at the carnage, shaking his head, realizing just how dangerous Kitalla could be. He shrugged off his small buckler and claimed a larger shield that hadn’t served its owner at all, considering Kitalla’s surprise attack. He mounted the nervous horse and left, following his companions.
The moon was high overhead, and Kitalla was both grateful and angry for it. While they would be able to find their way easily, they would also be easier to track. Still, they were in much better shape than they’d been without the horses. She stroked her mare strongly on the neck, trying to calm it down, for the horse was not pleased with its new rider. Glancing around, she saw that all three horses were fidgeting a bit, testing the mettle of the people on them, but only Dariak was in any real danger of falling off. She navigated her horse closer to his and reached out for his reins, hoping that keeping the horses closer together would make them feel more comfortable for this leg of the journey.
Gabrion rode well, especially after his time on Tumbler, and his mount realized quickly that the warrior was going to stay put. He guided the horse along with the others, but he kept peering over his shoulder for signs of pursuit. “We have to go faster than this,” he said. “Dariak, can you manage?”
The mage’s black hair bobbed up and down, but he didn’t speak. Kitalla released the reins, and the three of them turned the horses north and snapped the reins for them all to run. Startled but compliant, the horses did as commanded, and the trio was on its way.
Gabrion wouldn’t allow them to kill the horses by riding them too hard, so he periodically called for a halt or a trot, much to Kitalla’s chagrin. She’d simply figured that when one horse died, they would either double up or just grab a fresh one from the next settlement, but the stern
light in Gabrion’s eyes said she had figured wrong. Shrugging, she let the warrior decide their pace, allowing herself to relax in the saddle and sway with the motion. She eyed the mage during the night, noticing that he was gaining back tiny bits of strength. She knew that spells were draining for a mage, but she was the only one among them who hadn’t taken a nap that afternoon.
The warrior guided them toward a small copse of trees, where they tethered the horses and settled down for a little rest. He seemed to be vibrantly awake, so he took first watch. Neither Dariak nor Kitalla argued.
Gabrion knew he was pushing his endurance far, but he didn’t have much choice. This wasn’t like training, where it was possible to skip exercises if something was too difficult. No, their lives were at stake, and so was Mira’s.
He knew too that he needed to keep alert, so he started by assessing his wounds. He pulled off his chain mail and tunic and looked for gashes that would need tending, but he couldn’t find any. It was then he recalled the sensation of shattering glass and the shield the mage had cast around him. It had deflected a good number of attacks, and the new armor had done the rest. He frowned then, for he had benefited from Dariak’s magic and stolen the armor. There was little he could do about the use of the protective shield now, but he vowed he would pay back the stolen armor someday.
Kitalla awoke an hour later and gave Gabrion time to rest. Her first act was to count her daggers, disappointed to find only eight remaining. She had reclaimed a number of them from the battle, but some had gone missing. Ideally, she kept at least a dozen scattered about her body, tucked into folds of the leathers she wore, lodged in boots, and hanging from her hips and anywhere else she could stash them. She had always excelled in knife throwing, even as a child. Daggers were like extensions of her hands. During her time with her mother at the manor, Kitalla had been part of the entertainment by either juggling knives or tossing them into patterns on the wall.