“Yes milord,” the master says with a nod, never taking his eyes off the mage’s party.
Kerith-Ayxt glances one last time at the image of the riders riding hard before leaving to make ready to ride. When he had been selected to be the High Lord Magus, he thought his days of battle were behind him. Relishing the thought of again being able to wield magic in battle he hurries from the room.
The five riders continue to follow. For two hours, James, Jiron and Jared have been fleeing northward and still the five riders continue to pace them. Once they tried to turn and confront them, but they simply ran away. Apparently they are only there to keep them in sight.
At one point they stop to rest their horses while James digs a shallow hole in the desert. Within the depression, he places one of his pouches and opens it as wide as it will go. Taking out one of their few remaining water bottles, he pours the contents into the pouch.
“What is he doing?” Jared asks Jiron.
“He’s trying to figure out which is the best way to go,” he says. “Without his mirror, he needs a flat reflective surface to do it.”
Jared keeps an eye on the five riders behind them who came to a stop when they did. He’s glad all they wish to do is observe.
Once the water fills the pouch, James waits a moment for the surface to stabilize then releases the magic. Aside from the five riders behind them, there aren’t a whole lot of others in the area. To the west lies a road running north and south. All that’s on the road is a slave caravan heading south.
“Is there a town where we could acquire fresh horses?” Jiron asks. “We could outdistance them over time if we could.”
“Let me check,” he says as he returns to the image upon the water. Northward lies nothing but desert. To the west along the road a little north of the caravan sits a small town. There’s an inn as well as several other businesses situated along the road.
“I think I found one,” he says and then relates what he saw.
“That will work,” states Jiron. “How far?”
Checking the image again, he says, “Half an hour give or take ten minutes.” Carefully removing the pouch, he pours as much of the water as he can back in the water bottle. Once the pouch and water bottle are again secured behind his saddle, he mounts.
Indicating in which direction the town lies, James nods for Jiron to again take the lead. Flying across the desert they make good time, all the while the five riders remain behind them. Less than a half hour later, the town appears ahead of them.
Slowing his horse, Jiron indicates their pursuers then says, “Deal with them and I’ll get us some horses.”
“Very well,” replies James. To Jared he says, “You stick with me.”
As Jiron gallops toward the town in search of fresh horses, James and Jared turn to face the oncoming horsemen. When the riders see them halting, they slow their pace.
“Come on!” yells James as he kicks his horse into a gallop. Jared follows close behind.
Upon seeing them charging, the riders turn to flee. James summons the magic and the ground near the fleeing riders erupts in explosions. One explosion erupts under a horse and throws the rider to the ground. The remaining four riders stop and return to their fallen comrade.
Removing a slug from his belt, James launches it at the nearest rider and feels the tingle of magic as it’s deflected to the side. The tingling sensation increases as the riders begin summoning magic.
James throws up a barrier around himself and Jared as a ball of fire appears and arcs toward them. “Hold still!” orders James when he sees Jared try to turn to flee.
Not heeding his command, Jared kicks his horse into a gallop and smashes into the shield. His horse rears backward and crashes into James’, throwing both riders to the ground.
The barrier winks out as James hits the ground. Rolling onto his back, he sees the fireball about to strike and another barrier springs into being, cocooning him a second before it strikes.
A scream of pain is ripped from Jared’s throat as the fireball slams into him. James is surrounded by fire as it envelopes his cocoon, rapidly raising the temperature within.
Lashing out with magic of his own, James blasts the fire off the barrier and gets back to his feet. Next to him lies the twitching burnt body of Jared. The flame of the fireball continues to burn him, his cries of pain echo across the desert. His eyes flash open and look pleadingly to James.
Swallowing hard, James acquiesces to his request and removes a slug from his belt. With the force of magic behind it, he throws it and ends Jared’s torment. Turning back to the mages, he finds three are still on horseback while the other is on the ground seeing to the fallen rider.
Another fireball is arcing toward him and he envelopes it with a barrier, dragging it to the ground. Unleashing magic of his own, the ground begins to shake. The rider’s horses begin to neigh and rear from fright. Two riders are bucked off while the third hangs on for dear life as his horse takes flight across the desert.
Suddenly, the ground beneath the remaining four mages opens up. Two immediately fall in, the others grab onto the edge and hang on. The shaking of the ground continues causing one of the remaining two to lose his grip on the edge and falls.
Magic springs to life from the four as they work to counter what he’s doing. But whatever they are trying is insufficient to stop him. With a clap, the two sides of the pit slam shut upon the lads inside. The one hanging onto the lip of the opening is caught as the shutting of the hole crushes his lower half. After a moment’s agony, he grows still.
Stopping the flow of magic, the ground begins to settle down. The rider whose horse bolted on him pauses several hundred yards away for only a moment then turns and races away in the desert.
