Rise of the Mages (Rise of the Mages 2) (41 page)

Xan stepped between Tasia and the arrows.

A kineticist could be taken by surprise easily enough, but attacking one who was ready with anything that employed motion was pointless. As he watched through the lens of magic, the motion of each projectile called to him. The tiniest of pushes made the arrows go wildly astray. Truna’s archers might as well have been throwing feathers.

Unfortunately, the mass of armed men running at him wasn’t as easy to deal with. Would that he could dump them all in the water, but the heavy bridges were covered with pitch. Any attempt to move it or burn it would likely black him out. How to delay them using the least magic possible?

He ignited soldiers by the score—as many as he dared—to block the end of the bridges. The smell of burning flesh surrounded him. His head swam, and he stumbled.

An arm grabbed his waist. Tasia. Adding her support.

“The duke’s men are coming,” she said.

Finally. He glanced back to find hundreds of men sprinting at him.

“That’s the mage!”

“Get him!”

They had to be kidding. He was saving the city from an enemy attack, and they focused on him? Really? Best to just fly off and let them deal with Truna.

But Irdrin’s men were already climbing over the charred remains that blockaded them. They’d overwhelm Asher’s men in minutes, leaving the city at the enemy’s whim. What would Tasia think of him?

“Just go,” she said. “You don’t have anything left.”

“I have enough.” Xan grabbed her by the shoulders and launched to the top of the nearest stable section of wall.

As soon as they landed, two of Asher’s men burst from a door with swords drawn. Spots danced before Xan as he drained their life. They collapsed.

“What did you—”

“They’ll be fine,” Xan said. “Just need a lot of rest over the next few days. Probably have a headache.”

He slammed the door with a burst of kinetic energy and added enough heat to fuse the lock. Below him, Truna’s army met Asher’s line.

“We won’t be able to hold the gap,” Tasia said.

The world spun. “How long?”

“Five minutes. Less.”

That didn’t give Xan long to recover. He sat and closed his eyes. “Warn me when the situation gets dire.”

A few minutes passed with screams, grunts, and clanking metal below.

“We’re about to break,” Tasia said.

Xan opened his eyes. No spots. He carefully rose. Better but still woozy.

Burnt bodies littered the ground. How many people had he killed? How many more would he have to kill before they broke? He had no choice but to find out.

Xan focused on men by the hundred, trying to think of them as the enemy instead of real flesh-and-blood people who had mothers and wives and children. On one side of Truna’s line, he ignited the soldiers’ clothes, creating a vast wall of fire that forced the surrounding men into disarray. On the other side, he turned armor into lethal presses that crushed bone and flesh into the ground.

Screaming men spread fire to their fellows while others fell like dominoes. Truna’s force scurried in all directions. There were no files, no ranks.

Xan collapsed to his knees. He’d taken out a good quarter of the enemy army, another four hundred men lost to his power.

Tasia screamed, “Xan!”

Such devastation. Had he done the right thing? How could she even stand to look at a monster like him?

She knelt beside him. “You did the right thing.”

He stared at her. Sunlight caught her blue eyes. Her features were soft. Would touching her face be like touching velvet?

“What are you doing?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me,” she said.

“I want to memorize your face.”

“What?”

“It’s just that you’re really pretty.”

She blushed. “You forgot ‘you know, not compared to Ashley, but …’.”

“No. Compared to anybody.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Thuds came from behind the sealed door.

He rose shakily. “I’m sorry about … you know. I wish I knew how to put things right between us.”

“Xan—”

“No. I hurt you. I didn’t mean to, but I did. I have no right to ask …”

She frowned. “What?”

“Just please don’t hate me. I don’t know where I’m going or what I’ll do. I need to know there’s at least one person I … care about … who doesn’t hold me in complete contempt.”

An ax head penetrated the door.

“I could never hate you. Frustrated. Annoyed. Angry—”

Xan grabbed the back of her head and pulled her to him, his hand on the small of her back. His lips found hers.

It was even better than he ever imagined. The feel of her against him. Warm.

More ax blows.

He kissed with hunger. His hand slipped lower. Tasia responded in kind. For a moment. Or had he just imagined it?

She swatted his hand away from her backside and pushed against his chest. “Xan …”

What had come over him? Why did he force himself on her? He wasn’t Brant. If she didn’t hate him before … “I am so, so sorry. I don’t—”

The door splintered. Asher’s soldiers poured out.

Xan looked at her, begging for forgiveness as much as he could with his gaze. Would he ever see her again? “So sorry. Bye.” He launched.

The surroundings blurred, and his head spun. But he should be okay. His trajectory would take him miles from the city. All he had to do was stop his momentum right before he landed.

He glanced back at her. What was that expression? Sad, happy, angry? All the above?

Something darted at him from the wall. Agony flared in his shoulder. An arrow. More whizzed at him but fell short.

The city passed. Fields morphed into brown grids dotted with yellow haystacks. Forests became patches of green, brown, and orange that grew smaller until he reached the top of his arc more than a mile above.

Everything fled from his awareness but the pain. Xan hung still in the air for a moment. Dizzy. He had to ease his suffering. As he tumbled end over end, accelerating with frightening rapidity, he poured life into himself.

