“It was the mage,” Phena said offhandedly.
“Well at least the mage is dead then,” Brenda said angrily.
“No he is still alive,” Phena said with a bit of bite to her words. “He is fairly powerful as well to be able to strike us from far enough away that I couldn’t sense him. I would guess that he is skilled in energy and wind magic, allowing him to speed up and carry other soldiers as well as track Bren’s unique magical output.”
“So you’re saying that this mage can simply pick up others and bring them right to where we are?” Cass asked, looking into the darkness.
“I doubt that we have to worry again,” Phena replied. “Even if he is as strong as Bren, it would take a lot of energy to push as many soldiers as he did, and even then he has to return to the main force. As long as we continue at the same pace and pull further and further away, it will take more energy for the mage to catch up to us.
“I still don’t find that very reassuring,” Cass said, his eyes still darting around looking for any sign of intruders.
“Why would a mage ever help the Brotherhood?” Jin asked with a hint of disgust to his voice.
“The only way to know the answer to that question would be to ask the mage himself,” Bren offered. “The Brotherhood is a religion, and when it comes to feelings of belief, rational doesn’t always come into play. Most likely, he is just a firm believer of the Brotherhood and their cause.”
“Then why didn’t someone kill him or why didn’t he just kill himself?” Brenda asked angrily.
“Because he is useful,” Cass said. “The best way to fight fire is with fire, or in this case, a mage against a mage. Whatever the case, I think we should keep a heavy guard from now on.”
Chapter 11
Phena had been wrong about the mage and his abilities. Every four to five hours they found themselves faced off with another group of soldiers. They were never a tough challenge, but they kept them from being able to truly rest.
Bren didn’t understand how they could keep sending their men to die over and over. Did they care nothing for the lives of their comrades or was their belief and conviction that strong?
“Do we know where we're going?” Cass asked as they packed up camp once again after a Brotherhood attack.
“We are headed to the Vale of the Gods,” Bren said in response. From the map the elders gave me, it looks to be about a two-week ride before we reach the border town, and then another week past that until we reach the hidden village.
“It will take more than a week to cross the Deadlands,” Hayao said, his voice shaking slightly.
“Deadlands?” Bren asked, turning toward his friend.
“A place or horror that surrounds the valley of the gods. It is a harsh place that keeps out all unwanted visitors.”
“Have you been there before?” Bren asked with a slight air of curiosity in his voice.
“Yes. Once...when I was a boy,” Hayao said with a slight shiver. “I accompanied my father when we took two youth to perform their duties as guardians. We were met at the edge of the Deadlands by a host of members from the other hidden village. I don’t remember much of what I had seen that day, but I remember the feeling of sheer terror as I looked over the Deadlands. Even now, on some nights, I still wake up in a cold sweat from dreaming about the place.”
“That sounds promising,” Brenda said in a sarcastic tone. “On the bright side, this doesn’t sound like it is going to be boring.”
“We all know how much you hate to be bored,” Bren said as he packed up the last of his gear.
“You are more than welcome to keep me entertained,” Brenda added with a bit of fire in her voice.
“I don’t think that would be good for my health,” Bren said, doing his best not to look at Faye whose face was pinched in anger.
As soon as they had everything packed on their horses, they carried on riding as fast as they could without risking damage to the horses. Bren had ridden horses since was a child, but the constant riding at such a fast pace had still left him sore.
The small group tried to keep up their spirits by talking about each other, but there was little to be said. Less than four hours after they had left their camp, Cass called them to a halt by holding his arm up in the air. “Something is coming,” Cass said quietly where his voice would carry on the wind.
No sooner had Cass spoken the words than a large sound like a thunder clap rang through the air, causing Bren’s horse to jump. By the time Bren got his horse under control, two Brotherhood soldiers had already made their way to where he was. Without thinking, Bren let out a stream of fire from his hand that engulfed both men. As the acidic aroma of burnt hair and flesh filled the air along with the screams of the burning men, Bren turned to search out more enemies.
Unlike the past few times where only a dozen or less soldiers had attacked, this time there were nearly three times as many. Did they think that the extra numbers would increase their chances of winning? Bren didn’t know the answer to the question, and didn’t have the time to think about it as more soldiers began to approach him.
Ignoring their burning comrades, the Brotherhood soldiers approached Bren without showing any fear for his powers.
Bren’s first thought was to turn his magic on the advancing men, but he quickly decided against it as his hand clenched his sword. The magic he had pulled in earlier still coursed through his body and Bren opened himself up for more. As the magic surged through him, Bren found that he could hear and feel everything around him. The sound of the soldier’s footsteps on the soft grass, their ragged breaths as they moved toward him, and their frantically beating hearts.
Though Bren’s back was turned to him, as soon as the first soldier neared, Bren’s sword arm flashed, cutting the man’s arms off at the wrists. Before the man could fall to his knees and scream, Bren’s sword flashed again severing the man’s head from his shoulders.
As the head rolled to the ground, Bren jumped off his horse landing right between two of the Brotherhood soldiers. He had never felt so strong before in his life, it was as if he knew nothing could touch him as long as he had his magic.
