by ML Spencer
“Where is Aram?” the sorcerer asked.
“Maybe he’s behind you.”
Obriem glanced back, but Sergan’s smile only broadened. “If he were here, I’d sense him. So, where is he?”
Markus shook his head. “He’s safe. He’ll never be yours.”
“Why not?” Sergan asked, but then he frowned, and true concern shadowed his face. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Fate hands you a Savant, and you get him killed before there’s even a battle?”
Markus’s face turned red, as all the worry and doubt he’d been holding in clawed to get out. Fury encased him, and he had to restrain himself from lunging at Sergan. It was only the prudence and patience drilled into him by multiple instructors that stayed his hand.
“That’s too damn bad,” Sergan muttered, shaking his head. “What a waste.”
With a growl, he swept his hand out as if throwing something. At the same time, Obriem lunged forward. When Markus swept out at him with his blade, a narrow stalactite broke off the roof and hurled at him. He swiveled quickly to deflect it, breaking off his attack.
Obriem’s weight crashed into him, driving Markus backward as another stalactite came flying at him like a lance. This one hit him in the shoulder, and would have penetrated, had it not been for his leather cuirass.
Before he could recover, Obriem clubbed him with the edge of his shield, at the same time thrusting out with his sword. Markus barely managed to dodge the strike. He tried to bring his sword around to counterattack, but the blade caught on the boss of Obriem’s shield, and he couldn’t get it around in time.
A heavy stalactite cracked hard against his helm.
Reeling, Markus disengaged and staggered backward, giving himself room.
Seeing him floundering, Obriem cast a questioning glance at Sergan, who nodded him forward. When Obriem turned back to Markus, there was regret in his eyes. He blew out a deep breath, puffing his cheeks. Then he advanced.
Seeing him coming, Markus lunged with his sword, turning Obriem’s shield to the side and striking his chest. But Obriem’s steel breastplate held, and all the blade did was clang against it. Obriem moved sideways, slicing out and catching Markus in the shoulder. The strike didn’t penetrate, but it hurt like hell.
Cursing, Markus retreated further, positioning himself with a stalagmite on his left, making defensive use of the cave’s decorations. Blood ran down his face and a numbing pain filled his shoulder.
He blocked Obriem’s next strike with the strength of his blade, at the same time slicing out with the tip. A grunt of pain told him that his blade had connected.
When Markus drew his sword back for a follow-up, another shard of stalactite slammed into his head.
Dazed, he didn’t react in time to avoid Obriem’s shield, which swiped up and struck his jaw. His head whipped back, his vision exploding. His foot lodged in a lattice of calcite, and he fell to his haunches, reflexively raising his sword to ward off the next three blows that Obriem battered down on him.
Defiant, Markus struck out with his leg, sweeping Obriem’s feet out from under him and toppling him over with a cry of pain. Markus rolled away and, somehow, they both ended up on their feet. Obriem was grimacing, badly favoring his left knee. Markus knew it was time to press his advantage, but for some reason, he hesitated.
This was Obriem, who had helped him rescue Aram from the cellars and had taken a beating for it. He’d always been an ass, but he’d also always been there whenever he was truly needed.
“We don’t have to do this!” Markus shouted at him, raising his arm to deflect a spray of stones hurled at him by Sergan. “You can come with me!”
Obriem lunged, striking out with his shield. Markus knocked it aside and brought his sword up under it.
His blade caught on something and was nearly wrenched out of his grip. He jerked back on it, hard, fanning blood across the cavern.
Startled, Markus sprang backward just as Obriem fell to one knee, dropping his shield and bracing himself upright with his sword. For a moment, Markus just stood there, trying to figure out what Obriem was holding with his other hand.
Then his eyes went wide, and he gasped, realizing that Obriem was clutching his neck in an attempt to stem the gush of blood that spilled from a deep slice in his flesh.
Markus stiffened, frozen by shock. Obriem uttered a gurgling wheeze then slumped forward, curling into a ball and making raspy, frothing sounds.
