Fires of Prophecy: The Morcyth Saga Book Two (5 page)

“Let’s hope so,” James says apprehensively.
“If anyone’s looking when we enter the light, we could have
problems.”

“We’ve got little choice,” Tinok says when
he joins them. “We’ll never get far on foot.”

Turning to Tinok, James says, “Jiron and I
will get the horses, you stay and protect the ladies until we
return.”

He waits for Tinok’s nod and then he and
Jiron run toward the horses. When they get close, James sees that
there are a total of seven horses. They slow down and approach more
cautiously when they’re close to being illuminated by the fire.
They edge around the fringe of the light, trying to get as close to
the horses before entering the light and risk being seen.

When they’re as close as possible, James
looks around and sees that no one’s in the vicinity. Signaling
Jiron, they both hurry over and begin untying horses as fast as
they can.

The horses begin making noises as they hurry
about their work and all of a sudden, the flap of the closest tent
opens up and a man peeks out. “What are you men doing with my
horse?” he asks with an edge to his voice as he exits the tent and
begins to approach them. He’s wearing a plain cowled robe with the
hood thrown back revealing shoulder length red hair. His eyes are
dark and James can see anger smoldering behind those eyes.

James glances to Jiron and they both come to
the same decision. Jiron’s knives flash in the firelight as they
spring to the ready. James takes a stone he had in his pocket and
casting his spell, unleashes the magic as he throws it at the
approaching man.

The instant before the stone leaves James’
hand, the man flicks his wrist. When the stone nears him, it hits a
barrier and ricochets away into the night.

Startled by the ineffectiveness of the
stone, James hesitates a moment, trying to understand what had just
happened.

“The mage!” the man cries out in shock, then
his eyes get a calculating look.

Jiron launches himself at the man, knives
flashing in a whirling pattern. As if he was dealing with an
annoying fly, the man waves his hand toward him.

James feels a prickling along his skin as he
watches Jiron being lifted off the ground and thrown a dozen feet
away. Understanding comes,
He’s a mage too!
James directs
his magic to the ground under the mage’s feet and lets it flow.

Crumph!!!!!

The ground explodes upward with incredible
force. When the dust clears enough, James sees the man still
standing there untouched. A three foot diameter of ground remains
undisturbed beneath him.

“Is that all you have?” the man asks with
contempt, words heavy in accent. He swirls his hand and it begins
glowing red then he flicks it at James. A red light flashes toward
him, striking him hard in the chest, knocking him backward onto the
ground.

As the man makes his way through the crater
that surrounds him, he says to James, “I was expecting more of a
challenge, how disappointing.”

James lays there unable to breathe, gasping
as he tries to take in a breath. He sees a knife fly through the
air out of the dark toward the mage, but it hits an invisible
protective shield and bounces harmlessly away, landing on the
ground.

Once the mage clears the crater, he gestures
with both hands while staring intently at James. Suddenly, James’
legs begin to cramp, he can feel their muscles knotting and
twisting causing him great pain. He cries out from the pain and in
desperation casts a spell, one he used many times back home, role
playing. He feels it using up the remaining power within him,
leaving him weak, barely able to move.

The approaching mage chuckles as he sees a
clear, shimmering bubble appear between them, floating in the air.
“What’s that suppose to do?”

He casts another spell and the bubble begins
sparkling as if fireflies were contained within. The mage’s face
loses its look of confidence and begins to exhibit worry. The
sparkles begin increasing in luminosity as the man’s face slowly
turns to a look of confusion.

Jiron comes to James’ side and asks, “You
okay?”

Exhausted from the spell he just cast, he
gasps, “Will be.” The effect of the mage’s earlier spell begins to
dissipate and the pain in his legs subsides. Jiron turns to the
mage and with knives ready, advances on him once more. James grabs
his arm as he starts toward the mage, stopping him and warns,
“Don’t touch him or the bubble.”

“Why?” Jiron asks.

