Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series

by Richard Denoncourt

  Oscar commanded his own mount to fly. As the powerful wings lifted him, he bent over the side to check on Calista. Her body hung limply from the hermon’s talons. She looked dead, but Oscar knew there was magic out there that could heal her. He hoped desperately for his plan to work.

  1:17…

  1:16…

  “Let’s go,” he shouted at the bird.

  The hermon flapped its wings and sent them sailing toward the stands. Oscar guided the creature along a sharp turn. From his new vantage point, he could see the rest of the coliseum.

  Ukril was now engaging the Berserkers that had attacked his father. He swung down, hammering one as if it were a nail he was trying to pound into the dirt. Then he did the same to another, and another. He was fast. Blood ran from the various wounds along his body, but he seemed more alive now than ever. Hopefully, Ruk would live, but not if this bomb killed them all.

  Oscar hung in the air, the hermon flapping its wings in place. He had no idea what to do. Raise an alarm? Fly away and save himself? Whatever he decided, it had to be now. He touched his fingertips to his temples and readied himself for a command he could send out to every friendly creature capable of understanding him.

  Get out now! There’s a bomb! In one minute, it will destroy us all!

  The message went out. Then he sent another. As he repeated the warning, the sensory part of his mind processed what was going on in the arena.

  It wasn’t good. Bodies had fallen everywhere. A dozen Orglots, dead, their pale, muscular frames standing out against the darker mass of enemy soldiers littering the ground, immediately caught his eye. These were his friends, and they had been slaughtered like farm animals.

  Skulking among the corpses of their fellow warriors, the remaining Orglots finished off enemy soldiers trying to drag themselves away. Overhead, hermons were still lifting soldiers a hundred feet above the ground and dropping them to their deaths. Oscar’s side was winning, but at what cost?

  Magic spells and whistling arrows flew from the stands as low mages and archers picked off hermons, sending more than a few spiraling down to their final resting places. Any Berserkers still alive swung their deathmaces at the feathered bodies to finish them off.

  0:50…

  0:49…

  Oscar had kept the count going in his mind. He flew over the arena and double-checked just to make sure. His count was accurate. They had less than a minute left to live.

  Do you hear me? Get out of here!

  The army of hermons began to disperse, filling the coliseum with shrieked warnings. The Orglots were having a tougher time getting the message. Ruk had been an expert at hearing Oscar’s mental voice, but the others had never been very receptive. And there was no way Oscar could reach them with a regular shout. He could leave them to their deaths, but then a whole clan of Orglots would be wiped out in the blink of an eye.

  He sent more commands. Nothing. The Orglots weren’t listening at all.

  If only Ruk were still alive…

  0:32…

  0:31…

  Speaker…

  Ruk’s voice entered his mind, the sound like gravel being tossed and rustled.

  Ruk! Oscar searched for him. The elder’s mangled, blood-covered body lay sprawled on the ground, one eye blinking up at the sky. He turned his head slowly and fixed his gaze on Oscar.

  The battle…

  Ruk, we’ve won. Order your men out of here. An explosion will destroy this place in seconds!

  Ruk rolled onto his side, facing the rest of the arena. He took a deep breath and shouted a command in the Orglot language.

  “Warriors. Run. Now, or you all die!”

  0:20…

  Ukril turned from where he’d been stomping a Berserker’s head into the ground. He peered at Oscar and Ruk as if unsure what he had just heard. Oscar waved him over.

  0:19…

  0:18…

  Ukril ran up to them, covered in blood. He saw the seriousness in Oscar’s eyes.

  Tell them, Oscar warned. Tell them we must go now.

  With a firm nod, Ukril turned and repeated his father’s command.

  “Run for your lives. Run for your lives.”

  The Berserker that Ukril had stomped earlier jumped up to his feet.

  “Ukril, behind you,” Oscar screamed, just as Ruk shouted, “Son, watch out.”

  The Berserker swung his warhammer at Ukril, who whirled at the last second, meeting the weapon with his fist. Oscar heard the bones shatter. Ukril cried out in pure agony and pulled his limp hand away.

