by Joseph Lallo
The injured being retreated to a position well behind Myranda. Eight soldiers remained, as well as the pair of what were most certainly no normal wolves. They seemed to be made of stone, and they were nearly the size of horses. Myranda conjured a wind as powerful as she could manage, hoping to force them back and away from the fort that held Ivy. The advancing soldiers began to slow, but the leader raised his hand and Myranda's spell instantly died away. She tried to restore it, but to no avail. Suddenly the stone form of Ether charged past her. The leader signaled for the wolves to be cut free. Both met the charging shape shifter. She knocked one aside and grappled with the second.
Myranda was forced to shift her gaze from the spectacle as a trio of the soldiers drew near enough to be a threat. She thrust her staff into the snowy ground at her feet and focused her mind. Icy vines erupted from the ground and entangled the first of the soldiers, but before the others could be trapped the leader again swept the spell away. The single immobilized soldier fought at the vines. The twang of bowstrings released a second barrage of arrows, all directed at Myranda. She held up her staff and focused her mind on the arrows. Their paths shifted and struck the soldiers she’d attempted to entangle. Myranda looked away as they vanished into dust. The creatures would have killed her, and they were barely living things, but still she felt horrid that she had to kill them.
Another volley of arrows were launched. Myranda attempted to divert them but the leader's influence quickly righted them. She continued to fight against his will. She could feel his strength against hers. After a final burst of will, she dove to the side. The head of an arrow hissed through her cloak and across her thigh. She cried out. Her staff sunk deep into the snow as she tried to regain her footing. The pain was terrible. She struggled to keep her eyes on the remaining soldiers. They were approaching her. When she finally made it to her feet she was surrounded. She tried to summon a spell to mind, but the leader of the soldiers forced it away. He stood before her. The man looked more like a nobleman than a soldier. His clothes were nothing short of regal, the kind more at home in a king's court than a battlefield. Nothing resembling armor adorned his body. He was either very stupid or very powerful. He had jet black hair and a face that would not be out of place on a statue of a god. With a gaze that seemed to cut through her, he surveyed his foe.
"Myranda Celeste. You are every bit the warrior I had expected. It is gratifying to meet you face to face. I am General Bagu, perhaps . . . " he began.
Myranda pulled to mind the last of her skills she had learned in Entwell. With a thrust, she landed a powerful blow with her staff. The man reeled backward. The break in his concentration was enough to let through a blast of magic to scatter the other soldiers. She tried to get some distance between herself and the recovering men, but found herself eye to eye with one of the stone wolves. Claw marks scored the stony hide as it slowly moved toward her. It left behind a mound of shattered stone. Finally it stood still, awaiting a command. The real danger was behind her. She suddenly felt a crushing force closing in around her. She couldn't move, she couldn't breathe. Her feet left the ground. Slowly she was turned. The five bowmen stood before her, arrows readied, their tips fairly pressing into her flesh. The leader approached her, fury in his eyes.
"You have found your way to the last of the original Chosen. Should more arise, you would have been valuable. But your threat outweighs your benefit," he seethed. A pulse of will snapped one of Myranda's ribs.
She turned all of her own strength of mind to countering his. Despite her best efforts, the force was barely lessened. The best she could manage was to hold him off enough to stay alive.
"Destroy her," the man ordered, deciding now was not the time for a battle of wills when a simpler means of execution existed.
Arrows were drawn back, but before they could fly, a charging form tore through the line of bowman. Myranda struggled to turn to see the form, but the force around her tightened. The air was forced from her lungs. The leader raised a second hand. At the very edge of Myranda's vision, the thrashing form froze.
"Clever," he admitted, drawing the form nearer.
Now Myranda could see. It was the stone wolf. The fingers of the leader twisted cruelly. Waves of black swept over the body of the creature. It howled in pain, but behind the howl was a scream. Ether's voice. The stony form shifted slowly to the stone form of Ether as additional mass of the wolf crumbled away from the human shape at its core.
"You shall be an adequate prize," he smiled.
Suddenly he turned. Anger flashed in his eyes. The form of Myn hung, writhing in pain in the air. Flames spewed from her mouth until it was forced closed. Myranda focused her mind. The spell that held her was astoundingly powerful. Ether had shifted to flame and now struggled with all of her considerable strength, yet the grip barely wavered.
"Let her go!" came a voice from behind him.
Ivy's club came down, but it stopped inches from the head of the man who held the others at bay. He turned and in a moment she too was suspended in the air. She began to scream in a combination of pain and terror. Myranda suddenly felt the hot sting of fear in her stomach. She had been frightened before. This was different. It was fundamental . . . primal. She felt it rise as Ivy's desperate struggling increased. Myn seemed to be similarly effected. It was as though Ivy's fear was spilling over to the others. Only Ether and their captor seemed unaffected. Soon the fear was almost more unbearable than the pain.
"Let me go! I can't go back! No! NO!" she cried.
