by A. C. Cobble
“I’ve heard of mages questing but only for strictly limited purposes. On a large scale, it’s not practical, is it?” asked Rhys, moving quickly to gather his equipment.
The rogue glanced regretfully at the small fire they’d started and then kicked a shower of dirt over it. Without spending a quarter bell burying the fire and smoothing the earth, it would be obvious someone camped there.
“Within a couple of hundred paces of us, there must be hundreds of living creatures,” Rhys added. “A questing like that would return so much information it would overwhelm the questor. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.”
Towaal grunted and strapped her pack closed. “You and I have been alive a long time, and we’ve learned a lot in those years, but now, I’m starting to think half of what we learned was wrong.”
They all finished breaking camp and hitched their packs on their backs. Without needing to say it, they started moving, angling north, deeper into the forest.
Towaal continued talking while they walked. “A year ago, I didn’t think any real male mages existed. I would have told you wyvern fire was a myth, that mages like Gunther and Jasper couldn’t be real, and that the Veil had Alcott’s best interest at heart. There’s more to this world than I ever expected, even after hundreds of years of exploring. Who knows. Maybe we’ll see a wyvern next.”
Ben grunted. Wyverns. That was one story he was certain would remain that, just a story.
Towaal continued, “To your point, Rhys, could a talented questor sort out our life forces from the thousands of animals they would have caught in that net? I’m not going to wait and find out.”
A bell passed with no breaks. Then, Amelie gasped, and Towaal’s face fell.
“It happened again?” queried Ben.
“It felt closer,” stated Amelie.
Towaal didn’t speak, but she picked up her pace.
Every bell, another jolt would shoot through Towaal and Amelie, and after every time, they would start walking faster. For the midday meal, they only paused long enough to dig food out of the packs and continued to walk, eating as they went.
Ben’s skin was crawling, running from something he couldn’t see and couldn’t feel. He didn’t doubt the mage’s urgency, though. Even Rhys was starting to get jumpy, twitching at every animal call or rustling branch. They marched in silence, afraid their voices could give away their location.
As darkness fell across the forest, Ben risked speaking. “We should stop and rest.”
Towaal shook her head. “The questing is coming closer. They’re catching up to us. If we stop, they’ll be on us in our sleep.”
Ben hooked a thumb at Rhys. “I’m not sure how far he’ll make it. If we stumble across these pirates, we’ll need him ready to fight.”
“I can hear you,” muttered Rhys.
The rogue was huffing and puffing, exhausted from the all-day hike. It was obvious already he wouldn’t be much use in a fight. With rest, though, Ben thought he could recover enough to help.
“We have to keep going,” declared Amelie. “Ben, whatever is behind us is powerful. We don’t want to tangle with them if we don’t have to. In the dark, we may be able to lose them. If they keep following us through the night, then we’ll have to deal with it. There’s no reason to force that confrontation, though.”
“That makes sense,” acknowledged Ben. “Onward we go.”
They trudged deeper into the forest, at least a league from the road now and angling northward. If they could lose their pursuers and turn back to the road, Ben figured they’d only lose half a day from the excursion. If they could lose their pursuers.
A bell later, Ben saw from Amelie’s reaction that another pulse must have happened.
“It feels like there is a pattern to it,” she mused.
Darkness fell, and they stumbled onward, choosing not to light a torch or use magical means to see where they were going. Light at night in the dark forest would be a beacon to anyone nearby. Instead, they crashed into low-hanging tree branches and tried to avoid walking straight into one of the thick trunks. Ben stumbled over more rocks than he cared to count. He could only hope their pursuers weren’t close enough to hear their bumbling.
“That one was quicker,” said Amelie suddenly. “I’m sure there is a pattern.”
“A pattern that is getting more complicated as they go,” added Towaal. “It’s almost as if… they’re communicating something with these pulses. A code, maybe?”
A quarter bell later, the mages felt another one.
“It could be communication,” agreed Amelie, “but what would they be saying?”
