The horsemen would have no trouble seeing them. They eventually wouldn’t need the torchlight to pursue them. Once their eyes adjusted, the moon would provide ample illumination.
Even with the horses rested, they would never make it to the forest before those chasing caught up with them. And what was to say that even if they entered the Cicade those chasing them would stop. Ghosts? Unlikely. They could very well be Archers headed home. Wouldn’t that be perfect? That would mean that Mykal and the others would be rounded up as easily as cattle had been on the farm.
“We need to stop,” Mykal said, and pulled on Babe’s reins. Her neck twisted as she slowed first to a trot and then to a walk. He turned her around. He pulled his sword from its sheath, and held it in his right hand. All he could hear were horses. In front of him. Behind him. Isolation fell around him like a cloak. He knew he stood alone. It wasn’t bravery that drove him. Why run from something unknown? It could be for nothing. He hoped it was for nothing. Riding blind into the forest could prove twice as dangerous. This seemed like the lesser of two evils.
“What are you doing?” Blodwyn pulled Applejack alongside Babe. He reached for Mykal’s reins. “We need to go!”
The horsemen were close. He saw them under the bright moon. There were four.
“They’re in chainmail. They have a banner, but I can’t see it clearly.” Mykal squinted.
“It’s the king’s knights,” Karyn said. “They might be looking for me.”
“Found you is more like it,” Blodwyn said.
“Karyn, why did you stop?” Mykal said.
“Because you did.”
“We’ve no time to talk,” Blodwyn said. He growled at Mykal.
Galatia charged past them. She rode toward the squad of knights, ready for battle.
“What is she doing?” Karyn said. “Wizard or not, they’ll try to kill her! I know how the king’s men are. They live for the attack, and can be quite ruthless. I have seen too much barbaric behavior.”
“You stay here! If it looks like things are going bad, take off. Head for the forest,” Mykal said. “C’mon, Babe, let’s go.”
Mykal knew that Blodwyn was galloping close behind him. They raced to catch up with Galatia. The woman was either fearless, or crazy. There was another possibility. She could be both; a dangerous combination, no doubt. Mykal wished he knew the extent of her magic. At the farmhouse she’d exhibit a burst of power like he’d never seen before. Would it be enough to stop trained knights? She might not be confident in her abilities, which could explain why she’d gone into hiding in the first place.
A red ball of flame appeared out of nothing and flew forward, and was quickly followed by another. Mykal heard men scream, and the unmistakable neighing of frightened horses. Part of Mykal wanted to stop, turn around, and flee the scene. He didn’t know how Galatia commanded fire, how she could conjure flames with her mind using magic. She and Blodwyn might believe he was a wizard, but he doubted it. There was no way he could do what Galatia had just done.
Galatia jumped off Jiminey in a smooth and fluid motion. She landed on her feet, arms raised, ready to battle swords and trained knights with mystical, and outlawed powers.
The magefire had slammed into the four knights knocking them from their horses, but slowly regained their footing, swords drawn.
Mykal jumped down from Babe, stumbled as he ran, struggled to keep his legs under him, and ended up beside Galatia. He raised his jian sword in his right hand. The hilt was fitted with wings to protect the hand. The blade was straight, about the length of his hip to just past his knee. The double edge was sharp enough to split hairs, Blodwyn had said, when he taught him how to properly sharpen his sword on a long strip of leather.
Mykal’s mind was in a whirlwind. These were the king’s knights. A confrontation with them might not end well. Eventually the king would hear about Galatia and her magic, never mind the fact that she had announced their location to Ida and, by extension, Cordillera. If they found out what he was, he would lose the farm, leaving grandfather alone, and spend the rest of his life in the castle dungeon, or worse, hung until dead.
He didn’t want to hang, and wondered if anyone would come to his hanging to hear his name announced?
Blodwyn joined them wielding only his staff. Mykal never understood why Blodwyn only carried the staff, and not a sword. He’d asked once, but his mentor never provided an answer other than someday he’d tell him a story. No one spoke. The knights did not advance, awed by what they had experienced.
