Sworn To Transfer (35 page)

“Very good,” said the voice again as they dropped their complex shield. Its duty completed, Vana’s conjured sightstorm of lightning and mist that had clung to the bubble dissipated.

Several individuals stood facing Ciardis’s group. None of them looked particularly friendly. Prince Heir Sebastian’s guard stepped forward to face the threat.

Ciardis squinted in the bright sun and swore. Was that who she thought it was? What in all the gods’ names was the Weather Mage doing here?

The Shadow Mage in the lead smiled a cold smile at Prince Heir Sebastian and the small retinue that stood around him. He had an uncanny resemblance to the strange, stork-like man who stood to their side.

“And who are you?” asked Prince Heir Sebastian with ice in his tone.

“Milord Prince Heir,” said the Weather Mage from the man’s left with sweat dripping from his brow, “may I present Lord Kastien?”

“Lord Kastien
of
?” said Meres Kinsight in a dangerously soft tone. To strangers he might sound as if he were at just another dinner party, but Ciardis didn’t miss the tight grip he had on his dagger and the surge of power she felt coming from him.

“Borden,” said the addressed man simply.

At that moment everyone turned to look at the tall, gangly man standing by Alexandra, Meres with more suspicion than all of them.

“What is the meaning of this, Darius?” demanded Prince Heir Sebastian.

“I don’t know, Milord,” the man called Darius said with more aplomb than Ciardis would thought him capable of. “But I intend to find out.”

He strode forward, breaking ranks, ignoring the protests from Vana and Maree. As Ciardis watched him approach the man who could almost be his twin, she looked for her brother among the figures. He wasn’t there. Where was he? She didn’t want him at the Shadow Mage’s side but the alternative meant that he was probably back in the encampment of soldiers.

Why would the Shadow Mage only transport such a select few?

She took in the Weather Mage’s form. He looked worse than the day that she and Linda Firelancer had first met him. His form shook where he stood and sweat poured down his face.

Then he turned to look directly at her. Even with the distance between them she could see his eyes. They were black.

“Oh no, oh, for the ever-loving gods,
no
,
”
she said with her voice rising.

Julius turned aside partially, his body still primed for a battle in front of them, and muttered caustically, “What?”

“He’s shadow-touched, the Weather Mage is shadow-touched!” she said with a touch of hysteria.

“Are you sure?”

“How can you not see the black depths in his eyes?”

“Brother,” said Darius authoritatively, “what are you doing here? Why are you not at watch over the farm in Borden?”

The man in question sneered, “You. I’m here because of you. You never considered me worthy...”

Dread shifted down Ciardis’s spine. She’d heard that before.

“You went off to that school of mages and left me to rot in Borden,” said the man.

“Timmoris, don’t—” said Darius, holding up a placating hand.

“Don’t call me that!” shouted Timmoris. “How dare you call me that. Belittling me.” Spittle was flying from the incensed man’s face and Darius had finally halted, seeing that something was wrong, very wrong with his brother.

“Let’s talk about this,” Darius said firmly. Waving his hand to encompass the people behind Timmoris, he said, “You’ve certainly made some powerful friends.”

“Them?” said Timmoris with derision.

“The time for talking is over,” said Prince Heir Sebastian. “Incapacitate him. Now, Ashlord!”

Ciardis swore, not because she’d just learned that the tall, gangly man was the one and only Ashlord, a necromancer with dark powers, but because dark clouds were gathering on the horizon.

The necromancer paused and turned back to Prince Heir Sebastian with uncharacteristically pleading eyes. “Please, Milord. He’s all I have. Let me speak to him. I assure you, he means—”

“Watch out!” shouted Ciardis, pointing frantically at the sky.

Before the necromancer could finish his sentence, a bolt of lightning arced down from the gathering storm. It hit the Ashlord straight on and he slumped to the ground unconscious with grave wounds.

“I guess that’s where those burn marks on the bodies came from,” said Meres grimly.

Before Vana could lose an arrow into the Weather Mage, Ciardis shouted hoarsely, “Wait, it’s not him. It’s the Shadow Mage—he’s controlling them.”

“How?” asked Alexandra. “He’s not wearing a control bracelet.”