Markus glanced up to find Sergan glaring at him with cold contempt in his eyes. He raised his white-gloved hand and clenched his fist.
Markus scooped up Obriem’s shield, expecting another shiny lance of rock to dislodge itself from the ceiling and come flying toward him. When it didn’t happen, he turned to look at Sergan.
He didn’t see the stone that slammed into the back of his head with such force that it knocked his helmet off.
Sergan drew his dagger and approached Markus warily, unsure if he was dead or unconscious. The large rock had hit him in the head with enough force to cave the side of his helm in and send it flying across the cave, but he wanted to make sure. He never left an enemy behind.
He stopped and knelt beside Markus’s prone body, intending to roll him over and slice his throat.
“Stop,” rang a commanding voice.
Sergan rose, turning slowly back around.
A familiar figure emerged from the shadows, and the sight of him filled Sergan with a heady mixture of fear and relief.
“Aramon Raythe,” he breathed, shaking his head.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
An inferno of rage scorched Aram’s insides as Sergan turned his way. He wasn’t sure if Markus was dead or alive, but in order to have any chance of helping him, he would have to get past the sorcerer.
Seeing him coming, Sergan sheathed his dagger and drew a vial of essence from the strap that crossed his chest. Popping the cork stopper, he tilted his head back and downed the liquid in one gulp. He backed away slowly as Aram advanced, keeping space between them, maintaining a frozen smile on his face.
“I was hoping you’d come.” Sergan’s eyes shone with the light of stolen essence, his many-colored aura rippling around him like a billowing cloak. “I take it you’ve learned how to bind?”
Aram didn’t respond. Instead, he raised his arms and grasped a handful of ethereal tendrils and started knotting, just as he’d done with rope as a boy back in his cave. His fingers danced over the strands, shaping them quickly into a spear of blue energy just as sharp and deadly as his wrath. He hurled it with all his might at Sergan.
The sorcerer knocked it aside with a casual wave.
“That’s a start,” Sergan said, still slowly backing away. Somehow, he didn’t trip over the uneven surface of the cave, as though his awareness was enhanced by the magic within him. “What else can you do?”
Aram’s fingers flew over knots of air. He formed a noose of crackling energy and slipped it around Sergan’s neck, yanking it tight. But the sorcerer simply cut it away with a slicing motion of his hand, dispelling it with a flare of light. He rubbed his neck with his fingers, stepping sideways.
“So, you can bind in the defense of someone else,” Sergan said. “But can you use magic to save your own skin?”
He made a throwing gesture, and a ball of light shot from his hand.
Aram reached out with his mind, ready to weave a shield to block it. But the colorful strands of aether slipped through his fingers like water.
He dodged sideways.
The sizzling ball of energy whizzed by, nearly hitting him in the head.
“I suppose not,” muttered Sergan. He stopped walking. Bending, he picked up Obriem’s fallen sword. “Now we know why Auld Champions needed Wardens. I never knew they were so helpless without them.” He gestured with the sword, pointing it at the ground. “Kneel.”
When Aram made no move to comply, Sergan said, “Kneel and surrender, and I’ll do what I can to save your friend.”
A cold
feeling came over Aram, and he was suddenly back in Anai, standing in the alley with the young Exilar threatening his mother’s life. This was the same situation. Only, this time, it was Markus’s life that was being threatened. Now he understood why the Overseers had chosen that test, and why he had almost failed it.
His love of others was his greatest weakness.
Yet knowing that didn’t help.
Fear is your enemy. Don’t surrender to it.
His father’s words.
He couldn’t surrender. Not because of his fear of the cellars, but because he couldn’t yield to the enemy and give them that kind of advantage. He wouldn’t give the Exilari another drop of his essence. Just as he had with the sorcerer in the village, Aram shook his head.
“No.”
Sergan’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “Really? You’ve actually got the balls to defy me?”
