Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set

by P. E. Padilla

  Taking a breath, Sam prepared himself mentally for the next attack. To his surprise, though, the remaining soldiers were not rushing him. They were moving to create a circle, walled in by bodies, with Sam in the middle. Not knowing what was happening at first, he realized that the big man, standing head and shoulders above all the others, was coming toward him in a rush. Sam lowered himself into a sturdy stance, sticks at the ready, and hoped his skills were sufficient for this test.

  Chapter 48

  Rindu had seen, in between his own fighting, Sam’s tense moments with the five attackers. He saw that Sam was bleeding from a cut to his side, but it did not look serious enough to affect his movement. He knew that in battle, the energy flowing through the body made such minor wounds irrelevant. Sam probably did not know himself that he was injured. He thought, maybe for the first time since this battle started, that they would all survive, against all odds.

  Then he saw the big man—this had to be Shordan Drees—moving toward Sam, and knew he had to do something. Nalia had not seen it yet, but when she did she would not be able to resist going to his aid. Rindu had to act first.

  Cutting into the midsection of the man in front of him, causing the attacker to bend forward, Rindu jumped, planted his foot in the man’s back, which was almost horizontal now, and kicked off. He cleared the heads and weapons of several attackers, mostly due to their surprise and confusion, turned one perfect somersault in mid-air, and landed next to Sam. “Go protect Dr. Walt. I have made a promise that I must keep.”

  Sam looked at Rindu, dumbstruck for the briefest of moments until a stern, “Go!” from the Zouy brought him back to his senses. Rindu faced Shordan Drees as the giant of a man cleared the last of the attackers forming a ring. As the commander passed, the men closed up to make the circle complete. There would be no evading this battle.

  Standing straight at attention, bloodied broadsword cradled in the hollow of his right arm, Rindu performed the traditional salute, left hand vertical in front of his heart. He bowed slightly, showing proper respect for his opponent. Shordan Drees sneered at him and expelled a scream as he rushed in with a massive metal bound club, apparently meaning to crush the much smaller man in one blow.

  The man-mountain was a great deal faster than a man of his size should be. Rindu evaded the club blow, but his timing was not as precise as he had wished, so his counterattack had to be aborted. The Zouy dodged to the side, keeping a suitable distance. Drees was skilled. He recovered easily from the missed blow, not becoming unbalanced because of it, despite the force with which he had tried to strike.

  Again and again Drees attacked. Rindu, expertly using the broadsword, deflected the club and counterattacking with lightning-fast slashes with the sword, revolving it around his torso and whipping it out with great speed and force while still guarding against counterattack. Drees somehow moved the club fast enough to block the slashes, however, using the entire length of the weapon and the metal bands surrounding it. Each block was jarring to Rindu and he had to redirect the momentum of the sword at the last moment to keep it from shattering from the force of the blocks.

  Back and forth, the combatants waged their private war, neither being struck despite the speed and savagery of the attacks. Rindu, for his part, had been gauging his opponent’s style while keeping his predictable so as to be able to spring a surprise attack. The big man seemed to be tiring slightly, not used to working so hard to defeat an enemy.

  Just when Rindu was about to spring his trap, the big man backed up two steps, shouted, “Now, Ix” and disappeared in a sea of bodies as the circle closed about Rindu and he was attacked from all sides. The last thing he noticed before all of his attention was taken by the mob surrounding him was the slender form of the assassin woman appearing suddenly next to Dr. Walt, reaching out to grab him and Shordan Drees, only for all three to disappear. Sam was still fighting his way toward Nalia and neither he nor his daughter could do anything for the old man. Clearing his mind and breathing rhythmically, he proceeded to wreak havoc upon the attackers surrounding him.

  When the battle was done, which happened more quickly than when the others had been worrying about protecting Dr. Walt, there were dead, dying, and severely injured soldiers littering the ground. Sam had some minor cuts and a few bruises, but no serious damage. Nalia’s mask was torn and a few of her hairs were cut short, but otherwise she was uninjured. Rindu was dirty from the mud and the blood that had splattered on him, but no weapon had touched him.

