God Mage
Page 12
“Half a day,” Faye replied lightly. “Given how little sleep you have gotten over the past fortnight, I thought you would sleep until sunrise—not that we could tell when it rose though.”
“Where is Cass?” Bren asked looking around for his friend.
“Cass…I don’t know. He took first watch, so he might be walking the perimeter of the camp,” Faye said looking around. “You know you could go back to sleep. We could all use a good rest and that counts doubly for you.”
“I wish I could, but we can’t risk staying in one place too long while the Brotherhood is still following us. It can’t be that much farther to the hidden village. Once we are there, we can get all the sleep we need,” Bren said as he pulled his arm out of Faye’s grasp.
Bren found Cass on the edge of the camp looking out toward the hills they had crossed earlier that morning. “Seen anything yet?” Bren asked, startling the young soldier.
“Bren you’re awake,” Cass said, holding his chest to exaggerate his surprise. “It is good to see you back among the living. Now we can get moving and hopefully leave this god-forsaken land behind us. If I have my guess right, the Brotherhood just made camp at the edge of the Deadlands, but it is hard to say for sure without getting a closer look. I can’t think of anyone else who would be foolish enough to follow us, but you can never tell.”
“Might just be some of the women you charmed along the way,” Bren said jokingly.
“We need to wake everyone else, so we can move on,” Cass said, looking at the others’ sleeping forms.
“Let them rest,” Bren said as Cass turned to wake them. “This place is dangerous enough without everyone going without sleep. I have a feeling that we are all going to need to be at our best if we plan to make it through this place alive.”
“You might be right, but we can’t afford for the Brotherhood to catch us,” Cass said in a half argument as he looked at the sky above.
“At least they will have to follow us the old fashioned way,” Bren said, patting his friend on the back. “No matter how good he is, I don’t think their mage will be of much use in this place.”
“That is reassuring at least, though I would still like a few more days between us and the Brotherhood.”
“We don’t always get what we want,” Bren said with a half-smile. “Now why don’t you get some sleep, I will wake everyone once it looks like it’s time to go.”
“Are you sure you can handle watch by yourself?” Cass asked in a worried tone.
“I will not be by myself,” Bren said with a wink. “Avalanche is here, and she is far better at hearing intruders than you or I.”
Avalanche gave him a low bark when she heard her name and happily padded over to where they were. She still moved much more cautiously than normal, and she hadn’t left the safety of the group since they had entered the Deadlands. Most of the time she would only stay with them while they were in town, the rest of the time she would go off on her own, and days could pass before they saw her again. It was normal, and Bren had paid it little heed, so the fact that she had not left them meant that she didn’t feel safe here.
Bren took a seat by the fire, set Thuraman across his lap, and called to Avalanche, who came over and lay down beside him. Absentmindedly, Bren reached over and started to rub the top of Avalanches head but the second before his silver fingers touched her she recoiled away from him. “Sorry,” Bren said as he moved his hand back to his lap. He had forgotten to wear his gloves. “Why don’t you like the feel of my skin anymore girl?” Bren asked the creature lying next to him, but the only answer he got in reply was the slight tilting of her head.
I would guess that it’s because you have so much magic running through you. Unlike me, she is not linked to you, all she feels when you touch her is the large current of magic running through your body. I would guess that her reaction is more instinct than fear of you, though she is one thing I have never figured out. She and I are a lot alike but so very different at the same time.
“What do you mean?” Bren asked looking from the staff to Avalanche, trying to see how they were anything alike.
We were both born of magic. I was created by your father, and because of him using large amounts of energy, and the careful way he constructed me, I gained my own conscience. Avalanche, on the other hand, was born of wild magic. Gems, as you have been told, are crystallized magic. Sometimes those gems catch a passing spirit of someone headed to the ether and create heart stones. When that happens, over time the heart stone builds a body for itself. She was created by magic, but she was born of something completely different. I don’t think she remembers, but at one time, she had a flesh body.
“I thought that creatures like Avalanche could create new species, but if she was once flesh, wouldn’t she just make more of what she once was?” Bren asked, trying to imagine Avalanche as a flesh and blood dog.
Depending on what kind of energy she used most in the creation of her body, will determine what she will look like. Your father put a lot of study into this over the years. Avalanche always intrigued him, and he learned an abundant amount of information from the magical races. Seeing that they, too, were created with a heart stone.
“What?” Bren asked as his jaw dropped slightly. “I thought the magical races were created by their individual gods.”
I forgot that you only know a little about the creation of the other races and their gods. Had you stayed in the tower, you would have learned more, but I doubt the truth of their birth would have reached your ears unless you searched for it. Each god was ordered by their mother to make their own army. Unlike her, they didn’t have the power to easily create life, but given enough time, they could put enough of their energy into one place to make a heart stone. Once each had made their own heart stone, they sought out a soul to inhabit it. I don’t know how they found the soul nor, how they forced it into the heart stone, but that was the start of each race.
