TST (20 page)

Nevertheless, she obeyed her master’s command and let the sorcerer live. She hoped that they would meet in the arena once again when he recovered and grew in experience and power.

Delinda heard her master’s furious voice fill her head as she sat worriedly next to Braunlen the dwarf inside the trainer’s room fearfully awaiting the end of the match. Every time the crowd cheered, her heart raced and her stomach twisted not knowing if they were cheering for her beloved or his opponent.

Then Lord Xornan told her that Azerick had been defeated and needed aid immediately. Terror gripped her heart as she raced up the ramp towards the open gate at the top that led into the arena.

The first thing she saw when she burst through the gate was the form of a lithe, impossibly white-skinned woman standing over her husband. She ran to him as fast as her legs would carry her, for a moment thinking to tear this creature to shreds with her fingernails. She discarded the idea immediately knowing that Azerick needed her right now and that such an action would likely result in both of their deaths.

The human woman sprinted across the arena from the now open trainer’s gate. Teraneshala thought this soft human woman was going to attack her with her bare hands, the hate, anger, and fear was so great in her eyes. Fortunately, for her, she just slid to her knees in the sand next to the fallen sorcerer and began pouring some kind of potion down his throat.

The abyssal elf took a step back as Delinda pulled out the silver flask filled with the potent healing potion she had been distilling for over a month. She cradled Azerick’s limp head in her lap and gently placed the flask’s stem between his lips. She dribbled the contents down his throat as quickly as she dared. It seemed to take an eternity to empty the entire flask’s contents.

Delinda prayed fervently to every god she could name for her love’s life. She wept openly as she rocked Azerick’s head in her lap and waited to see if the potion was strong enough to overcome such terrible injuries. Her heart soared and she cried even harder when Azerick’s eyelids fluttered open.

“He is a talented sorcerer. I am glad you were able to save him,” the abyssal elf’s sultry voice came from behind her.

Delinda ignored the woman’s words and took out another metal vial. “Here, drink this, my love,” she told Azerick as she raised another healing potion to his lips.

Azerick did as Delinda bade and felt the effects of the potions as they ran their course through his body. His muscles burned and his bones ached where the elixir forced them to heal at an unnaturally rapid pace. Delinda was gladdened to see Braunlen running towards her with his short, bow-legged gait. They supported Azerick between them as they half carried him out of the arena to Lord Xornan’s waiting transport.

Lord Xornan was furious beyond anything Delinda had ever seen. Azerick sat half-dazed, gritting his teeth against the lingering pain of his partially healed wounds.

I should make you walk back to my manor for your utter failure even if it takes you all night to drag yourself across the city!
The psyling raged.

The tension inside the palanquin was palpable the entire way back to the manor. The bearers gently set the palanquin down as they finally arrived back at the manor. Lord Xornan hurriedly stepped outside and ordered his retinue away, an order with which they were glad to comply. The psyling glared at the exhausted young sorcerer standing before him.

Do you have any idea what you have cost me? The price for saving your miserably useless life in treasure and dignity alone is likely beyond your comprehension! I warned you that the price for your next failure would be severe. You have left me no other choice.

Azerick braced himself as best he could for the expected mental onslaught. However, instead of a barrage of torturous mental images, he felt Delinda stiffen as she held tightly to his arm. He looked over at her and held her as her eyes rolled back until only the whites shown and let out a small grunt of pain. Azerick gently guided her to the ground as her legs buckled beneath her.

“No, stop, do to me whatever you wish but leave her alone!” he begged.

Thin rivulets of blood ran from her nose and ears as she shuddered and let out a last gasp of air. Azerick pressed his ear against her breast but heard no heartbeat and no sign of breathing.

“No, no, you would not kill her,” he denied in anguish. “She was useful to you. This is just another of your sick mental games to punish me,” he said more to himself than to his master.

I assure you, this is all quite real. Unlike my previous lessons that you were able to quickly recover from once the images ceased, this lesson you will remember and feel for a very long time. You will continue to feel the pain and loss of your loved one and the little bastard whelp that grew within her, for a very long time!

Azerick felt as if he had been dealt a mortal blow at the revelation that his beloved had been pregnant. He was cradling her head against his chest and stroking her hair but froze at the words of his vile master and let out a deep groan.

Do not let your emotions for your loss distract you from your training. I have invested a great deal of time in you and still have enough confidence in your ability to grow in power to redeem yourself. If you please me, I will get you a new female, a prettier one even.

Azerick heard none of these words as the world around him vanished, replaced by a vast, unending expanse of intense whiteness. He was once again floating in that void of nothingness. The only difference was that this void was one of pure white rage instead of the blackness of pain. He looked about and located the fracture he had discovered before. He saw it as a black, jagged slash out of the corner of his eye. Azerick willed himself to fly to it as fast as his mind would allow.

He slammed into the weak spot with as much force as he could muster. When that failed, he began kicking, pounding, and clawing at its edges in furry but it refused to yield to his assault. The grief-maddened sorcerer stood back from the fissure as rage and loss suffused his soul. The loss of Delinda and his unborn child burned in his heart with the intensity of every loss he had ever suffered—his parents, Jon Locke and his extended family, his flight from the academy, his slavery,
and all the senseless deaths in the arena all combined then magnified tenfold.

