An arrow flew past Sari’s ear and she ducked to one side instinctively. She grabbed hold of Handy by the front of his pants and yanked him down in an instant. He yelped in surprise as he awkwardly fell on top of the elf, but avoided another arrow that would have buried into his back.
“It’s time to run,” Sari told him, pushing Handy off of her and rolling into a crouch. She looked behind her and saw a squad of orcs running after them.
“If you insist, Captain,” Handy answered trying to sound brave.
Handy ran as fast as his feet would take him. Any attempt at subtlety was lost in his mad dash for life as he tried to put distance between himself and his pursuers. For Sari’s part, she slowed her own pace to keep from leaving the young man behind.
A horn blow from one of their pursuers was answered by at least a dozen others coming from all directions including in front of them. In three bounds, she overtook Handy and told him, “Turn back toward them!” Handy’s eyes bugged out in disbelief and his pace only lessoned a little. “It’s our only chance!” She shouted before spinning and charging toward the squad of orcs chasing them.
She leapt to a low-lying tree branch like a wild cat and prepared her bow. Her hand pulled an arrow from her quiver as she sprang to a new tree and avoided an orcish arrow that occupied the space she had been in a moment before. Her feet found another perch as she readied an arrow. Her aim was careful, but fast as she loosed the arrow that landed in the lead orc’s chest.
Pulling a second arrow, her next jump landed her high up in a great oak as she narrowed the distance with the orc squad in a dangerous game that was bringing her ever closer to danger. Her next arrow found a place in another orc’s neck before any of them could get another arrow off.
Sari stepped out of the tree and pulled a third arrow from her quiver before landing on the ground a mere ten feet from the two remaining orcs and let loose her arrow so that it stuck from one of the orc’s eyes. Before he fell Sari already had another strung in her bow and ready to be loosed in the final orc’s face.
She tried to keep herself from panting when she said, “There is no shame in retreating when you know that you are outmatched.”
“Yes, there is,” the orc rumbled like thunder and pulled an axe free of its sheathe at his back or at least that was his intent until Sari loosed the arrow and killed him.
Sari spun expecting to find Handy not far behind her, but he was nowhere to be seen. She cursed his eyes for not turning around and following as she had instructed. Her plan had been to eliminate the orcs that already found them and double back to avoid the other squads that would be closing in from in front of them, but Handy had ruined that by running blindly in the wrong direction.
The pragmatic voice of her father, Shatala, King of the Red Tree Clan, went through her head. He would have told her to leave the human to his fate. She had done more than enough for him already and if he was foolish enough to ignore her sage wisdom, then it was no fault of hers.
However, Sari could not simply leave him. She had gone through too much already to let him die as a victim of his own stupidity at this point.
The woodland elf moved with the speed and precision that those of the Red Trees were known for. Even amongst other elves, the Red Tree Clan was considered the undisputed masters of the woodland having an oneness with the forest and its creatures that none others in the world could boast.
It only took her a minute to catch up with Handy, but he was not alone as three more orc squads surrounded him so that he had no place to run. Her mind ran through the options trying to find a way to save the scout against so many orcen warriors and she discarded each one out of turn. Handy was held by a dozen orcs and there were more on the way. She could not fight through so many orcs head on and even if she could, they would kill Handy out of turn just to make sure that they didn’t have an enemy at their back.
The only chance Handy would have now would be for Sari to stay hidden and hope for another opportunity to rescue him before he was returned to an orc encampment, but it would seem that the gods were not on Handy’s side as he was forced to his knees. A freakishly large orc with a bastard sword who looked to be in charge of the others unsheathed his weapon and prepared to cleave the young scout’s head from his body.
Without thinking, Sari aimed and loosed another arrow at the giant orc. It pierced his chest, but his sword was already descending on Handy’s neck and shoulders. The arrow took much of the strength out of the orc leader’s swing, but the sword was carried forward by its own momentum and bit deeply into Handy where his neck and shoulder met. Her arrow arrived too late to save him.
