The Sorceress of Aspenwood Trilogy Pack

by Sam Ferguson

  Considering this she flipped to the next entry and scanned through it to see if he had second thoughts. She found only more affirmations of Feberik’s plans to marry her. Whatever man wrote the first entry that she had read, it seemed he had disappeared entirely. Perhaps this was something she could talk to Cyrus about. She knew she couldn’t speak with Janik about it, nor could she bring the subject up with Feberik. Even in an abstract sense, she did not wish to discuss marriage with her actual fiancé. Just the thought of it made her stomach flip. But Cyrus just might have some insight into this. More importantly, he had already told her that he was new to Kuldiga Academy. That meant he was not connected with anyone else in the same way that Janik or Feberik might be. The old wizard was the only logical choice. Besides, if she destroyed the shade tonight, he would owe her one.

  Kyra set the book back on the desk and went for the door. She undid the lock and closed it behind her. She moved around the corner and down the hall to Janik’s office. She put her lock pick set to work on Janik’s lock, opening the door in a matter of seconds. She slipped inside and summoned the small light again to help her find the rope. She kept the light hovering low in front of her chest, to limit the amount of light that would shine out from the window that overlooked the courtyard below.

  She went to a long counter along one of the walls and opened the top drawer. Inside she found a large, blue bottle. The only other things in the drawer were gauze bandages. She closed the drawer and moved to the next one and the next looking for the rope. When she found none in the drawers, she made her way toward a large cabinet that stretched from floor to ceiling. She pulled on the knob and a couple of long-handled tools caught on each other and rattled and jingled as the door opened. There were shears and brooms and mops and buckets, but no rope. She almost closed the door in a huff, but then her eyes caught sight of a cord dangling from the shelf in the top of the cupboard. She reached up to grab it and pulled down a coil of rope roughly twenty-five feet long. That was more than enough for what she needed. She stuffed the rope into her bag, closed the cupboard, and left the room.

  She made her way back to her bedchamber and then dumped the contents of the bag onto her floor. She removed her robes and left only a soft shirt on her torso before she slipped the feather mail shirt over her body. Over that she was going to put the padded leather tunic, but she noticed that the sleeves were very thick and would hamper her movement. This likely didn’t make much of a difference for any Apprentice of the Sword, but she would need her hands as free as possible if she was going to be able to cast a spell quickly when needed. She went to her desk and pulled a small pair of scissors out and began ripping the seams at the shoulders to remove the sleeves from the leather tunic. When she was done she slipped it over herself, letting the excess length hang over her waist on the outside of her pants. Then she put her robes back on to conceal all of the armor beneath.

  She hastily stuffed the rope back into the bag and opened the portal, stepping through to greet Leatherback for the second time that day.

  CHAPTER 15

  Leatherback lazily opened an eye and watched her curiously as she came back through the portal. He purred and chirped, lifting his head from the ground. Kyra walked up to him and placed a hand on the tip of his snout, running it up the top of his face until she reached the point between his eyes and then she patted twice and gave him a large hug.

  “Remember that I told you I would come back tonight?” Kyra asked. She looked up and pointed to the night sky which was filled with stars, but void of the moon. “I told you tonight we would play just like Boba and Aiden would, do you remember? Leatherback, my dear friend, I have something I need to ask of you.”

  The dragon pulled his head back from her, obviously sensing the trepidation in her voice. He cocked its head to the side slightly and then offered his high-pitched squeal. Kyra accepted that as a prompting for her to say what she needed.

  “Like you, my mother is dead.” A lump caught in Kyra’s throat. This was much harder than she had anticipated. Previously she had tricked herself into thinking that because Leatherback was only an animal, it would be easy to command him to do what she wanted, but it was not so. Leatherback was not just an animal, he was her friend. Her most dear and precious friend. What she was going to ask him to do was dangerous for both of them.

  Leatherback gently nuzzled her with the end of his snout and offered the high-pitched chirp again, encouraging her.

  Kyra nodded and her eyes began to water as she thought of her mother.

  “There is a shade that hunts us.” The young apprentice shook her head and patted the dragon’s snout with her hand and then she corrected herself. “I mean to say there is a shade that hunts me. It killed my mother and has been looking for me ever since. I am tired of hiding.” She looked up to Leatherback’s golden eye and smiled weakly. “I have been practicing my magic, and I think I am ready to change from being the hunted to being the hunter. I was doing some research today, and I believe I know how to find him,” her words trailed off and she looked at her friend. Somehow she could no longer find the right way to ask him to come with her.

  The dragon pulled away from Kyra and lazily pushed to its feet. It stood over her with his head held high into the air. He looked down at her and smiled. She could see the burning flames deep within his nostrils as wisps of smoke snaked out. Leatherback opened his mouth and in a deep, rumbling voice pronounced a single word that sent shivers down Kyra’s spine.

  “Boba.”

  Kyra stumbled back and looked up at her friend, reaching up with her left hand to cover her open mouth. He had spoken. His first word ever, and it came from a story she had told him. Did this mean that he understood what she needed?

