Blades Of Illusion: Crown Service #2 (9 page)

“Watch out!” came cries from her left and right.

Men and women dove out of the way as solid branches that were decades old came down on their heads. Sara didn’t have a choice. She stood her ground and leaned over Ezekiel to block the harshest of the falling debris.

Wincing as smaller saplings that were lower on the tree hit her back first, Sara braced for the impact of the branches that were falling from higher above. She waited for a moment with tense breaths. She hoped that she was strong and steady enough to take the weight and shield Ezekiel at the same time. She knew she was physically capable, but being able and being ready were two different things. It would be the first time she tested this sort of thing.

And hopefully the last
, she thought.

More branches came down as the winds blew with gale-force strength, almost forcing her to her knees and certainly throwing a good number of people into the mud. Sara used her right hand to shield her eyes, and as she looked up to gauge the positions of her fellow mercenaries around them, she saw one man standing alone in the center of a group.

“No, he’s a mage,” Sara muttered with a quick tactical assessment. She could tell a mage from a mundane within seconds with her gift, practically without tapping into it, and certainly without diving into her mage sight. It was more of a perception that an actual assessment. For that, she
would
have to tap into her gifts to divine what type of mage he truly was. For now, she just knew he was. She also knew he was a fool. The debris had not stopped. In fact, the hail of wood only grew fiercer and stronger.

With her elbow nearly resting in Ezekiel’s hair, she felt the slow shiver of his fine strands moving back and forth across the skin of her forearm.

With a frown, not taking her eyes off the mage, Sara whispered, “What are you doing?”

She wasn’t sure
why
she was whispering. The mage wasn’t paying them the least bit of mind. But it felt...appropriate. Ezekiel didn’t answer. So she eased back so that her right leg was bent just behind Ezekiel and she could more steadily crouch over him while taking a peek at his face.

Before she could look down, she heard Ezekiel say with slow precision and chattering teeth, “I’m...fine.”

Sara frowned. “You’re sure?”

Her gaze was still pinned on the mage.

“Positive.”

She nodded and decided that wide-eyed gaping just wouldn’t do. She wanted to see who he was, what he was. But time was limited, and although Sara had no idea
what
sort of mage he was, she had no doubt in her mind that the branch coming straight down toward his head would render her curiosity a moot point. The branch had to weigh at least fifty pounds. It was thick and massive, and would certainly do enough damage to break his bones, if not kill him outright.

“Clear the way, you fool!” she called out desperately, hoping he would dive out from under the falling debris.

He didn’t look towards her to heed her warning at all. Instead, he threw his head back and raised his arms until the sleeves of his robe fell to his shoulders. Sara could see a colorful array of tattoos covering every inch of the mage’s skin. But it was what came out of his hands that had Sara’s jaw dropping.

With a shout, he released gusts of fire that blew upwards like fiery cyclones. The maelstrom rose and rose from his palms in the form of cyclical tunnels that burned the tree branches on contact. The tunnels grew to encompass the meters around the mage in the center, but they still didn’t take care of the branches falling throughout the clearing.

“He certainly did ‘clear the way’,” she muttered in wonder.

S
ara couldn’t believe her eyes. The mage had called upon a level of magic that Sara hadn’t known a single person was capable of.

“Well,” Sara muttered with an impressed tone, “capable of
surviving
, anyway.”

If
she
tried calling on that much magic as a battle mage, she’d likely combust from the inside just trying to control the furious onslaught of her gift. Oh yes, the magic would respond. But it would respond so ferociously that she wouldn’t be able to control it. Forget going berserk—she’d be certifiably
insane
, alongside pleasantly flame-boiled.

Apparently, Ezekiel had the same idea, as the curator fought to speak, with frequent pauses to take wheezing breaths.

“Natural mage. Natural gifts. Called on power in aura around us to expand his touch,” Ezekiel finally managed to explain between breaths, which now alternated between wheezy exhales and hacking coughs.

