Age of Mystics (Saga of Mystics Book 1) (28 page)

The men moved in the cold, they were hard to see, but Nat could just make them out in the bushes. A little while before, she had seen the three men go up to the rise, but there still had to be about one hundred and fifty in the brush. She scampered down the tree and quietly pulled the long blade rom the sheath. Most people thought it was a machete, but it was a long knife used in certain Marital Arts in Polynesia, and Natalee Ward knew how to use it. Jumping lightly to the ground, she also grabbed her bo staff that she had leaned against a nearby rock and made her way back to where Kim was waiting.

It had been difficult to get Kim to agree to come out from behind the walls, after all that she had been through back in Black Forest. No one had ever given her all the details, but somehow Max’s dogs had saved Kim from some men in the forest. Based on the fact that Kim was nearly nude when Nat first met her, she assumed it had something to do with rape. That was not something you really asked someone about. But, this was her chance to get back and stand her ground. Kim Pile had been working on her ability for the last two months. She was a pyrokinetic, her abilities were around fire. Kim’s abilities had created the warmth stones that were a godsend as the nights grew colder and colder. Now she needed to muster all her strength to bring more fire than she had yet been able to bring.

Natalee crouched down as soon as she was in the hiding place with Kim.

The woman trembled. “I don’t think I can do it.” She whispered.

Natalee calmed herself, she was tiring of this conversation. If the woman didn’t want to help, then Nat would do what she did and take as many out as she could. “We talked about this, Kim. You are doing your part to save us.” Ted had been the one who made Nat bring this lady with her, and Nat wasn’t happy about it. Natalee had no qualms about what needed to be done.

“I know, but I have never brought this much fire,” Kim continued, “Do you know how many of them are out there?”

“No. But I am not going to lie to you. There are a lot. If you don’t light up those bushes, I will have to try to fight them all off at once.” Nat put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, as she had seen her Dad do a number of times to calm people. “Kim, we need you, or these people will rape and kill every last one of us.” Nat felt bad about the rape comment, it was intended to manipulate Kim and she could see on the older woman’s face that it shocked her and hit her in the core. But it also worked.

Kim nodded, clearly steeling her resolve. “Then let’s do it. Let’s get it over with.”

Both women stood. Nat knew just where Kim would have to start the fire, and also knew that as soon as she did, there would be no cover for them. They crept to the place, only about fifteen feet behind two men who were looking up at the cliffs. These men’s attempt to hide in the brush was going to be their undoing. They all sat, knelt or crouched in about four feet of dry bushes. The snow would keep natural fire at bay, but the abilities were not hampered by such things. Nat hunched her shoulders and readied her weapons, centering herself the way she had been taught since she was four.

Turning to Kim, she gave a short nod and the woman closed her eyes, as did Nat. The first fire would be blinding in this darkness. She immediately saw the light through her eyelids and felt the warmth on her face, but it was the screams of the men that made her open her eyes. Many of them were on fire themselves and they ran around trying to put themselves out. But as the flames grew higher, she saw that the enemy also saw them.

Locking eyes with Nat, one of the men pointed and shouted something and about six of them ran right for Kim and Nat. As the men drew close, their teeth clenched, their faces hardened by purpose, Nat stood calmly and waited. At the last possible moment, Natalee Ward erupted in a deadly dance of fury and malice. Her staff cracked across the face of the first man to get to her, the second lost a hand just above the wrist to her singing blade. The third took a side kick to the throat and the fourth was disemboweled where he stood. Nat spun in place and lopped off the handless man’s head, before turning toward her two remaining attackers. They had stopped in their charge, suddenly faced with this she-demon’s onslaught.

Natalee smiled at them. She actually really enjoyed the fight, every time she was in one. Oddly, in was in these great moments of violence that Nat found the most peace. She heard Kim’s scream behind her, and dispatched the two remaining attackers before turning to see three new attackers surrounding Kim. Before Nat could reach them, Kim unleashed a fury of her own. Somewhere deep within the petite, yet buxom, woman there rose an anger for what had been done to her. Nat saw it on her face, and then saw its power unleashed in her abilities. The older woman put her hands out as if to push her attackers away, but fire appeared in between Kim and the three men. That fire engulfed her foes with such heat that Nat was afraid she herself might be singed by it. Unlike the men in the brush, these ones did not run around patting themselves and trying to get away. The heat and flame was intense, and the men incinerated in place.

But Kim collapsed and Nat ran to her side. Nat caught the woman before she fell to the ground.

“I did it,” Kim smiled up at her young friend.

“You did,” Nat replied. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it just took everything out of me. That last part was all of my fear and anger and rage.”