He released all the anguish and emotional torment in an ear-shattering scream of fury and pain. From his mouth erupted a roar that carried the power of every ounce of love, hate, fear, and pain that raged within him and augmented by the raw power of the Source. He pulled and pulled from the Source as he had never before and used all these emotions to shape and direct it in this one massive assault.

The fracture quavered under his emotional sonic assault then shattered under its intensity. Azerick’s world returned with a flood of light, color, and sound. Lord Xornan took a step back in shock as his former slave stood up and looked balefully into his liquid black eyes. The psyling tried frantically to regain control of his servant but Azerick was far beyond his control. An impenetrable mental fortress now blocked the psyling’s every attempt to reassert control.

Azerick drank in the Source like a man dying of thirst gulps down water. Crackling arcs of excess power swirled around the sorcerer giving him the appearance of some terrifying, vengeful god. He pointed an accusing finger at the terrified psyling and released an awesome bolt of lightning that struck with such intensity that it burned a hole clean through his former master’s chest large enough to shove his arm through without any of the gore touching his sleeve.

Lord Xornan’s lifeless corpse flew backwards, landing prostrate on the flagstone courtyard. Azerick leapt on top of the body with a feral growl and began pummeling the bulbous head of his former master with his fists. Gore soon covered his hands and spattered his body and face as his former master’s head split open like an over-ripe melon. The enraged sorcerer barely heard the shrill cry of brass horns blaring across the city.

Breathing heavily, Azerick looked up from his assault and saw several minotaur, human, and orc guardsmen running at him through the open gates. With another bestial roar, he raked a stream of lightning across the line of charging guardsmen. The smaller humans and orcs were thrown back into smoking piles while the heavier minotaurs were brought tumbling down onto the flagstone avenue.

More clarions were ringing in the distance and were drawing nearer. Azerick knelt beside his beloved Delinda and stroked her hair. He took the small knife that Delinda always wore for trimming plants and chopping herbs and cut off a lock of her long, dark hair. He then lifted the satchel she carried and looped it over his own shoulder. He turned and saw that more guards were nearing the gates. With a few words and gestures, stone spikes erupted across a large expanse of the courtyard, impaling several of the guardsmen and effectively keeping the rest from gaining the inner grounds.

Azerick knew he only had a few minutes at best before the guardsmen negotiated their way past the obstacle and psylings were sent for to deal with the deadly rogue sorcerer. He stepped back a few paces and said a short prayer and farewell to his wife and child. He then raised both of his hands and drew deeply from the Source once more.

A jet of intense flame erupted from his outstretched hands and engulfed Delinda’s small body in a magical pyre. Azerick poured more power into the relatively simple flame spell than was normally possible. His rage fueled the engulfing flames by drawing an unsafe amount of magical energy into himself.

In less than a minute only ash covered the heat-cracked stones where Delinda’s body had lain. Azerick looked up at the sound of the shouting guardsmen that were slowly picking their way past his stone spike spell. With a last look at the vaguely human-shaped burn mark on the ground, he ran into the manor house.

“What’s going on out there, son?” Zeb asked as Azerick burst into the foyer and dropped a heavy crossbar across the thick wooden doors.

Azerick turned and saw Zeb and several of his former crew looking at him from the large gallery beyond the foyer. “He killed Delinda and I killed him.”

“Killed who, lad? Who did you kill?” the old captain asked, his voice laced with sorrow at the news of Delinda’s death.

“Lord Xornan. We are free now but we need to get out of here. There are guards and psylings coming. Go round up as many of our people as you can and get them to the top of the main tower. I will meet you all up there. Grab what you can but do not delay,” he ordered.

“They’ll have us trapped up there, lad, it’s suicide. We need to escape out one of the side doors and try to vanish in the city, or maybe take one of their boats and sail out of here,” Zeb argued.

“No, the only way out is at the top of the tower. Trust me, Zeb, and get moving.”

Zeb looked into the young man’s eyes and nodded his head. “All right, you scallywags, you heard him. Drop your mops and grab your socks, we’re getting outta here! Move it, round up everyone you can find and get em to the top of the tower!”

Azerick ran down to the lab, taking three stairs at a time in his headlong rush. He selected several herbs and a few small vials of finished healing draughts before sprinting back up the stairs. He saw several of the human slaves running about in their haste to inform the others and grab whatever possessions they had. Azerick rushed up the stairs to his room and stuffed a couple of his most choice books in a heavy canvas pack before heading to the library. Loud booming sounds echoed through the mansion as something heavy was repeatedly slammed into the main door.

Zeb ran straight to the kitchen with several of his men to get Cook. “Cook, pack it up we’re getting out of here.”

Zeb looked at another form that sat at the small table in the kitchen eating a haunch of mutton. Toron was one of Lord Xornan’s old gladiators, one of the few to survive long enough to retire. He was a large brute of a minotaur, graying around his muzzle and one horn had about six inches of the tip lopped off. A thumb and two fingers were all that remained of his left hand. He worked around the manor these days doing a bit of menial labor and acting as a house guard.

“What’s going on, Zeb?” Cook asked as he slid several large, sharp kitchen knives out of a rack and pressed them into Zeb and a few of his crewmate’s hands.

Zeb kept his eyes on the old minotaur as he told Cook what had transpired. “Toron, you always seemed a reasonable sort if not much on conversation. I don’t want to have to fight you but you got two choices here. Lord Xornan is dead and we’re leaving. You can fight us or let us go but we won’t be stopped.”