The sound of a sword cutting through the air caught his attention, and Bren ducked slightly to let the blade pass harmlessly overhead. Laughing Bren flipped his sword around and stabbed it behind him, impaling the would-be assassin though the heart.
Two more soldiers moved to meet him head on, which Bren found curious. He could see everything about the men. He could tell that the men were afraid of him though they hid it well; only their aura betrayed them. Bren could see the slight swirling of red just as the one on the left prepared to attack. Stepping to the side the second before the blade began to fall, Bren was easily able to dodge the attack. With each passing moment, Bren was enjoying the fight more and more. Bren dodged the blades, always moving the second before the men attacked making it seem like he was dancing. From the distance, Brent felt something cutting through the wind. Sticking out his hand Bren plucked an arrow from the air as if he was simply picking a leaf out of a tree. Looking at the arrow, Bren let himself follow its path back to where it had been loosed and gently let the arrow float off his hand then it shot forward. Bren didn’t have to watch the arrow’s flight to know it had found its mark. Even though it was far away, Bren could still hear the man’s screams as death claimed him.
Getting bored with the game, Bren let his sword flash twice, ending the event and the other two soldier’s lives as well. Letting more magical energy flood through him, Bren flinched his wrist and the blood on the blade of his sword flew off to gather on the already blood soaked ground.
As Bren sheathed his sword he turned around to notice that his friends had not fared as well as he had. Lillian had taken an arrow to the arm, and one of the guards had died during the battle. As soon as the realization hit him, the euphoric feeling that had been holding him up fled.
Bren rushed over to Lillian and quickly healed the wound with his magic. As the l
ast of the blood was washed away and there was no sign that she had been injured other than the small tear in her blouse, Bren breathed a sigh of relief. “Are you okay?” Bren asked nervously.
“She and the rest of us would be doing a lot better had you been paying attention to what was going on around you,” Cass said with more than a slight hint of anger in his voice. “I saw you playing with those two soldiers as if they were toys for your amusement. If you have simply finished them off quickly instead of playing around, Kale might still be alive.”
“I know,” Bren said in an admonished tone. Kale. So that was the guard’s name. He had spent a long time with the guards, but other than Cass, Bren didn’t talk to them much, and both groups seemed to like it that way. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make himself feel bad about the guard. His emotions were mostly locked away, and to feel sorry over the death of someone mostly unknown to him was nearly impossible. He knew it was wrong, but he also knew what would happen if he lost control.
If you didn’t notice, you did lose control while you were fighting. If I hadn’t done my best to keep you grounded, you would have let your bloodlust consume you. I have warned you time and time again about pulling in magic energy and holding it. Only pull it in if you plan to use it, otherwise it will start to affect you, and no one, not even I, can predict what the outcome would be. It would all be determined by what the driving force was of the energy you pulled in. Do us all a favor and try to keep your senses clear and not drugged on the magic’s power.
Bren wanted to argue that he had been in full control the entire time, but as fast as the words entered his brain, he knew them for the lie they were. He had never felt like that nor had he fought like that. Just as Cass had said, he had played with those men as if they were some toy that had been made for his personal enjoyment. They were enemies, but what Bren had done left a sour taste in his mouth. Death was a certainty, but there was no reason to dangle it in front of those who were about to meet their fate.
“No reason to fret about it now,” Cass said as he inspected the others for wounds. “We need to find a way to stay ahead of the Brotherhood. Otherwise, sooner or later, they are going to catch us in a bad way.”
“I might be able to help with that,” Bren said after a moment of thought. “The only way that they could be catching us is with magic. I am not sure how they are doing it, but I am sure that I can do something similar and keep us ahead of them, for at least a time anyway.”
“I can’t say I trust you and your magic given how it’s been working lately, but I don’t see as how we have much choice in the matter. Just be careful. I don’t want to be dropped off the side of a cliff because you let your mind wander at the wrong time.”
Chapter 12
As Bren pulled in magical energy, he was careful to numb himself as much as possible without turning into a turnip. After having felt human again, it was painful to turn everything off again, but he knew it was needed until he could learn to control himself, and like anything else, that would take time to master. Until that time, he would have to take it slow and distance himself when he used large amounts of magical energy.
Bren wasn’t sure what to do, but he had an idea—or the start of one anyway. He figured that wind magic would be the best for bringing them long distances quickly, but the speed of the wind would crush his friends. Bren created a shield of energy around his friends, and he began to lift them slightly from the ground. Once they were mere inches off the ground, Bren pushed them forward, and the world around them began to spin.
No sooner had they started to move than the horses began to go wild. “No wonder the Brotherhood didn’t have any mounted units with them. At first, Bren thought that the horses would calm after a moment, but when that didn’t happen he was forced to bring them to a stop.
“I think I am going to be sick,” Faye said holding her hand to her mouth and gagging slightly.
“I have to agree. It wasn’t a very good feeling,” Cass seconded. “Why did we stop though?”
