Magic and Misrule (Mishap's Heroes Book 1)

by KM Merritt

  Vola caught her opponent’s blade on her own and grunted with the effort. The other Vola grinned, showing off her tusks, and pressed harder. Vola growled and with a heave, threw off the other Vola’s attack. She stepped back for a split second to yell at her party.

  “Switch,” she called. “Switch targets or this will never work.”

  Her words caused a break in the fighting, just long enough for everyone to break eye contact with their opponent.

  Instead of returning to her duel, Vola lunged away from the other paladin and tried to find another target. But that was her second mistake. With everyone shuffled, she had no idea who was who. Which Sorrel was the real one? Which Lillie was the one limping? She couldn’t tell if they were standing still.

  Then an arrow whizzed past Vola’s ear, and she spun with a grin. Clearly, the one shooting at her was the wrong Talon.

  The other ranger had leaped to the ground, and Vola bore down on them. She dodged an arrow. Another grazed her leg that she ignored. Then she was close enough to swing and the other Talon had to leap back and draw a knife.

  They used it to deflect Vola’s second blow. But she had enough momentum to swing around and cut through the other’s arm.

  No sound came from the deep hood, creeping her out more than their perfectly mirrored images. The figure jerked, and the hood fell back.

  Vola swallowed a curse. Nothing lay under the hood, just a blank clay blob. Obviously, Lord Arthorel had never seen enough of Talon to imagine a face for them.

  Vola shook off her reaction and roared. Then she spun and took the creature’s clay head off with a swipe.

  It crumpled into a heap of mud.

  Beside her, the real Talon wasn’t even trying to shoot at the false Sorrel anymore. Even illusory monks were too fast. Talon waited while the false Sorrel darted past the columns and Gruff lunged to catch her. Talon bore down on the struggling monk while Gruff took pieces out of its hide, leaving gaping wounds of fresh clay.

  The real Sorrel chased the false Lillie around the cellar, landing blows on her back and legs. The wizard evidently didn’t want to close the distance with a melee fighter but couldn’t run fast enough to stay ahead of her. Finally, the wizard stopped, turned and reached with lightning coated hands to grab at the monk.

  Sorrel ducked, struck out with her staff to sweep the false Lillie’s legs out from under her, and aimed the next blow at her pretty head.

  Well if the rest of them were all accounted for, that just left the real Lillie facing…Oh no.

  Vola spun, ready to leap to Lillie’s defense, but a wave of heat made her eyebrows curl and she stopped short.

  Lillie stood, feet planted, hands outstretched as flames poured from her palms.

  The false Vola stood frozen in the middle of the cellar as if she’d tripped in the middle of a charge, and Vola watched as the figure just melted. The clay of the golem underneath the illusion puddled on the floor and bubbled in the heat.

  Lillie stepped back, breathing heavily.

  “Holy crap, Lillie,” Vola said. “Is that what that spell is supposed to do?”

  The wizard pushed the hair out of her eyes. “It is if I can get a clear shot without worrying about anyone.”

  Vola opened her mouth to say that she was a fighter. She was supposed to fight things. She wasn’t supposed to have to worry about what was going on behind her. But if Lillie could stop an orc in full charge like that, maybe Vola could afford to step aside once in a while.

  Vola’s cheeks burned, and she snapped her mouth shut on her reply.

  Lillie dropped her gaze.

  Talon and Sorrel stared down at twin piles of mud and clay.

  “Where’s Henri?” Vola asked. The cellar looked exactly the same as it had before the fight except for the mud on the floor. None of the illusions had hidden Lord Arthorel, and if there were any more down here, they weren’t broken as Lillie had said.

  Lillie glanced around with a frown. “I don’t…”

  “I thought you said the illusions would be broken if we beat them?”

  Lillie planted her hands on her hips. “I did. They should have been. But…” She closed her eyes and turned her head from side to side. “They weren’t. For some reason, they weren’t.”

  Vola growled and gripped her hair. “Then why? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Vola, give her a break,” Sorrel said. “She’s gotten us this far.”