Shaking his head, he replies, “No time to
explain, we’ve got to get out of here. Now!” he shouts, then lapses
into unconsciousness and sags to the ground.

Jiron looks to the mage who is shaking his
head with a look of horror as he stares into the bubble, the sparks
within gaining size and intensity. “No!” he cries in terror,
suddenly dropping to the ground. The bubble is getting brighter and
brighter by the second.

From out of the darkness, Tinok and the
girls come running toward them. “Get the horses!” Jiron shouts as
they approach. He begins to untie the remaining horses from the
tree.

“What’s that?” Cassie asks as she makes to
approach the bubble.

`“Get away from it!” Jiron yells at her.
“James said not to touch it.”

He hollers over to Tinok and says, “Help me
get James on a horse.” When he comes over, they lift him up and
quickly secure him onto the horse with some rope.

Delia mounts a horse and then looks back
over to the mage who is by now whimpering in terror. His hair, once
a vivid red has now turned grey and he’s beginning to shrivel in
upon himself like a grape having spent too much time in the
sun.

Jiron mounts and says, “Tinok, you stay next
to James and make sure he doesn’t fall off.” He turns his horse
toward the southwest, “Let’s stay close together,” he advises, “and
maybe we can survive this.” He glances over to the bubble; the
sparks have grown until they now fill the entire bubble with a
white light whose intensity is painful to look upon. The mage on
the ground is no longer moving and appears dead.

Kicking his horse in the side, Jiron rides
through the camp, the others close behind. Out of the darkness
ahead of him, several men suddenly appear. Holding on tight, he
rides straight through them, knocking them over. He looks back
toward the bubble, and the light is now extremely bright,
illuminating a large portion of the camp. He can see dozens of men
running toward it, one of whom is wearing a cowled robe just like
the other mage had. They race past the tents and reach the far side
of the camp.

They pass numerous soldiers but none seem to
notice them, all eyes are turned to the now brilliantly bright
light. The guards at the fringe of the camp take notice of them
approaching and command them to stop. A crossbow bolt flies past,
nearly striking Tinok as they race through. They flee into the dark
grasslands to the southwest of town, leaving the guards behind.
They don’t get too far before…

Schtk!

They look back at the sound from the backs
of their horses, everyone holds their breath in anticipation of
what may happen. Then…

Booooooom!

A giant explosion, ten times the force of
what they experienced when that building blew earlier. They feel
the concussion wave as it washes over them, luckily they’re far
enough away that it doesn’t hit them with enough force to knock
them over, just causes their horses to miss a step. They stop and
look back at the camp.

Reaching toward the sky is a tower of flame,
the roar from which can be heard even though they’re now far away
from it. The base of the fire extends throughout the camp in every
direction, burning everything within.

They sit there in awe as the flame punches
through the clouds and then slowly dissipates, appearing as if it’s
sinking back down to the ground.

“Dear god!” Cassie exclaims.

They all glance at the unconscious James and
then look to each other. Tinok asks, “Just what have we gotten
ourselves into?”

“I don’t know,” Jiron replies, shaking his
head as he glances again at James. “I don’t know.” Kicking his
horse, he leads them out into the grasslands.

_________________________

James awakens in the morning light. Sitting
up suddenly, his head begins to spin and starts aching as if a
hundred little hammers are pounding away on it. He holds his head
until the pain has subsided to a more tolerable level and then
looks around as he takes in his surroundings. The others are still
asleep and five horses are picketed a little ways away from the
camp, the saddles had been left on for a quick getaway.

A moment of panic sets in when he can’t
locate his backpack, then he realizes he had been using it as a
pillow. Opening it up, he reaches in and removes some food along
with his water bottle.

Deciding not to wake the others, he sits
there and eats while he contemplates the events of the day before.
The Empire’s mage almost had me
, he thinks to himself.
I’m just a rookie compared to them, they’ve probably been doing
this for a long time. My spells seemed to be rather ineffective
against him, too. Going to have to work on better, more innovative
spells, gotta surprise them next time or I’m toast.
He
remembers his last spell and smiles,
I bet he never saw that
coming!