He sounded liked a dying man. He
was
a dying man. The very thought made Sara frown, but she was no fool. As optimistic as she was that she could save Ezekiel, she was also a realist. The poison was working its way through his body, disrupting its natural functions and shutting down organs in its path. She just had to find a way to cut off the virulent poison in its tracks before it finished its quest to completely annihilate the only person in the empire she could refer to as a friend and not be lying about it. Warmth flowed through her heart as she listened to him cough out his words. It wasn’t the warmth of love or kindness. It was the warmth of wry amusement as she fought to not let a cynical smile show on her face. Cynical because she was happy that Ezekiel was still Ezekiel. He may have been dying in the center of the most dreadful natural reserve she had yet to encounter, but he was still a fountain of knowledge. And if she had her way, he forever would be. Sara had made a promise to keep him alive, and she would keep that promise...as long as it didn’t interfere with her own quest for answers about her father’s death. And right now, it didn’t. In fact, she
needed
Ezekiel in a way she would never admit aloud. She needed him to ground her as she fought the rage that burned inside her like a fire she couldn’t quench—one that she didn’t
want
to quench. That fire kept her rage burning aside and pushed her to move forward. Unfortunately, it also had the awkward side effect of making her rage against her captain and those who had betrayed her fellow mercenaries burn all the more brightly. Ezekiel kept her reined in and in check, with the goal of staying focused on one task. If she tried to avenge the world, she’d never avenge the people who mattered most to her...her family. Her father, a disgraced and executed imperial commander. Her mother, a murdered woman whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sara lowered her arm with her knife in hand to absentmindedly push Ezekiel back down by his right shoulder. She didn’t even remember cutting the binds that bound his left leg to her right, but she supposed she had. That, or Ezekiel had with his good hand. Either way, he was now free from her restraining grip and the tether to her leg. She knew his academic curiosity was getting the better of him, as his sense of curiosity always developed at the worst possible moment. Now he was sitting up and trying to peer around her body into the fiery inferno, like a child admiring a new toy.

“Sit back,” she snapped, “Your left side is already as useful as candle wax, don’t make your right side burned beyond recognition.”

He murmured, “You should talk.” But he obeyed and sat back reluctantly.

Sara chose not to hear his backtalk, but she became very aware of the sweat appearing on her skin. Ezekiel was right, the heat from the mage’s magical fire was blistering and only getting hotter by the second.

She resisted the urge to throw Ezekiel across her shoulder and run for shelter. Instead, she opened her gift and looked at the raging core of her battle magic. With a hesitant touch, she grabbed for it, unafraid but strangely reluctant to arouse the magic from dormancy.

“No, not hesitant,” she whispered to herself grimly, “Wary.”

“What?” Ezekiel asked as his upper body strained against the hold she had on him after being forced to pull him back with a restraining hand. It was a bit of a cumbersome position because that same hand held a knife. He was eager to see, and her holding him back like an infant gripped by its mother didn’t help matters. Still, he wasn’t stupid. He only strained against her grip enough to show eagerness, but not enough to show foolishness and have her knock him unconscious for the attempt.

“What did you say?” he muttered again, not really paying attention to her, but talking to keep her distracted from his ultimate game—acquisition of more knowledge, even if the flames blinded him.

Well, two could play that game.

Sara firmly ignored him, tightened the hand that held the knife on his shoulder in warning—enough to elicit a painful cry as her fingers and the pommel dug into his flesh, and she let out a deep breath. Calling on her magic outside of a fight was a touchy subject for her, and for any battle mage, really. No one wanted to be remembered as the soldier that had tried to lift a stone block to help clear the streets of a blockade, only to end up massacring dozens of individuals because they loss themselves to their inner nature. But this fire was getting much too hot. Her leather bracers were starting to crack under the heat and she could feel rivulets of sweat pouring down her back. No, this wouldn’t do. So Sara called up a shield of battle fire, one that produced more heat than any natural fire and would protect them both from the flames.

Her battle fire shield was as clear as a bright, summer’s day. The only sign that it was there was when the blue and white fire rippled across the shield as it absorbed the heat and became stronger from the source of natural power.

