by Justin Sloan
This time when she mounted the unicorn, nobody stopped her. She didn’t try to ride off, but simply waited with pursed lips.
“Right.” Bale glanced at the others and then motioned them onward.
Before the unicorn moved, Rose glanced down at Lannis. “I don’t suppose you’d like a ride?”
“On a real unicorn?” He smirked. “I’d never pass up that opportunity.”
She laughed and held out a hand, then helped him climb up. “Hold tight, so you don’t fall off.”
When his hands were securely on her waist she urged the unicorn forward, and soon they were trotting along. It was his first time riding a horse or unicorn, and he was surprised at the feel of the animal beneath him, the way it moved.
“You vouch for this lot?” she asked over her shoulder. “I mean, they’re good guys?”
“As he said—”
“I’m interested in what you have to say on the matter, not him.”
Lannis considered the question, then laughed. “You know, it’s tough. They were my enemy just yesterday, but as of this morning we’re in the same boat. See, they rescued me from being held prisoner.”
“You were a prisoner?” The skepticism was heavy in her voice.
“Maybe that’s the wrong word. I was looking for someone and the soldiers found me. They put me in captivity.”
She shrugged. “Prisoner, I guess.”
“I need to find her. She’s my only friend, and—I don’t know why I feel this, but I believe it’s true—I think her and the people with her are our only hope.”
Rose rode for a moment before responding. “You’re wrong, you know. She’s not your only friend. These men are your friends now, and I think I’d like to jump on that ship before it sails.”
He laughed. “The ship isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
Now she turned, then reached down and squeezed his hand. “Good.”
The tear that came from her eye merited further questions, but he decided that maybe now wasn’t the right time. Riding in silence wasn’t so bad, after all, and soon they passed into the lower realms of Roneland, where he expected they might have some hope of finding the others who had fled before the army of sorcerers. And among them, Kia.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rhona glanced back at the army behind them, now a somewhat sizeable force. Nothing to lay siege to a castle with, but over the course of their journey they had sent out scouts and found other stragglers, and with Lokane’s motley group, they had to be around two hundred men and women at this point.
Many who didn’t want to fight had gone into hiding with their children, reports stated. However, there were plenty among the ranks as young as fourteen. And then there was Kia, though it was hard to think of her as anything but an equal after all she had done to prove herself.
“Holding up?” Stone asked, walking up beside her with Tina at his side.
She nodded. “I’m just glad so many of us made it out of there.”
“All thanks to the mystics’ spell,” Stone said. “If Larick and Volney hadn’t made it so that it looked like we were in a different location, the sorcerers would’ve had us.”
“Thanks to a lot of people,” Rhona argued. “Yes, that spell played a huge part, but I saw you fighting, I saw Lars and Kim out there too. Everyone here earned their right to a few more days on this Earth.”
“Aye, no one can argue that.” He continued walking, eyes roaming the path ahead until Tina gave him a small shove.
“What’s going on you two?” Rhona asked.
With a deep sigh, Stone said, “Listen, I’ve been thinking…”
“Is that abnormal?”
“No.” Tina glared, coming to her man’s defense.
“I didn’t mean that,” Rhona admitted. “Just… I’m tired, is all.”
“We all are,” Stone cut in, waving aside the remark. “Which is what we wanted to chat about, actually. Where’s Alastar gotten off to?”
They looked around and Rhona spotted him trying to speak with Estair, Laird Summers getting between them. She couldn’t help but smile at that. It has been this way for the last couple of hours. The laird didn’t like the idea of his niece and a paladin being together, and he was doing everything he could to stop it.
When Alastar noticed them looking he excused himself, much to Summers relief.
“Is there a problem? More remnant around?”
Rhona turned to Stone and waited.
“Nothing like that,” Stone admitted, “but we wanted to talk to both of you. Thing is, I know you have big plans, to go after those sorcerers once we’ve found a spot to hunker down.”
“And you’re thinking you won’t be part of those plans?”
Stone nodded. “Tina’s not a fighter.”
“It’s true, I’m not,” she interjected.
“And if I were to ride off to battle and came back to find Stirling fortress overrun, and the worst had happened…” He clung to Tina, and she to him.
“You’re staying back?” Alastar rubbed his shoulder plate as if trying to get the aching shoulder beneath. “I can’t say I blame you.”
“Really?” Rhona asked. “We have an invading force. We can’t just turn and hide.”
“We won’t be hiding,” Tina argued. “We’ll be helping to hold Stirling, or wherever we’re needed, just not separated.”
“And not on the front lines chasing down an army of men and women with powers well beyond my comprehension.”
“But you have magic,” Alastar countered. “It’s not like you’d be going in helpless.”
“With my mind back here on Tina? Yes, I would be.”
Rhona glanced back to see that Donnon had paused to pour Kia some water. The two mystics were at their sides.
She didn’t have to like it, but she certainly got it. Part of her thought Kia had more of a chance of surviving this war than Donnon did, though she would never tell him that. He knew his share of magic, though—she couldn’t downplay that and its importance.