  “Which isn’t going to do us any good if we can’t find Henri.”

  “We will,” Lillie said. “Just give me a moment.” She limped further into the cellar with her hands raised. “I was sure that would break the spells. Why didn’t it?”

  There was a snarl, and a shadow detached itself from the back wall. A duplicate Gruff leaped for Lillie.

  Vola yelled as the wizard went down under the wolf’s snapping jaws.

  Twenty-Five

  Vola and Talon leaped forward to drag the creature off of Lillie. The false Gruff snapped at their hands. Vola was just a second too slow and a line of fire snaked down her hand as she yanked away from his teeth.

  Talon didn’t even flinch. They grabbed two handfuls of fur and rolled the wolf off his feet, then Vola raised her blade and cut him in half.

  As the golem fell to pieces and turned to mud and clay, the casks around them disappeared and the wall at the back of the cellar opened onto a passageway that hadn’t been there before.

  The last illusion now broken.

  Sorrel fell to her knees beside Lillie, pulling her head and shoulders into her small lap.

  “Is she all right?” Vola asked, sheathing her blade.

  Sorrel glanced up, a frown creasing her forehead. “I doubt it.”

  Lillie winced, eyes closed against the pain. “My leg,” she whispered.

  Vola knelt beside the wizard and gently stretched the leg out. The scratch that had marred the back of her knee before now gaped, ripped crosswise by vicious teeth. Now that her pants were torn so far, Vola could see the wound had stretched further up her thigh and deeper in the muscle than they’d noticed before.

  The breath in her chest went cold and tight. Lillie had been walking around like this the whole time? Without complaining? Why hadn’t she said something? Why hadn’t she just insisted they stop?

  Something slammed down the passageway. Like a door. Or the fall of an ax.

  Vola jumped and glanced into the dark, imagining Henri tied to a chair. Executed because of every mistake Vola had made in the last two days.

  When she looked back, Talon and Sorrel were looking at her. She couldn’t see Talon’s expression under the hood, but Sorrel’s lips were thin and white and her eyes darted away from Vola’s.

  “You still want to go after Henri,” Talon said.

  Vola swallowed and looked down. Lillie wouldn’t be walking anywhere. She shouldn’t have been walking on that “scratch” in the first place.

  The knot in her gut tightened. Anger and shame mixed and burned in her throat. Anger at herself. Anger at Lillie. They were so close and now the wizard lay bleeding on the floor.

  “You did this,” Talon said.

  Vola sucked in a breath.

  “It wasn’t her fault,” Lillie said faintly.

  “Like hell. She pushed us. She rushed in. She doesn’t lead, she just runs ahead and expects us to follow and clean up her mess.”

  “I just wanted to get to Henri.”

  “And that was worth this?”

  “Talon,” Lillie said, stopping the ranger’s tirade. Lillie reached for Vola’s hand, but Vola shifted far enough away she couldn’t find it. Lillie let her hand drop. “Go, Vola,” she said. “He doesn’t have time. I do.”

  Vola looked up again, but Sorrel didn’t meet her eyes.

  “Go then,” Talon said. “It’s what you want.”

  Vola stood, either to go or to argue. She wasn’t sure which yet.

  “But don’t expect us to follow.”

&nb
sp; Talon knelt to tend Lillie, but their words seemed more final somehow. Like a sword thrown to the ground in defeat.

  “Talon.”

  “Go.” The anger was gone, replaced by weariness. “I thought you were something you’re not. That was my mistake, I guess.”

  Vola couldn’t even look at Lillie. If the wizard had just said something…If she’d just made them stop…If she’d stayed out of the way…

  Vola swallowed down the taste of bile. How had it all gone sideways so fast? How could she fix it?

  Lillie breathed through her teeth on the floor.

  “I’ll come back,” she whispered. “As soon as I fetch Henri. I’ll be right back.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Talon said. “We won’t be here.”

  Vola turned, eyes burning, and she sprinted down the dark corridor, trying not to feel like she was running away.

