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UP! UP! HURRY!
What happened?
Bataar lit the storage tent on fire just like you asked him to.
A simple tent fire was a good distraction, but I didn’t expect ...
Stop thinking and act! Bataar is in trouble and I might need to fly in sooner than we expected.
Don’t hurry just for him. He’ll be fine.
Don’t be heartless! I certainly will not wait if he needs me! We promised him a rescue, too. Now, get moving. I can only give you a few minutes.
I leapt to my feet, slashed the back of the red and white tent with my knife and rushed in through the slash. The old expression ‘A fool rushes where a blind man is too wise to tread’ came to mind.
As soon as my head was through, I froze.
The tent was full of people, most of them clustered at the entrance, looking out at the distraction. There was a pair of burly guards close to the entrance and a few Magikas of various sizes, shapes, and colors. But what caught my attention was a man with a heavy, curving blade in one hand who stood at the center of the tent looking out. He wore bright purple Magika robes lined with strange symbols and scrollwork.
Maybe that’s why they call him Shabren the Violet.
He was a bit ostentatious. Could anyone be taken seriously in clothing like that?
They can when they carry big swords and perform magic. And the girl? Where is she?
I heard a small sound and looked right below me.
Skies and Stars! I could have cut her with the blade!
Gold colored eyes glittered in the light, just as Hubric said, and I started to smile. My smile melted when a second set of gold eyes turned to me. There were two girls – both with hands tied and both with imploring golden eyes. I looked from one to the other. They were mirror images of each other, each with dark skin, freckles, golden eyes, and short, curling hair. They looked about my age, maybe a year or two older, but delicate and slight. They were mirror images of one another and I found my eyes quickly looking back and forth from one to the other as if to compare each set of features to the other. Hubric never said anything about two girls!
I blinked, but there was no time to second guess. Hubric could figure it all out later.
Carefully, I eased my way through the gash in the tent and slipped in behind them, slicing the ropes that held them tight. All attention was still on the tent entrance but at any moment it could turn back to us.
Skies and stars! Rescue missions were not my thing.
“Stop!” the word thundered from the center of the room and I looked up, knife in hand. I pulled my dagger awkwardly from its sheath, licking my lips.
“Run,” I whispered, hoping the girls would listen. They scrambled behind me without a word.
Shabren the Violet raised his curved blade, but humor painted his face.
“And what are you, little mouse? More boy than man, no proper weapon, and I can sense ... no magic. What do you think you’ll do here? Gnaw at my heels?”
Saboraak had better hurry!
I told you not to pick up more stragglers. What am I supposed to do with four people?
It was her idea to include Bataar, so she could figure it out. Besides, there was no way to tell which girl we were here for.
I could feel my legs trembling. I willed them to stop. You were only as big as the image you projected. I straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin. Focus on looking big and bold!
Behind the Magika the others fanned out like an audience trying to get a good spot to watch from. No one bothered with weapons, though there was a grin or two from the audience. I shifted my grip on the dagger and glanced quickly over my shoulder.
“Oh, they ran out the back like you wanted, boy. Two more mice running out of the trap – but a mouse won’t get far in a camp of traps. Someone will scoop them up for me. You, on the other hand, you interest us.” Shabren smiled. He was even bigger than I realized and his smile was a little too easy, a little too charming, a little too handsome, like the smile of a man who always got what he wanted.
“Us?” I hated that my voice wavered. I wasn’t afraid. Of course not! I’d seen worse. I clamped down on my own mind as it tried to feed me images of a burning city and people screaming as they were engulfed by flames. I wouldn’t think about that. Couldn’t.
“Davorek here had been asking me to demonstrate a new trick I learned,” Shabren the Violet said. Maybe they called him that for the purple shade across his cheeks where blood vessels had burst and left their spider lines across his skin. They didn’t quite mar his otherwise good looks. I’d known my share of men with faces like that. They liked to drink.
A man with dark hair set off by wings of white over the temples smiled slightly. Davorek. He carefully circled, blocking the rip in the tent where I’d entered. I’d remember him. He looked like he’d eat horses if he got the chance. Horrible man.
Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
Was that her first joke? Now is not the time for jokes!
I lifted my dagger a little higher.
“I won’t be using the blade,” Shabren said. “Except to direct the flows of magic. Did you know you don’t need to actually hurt a man’s body to make his mind think he’s hurting?”
That didn’t sound good. No, no it didn’t. What was I doing here? Facing evil people face to face was not my deal!
Wait.
What was I doing here?
I leapt at the same time that violet bands of energy – horizontal lightning – reached for me. That’s how he got his name! The lightning flashed over my head as I hit the loose rugs on the floor with a thud, but I wasn’t done. I scrambled forward, one thought in mind.
I crawled to the corner of the tent, ignoring the cursing behind me. There! In the corner of the tent. I sawed at the rope holding the edge of the tent out. If I could get out under that corner I could cut the ropes and collapse the tent. That was more my style.
My knife dropped from limp fingers. Wha-
And then pain hit like I’d never felt before. Horrible, wracking pain. I fell backward, writhing and tossing on the floor like a strong wind was whipping my rag-doll body across a field of rocks. I couldn’t make out the words or sounds above me, couldn’t even see the world except for in glimpses.
Panic washed over me like waves. Horrible, squeezing waves, snatching my breath, filling my lungs with water, battering me back under just when I thought I might escape.
Darkness filled my vision and then a quick glimpse of the interior of the tent, the hole I’d cut in the side flapping in the wind. I wished – pain took the wish right from my mind like plucking a leaf from the grasp of a toddler.
Saboraak! Help! Help me!
Darkness again and then a glimpse of Shabren, Davorek and the others standing over me, looking down. I needed – thought left again.
Saboraak!
Darkness and then faces, but over their heads the cloth of the red and white tent tore apart, flames licking the edges. Burning ash rained down over us.
The faces vanished and through my shaking and twitching, I thought I heard screams and the scent of burning flesh. There was the sound of something heavy hitting the ground and then a wet white muzzle drew close to me. One burning eye was inches from mine.
Still alive?
If she drooled on me, I would make her haul a cart for the rest of her life.
Our relationship doesn’t work that way. Besides, you called me. I came. End of story.
Someone was calling my name. I was too disoriented to know who – and then rough hands were lifting me, and I was thrown over someone’s shoulder. Oof! The breath knocked out of me as his pointy shoulder dug into my diaphragm. Would a little care be too much to ask?
I was thrown roughly over the saddle. There was a sense of being crowded, like people’s legs and rears were closer to my limp body than I might like. All I could see was the pattern of the rug on the ground below us. There were holes in the pattern where the burning ash had seared it.
Screams and smoke surrounded us.
“Hurry!” A female voice shrieked over me. It pierced my skull, reverberating through my brain. I tried to slap at the sound, but my hand barely moved.
We lifted into the air suddenly, but with more wobble than I was used to with Saboraak.
Four is a lot!
I remembered Kyrowat carrying six people.
Males are stronger.
The carpet was suddenly far away and instead I was watching a burning encampment, fire everywhere. Balls of fire in green and magenta streaked toward us from the ant-like people on the ground, but bright orange flames consumed the tents below. One here, one there, and where the supply tent used to be was nothing but a black crater.
“You almost killed me with that brilliant ‘distraction’,” Bataar said as we rose higher in the air, so high that even the fireballs couldn’t reach us. He sounded annoyed.
“Mnph,” I replied. Yeah! Take that comeback!
“If it wasn’t for this dragon, you’d be useless.”
Ha! Joke was on him, because I was alive and while there was life, there was ... something. Not hope, obviously. Utility? Use? Life?
Get some rest. I’ll find a relatively safe place to take us and then we’ll worry about your ability to mangle old wives’ sayings.
I couldn’t afford to sleep. I needed to keep everyone safe. Not that I would, of course. That wasn’t my deal. I wasn’t the hero type.
Just go to sleep. Hero.
I wasn’t going to sleep, and she couldn’t make me. And I wasn’t a hero.
And yet, you act like one constantly.
Exhaustion hit me like a sledgehammer and everything went black.