“It’s the eyes,” Ciardis said. “The shadows are in his eyes just like Barren before Vana released him.”

Timmoris sucked his teeth and smiled. “Well, well, such a smart girl.”

Then he turned to Prince Heir Sebastian and said, “You are right, Milord. The time for talk is over
.
” Suddenly the gathering clouds became so thick that they blocked out the sun, and the last thing Ciardis heard before a natural darkness descended and the ring of metal against metal began was the maniacal laugh of the Shadow Man.

Prince Heir Sebastian’s men had engaged with the Shadow Mage’s followers, but with their sight limited to a few feet in front of them, they couldn’t extend their defensive perimeter very far.

Maree Amber stepped up with Meres Kinsight to take on a group of the Shadow Mage’s followers, including the Weather Mage. They were all shadow-touched and they were all mages by the look of it. They didn’t speak; they just fought.

Anxiously, Ciardis looked for her brother. He had to be nearby to enhance the Shadow Mage’s powers. But she couldn’t see him. Where was he?

Meanwhile Maree Amber grabbed two trees with her mind. She uprooted those, roots and all, and flung them directly at the mages. The trees took out two of the mages. One of the four shadow-touched cohorts lifted his hands and fire flowed from his fingers directly toward them. The Weather Mage called in lightning and they merged their two natural elements to push a deadly mixture of their elemental powers at everyone in their paths.

Maree didn’t pause. She threw up a mage shield and kept going.

Behind her, Vana said, “If I can get close enough, I can break their feed to their master.”

“How close?” Maree said calmly.

“Touching,” Vana said. “And I’ll need a minute with each.”

“Not going to happen—not now. We don’t have enough trained people here to hold off fully-trained mages while you break the holds on their minds.”

“Suggestions, then?” Vana called out as the shield went down and they rushed the shadow-touched.

“Knock them out if possible,” said Maree Amber with a grunt as she kicked the Fire Mage in the throat swiftly. “Incapacitate them if not.”

A different mage had spotted Ciardis and was bearing down on her with the grim intensity of one preparing to kill. She pulled out a knife and glanced around for another weapon. There was nothing in reach, and the glow of the protective barrier from Maree Amber had failed.

Ciardis’s opponent called on the plants in the ground to capture her, and suddenly the earth beneath Ciardis’s feet was sinking and roots were dragging her hands down.

Scrambling, she pushed up with her hands and feet as much as she could, but her face was already being pulled into the soft soil.
He’s going to suffocate me
, she realized. But just as suddenly the plants released her, and she looked up to see Maree Amber’s deadly grip on the man’s throat.

He was struggling, but she had him at a disadvantage with his face pulled back in her grip and on his knees as he desperately tried to stop her from strangling him. She did stop, but only when he fell unconscious.

Ciardis looked over to thank her while spitting out dirt, but Maree Amber beat her to it.

“Get behind Lady Vana now,” she said in disgust. “If you’re not going to be useful, at least try not to get in the way.”

As Vana dodged opponents, she shouted, “We need a sun mage.”

“What do you want to me to do about that?” Ciardis asked as she desperately dodged a sword aimed at her head and came up face to face with the Weather Mage.

Hefting the rock in her hand, she quickly apologized and walloped the Weather Mage on the head. He slumped onto the ground, out cold. The darkened skies immediately opened as clouds disappeared and the sun shone through.

“That’ll do!” shouted Lady Vana with a grin.

Ciardis was tempted to say something snarky, and then she saw a long staff weapon discarded by a soldier on the ground. She needed a weapon and that would serve perfectly. Scrambling over with quick feet, she grabbed it off of the ground and turned around to face the person she heard coming up behind her.

Unfortunately it was the Shadow Mage.

He wasted no time having his shadow creatures pin her to the ground and relieve her of her weapon. They began to twist her arms in unnatural directions as she screamed in pain. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Sebastian came from behind him. Wielding a sword, he tried to cut off the Shadow Mage’s head. Hearing Sebastian coming up behind him, the Shadow Mage had enough time to duck and knock Sebastian’s legs out from under him. The sword swiped the side of his face, but only enough to create a shallow cut through the edge of his nose. A shadow creature turned itself into black vines and wrapped thick ropes around Prince Heir Sebastian’s legs, dragging him away.