  0:11…

  0:10…

  Ukril spun in place. He executed a perfect roundhouse kick, sending the Berserker flying toward the stands.

  Ruk. Ukril. Oscar felt like he was losing his mind. The time is now!

  Ruk rose to one knee. He unleashed a command at the top of his lungs.

  “Warriors, vanish from this place now.”

  This time, the Orglots heard their leader. They stopped dead in their tracks, then turned and began to flee the arena.

  0:06…

  Ukril ran to his father, grabbed two of his limbs, and swung him onto his back.

  0:05…

  Oscar bolted out of there. As he flew, he watched a mass of Orglots pour toward the demolished section through which they had entered. Adrenaline surged in him as he counted down.

  0:03…

  0:02…

  0:01…

  Then all he knew were two things—light and heat, both strong enough to kill.

  It was over.

  CHAPTER 44

  T he sun blazed over the mountains of Theus. Light entered the forest in streaks that shifted in the wake of a howling wind. Emma listened to that dreadful moaning during the long walk to find out what had happened to Barrel—a walk which, seemingly endless, left her with less and less hope by the second.

  She and Lily sat astride the same levathon since it was the only mount with a dual harness and they were the lightest of the group. Everyone else had their own mount. To accommodate her wings, Emma sat behind Lily.

  “It’s so quiet up here,” Emma said.

  Lily nodded. Her crystal-tipped staff lay across her lap, and she gripped it with both hands as if expecting a vicious, hungry animal to lunge at them from the bushes.

  “I don’t like it,” Lily said. “It’s almost too quiet. Like it’s the perfect place to bring a victim.”

  “I agree,” Emma said.

  Pris had taken the lead, flanked by Milo and Sevarin. Gunner and Owen had taken up the rear. Even with all her friends (minus Oscar and Calista) surrounding her, Emma still couldn’t shake a sense of being completely vulnerable. There was something about this stretch of forest that unnerved her. It felt as though someone had purposefully manicured the surface to hide some horror that lay beneath.

  “This is where they got lazy,” Pris said.

  She pointed out a spot on the path.

  Earlier, when Milo’s Ara had lost the trail leading away from the kidnapping spot, Pris decided to track it on her own. She had centuries of experience following enemy trails through all kinds of terrain, even those erased by magical attempts.

  “She’s amazing,” Lily said. “How can she see that?”

  Emma saw nothing but terrain that had grown rockier as they neared the peaks. The forest had thinned out, with only patches here and there. Even the trees looked different up here—spikier and less leafy, more like defensive structures meant to keep an enemy at bay.

  “There,” Pris said, pointing at the walls of stone ahead of them, and a parting between two. “See that aisle between those two cliffs? I’ll bet my blade the kidnappers went in there.”

  “We should fly over,” Gunner said.

  Owen scoffed at him. “How ‘bout we use a hot-air balloon instead? They’ll never see us coming.”

  Gunner let his head hang in embarrassment. He looked haggard, and parts of him were covered in bruises from his violent encounter in the city. Emma felt
sorry for him. But it could be worse. He could have been captured instead of Barrel.

  “Owen’s right,” Pris said. “Surely, there are scouts.”

  “And wardens,” Milo said, “if the Archon’s involved.”

  This drew questioning glances from the others. Emma was stunned. Why would a man of such power choose to kidnap people? Especially young people. How would an Archon benefit from that?

  “Let me inspect,” Pris said. “The rest of you take cover behind that shelf.” She pointed at a huge stone ridge jutting up from the ground. “I’ll return in ten minutes.”

  She dismounted and took off on foot at a brisk pace, though she made almost no noise. When she arrived at the mountain wall, she jumped and grabbed hold of the rocky surface, climbing with the confident motions of a squirrel clawing its way up a tree.

  The orphans dismounted and sat against the cold ground behind the ridge. Emma listened to the wind tumbling up from the valley below. Her eyes roamed the landscape, identifying the tall, shining spires of Theus in the distance as her mind traveled. She pictured Barrel’s emaciated face the way it had looked that night in Taradyn, when she had brought him back from the dead by pulling his soul out of that merciless black lake. A death lake—that’s what it had been. And now he was back there again. She had to find him.

