Vorconis remained unconvinced. “Dreams? Telling stones? This is not a make believe world of stories, youngling. The world we live in is real. Death is real. The Exalted are real.”
“Rion may be but a boy, but it was his readings of the telling stones that have brought us here safely to these unknown lands,” Orilion said. “He was also instrumental in the building of our own sand sail.”
Vorconis raised an eyebrow. “I … see. If what you all say is true, then perhaps blessings from the other gods may indeed be possible. However, you will need to convince me further. I must see this with my own eyes.”
“And you shall,” Miri said to him. “I will take Rion with me. Even though they will be guarding the sand sail, is it possible to conceal the two of us so we may escape from here discretely?”
Vorconis nodded. “Yes, that can be arranged. We cannot take you all, for I am certain the rest of your men are already being watched very closely.”
Miri turned to look at Orilion. “You shall have to stay behind and continue negotiations. Just tell them Rion and I are nowhere to be found. Without the boy around, they have no cause to harm you and the crew.”
The chief financier of the expedition smirked at her. “I shall do my best, Miri. Hurry and find what we need so we may finally make the return journey back to Lethe. I tire of these lands we are in.”
Chapter 11
The high sun’s rays blared down upon the blackened rock of the ridge that served as a natural wall to the outer wastes. A few leagues away, the crushed hulls of the two collided sand sails remained lodged along the base of the range, their sprawled wreckage a testament to the battle that had taken place in the twilit hours of the dayspring.
Zeren had wedged himself in one of the numerous alcoves along a wind hewn crevice. The wound on his upper arm had stopped bleeding, and he had used a little Vis to cover up the blood he had left on the rock walls by mentally throwing a few grains of sand over the crimson droplets. So far his pursuers had failed to locate him, but from the occasional shouts and curses, it was readily apparent they were still searching the area for his trail.
The throbbing pain in his arm had settled down into a dull ache, but he knew it needed to be attended to. Since the yelling of the enemy seemed more distant than ever before, Zeren began to unstrap the right spaulder from his shoulder. His brigandine armor consisted of a leather vest with riveted, overlapping metal plates covering his chest and abdomen, but it also had additional pieces like the spaulders protecting his shoulder and upper arm, and these could be removed if needed.
Looking at the damaged spaulder, Zeren could clearly see the metal shell had been fired from the enemy musket had neatly penetrated the steel plate with a finger-sized hole. It was apparent his armor had no defense against their guns, and he needed to be wary, for it would be hopeless to face a group of them in open battle. Placing the detached armor piece beside him on the rock, he twisted his head and hunched his shoulder to take a closer look at the wound.
The blackened metal ball had wedged itself firmly on his upper arm. A small knife, or perhaps a surgical instrument was needed to pry it out. Using his left hand, Zeren brought up his knee and reached down into his boot, expecting his fingers to curl up around the hilt of the dagger he always carried there. When his hand failed to grasp anything, Zeren turned to his left and looked on with dismay at the empty scabbard in his boot. The collision with the pirate’s sand sail must have dislodged the small knife he carried there, probably lost amongst the rocky outcropping.
Grimacing with both pain and frustration, he thought about what to do next. He clearly couldn’t use his sword to remove the bullet from his arm, for he needed a more precise and shorter instrument. He still had the vials of Rion’s blood with him, but he shuddered at the thought of taking the elixir without removing the metal ball in his body. Something had to be done with that object first before he could begin healing.
Reminiscing about the boy made him remember the time when he lay wounded in the Magi catacombs of Lethe. He had first met Rion in that darkened tomb, and he was amazed at the boy’s ability to heal others with his blood. A sudden idea was instantly manifested in Zeren’s head when he recalled what Rion had done to help him.
The boy had used his mindforce to pry out an arrowhead that had been lodged in Zeren’s leg. In all his cycles of existence, Zeren always used his own power as a sort of battering ram to overwhelm his enemies, but on that day, a young boy had taught him of other ways to use the mindforce.