Beginning to feel drained from the magical endeavors, James returns to where Jared and the horses lie dead upon the ground. Everything they had on the horses is now a charred mess. He feels bad for Jared, emotions almost getting the better of him. Putting the carnage behind him, he runs toward the town.
Before he even gets halfway there, Jiron races from between two buildings on the outskirts, the reins of two other horses held in his hands. Galloping fast, he sees James and angles toward him.
James starts to wave to him when he sees a dozen other riders emerge from between the same two buildings as had Jiron. Their angered cries reach him as they chase after Jiron.
James sighs and readies himself as Jiron and his pursuers approach.
Crumph! Crumph! Crumph!
Three explosions throw dirt and sand before the charging riders causing them to come to a brief halt.
Jiron reaches James as the dirt begins falling back to the ground. Grabbing the saddle of one, James quickly mounts.
He glances back to the scene of battle. “And where’s Jared?” he asks.
“Dead,” replies James.
Jiron’s pursuers have halted behind the blasted earth. James creates his orb and launches it toward them.
Seeing the glowing orb flying toward them after having the earth erupt and almost kill them is more than they can stand. Three horses aren’t worth tangling with a mage of such power. Turning back to town, they flee for their lives.
Once they are on their way back to town, James cancels the orb. Turning their horses westward, they quickly get to a gallop and race past the town. James fills Jiron in on what happened and how Jared came to die.
Chapter Twenty Two
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“Damn!” curses James.
“What?” asks Jiron as he walks over to where James is kneeling over a small pool of water. While Jiron was watering the horses from the spring, James had dug a hole and filled it with water to use to scan for hostiles. Looking over his shoulder, he sees over fifty horsemen riding through the desert. “So?”
“Take a closer look,” James says as he moves aside to allow Jiron to take his place.
The riders whom he had first thought were soldiers turn out to be mages. He
glances to James and asks, “How far away?”
“Can’t be more than an hour,” he figures. He lets the water’s surface return to normal as he says, “I don’t think I can handle that many. I took a closer look and several have gray hair.”
“Meaning we are about to be hit by mages with experience?” he asks.
Nodding, he adds “And with power I would imagine.”
“What should we do?” Jiron asks.
“I don’t know,” he replies. “To the north I saw some old ruins but nothing there that could even begin to protect us against them I’m afraid.”
Walking over to where the horses are drinking from the spring, they quickly get back in the saddle. Jiron gets a thoughtful look and asks, “Could you raise another sandstorm? Turned out to be quite effective the last time. We could ride north and take shelter in those ruins you saw.”
“Maybe,” he says. “It might work if the storm could be raging when they get to it. Else they may be able to stop it before it even gets started.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” he asks. Kicking his horse in the flanks he bolts away from the spring with James right on his tail.
They keep a hard pace, trading off on the spare horse to maintain the horses’ strength for as long as possible. Little over an hour later, the first sign of the ruins comes into view, a single broken wall jutting straight out of the sand.
“We’re getting close,” comments Jiron as they pass by the broken wall. Up ahead are still more jagged walls jutting out of the sand. Most rise vertically while others leave the ground at an angle.
“Strange,” breathes James as he glances at the walls around them. As they progress further into the ruins of what is beginning to appear to have once been a city, the number of walls steadily grows. Again, some of the walls are vertical while others are slanted in one direction or another.
As they pass through, they hunt for a structure that will afford them some protection against the storm James intends to summon. Several minutes after passing the first broken wall, a series of more sizeable structures appears ahead of them.
“Find us a place in which to shelter,” James tells him indicating the structures ahead. Dismounting, he hands his reins to Jiron and adds, “I need to begin this storm before they come any closer.”
“Right,” he says. Taking the reins, he leaves James to summon the storm and makes his way further into the ruins. He passes sections of walls that once had been buildings. Some are practically whole with but a single wall missing or a portion of the roof. The wind begins to pick up and he glances back at James who’s lost in concentration. Take your time, he thinks as he hurries to find shelter.
Working his way through the ruins, he comes across a stone dome rising several feet from the ground. At first thinking it was resting on the ground, he’s soon to realize that most of the dome is still beneath the ground with only the uppermost section visible. That gives him a better appreciation of the scale of the buildings that used to be here. He had thought the broken walls they’ve come across were from the first floor of the buildings. But taking into account the dome, these walls must be what remains of the upper stories. No telling just how far down the buildings actually extend.
Finally, he comes across a building with most of the walls and good portion of the ceiling still intact. Taking the horses through the hole in the wall, he walks them over to the far side. Leaving them behind, he returns to tell James what he’s found.
On his way back to James, the wind begins to pick up. Sand starts flying through the air as the wind whips it up off the ground. Pulling his shirt over his head to protect his face, he hurries through the ruins.
He finds James exactly where he left him. Eyes squinting tight to ward off the flying dust, he has a hand over his nose and mouth in an attempt to keep the sand out.
“They’re fighting me!” he shouts to be heard over the wind as Jiron comes to a stop before him.