Hearing one of the sleepers stirring, he
looks over and sees Cassie as she leans up on one arm and looks
over in his direction. He holds up some of his food, silently
offering it to her, but she just shakes her head no. She grabs her
pack and gets up, coming over to sit next to him.

She opens her backpack and takes out some of
her own rations and then asks as she begins eating, “You okay?”

“Better,” he replies through a mouthful of
food. “The more powerful the spell, the more it takes out of you.
Sleeping last night has helped a lot. After I’m done eating, I
should be fine, if a little fatigued.”

“That’s good,” she says. “We were all
worried about you last night, after you passed out.”

“It’s what happens sometimes,” he tells her.
“Just how long did we ride last night?”

“Several hours, I think,” she guesses. “It
seemed like a long time. Everyone was getting too tired to stay in
the saddle so we stopped here and made camp.”

“We probably shouldn’t stay here too much
longer, the Empire will want to find us in a bad way,” he says.

During their conversation, everyone else
awakens and joins them for breakfast.

“What was that thing you did last night?”
Tinok asks when he settles down next to him.

“You mean the bubble?” James asks.

“Yeah,” he answers. “When it went off, it
must’ve taken half their camp with it.”

“Really?” James asks, surprised. “I wasn’t
sure what was going to happen to tell you the truth. I’ve never
actually done that one before. What happened, exactly?”

He sits there and finishes eating while
Tinok relates to him the events after he passed out. When he gets
to the description of the explosion, James is quite astonished.

“You see,” he explains when Tinok is done
telling him, “I designed the bubble to do two things. One is to
absorb the power from any magic spells currently active in the
area, and the other is a little more complicated. You see, when a
mage casts a spell, he opens a conduit from his core of power,
usually only enough to accomplish whatever spell he intends to do.
My bubble grabs that flow, pulling the power into itself, while at
the same time preventing the mage from closing the conduit. The
result is that all the mage’s power is sucked out of him and
absorbed into the bubble. That must’ve been what was giving the
bubble the light, the mage’s power that it had absorbed.”

“Now here’s the part I’ve never been able to
really test before,” he explains. “What happens when the bubble is
filled to capacity and reaches critical mass?”

“Critical mass?” Delia asks, confused.
“What’s that?”

“Critical mass is when something is filled
to capacity and ready to ‘pop’, for lack of a better term,” he
explains. “In this instance, it could no longer hold the power, so
it exploded. I would guess the size of the bubble and the amount of
power it had absorbed would determine the intensity of the
explosion.”

“You could wipe out an entire army with one
of those!” Tinok exclaims.

Shaking his head, James says, “Not
necessarily, after all it would only work if there was a mage
present. Also, if everyone ran away before it exploded, it wouldn’t
be doing too much harm.”

“I see your point,” he says, somewhat
disappointed.

“Now,” Jiron interjects, “what are we going
to do about rescuing my sister and your friend?”

“Well, first of all, where are we exactly?
Which way did we go when we left the City?” he asks.

“We headed southwest,” Jiron answered.

“So it’s safe to assume that we are
currently in enemy territory,” James concludes, “and will continue
to be for a long time.”

“Yeah,” agrees Tinok.

“I propose we continue to head south and try
to find out where the slavers intend to take them,” he suggests.
“Once we know that, we’ll have a better idea of what we can
do.”

“Let’s get going then,” Jiron says, anxious
to get started.

“I agree,” James says, shouldering his
backpack as he stands up. He goes over to one of the horses and
swings up, head spinning from the exertion. When it calms down he
scans the surrounding countryside and is relieved to find nothing
moving across the grassland, except for the tall grass, waving in
the breeze. The southerly breeze feels good as the summer sun
begins to warm the day.