“Why are you following us?” Blodwyn’s deep voice rumbled. He kept a defensive stance, with one leg in front of the other, and shoulders slightly over the forward knee, staff held low.
“We are of King Nabal’s Watch. We’re here on royal business, tasked with searching the lands for his ward,” one knight said. The four were indistinguishable from one another. They wore polished silver barbute helmets, where the Y from the forehead covered the bridge of their noses. The chainmail protected their limbs under cuirass armor. The dropped banner and the horse blankets bore the king’s sigil. He pointed a shaking finger. “You are not the woman we are looking for.”
Mykal almost sighed in relief, but refrained.
“Regardless, we are bringing all of you back to the keep with us,” the knight said. There wasn’t much weight to his words. Mykal wondered how he’d take it when told they weren’t going anywhere with them?
“Especially her,” another knight said, pointing with the tip of his blade.
Mykal turned around. Karyn sat on Defiance. “I told you to stay where you were,” he chided her.
“All of us?” Blodwyn replied to the knight, as if he were confused. “You just told us we’re not the person you are looking for.”
The knights spread out, circling them with swords raised. “She is. The one on the horse. Princess Karyn, the king has been worried sick since you disappeared. He will be relieved to see that you well when we return you to the castle.”
One knight pointed at Galatia. “And you have magic. More than I’ve ever seen. The practice of the dark arts is illegal in this kingdom. If we were of the Watch, your trial would take place right here, right now.”
Mykal didn’t think these knights possessed the courage to execute Galatia, whether part of the Watch or not.
“Practice?” Galatia said, offended as the word suggested she’d not mastered her craft, as opposed to feeling upset by the knight’s death threats.
“We’ve ridden past the Delta Cove, if I’m not mistaken,” Blodwyn said. The knights continued to circle. “If my geography is right—please correct me if I am wrong, Princess Karyn—King Nabal’s realm extends as far as the cove, but no further,” Blodwyn said, as if didn’t already know the answer. He tapped a finger against his lips, as if trying to remember something seen on a map.
“Those are old empire boundaries. Our king rules the west side of the Isthmian!” The knight spoke with authority.
Blodwyn shrugged. “I was not aware. Is he calling himself emperor now as well?”
The knights clearly lacked a sense of humor. “You’re coming with us, all four of you!”
“I don’t think so,” Galatia said.
She said something else, too, though Mykal couldn’t understand the words, he felt them. Something popped inside his head.
A torrent of color nearly blinded him.
Her hands pushed outward, it was as though she had summoned a specifically localized hurricane from nothing. The knights were thrown backward into the air, and landed hard several feet away. Not one of them moved from where they lay.
Blodwyn arched an eyebrow in Galatia’s direction.
“Are they dead?” Mykal said.
“No,” Galatia said, sounding disappointed.
“Now what do we do? Run?” Karyn said.
Blodwyn said, “We can’t leave them alive. They’ll return to the king. He’ll send a force of actual Watchers after us.”
“We’ll be lon
g gone by the time the knights make it back to the kingdom, and return with the Watch,” Mykal argued. “We should find this mirror and be done with this.”
“Finding the mirror. . .could take days,” Galatia said.
It sounded as if there was more, something else Galatia wasn’t telling them. Mykal shook his head. “You said you knew where the mirror was.”
“I do know where it is. It’s in the forest, yet we have to find exactly where in the forest it is.”
The knights stirred.
“They need to be silenced,” Blodwyn said. He looked at Galatia while he spoke. “It’s the only way we can ensure that others won’t be sent after us. I don’t think there’s a different way of handling this.”
“Silenced? You mean like cut out their tongues?” Mykal thought he might get sick at the thought of such a heinous act.
“No, Mykal. Not cut out their tongues.” Galatia stepped toward him, held out a hand.
Mykal took two steps back, stepping away from her unwilling to accept the truth of their words.