It was a good thing, too, because the mage’s inferno was only growing stronger with each passing second.

Crouched down at Ezekiel’s back, Sara wondered how much longer that would keep up. She lowered her useless sword to the ground but held the knife at the ready. “What does he think he’s doing?” she muttered to herself as she watched the mage with narrowed eyes.

“Making a path,” rasped out Ezekiel.

She soon realized Ezekiel was right as she retrained her eyes to not just look at the center, at the mage, but rather on the scene as a whole. She could feel her gaze expanding outward as she took in the actions of the mage and reactions of the falling vegetation around them at the same time. The mage slowly pushed his arms apart and, as he did, the fiery cyclones he wielded followed his movements. Quickly, every bit of falling wood was incinerated, until only a cloud of ash fell on their heads.

With a triumphant shout, the mage lowered his hands and his inferno dissipated as if it had never existed. Reluctantly, Sara let her shield fall at the same time. Her reluctance was because she had no idea what he planned next, but dropping the shield was necessary because it was draining her core and putting a strain on her resources when they weren’t sure what was coming next. The strong winds and falling branches were just the introduction. Now what would come from above?

With a slow breath, Sara turned cautious eyes on the former canopy above, but she could make out nothing yet through the falling ash.

A shout of relieved laughter startled her and her eyes retrained on the source of the inferno. The man stood in the middle of the clearing covered in dark ash, his muscled arms wresting with a hand on each hip, and a shit-eating grin on his face.

Hooting in glee he raised his arms outward with his palms up and turned in a slow circled. “Look upon your savior, gents. Pullo is his name. Never forget!”

That went over well with the mercenaries crouched at the edge of the clearing. Catcalls, mocking shouts, and a very clear “Curse you, too, Pullo!” came right back at him.

Pullo, the fiery mage, tossed his head back with a roar, “How about those skills?”

Sara snorted. “Cocky man, isn’t he?”

As Sara watched with a disbelieving look, he reveled in the further shouts his display of glory was receiving. Another mercenary approached her—Sara was aware of his footfalls well before he reached her.

Crouching beside her, the man answered her as if he hadn’t just run fifty feet. “Think he has a right to be. He just saved all of our lives.”

She looked over at him in disbelief. At both his comment and the fact that he had heard her. The man flashed a grin and addressed her look while tapping his ear. “Talented ear this. Useful on the battlefield to relay orders.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Sara muttered disdainfully.

“That I’ve got a talented ear?” the man asked helpfully. “Titus is my name.”

Sara didn’t deign to give hers, but Ezekiel piped up, “Ezekiel Crane, at...your...service.”

Sara’s grip tightened and her mouth turned down. She wasn’t displeased that he had spoken. She was displeased that he was dying. Then she sheathed her sword, transferred her knife to the other hand, and helped Ezekiel to stand.

With a tense breath and a hand tightly locked around Ezekiel’s elbow as he stood with the help of a very large tree branch that she had fashioned into a makeshift staff, she looked around warily.

“Now what?” Ezekiel breathed out.

Sara’s stomach turned. She didn’t know, and she didn’t have a good feeling about this. She didn’t have a
bad
feeling either. She just didn’t know what to expect and she didn’t like when she didn’t know something.

Then Ezekiel’s question was answered. The fierce winds had not only broken a dense layer of branches above their heads but also brought down some massive trees. Only the inferno called up by the mercenary mage known as Pullo had saved them. But the entire process had left them vulnerable as well. Under the pouring rain of the newly visible sky, Sara cursed as she squinted and saw large shapes falling to the ground from above. No, not falling. Descending. Descending upon the newly-open ground.

She looked around and realized that the wind, the falling branches and even the fire had done one thing—cleared the ground for an invasion.

Sara swore. “It’s a landing pad.”

“What?” Titus said.

“They created a
landing
pad,” she said insistently. The perfect area to launch an assault on a weakened group of mercenaries.