Instead of answering, Aram swept his arms up, capturing every strand of aether he could hold, and started weaving for Markus’s sake. This time, he didn’t move his fingers, for he didn’t have enough of them for all the strands he was working simultaneously. This time, he wove solely with his mind. Colors and patterns swirled dizzily around him, flitting by faster than the speed of thought. Tendrils of aether knit together in structures of increasing complexity, spilling out before him. He tied off the last threads of his creation with a defiant growl then hurled the whole glowing mass at Sergan.
A flash of light brighter than the sun exploded in the cavern. Sergan was lifted off the ground and went flying backward, crashing high up into the wall behind him. But instead of falling, his body clung there as if nailed in place. Cold horror froze his face, and the color drained from his cheeks.
Slowly, his body peeled from the wall and slid to the ground, leaving a streak of blood behind. Aram saw the spikes his back had been driven into. There were two of them, as long as his hand, unless there were others that had broken off inside him. The sorcerer sat leaning back against the wall, legs splayed, gazing slack-jawed at Aram with a look of terrified disbelief. Aram glared back at him with glowing eyes that blazed with power and hatred.
Sergan growled, thrusting out his hands.
Aram leapt sideways, but not in time to avoid the concussion of air that clapped together where he’d just been standing. His head thundered as if struck by a hammer wielded by the gods.
Motes of light danced across his vision, and he slumped to the ground. For a moment, darkness encased him. Then the world came swimming back into focus.
Aram lifted his head and spat a mouthful of blood. He opened his eyes.
Sergan was gone.
He looked to where Markus lay unconscious or dead on the floor of the cave. Grimacing in pain, he pushed himself off the ground. He wobbled for a second then staggered toward his friend, heart pounding with fear.
When he reached Markus, Aram rolled him over gently. He was still alive, though blood ran freely from a wound in his scalp, drenching his face. Aram threw his head back in despair, for he didn’t know what to do. Markus was bleeding heavily. His helmet lay across the floor from them and, looking at the size of the dent in it, his skull could easily be cracked. Aram tried to summon magic to heal him, but he didn’t know how. And when he tried to twist the strands into something that could stop the bleeding, they simply melted in his hand.
He wanted to scream. Markus was Impervious.
No amount of magic could heal him.
Aram started tearing at his clothes, wadding torn strips of cloth and pressing them against the wound.
The cloth became saturated almost instantly.
He didn’t know what to do. There had been a man in his village who had died of a head injury, when the halyard of a ship cracked his skull. He’d lived three days after the accident, but he’d never woken up.
Markus had to wake up.
He had to.
Glancing behind him, Aram considered the glowing waters of the Wellspring.
There was great power in Wellsprings, Harak had told him. Great power of healing. And it wasn’t active magic. It was passive magic. Not the magic of the aether, but the magic of the earth itself.
Perhaps it was a kind of magic Markus was not immune to.
Heart thundering, Aram gathered his best friend in his arms and dragged him backwards, being careful not to jostle Markus’s head. The action made his shoulder throb fiercely, and he figured he must have hit it when he fell. His body felt terribly weak for some reason, but he managed to lift Markus over the worst of the uneven ground and wade with him out into the shallow waters of the glowing Wellspring.
There, he knelt with Markus cradled in his arms, holding his head above the water’s surface. Tendrils of blood rose around them, snaking through the water, far more blood than he ever would have expected. Cupping his hand, Aram washed the wound in Markus’s scalp with the water of the Wellspring. He drizzled some into his mouth, making Markus choke and sputter.
A raw ache of desperation gripped Aram’s heart as the water surrounding them darkened. Still, Markus didn’t wake up. Desperate, Aram drenched the torn cloth and pressed it against the injury. His shoulder throbbed fiercely, and he wanted to rub it, but he didn’t want to jostle Markus. After several minutes, he removed the cloth and checked the wound beneath it.
Aram gasped.
The bleeding had stopped.