  Before she could ask anything, Leatherback lowered his head down so that it was level with hers and smiled again before saying his second word.

  “F... Friend.”

  Kyra reached out and hugged the dragon’s snout, laying her head upon his thick, strong scales and letting tears of joy and relief fall upon them.

  “Will you come with me?” Kyra asked.

  Leatherback pulled away from her and lifted his head high into the sky.

  “Friend!” he shouted in a voice that shook the trees around him and was accompanied by a massive column of flame and sparks.

  Before long the two were flying through the air. Kyra had used the rope to secure her staff behind Leatherback’s crown of horns, and had used it to fashion a bridal of sorts for her to use as they careened through the sky. They traveled out beyond where they had been hunting some time ago when the satyr had warned them and sent them back. She was almost certain that the satyr had sensed the evil that was hunting her. With any luck, the shade would still be nearby.

  The two of them searched the ground for hours with no luck. Leatherback glided below the clouds and over the tops of the trees, but they saw no monster. Kyra began to lose hope and was almost ready to give up the search for the night when she saw the mountain where the nest was located in which she had found Leatherback. She patted the dragon’s neck and pointed toward the mountain. Leatherback needed no more instruction before turning and flying directly for it.

  The two of them landed gently in the nest of rocks and Kyra dismounted from Leatherback. She smiled at seeing the old nest once more. It was almost like coming home, even though this was so different from the place where she had been raised. Leatherback kept watch, anxiously looking from side to side and keeping his legs tensed and ready to jump.

  Kyra moved toward the area where Leatherback’s egg had been when she found it. The large, flat rock that had once covered the egg and concealed it now lay off to the side, discarded and forgotten. Kyra startled when a field mouse popped out of Guardian’s hole. The little animal squeaked and squawked when it saw her and then disappeared back down into the hole. Upon remembering her little friend’s death, she felt another wave of sadness and guilt come over her. Had she not been there at that time, that wraith wou
ld not have killed Guardian. It never would have found the nest if she had been anywhere else, because it had come for her.

  She thought for a moment, wondering how it had known she was there. She rubbed her hands together and blew on them to keep them warm in the night. Her right index finger rubbed over a slightly raised scar on the back of her hand. Then she remembered she had cut the back of her hand on a thorny bush when she had been playing with Guardian earlier that day. If the wraith had been hunting her, then maybe it had come for the scent of her blood.

  She hadn’t read anything about that in the book that Cyrus had given her to read from, but then again, there had been a line saying that no one knew exactly how the wraiths were able to track their victims. It said that some attacks were purely happenstance and incidental, but that with others it seemed as if the wraiths knew exactly where their intended victims were and were able to attack without any warning whatsoever. Kyra wondered whether the wraith had indeed tracked her by scent.

  Kyra moved back to Leatherback, motioning with her hand for him to come closer. As he did so she gave him instructions.

  “Leatherback, if you fly above the clouds, can you hear me if I call for you?”

  The dragon nodded its head.

  “I have an idea to attract the shade that I am hunting. I will stay here and see if we can get him to come to me.” Kyra looked up the mountainside, and noted with satisfaction that the peak was partially concealed by clouds on this night. “You fly up to the peak where you will be able to watch from above. You can circle in the air periodically, but be sure not to tire out. If you see him before I do, signal with a flame in the direction that the shade is coming from. I will move in to attack and you can come in from above. On the other hand, if I see him first I will call out for you to come and help. Stay close enough that you can hear me, but go above the clouds so that he cannot see you.”

  Leatherback chirped and launched into the air without hesitation.

  Kyra walked around the nest until she finally found a bush with thorns like the one she had cut herself on before. She took one of the vines in her right hand, careful not to prick the inside of her palm, and stretched it out in front of her. She maneuvered her left hand underneath the thorny branch and then jerked her wrist so that it was cut shallowly in two places on the back side. The familiar sting came just as droplets of blood formed on the back of her wrist. Instead of sucking the blood or wiping it away, Kyra squeezed from the sides of the cuts until a few drops of blood fell to the stones below.

  She moved away from the stones, putting her back to a large boulder that could conceal her and stared out over the rocky nest, waiting for the shade to arrive. She glanced up occasionally, looking for Leatherback, but she could see no sign of him. Even straining her ears, she couldn’t tell that anything, much less a dragon, circled in the sky above. Kyra smiled, for if she could not see Leatherback even when she knew he was there, the shade would not be able to discover the dragon either.

  Hours must have passed as the stars traveled on their courses through the night sky. For the longest time no one came. Not even the field mouse emerged from the hole. Everything was perfectly silent and still.

  Without warning, something reached down from the boulder above and seized Kyra by the neck, yanking her up and holding her out over the rocky nest with one arm. She tried to call out, but the hand that held her squeezed so tight that she could not. She swatted at the hand that held her, but the creature laughed in her face.

  “Where’s the dagger?” the being asked in a low, gravelly voice.