Natalee just nodded and smiled, “I could see that.”

Kim smiled back, “I will be okay. Just go finish them.”

Natalee looked back at the burning men and those who were aiding them. They had done what they came to do, these men would not be a threat this day. She needed to get Kim back to the walls before dawn. She helped the woman to her feet. “No, let’s get back inside the walls.”

Helping Kim back was the right choice, and Nat knew it, but she also wished she had finished off every last one of them. She would like to have met Eric Fine in that field today, but that would have to wait for another day.

Jenny walked by Natalee and Kim. Kim was exhausted and her clothes were singed with fire, but she and the teen beauty were huddled together on the middle level telling Kin Ko about what they had done. Jenny wondered if Nat noticed the adoration that young man had for her, she thought it was probably obvious to everyone else.

As Jenny kept walking, she passed by Ted and Kayla trying to clean Max up. The little girl was absolutely covered with blood, though apparently most of it wasn’t hers. Jenny didn’t even want to think about that. The little girl was bawling and mourning the loss of some of her dogs. Near them was a group of cadets mourning over the bodies of their fallen friends, about half of the group that went with Max had not made it back alive. The stench of death was growing. It was not quite dawn and the night had already taken its toll.

This is my fault.
Jenny thought to herself.
If I had just let that Fine guy take me, none of this would have happened.
That is what this army of men had wanted, just her. Apparently they had said they would leave if Ted gave them Jenny. Ted Craven was a good man; it would never enter his mind to give her up. But the question that haunted Jenny Martinez was whether or not she could still consider herself a good person if she didn’t do all she could to stop this bloodshed. She needed to find a way to give herself up.

“Hey, Jenny, could I get a hand?” Erica called out as she headed toward Kim and Nat.

Jenny nodded and followed.

“I was just thinking,” Erica started, “You can read the people right?”

“Their auras, yes.” Jenny had no idea what Erica was getting at.

“So can you tell when they are emotionally depleted?” Erica asked, and Jenny still wasn’t getting it.

“Yes, the auras become more translucent. At least, that is the only way I can describe it.”

Erica grinned at her, “Great! Let’s try something on Kim. I am going to restore her power a little bit. You tell me when it is opaque enough that she can function again. What do you say?”

Jenny looked over at Kim, laying against a tree trunk. “Yeah, that would work.”

Erica continued, “That way I don’t spread myself too thin and we are sure to have everyone at good levels of power, maybe not max levels, but good enough.”

Jenny nodded, it was a good plan and they got to work on it right away. Rich came out with his guitar and started playing, which also helped, as Jenny could see everyone’s auras firming up. Jenny and Erica went from group to group for a while healing up people’s power, all the while Jenny was more and more realizing that she could make this all end.

She knew what she would have to do, and as the morning was approaching rapidly, she made up her mind. Making an excuse, she cleared away from Erica, and then the rest of the group and silently made her way down to the ground gate. Seeing only one guard, she made no attempt to explain herself, just saying she would be right back and slipped into the blackness of the night. She knew she would have to avoid detection, because her friends would come after her. She also knew that Fine was south of the Hillside, so that is the direction she headed.

As soon as Eleanor’s aide had arrived at the Academy, Kyle had told Commandant Casco of his need to go. Britton had allowed him to take a dozen of his trainees with him, so he had taken the twelve best. He had to argue with Jessica to get her to stay at the Academy, and with Casco to not force him to wait for a larger group. Kyle and Britton Casco had become good friends in the last couple of weeks, and had a natural rapport that served their alliance well. It had also made Casco bend to Kyle’s need to go immediately.

His team had camped for a couple of hours in the night at some abandoned house along the way. They had passed various people who had come together in camps, and some of those gave them information about the best place to make camp and such. There was now nearly a foot of snow on the ground and it was that bitter cold time when the sun outlines the horizon to the east. The eight men and four women stomped their feet to get warm, and get the blood moving in their legs. Kyle had only allowed them a few hours’ rest, so worried was he that they would return to find an abandoned hillside or worse.

“Ok, folks, let’s move.” Kyle called out and the group gathered their swords, the sabre now a sign of the cadet of the academy, and marched out. In another hour or so, they should be able to round the high ground and see the lights of the Hillside.

As dawn broke, they came within view of the Hillside far away, but the light that shone atop the plateau were not lit. A sense of deep dread fell on Kyle, and he picked up the pace to get there. He hoped he just could not see the lights through the blowing snow, but feared there was some other reason. Half way to the restaurant, they found the site of a battle of some kind. He saw corpses with the telltale marks of dog bites, but this also didn’t seem one-sided, though there were many corpses there. The cadets seemed concerned.

