Alright, time to come to Tom’s aid. I’ll be twisting and squirming my way out as always...
Now I saw only one way out of the situation. Pretending to be a pitiful child that fled from orcish captivity wasn’t gonna work this time. I’d exposed myself fully. I’d have to play the role of a mage. Although why play? After all, I was in fact a mage, even if no one knew me and I was not very powerful...
“My companion is right,” I started, doing my best to make my voice as calm as possible. “Travelling across the steppe in times like these would be equivalent to suicide. And that’s why we made our journey through the Stone Forest.”
When I saw their jaws drop and bearded mugs stretch out, it took me some effort to hold back an acrid smirk. Obviously none of them were expecting to hear something like this.
The rat-man was first to come to his senses. His face warped into an evil grimace.
“How dare you lie in the presence of a special agent of the secret chancery and the captain of the Gray Martens?!”
That turned this into a curious scene. First of all, my companions were obviously deflated by the words “secret chancery” and “Gray Martens.” All clear with the chancery, but as for his company name, I felt like an ignorant buffoon. I had never heard a single thing about them.
And second, which played into my hand, the ratface made an error but hadn’t noticed. He said his own title before the captain’s, which made him sound superior to him. But the commander of the Martens and all his warriors were clearly not going to just let that go. Based on the angry and indignant looks on their faces, it was clear that the “special agent” would have to answer for his words later. At a more appropriate time for reprisals. Nevertheless, the secret chancery is not to be trifled with, even if you’re thrice the respected commander of the most distinguished military company in the kingdom.
But I was going to play on his error. I needed to try and get myself on the war dogs’ good side.
Tilting my head to the side and summoning all the self-control I could conjure, I tried to make my voice sound as cold as possible and addressed the chancery agent ingratiatingly:
“I hope ‘special agents’ are taught good manners and, when they recognize their mistakes, are capable of begging forgiveness? If not, I’m afraid I’ll have to fill the gap in your training myself. Before you say anything else, let me warn you — the two defensive amulets around your neck will be precious little help!”
The longer I spoke, the more dark-lilac haze balled up around my right hand. Beyond that, I was ready to unleash the Ysh spirit at any second. I knew I was on thin ice and it was crunching loudly with every step, but seeing the puzzled and satisfied looks on the faces of the riders all around us was only egging me on.
Demonstrating my membership in the magical estate had a positive effect for the umpteenth time. The secret chancery agent or “pig” in common parlance instantly dropped all his haughtiness and gave a short involuntary bow.
“Good sir mage,” he hissed through his teeth. “I pray you won’t harbor malice for a modest servant of his majesty such as I. I am only carrying out his will to the best of my abilities. Might I be allowed to know who I have the honor of speaking with?”
I held a pause for appearances and then, with false begrudging, let the lilac smoke disperse.
“My name will mean nothing to you,” I answered evasively. “But you must all know that I harbor no ill will toward his Majesty, may the gods extend his reign! I swear it!”
While the riders read the text of my oath with relief, I continued:
“These poor people really are former slaves who I managed to liberate. Their only wish is to quickly return home to their families, who I presume have long thought them dead and buried.”
“And the weaponry in their hands, it once belonged to their drivers I assume?” the captain asked, putting on a clever smile.
Chuckling back, I shrugged:
“Exactly right, Captain sir. Those orcs are dead now, so they didn’t need them anymore.”
I heard several of the soldiers laugh, so I figured my joke was to all their taste. Other than the secret chancery agent’s, naturally. Thinking I couldn’t see him clearly, the rat-man basically impaled me with his vile searching gaze. If he could have performed sorcery, I’m sure he’d have turned me to ash then and there. Okay then... There’s one more enemy for my list. I’ve been picking them up suspiciously quickly...
But as my mom always used to say, “there’s always a silver lining.” They’d all stopped aiming their weapons at us. The tense atmosphere had grown less charged. Some of the riders jumped off their horses and started offering to help the women, who were weeping for joy. The men meanwhile, smiling happily, embraced the warriors and thanked them for the rescue.
It happened somehow all on its own, but I was quickly swept aside. As if an invisible line had been drawn between me and the people. I suddenly felt like a third wheel.
Hm... More exclusion. A strange feeling... I used to be treated like an outcast, cripple and freak. Some pitied me, some were disgusted to be in my presence, and others meanwhile openly mocked me. But now I was being excluded because of fear. They were plainly wary of me, and some of them were simply afraid.
And that wasn’t to say I was happy at the lack of attention. More the opposite. I’d be glad to celebrate with the others but, alas, mages had earned a certain reputation over the centuries.
While they all embraced, I’d already started thinking about how and when I could find a good opportunity to slip away from the border guards and their watchful eyes. And I wouldn’t mind no longer having these people as my responsibility. All that remained was to find Mee, return the children to their parents, wish the soldiers luck and get moving toward Orchus. My thoughts were already far from here, in my homeland. But at that very moment, I heard a howl that froze the blood in my veins. I could never have confused that sound with anything else...
