by Dante King
A breath.
My head spun again suddenly, then my perception slipped back into place. From somewhere at the back of my mind, I felt a welling up of power. Instinctively, I exerted my own strength of will upon it and felt it move. It was a warm sensation, as if hot, viscous liquid were being sucked from my mind, down through my right arm, and into my hand.
“It’s working,” I breathed as a sudden trickle of acrid smoke curled up from the ropes that bound my ankles. With sheer willpower, I pushed more of the warm magical power into my hand. The smoke increased suddenly, and I felt the ropes give under my hand. I wrenched at them, and they fell smoldering to the floor of the wagon.
As I turned my attention to the woman, a sudden wave of dizziness swept me. I dropped to my knees. The floor of the wagon was sticky with Boris’s blood, and I knelt there, gasping, as a blackness swept my vision for a moment. As suddenly as it appeared, it passed, and I felt a flow of power coming back into the place where I’d drawn on before.
The corpse of Boris filled my vision as I came back to myself. He had a sturdy sheath knife clipped to the belt that cinched his robes at his thick waist. I could feel my power regenerating, but perhaps taking Boris’s knife would be a better idea than trying to use my newly discovered fire magic on the woman’s ropes.
I yanked the knife, sheath and all, from Boris’s belt and turned to the woman as I pulled the blade free from the sheath. She nodded approvingly and held out her wrists. As I sawed through her bonds with the knife’s dull edge, I felt quite distinctly the pool of magic which I had drawn on replenish. Thoughts raced through my mind as the woman’s hands came loose and I knelt to free her feet.
It was Mana, the internal pool of magic which Mages drew upon to do spells.
When I had drawn on it to burn my own bonds, I had depleted it. As is often the way in life, I had only truly noticed it when it was gone. Now, it was regenerating, and I realized that I had become used to the feeling of warm power resting at the back of my mind.
Mana. I had a Mana pool. Did this mean I was a Mage? I guessed it did.
A slow feeling of excitement built in me.
“Thank you,” breathed the woman as I finished cutting the ropes at her feet. Her wrists were bruised where the ropes had cut into them and restricted the circulation, and she rubbed at them gingerly.
That was when the driver woke from his snooze and turned to glance over his shoulder.
“Boris, you asshole, where’s the…” but the words died on his lips as he took in me and the woman standing upright in the wagon.
I glanced around. The wagon had drifted to the right-hand side of the road, where a riot of lush undergrowth marked the edge of the forest.
I didn’t fancy our chances on the road. We would head straight into the forest.
“Time for us to go, I think,” I said to the woman as the driver hauled the oxen to a stop and struggled to turn and jump from his saddle.
The woman picked up her book and tucked it under her arm. “Go? Go where?” She glanced around, looking panicked.
I pointed in the direction of the lush forest. My face was grim.
“Anywhere but here.”
I had stuck my foster-father’s dagger through my belt, but I still held Boris’s belt-knife in my right hand. I vaulted the edge of the wagon, landing with a grunt on the road then turning back to help the woman down. She clambered awkwardly from the wagon, leaning on me, her book still clutched in her other hand.
The driver had managed to get clear of his oxen and took a few lumbering steps toward us, hauling a short, stabbing sword from its sheath. He glanced over the edge of his wagon.
“The slaves are getting away! They’ve killed Boris!” he cried. On the road behind us, the other wagon with its load of four trollmen was coming around the corner.
“Get to the forest,” I said to the woman. “I’ll deal with this damn slaver!”
She staggered a few steps, her circulation still weak from days of being tied up. I wasn’t feeling so hot myself, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to make a good enough effort at running. Better to hold off the slaver and let the woman get away.
“Go!” I shouted when she hesitated. After a moment longer, she nodded and dashed into the woods.
“Stop where you are and I might let you live,” the driver called out to me. I turned slowly, facing him down. He was short and stubby, like Boris, but unlike Boris he was wearing a thick leather hauberk that looked quite well-made. He was well-fed and well-hydrated, and I was neither. His stabbing sword and his long arms gave him serious reach.
I had my foster-father’s stiletto dagger, and Boris’s belt knife. I was wearing the clothes I had been captured in—rough homespun tunic and trousers with a leather belt, and my heavy farm boots. Away to my left, the other slavers had got out of their wagon, but they did not move in to attack. Instead they advanced slowly, fanning out to block my escape route.
“Come on, don’t be an idiot,” growled the driver. “I don’t want to kill you, but I might be willing to teach you a lesson. A few less fingernails and mashed testicles wouldn’t alter your value at the mines. Come quietly, and I’ll let you off with it this time.” He advanced on me, sword pointing at my chest. In a moment, they would have me surrounded, then I would be recaptured.
Only one thing for it. I sincerely hoped this would work. If it didn’t, well, at least the woman had got away.
“All right,” I said loudly, “you’ve got me. I’ll come quietly.” I raised my hands and made a show of dropping Boris’s belt knife to the ground.
“That’s the way,” the wagon driver cooed. “Nice and easy. No one needs to get hurt.”
