Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1)

by Aaron D. Schneider

  Milo looked down, a mix of horrified awe and guilty gratitude inside him. One rider whose horse had kindled in the leaping flames took a smattering of shots to the chest and he fell, dragging the burning animal down with him. Together they smashed down on Milo’s tent, and in seconds, their death throes had set the whole thing ablaze.

  His mouth tasted of ash as the acrid smell of burning canvas and oil washed over the hill in a foul wind.

  “How did you know?” Milo asked, his eyes still watching the last of his tent crumble into cinders.

  Ambrose spat and turned away from the sight.

  “It’s a bold but sensible plan if you’ve got a doughty company of foot soldiers like the 33rd,” the big man explained as he moved farther back on the moon-painted top of the hill. “Especially if you’ve got the proper information and assurances that you’ll be handsomely rewarded by both sides. Would seem worth the risk.”

  Milo dragged his eyes from camp as the last of the riders sped into the hills, plumes of dust glowing red in the light of the fires. Down below, squads of soldiers were performing as fire brigades, with middling success thus far.

  “Information?” Milo rolled the word, as though it felt strange on his ashen tongue. “I thought these were a bunch of bandits, not trained soldiers? And what do you mean by both sides?”

  Milo turned around and saw that his bodyguard was ambling over the boulder-strewn hilltop, looking for all the world like an animate hulk of stone in the silvery light. He went over to one of his lumpy brethren and seemed about to have a serious conversation.

  “Hey!” Milo shouted, striding after the big man. He felt the pistol in his hand, its rounds shamefully unspent as the camp burned below. “Did you hear me?”

  “Shhhh, keep your voice down, Magus,” Ambrose hissed as he turned, scowling. “The raiders should be gone, but we don’t want to attract any attention in the dark, now do we?”

  Then he turned back to the rock and addressed it in a low, indignant tone.

  “Not from any proper folk.”

  A surge of anger and confusion gripped Milo, and without much thought, he laid a hand on the big man’s shoulder to haul him around. Milo realized too late that he may as well have tried to get the hill to turn.

  “Stop your hissy-fitting,” Ambrose chided, still glaring at the rock. “And put that pistol away before you hurt yourself.”

  In a fit of temper, Milo nearly pressed the barrel of the Luger to the big man’s thick skull to show his displeasure and get some attention, but he wisely thought better of it. Cursing incoherently, he secured the weapon with a shove and a snarl.

  “What the hell is going on?” he snapped.

  “Our rendezvous is late,” Ambrose muttered, turning from the rock and squinting across the hilltop. “Unless Lokkemand got it wrong, and I wouldn’t put it past the jaeger snob.”

  Milo’s head spun, and he turned back to see the slowly shrinking glow of the camp. Pieces began to click into place with stomach-turning alacrity, and Milo turned back to Ambrose, who still seemed preoccupied with the local geological deposits.

  “You mean, this was some sort of setup?” Milo asked, numbness creeping up in the wake of the realization. “Lokkemand planned this.”

  Absently, the bodyguard nodded.

  “A bit flashy for my taste, but it removes any reasonable doubt that we both died in the fires of the raid,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Enough scorched corpses down there that any attempts at identification by General Staff’s bloodhounds should be satisfied or at least frustrated to the point of surrender.”

  This last thought seemed to appeal to him, and a low chuckle passed his lips.

  “Men—soldiers—died down there,” Milo said. He wished he sounded more horrified, but the insulating dissociation already had him. “Now you are telling me they died for me?”

  The lack of feeling, the cold shell that had been his armor for years, was almost as painful as accepting the burden and promised no relief or closure. He wanted to rail, to scream, even to weep for the men, but instead, he stared mutely at Ambrose, his question hanging in the air.

  “Wasn’t it some Prussian who said soldiers’ lives are the currency officers must spend to purchase victory?” Ambrose asked with a shrug of his huge shoulders. “Seems like something the boys from the 33rd would appreciate. Good soldiers from what I could tell.”

  “Dead soldiers,” Milo muttered, his shoulders sagging.