  “He’ll be fine,” Milo said.

  He rested a hand on her shoulder. Emma was about to respond by placing her hand over his when a strange force came over her. It forced her head back, her eyes to clench shut, and her mouth to crank wide open.

  “Emma!”

  Milo’s voice sounded distant. Another noise accompanied it—shuffling as her friends rushed over to her.

  “She’s having one of her visions,” Sevarin said.

  Emma let her mind slip away from its surroundings. It happened easily, as if she had shrugged off a heavy coat.

  Her entire being became little more than a pair of disembodied eyes, an untethered faculty of sight with no physical presence. It moved, floated around an enormous, well-lit hall in which pillars surrounded a stately seating area. The benches were made of white marble, and the men sitting there wore the traditional robes of academy professors in the middle of an important ceremony.

  It was a trial, and this was a court of law. The men (and a few women) in the seating area all watched another man who was much older and dressed in a black outfit with ridiculous gold tassels around the neck. The old man—apparently a judge of some sort—was staring down at another man, this one even more ancient looking, who was withered, pale, and dressed in a plain gray outfit. He stood with his head tipped forward in shame (or cold contemplation) in front of the audience. His hands were bound behind his back by a pair of strange-looking handcuffs.

  Emma saw only the back of the prisoner’s head. She tried to swivel around and get a better look. Just as she was about to catch sight of his face, the judge spoke a name that chilled her.

  “Kovax Leonaryx, what say you to this sentence?”

  Kovax looked up at the judge. His face was like that of a skeleton covered in wax paper instead of human flesh, a barely living thing better suited to a hospital bed than a court of law, or a morgue instead of a university. His eyes were sunken and red, probably from exposure to blood ether, and yet they startled Emma with their intensity.

  “It’s fair enough,” Kovax said. “Do what you will.”

  The judge motioned with a crystal-tipped wand. A white spark sprang from the crystal and became a floating red symbol Emma had never seen before, though it clearly meant bad news for Kovax. Those in the audience jumped to their feet and clapped. Kovax let his head hang again.

  Then she was back.

  Emma opened her eyes with a gasp. She found Sevarin, Milo and Lily gazing down at her in concern. With their help, she sat up and caught her breath.

  “They got him,” she said.

  Sevarin wiped a tear off her cheek. Emma hadn’t noticed she’d been crying.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Kovax. He’s in a courthouse in Theus. I saw a judge give him a sentence, but I don’t know what it was.”

  Milo took a knee in front of her. He almost looked like a completely different person. A ghost of what Uncle Manny might have been as a teenager, with pale spots instead of eyes.

  She hugged him.

  “He’s different now,” Milo said. “Kovax. I’m not sure what happened, but when I turned him away from my mind last night, he changed. I lost my sight, but in a way, it’s like he gained a different kind of sight.”

  “Milo, he killed our parents,” Emma said, pulling back suddenly. “You can’t be saying he’s good now.”

  “I would never say that. I hate him. When I entered his mind last night, I saw terrible things. He has towers all over Taradyn, and a big one on Valestaryn that’s almost finished. By the time we graduate from the academy in five or six years, all of them are going to be fully functional. Now that he’s no longer a threat, Iolus has the perfect opportunity to take them over. That’s what he wants. I can feel it.”

  Gunner spoke up. “But Iolus can’t use the towers. He’s not a low mage.”

  “He’ll find a way,” Milo said, “but only if we let him. He needs to be stopped. Not after we graduate. Not after we join the Forge. Now.”

  “No,” Emma said, and everyone turned to look at her. “Not now,” she said firmly. “Now, we have one mission, and that’s to save Barrel. We can think about war later.”

  Milo flinched a little. Was he just now remembering why they were here? Had he forgotten about Barrel during his speech?

  “She’s quick,” Milo said, looking up at the sky.