  Sam sat down tiredly at the edge of the battlefield after checking to make sure Shonyb and Skitter were all right. The hapaki had emerged from his hiding place unharmed. The rakkeban had some minor cuts that had already stopped bleeding. She nuzzled him affectionately, sniffing him to make sure he was not harmed. He petted the fur on her head absently.

  “So many,” he said to the air, “so much death.”

  “It is what the Gray Man brings, Sam,” Rindu answered. “It is the world as it would be if the Gray Man had complete control.”

  “What will he do with Dr. Walt?” Sam said, changing the subject.

  “He will perhaps try to extract information from him. It appears that the Gray Man is in search of information much the same as we are. We must get to the Gray Fortress and rescue Dr. Walt before the Gray Man determines him to be of no further use.”

  Sam felt horrible. “How far are we? Can we make it in time?”

  “I do not know, Sam. We are perhaps two days from the Fortress, if the rakkeben are not so injured so as to affect their speed. It may be time enough. We will hurry and hope that we are not too late.”

  Sam said nothing, only studying the muddy ground. The muddy red ground, made that way by blood that had washed over it from other parts of the battlefield. Looking up, vision blurred by moisture inexplicably filling his eyes, he saw Nalia looking at him. His mouth worked soundlessly, trying to find something to say.

  She came to him, hugging him and making shushing noises. “We are alive, Sam, and as long as we are alive, there is hope. We will get there and we will rescue him. Do not let the actions you were forced to take here trouble you overmuch. These soldiers came here for one reason, to kill us. Their fate is upon their own heads. You acted with honor and fought with valor and skill. Do not let it trouble you.” At that, it was as if a dam had burst. The tears came unbidden and unwanted.

  Sam sobbed uncontrollably for several minutes. He wasn’t sure why, exactly. He just knew that if he didn’t do so, something inside him would break. Nalia held him, silent, the entire time. When his tears finally stopped, she kissed him on the forehead and pulled him into a tight hug one last time, and then let him go. Shonyb licked his hand in consolation. Skitter remained mercifully silent, obviously sharing some of the feelings as they leaked out of Sam’s mind into the hapaki.

  “I have never killed anyone before,” he said. “I know they would have killed us, but still, they were people. Someone’s son or daughter, maybe mother or father.” He sniffled and made a mighty effort to stem the tide of his tears. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  Nalia put her hands on the sides of his face and pull him toward her. She kissed him gently, tenderly, on the lips, letting the kiss linger until he lost track of time. “There is nothing wrong with you Sam. You are kind and thoughtful and life is precious to you. I would hope that will never change.” She held him for some long minutes, until he felt his heart beating more slowly and felt more at peace.

  Finally, he stirred. Looking into her eyes, he thanked God that he had found her. “Thank you,” he said to her as he straightened his back and lifted his chin. “Well then,” he said awkwardly, “I guess we should dress our wounds…” He pointedly looked to Rindu and Nalia trying to force a smile, but failing “…those of us who have them, and get started. The Gray Man won’t wait for us to get there before carrying out his plans.”

  Clapping him on the shoulder, Rindu went about inspecting the rakkeben for wounds, clean
ing and dressing those he found. Nalia cleaned Sam’s wounds, all shallow, and then helped with Shonyb. Soon, they gathered their supplies, packed most of them on Dr. Walt’s rakkeban along with the old man’s belongings, and began the last part of their journey to the heart of the villain’s lair.

  Chapter 49

  The party traveled quickly that day, eating up the miles as only those in pursuit—or those fleeing—could. The rakkeben seemed to understand the urgency and mercilessly pushed the pace despite some of their wounds reopening and bleeding again. Sam patted Shonyb and explained that she should ease the pace so they would not injure themselves further and she, through some sharp barks and yips, brought the other rakkeben into line, slowing the pace to one that could be kept for longer periods of time. Sam marveled at how much the big wolf could understand.