Sari only had a moment to feel regret for the young man before the orcs spotted her and charged. She turned and ran wishing to avoid further confrontation. Escaping the orcs would not be too difficult for the elf now that she would no longer have to hold back, but the cost for such expedience was too high.
And somewhere deep inside of Sari a voice counseled her to remain strong. She must steel her resolve for what was to come, because although Handy died alone, he would not have to wait long before many more souls would follow him.
Chapter 5
Bertran was recovering in an inn called The Broken Arrow when Sane and Marian arrived to interrogate the assassin. Most of the inn was rented out by the Kenzai prior to their assault on the magicians’ school and it became their base of operations while the battlefield was being cleaned up and they searched for some missing magical device the order was desperate to get their hands on.
However, it was not the assassin that the travelers met when they first entered the inn. It was a much shorter fellow with a big nose and long black beard. Upon seeing the noblewoman enter, the dwarf bowed deeply. “What a pleasant surprise,” he said to Marian, “I had not expected that we would cross paths again so soon and so far from the capital, my lady.”
“Gilkame Axebeard?” Marian asked in surprise, “What are you doing here?”
The dwarf noticed Sane and said, “No disrespect is intended, my lady, but the reason for my presence here is somewhat… secret. Suffice it to say my business here is in an official capacity.” Again he eyed Sane cautiously, but did not address the man, “May I ask how you came to be in this inn of all places? I did not think Warlord Nightwind had much to do with the southern region.”
“We are here on the king’s business,” Sane answered before Marian could. The authority in the sorcerer’s voice surprised her. Something had changed within the magician since they left the ruins of his sister’s school. She hoped it was nothing more than a manifestation of his grief and it would dissipate in time, but feared it might be something more. A harsh memory of the torture she experienced at the hands of Mantellus Firekin leapt to the forefront of her mind and she quickly tried to push the thought aside and rejoin the conversation. Whatever else Sane may be he was not a cold-blooded murderer.
“We need to speak with Bertran. Where is he?” the sorcerer asked in a tone that showed he would accept nothing less than being taken to the assassin at that instant.
Gilkame looked back to a table full of Kenzai, his eyes plead for assistance. The six warriors sitting there looked to each other and stood up as one. Marian became keenly aware that all eyes in The Broken Arrow were now on them. There must be twenty men and women in the common room alone dressed in the traditional brown garb of the Kenzai. One of the men that stood up approached the newcomers flanked by the men who were sitting with them. He was a tall man with a muscular build and stood nearly a head taller than the sorcerer. His black hair was tied in a warrior’s tail and he sported a thin mustache. “I am Lieutenant Blaine. What is this about?” he asked with a reserved glare, looking Sane in the eye.
“He wishes to see Bertran,” Gilkame told him emboldened by the lieutenant’s company.
“I am Sane, the personal sorcerer of his royal highness, King Kale Aurel, investigating the… occurrence a few nights ago in the northern forest.” Sane pulled his cloak tightly aro
und him. To some it may have looked like an unconscious attempt to put a barrier between the much larger Kenzai and himself, but Marian guessed that was not the truth. He was grabbing his staff or his grimoire and preparing to cast a spell should the larger man make a move to oppose him.
“Sane, perhaps you should calm down,” Marian suggested evenly and put her hand gently on his arm, which had a distinctively unnatural chill.
It appeared that fate was with them, fore Lieutenant Blaine bowed his head in a short nod. “Of course, Sir Sane, an advance rider arrived not more than an hour ago bringing word that you would be here shortly.” To the dwarf he added, “Gilkame, since you are familiar with the Lady, would you show our guests to Bertran’s room?” The dwarf seemed about to object, but then thought better of it and cheerily agreed. The subtlety of the request was not lost on Marian. Lieutenant Blaine was asking the dwarf to probe them for information, wrongly thinking that Gilkame was someone that Marian trusted, and determine their intentions during the short trip from the common room to wherever Bertran was resting. That was fine with Marian. Dwarves were notorious for loving the sound of their own voices and she knew Gilkame Axebeard was no exception.
