WarMage: Unexpected (The Never Ending War Book 1)

by Martha Carr

  “It all seemed pretty straightforward. I don’t know what happened.”

  “What happened was you wanted to skip all the steps. When will you trust me enough to listen? You have to ride him first. You have to lead him through the course so he knows what he’s getting himself into.” His voice was rising again. “You teach him how to do all this stuff instead of just telling him what to do. You train in baby steps, and the course is the last step. You have to pace yourself. You’re too impatient.”

  She pursed her lips. “That was a lot. I am sorry. I just wanted to get this done so I can move on.”

  The dragon was moving slowly next to her, still stunned from the exercise.

  William leaned into her face as she held onto the leash. “The more you rush it, the more time you’ll waste having to go back and do it over. It’s going to take you longer. There’s no replacement for patience and taking your time.”

  “You sound like my grandfather.”

  “He knows what he’s talking about.” They got to the pen and Raven led Leander in, waiting while William removed the saddle and the leash. The dragon went to the corner, turning around and around in a circle until he dropped in a heap in the dry hay.

  William walked out, waiting for Raven to pass through. She hesitated and put her hand on the dragon’s neck one more time, leaning in to quietly whisper, “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.” She walked through the gate.

  When she was on the other side and he’d closed the gate, he said, “I know you want to go faster. Patience doesn’t mean being too slow. Please take my advice and guidance, or you’re going to burn my family’s ranch to the ground. I’m begging you.”

  “I’ll work on it. Right now, I have to get back home for dinner with Grandpa. I’m sorry. Seriously, let me help you rebuild the course, and then we’ll work out a new game plan together. Okay?”

  William nodded and watched her walk away. He looked down at the saddle and back at Leander curled up in a corner of the pen. “You two already have a connection, don’t you? She’ll figure it out, dragon. You will too.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Edward shuffled his feet in the dirt, kicking dust into the night air. Small clouds glowed in the light of the torch mounted next to the door of his cabin. Ugh. Can’t take too many more days like this one.

  “Hey, Ed!” Deacon walked past, slapping him on the back. “Nice work today.”

  Edward leaned his left shoulder against the splintered wooden door, resting the side of his head against it. The sharp ends of some shards poked his scalp, but he was too tired to notice. “Deek, this ain’t what I signed up for. I’m a harvester. I ain’t supposed to be scrubbing goat shit out of stalls. My boots are gonna stink for at least a week.”

  Deacon stopped walking and pivoted on his heel, sauntering over to Edward’s side. “I know today was a rough one, but we’re down a man. We all have to pitch in and cover Isaac’s workload.”

  Edward groaned. “Shit, Isaac’s been gone long enough. When is the old man going to hire somebody? Is he waiting for Isaac to come back or something?”

  Sniffing the air, Deacon stared into the distance. “Nah, he knows. Connor’s not stupid. Look, we’re all trying to get by right now. There’s a shortage. Fellas are leaving for parts unknown all over the city. You know the Bryson Ranch?”

  Furrowing his brow, Edward blinked his heavy eyelids slowly, wishing Deacon would just let him go to sleep. “Yeah. Southwest side of the kingdom outside the wall, right?”

  Deacon held up two fingers. “They had two move out in one night. And they pay well over there, from what I’ve heard. That’s a cake gig.”

  “I’ve heard that. Guys don’t leave, they just work there ‘til they die.”

  Deacon cocked an eyebrow. “Exactly.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do. Don’t scare me. We’re safe in here. No rogue armies can get to us in here. No band of thieves.” Edward pushed up onto both feet again and pulled open his cabin door. “I better get some sleep before we gotta do this all again. ‘Night.”

  “‘Night.” Deacon sighed. “Just keep an eye out, you know?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Edward muttered to himself as he stepped into his cabin and sank into his bed. He unleashed a loud groan while he stretched out every aching muscle in his body at once.

  He wiped the sweat off his brow. It’s a job, Ed. Not everyone gets one. Be thankful for that.