With a nod she patted Stone on his stout shoulder, then moved over to hug Tina.
“We’re not parting ways yet,” Tina said with a smile.
“I know, but…just in case.”
Tina laughed and hugged her back.
Alastar clasped forearms with Stone, and the two nodded before splitting apart. For a while they walked side by side, but slowly Stone and Tina fell back, until it was just Rhona and Alastar at the front.
His new sword was strapped to his back, and she couldn’t help but think how different he was now. It hadn’t been that long since they had been in the castle, back when she didn’t know she had magic, when everyone around them had believed magic was evil.
Now it was like that had never happened. Instead of hiding the magic behind religion or lies, it had become a war of magic versus magic.
The days of hidden magic were over. Now it was going to be a show of who could conjure the most powerful spells. The winners would take the Lost Isles, while the losers… Well, they would be dead.
A bird chirped overhead, fluttering from one branch to the next as if traveling with the large group.
Rhona wanted to yell at it to go back before it got itself killed with the rest of them, but just then a scout was running toward them, shouting that they had arrived, that the Fortress of Stirling was just ahead.
“Is the fortress occupied?” Alastar called out, causing the scout to come to a stop next to them.
“It doesn’t appear to be, no.”
Alastar shared a hopeful look with Rhona, but she said, “I’ll jump up and down with you when we find that to be true.”
“Fair enough,” Alastar replied, waving the man off so he could brief the two lairds. “How about a wager then? If it’s empty, you owe me a home-cooked meal… I’m thinking roast hen, maybe garlic potatoes, and—”
“I’m not cooking you a meal.”
“Hold on now,” he said, playfully. “I’m not finished. If you win,
I let you kill the next day’s enemies. Remnant or evil sorcerer, doesn’t matter. I’ll stand aside and let you at them.”
She laughed. “You’re ridiculous. As if you could get to them as fast as me if you tried!”
“Oh?” He stuck out a hand. “New bet then—next battle we’re in, last to ten kills cooks the other a meal.”
“Now that I’ll take.”
“And the castle being empty?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “If that’s so, count it as a blessing and be done with it.”
“Fine.”
Ahead of them they first spotted the large hill once known as King Arthur’s Throne, and soon had emerged into the grassy area where they could see the Fortress of Stirling. As far as they could tell, the scout had been right, though the field below was still covered with remnant bodies left over from the battle. Carrion birds made their way from corpse to corpse.
“Our luck might be changing for the better,” Alastar said, beginning the ascent. The walkway up to the fortress climbed a long, steadily inclining hill. You could take that or go the other way, which involved scaling a cliff.
They reached the fortress and Rhona was struck by how bland it looked compared to the last time they had been here. That time they had escaped with the help of the wind mages and had to fight their way through an army of remnant. At the end of it they had escaped into underground tunnels, but even then they had been forced to fight, and had used magic to escape. Last time banners had fluttered in the wind, but now they were long gone.
A thought brought her back to a night in those tunnels, when she had been lying with Donnon beside her. Had he held her hand? Had she put her head on his chest? The details were fuzzy, but the emotions were not. That was the first time she had admitted to herself that she had feelings for him. It was also the first time she’d ever felt annoyed at her brother for interfering between her and a man.
But now they were all happy, dancing on rainbows and all that…minus the army of sorcerers.
She couldn’t help but search the dark windows of the parapets as they approached, feeling a sense of dread that something was in there waiting for them. At first they could barely see the fortress, only the closer walls and gates, with turrets just barely sticking up. As they grew closer, they saw that something was wrong.
Entire sections of the inner fortress had been blown out, now only broken stones strewn across the courtyard and outer walkways.
“There’s someone in there,” Volney said, his eyes white. “No, more than… GET DOWN!”
Everyone followed his command just as a flash of fire flew out from one of the holes. It was followed by a tall woman with her black hair tied up in a bun. She wore thick layers of purple and black robes that concealed her form.
A raven perched on one arm and she released it into the air, then two men stepped up next to her and moved their hands in circles.
“Stop the raven!” Rhona shouted. “Defensive positions!”
She watched as wind mages cast their spells at it, but wind met wind and created lightning and cracks of thunder—someone from the castle was using magic to defend the raven’s flight.
Rhona spun to watch the tall woman, then noticed the other men and women, sorcerers judging by their robes, as they stepped out onto the upper layer of the castle.
Originally they had heard it had been taken by paladins, but they should’ve figured some of these sorcerers would be left behind in case they showed up. In hindsight, it made sense. Unfortunately, hindsight wasn’t worth a damn.
Their water mages weren’t worth much up here, so they moved back. The wind mages threw their best defensive spells, manipulating the air and wind to push the fire aside as much as possible.
Donnon and Kia stepped up with Rhona, since they could at least manipulate fire and send it back at the enemy, but Rhona had to get in there and deal with it. She hated the idea of leaving them here otherwise undefended.
“Stay with them,” she told Alastar. “Keep them healed, if it comes to that. Don’t let exhaustion take them.”
“And you?”