“The horses were moving too much, making it hard to hold the spell,” Bren replied.
“I guess they didn’t understand the ground moving when they weren’t. Not to mention, it felt weird, not something that I can explain, but like someone was pushing on my body and not gently either, though it started to calm the longer we traveled.”
Bren tried to think of anything that might help solve the problem, but he came up empty handed. “I can’t think of a way to get around it,” Bren said after a few moments of deep thought. “I think I can lessen the force by mixing in a little light energy into the shield, but unless I completely black out the shield there is nothing I can do about the sight, and that would make it really hard for me to see where I was going.
“Is that all,” Cass said laughing. “You take care of the pressure that was hitting us, and I can take care of the horses.”
Bren started to ask how Cass expected to do that, but he got his answer quickly. Cass pulled one of his darker tunics out of his bag along with some of the leather strips that he always carried with him. Pulling out his dagger Cass cut his tunic and made makeshift blindfolds out of them. Once the blindfolds were finished Cass tied them to each of the horses. For the first few moments the horses bucked their heads, but after just a few seconds, they calmed down.
Once the horses had calmed down, Bren started pulling in magical energy again. First, he built the energy shield, and then added a bit of light energy to help solidify the bonds of the shield, though he had to be careful to still let in enough air so that everyone could still breathe.
Once the shield was in place, Bren lifted the group up again. As soon as the horses were in the air, they began to stir restlessly again, and Bren quickly put them down. “Why?” Bren asked himself then it hit him. They could tell that there was no ground beneath them, even though they were standing on a solid mass of energy. This time Bren added in a bit of earth energy to make a thin crust of ground beneath the horse’s hooves, and raised them again. This time the horses didn’t make any movements, so Bren started to push lightly at first, but picked up speed the longer he held them aloft.
The spell was complicated and used more types of energy than he had ever used before at one time. Not only did it use many different types of energy, it required him to focus on many things at once, and Bren found the exertion to be extremely taxing.
No one talked while they rode as most of them were trying their best to look only at the ground, considering the rest of the world flew by so fast that the grass and trees seemed like a blur. Bren didn’t take much notice to the silence as his full attention was on the spell and keeping it together. A few times, his mind wandered, and flecks of dirt started to drip and hit the bottom of the shield.
Shortly before the sun touched the horizon, Bren set the group down in small, open clearing. As soon as the last horse’s hooves touched the ground, Bren nearly collapsed.
His head bobbing, Bren started to slide off his horse. Before he fell all the way to the ground, Cass and Jin were there to catch him. Bren could still see, but his mind was a little fuzzy from the backlash of the magical energy. “You okay?” Jin asked as he helped Bren to the ground.
“Just a little tired,” Bren replied as his eyes started to grow heavy.
“Surely you aren’t going to say that the Brotherhood mages are better than you,” Cass said jokingly. “They have been doing the same thing to follow us for days now.”
“No what they have been doing is similar but not near as strong,” Phena replied in Bren’s defense. “There may be less of us, but the horses make all the difference. Because of them, he had to add many more spells, and because it was so roughly done, he used much more energy than he should have.”
“Sorry. It was my first time,” Bren said in a near daze. “And trying to use four elements at once with them pushing against each other didn’t make it any easier.”
“I was not criticizing you,” Phena said with a thin smil
e. “Maybe I was a bit, but I don’t think Master Sae-Thae could have done what you just did. Now, if he had the same powers, he would have done much better, but then again, he is much more experienced than you.”
“Thank you for that vote of confidence,” Bren said sarcastically.
Cass laughed and grabbed Phena by the waist. “Such a sparky lady,” he said as he tried to give her a kiss, but she quickly brought up her knee hitting him in the groin.
“Yes, I am just full of that spark,” Phena said, patting the back of Cass’s head lovingly as he was doubled over in pain.
“See? A firefly, just as I said,” Cass said grunting as he hobbled over to sit on a large stump. “Though she has a bit of a stinger as well.”
Everyone laughed as Bren just looked at the two. He was still far removed from himself, and only a small part of his mind found humor in the antics of the two. It was bad enough when he walled off his emotions, but it was even worse when he broke down that wall. They didn’t trickle or slowly consume him, it was more like a flood, and Bren always felt like he was being washed away. Thankfully, he was too tired to really feel much of anything at the current moment.
“Think the Brotherhood will be able to catch us?” Cass asked as he started gathering loose kindling to start a fire. “Or can we finally have a nice relaxing night.”
“They might be able to keep up with Bren, but I doubt it,” Phena said as she sent a bolt of energy into one of the larger sticks of wood causing it to start to burn. “We just have to make sure that Bren doesn’t burn himself out.”
“Burn himself out,” Cass said. “What do you mean?”
“Magic is a double bladed weapon,” Phena said in reply. “Every mage can pull in as much as the surroundings allow, but at some point, the magic will start to burn through the mage and their ability to use magic. Sometimes it even kills the mages, though most of the time it just ends their ability to use magic.” The sound of worry and finality in her voice sent a shiver through Bren.
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