  “Not so many,” Ambrose said. “And besides, ours but to do and die, right?”

  Milo looked at his bodyguard with a mix of confusion and irritation, the only things he could feel at the moment.

  “What?”

  Ambrose, for the first time, looked abashed, his cheeks plainly colored, even in the moonlight.

  “It’s from a poem.” He grunted and shook his head. “Never mind.”

  Milo was about to say something caustic about poetry or perhaps ask what they were supposed to do now that they’d faked their deaths. He never got the chance since two shadows detached from the boulder Ambrose had been staring at. Milo’s voice deserted him as the long, stooped shapes with gleaming pale eyes lunged forward, too-long limbs outstretched.

  One alighted on Ambrose’s broad back, and the big man gave a pantherish twist that saw both him and the living shadow rolling across the ground. The other landed on Milo and bore him to the ground, where cold, sharp fingers cut into his arms.

  Instinct kicked in, and Milo’s feet and fists lashed out against rubbery flesh that took the abuse without effect. Milo had an impression of many teeth snapping in front of his face, then breath like an offal pit in summer lapped against his face.

  “Hold still, meat!” a voice rasped next to his ear. “Hold still, or I’ll tear out your throat.”

  Too terrified to reason, Milo redoubled his efforts, managing to twist one hand free and grope for the pistol at his belt.

  The fanged shadow hissed words in a tongue old and wicked before changing its grip to take Milo by the head. A dull thrill shot through Milo when he got both hands free to try for his pistol, but the thought was dashed out of his head when the shadow beat it against the stony ground.

  The first impact sent stars spinning through his vision, and the second left him limp, with the world tumbling around him.

  He vaguely recognized he was being dragged, and he raised his battered head to see where they were going. A cleft that had not been in the boulder before yawned wide as the shadow dragged him toward the waiting dark. Between the thin legs of his abductor, Milo could just make out a set of stairs glinting bone-white in the moonlight, plunging from the heart of the boulder into the darkness of the earth.

  6

  An Introduction

  Milo’s passage down the stairs and through the dark was not pleasant.

  The being gripping him by his shoulders and dragging him did not seem to much care that the stone steps were rough-edged and unyielding against Milo’s back, buttocks, and legs. It also didn’t seem to care that the entire trip was made in a darkness so complete that even when Milo’s senses began to come back to him, he realized he could not see his own feet as they thumped down the steps. Sometimes he thought he could glimpse the faintest shine of the thing’s eyes above him, or maybe that was its teeth, but then another steep spike of pain lanced up his lower body.

  Just when he feared the abuse was going to lead to permanent damage to his ability to walk and considered another futile struggle, their descent leveled out. Milo felt the texture of the floor change beneath him to a soft, fibrous mat. With careless strength, the shadow rolled him onto his stomach. The fingers that had been biting into his shoulders disappeared and Milo hit the ground with a soft thud. The floor beneath him tickled at his nose and lips, almost hairlike strands sliding across his face.

  “Get up,” the voice of the shadow directed. It was a step or two ahead of him. “I’m not carrying you all the way to court.”

  Milo’s fingers took hold of
the dense, tangled stuff beneath him and used it for leverage to get to a kneeling position. Everything was still black as pitch, and Milo, his body aching from a thousand short, sharp bounces down the steps, was in no hurry to comply.

  “I need a light to see by,” he muttered, reaching toward his pocket for his matches.

  The air stirred in front of him, and the rotten, icy breath washed his cheek.

  “Meat,” it breathed, so close he could hear the air whistling between its fangs. “Draw that pistol, and I’ll see you carrying it on the inside of your flesh, understand?”

  Milo nodded stiffly, sinking both hands into his pockets to hide their shaking more than to search for matches.

  He took a steadying breath, drew out the matches, and made to strike one, but the dark and the closeness of the creature worked against him. Twice he tried to strike a match, and twice it broke, snapping off below the head without so much as a spark.

  “Hurry up.”