“There is a war coming, Mykal. It’s coming whether you like it or not, whether you want to believe it or not. The Mountain King is going to attack the west shores, and he is going to occupy all of the lands, naming himself the new emperor. Death is an inevitable part of war,” Galatia said.
“I don’t know why that should matter to me.”
“It matters because, just like he wants me, King Cordillera wants you.”
“He doesn’t know me. If I have magic, I have no idea how to use it. I won’t be an asset to his plans. You need to teach me. I want to learn. If I am a wizard, and I have magic, then I can battle against him. The two of us working together will be tougher to conquer!”
“That is the goal. It is also why we are going to call on the others. This time we will fight as a unified force against an evil force. This time our sorcery will make a difference.” Galatia shook her head. “And, don’t forget, magic is something you have used. Without lessons, yes, you’re more dangerous to others than the armed knights behind you are. And they know where we are, even more so now that I was forced to conjure.”
Mykal looked at his mentor for guidance. “Wyn, what do we do next?”
“Take Karyn and go back to where we were camped,” Blodwyn said. “We’ll be along as fast as we can.”
“You can’t do this,” Mykal protested. Karyn grabbed his arm.
Blodwyn struck the bottom of his staff on the ground. “Go. Now.”
Blodwyn’s voice demanded action. Mykal got on his horse, and he and Karyn rode back toward camp. He did so in part because Blodwyn ordered him to, yet also because he couldn’t bear witnessing the cold-blooded murders they would commit.
Chapter 17
Mykal stood beside Karyn, an arm wrapped around her shoulders. She was shivering despite there being no chill in the air. He hugged her even tighter. Behind them was the forest. Beyond that, but visible during the day, or when the moon was bright, were the Zenith Mountains. They faced open land that fell within the Grey Ashland Boundary. To the east was the Isthmian, though they were still some long ways from the sea, and the west more open land, and maybe the hint of Lantern Lake.
Blodwyn and Galatia rode toward them.
“I dreamed of death tonight. Before Blodwyn woke us. I didn’t know what it meant, and since you were not in the dream, I didn’t think it was important,” she said.
“We can’t think about that now,” he told her, though it was all he could think about. Her ability confused him. What exactly had she dreamt? How specific were the dreams? He knew so little about such things. With laws the way they were, few even dared discuss such things.
He didn’t understand Blodwyn’s change in attitude, either. The man went from skepticism to agreeing to murdering four of the king’s knights? Had Galatia cast a spell over him? Could she cast such spells? As long as he’d known Blodwyn, he’d never seen such ruthlessness. He’d been exposed to so much strangeness, so many things that were outside of any frame of reference he could even imagine, recently he couldn’t keep from questioning everything, and that included wondering who he was and fearing who he might become.
A war might be coming, but it wasn’t here yet. He thought the whole point of retrieving this mirror—hidden somewhere inside the forest—was to prevent that war. Had he misunderstood everything said back at the farm? If caught, killing the king’s knights was a death sentence.
Blodwyn stopped ‘Jack beside them. “We’re not going to stay here. Get back on your horses. We’re going to the forest. Now.”
Galatia stopped next to Blodwyn. She stared at Mykal. It looked like she might say something. Mykal turned away before she spoke speak, and helped Karyn onto Defiance.
“I am not looking forward to riding into the forest during the night, but I think it beats hanging around here,” Mykal said.
“I couldn’t agree more. Staying in the open is an even greater risk,” Blodwyn explained. “There’s no telling how many squads the king has out looking for the princess.”
Mykal heard the implied result of such a potential encounter as if they had been words shouted in his head. If there were more knights, there would be more deaths. And the likelihood they’d eventually be captured. He didn’t want that either. He wished that the murders hadn’t needed to have been committed. The swords used were not his, the blood did not coat his blade, and yet he felt guilty and somehow responsible. He climbed onto Babe’s saddle.