Narrowing his eyes, Zeren turned and looked down upon his wound once more. Yes, he thought. If I could concentrate my Vis instead of throwing it around for attack, I might be able to remove the bullet through my will alone.
Remembering the boy’s words, Zeren began to alter the flow of Vis emanating from his body. Rather than harnessing it into a tight ball of mental energy or as a set of invisible hands, he narrowed its focus into something like a piece of leather string, with a tendril tiny enough to reach into his wound, yet strong enough to pull the ball out. Using his imagination, he brought it down slowly until it clasped the bullet, and began to pry it loose.
The pain in his upper arm suddenly became acute, and he lost his concentration. Suppressing the urge to curse out loud, Zeren began to concentrate once more, this time ignoring the pain receptors of his mind as he focused purely on the one task that lay ahead. Soon enough, the flesh around the wound began to tremble, as the invisible force tendril once again started to pull at the embedded shell. Just as the agony became unbearable, Zeren gritted his teeth and intensified his reach.
There was a slight squelch as the deformed metal ball suddenly popped out of his arm and floated beside his face. Grinning with silent triumph, Zeren took the suspended bullet from the air and looked at it for a short while before pocketing the shell in the folds of his cloak. Taking out one vial of the precious elixir, he uncorked the leather and wax stopper, held the glass tube in his mouth, and swallowed its contents.
By the time he had laced the spaulder back over his left shoulder, he could hear them again. With the enhanced vitae coursing through his body, Zeren felt a renewed sense of vigor, as if he had been refreshed by a long period of rest. A thin layer of skin had already closed over the wound, turning it into a pale scar. In time even the scab would eventually smooth itself out, leaving no trace of the injury, other than a distant memory of what had occurred. Zeren smiled, even though no one could notice. He was alive, and in back in good health. Now he stood a fighting chance against them.
The sounds above were getting closer, but the raiders were yelling out to each other singly, which meant they had separated in order to cover more ground. If he was going to fight, then it was better to defeat the enemy one at a time, and it was this kind of circumstance that suited him. Zeren stretched his leg and arm muscles for a short minute before getting into a crouching position. If an opportunity to take one of them out would arise, then he would have to move quickly. He had been gathering his Vis the moment the wound had healed and his mindforce was now at full strength.
A shadow loomed above him. One of the raiders was standing with legs splayed on top of the crevice Zeren was hiding in. He could see these people wore no armor; the man standing above wore a patched up leather tunic underneath a tattered, dusty cloak. The raider had tanned leathery skin, as if adapted to braving the harsh elements of the wasteland; his long, wiry hair curled up into locks, like a bundle of splayed ropes which sprouted from the top of his head. Many of the tribes in these lands also had beards, which was a rare characteristic back in Lethe. Zeren thought he looked like one of those beggars lurking near the massive sewers of the city he grew up in, but the raider’s musket which he carried in his hands meant this moment was not a good time for placid reflection. Death was near, and Zeren knew he had to do whatever he could to keep it at bay.
The raider crouched down and peered into the shadows below him. Zeren continued to squat in his shallow alcove, ready and waiting. The p
irate squinted his eyes, sensing there might be something down there, but he wasn’t quite sure. Zeren obliged him by gesturing with his left hand, using his mindforce to pull the surprised man down into the crevice. The raider made a slight yelp as his once-sturdy knees suddenly buckled under him and he fell into the crack. Zeren used a bit his Vis to keep the man’s jaw clenched tightly, so he could not utter an additional cry for help. The raider fell headfirst into the bottom of the chasm, his face colliding with the hard stone ground. The sudden impact twisted the raider’s neck and he was dead in less than a minute after the fall.
Zeren pushed himself out of the hollow and used his legs as mobile belaying points to ease himself down to where the body was lying. The bottom of the chasm had narrowed towards the ground, and the dead raider’s sandaled feet were suspended vertically in the air. Zeren could see the butt of the musket, and he reached down to try and make a grab for it. After the third try he succeeded. The dead man’s belt containing the powder horn and the leather sack of musket balls meant he would have to wedge himself down even lower, but his knees were already starting to buckle from the strain.