As I stepped toward him, I focused on the Mana which lay at the back of my mind. It felt fully replenished, and when I brought my attention to it, I felt it bubble up in response. He took a step toward me, kicking Boris’s knife out of my reach. His sword was in his right hand, and he carried a coil of rope in his left.
I channeled as much Mana as I could into my left hand and felt the familiar sensation of heat well up there. To my surprise and delight, flame suddenly erupted from my palm, wreathing my hand and my fingers. I could feel it, but there was no pain.
One swift step took me inside the trollman’s guard. I slammed my flaming palm into the side of his face. There was a loud sizzling noise and a smell of burning meat. The slaver howled in pain, springing back from me and dropping his sword as he brought both hands up to cover his face. To my amazement and satisfaction, the skin on the side of his face was blackened and blistering. He clawed at his head and charged blindly away from me, crashing into his buddies and getting tangled up in their legs.
This was probably my only chance. The other slavers were, for the moment, too busy trying to work out what had happened to their friend to follow me.
With a swift lunge, I swept up Boris’s belt knife from the dirt where I’d dropped it. Then I turned and ran.
I wasn’t sure where the woman had gotten to, but I hoped she’d covered some good ground. As I crashed through the undergrowth and began heading uphill, I was surprised to see her step out from behind a tree.
I slowed my pace as I approached her. “What are you doing here? You should have kept running.”
“I couldn’t leave you behind. I was watching you. What did you do to that slaver?”
“There’s no time for that now. We need to get moving now. It won’t take them long to care for the one I burned and get after us. Come on.”
We kept running. As the cover of the trees grew deeper, the undergrowth became thinner and easier to move through. The trees were tall, of a kind which I did not recognize, with pale, flat leaves and deeply ridged bark. Wide spaces opened out between them, peppered with groves of thick, thorny bushes and rugged outcrops of boulders. The ground we ran over was thickly carpeted with the mulch of countless seasons of dropped leaves.
Fortunately, our legs became steadier as we went. After days of being tied up, the
returning blood pulsed painfully through my ankles, but it was a welcome pain. I glanced at the woman and saw that her face was set in an expression of grim determination. Clearly, she was experiencing the same sensation as me.
The land climbed steadily uphill. From behind us, we could hear the angry shouts of the trollmen and the crashing noises as they made their way through the brush after us. They were making good progress by the sound of it. It was unsurprising that they would have more energy than a pair of slaves who had barely been fed for days.
“This won’t do,” I panted. “They’ll catch us. We need to find somewhere to hide.”
She nodded, and we both slowed down as we looked for a likely spot. There were several clumps of the tall thorny, yellow-flowered bushes that seemed to thrive in this forest. Any one of them might have made a decent hiding place. Not far from where we stood, an outcrop of gray stone made a cliff wall fronted by a particularly thick clump.
I pointed. “There, if we can get in under those, we’ll be as well-hidden as we can be.
She nodded, and I led the way as we dropped onto all fours and shuffled in under the bushes, past the thick, almost tree-like trunks of their bases and into the shady space beyond.
We were just in time. The outside of the clump of thorn bushes was dense, and the huge spikes poked at us and tore at our clothes as we pushed ourselves under, but once we were past the outer layer, we found ourselves in a dry, open space, floored with a prickly carpet of needles. I was confident that we would not be seen from outside.
“I don’t imagine they’ll fancy pushing themselves past those thorns.” The woman’s voice was husky with the effort of the run. We lay on our fronts, side-by-side, from where we could look out into the clearing under the spikey wall that protected us.
“They came this way,” said a gruff voice.
“How can they have got away so fast?” said another.
“And what the hell did he do to Alek? His face was a proper mess, as if it had been burned. Who the hell gave him a torch?”
“Could he be a magic user?”
“Definitely not. Boris checked him properly. I saw him do it with my own eyes. He was damned thorough.”
The woman and I held our breath as the slavers moved about the clearing calling out to each other. There were three of them. I guessed that one had stayed behind to look after the wagons and to care for the one they called Alek, the driver whose face I had burned.
They seemed reluctant to go further than the clearing. One man even approached our clump of bushes, but he seemed more interested in the cliff that backed it.
“No sign of them,” said the one nearest us. “I don’t like this. Let’s go back to the wagons and see if we can pick up their trails again.”
The woman was lying right next to me, her book clutched under her arm. Her hip was pressed up against mine in the hollow. She had a fresh, lavender scent, despite the days on the road and in captivity. I stole a glance at her, then spoke.
“Looks like we got away with it, wouldn’t you say?”
“For now. But let’s not stay in here. I think I’m lying on an ants’ nest!”
We pushed our way out of the bushes and stood up, brushing needles and dirt off our clothes and then regarding each other. I met her eyes, and she smiled shyly at me.
“Thank you for freeing me from those trollmen,” she said. “That was amazing, what you did back at the wagon. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.”
Damn, but that compliment felt good coming from her.
I took a deep breath, aware of how my chest filled out as I did so. The admiration in her face was almost intoxicating. Her eyes were ice-blue and matched the pale blonde of her long hair, which curled at the edges. Her face was round, with high cheekbones and a faint blush of color in the smooth cheeks. She held her big, arcane-looking book close to her chest, and I could not help but notice the way her generous breasts pushed up against the top of the book and filled her thin top. She caught me looking, but rather than annoyance, she ducked her head coyly, then smiled up at me again through her eyelashes.