  Sleep overtook him, and within minutes, he was snoring.

  An hour into the night, a rumble shook his cabin. It woke him, and he opened one eye, looking around. All he saw was the inside of his shack—the hooks on the wall holding his few outfits, the bench by the door, and his dirty clothes spread wall to wall on the floor.

  Must’ve been a dream. He closed his eye and rolled over.

  The second rumble made his bed tremble and the windows rattle to the point of cracking. Edward’s eyes shot open and he sat straight up in his bed, gripping the sheets underneath him as he bounced wildly around the room. The furniture was moving and shifting. Across the room, a pair of muddy jeans fell off a hook on the wall and crumpled on the floor. His tools jingled and slid everywhere.

  Edward held his breath, trying not to scream. Then, as quickly as it had started, the rumbling stopped. Dust still hung in the air, floating down to settle on everything in its new place.

  “Holy shit!” He jumped out of bed and ran for the door, shoving his feet frantically into his dirty work boots and sprinting out into the cold night. The frigid air gave him a rush as it hit the bare skin of his legs, but he was too panicked to notice.

  He ran back to the cabin and tried closing the door, but it was now crooked and wouldn’t close all the way. He opened the door to gaze out over the ranch. A chill went down his spine, and he froze in place.

  The rest of the ranch was intact.

  Edward had expected to see a disaster area after the ground shook like that. The barns looked the same. The fencing hadn’t budged. All the other houses looked fine.

  He stepped back and looked at his cabin, which was leaning significantly to the right. It appeared ready to fall if a strong enough gust of wind blew through.

  Confused, Edward jogged to the cabin next door and pounded on it. After a few seconds without a response, he knocked again.

  “All right! All right!” Henry called from inside. “Just hang on!” He whipped open the door with jeans unbuttoned, one eye closed. “Ed, what the hell, man? Put some damn clothes on!”

  “How were you sleeping after that?”

  “After what? Your knocking? I’m not. Neither is Mick. Now we’re both up and pissed.”

  Edward looked at the cabin. “How is your place still intact? I haven’t felt the ground shake like that in years.”

  Henry rubbed his eyes. “Ed, what are you talking about?”

  “The earthquake!”

  “What earthquake?”

  “Oh, give me a break, Henry. There’s no way you guys slept through that.”

  Henry stepped out of the cabin and closed the door, looking out at the rest of the ranch. “Ed, there was no earthquake. Look around you. There would be damage if there was an earthquake. Maybe you just had a bad dream or something.”

  “No!” Edward shouted. “That’s not it. It wasn’t a dream! I felt the earth shake violently. Stuff was falling in my cabin. Come look!”

  Henry peered at him as though he was losing his mind. “Go back to bed, Edward. I think you hit the ‘shine too much tonight.”

  “Dammit, I haven’t been drinking!”

  Henry turned around to head back into his cabin. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  Left standing alone in the cold with no pants on, Edward shivered. Am I losing my mind? Nobody else felt that? He looked at the main house, still dark. The old man would have come out and checked on us. Maybe it was a dream.

  Edward walked back to his cabin and went inside, doing his best to pull the door shut behind h
im. He tried to forget that the door no longer lined up with the frame. He picked up the jeans that had fallen on the floor and hung them back on the hook, then he kicked off his boots and crawled into bed.

  He had just begun to drift off to sleep when he heard the rumbling again. This time, he attempted to ignore it. I need to drink more. Your mind’s playing tricks on you. Don’t go crazy.

  The rumbling grew stronger, and his windows rattled. Edward squeezed his eyes shut, trying to pass it off as a dream.

  A loud crack came from the far wall of the cabin. Edward’s eyes snapped open, and he saw the crack widen in the wall. Crack! “Where is that coming from?” He turned around in horror and looked behind his head. “Dear God Almighty, what the hell is happening?” The crack was spreading behind his bed.