“Can you hold it?” he asks.
“I doubt it,” replies James. “There are too many working against me.”
“I found some shelter,” he tells him. “I left the horses there.”
Nodding, James turns to look at him. “We better get them. This storm isn’t going to last much longer.”
Taking him by the hand, Jiron says, “This way.” As he leads him through the raging storm, the winds that had begun to whip the sand violently begin to gradually subside.
Several mages lie unconscious on the floor around the Table of Sight. The master in charge has been fighting James’ control of the winds until the High Lord Magus arrives. Still an hour behind him, they had begun to be affected by the winds.
The master retains visual lock on their quarry and watches as the other man leads him through the ruins of Baerustin. When they enter the building wherein their horses were left, he sees his chance to hold them until his lord arrives.
Just then, a First Circle mage comes hurrying through the door. “The caravan is here,” he announces.
“Finally,” exclaims the master. “I need them now! Hurry and bring the slaves to me.”
“Yes, sir,” the First says then backs out of the room. He runs down the corridor until he reaches the courtyard outside.
On the far side of the courtyard the porters of the caravan have already begun unloading the various goods purchased by the school. The First comes up to the caravan master and says, “You’re late!”
“My apologies good master,” the caravan master says humbly.
The First notices the pallor of his face. “You don’t look too good,” he states.
“Been feeling down last couple of days,” he explains. “I think the cook used bad meat or something and made us all sick.”
“Where is the cook?” he asks.
“Killed him for poisoning us,” the caravan master replies. “Tossed his body somewhere back along the road.”
“I need the slaves now,” says the First.
“Let us untie them for you,” the caravan master says as he begins to signal to his men.
Shaking his head, the First says, “Never mind that.” Not willing to wait the minutes his men would take, the First uses one of the first spells he ever learned. Summoning the magic, he casts a spell of breaking to free the slaves all at once. The casting of the spell triggers the seeds of destruction which James had planted in the wagon beds a week before.
Ka-Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three massive explosions of immense proportions detonate all at once. The force of it literally takes out a third of the school and collapses the room containing the Table of Sight. Taken unawares, his concentration firmly on what he was about to do to hold James, the master at the Table doesn’t react in time and is crushed by the falling stone of the ceiling. The same stone which takes his life smashes through the Table, destroying it.
Stone and rock launched into the air by the blast begins to fall on the rest of the school. Massive chunks of stone rip through roofs and cause even further damage as buildings which were already weakened by the blast are struck by the falling stone and give way.
One building of particular importance, the library, had been in close proximity to the blast when it went off. Filled with tomes older than memory, the basis for which magic works and knowledge gleaned through a millennium of research, is now nothing more than a gaping hole. Along with the rocks coming back to land, myriad pieces of paper blasted from thousands of books rain down as well.
All of a sudden, the resistance to the storm disappears. “It’s stopped,” James tells Jiron as they enter the building where the horses were left.
“What’s stopped,” asks Jiron.
“It feels like whoever was working against me isn’t any more,” he clarifies. Sending out the magic, he begins working the storm once more into a frenzy.
Realizing James is once again planning on staying and working the storm, Jiron has them move to the back of the room where the horses are to stay. If the storm becomes as bad as the last
one James created, he wants them as far away from its effects as they can. James slips back into deep concentration as he resumes intensifying the storm.
After a half hour, the storm is now raging wildly outside. The open areas of the building allow the sand to enter and even though the force of the gale is abated by the walls of the building, still the sand stings when it strikes them. When he feels the storm has reached a point where it will continue on its own, he halts the flow of magic and settles down against one wall.
“That should take care of it,” he says. Taking a water bottle, he drains it completely before setting it down.
The light from the sun is greatly reduced by the time it makes its way through the swirling dust storm outside. With but faint light with which to see, Jiron takes a closer look at the building they are in. The walls are rather plain and unadorned, parts of the floor show through the mounds of sand which has built up over the years.
“Look at this,” he says when he comes to a depression in the floor by the far wall.
“What?” asks James too tired from creating the storm to want to cross the room to see.
“There are stairs here,” he explains. “Choked with dirt and sand.” He then tells him of the dome he found and how he believes there may be more below the surface.
With scenes of movies he’s seen running through his head, he wonders what could lie below the surface. Treasure? A lost city? A thousand mummies hell bent on their destruction? In this world who knows? Intrigued, he gets to his feet and goes over to investigate.
Just then he feels the tingling of nearby magic. Stopping halfway across the floor, he cocks his head to one side as he attempts to discern from which direction it’s coming. He glances to Jiron and whispers, “There’s magic nearby.”
All thoughts of the stairs vanish as they move to the opening and look out. Shielding their eyes from the whipping sand, they search for anyone approaching. It doesn’t take them long before several men appear out of the swirling storm. Each is surrounded by a dimly illuminated shield protecting them from the storm.
Shades of the Past: The Morcyth Saga Book Six Page 31