Cameron Bridges, one of the more gifted fighters in the bunch, stepped forward. “Sir, are any of these yours?”

Kyle searched through all of the bodies he could find, and did not recognize one. But he saw that some had been dragged away, there were various drag marks in the dirt. He had to chase away a few coyotes that were scavenging the dead, it was a disgusting sight. His head was reeling. When he took it all in, there were more than one hundred corpses here, maybe as many as one hundred and fifty. How could his family and friends have survived?

One of the women let out a low hiss, which turned out to be a warning and they all ducked down and hid themselves.

“This way,” came a call out of the growing dawn light to the south. “Jesus. Will you look at this? Looks like we should have sent Tigers with them. These soldiers didn’t stand a chance.”

“We’ve got company.” Said another of the men as they came into view. They wore a mixture of gi and camo, that just looked ridiculous to Kyle.

Kyle stood to face them, some in the group had already been seen anyway. “These your men?”

The man who was clearly the group leader turned and looked at him. “Well, look here. Academy Cadets! Why don’t you all hand over those weapons before I shove them up your ass?”

Kyle’s squad were disciplined, and he knew they would not take the bait. “I asked you a question?”

“Yeah, kid?” asked the man next to the leader, “And who the fuck are you to ask us anything? Now hand over the swords and we may let you live.”

Kyle made a quick hand motion and the cadets pulled their swords in unison. “I will ask one more time. Are these your men, and did you do this?”

The leader made his own hand motions and the twenty men behind him hit a stance and shouted “Kiai!”

Kyle’s ability was not in fighting, but in light, and his squad knew it. It was interesting that he was one of the people best suited to train fighters, due to his training growing up, but he did not have that gift. He was, however, a second degree black belt. It was clear to him almost immediately that these men were trained and had powers. His squad had weapons, but their squad had numbers, outnumbering them twenty to twelve. Kyle dropped back into line with his people.

“Fuck this,” said the leader and he rushed. Kyle did his best, but the man’s power was overcoming Kyle’s superior training. The rest of the squad was fighting all around him, their weapons evening the odds. But it was the thought of powers that saved Kyle’s life.

He was getting hit hard and fast, parrying about two thirds of the blows and he knew he wouldn’t last when he remembered that he had powers of his own. With each punch he threw, Kyle now also threw light. The distraction was enough and he started to get through the man’s defenses. He had to focus on his own problem, but he was aware of people dropping nearby. He could only hope they weren’t his men. The flurry of punches and kicks both men threw was stunning, Kyle’s flashes and balls of light were finally gaining him an advantage as the man was overusing his power. If he could keep up the fight, Kyle was starting to realize he could win.

He was suddenly hit with a massive blow in the back that sent him reeling and found that he was being attacked by a man on each side of himself. He was losing ground; the blows were taking their toll. He thought of the grief his mom would bear losing him as well as his dad, and suddenly he stopped getting hit.

“What the fuck? Where did he go?” said the man directly behind him.

The man before him looked around blindly, clearly not seeing him. Without wasting a moment, Kyle drew a knife from its sheath at his waste and buried it to the hilt under the man’s chin. Blood spurted out of the man’s nose and mouth as he fell to the ground dead, the knife having gone all the way into his brain. Kyle did not have time to react and pull the blade out, so he turned to face the other man who put his hands up and fell to his knees.

“Stop, stop, okay.” The man shouted, loud enough that even the other men and Kyle’s squad broke off their fighting. “You win, I surrender.”

The man’s eyes focused on Kyle finally, and he said, “How did you do that?”

Kyle knew that he would need to make this stick. “It is not the only thing I can do,” he said, though he wasn’t entirely sure what he had done.

The man called out to the rest of his group, “They can go invisible boys. Give up, we won’t win this one.”

The men all stopped fighting and gave up, and his group looked at him inquisitively. “Bind them, we will take them to the ground gate.” Turning toward the man kneeling before him, he added, “Now, I asked you a question. Are these your men, and did you do this?”

Kyle leaned in close and put the most intimidating look he could muster on his face. The man gave him the answer, “Yes. These were our men, and no, we didn’t do this.”

“Where are those who you fought here?”

“I don’t know; I didn’t get here until we found you.”

Kyle looked around. Six of his dozen, including Cameron Bridges, lay on the ground dead. Twice that many of the enemy were dead. So he had seven remaining, including himself. The others had eight, including the man before Kyle. The team bound the men’s hands behind their backs. Just as Kyle finished tying up his own captive, he looked up to see a small dog watching them. He smiled at it and said, “Tell your dad I will be home in a few minutes.”

The dog ran off.