  Late into the night, Rindu finally brought them to a halt. “We should not risk blindly proceeding into more dangerous areas. Let us rest until daylight and then continue.”

  He and Nalia agreed, as did Skitter, though only Sam could hear his assent. They set up camp, re-dressed the wounds that had opened again on the rakkeben and himself, ate quickly, and went to sleep. Rindu took first watch, waking Nalia halfway through so he could get some rest. They let Sam sleep, figuring he needed more rest than they.

  He woke just before dawn, shocked into wakefulness by the others moving about and breaking camp. At first, he regretted them not allowing him to take a watch, but then he realized that he did really need the extra rest. He was not used to such intense battle and he alone among the humans had wounds, so he decided they had done the right thing. Smiling at Nalia, who had repaired her mask and donned it once again, he ate and then packed his things quickly, ready to leave.

  Soon after leaving that morning, Sam was able to spot the end of the dead zone. At first, it looked only like a smudge on the horizon, but as they continued, it resolved itself into colors, primarily green. A forest. Sam would be happy to leave the barren land behind, but didn’t like the thought of being delayed by the thick vegetation.

  Several times during the day, Sam spied what appeared to be people scuttling around off in the distance. That is, if people walked on two legs but ran on all fours. After seeing a particularly large group, seven he thought, Nalia commented.

  “Those are the riati. They were perhaps human once, but no longer. They are scavengers, and cowardly. They eat anything, but rarely hunt live prey. If their number is sufficient, however, they will attack and kill to eat. They have a sense of power and would not attack such as us unless there were fifty or more of them, if even then.

  “It is said that they arose from the effects of the weapons used in the Great War that ended the last age. I do not know if this is true. I have seen them before, on my trip to the Gray Fortress with my sisters. Ten of them surrounded me on my way out, sensing that I was wounded. They are very strong and fast, but once I killed two of their number, they lost interest and fled. We have nothing to fear from them. There are more dangerous things ahead.”

  It was late afternoon before they got close enough to the forest to really see individual trees. Sam had never seen such trees before. Gnarled, twisted, and massive, they seemed to lock together to form an impenetrable wall. The treebark was ash gray and the foliage was a pale green, as if the entire forest was a watercolor painting that had been sitting out in the rain. Even the thick bushes looked to be nothing but pale green nettles and thorns. Sam didn’t like the look of the place.

  Rindu pointed to the forest. “The Undead Forest. The effects of the Dead Zone taper off here, but are still evident. Though all life was not extinguished here as it was in the Dead Zone itself, it was changed. There are legends of the dangers of the Undead Forest, and Danaba Kemp spoke of some of the dangers added by the Gray Man. We must be on our guard. One slip could mean our deaths.

  “We will camp here at the edge of the forest and enter at first light. Night is no time to be within that place.”

  Sitting in the camp they had made, fireless for fear of being detected, Nalia explained what she knew of the Fortress. “There is but one road through the forest, a wide road to the East and South of us. That is the way the Gray Man and his minions travel. It is used often, crowded with the Gray Man’s forces. When it is not, it is patrolled by special guards who carry signal horns. We would never make it to the fortress alive were we to take the road. When I came before, we lost three of our sisters in the battles along the road, and we were many.”

  She looked at the ground and then up to meet Sam’s eyes in the diminishing afternoon light. “I do not know what horrors the forest holds. I do know that inside the forest, which rings the fortress for miles in all directions, there is a barren ring of land. It is more than a mile wide all the way around the keep, meant to make it impossible to sneak a force up to the walls.

  “The Gray Fortress itself sits upon cliffs that are perhaps two hundred feet high and surrounded by fifty foot walls on top of that. It will be difficult to enter the place.”

  Sam laughed suddenly, a sharp outburst he quickly cut off. The others looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “It just struck me as funny that you used the word ‘difficult’ when I was thinking ‘impossible.’”