Before Gilkame could think of a question, they had left the common room and were headed to a flight of stairs that would lead to the second floor rooms when Marian, trying to sound very impressed, asked, “So the Kenzai Order was the one commissioning your inventions? That is some very high company you keep, Gilkame.”
“The Kenzai Order?” Gilkame guffawed, “Hardly, my lady. I am working with the Kenzai to serve an even higher authority,” Gilkame’s chest puffed up with pride, “but I have said more than I should already. So what brings you here?”
The Kenzai Order operated in Aurelia without boundaries or allegiances to nobility. The only authority that had absolute dominion over them was the king. That was the reason that a handful of magicians like Sane and Byrn were allowed to operate freely in the kingdom without fear of the Kenzai and some, like Sane, even had their grudging respect.
“Two of the rogue magicians escaped the attack on their home the other night and we are looking for clues to help find them. It seems that Bertran was the only survivor of that attack,” Marian told him trying to stick as close to the truth as possible. She gave him what she guessed would be enough information to satisfy his curiosity and sprinkled with enough truth that it would confirm things he already knew, but did not mention that they wanted to find the magicians so that they could save Byrn.
Gilkame nodded, but still regarded Sane wearily. “Bertran’s room is the second to last door on the left,” he told them, but continued to lead the way.
Just before they reached the door to Bertran’s room Sane stopped and put his hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “You are here under the king’s orders?”
“I never said that!” the dwarf bristled and shook Sane’s hand off of his shoulder.
“Tell me,” Sane’s voice was commanding, but was somehow warming. It reminded Marian of her father’s voice when she was a little girl and she felt an urge to answer the sorcerer even though his question was not directed at her. Gilkame must have felt much the same way, because he answered Sane’s question without the slightest hesitation.
“My orders come from the royal blood line, but not from the king himself.” Gilkame spoke plainly with no hint of emotion or inflection in his tone. Sane had ensorcelled the dwarf and nearly done the same to Marian without even trying. “It was Prince Janus who commissioned my works and bade me to come down here.”
The prince’s distaste for magicians was well known throughout the kingdom, but to think that someone of the royal bloodline could order something as heinous as the killing of innocent children... Marian banished the thought. Surely there must be another explanation.
“Janus…” It was all Sane said as he considered the revelation. There was no surprise apparent on the magician’s face or in his voice. He seemed to accept the idea too readily for Marian’s liking and asked another question. “What was your mission?”
“To find my missing control collar. It was a prototype and some wizards took it. They killed my nephew to get it. I can and have made more, but it cannot be left in the hands of wizards or else they might find a way to break its hold over them.”
“A collar to control magicians as if we were common dogs?”
A brisk chill filled the hallway as Sane’s presence filled the hall.
“Wizards.” Marian flinched at the word and half expected Sane to kill the short inventor in his current state of mind. Wizard was a common slur word for magicians harkening back to a time long ago when magicians ruled the whole world and held power enough to rival the very gods. The magicians of today’s age were a weak shadow of their former power, losing much knowledge in the millennia of fighting.
“Not common dogs, but powerful, wild beasts, now placed under the total control of their masters. Each collar is paired with a rod. The bearer of the rod can command the wearer to do anything they want,” Gilkame explained. He was now cowering on the floor in the full grips of Sane’s enchantment. What terror was being inflicted on the dwarf to make him cower so, and reveal his secrets so readily?
“Leave my sight now, dwarf,” Sane gritted his teeth, “and forget we had this conversation.” Saying nothing Gilkame eagerly did as he was told leaving the travelers alone outside Bertran’s door.
Marian breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought you were going to kill him.”
Without responding, Sane pushed open the door to Bertran’s room and entered. The room was sparsely decorated leaving the wooden décor largely uncluttered. A nightstand stood to the left of the door and small table was at the far right. There were three beds in the room each with a footlocker, but only one was occupied.