“Our location and extrapolating the direction we’re traveling,” suggested Rhys. “What else?”
“Good guess,” called a voice from the darkness ahead of them.
Ben’s party stopped. Light bloomed from Towaal’s hand, illuminating over a dozen armed men scattered in a half circle amongst the trees.
“A mage,” hissed one of the men.
The leader, the purple-coated pirate Zane, shouted his man down. “Of course they have a mage. The lady fled the Sanctuary, you idiot!” He turned to face Towaal. “You planning to take the pretty girl back behind your white walls, mage? I’m afraid we had something similar in mind.”
“You are right. I am a mage,” growled Towaal. “Now that we have agreed on that, do you really think this is a good idea?”
Zane stuck his hands behind his back. Just like Ben had seen before, when he pulled them out, his hands were encased in two, glowing and spiked gauntlets. The pirate captain rolled his bald head on his thick neck and showed his teeth. Broken stubs shined in the mage-light.
Rhys drew his longsword and let the silver runes sparkle to life. Ben drew his sword as well, regretting that he’d lost the mage-wrought blade.
“Everyone has fancy tricks,” cackled Zane.
Clicks sounded on both sides of Ben’s party. His eyes darted back and forth. He saw six crossbowmen with squat, sturdy-looking crossbows, all cocked and aimed at his friends.
“It’s clear you don’t intend to fight us,” said Towaal. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have called out. You would have ambushed us and let the chips fall. Let’s dispense with the games. Tell me, what do you want?”
The pirate Zane laughed maniacally. Ben realized with a shudder the teeth weren’t broken. They were sharpened.
The pirate raised his gauntlets. “I just wanted you to provide some light for my men to shoot by.”
Towaal’s light flicked out, and the crossbows thrummed.
Ben flailed back, hoping the man aiming a bolt at him didn’t guess which way he ducked. A cry went out as someone was hit, but he couldn’t tell who it was, his friends or a pirate caught in the cross fire. There was no time to wonder as a swarm of angry pirates closed on him in the darkness.
He sensed footsteps coming fast and swung his longsword wildly, hoping just to make contact so he could figure out where his attacker was. He felt the blade hit something coming at him, something hard. He heard the crunch of bone and smiled to himself. The man must have been coming low, ready to slam into Ben. Instead, he’d caught the edge of the longsword with his face.
Ben wasn’t prepared for the next one, though, and a heavy body crashed into him, throwing him to the ground. Sprawled on his back, he gripped his sword and waved it viciously where he thought his attacker had been, but the weapon didn’t hit anyone.
Then, a dozen steps away, two pirates suddenly burst into flames, illuminating the clearing in the stomach-churning light of burning bodies.
Ben saw a pirate right next to him, the man who must have tackled him, and kicked out with his foot, catching the man’s knee, surprising him and sending the man sprawling.
Ben scrambled to his feet just in time. Backlit by their burning counterparts, two more of the villains closed. They carried cutlasses, common weapons amongst seafaring types because they were light. Sailors were rarely stupid enough to wear heavy armor in the
middle of the ocean, so a heavier blade wasn’t necessary. The blades weren’t designed to stand against a longsword in skilled hands, though.
Acting quickly, Ben thrust at the closest man, the tip of his longsword aiming for the man’s stomach. The pirate deftly parried the stroke, sliding it to the side. Ben continued his momentum and let the blade follow the course the pirate put it on, right into his companion’s chest.
The second man gave a startled grunt when the sharp tip of steel pierced his torso. It ended in a gurgle as the blade penetrated deeper and found his heart.
“Thanks,” Ben muttered to the first man before slamming his elbow into the pirate’s startled, heavily tattooed face.
The pirate stumbled back, and Ben grimaced. The man was enough of a scrapper that he didn’t drop his weapon. This wasn’t going to be easy.
Behind him, one of the burning men fell to the ground and rolled frantically across the damp earth, extinguishing the flames on him. The second burning man wasn’t so fortunate. He fell onto his back, the flames licking hungrily at his melting flesh.