A voice above him suddenly echoed down to where he was. “Vartae? Have you fallen down there?”
Zeren grimaced in surprise as he looked up. Sure enough, there was another raider looking down to where he was. He had not realized the searchers were working in pairs, and now he had been exposed. Zeren aimed the musket up at the second raider, locked back the firing mechanism, took aim, and fired.
There was an audible click, but the musket didn’t fire. Zeren cursed. The first man’s fall into the crevice must have knocked out the musket ball from the barrel of the weapon. The second raider began to shout an alarm as he readied his own musket and aimed it at the intruder hiding in the darkened chasm below him.
Zeren knew he was out of options. Using his mindforce, he propelled himself upward, leaping out of the fissure and onto the top of the rock, completely surprising the second raider who merely gasped with eyes wide open.
The moment he had made the jump, Zeren had already drawn out his sword. The pirate standing beside him was unarmored like the others, and he thrust his blade at the base of the startled man’s throat. The sharp tip of Fumal Led’s sword quickly tore through the hapless man’s jugular. The second raider fell on his knees, dropping the musket from his hands in a futile attempt to staunch his mortal wound. The dying man gurgled out a stream of blood and fell face down, convulsing on the rock face.
Zeren was now out in the open as he crouched down, grabbed the second musket and looked around. Two more pirates were at another part of the ridge wall, some one hundred paces away. The pair of them shouted an alarm as they both began to run towards him. Zeren could see the two wrecked sand sails out in the distance, while an outcropping of boulders stood out to his left. Taking the second pirate’s powder horn and ammunition pouch, Zeren placed his sword back in his scabbard before making a run towards the group of boulders. He figured with some cover, he would be able to outfight the two of them.
One of the pursuing men fired his musket, but the range was too far for the gun to be effective. Zeren heard the shot, but the whizzing musket ball missed him by a wide margin. Within moments he managed to get behind the outer slabs of the outcropping. Catching his breath, Zeren stayed in cover as he placed the butt of the musket on his shoulder, aimed it at one of his pursuers, and fired.
The two raiders instantly stopped in their tracks as the shot narrowly missed one of them. Both men quickly got on their knees, and the shorter one fired his own musket, chipping off a few bits of rock from the obsidian crag Zeren was taking cover behind. The taller opponent missed completely due to the range. Both men began to calmly reload their weapons.
Taking the bone stopper out from the powder horn, Zeren half-cocked the flint hammer before adding some gunpowder onto the flash pan of the firing mechanism, then he locked down the frizzen to keep it in place. Placing the spout of the horn over the muzzle of the gun, he poured a few more pinches of powder down the musket’s barrel. After placing the horn on the ground beside him, he took out a metal ball from the small leather pouch he had filched and placed it onto the muzzle before using the ramrod to force it down the length of the shooting tube. Sticking the rod back into place underneath the barrel of the weapon, Zeren placed the butt of the musket to his right shoulder and fully locked the hammer back on the firing mechanism. This time he took careful aim, confident he had the advantage of superior cover while facing his enemies.
Just as he was pulling the trigger, a childlike voice- seemingly coming from everywhere- spoke to him. “Stop.”
Zeren blinked several times, his mind in utter confusion. Thinking it was but a temporary derangement, he looked down the sights of the gun once more and placed his finger on the trigger for the second time.
“Stop,” the voice said again.
Zeren hurriedly looked around, wincing and ducking away when a musket ball from one of his pursuers impacted the side of the obsidian boulder he was taking cover behind, chipping away a few pebbles that bounced off his face, nearly blinding his eyes with dirt. The maze of rocks behind him seemed to endlessly stretch out towards the distant face of the inner mountain wall. Was there someone who was hiding nearby he couldn’t notice?