  A large black tentacle lined with tiny suckers smashed through the wooden floorboards, sending splintered wood into the air and showering him with sawdust. The high-pitched whine of a thousand cicadas filled the air.

  “Noooooo!” The word gurgled in his throat.

  Edward screamed again in disbelief and pushed himself up to the head of the bed, tucking in his legs, away from the tentacle. He sat on top of his pillow, peering into a hole under the wood. “Pit to hell,” he muttered, fear tightening his throat.

  The rumbling stopped, and Edward looked frantically around the room. “Dang! Isn’t somebody coming to check on me?” He leaned over the foot of his bed, squinting to see if he could make out even a shadow of a figure. Nothing.

  He turned his shoulder, about to make a play for the door, and looked back down into the hole. He caught sight of two glowing red eyes in the pitch black, surrounded by tentacles roiling in the darkness. Edward opened his mouth to scream, but was silenced by a tentacle that shot out and wrapped around his throat, squeezing tight. His face turned purple as he gasped for air.

  Four arms crawled out of the hole, two with rotating pincers that came together in a crescent shape, spinning faster, chopping at the edges of the hole. The other two had webbed hands the color of rotting moss that reached for Edward.

  The ranch hand attempted to crawl away on the bed, clawing at the tentacle around his neck. The suckers dug into Edward’s flesh, and his efforts to dislodge it didn’t seem to bother it. The monster’s grip was too strong. Another tentacle whipped out of the darkness, slithered around his right leg, and started to pull as the hands reached out, waiting to embrace him. Droplets of blood ran in rivulets down his leg.

  What the fuck...what the fuck...what the fuck!

  Edward couldn’t breathe, and he was being dragged toward the pit he had been staring into moments earlier. He grabbed the sheets on the bed for leverage. His vision blurred and his mind fogged as he let go and pried at the tentacles in an attempt to loosen their grip.

  They pulled his leg, sliding him across the bed. He gripped the bedrail and was surprised to see the hole was big enough to fit the bed.

  Suddenly, the foot of the bed tipped down, throwing him off-balance. He released his grip on the sheets, knocking over a lantern. Oil spilled everywhere, seeping along the floorboards. The tentacle gave a sharp tug and the legs of the bed scraped and creaked, sparking along the floor and mixing with the residue of acid left behind by the creature. The oil ignited.

  Edward wanted badly to scream, but with his windpipe closed off, he could only hope that someone could hear the commotion.

  No help came as flames danced low along the floor, following the path of the fuel. The residue quickly ignited the old, dry wood of the cabin.

  Edward held onto the foot of his bed even as the creature pulled him into the deep pit and the flames grew closer. He dragged his fingernails, leaving scratch marks every step of the way. His head and arms were the last to go in, a look of resignation on his face.

  The dirt and soil in the ground began to swirl under the cabin. The cabin walls shook as if the entire dwelling would be devoured as well. Just as quickly, the whirlpool grew still, and the ground returned to normal as the flames grew and the walls of the cabin crashed inward, covering the hole.

  The next morning, Raven went out to feed the goats as the sun rose. She walked past Edward’s cabin and stood in front of the pile of ashes and pieces of charred metal that were all that remained.

  Henry came and stood by her side.

  “What happened here? Where’s Edward?”

  “Poor Edward. I think he had too much to drink last night. Must have knocked over his lantern. Terrible way to go. Don’t stand here and stare at it.”

  “You mean, he’s under that rubble? Dig him out!”

  “We will, Raven. We’ll make sure to get him out. It’s gonna take a little time, but there’s nothing to be done for him now. Take care of the animals. By the time you get home tonight, this will be cleaned up, I promise.” He shook his head. “Get a move on, now. Nothing more to learn here.”

  Raven glanced over her sore shoulder as she walked away, wondering anyway. What more was there to know?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  An exhausted Raven stood between Leander and a makeshift wooden wall on the outskirts of the Moss Ranch. The late afternoon sun hung in the sky just over her shoulder.