  Rindu tsked. “Nothing is impossible, Sam. ‘Impossible’ things simply take more time and effort. It is said, ‘The impossible exists only for the lazy and dull of mind.’ Have you not learned this? How much of what we have done so far would you have thought impossible a few short months ago?”

  “I see your point. I’m sorry. I think the tension is getting to me. What will we do?”

  Rindu explained his plan. They would release the rakkeben to fend for themselves. They would not be able to ride them in the forest in any case and with the traps they were expecting, the big wolves would be at risk. They would carry only their weapons and a small amount of food because their quest would end the next day, one way or another. They would either make it into the fortress and engage in the final confrontation or they would be killed. Either way, there was no need for more than snacks and water.

  Using the information given to them by Danaba Kemp, they would make their way through the forest, moving carefully to detect and avoid traps as they did so. There were also some beasts that were resident in the area, ones that had learned to avoid the traps. That meant that some of them must have an affinity to vibrational energy, since many of the traps the Gray Man would set would be of that sort. They might be forced to battle these creatures.

  Once out of the forest, they would determine a way to get across the buffer zone to the cliffs. Rindu implied that he knew a way to get up the cliffs but didn’t go into detail, merely saying, “We will get up the cliffs and to the walls.” Once at the walls, they would have to find a way up, around, or through and into the fortress proper.

  That wouldn’t be the end, though. The Gray Fortress was a massive place. They could search for weeks and still never find the Gray Man or Dr. Walt. This, too, they would have to figure out along the way. The entire thing made Sam even more uneasy.

  With little else to do, the three remaining party members, along with Skitter who was keeping to himself, curled up early and went to sleep, with Rindu taking first watch.

  Sam had insisted on middle watch, since he felt as if he had not done his share during their journey. When Rindu woke him, he rubbed his eyes, rose from his sleeping spot, and took a position at the edge of their camp area where he could watch the Dead Zone and the nearby forest.

  A few minutes into his watch, Skitter sidled up to him. Are you not able to sleep? Sam sent to his friend.

  No. I am anxious.

  Anxious? Sam sent curiously. Myself, I’m scared to death and concerned that we’re unprepared for what we will face. And that’s even before we get into the fortress.

  The hapaki didn’t respond for almost a minute. Scared. Yes, I’m scared, too, he admitted. The lack of any humor in the hapaki’s mind w
as telling.

  Sam scanned the area first and then, when he didn’t see anything, looked at his friend. Skitter, will you go with the rakkeben? What we will do is more dangerous than anything else we have faced. It’s likely that all of us will die. I don’t want that to happen to you.

  I am your friend, Sam, and have said I would stay with you until the end. Who knows, maybe I can help in some way. I know that I’m small and cannot fight well, but maybe I can do something. I can scout. Maybe that will be my contribution.

  Sam stroked the fur on Skitter’s head. I appreciate that. I didn’t mean to imply that you were unnecessary or unwelcome. I would have Rindu and Nalia stay behind, too, if I could. I welcome your company, though it saddens me to bring you into such danger. I have done nothing to deserve friends like you three. Well, four, including Dr. Walt.

  Skitter tilted his head and his luminous eyes looked into Sam’s. It’s not something you do to deserve friends, Sam. It is something you are. You deserve better friends than me, even if you are only a human. Humor, though only a tiny bit of it, tinged the sending.

  Together, the two friends kept watch over their sleeping companions, conversing little, just enjoying each other’s company. When it was time to wake Nalia for the last watch, Skitter settled down next to Sam’s sleeping spot and was asleep before Sam lay down. With a quick kiss for Nalia, a squeeze of the hand, and a smile, Sam settled into sleep, knowing that despite how much he wanted to stay up and talk with her, he needed rest.

  The morning dawned gray and ominous. It didn’t look like it would rain, but it didn’t look like the sun would be making an appearance either. Sam supposed it didn’t matter because once they stepped into the gnarled trees, most of the sunlight would be blocked in any case.