The grip was loosening. Something about Ivy’s struggles was having an effect. Suddenly there was a torrent of magic. It felt akin to the force that had been gathered to restore Ether, but it came all at once. A flash of blinding blue light filled the valley and a deafening shriek that swiftly faded to nothing echoed from all directions. The hold about them was released. Myranda fell to the ground. Ether did not. She blasted directly at the powerful man. He was quickly consumed in flame and lifted into the air. The fiery form hurdled through the air and into the ruined fort. A few moments and a series of earthshaking blows later what was left of the ruins began to cave in. A flickering form erupted from the flying dust and debris. Ether landed before Myranda. The flames of her body were weakening. The bright eyes wavered.
"Quickly . . . " the voice almost pleaded.
"Myn, fire, NOW!" Myranda cried.
The dragon unleashed flame that seemed to wrap around Ether. After a second and third burst and the shape shifter seemed restored. She immediately shifted to wind and launched skyward.
"The leader is not dead. I intend to withdraw until I am better prepared to finish him. If you value your life, you will leave this valley," Ether called out. Threads of fear were woven into her voice.
Before Myranda could object, the windy form had disappeared into the distance. The ruins were still collapsing. If that wizard truly had survived, Myranda hoped that the mountain of shattered stone would delay him long enough for her to escape. She closed the wound in her thigh, snapped her ribs back into place and healed them, and climbed to her feet. Myn rushed to her side to help her. She scanned the valley, but there was no sign of Ivy, save one. It was a single footprint, more than a dozen paces from where she should have landed. Where were the others? The last of the bricks of the fort crumbled into what was now little more than a pit filled with jagged stone. Deep beneath it, Myranda could already hear a deep rumble. She would have to move quickly.
Running in the direction the footprint faced, Myranda found another, more than one hundred paces on. Together they seemed to be indicating that Ivy had made her way down the mountainside along the steep but direct path that had been taken by the soldiers. Of course, with such massive strides, running hardly seemed the appropriate word. Somehow Myranda would have to find a way down with similar speed or the leader who had nearly taken her life moments ago would be upon her to finish what he had started. Her eyes turned to the only other things in the valley, the supply sleds. They were small, the s
ort intended to deliver minor cargo. She turned one to face downhill.
"Myn, burn the other sled, then find Ivy. When you do, lead me to her," Myranda said.
Myn quickly obeyed, taking to the air once the sled was aflame. Myranda pushed the sled and climbed on. It gained speed quickly. Soon the landscape was whipping by at a terrifying rate. The path was a gently curving one, but at this speed she had to lean all of her weight to one side of the sled to manage the turn. She could have used magic to steer, but a general throbbing in her body assured her that she had not yet tended to all of her own injuries, and she had the others to think about. It was best to save her strength. Here and there, at the base of a treacherous crater, Myranda would spot another footprint. Myn was still overhead, far ahead of her, searching. The pass was growing more narrow, the curves more sharp. A sound from behind like a clap of thunder served as a reminder that she must not slow.
Finally Myn glided down and kept pace ahead of the speeding sled. She'd found something. Myranda did her best to stay behind the dragon, and miraculously managed to guide the sled safely through a series of successively narrower forks in the pass. After passing though a point in the path only slightly wider than the sled itself, the pass opened again. In the distance, at the end of a long, deep furrow that looked to have been scooped out of the snow, was Ivy, motionless and face down. Myranda managed to bring the sled to a halt. She climbed down into the furrow.
Ivy's body was hot, almost scalding to the touch. A fair amount of the snow around her had turned to slush. The edges of her cloak were frayed and charred, yet her boots seemed little the worse for wear. One hand still clutched the club, the surface of which had been blackened and charred as well. Myranda rolled the creature over, her face had been in a hollow in the snow that looked as though it had been melted or perhaps boiled away. The melting snow was slowly filling it with icy water. She was breathing, but only barely, deeply unconscious.
Fairly soaking herself to the bone in the process, Myranda dragged Ivy to the sled. She loosened the straps and removed packs and bags that had survived the ride thus far until there was enough room for Ivy to lie. Whatever mysterious heat had kept her warm thus far was fading fast, and soaked as they were, neither of them would last long in the snow. Myranda flexed her knowledge of water magic, wicking away all that clung to their bodies. She then pulled off the rough canvas that had been wrapped around the cargo and threw over Ivy.
Carefully Myranda probed with her mind, sweeping again and again for any kind of injury. Mysteriously, impossibly, Ivy was completely unharmed. Her only plight was that her spirit was utterly drained. It was only with the whisper of strength that remained that the once powerful essence clung to the body. If this creature could recover, time alone would serve as the cure. With nothing more to do, Myranda sat on the edge of the sled and gave her racing heart a rest, Myn by her side. She tried to grasp what had just transpired.
In one day she found one Chosen and lost another. The one that had left her was anything but what she would consider a hero. Ether was self absorbed and obsessed with her own superiority. The other was a study in contradictions. She seemed full grown, but behaved like a little girl. She seemed not to know a word of magic, yet she had a soul powerful enough to break that wizard's grip. Her will seemed weak, yet she was capable of forcing her emotions on others unintentionally. She could not land a single blow on the wizard, yet she was able to traverse half of a mountainside in a heartbeat.