Ben’s friends still stood, along with a dozen pirates. Their leader, Zane, was grinning broadly in the light of his burning crewmen. He clicked his gauntlets together, and sickly green power flowed over the claws and spikes.
Rhys stepped toward the man, his longsword glowing silver, but his shoulders were slumped, and it was evident the still-recovering rogue was not expecting to win the fight. Towaal’s hands blazed alight with orange fire, and she pulled back, preparing to launch a fist-sized ball of flame at the pirate.
A thump sounded behind them, and an instant later, Ben was flung to the turf like a giant had just kicked him.
“Nice try, mage,” snarled Zane. “You think I was stupid enough to follow a runaway from the Sanctuary without bringing my own magic user?”
Ben, lying on his side stunned, saw a tall woman step into the flickering light. She wore plain clothing and her hair was tied back into a severe bun behind her head. Her face was twisted in disgust.
“Lady Agwaa,” Towaal groaned. She raised her hands and then blinked, frustration evident with her every movement.
“What did you do?” exclaimed Amelie.
“Nice to see you again, Karina,” the woman remarked coolly. “You are feeling a little spell I picked up in the west after that witch Coatney banished me from the Sanctuary. Your strength should return sufficiently within a few moments.” The woman looked to Zane. “Kill them both now before that happens.”
“We need the girl,” growled Zane.
“The girl is a mage, you fool,” snapped the woman. “Even a runaway is too dangerous to leave alive. You cannot control her long enough to deliver her to a buyer alive. She’s still worth a fortune if she’s dead.”
Zane raised his gauntlets. “Do not challenge my leadership, Agwaa! You will be with us the entire way, and I trust you will keep her under control, or sedate her. I don’t care. Just do it!”
A flash of cool blue light came streaking out of the darkness and flashed in front of Zane. It clashed against the man’s gauntlets in a burst of green sparks. The armor was split, and the pirate’s hands severed. Ben watched in astonishment as green-lit blood spurted from Zane’s wrists.
Stumbling, Zane turned. Beside him, a man stood, illuminated by the blue glow of his weapon. He was a hand taller than Ben and his head was shaved bare. He was shirtless, and the soft glow from his blade lit his muscular chest in sharp relief. He had baggy trousers and no fear about facing a dozen pirates and a former mage of the Sanctuary. On his chest hung a copper amulet.
Zane collapsed in front of him.
“The agreement is that travelers stay on the road,” the man remarked, nudging the pirate’s body with his foot. “Failure to follow the agreement is punishable by death. Violence and expending your will in this forest are also punishable by death.”
The pirates, understanding a fight to the death better than anyone, attacked.
Ben watched in awe as the man danced through the pack of assailants. He was fluid like Saala but quick and brutal like Rhys. In the space of several heartbeats, Ben observed the man was a better swordsman than both. He blew through the pirates like a cyclone, felling them with ease.
“This is not good,” mumbled Rhys, shuffling to stand beside Ben. As they watched, the last of the pirates fell before the man’s glowing blade.
Ben looked at where Lady Agwaa had been standing and saw she was gone.
“The amulet, Ben,” hissed Amelie, looking at the man’s chest.
Understanding struck him, and Ben dove for Amelie’s pack, ripping it open and frantically riffling through her clothing, trying to find the copper amulet they’d found in Akew Woods after Eldred’s trap had gone off.
The mysterious newcomer stepped toward Ben’s party, his sword raised, no trace of the pirate’s blood on the glowing steel.
Suddenly, Ben’s hand closed around the copper disc, and he tore it out of the pack, dangling it from its leather thong so the man could see it. The newcomer paused his advance, staring at the slowly twirling disc. He cut his eyes to where Agwaa had fled.
“I will be back,” he stated calmly. “Stay here, and we will talk.”
The man padded silently into the dark trees, the lack of light not seeming to be a problem as the glow from his blade winked out.
Exhaling a burst of breath, Amelie asked, “Who was that, and what just happened?”
“I have no idea,” responded Towaal slowly.