“But if there was only one of them, how did they…” Bren started to ask but left the question hanging in the air.
The first, such as Avalanche, is called an Alpha and can produce offspring by gathering magical energy as well as gems. From what your father learned, it can take hundreds of years for a single birth. The Alphas tend to live thousands of years, so it is not as if they need to rush things.
“I didn’t know that you knew so much about Avalanche. Is there anything you don’t know?” Bren asked, more out of frustration than real interest.
I only know what I have seen and heard. Most of that knowledge came from your father and some of it from what I observed on my own. In the end, I learn the same way that humans do…through experience.
“I guess that makes a bit of sense,” Bren admitted. “You are far older than I am, so you should know a little bit more than I do. Just don’t expect me to be thrilled when you prove it,” Bren added the last with a smile.
Humans… You always want knowledge, but you don’t like when people have more than you. If you listened to me half the time, you could skip having to learn the hard way.
“You mean like with Faye?” Bren asked, knowing where Thuraman was going with the direction of the conversation.
With women in general. I have told you a hundred times and will tell you countless more. Your life would be much better off if you never talked to another woman as long as you lived. I have found them to be completely different than men in every way imaginable. They are far smarter to start with and use that to get what they want with the least amount of effort, and that means using others to do the work.
“I see,” Bren said mockingly. “I guess I can’t argue about women being smarter than me, but I won’t admit it either. The problem with your statement is that you are talking too broadly. Not all women are like that—I think just my mother,” Bren said the last bit with a little chuckle. “And maybe my sister.”
You will see what I mean one day. I just hope that you don’t close your eyes to it like your father did.
Suddenly, Avalanche began to growl and Bren turned his attention back to the small smoke rising from the other side of the hills. It had not completely disappeared, but it was getting weaker by the second. That could mean either that the camp was getting ready to move or that someone had forgotten to add wood. Bren quickly decided that he wasn’t about to sit around to find out which one.
Chapter 16
Once everyone was awake, they quickly moved out. They tried to lead their horses into the grass forest, but they refused to budge, so they had to leave them behind. Cass wanted to see if there was a way around the large mass of tree-sized grass, but was quickly dissuaded when he was reminded how close the Brotherhood was behind them. Without the use of Bren’s magic or the sun’s location, they had to rely on Cass and his odd instruments to tell what direction they were traveling. Bren had to give it to Cass, the man was always ready for whatever was thrown at him. The only real trouble they found was that the grass was not easy to move through. At first, they tried to cut through the grass with their weapons, but that quickly proved a useless attempt. No matter how sharp the sword, the grass would bend and sway then bounce back right in its original location. With no other choice, they were forced to push the grass aside to move forward. To help from losing sight of each other they linked themselves together with some of the rope that Cass had brought with him. It didn’t give them much moving room but it was reassuring that they wouldn’t be separated from each other.
With the thick grass, the only person Bren could see was Cass who was directly in front of him. Less than a half hour into the start of the day, Bren began to notice small cuts on Cass’s arms. With little else to look at besides the grass, it wasn’t hard for Bren to see more and more cuts appearing on his friend’s exposed flesh.
“There looks to be a clearing up ahead,” Cass yelled. “Why don’t we stop and take a short break.”
“Please,” Bren heard one of the other guards say from the back to the group.
As he exited the tall grass Bren found himself standing before what he believed was once a desert. He could still make out where the dunes were, but instead of sand, it was glass. In the distance, Bren noticed a large bolt of lightning strike one of the larger dunes sending small flakes of glass into the sky.
“I thought magic didn’t work on glass.” Bren silently commented to Thuraman.
It is not the magic in the lightning that is causing the damage but the force and heat from the initial impact. Your father became really good at fighting the Brotherhood, even with their white swords. He would use magic that affected things around the soldiers and not the soldiers themselves so that their swords couldn’t stop them from taking damage. He couldn’t use lightning like you just saw because it would take too much energy to create a bolt that large, and in the end, it would still only do a small amount of damage. That is why the dune only lost a little of its top instead of the whole thing. Next time, why don’t you try to figure out what is happening on your own instead of asking me.
“I thought that you liked to show off your knowledge,” Bren replied sarcastically.
I do and will if it is needed, but you need to learn to think for yourself. If you always rely on others for the answer, you will never learn how to understand the changes around you without help, and right now that could be dangerous. If you had simply felt and understood what would happen if you tried to use magic, the trouble the other day would have been avoided. I understand that you are still young and that it is the nature of youth to be foolish, but you cannot afford that right now. Think, look, and then think again before you act; otherwise, you will be courting death.