He grimaced as another shot narrowly missed his exposed head. Zeren turned back to where the fighting was and he noticed the two raiders were taking turns between firing at him and advancing until they could get into melee range. He glanced over his shoulder for the umpteenth time before refocusing on the two enemies heading towards him. “You want me to stop fighting them when they are trying to kill me?”
“Please,” the voice said softly.
Zeren frowned as the taller pirate was but a mere twenty paces away. “No,” he said tersely before pulling the trigger a split second later.
A sharp crack was heard as the projectile flew out of the musket barrel behind a cloud of smoke. The metal ball began to tumble almost immediately, and impacted onto the lead raider’s stomach a split-second later. The man screamed in pain as he doubled over on the solid ground.
The tone of the unseen voice had changed. Now it carried a hint of anger. “Why did you do that?”
Zeren had had enough. It was all too distracting for him. He turned around and shook his head back and forth. “This is battle! Now cease speaking to me!”
The smaller pirate ran over to his injured comrade, kneeling down beside him to attend to his wound. They were both easy targets out in the bare rock flats, but the voice had so unnerved Zeren that he decided to retreat further into the hodgepodge of jutting boulders all around him. If he was truly going mad, then perhaps he needed some time to rest his mind and make the voice go away. Attaching the flask of powder to his belt, he began to zigzag along the tangle of large rocks, hoping to lose them completely.
Just as he got around a half dozen obsidian slabs, he came upon a young girl sitting on a small boulder along the path he was taking. She looked to be no more than ten cycles old, her dark brown hair a disheveled mess as it drooped down over her skinny shoulders. The child was dressed in leather rags, but she stared back at him with intense blue eyes that radiated both fear and contempt.
Zeren had stopped in mid-stride. He was completely taken aback. “Who are you, child? What are you doing here?”
She pointed a thin, delicate finger at the basket-hilted sword he had strapped to his waist. “You are a thief.”
Zeren narrowed his eyes. The voice he had heard when he was at the edge of the outcropping was hers. “Are you a Striga?”
The child let out an ear-piercing wail. A great wave of mental energy suddenly smashed itself against Zeren’s mind. He staggered backwards as the cascading tendrils of invisible energy were like hundreds of daggers that tried to assault his brain. Zeren instinctively threw up his thought blocks to shield himself against the child’s relentless psionic onslaught. One of the first things he had been taught as a young
Magus was to protect his mind against an attack by a Striga. The child’s mindsense was formidable, but it lacked the skill and focus of experienced Vis users like Miri and the matriarchs of Lethe. After a few seconds, Zeren was able to channel away the main force of the mental blow, and much of the attack was blunted. His mind began to return to normal as he continued to build up his thought defenses.
He shook off the last of the pain in his head. “You need to watch your manners, child. I am not your enemy.”
A tanned woman ran out from behind one of the boulders near the little girl and lunged at him, a bronze dagger in her hand. Zeren’s sword was still in his scabbard, but he was carrying the musket, and he used the butt of the weapon to expertly parry her awkward thrust to his torso. In one fluid movement, he brought down the length of the weapon onto her forehead after his initial block, and caught her squarely on the side of her head. The woman grunted as she fell sideways to the ground, the knife clattering away from her.
The child screamed as she jumped off the rock and ran over to the woman. Zeren backed away from the two of them, but not before reaching down and picking up the dagger that lay on the ground. The young girl started crying as she cradled the half-stunned woman’s head in her scrawny arms.
Zeren placed the knife into his belt and shrugged. “She attacked me. I merely defended myself.”
“You will drop the musket, or I shall kill you,” another voice behind him said.
Zeren let go of the weapon and turned. Standing at the opposite end of the narrow path was the shorter raider he had been recently been battling with. The man’s eyes seethed with revenge as he carefully aimed his musket towards Zeren’s head. “You killed Vartae, Dulut, and now Aiju. I shall send your spirit to the god Duun for that.”
Shrugging his shoulders, Zeren gave him a look of bored resignation. “As I have told your friends here, I was merely defending myself.”
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