“Come on,” I said, a little breathless. “We ought not to hang about here. They might come back.”
She gave a tight little nod.
I was about to start up the hill when she put her hand on my arm. “Wait, before we go… well… what’s your name?”
“Of course, those slavers never introduced us. How rude of them.” I held out my hand to her. “I’m William. I come from the village of Lowvale, near Aranor.”
She shook my hand. Her skin was cool and her grip was surprisingly firm.
“Amelia,” she said. “I come from Astros.”
“Well met, Amelia of Astros. Come on, let’s head up this hill and put some more distance between us and the road. I don’t want to meet those slavers again if we can help it.”
We reached the top of the hill quickly and looked out over the tree canopy. To the northwest, we could see the shadowy mountains in the distance, and behind us to the south there was a line among the trees which must mark the road. There was no sound of the slavers at the moment.
“What direction shall we take?” Amelia asked.
“Good question. I hadn’t really thought about it. We’ll need some supplies. I don’t know about you, but I’m rather hungry. I think we should head back in the direction of the slavers’ wagons, collect what’s useful there, then decide where to go from there.”
Amelia shrugged. “Sounds reasonable. Let’s go.”
We went down the other side of the hill and back under the canopy of the forest. It was early afternoon, and I glanced up through the leafy treetops, taking a bearing from the sun’s position to be sure we were heading more or less toward the wagons. From the way things had looked from the top of the hill, this forest went on for miles.
The forest canopy let enough light through to allow some grass and ferns to grow on the forest floor here. Lush green and rich browns surrounded us, and the warm smell of a summer wood filled the air. I breathed deeply.
“Freedom feels good, doesn’t it?” There was a smile in Amelia’s voice, and I looked at her to find her gaze on me. I smiled back at her.
“It sure does.”
We walked for an hour, not hurrying. Once, we came upon a stream running through a deep cutting in the mossy forest floor. We stopped to drink and splash the mud from our faces, careful not to leave tracks that could be followed in the muddy bank.
Once we were moving again, we both felt refreshed. The forest had opened out a bit, with many high broad-leaved trees overhanging knee-high grasses which gave up a sweet scent as we walked through them. I decided to try to find out more about Amelia. Several times in the last hour she had seemed about to speak, but it was as if she did not know how to start a conversation. Very well, I would save this alluring, shy woman the trouble, and find out more about her in the process.
“So, Amelia, you said you’ve come from Astros? Does that mean you’re an Arcanist, then?”
“An Arcanist? No, not I. I’m not even a regular Mage, just a scholar at the library at Astros.”
“A Librarian?”
She laughed coyly. “No, not a Librarian. It takes multiple decades to become a Librarian, and more talent than I have. No, I am a simple scholar apprentice.”
“I can’t imagine a good reason for a lone scholar to be out on the road. What were you doing so far from Astros, let alone by yourself?”
She gave me a look that clearly said she wasn’t comfortable with the question.
After an awkward moment of silence, she asked a question of her own. “And what about you? I guess from your clothes and your speech that you are not an Arcanist either. Are you a Fire Mage?”
Well, I guessed it was fair enough that she didn’t want to share the details of her journey with me straight away. I may have helped her escape, but I was still pretty much a stranger to her. Maybe she had some secret business that she couldn’t share with just anyone. I would
content myself with answering her question and let her decide how much she wanted to share with me and how soon.
“A Fire Mage?” I had to laugh. “I doubt the trollmen would have been able to capture me if I were a Fire Mage. I’m an Elemental Sensitive, but aside from that I’m just a simple farmer’s son. I suppose my Sensitivity means that I’m able to sense magical Beasts—that’s why the Slavers wanted me for the mines—but that doesn’t make me a Mage.”
She gave me a quizzical look, as if she was trying to work out whether or not I was telling the truth.
“But what about when you freed yourself, back at the wagon? I saw the smoke and smelled the burning. And when you fought that Slaver; I was watching through the trees, you burned him with your bare hand. I saw the flame. You must be a Mage, how else could you have done all those things?”
“Well, I guess I must have some magical ability. It’s true, I felt Mana inside myself and drew on it, and it manifested as flame. But that was just instinct. I have no idea how I did it. I’m certainly no Mage.”
She gave a disbelieving laugh. “But William, what is a Mage if it’s not someone who can conjure magic?”
I shrugged. “Well, like an Arcanist, I guess. Someone who is trained and serves the Kingdom. Those who train at Astros.” Something else struck me. “Mages are people who use vectors, like wands or swords. For all I know, what I did wasn’t even really magic.”
“Not magic? You’re wrong there, William, what you did was most definitely magic. But listen,” she said, sounding excited, “you said something interesting there. It’s true that magic users always employ vectors like weapons, enchanted jewelry, or even clothing to cast spells. That’s why what you did was so impressive. Are you sure you don’t have some item, some enchanted piece of clothing or ring that you might have been using as a vector, without fully understanding what you were doing?”