He gave a long sigh of relief. Markus still wasn’t out of danger, but it was something. Cradling his friend’s limp body in his arms, Aram determined to remain with him in the pool until Markus either awakened or succumbed to his injuries.
Hours went by.
Marcus remained unconscious, his breathing regular, as though he were deep asleep. Aram thought that some of the color might have returned to his face. He propped himself up against a boulder, resting his head against the uncompromising rock.
His temples throbbed from the explosion of magic Sergan had tossed at him, making him feel weak and dizzy. He started shivering, though he didn’t understand why. The water around him was warm, far warmer than the cave.
Aram caught himself nodding off and had to jerk himself awake. Then he heard it: the sound of voices echoing through the cavern. Fear gripped him, and he hugged Marcus protectively. Those voices could be friends, but it was more likely Sergan returning to claim them both. Not knowing what else to do, he pulled back behind the boulder.
The voices grew closer, echoing off the cavern walls. Aram squeezed his eyes shut and listened, straining to recognize them. But the sounds rang hollowly off the walls, and he couldn’t tell who was speaking. He pressed his back up against the boulder as hard as he could.
The footsteps entered the room.
Aram chanced a glance around the rock and just about sobbed in relief when he saw that it was Vandra, accompanied by some of the riders from the fighting Wing. With a gulp of joy, Aram moved out from behind the rock and surged toward her through the water.
“By the wind!” exclaimed Vandra.
She plunged into the water and, together, they carried Markus to the shore, where they laid him out on the rocky floor of the cavern. Vandra bent to examine him, and Aram knelt at her side.
“Is he going to be all right?” he croaked.
Vandra turned her attention from Markus’s scalp to examine the rest of him, lifting his eyelids and pressing an ear against his chest to listen to his breathing. Looking at Aram, she smiled in reassurance.
“I think he’s going to be all right.” Her smile froze. “You’re bleeding.”
Aram looked down and saw she was right. His left shoulder was stained dark with blood.
“I’m fine,” he muttered.
Then the world went dark, and he collapsed into Vandra’s arms.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Aram awoke to the familiar scent of cloves and roasting meat. He was staring up at the ceiling of a cave, only, this cave was tall and smooth, not embellished with stalactites. He was warm, encased in a cocoon of blankets, h
is head cradled by a feather pillow. Turning over, he closed his eyes and stretched, wondering why he felt as though he had been sleeping for a week. When he opened his eyes, he was startled to find himself looking at Esmir, who was relaxing in a chair that had been pulled up beside his sleeping pallet. At the sight of the old Warden, everything that had happened since his return from the Portal Stones came back.
“Markus—”
“Recovering.” Esmir nodded past Aram, and he turned to take a look.
There, on the other side of the small room, lay Markus, by all appearances sleeping peacefully. His head was wrapped in bandages, but otherwise, he looked healthy. At the sight of him, Aram let out a great, long sigh, feeling almost dizzy with relief.
“I thought he didn’t have a chance,” Aram breathed.
Esmir lifted his bushy gray eyebrows. “He’s lucky to have a friend that acted quickly. How did you know the water would work on him?”
“I didn’t. I just hoped.”
There was a crashing noise as the eyrie’s door burst open.
“Are they awake?” came a loud voice.
Aram turned at the sound of rushing feet to find Jeran, Kye, and Corley running toward them.
Esmir surged halfway out of his chair, holding his hands up, a ferocious look on his face. “Would you louts be quiet? Markus needs his rest!”
The young men halted with grimaces of apology, tiptoeing the last few steps to flop down at Aram’s side.
“I can’t believe you saved the Anchor all by yourself!” Jeran exclaimed in a whisper.
“Hell, he saved the entire Wing!” gushed Kye.
“Are you feeling all right? You had us worried!”
Aram wanted to cover his ears from the assault of questions.
“Why are you worried about me?” he asked. “It’s Markus that’s hurt!”
He tried to sit up, but a sudden, shooting pain made him think better of it.
