A Dead God's Tear (The Netherwalker Trilogy) (24 page)

He had always meant to clean and arrange it, but life and station had other plans for him and his time. He often pondered shirking the duty off to some unlucky apprentice, but just couldn't bring himself to trust someone in his room, to
uching his things. Denician took some comfort in the fact that it was at least organized into piles, instead of flopping about randomly. He always managed to find what he was looking for, and that was enough, wasn't it? Though it did make him feel a tad embarrassed during certain visits from guests, such as the present.

A large red brick fireplace took residence in the corner, near the only window. The fireplace was magically enchanted of course, and already the woodless flame was alive, filling the space w
ith just the right amount of heat to make it comfortable. An old coat of arms was hung above it, a shining silver knight rearing up on a majestic mount surrounded by flowery wreaths. It was a relic left behind by the previous Headmaster, something which Denician had never cared enough to remove.

In front of the fireplace floated the owner of the voice that made one of the most powerful wizards in Faelon shiver in both dread and anticipation. The emotions so similar in his addled mind that it was hard to tel
l the difference.

Most people would have thought it a ghost, and for its part, it did indeed look like one. The form was obviously of a lithe and graceful young woman, standing a mere half-head shorter than the six-foot Denician. The body took on a muffled
white hue, with just the slightest hints of silver amongst the translucent image presented. Long strands of wispy, waist length hair, just as pale and white as the rest of the body, flowed behind her as she closed the distance between the two of them, walking right through the desk as she did so.

"You're late, my love," the melodic, sensual feminine voice that issued forth from the specter, and the memories it induced, stopped the Headmaster in his tracks as surely as a solid stone wall.

Chapter 14

T
he sword went out and intercepted the spear, using the hand guard more so than the actual blade to deflect the clumsy strike. Jared danced back from the other spear that followed in the first one's wake. "Marcius, get away!" he shouted, hoping perhaps his friend would be jolted into action at the sound of his voice.

If the apprentice did hear him, he didn't acknowledge it, nor did he show even the slightest hint of movement. He just stood still, feet firmly planted and mo
uth agape in a look of stunned disbelief as the roaring oggron closed the ground between them.

"Damn it, Mage! Do something!" Jared screamed, on the edge of panic, pleading to Alicia behind him.

"I. . . I. . . can't! Not yet! I'm saving. . . " she stuttered back, apparently grappling with some internal argument.

He growled in response, taking his frustration out on the spears that were once again thrusting in to skewer the pair. He slapped them angrily aside with his sword.
Damn it all! It was obvious that the bandits were not trying to kill them. The spear wielders on the rocky outcrop above them were merely herding the pair, for the strikes were lazy and without conviction, easily turned away. The three of them were hopelessly outnumbered, and yet, the bandits had not revealed themselves fully to take advantage of that, instead sending out only a few to play this cat and mouse game.

Furthermore, he felt so damn useless. He couldn't do much. His sword was a poor weapon when fighting the length of the spears.
He couldn't get close enough to take the inherent advantages of a long sword. At best, he was stuck to a stagnant defense, biding his time until an opportunity presented itself.

What he didn't get was
why
were they acting like this? Where was the battle he yearned for? Was it some tactic that he just didn't understand, or was it just inexperience on their part? No answers were forthcoming, and he could only powerlessly watch as death descended in on his best friend in the form of an angry oggron and a gleaming great sword.

He felt torn. He couldn't abandon the Mage, because she was the only hope they had of getting out of this alive. But damn it all, Marcius was also his friend!

Three more spears, and their owners, landed lightly on the ground in front of the pair, pretty much sealing the promise that there was no escape as they stalked carefully in. No spells came forth from Alicia either, and without her help, Jared didn't think they could break free to assist Marcius. They would be ran through before they even got five paces to the apprentice.

Things looked bad.

He saw a goblin sneaking up on the rocky ledge above Marcius, long spear in hand, while another host of black shafted arrows fell from the air like deadly rain. Alicia's enchantment stopped the arrows like before, but the spell seemed a bit weaker, for the missiles had gotten further and even trembled before dropping lightly to the earth. The enchantment was wearing off. Soon there would be no spell to shelter them.

Okay, things looked very bad.

❧
　❧　❧

"Marcius, get away!"

He heard the cry, but he just co
uldn't physically bring himself to listen to the warning. Every muscle in his body felt frozen stiff, and his mind was as blank as a freshly wiped slate. It was all he could manage to simply watch the oggron charge down on him.

Time seemed to slow down in
the wake of his impending doom. His life did not flash before his eyes, or any of the other things that was often said to accompany those looking into the face of death. Instead, it was as if his senses had heightened to an unfathomable degree. Every detail of the scene before him became surprisingly clear. From the way the dust rose with each heavy footfall of the oggron, to the crude individual stitching that held the non-uniform leather scraps together into a vague semblance of a chest piece.

Step. The o
ggron was only a few paces away now.

Marcius.

Another step. Almost within striking range.

Marcius!

One final step. The sword swung down in a heavy two-handed swing that bore the full brunt of the several hundred pounds of muscle and anger behind it.

MARCIU
S!!

Faerril's cry somehow released the restraints on his legs, though all he wanted to do was run away. Indeed, it was this very need that now spurred him into action and probably saved his life. He managed to throw himself to the side at the last possible
moment, right as the heavy sword came crashing down, barely missing him.

Though the near miss did surprise the oggron, the grey skinned fighter was no novice in battle. Battle honed reflexes caused the one hand to release its grip, shooting out to narrowl
y clip Marcius on the shoulder, turning the apprentice's last second dodge into more of a half spin and keeping him in line for an attack. With a sharp twist of his hips, the oggron shifted the sword into a vicious one-handed horizontal slice that would have probably cut Marcius in two had the apprentice not lost his balance and tripped on an outlying rock.