  William was off to the left, hanging from the top of the test course with his legs wrapped around the iron bars, trying to tie a ring to the roof.

  “I’m not sure I understand why this is so hard,” Raven shouted.

  William grunted, the blood rushing to his head. “It’s about control. He can do anything, but he has to do it on command. Start with the wall there. That way, every time you fail, you can set the damn thing up and I don’t have to rebuild the entire test course.”

  “Listen,” Raven said to Leander, “we don’t have time to keep doing this. You’ve knocked this wall down repeatedly tonight. You need to take directions. If you can’t take direction, that’s it, right? You’re done.”

  “You’re merely interested in me as a familiar.” Leander let out a baleful cry, making Raven cover her ears. She waited for the returning echo, and it eventually came.

  She pursed her lips, the words stinging. “That was why I was here,” she whispered. She held her breath and let it go in a rush. Her voice came out stronger. “I can let it go, Leander.” She stood up straighter. “I can find another familiar if that’s what it takes to save you.”

  William lifted his head from what he was doing, sweat pouring down his face, his eyes wide. “Did I hear that right?”

  Raven bit her bottom lip and thought about Bella. Her face warmed, just thinking of the humiliation. She shook her head. No, I can do this. “I can find another familiar. Maybe a dwarf goat or a...a dog.” She choked out the words. “You still need to learn this course so we can save you!”

  William tied up another ring, smiling.

  “You keep saying that.” Leander snorted, lifting his head to the sky. “I don’t take orders.”

  “I don’t know how many other ways I can explain this to you. You are this close to getting your wings clipped. You need to go over this wall. Not through it, not around it, over it.” She floated her hand in the air as if she were riding an air current. “Over. Now, let’s try it again.”

  “No familiar?”

  Raven shut her eyes for a moment. “No familiar. That should have been your choice all along. At least that one. I am sorry.” Raven stepped out of the way, and Leander stared down the wall. “You ready? Go!” she shouted.

  Leander charged into the wall and threw his tail at it, slapping it and sending it backward. From a distance, William laughed.

  “No!” Raven ran over again. “That’s not over.” She put her face in her hands. “Do you not understand what I’m trying to say?”

  Leander sat down on the ground, his tail slapping the dirt. “Little girl, you know nothing.”

  Raven set up the wooden wall once again, hoisting it high and unfolding the kickstands that kept it vertical. The design of the wall was simple but clever, and Raven appreciated
the work that had gone into it.

  “I can’t keep doing this, Leander. I’ve set this thing up dozens of times now. I don’t know what to say anymore. I’m out of patience. I’m out of ideas. Come stand by me.” She waved to him.

  The tired beast groaned as he rose to his feet and lumbered toward her, assuming the same position he had been in countless times that day.

  Raven shook her head. How can I say this? It’s just a wall. “What part don’t you understand?”

  Leander stared deep into her eyes and spoke through gritted teeth. “I don’t know.”

  William dropped to the ground and stood to the side. “He listens to you. You’re just missing something. You’ve got more control over him than any of us had,” he shouted. “Try it again!”

  Raven tilted her head to the side. “Grandpa is always saying the problem is part of the solution. That means whatever we need must already be here.”

  A light when on in her eyes, and she smiled. “Wait here.”

  “Gladly,” the dragon growled.

  As Raven charged the twelve-foot wall, she realized that the combination of its height and her already-battered body ensured the task would be impossible for her.

  She clawed, jumped, and tried to get a toehold anywhere, her red ponytail swinging down her back. She dropped back down to the ground and stood back.

  Leander stirred and stood up, watching her walk back toward him. She turned, running at the wall as fast as she could.

  She reached out for the scrap wood and the thin ledges and narrow spots for any fingerholds. She made it halfway up the wall before her fingers cramped. Her left hand slipped, and the wood scratched her arm as her body twisted. Still she hung on with the one hand, her fingers dug into the wood.

  Leander snorted and ran to the wall. Ducking his head, he caught her on his snout and lifted her to the top of the wall.