Bertran was lying on the nearest bed. His face was mostly hidden with a white cloth covering the burnt side. He rolled over to see who had entered his room. Seeing Sane standing before him, the assassin visibly tensed and began to cough with such ferocity that that his body trembled beneath the folds of the blanket that draped over him.
Sane pushed back his cloak revealing his short staff that was strapped to his side like a rapier. He pulled it free from its strap and pointed the top end at the assassin. “Bertran, I have questions,” Sane said darkly.
“Ask what you will,” the assassin told him choosing his words with care, “and I will answer as best I can.” Bertran sat up so that his feet were on the floor, but his lap was still covered by the bed sheet. His face was covered with painful burn scars behind his mask, but otherwise he was without injury.
“I know that you will,” Sane frowned. He leaned forward to make a physical connection with the assassin and enchant the man, but Bertran lunged for Sane revealing the knife he had been hiding under the blanket.
Sane fell backward and Bertran landed on top of the sorcerer. His knife flared with bright blue light as Bertran tried to stab into Sane’s chest, but the magician held Bertran’s blade at bay with a hastily constructed magical shield that had become second nature over the years.
Sane called forth a gust of wind from his staff and blew Bertran off of him, slamming the assassin into the far wall and knocking the wind out of him. Marian started to scream, but caught herself. Sane checked the dazed man. “Bertran is still conscious,” he told Marian. Touching the man’s shoulder, Sane commanded him in that strange tone he had used with Gilkame minutes earlier. “You are the only Kenzai to survive the bloodbath at the magician’s school. Tell me what happened from the beginning.”
Bertran shot daggers from his eyes, but was compelled to tell Sane and Marian all he knew. He told them of Gilkame’s special collar and how they used it to enslave the murderer, Mantellus Firekin, under orders from Prince Janus. Bertran told how they used Mantellus to find the Lion’s Landing magicians by drawing them out of hiding and how Bertran tracked them back to their home. He told of the battle with the magicians and how he personally killed their
leader, Avelice Necros, before being seared by Byrn Lightfoot. He knew the knight-magician by name, since Byrn confessed his rank and title moments before he tried to kill Bertran. Then a raven-haired enchantress took the dying magician’s body after she forced Bertran’s men to kill each other.
Sane released his hold on Bertran and the assassin slumped against the wall. He stared up at the sorcerer with an accusing expression. “I will kill you for that!” Bertran spat on Sane’s tunic, but the magician did not act as if he cared, like the assassin was beneath his notice.
“I should thank you, Bertran. You gave me a very special gift this day,” Sane sounded as if his mind was a million miles away pondering ideas that Marian could only guess at. “For three decades, I have served the crown faithfully. I have done nearly everything asked of me and even helped hunt down my own kind on many occasions- all in the hopes of showing that magicians could be trusted; that we were not monsters to be feared; that we were people.
“And what do I have to show for it? Magicians are no freer now than they were when I was a boy. Instead, we are hunted in our very homes! Our prince, the man who will one day be king, hates our kind for the power we possess and seeks to turn us into weapons… or perhaps trophies to show his dominance over us!”
“You deserve far worse,” Bertran chuckled as he struggled to get up without any success, “You and all of your kind deserve eradication.”
Sane swung his staff and hit Bertran squarely in the jaw with the blunt end of his staff.
“That is enough, Sane,” Marian said sternly.
“It is not enough!” Sane turned on her. “This man killed my sister! This man killed children! He tried to kill your son and if left alone, he will surely drag Byrn’s name through the dirt! Byrn Lightfoot would become a fugitive once again. Do you truly wish for me to show this slaughterer mercy?”
Marian was torn between her loyalty for her son and her desire to save a life. Finally, the ranger meekly told Sane, “I just do not want you to do something that you will come to regret. If you kill him, defenseless as he is, then you will be no better than him.”
Fallen Magician (The Magician Rebellion) Page 4