  Vola pounded down the passageway, boots beating against the rough flagstones in rhythm with her heartbeat. She hoped to Cleavah she found Henri at the end of this hall. Because if she didn’t, all of this would have been for nothing.

  And a tiny dark part of her hoped they didn’t find him. Because then she wouldn’t have to explain to him how she’d let her party split down the middle. She’d let Lillie get hurt. And she’d destroyed the one chance she had to become a paladin because she hadn’t acted like a paladin.

  The walls sped past her, and suddenly with a burst of clarity, Vola realized there were dancing shadows in what should have been darkness. A brilliant ball of light followed her overhead. The same ball of light Lillie had conjured in the cellar.

  Vola collapsed against the wall as cold washed down her limbs, settling like a weight in her gut. Her fingers curled against the stone wall, and she struck out with her fist.

  Her knuckles bled and she grunted in pain, but she did not cry out.

  “Now who’s hitting walls,” Sorrel’s voice said behind her.

  Vola spun to see the monk standing a few feet back down the passage as if she’d been following. Her normally cheerful face was grave, no sign of the smile or dancing eyes that Vola had come to expect.

  Lillie was hurt, Talon was leaving, and Sorrel was sad. Vola had managed to break all of them.

  “We all want to save Henri,” Sorrel said quietly as Vola pushed herself off the wall. “But you’re acting like you don’t trust us. Like you have to do this all yourself. He’s a grown man, a skilled warrior. He kept us alive in the swamp. If anyone could take care of themselves, it would be Henri. So, why is this so important?”

  “Wiselyn said they’d kill him.”

  “And like Lillie said, Arthorel is kidnapping living people. If he gets away, we’ll just track him down. So why is this so important? What’s driving you?”

  “He’s…my teacher.”

  Sorrel waited for more with her head cocked.

  “No one thought I could be a paladin.” Vola dropped her gaze to her pock-marked armor. “No one wanted me to be a paladin. My parents taught me to fight, but they didn’t really understand. They thought I should be a mercenary. It’s…easier work for an orc.”

  “Half-orc,” Sorrel said quietly.

  Vola ran her hands over her face. “The other paladins all think we’re evil. Only capable of violence because we worship the Obstacles. They said no matter how hard I tried, I’d only ever bring evil to my friends. No one believed I could be anything but vicious. No one but Henri. He’s the best trainer there is. And they laughed at him for taking me on. They laughed at him and told him I was a lost cause. I would only be his downfall.”

  Vola’s voice ground to a halt as her throat clogged. She cleared it. Then growled, “I will not prove them right.”

  She turned and stalked down the hall, drawing her sword, ready for anything to come at them through the dark.

  Sorrel’s footsteps shushed along the stones behind her. The halfling said nothing, but still, she followed Vola down the hallway that looked more and more like a tunnel.

  Vola’s heart sped in her chest as the walls grew closer and closer, damper and damper. Lillie’s light still blazed, but it wasn’t much use when stone closed in around her shoulders.

  Finally, she could see something at the end of the hall. The light bounced from straight lines and dark locks, and Vola realized she was looking at a line of cell doors standing open.

  She stopped, the silence and emptiness pressing against her until she felt like she couldn’t draw breath. Slowly, she slid forward to peer into the cells.

  Empty. Bare walls and stone floors stared back at her, yielding no clues about their recent occupants. Who they’d been, where they’d gone.

  “No one’s here,” Sorrel said, padding lightly from door to door.

  Vola shook her head, teeth clenched. She walked down the row, counting off cells. There were more than enough to hold the missing townsfolk plus Henri.

  At the end, the hall opened into an alcove, and beyond it, a door swung open.

  The fresh breeze made Vola’s nose twitch, and she grabbed the edge of the open door. Beyond, stretched the night sky, stars staring down, their gaze cold and accusing.

  There were no convenient footprints or a road lit by moonlight to tell Vola where the captives had been taken. Nothing but a narrow stretch of grass that led directly to the swamp at the bottom of the hill.

  “Vola,” Sorrel said behind her, and something in the halfling’s voice, some pity or sympathy, made her stiffen and turn.