Myranda's head throbbed. She willed away some minor injuries Myn had sustained while in the wizard's grip, then tended to what was left of her own. She could not sense Bagu drawing nearer. Perhaps he had yet to escape. Another attempt to find him revealed that she could not sense him at all. Briefly she wondered if he was concealing himself, but she pushed the thought aside. If he had followed her this far this quickly, there would be nothing she could do to stop him. He had no reason to hide. Standing again, Myranda looked over the supplies she'd uncovered. There was a longbow and some arrows, including a quiver of the crystal tipped ones. Those might be useful. Another bundle seemed to be entirely chains, ropes, and shackles. Ivy must have been difficult to restrain. She separated a rope from the bundle. There was not a scrap of food or a drop of water. The nearmen must not need it, and if her own stay had been any indication, the tiniest amount of that horrid swill would last months at the torturous rate at which they rationed it out. Myranda secured the useful items to whatever open space was left on the sled and began to push it carefully along.
By the time the mountain turned to flat land again it was well into the long cold night. The tundra was not nearly as cold as the mountain had been, but it was quite a bit colder than the field she had left on the other side. In her years of wandering Myranda had never been so far north, nor so far east. She was nearly to the coast. Had she taken a few turns differently in her descent of the mountain, her trip may well have taken her to the shores of the North Crescent Sea. The sea was entirely separated from the mainland by the Eastern Mountains, and thus few ever saw it. Of course, it had been her view every morning when she was in Entwell, but the thought had never occurred to her when she was there. Perhaps because it was such a paradise, the thought of an icy forbidding sea would have been out of place. For a moment she let her mind linger on more pleasant times. She thought of all she had learned, all of the people she had met. She thought of Deacon . . .
A gust of icy wind and a hint of light struggling through the clouds above the mountain shook her back to reality. If her sense of direction had not failed her, she was in the thin strip of flatland between the Eastern Mountains and the Elder Mountains to the north. Were she to follow the southern edge of these mountains west for a few days, the walls of the northern capital would come into view. It was the most heavily fortified and largest city in the kingdom. Nestled among the mountains and with a pair of legendary walls, the Tresson army could sweep across the whole of the Northern Alliance and be turned back by the forces defending the capital for years. In the past the place was called Verril. When the three kingdoms united, it came to be called simply Northern Capital. It was a name as sterile and utilitarian as any that had been created since the war began, just another in a long line of changes that stripped the culture and history from the land and its people.
With the capital so near, this was a dangerous place to be. It was clear now that the D'karon were the real enemy, and that they made up the better part of the Alliance Army. The capital was the point of command for that force. The generals in command of the army, and potentially the throne, would be there. Until the full might of the Chosen could be brought together, she had to help them as best she could to evade the grip of these powerful men. That meant taking the ailing Ivy as far away from here as she could until the poor creature could recover.
Moving the sled proved to be a far more difficult task without the aid of a slope. Fortunately, as she had been forced to learn, the mountainside was riddled with caves. She came upon one large enough to conceal the three of them but small enough to be certain it was not otherwise occupied. Before Myranda could even request it, Myn scampered off and returned with a pair of snow rabbits. Myranda was unwilling to risk lighting a fire, and the planks of the sled were the only wood to speak of, so she rendered the meat as edible as she could with magic alone. This being her first attempt, the results were less than ideal, but she managed. Again her mind turned to Deacon. He was a master of that particular trick. Somehow he'd compressed the entire procedure to the snap of a finger. Had she known what lay in store, she might have asked to be taught that instead of some of the other things she had learned from him.
She fumbled through the bag for the stylus he had given her. It was still with her. She turned it about in her hands. Holding it reminded her that somewhere there was a place that was untroubled by the war. Somewhere there was a person like Deacon. Perhaps she could return there. Perhaps that is the place that would keep the Chosen safe until they were united. Alas, there were
far more reasons why she could not or should not return than why she should. The way could well be blocked now and for months to come. Even if it were open, the journey was perilous and she doubted that she remembered it well enough to navigate it safely. Aside from all of that, there were other Chosen to find . . . or were there.
A comment made by her recent foe echoed in her mind. She'd been too frightened and distracted to consider it before. He said that she had found her way to the last of the original Chosen. Lain and Ether were each original, and the swordsman was dead. Even if Ivy were an original, there should have been one more. The D'karon must have killed it. A dark feeling came to the pit of Myranda's stomach. If this war was ever to end, it would mean that the D'karon would need to be defeated, but they had managed to kill two of the mightiest warriors ever to exist, and capture two others. Only Ether had evaded their grasp entirely, and that was largely due to the fact that for thousands of years she had barely existed.
Two things were now quite clear. First, the foes she faced were far more powerful than she had thought and second, there were two Chosen that remained to be found. The second point was made more distressing by the fact that there was no prophesy to guide her in her search. What were the two that remained? An artistic prodigy and a strategist. Myranda turned to the still body of Ivy. Neither could be considered a description of the creature she had found. She was one of the new Chosen; a replacement, somehow. But that contradicted what the man in the valley had said. Was he trying to confuse her?