  Kyra looked down and saw a pale figure standing before her. He looked exactly like a man, except that his ears were pointed like those of an elf and he stood at least two feet taller than any man she had ever seen in her life. He was slender, but obviously imbued with unnatural strength as he was able to easily dangle her in the air with one hand. He wore dark colored clothes with a flowing over-cloak. His hair was long and silver in color, which only accentuated his prominent cheekbones that protruded out from his gaunt face. A pair of fangs became visible as he sneered at her and spoke again.

  “Where’s the dagger, half-blood?”

  Kyra couldn’t breathe and she knew she could not wrestle free with her strength alone. She let go with her hands and summoned two spells. In her left hand she called forth an orb of light and sent it streaking toward the shade’s face. At the same time she formed a small javelin of fire in her right hand and sent it toward the creature’s chest. The shade hissed and screeched loudly. Kyra never saw whether her spells hit their mark, for the shade flung her away, flailing end over end through the air until she crashed down on the rocks. Her left ankle twisted as it went down in between two boulders. The weight of her body continued on until the bones gave way and snapped. She only just managed to cover her head with her forearms before bouncing across several more rocks and coming to a stop against a large, round boulder. Her sides and back ached tremendously, and she knew that had she not been wearing the armor, she would likely have suffered many broken ribs as a result of the fall.

  Crying out in pain, she reached down for her left ankle. She never saw the shade leap through the air toward her. A large streak of purple came down at her like a magical saber. It struck her square across the chest and knocked her to the side. She tumbled over the jagged rocks for several feet and gasped for breath. She looked down to see that her robes and the leather armor beneath had been split open. Her left hand came up to inspect the area and she fully expected to find a gash splitting her from left collarbone to below her lowest right rib, but luckily the feather mail had held together. She was most definitely hurt, but at least the spell had not cut her.

  The shade walked toward her now, holding a purple fire in his left palm and summoning a mighty sword in his right hand. The wind blew his hair and cloak out to the side and he sneered at her wickedly.

  “So this is the mighty daughter of Zana and Bhaltair?” the shade questioned in a mocking tone. “Pathetic.”

  Kyra tried to conjure another spell, but the pain in her leg prevented her from mustering any amount of focus, let alone casting an entire spell. The shade raised his sword high into the air and laughed at her.

  “Tell me where the dagger is, or I will use your guts and innards to scry for it myself. I will be the one to deliver it!”

  A great ball of fire crashed down from the sky with such force and speed that Kyra was knocked several feet away and the shade was engulfed entirely by flame. The shade’s hissing and wailing was cut short as Leatherback crashed to the ground, shattering rocks and shaking the entire nest. Leatherback brought his jaws down and Kyra could hear them snap shut, ending the shade’s cries of agony. Leatherback snapped his neck up and shook the shade’s body violently before spitting it out on the ground. The great dragon looked back at her and went to her chirping and clicking.

  “Friend,” Leatherback said in a concerned tone.

  Kyra looked up and raised her arm to meet Leatherback’s snout.

  “I’m alright.”

  Leatherback positioned his snout low enough that Kyra was able to drape her upper body over it so that he could scoop her from the ground. She was breathing heavily and her body was exhausted. She barely managed to center herself on the dragon’s snout before going nearly completely limp. Leatherback moved back around to look at the shade’s broken body. Despite the gaping holes that had nearly severed the shade’s torso in half, there was no blood. Kyra peered over Leatherback’s snout and looked down in disgust at the creature that had killed her mother.

  A purple haze covered the body, then the bones began to right themselves. The holes closed and the shade opened his eyes. Leatherback snapped out with his left foreleg, bringing his claws down to bear where the shade was, but the shade disappeared and Leatherback stabbed only rock and dirt. Leatherback snarled and lowered his head, sliding Kyra down to rest on a boulder. He moved to stand over her, protecting her from all sides as his head turned every which w
ay and his tail switched behind him.

  The shade laughed with a taunting, echoing cackle. Kyra looked around from under her friend, peering around the massive legs that guarded her on every side like sentinels of scale and muscle. She could not find the shade.

  “Your pet will do you no good here,” the shade hissed.

  Leatherback poured flame over the rocks and trees in the direction the voice came from. The forest began to burn and the shade continued to laugh. Now it called out from the other side of the nest.

  “You will both die.”

  Kyra finally summoned enough strength to send a lightning bolt in the direction of the voice. It crashed into a rock harmlessly and dissipated without ever finding its mark. The laugh returned, teasing and taunting them. The ground began to shake and there was a great commotion a few yards away as rocks leapt up, stacking themselves upon one another. They formed into a bipedal humanoid shape and charged for Kyra. Leatherback stopped the creature with a swat of its tail, exploding the rocks out away from them.

  The laugh returned. Leatherback snapped toward the direction of the sound and blew another great wave of fire into the forest. Now the fire rose all around them, casting the nest in an orange glow of death as thick smoke rose over them and blotted out the stars.