  Sorrel stood in the alcove, which was piled with clothes, armor, and weapons. Half-full travel packs spilled out across the flagstones. The personal effects of all of Lord Arthorel’s prisoners.

  A round shield stood propped against the wall, its once shining surface gouged and battered. A black burn stretched across it where a swamp blossom’s acid had scorched the metal.

  Vola stepped closer and knelt. Her fingers reached out to brush down the scarred surface of the shield.

  Then she bowed her head so Sorrel couldn’t see her face.

  Twenty-Six

  She’d failed. Just like all the paladins had said she would.

  Everyone was worse off now than they’d been before. She hadn’t rescued Henri in time. Her party had fallen apart. And she was left standing here empty-handed with no idea how to make things right.

  She was so far from earning her shield that she might as well have been in the next country. And the funny thing was that wasn’t even what mattered the most in this moment. Getting her shield wouldn’t make Sorrel smile again. It wouldn’t make Talon stay. And it wouldn’t heal Lillie.

  It wouldn’t make her the leader she needed to be to fix what she’d broken.

  With both hands, she grasped Henri’s shield and pulled it toward herself. Images flashed through her head, one after another. A cascade of painful memories, their sharp edges searing her as they passed.

  Henri kicking a ball with a group of kids. Henri slathering cream on Sorrel’s red arms. Henri dodging in front of Lillie, catching a spray of acid on his shield. Henri helping Talon slay swamp blossoms.

  More images flashed, too fast to register, too many to count. A flood of feeling as she watched Henri train her, teach her, coach her. His voice wove through it all, always calm never raised. “Keep your shield arm up, and your feet planted.” “If you go down, get back up again.” “Your strength is not in your arm, it’s in your head and your heart.” “A Paladin is a light in a dark world.”

  What would he say if he could see her now? What would he do to fix this?

  What had he been doing the entire time? While Vola had been walking out front, leading her party into trouble, he’d been following along behind.

  He didn’t rush ahead, trying to kill everything that threatened them. He didn’t try to solve every problem.

  He protected them. He trusted them and their skills and kept them safe so they could do their jobs.

  Henri wasn’t a good leader. He was a good protector.

  “I
am a light in the dark,” the paladin oath went. “I am courage when others have none. I am strength when others are weak. I am their sword when they are weaponless.”

  She was supposed to get the job done, yes. But if that meant rushing ahead and leaving others to get hurt, then she was as good as an oathbreaker. Her job wasn’t to be the leader. Her job was to protect the ones who needed her sword. The victims she was trying to rescue, but first and foremost, her party, who needed her to keep them safe so they could get the job done.

  Vola closed her eyes. I can do better. I can always do better. Trust the party. Keep them safe. Get the job done.

  Vola took Henri’s shield and carried it awkwardly by the rim as she trudged back up the hallway to the cellar. Sorrel trotted along behind her without a word.

  Talon knelt beside Lillie, tearing rough strips out of a sheet for a bandage. The ranger must have gone upstairs to find it.

  Vola’s heart clenched. She’d expected Talon to be gone by now, but no. Of course, they were here, taking care of what was left of their pack.

  Vola propped the shield up against the wall.

  Lillie’s eyes locked on it and her face fell. “Oh, Henri.”

  Talon’s hood tracked Vola’s movements as she stepped to their side and knelt.

  Vola bent over Lillie’s leg and very carefully touched the edges of the bandage. Despite her care, Lillie hissed through her teeth.

  Vola sucked in a breath. She knew from the first touch just how deep the wound went. How much damage had been done. And she knew she couldn’t heal it entirely. Maybe if she’d tried back when Lillie first fell in the courtyard…

  Still, she spread her hands over the wound and whispered, “Lady bless.”

  Half spell and half prayer, the power poured through her, a gift from Cleavah. But the skill had to come from Vola.

  Her leg ached as the wound transferred to herself, but there was still a nasty puckered scar reaching up Lillie’s leg. And Vola could tell the damage underneath remained deep.

  Lady, Vola asked in her head. Is there anything more I can do?