3
The Village
“Where did you get that?” asked a voice.
Ben tried to locate its source, but the man remained within the darkness of the forest. Ben and his companions were huddled around a small fire. They’d started it half a bell after the man had left and had been tending it for a bell after that. They’d moved several score paces away from where the fight had taken place to avoid the stench of burning bodies.
“You’ve been gone a while,” remarked Rhys, puffing on his pipe.
“The woman was faster than she appeared,” responded the voice from a different point outside of the light of their fire.
Ben breathed deeply, trying to remain calm. They’d decided that whoever the man was, he was extremely powerful and not worth fighting unless they had to. So, instead of preparing for battle, they’d made dinner.
“Would you like something to eat?” asked Towaal. “Venison, taken just yesterday.”
“I do not eat meat,” answered the man.
Ben shivered. The swordsman was circling them as silently as a ghost.
“The copper amulet you showed me,” said the man, “show it to me again.”
Ben picked it up off the ground beside him and raised it.
Like a striking viper, the man stepped out of the darkness and snatched the amulet out of Ben’s grasp before he could react.
“Hey!” he shouted, but a warning look from Rhys kept him seated.
Rhys was right. If the man had wanted to attack, he could have sliced Ben’s head off as easily as he took the amulet. Whoever he was and whatever his intentions, he wasn’t spoiling for a fight either. At least, not yet.
“This is real,” murmured the man.
“Uh, thanks,” responded Ben.
“Where did you get this?”
The shirtless man began circling them again, staying at the edge of the firelight, the copper amulet in one hand, his sword in the other. The blade glowed subtly now, not the blaze it had been earlier, but it wasn’t dark either. Ben wasn’t sure if that was a good sign of a bad one.
“I found it,” answered Ben.
The man paused behind Lady Towaal and then moved again. He studied each of them, waiting for Ben to elaborate. Finally, Rhys had enough.
“This is ridiculous!” barked the rogue. “We were chased off the road by those pirates, and yes, we fought them, breaking your rules, but what do you expect us to do? We did our absolute best to avoid the situation. I’m happy to talk
if you want to talk or fight if we have to fight, but I’m not going to sit here any longer like I’m part of some silly children’s game. I keep expecting you to tap me on the head and start running around the circle.”
The man paused, a far off look in his eye. They waited for a moment. Then, Amelie guessed what was happening.
“You’re communicating through a thought meld,” she stated. “What are you saying? You don’t even know who we are.”
The man gripped the thong holding the copper amulet. “I know enough.”
“What do you know of the First Mages?” asked Towaal, eyeing the amulet.
The man’s eyes snapped back to the group. “That knowledge has been lost to the Sanctuary,” he claimed. “What do you know of them?”
“As far as I know, it still is lost to the Sanctuary,” responded Towaal. “I’m no longer part of the Sanctuary, though. You would know that if you paused to speak with us.”
“What do you know of the First Mages?” asked the man again.
Towaal raised an eyebrow. “I believe I asked my question first.”
The man was circling again, slow step by slow step, his blade always at the ready. Amelie was studying him and the copper amulets, one around his neck, one hanging from his fist. The firelight reflected off of them dully. The tension was rising in Ben. He was sure the man was about to make a move to attack. He didn’t seem the type that was willing to live and let live.
“They’re keys,” guessed Amelie.
Again, the man paused, staring at her. His body tensed. Then, the faraway look returned.
Ben and his friends glanced at each other, nervousness painted on their faces. The man had easily cut down the dozen pirates and the mage, Lady Agwaa. His sword was clearly mage-wrought, he knew Lady Towaal was a mage and displayed no fear, and he was standing, weapon in hand, and they were seated. If it came to a fight, Ben wasn’t sure they’d win it, and if they did, he knew not all of them would survive.
Suddenly, the man’s blade winked out. Ben could only see a flickering reflection of their campfire on the blade as if it was made of glass. The man slid the weapon into a loop on his belt and hung their copper amulet around his neck next to the other. “Come with me. Then, you will talk.”