With a hopeful grin, she closed her eyes and let the shadows take her. She had practiced, had been at it every moment when nobody was watching, and she ran through the motions in her mind while walking.
Now it was time to test herself.
Focusing on the back of the fortress where no sorcerers were, she went with the flow of the shadows, and when she stabilized she was glad to see that was exactly where she had been transported. Shadows drifted off her like smoke, and she reminded herself that too much would drain her.
Flames were already raging out front; she could tell by the roaring and the way the night sky was lit up. Dashing around the walkway, she came out at the top row of sorcerers, each working to create a wall of flame that was pushing outward. A glance down showed that Kia and Donnon were holding it back and the wind mages were blowing it away from them, but the flames were slowly advancing.
Not after this, she thought, and pulled her short swords. Instead of using the shadows to push or claw as she had practiced, she focused on movement again, but this time on a forward projection, trying to stay only half in the shadows. Black tendrils took her by the legs and torso—she might have appeared as a spirit or a ghost, floating without a lower half to her body—and she surged forward.
Swords to the front, she cut through the whole line of them, splitting open stomachs, sides, and separating the last one’s head from his body.
When she came to a stop and the shadows evaporated, she turned to see the sorcerers collapsing, at least one falling over to land on one of his buddies below.
That naturally got their attention.
In a flash, the tall lady was gone. She didn’t disappear into the shadows as Rhona did, but in a flash of lightning. What she had assumed to be wind magic was something more like the sorcerer with Master Irdin had done with lightning, only this—crack!
She didn’t have time to finish the thought as the woman had appeared before her, eyes lit up like lightning and bolts shooting from her fingertips. Rhona let instinct take over and immediately sensed that unsettling feeling from before she had started trying to master the magic. It was like the power was her, like it had taken over and she was just a conduit for the shadows.
Flashes of light meant darker shadows, so Rhona found herself zipping from one shadow to the next until she appeared in this woman’s own shadow, directly behind her, and tore into her with shadow claws that emerged from her fingertips.
A scream echoed in the hall and all the sorcerers surged to their location, flames licking the walls and ceiling. Rhona was vaguely aware of this because she was on her knees, head spinning, reaching out for any sort of hold to keep her from falling over.
Other magic cradled her now too, protecting her, and the tall woman staggered away, then got caught up in a burst of light…and was gone.
Everything faded to black.
***
Alastar was there to catch his sister as more mages leaped and caught wind from their comrades so that they could reach this level. Donnon was there with Kia at his side, and mage and sorcerer felt their magic, fire spiraling around all of them, until, with great shouts, they realized it was out of control.
For a moment all air seemed to be sucked inward, and Alastar knew they were in trouble. He hung his head, not quite praying, and focused on the light, on keeping them safe—Rhona and anyone else he could—and then the explosion came.
Stone flew around them and fire licked their faces as the fortress collapsed. Still he held on to his sister, face pressed against hers, eyes closed.
And then slowly, he opened his eyes.
The noise was gone and for a moment he thought he had lost his hearing, until there was a crumbling sounded nearby and more rocks fell from above. He pulled Rhona back, but it was more like he thrust her away with an arm that had been asleep too long.
Screams came from nearby, but when he looked he realized
they were all coming from sorcerers trapped under the stones or running past in flames. As far as he could tell, he and the mages were relatively unharmed.
“You did it!” Donnon staggered over to them and collapsed to his knees at Alastar’s side. “You created a shield of light, I saw it. You surrounded us all, like a bubble that refused to burst…and we made it.”
Kia was there too, and Donnon wrapped her in one arm, then helped Alastar lift Rhona with the other.
Alastar tried to take a step, but collapsed again.
“We need help over here!” Donnon shouted, and a moment later Stone was there, helping Alastar up from one side, Laird Summers from the other.
“We’ll take him from here,” Summers said, and they moved out of the collapsed fortress, leaving the dying sorcerers to their fate.
The next step was a blur, men and women shouting about moving, getting out of there before they came back. Someone mentioned the raven, that it was likely bringing news of their arrival to the other sorcerers, and Summers was cursing.
Moving again, the world passed like a dream, and it wasn’t until they’d been at it for some hours that Alastar was ready to call upon his healing powers. He sensed Stone trying more than once, but the man just didn’t have it in him yet. He hadn’t learned to accept that it wasn’t connected to the Saint and the High Paladin, as often as he witnessed it done.
Finally he managed to look around and comprehend their surroundings with some coherence.
“We need to get to the tunnels,” he said. “Get underground.”
“Two steps ahead of you,” Summers replied, giving him a respectful nod. “You did well, lad. Very well.”
Alastar smiled. He saw that Rhona sitting and eating with Donnon and Kia and glanced around for Estair. She was at his side in an instant, offering water before she wrapped her arms around him.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” she demanded.
He smiled and leaned into her, bending until his head was on her lap. He let sleep take him again. They never should have tried for the Fortress of Stirling; they had learned their lesson. This wasn’t going to be a simple war with two sides standing against each other. They would need help.