  The command sounded different, almost distracted, and Milo began to wonder what the thing could be waiting for. Its fellow shadow, the one who had attacked Ambrose, maybe? As if in answer, a snarling sound echoed from somewhere above them on the stairs. Milo felt a chill run through him as he heard that ancient, evil language used again. Then a distinctly human voice rumbled something he couldn’t make out.

  “Don’t move,” his shadow said with more than a hint of a snarl in his voice.

  Too late to stop, Milo’s third match caught, and there was a flare of light in the tunnel.

  Milo had only a fleeting glimpse of a stretched figure darting past him. It had the graceless quickness of a pouncing spider and was wrapped in something like oily black skin.

  He told himself it was the speed of the things passing that had knocked the match from his nerveless fingers, where it quickly smothered with a whiff of acrid smoke in the woolly gray material that covered the floor. Beneath his self-delusion though, Milo knew the truth. It was one thing to be told that there were beings dwelling in the dark and believe in their existence, and a whole other matter to experience them. He had felt, smelled, heard, and now seen, not just a play of shadows, but this entity who was other. No clever beast, no deviant human, this inhuman, alien creature was real, and Milo’s mind swam with the recognition.

  “You wanted more, remember,” he reminded himself breathlessly as he fumbled for another match. “You were the damned fool who wanted more.”

  Behind him were more wicked whispers in the strange tongue, much closer this time, and then a voice that was almost as sweet as sunshine in that dark, low place.

  “None of that now,” Ambrose growled, his voice more annoyed than angry. “It was your fool idea to have it go down this way. If you wanted to play that game, you should have made sure everyone knew the rules.”

  “It was supposed to be alone,” another shadow voice hissed, this one tighter and shriller but no less unsettling, “and we had as much cause for secrecy as you.”

  “The risk is as great for our tribe as it is for your petty kingdom,” Milo’s shadow snarled as the voices moved closer. “What we are doing is without precedent in the history of our kind or any of the other shayati. There are many who would punish us for such blasphemous congress with meat like that one.”

  “’That one’s’ name is Magus,” Ambrose rumbled. Milo was fairly certain they were on the level patch just a few steps behind him. “Now, move it before I take another hand.”

  How was Ambrose, who seemed to be herding the two creatures, able to see in the dark? Milo saw no torch.

  He had retrieved another match, but the sound of that unholy dialect made him shudder, and he paused before breaking it. He only had a few left.

  “You are fortunate her maiming is not permanent, or this alliance would have ended before it began,” Milo’s shadow warned, so close he might have been able to twist back and touch it. “She is the get of our Bashlek.”

  “And I’m the son of a shepherdess,” Ambrose replied flatly. “You all right, Magus?”

  Milo shuffled about, still on his knees with the match and matchbox still in hand.

  “I’m fine,” he lied, turning his head this way and that in a vain attempt to discern something other than utter blackness. “I see you are better at making friends than I am.”

  Ambrose chuckled, and Milo heard the soft tread of his boots before a broad mitt slid under his arm and gently raised him to his feet. Milo was happy to find that despite everything, his legs still worked, though he was grateful Ambrose didn’t let go until he’d found his footing on the cushioned floor.

  “Well, now that me and my charge are reunited, I suppose we can commence with introductions,” the bodyguard said in a genuinely jovial tone. “How about you two go first since we’re guests?”

  “Um,” Milo interrupted, turning toward his best estimation of Ambrose’s position. “I can’t see a thing, and I’ve only got about four more matches left. Do we really intend to have this entire conversation in the dark?”

  “I’m sorry, you’re right,” Ambrose said, and Milo heard his feet shuffle softly as he turned. “Perhaps our hosts can arrange to fix the situation. Seems only polite.”

  The two creatures spoke to each other in their language, which sounded more sinister in a huddled whisper, especially since Milo realized they’d noiselessly slid past where he stood in the tunnel. The conversation lasted long enough that Ambrose gave a huff of irritation, shortly after which he heard some strange sounds.