Blodwyn held his horse’s reins wrapped around white knuckles. He kept looking back to the scene of the killings. “I know you don’t approve. We dragged the bodies into higher grass, and scattered the horses. There was no other choice. They saw the princess, Mykal. They saw Galatia throw fireballs, and summon wind. We were all as good as dead at that point. If they reached the king, if they told him what they had witnessed, we’d be on the run for the rest of our lives. Or worse, we would be captured and hung.”
Yelling at Blodwyn wouldn’t work, not when the man was right. It didn’t make accepting those deaths any easier, however. Other than animals on the farm, death was not something he had much experience with, and even though a wolf or a coyote attacking another animal was violent, it was nothing like what he’d witnessed tonight.
***
The full moon’s light continued to guide them. Mykal had never been this far north. It wasn’t long before the forest came into full view. The trees resembled a dark, black wall. Looking left and right, he could see only the massive forest’s edge. A foreboding filled his body. He felt it in his chest, tightening. They’d been away from the farm for not even the full night, and already everything had gone from bad to worse. Karyn’s dreams might be filled with visions, his would be nothing but nightmares.
As they drew closer to the forest, the black wall transitioned into actual trees. He recognized cypress, ash, white oak, and hickories. There were those unfamiliar to him, as well. These were different though, taller and with thicker trunks, and rougher bark than any other trees he’d ever seen before. The path they’d been following ended at the trees, or if it did continue it was not well travelled. The canopy towered above them as they crossed the boundary.
They slowed the horses, continuing at little more than a trot. Fallen limbs and a lack of light mixed with the unknown terrain made moving at a faster pace impossible. The moonlight was all but gone. Branches snapped under hooves and echoed weirdly through the forest, loud cracks that ricocheted off trees oddly muffled. The air changed; breathing it in was like tasting sap, needles, and leaves.
Mykal couldn’t chase away his uneasiness, but thought they were being watched. He could barely see Babe’s head in front of him. The darkness closed further in on them, as if a living entity. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, rolled into his eyes, stinging. They were outside, and yet he felt confined, like he was trapped inside a coffin. His clothing felt heavy on his body. It made no sense but he wanted to shrug out of his vest and tunic, remo
ve his quiver and dagger. He wanted everything off, and thought he might scream. Breathing became ever more difficult.
Someone screamed.
For a moment, Mykal thought the sound was his, but found he was wrong as he came upon Defiance. The stallion’s saddle stood empty.
He pulled on Babe’s reins. She stopped, and her front legs pranced in place as if finding a comfortable spot to stand. He jumped from the saddle, held both sets of reins, turned the horse around slowly, and walked back the way they’d come. If Karyn had been thrown, she’d be close. “Karyn?”
He couldn’t hear or see Blodwyn or Galatia. They were supposed to have stayed close together. He hadn’t realized he’d gotten so far ahead of the others. He didn’t think it would have been this dark. They weren’t too far in, either. A torch would be ideal. “Karyn?” he called out.
He heard horses approach. “Who screamed? Mykal?”
“Wyn, Karyn might have fallen off her horse,” he said.
Blodwyn dismounted. “She didn’t fall.”
Galatia was beside them, still sitting on her saddle. “I worried this might happen.”
“What?”
“They have her,” Blodwyn said.
“Who? The Archers? She was right in front of me. You were right in front of her.”
“It’s too dark to see anything,” Galatia said, and chased away the black with blue fire that sat like a lantern in the palm of her hand, the flame as controlled as if on the end of a candle. She moved her arm around, left, right, and up. The flame illuminated an area ten feet around them. “I don’t see her.”
“Karyn?” Mykal called.
“You must stop doing that,” Blodwyn said.
“Doing what?”
“Yelling. It attracts attention.”
“Kind of late for that, don’t you think? They took Karyn, Galatia’s doing her wizard thing, and we just crashed through the forest with our horses in the middle of the night. If they can blend in with the woods so completely, I’m guessing we’re lucky we’re not already dead,” Mykal said.
“Crashed? We barely had the horses walking.”
Severed Empire: Wizard's Rise Page 13