Bren took Thuraman’s words to heart. The staff was right and Bren had to admit it. He knew that the area was affected by a large amount of magical energy, but he didn’t give it a second thought when he went to use magic. It was calling to him, and even though he hadn’t heard it with his ears, he had seized the first chance he could to try to use it, and it nearly cost him his sanity and possibly even his life.
Coming out of his self-imposed trance, Bren looked around to see that everyone was now out of the grass forest and sitting around treating the numerous small cuts that covered their bodies. Bren looked at his own body but didn’t find a single nick on his skin. Running his fingers lightly across his bare arm, Bren once again wondered if the change in his body was a gift or a curse. Like most things, it would depend on how one looked upon it. Right now, it was a gift because it saved him from the grass’s wrath, but when he wished to feel without worry, it became a curse. Even worse, when he felt the need to use magic and couldn’t, it was like a large stone around his neck.
“If anyone needs it, I have some gut and needles,” Cass said, holding up the small medical bag he always carried with him.
“The cuts weren’t that bad were they?” Bren asked looking around.
“Some of mine were quite deep,” Cass said, showing Bren a rather large and deep cut on his knee. “Cut straight through my leather leggings and still took a chunk out of my leg.”
Bren turned to Faye and gave her a worried look. “Are you okay?” Bren asked, his voice steady but his eyes shaking slightly. It was then that Bren noticed the many cuts all over the girl’s small body. Unlike Cass and the other guards, Faye wore no armor and only had on a thin dress, which while well-made, couldn’t stop the razor sharp blades of grass from cutting into her whole body.
Bren pulled his pack from his back and checked it over and was happy to find that the grass had not touched it either. Opening it, Bren pulled a couple of his newer shirts and quickly ripped them up into small squares. Once they were a size they could easily be handled, Bren pulled out a bottle of alcohol and soaked one of the rags.
Faye protested a little at first when he began to clean her wounds but quickly learned that Bren wasn’t going to let them go as they were. Two of the cuts were bad enough that Bren had to borrow Cass’s gut to stitch them up. Once he was finished, he pulled one of Faye’s other dresses from his bag and handed it to her with a weak smile.
As she walked away, the other girls surrounded her, making a human shield so she could change out of her torn and tattered dress without the others eyes on her. When Brenda noticed Bren looking, she shook her hips a little giving him just a slight look at Faye as she shimmied out of her torn dress. Blushing, Bren turned back around to find Cass laughing. “It is good to see that you can still blush when you need to,” Cass said, giving Bren a wink. “Wish we had the horses,” Cass added as he looked out across the glass desert.
“I don’t think they would do us much good out there,” Bren said as he followed Cass’s eyes. “The ground is too smooth, they would slide and break their legs before we got a mile.”
“You’re right,” Cass said with a heavy sigh. “I would still like something other than my own feet to carry me across that though. Guess putting it off won’t get us across it any sooner.”
As Cass stood, a rustling sound came from the grass behind them. Everyone went silent and grabbed their weapons and waited for whatever had made the sound to emerge. A few seconds later four soldiers wearing the Brotherhoods armor burst through the grass.
Though the Brotherhood had found a way to follow them, it seemed they didn’t know exactly where they were as the soldiers did not have their weapons in hand when they came through the grass. Bren put all of his power into his hind leg and jumped forw
ard. He had nearly forgotten how much power was in his body now as his lunge brought him across the glass field more than ten yards, right up to one of the soldiers.
Both Bren and the soldier were surprised, but Bren was faster and brought his blade across the man’s stomach, cutting him clean in two.
As soon as the man fell, Bren rushed toward the next soldier. This one had time to prepare, and while his sword was not ready, he brought up his large steel tower shield. Bren brought his sword down hard and it collided with the shield. No matter how sharp the sword, it couldn’t cut through the two inches of steel, but it did leave a large gash. As the sword and shield collided, the soldier was thrown back more than three feet to the ground. As the man fell, Bren jumped toward him ready to drive his sword home, but the man brought his shield back up again, though weakly. Bren kicked aside the shield with all of his strength and heard a pop as the man’s arm was pulled from its socket. The soldier let out a loud scream, but it was quickly silenced as Bren severed his head from his neck.
Turning around, Bren found that Cass and Brenda had taken care of the remaining two soldiers. Bren retrieved his pack and staff and looked at the dead soldiers lying on the ground. “How did they find us?” Bren asked himself.
Think about it.
“It’s me,” Bren said out loud.
“What? Cass asked as he finished cleaning his sword on one of the dead soldier’s cloaks.
“The Brotherhood mages don’t have to use magic to sense it,” Bren said more to himself than to his friend. “Each mage has a unique magical presence, and they are following mine.”
“Well that explains how they found us,” Cass said, paying Bren’s words little heed.
“No matter where we run, they will be able to follow us,” Bren said, trying to get Cass to understand the situation.
“They have been following us for a long time,” Cass said, shrugging off Bren’s comments. “As long as the mages can’t use their magic, I am still happy.”