  There was a sound like rotten cloth tearing, then the rattle and clink of glass against glass. A second later, there was scratching like a dull knife rasping over bone. This was followed a heartbeat later by the distinctly unpleasant sound of snorting and hawking, then someone spat into something with a wet splat.

  “Here,” Milo’s shadow said, and Ambrose could be heard stepping forward to take something.

  Milo ached to ask his bodyguard how he was managing all this in the stygian tunnel, but interrogating his only ally in front of two monsters seemed ill-advised.

  “What good will this do him?” Ambrose asked in a bristly tone.

  “If he is what he claims he is, it should be a simple matter to catalyze the essence,” the other shadow replied curtly. “It is very fresh.”

  “He came here to learn magic, sweetie,” Ambrose drawled. “You have to teach him how.”

  Both creatures made a disgusted sound and then lapsed into a thickening silence.

  “Put the vessel in its hands,” Milo’s shadow instructed, and Milo found himself gripping something hard and smooth except for a fine layer of grit across part of its surface.

  Milo thought it didn’t feel like any container he’d handled before, but the texture of the surface was familiar, although he couldn’t place it. It seemed rounded and had two rough handles. As he held it, he heard small granules shifting within, and in a strange way, he detected a faint vibration or resonance coming from within. When he pressed his palms against the surface, he realized he was sensing the subtle movement, though it wasn’t through his fingers or palms. He knew it was there, as real as the dust beneath his digits, but it wasn’t physical.

  A tremor of excitement and delicious terror raced through him, and he fought to keep from visibly shaking.

  “Try to relax and do what they say,” Ambrose whispered. “And don’t drop it.”

  “Call to the essence,” the she-shadow said. “Whisper the command ‘Light,’ then breathe over it.”

  It seemed a strange, almost comical, instruction, but the thrumming presence between his hands beckoned him to try.

  “Light,” Milo said as confidently as he could, then he blew between his hands as though coaxing tinder to life.

  Like embers stirred by bellows, a soft viridian light spilled from three apertures in the vessel. The illumination filled the stony tunnel, for that was what they were in, and Milo nearly grinned like a babe after uttering its first word to doting parents.

  The smi
le was snatched away as he realized the openings through which the light poured were the cavities of a goat skull’s vacant eyes and nose sockets. The handles were the horns of the beast

  Willing himself to not drop the luminous skull, he looked up and saw his instructors. As he stared at the two nightmares given form, he wondered if perhaps he had been better off in the dark.

  Milo’s first teachers were stooped, gaunt creatures, bent nearly double, so their knobby spines stood out along their backs, while their gangly arms hung to the floor. Their skin seemed like oil, dark but possessing a glimmering opalescent quality that made them seem like slimy creatures of the deep. Their outthrust heads on bowed necks were too elongated, narrow, and sharp to be anything but vaguely humanoid. Their eyes gleamed over a squashed snout of a nose and a nest of fangs.

  Milo, gaping in revulsion, looked from one to the other, noting that the larger of the two held one arm curled against a sunken chest, the wrist a ragged stump. His stomach turned when he saw the severed appendage in her other clawed hand.

  The smaller of the two, the one who must have been Milo’s abductor, stood a little in front of the wounded one, shielding her from the light.

  When their glinting black eyes faced the light, they squinted in distaste, but when they looked at Milo, there was an intensity, almost a hunger, that made him uneasy. It was hard not to stare at their hooked fangs and remember that they had called him meat more than once.

  “What are you?” Milo murmured, keeping the skull lamp steady in his hands.

  “We are ghuls,” Milo’s captor said as it inched forward, eyes locked on Milo’s face. “And you are the first humans to have seen our kind and lived for centuries, if human you are.”

  A defiant spark blossomed in Milo’s heart at the implication, and he stoked it until it rendered enough heat to drive back the grip fear had on the organ.

  “Why would I be anything but?” he demanded, and the light surged in sympathy that made the ghuls recoil.

  “We don’t know,” the wounded female snarled, her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “But no human has ever worked magic in the memory of our people or any of the shayati we have heard tell of. I would not have believed it to be true if I hadn’t seen it.”