Lady Vana took his place while Meres Kinsight went after Prince Heir Sebastian. 

“What happened?” Ciardis screamed from where she lay pinned on the ground. “What happened to make you like this?”

She looked over at Vana, hoping the unknown mage could come to her rescue, but she was a bit busy battling shadow creatures on all sides.

Looking back at the Shadow Mage, she couldn’t help but see a bitter brother, jealous of his sibling and hating what he had become.

All of this. All of the death. All of the misery
.

“It has to end,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” he crooned as he reached down to caress her dirty face. “You’ll be seeing your maker soon.”

“Ciardis,” shouted Vana from her battle across the field. “Remember your lessons. What you can stabilize, you can destabilize.”

The Shadow Mage turned to Vana with a roar and had a shadow creature lift her up in a dark tunnel of wind and throw her with enough force that she landed with a sickening
crunch
on the other side of the field.

But it was enough. Ciardis knew what she had to do. The Shadow Mage was close enough for her to do what needed to be done.

She reached for Shadow Mage’s hand with a pain-filled gasp. Latching on she let loose every drop of power she had in her. She built and built on his power, enhancing beyond his capacity to contain, especially with the male Weathervane’s gifts also increasing his.

Satisfied, she pulled and pulled the power to greater heights, unimaginable abilities. And the shadows began to grow, filling the skies with darkness and casting the entire area in black. When she’d reached the pinnacle and could go no further, she smiled and dropped the power. It swept down with an almighty speed, creating a vortex in its wake. The power was falling at a tremendous speed and pulling its creations with it. It became a vortex of shadows, sucking in all of the power of the Shadow Mage in an ever increasing fury.

Unfortunately the Shadow Mage couldn’t absorb all of the shadows at once. They began to push themselves into his mage core, greedy for more power, and when that wasn’t enough they penetrated his living body. Ciardis watched in satisfaction as he staggered while shadow after shadow penetrated his back, his neck, his eyes, his hands, his chest, and his head. Each time causing the Shadow Mage to stagger under the impact even more.

“Ciardis, what have you done?” Meres asked with shock written on his face as he scrambled to her side, the Prince Heir limping behind him.

She turned to look at him as she said, “Finished him.”

At that moment the Shadow Mage fell to his knees and threw back his head, letting out an almighty scream. For a second the shadows began to emerge from his throat and out of his mouth, and then they couldn’t. They were stuck, and the bottleneck only grew with the shadows bulging grotesquely in his throat and cheeks. Until they couldn’t expand anymore. He exploded, sending body parts in fragments and shadows screaming everywhere. And everyone within a ten-mile radius was thrown off their feet with the tremendous force of the explosion.

Darkness fell over Ciardis’s eyes as she briefly lost consciousness. She lay on her back, watching the skies slowly lighten and the shadows dissipate in the air with a smile on her face.

M
oments later Ciardis heard someone walking toward her. For the first time in her life her magic was finished. Zero. She didn’t have any of it left to fight with. She staggered to her feet for one last battle. Vana, Meres, and Sebastian had been thrown away from her side. She waited and listened for the person approaching.

Out of the dense ground-fog of thick smoke and mist, the Weather Mage emerged. Blood was dripping down his clothes from a heavy shoulder wound and his arm hung limply at his side. But he had a smile on his face that belied the pain he must have been in.

from enslavement, “He’s dead. I’m free.”

Tears were dripping down his face and hers, as well. Smiling in exhaustion at their victory, she felt his joy even in the midst of the destruction and dead bodies they walked around. And then Ciardis saw her—Maree Amber.

The leader of the Companions’ Guild and Council was lying at the slope of a small hill. Rushing to her side, Ciardis knelt over her, the woman who Ciardis had thought hated her, but had come at a time when Ciardis had needed her most. Hands trembling, she put her fingers at the woman’s throat and felt for a pulse. It was there but weak. A gasping breath issued from Amber’s throat and she began coughing. The woman’s eyes flew open and she tried to sit up.