His stomach sank. Which side was up? He thrust his arms out. His tumbling slowed, and mostly, his face pointed down. The ground drew closer and closer. Fast.

Blackness invaded the edges of his vision. No choice. He had to do something.

Xan slowed his momentum as much as he dared. His mind faded. A pile of yellow straw. He put all his strength into a final kinetic push.

The world went black.

Burnt flesh assaulted Lucan’s nose.

He choked back the bile rising in his throat. What type of monster could kill so many people?

His life sense detected one poor fellow whose heart still beat. Burns covered most of the man’s body, so much so that Lucan barely credited that the soldier lived despite what the magic told him. Even if he spent all his efforts, the man still might not survive.

A moan escaped the soldier’s lipless mouth, and Lucan clenched his fists. Such a waste. His only recourse was mercy. He drained the remaining life from the man and stepped over another charred form.

In the next area, armor had crushed flesh and bone into the ground. Blood made the soil muddy, and many of the bodies were not recognizable as human.

The doctors followed slowly as they checked corpses for a pulse. They hadn’t yet learned to trust him.

An hour of searching led him to only five more survivors. Four of those he saved, though the effort strained him.

Lucan shuffled to his horse and returned to the castle, where he languished long in the hot water of the baths. The sun still rode low on the horizon when he exited. With thoughts of food revolting and sleep unappealing, he found a quiet spot in the courtyard and sat watching people pass, the sights of life helping to erase the memories of death.

When Dylan and Marisol walked by on the opposite end of the square, he thought little of it, but the niskma and Lady Tasia soon followed. Curious, he followed.

Before he reached the path where the others had disappeared, Sir Reed and Lainey appeared. Lucan managed to turn away before they noticed him. He kept his back to them, pretending to admire a particularly hideous statuette, until they passed.

Were they all meeting and didn’t bother to invite him?

He tailed the pair at a discreet distance, closing until their voices drifted back to him.

“Who was the girl with you earlier?” Lainey said.

“No one,” Sir Reed said.

“Brant! She’s too young for you.”

Children. With all that happened, that was what occupied their thoughts?

Sir Reed opened the door to a chapel and gestured for Lainey go through. “It’s not like that at all.” He entered after her. “I rescued her on the battlefield. Believe me, that’s the last—”

The ornately carved door slammed shut.

Lucan rushed forward and placed his ear against it. For a quarter hour, he listened to variations of the same question—is the duke going to have us executed? Lady Ashley replied each time by soothing worries while offering no assurances.

Lucan rolled his eyes. Such fools. The duke had seen a demonstration of the power he could control. He’d not relinquish it easily.

Finally, the conversation turned to Xan.

“He burned some and crushed others, and he flew,” Sir Reed said with grudging awe. “So much power. We’d have lost the city for sure without him.”

“But how is it possible for him to use all those powers?” Dylan said. “I thought—”

Lucan threw the door open with a bang and marched down the center aisle, aware of the sight he made with his blond hair and black cloak flowing behind him. Every eye stared at him as he stopped. “He is a wizard, and we must kill him.”

THE END

If you enjoyed this novel, you’re going to love the sequel,
Gryphon
, scheduled to be published in Spring 2016. If you’d like to be notified when it’s available—and for free exclusive content, sneak previews, offers, and other updates—subscribe to my monthly email newsletter at:

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Brian W. Foster is a speculative fiction writer whose works include the epic fantasy
Rise of the Mages
series and the superhero genre series,
Repulsive
.

Brian lives in California with his wonderful wife and two adorable kids. He is a season ticket holder for the New Orleans Saints, plays in two dynasty fantasy football leagues, enjoys strategy board games, and is a registered professional engineer (mechanical) in the state of Louisiana. He also has a tendency to write segments like this one in the third person but feels strange about doing so.

You can contact him:

Via email at
[email protected]

On the internet at
www.authorbrianwfoster.com

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You’ve heard that it takes a village to raise a child? Well, you should see how many people it takes to write a book! There are so many people I need to thank:

First and foremost, my wife, Amanda, both for encouraging (read “ordering”) me to start writing in the first place and for putting up with all the late nights.

Second is my sister, Tanya, who is, by far, my biggest cheerleader. She’s read every version of everything I’ve written, and her help has been a tremendous asset.

Next come my beta readers. In producing the final version of this novel, I stopped several times and thought, “Wow, that entire subplot wouldn’t have existed without my beta readers.” They made the book so much better than it would have been otherwise. Kassan, Pablo, and Jonathan all provided me with invaluable insight.

And I really could not have provided a quality product to you without the services of both my developmental editor, Kari, and my copy editor, Heather.

The source that started me on the path to becoming the writer I am today (just so you know who to blame) is the OC SciFi and Fantasy Writer’s Meetup Group. Ree, Peter, and Mark all provided me with so much help and encouragement over the years.

Finally, no writer performs well as an island. I’m not sure that I could have ever gotten this novel out into the world without the community at Mythic Scribes. If you’re an aspiring fantasy author looking for the company of like-minded and kind writers, check them out.