  “Who?” Emma said.

  Pris answered her question by appearing suddenly from the trees. There was blood spattered all over her.

  “Sentries,” she said, inspecting a bloodstained forearm. “Two of them. Wardens dressed like plain hunters.”

  “How could you tell who they were?” Milo said.

  “Their fighting style. The way one of them spoke when I interrogated him.”

  Emma listened, studying the bloodstains. As afraid as she was, she also felt mild disappointment at the signs of violence. The Pris Walksprite she had read about in Owen’s comic books had always followed a strict honor code. She never killed except on the battlefield. But the Pris Walksprite standing before her was covered in blood, more murderer than hero. Emma would have to get used to the stark and brutal reality of heroism here on Astros.

  Pris continued. “I asked the man about a base in the mountains. He told me there was an entrance, guarded by more wardens. The Archon himself is there now.”

  With a wince of discomfort, she rotated her arm and prodded a deep gash.

  “There’s more,” Pris said. “The men were Sargonauts with Tiberian Steel daggers.”

  Milo cursed under his breath. “Mercenaries.”

  “Why do you say that?” Emma asked.

  Milo looked in her direction. “There are no Sargonaut wardens. That means the Archon paid these men to guard the place. He’s hiding something he doesn’t want anyone to find, ever.”

  Pris nodded, then looked sternly at Emma. She held out her wounded arm. “Can you heal this?”

  Blood oozed out of the gash. Within a few hours, the wound would heal itself—Sargonauts were lucky that way—but they didn’t have a few hours, and blood loss could weaken a Sargonaut just like anyone else.

  “I can try,” Emma said.

  She slid a trembling hand over the warm and sticky wound, closed her eyes, and mentally recited the prayer she had learned in one of her classes. When she opened her eyes again, the wound was partially healed, the blood clotted.

  “Good enough,” Pris said, turning toward their destination. “Everyone, follow me. The levathons stay behind.”

  THE LACK of uniforms was a bad sign.

  The two men guarding the cave’s mouth wore the faded browns of hunters. They even sported rough beards that adde
d to their appearance as men who roamed the forests and mountains instead of fighters guarding the most powerful man in the city. Emma had seen men like this—real hunters, not wardens in costume—selling animal carcasses to butcher shops back in Theus.

  If the Archon were truly involved, this could only mean one thing—the cave held a grand and terrible secret.

  Owen explained why this was the perfect place for him to keep such an explosive secret. The cave’s mouth was in a crevice that could only be entered from one direction, making it easier to defend. The stone walls rising all around it were too steep and smooth for anyone, except maybe the most skilled Feral, to climb down unnoticed from above.

  “Smart,” Milo said.

  The observation chilled Emma. This operation had not sprung up overnight—far from it. They must have been using this location for months, if not years.

  They took cover behind trees located well outside the entrance into that aisle of space where the two wardens stood guarding the cave’s mouth. The crevice had been cleared of boulders and trees, which made sneaking up on them impossible—another of Owen’s observations, which served only to heighten Emma’s dread.

  “They see us, and they’re gonna raise an alarm,” Sevarin said.

  Pris shushed him gently. “No talking until I say so.”

  Sevarin nodded, and the orphans hunkered down in silence, waiting for their next command. Pris looked over them, eyes full of ice, and spoke her next words in a soft whisper.

  “Look at me. Many men are going to die today. If the sight of blood bothers you, this is the time to get over it. If anything should happen to me, don’t think twice about it. Run.”

  There were nods all around. Satisfied, Pris crouch-walked into the open, where the guard would certainly be able to pick her out in the distance. She acted quickly, pulling two daggers from sheaths strapped to her thighs. The light glinted unnaturally off their edges.

  “Tiberian-edged blades,” Owen whispered, and Gunner had to elbow him to shut him up.

  In a display of agility that left Emma breathless, Pris sprang through the air, shooting toward the sky as if she’d been tossed by a catapult, arms extended as her body gracefully flipped and twisted. At the peak of her impressive jump, her arms made a scissoring motion and the blades disappeared.