Shaking in worry, I turned. There were a few dozen wolf riders rushing our direction from the open steppe. One orc was riding a coal-black warg that especially stood out. It wasn’t hard to guess which one was after my soul...
Chapter 27
THE SUDDEN COMING of the band of steppe warriors caused a stir among the people. To be more accurate, my companions panicked, and the soldiers reacted the way military men should — rushed but well-coordinated. The captain was giving out orders in short choppy phrases. The riders, grabbing some by the collar and simply giving a hand to others, were pulling the people up onto the backs of their horses. I was shown somewhat more respect. A young bowman, lightly bending down, gave me a hand:
“Good sir mage, hurry!”
My fingers latched onto his forearm, and I was on his horse’s back in the blink of an eye.
“Hold on tight!” he shouted and hurriedly struck his heels into his steed’s sides.
The horses, slowly but surely gaining speed, were carrying us to the edge of the forest to the west.
For the record, the special agent’s bay horse was racing far ahead of the pack. The valiant secret chancery man ran for the hills at the first sign of danger without waiting for anyone or offering any help. All the while he was squealing hysterically that we had brought an army of orcs behind us and that he would not fail to include that in his report to leadership.
But the rat man never even made it to the forest...
As it turned out, Gorgie’s senses were dead on — the orcs really had set a trap. A short hunch-backed figure draped in a long-skirted black cape and wearing a hood over his head appeared on the edge of the familiar western forest as if parting the century-old pines with his hands. And a moment later, orcs on warg-back started to appear around him as if from thin air.
The great shaman played us like a fiddle. Like an experienced angler, he set a net and waited calmly for it to fill up with stupid little fish. And being a naive idiot, I had already started to think we’d gotten ahead of the orcs... I’d even started dreaming a
bout returning to my hometown once free of the abominable debtor’s oath.
I quickly looked where the wolf riders had come from and breathed a sigh of relief. Mee had led the children to a different place. Hopefully the shaman hadn’t figured out our little trick and the gremlin had successfully found shelter among the trees.
Meanwhile, the “pig” was still out in front and, when he saw the orcs appearing from out of nowhere, tried to get his horse to turn back. But it was running full-speed, and he was clearly not the most experienced rider. So the poor animal bucked, not able to take the abuse. Once rid of its ill-fated rider, the steed ran to the right, away from the terrifying wargs.
And the pig didn’t even have time to get up off the ground. Orcish bows shot him full of arrows immediately. From a distance, the man’s body looked like a pincushion.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I was relieved. That busybody spook was just paying too close attention to me. It was both suspicious and bothersome. I was sure he had already composed a full-length novel reporting me to his superiors.
To be honest though, in the catastrophic situation we found ourselves in, we didn’t give a crap about any reports. We had a matter of minutes left to live...
But the Captain of the Gray Martens had his own opinion about that.
“Northeast!” he roared boomingly and, setting an example for his soldiers, veered his steed to the right.
I didn’t understand what was happening at first but, when I looked closer, my lips spread into a timid smile. It seemed we had a crumb of hope after all.
The trap had been set perfectly, but the orcs made a small mistake. The wolf riders that appeared on our right flank were slightly behind the others. And suddenly there was a gap in the ring closing in around us, which the experienced captain immediately took advantage of.
The horses, furiously driven on by their riders, were racing full tilt. I took a quick glance and saw mischievous smiles on the soldiers’ concentrated faces. Were we really gonna get out?
Seeing that their lively prey was slipping through their fingers, the wargs and their riders howled in disappointment. The orcs whose mistake allowed us to escape were blustering especially hard. Their taut bowstrings, thrumming nonstop, rained down dozens of arrows in our direction. The black dots flew up into the sky like a swarm of enraged wasps, blotting out the sun for a moment. But nothing came of it. They realized what was happening too late. The arrows fell far behind us. I was afraid to imagine what the shaman might do to the screw-ups if we did actually get away...
By the way, where was the shaman?
I turned and looked where the warlock should have been. As it happened, the orcs blocking our path to the steppe were crossing the dry riverbed to link up with the troops accompanying the shaman.
The fastest and most lightweight riders were trying to get around and flank us to shore up the only gap. From a bird’s eye view, the orcs’ formation must have looked most of all like a horseshoe.
I finally found the shaman. And what I saw, to put it lightly, was not to my liking. Let me be more accurate. The dark figure hovering atop a ghostly ashen-gray cloud had me hiccupping in fear. When I looked closer, I realized it was not a cloud at all but some kind of semi-transparent creature...