The air was blasted from his lungs as he hit the ground hard, and the sword cut harmlessly right above him. It was so close that he could feel the air t
hat ruffled his hair in its wake.

Marcius's luck had run out though. Now he was prone on the ground, coughing and desperately trying to just orient himself. He was barely able to form a coherent thought, nonetheless dodge an attack.

He kept his eyes closed as he gasped and coughed, fully expecting to be skewered at any moment. But in the several tense seconds that followed, no such strike came. Marcius dared to hope that perhaps his attacker had relented, that he had been shown that unexpected bit of mercy, sparing him from death. Such thoughts were dashed as a strong hand latched around his neck like a vice, lifting him up easily.

Marcius's feet were dangling now as his hands alternated between beating at the arm that held him aloft, to gripping it in order
to stop himself from choking. He flailed, he kicked, and he struggled, all of it to no avail. The arm was unwavering, and the grip was getting tighter with each passing second. His chest burned for air, but all attempts to breathe were cut off by the oggron.

He dared to open his eyes and glance at his attacker. Beady black orbs greeted him, staring unwaveringly back. Obviously the beast took immense pleasure at watching the life slowly ebb from Marcius
’s body. His limbs were moving sluggishly now, and Marcius could feel the sharp edge of his mind begin to dull as his body started to fail.

He was going to die, and there was nothing he could do to stave it off.

The oggron suddenly released a bit of the pressure, allowing Marcius to briefly fill his greedy lungs with precious air. It was only a momentary reprieve, the equivalent of giving a parched man the merest hint of water. The gray hand again tightened, and finally Marcius realized the beast was toying with him, giving him the brief shadow of hope only so it could derive the pleasure of taking it away.

Something in Marcius snapped at the realization. The sheer audacity of the oggron's actions had triggered some deep chord within him, an inner rage he didn't know h
e had. Things could not end this way, they just couldn't! He had too many plans, desires, and ambitions left undone. He just couldn't accept that everything he had done up until now was for naught. Briefly, he wondered where Jared and Alicia were. Why had no help come from them?

Of course, it was one thing to take offense. It was a whole other thing to do something about it. What exactly
could
he do when the oggron seemed to literally be holding all the cards in this morbid game of life and death? Physical response was out of the question. He couldn't even free himself from one arm, nonetheless deal with the whole being. Never before had he felt so powerless.

Logic would dictate that this of course left only magic he could turn to. Unfortunately, logic broug
ht along with it the fact that he could only cast spells with verbal components in the spellwork. His hands were too busy keeping himself from choking to even begin to form the arcane signs required for anything beyond that. With his limited spell repertoire, that only left one possible spell that he could use to free himself. And that spell would probably kill him.

That is if the oggron didn't get wind of his casting and kill him first.

Looking into the dark eyes glowing with triumph was all it took to convince Marcius and chase away any lingering doubt. With a sense of resignation, and as the edges of his vision started to darken, Marcius began muttering the arcane words under his breath, hoping that the gasps and wheezes of his struggle also masked his casting.

It was a race against time, already he could feel himself dizzy to the point of passing out. Would the oggron kill him, or would he reserve that honor for himself?

❧
　❧　❧

Damn it all!
Alicia cursed under her breath.
Marcius is going to die if I don't do something!

As much as she hated to admit, she had began to think of the pair she traveled with as something akin to friends, even that insufferable Jared Garalan.  Though she was adamant about keeping the burgeoning emotions under wraps, for it was s
omething that scared her as much as the prospect of losing the newfound precepts.

This was the first time she had been away from the Academy since she was a child, the first time she had spent time with people her own age who were not Academy students. The
Academy was a place of too much ambition and duality to readily accept a hand open in the gesture of friendship. One had to protect their emotions in that place; it was for magic, not feelings. The newfound freedom allowed her to lower the emotional shield around herself, allowed her to prioritize and take joy in something other than learning magic and the quest for power.

And now it was all going to be taken away
.

Again she tried to cast, only to interrupt herself as she had to quickly shift to the side,
the tip of a wicked spear flashing in where she had been. The quick casts she maintained tugged on the edges of her consciousness, begging her constant attention as they threatened to slip free and disperse themselves back into the nether from where they came. That was something she couldn't afford.

Still, frustration ran alongside of the growing doubt that perhaps this was a fight they couldn't win, that they might die today. She couldn't find an opening to even begin casting a spell, leaving only the thre
e quick casts that she had left to depend on. Two of them were designed to cause devastation to a large group of people. Something which she thought would have been useful given the current situation. But she had miscalculated.

No large group presented the
mselves as targets for her spells, something she had not expected when she selected her spells to be quick casted. All the tales she heard of bandit attacks seemed to indicate that they usually overwhelmed caravans and attacked with surprise. So she had chosen spells that could deal with large masses of people. The three bandits in front of them, and the two above them, hardly counted as a large group of people.

All had gone according to plan when the bandits had attacked with the arrows.
That
was something she expected. The appearance of sparsely grouped bandits and the continued keep-away game they were playing was what she didn't expect. What use is a storm of fire on only one or two of them? She couldn't even aim for the bandits on the ledge above them, since the spells made no qualms about hitting either friend or foe.

And now, since both Jared and Marcius were depending on her, it would seem as if they were doomed. Try as she might, she couldn't think of a way to make it work. Not as long as she was for
ced to keep dodging these damnable spears. Not to mention the enchantment that permeated the air around the trio, rendering all missiles useless, was about to wear off. She wished that perhaps she would have taken a bit more training in casting under pressure. The bit she had taken did not account for the very real terror that arose when your life was on the line.

No, she had grievously blundered.