Seemingly, my guesses were correct — the sacrifice experiments at the Tree of Spirits had borne fruit. This shaman had lured a higher creature to the portal and absorbed its spirit. And I had no doubt that the beast the orcish warlock was riding atop was indeed a higher creature. When I recognized that, my heart started beating twice as fast. And when I saw that the shaman had started gradually gaining speed it dawned on me — there was no avoiding a chase.
I didn’t need the gift of clairvoyance to guess what this outraged mage would do to us if he caught us. Narg said the orcs had sworn to get revenge. Probably, anyone not dead after this battle would be tortured to death. At some point, Mee had told me about the orcs’ refined sense of cruelty. The stories still made a chill run over my skin.
I also knew what mages of that level were capable of. The memories of Master Chi’s fight with his former colleagues left me with a firm impression.
In the meantime, the shaman was inexorably catching up to us. Everyone had noticed, both the victoriously roaring orcs and the people. I saw the frightened faces of the women and the sullen countenances of the warriors. I also saw Tom, sitting behind the captain, shout something strained into the commander’s ear. When they both turned simultaneously in my direction and I saw their eyes, it was clear what Tom was screaming about.
I can’t say what happened after that surprised or disappointed me. As a matter of fact, a new part of me had been forged over the last few months of constant danger and it was already subconsciously prepared for just such a turn of events. But there was a tiny little piece of boy Rick, hidden in some deep secret corner of my soul that felt a sense of grievance. But it was instantly squeezed out by a flurry of strong emotions — fear at first, then rage and fury.
“Micky!” the captain roared, causing the bowman I was sitting behind to shudder. “You’re lagging behind! Drop the excess weight!”
The warrior quickly turned his head toward his commander and gave a barely perceptible nod. Then a moment later, I was thrown off the horse like a bag of turnips.
Thankfully, I activated Muckwalker’s Aura quickly enough to absorb the impact of landing on the ground. Other than that, the fall was also alleviated by the previous night’s snowfall.
I took a few somersaults and froze for a second, coming to my senses. Then I spat out a mouthful of snow in disgust and started standing up.
I didn’t look toward the people that abandoned me. They no longer existed as far as I was concerned. Instead I glanced toward the waves of orcs. The nearest riders were no more than six hundred feet away. I quickly checked the figures of my Aura. After hitting the ground, I had a bit more than one thousand points of defense left.
My magic supply was almost full. Wisdom had already started replenishing the mana I used on the spell.
Seemingly, this was the very moment to use one of the elemental crystals. I was left to decide which one precisely. Fire, earth or ice?
I had thought over the spells contained in the crystals many times. What was their destructive power? Where and how best to use them?
In the end, I concluded that an earthquake would be the most effective in the mountains or near a large concentration of buildings. The fire wall and ice storm then were best for open space. So I crossed out Earth Tremor right off the bat. Although maybe I was wrong to do so. It’s always hard to make the right decision when you don’t know exactly what you’re dealing with...
No matter how badly I wanted to see lava rain fall down from the sky onto the orcs’ heads, I ended up choosing the Ice Storm. First off, that spell would last longer. And second, I was hoping that it would bring a full whiteout and temporarily disorient my opponents.
All these thoughts flickered by in my head in the space of a second. Hurriedly taking a bottle of potion of satiety from my backpack, I got ready to activate the crystal.
— Would you like to unleash the spell “Ice Storm?”
— Attention! Performing this action requires:
— 5000 mana points.
Another couple dozen paces and the orcs would have stomped me down like a flea.
“Yes, I would!” I rasped with my dry throat.
— Select activation point.
— Warning! The element you are summoning knows no mercy! Either take care to provide adequate defense or try to keep away from the epicenter of the storm.
— Warning! Spell damage radius: 165 feet.
While reading the system notifications, I felt a chill run over my skin.
Setting the activation point right on the dark-robe-clad figure, I unleashed the spell from the crystal. Then, not delaying another second, I rushed toward the forest.
As I ran, I took a gulp from the bulb and gave a contented grunt. Wis
dom, having received a little boost, started refilling my mana.
Before I made it five steps, I heard a sound that turned the blood in my veins to ice. I whipped around. What I saw struck me with its large scale, dangerous beauty and primordial cruelty. It forced me to stop and stand in place with my mouth open in astonishment.
A silver wall flowing with thousands of sparks appeared right where the orcs had been standing a few seconds earlier. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the wall appeared to flow because it was made up of hundreds of long spindly whirlwinds. And in their turn they were chaotically darting from side to side and humming with an eardrum-bursting buzz...
The effect of the doubtlessly high-level spell gave rise to a feeling of my own insignificance. If that was just a fraction of the spell originally interred in the crystal, I was afraid to even imagine the kind of force Ava the Great, the Ice Storm’s creator, could bring about directly. I consoled myself with the hope that I still could meet mages of that level one day.
The Wastes Page 31
