Divided (#1 Divided Destiny) (14 page)

In fact, he looked like he had been through a rough time. His fatigues were mud splattered, and his dark hair was caked together in clumps from mud. He had dirt streaks on his face, which appeared to have only been washed off by sweat. However, his gear seemed intact and he was mobile; that was what was important.

“Then it’s Nick, and would you believe I crossed an armored knight wielding a sword?” Nick quipped, but the humor didn’t reach his hazel eyes. “I could have done with some armor of my own out there.”

“It’s good to have you with us,” Don told him with a smile.

“You came from the border?” Leo asked.

They had parted ways with Mathis an hour earlier, at the fork in the road. He had gone in one direction and they had followed this path. If this path led to the border as well, and not north to the sorcerer, then they might have a problem. Clarity of purpose, wishful thinking, just keep north…well, the last part they could do. Hopefully that would be enough to see them right.

“Landed on the other side of it, I’m guessing. There’s one hell of a battle going on. Don’t know who it’s between or why, but they don’t have much regard for making sure of their targets,” Nick reported darkly.

“Well, we’re heading north to see a sorcerer,” Leo said, enjoying the flicker of surprise on Nick’s face. It wasn’t every day you got to say that seriously. “So about face.”

The three of them started marching down the path once more, Nick retracing his previous steps. As they walked, Leo and Don filled him in on what little they knew about Kaslea and about the unfortunate death of Gunnery Sergeant Rogers. They would have to make camp that night; Mathis had said they would reach the sorcerer’s cottage by nightfall the next day, an estimation that would have been based on the pace they had set together.

Leo couldn’t help but feel a sense of urgency. People would be dying back home while they were walking through a forest. On Earth, the air would be filled with smoke from fires and the screams of the desperate. Here, they walked a sun-dappled path with clean, crisp pine air. Here there was relative peace. It wasn’t like a normal mission, where they were in some hellhole getting shot at every day.

Obviously the peace on this world was an illusion; the village that had been attacked by the dragon still smoked, and there was a horrendous battle taking place not much more than a day’s march from here. However, marching down the path, there were no sounds but their boots on the ground and the wind in the trees. It was surreal, and it only added to his anxiety.

Increasing the pace would only buy them an extra hour or two at most; Nick was injured, and pushing hard would only aggravate his wound. It would hurt them far more than it would help. But knowing that didn’t help ease his frustration. That was frustration they all likely shared, perhaps even more so for the others.

He had no close personal ties left on Earth, not after the recent death of his parents. He was an only child and currently not dating anyone. His best friend was marching by his side. However, that didn’t mean he had stopped caring.

The devastation he’d seen in New York had burned into his brain. He would do anything to stop that scene from being replicated across the US, or indeed across the world. That was why they were here, and not there, but emotion didn’t know logic. He still burned to be there, to do something, anything, to save them.

That was what marines did—Semper Fi! Always faithful, always forward. They would seek out the sorcerer, find the rest of their unit, track down a weapon, and then discover the way home.

Failure was not an option—or at least, that was what he hoped. In the privacy of his own mind, Leo was terrified that they
were
going to fail. He tried to stay upbeat for his comrades, and he knew that Don and Nick were forcing themselves to do the same for him. However, just because they didn’t show fear, didn’t show their despair, didn’t mean that they didn’t feel it.

All they had to give was their best. Leo couldn’t help but be terrified that it wouldn’t be enough.

Chapter Eleven

The following day, the sun was beginning to set by the time they spotted the wooden hut the sorcerer, Cyrus, called his home. It was hard to make out the wooden structure from the surrounding forest; it blended into the dirt and the trunks of the trees, rendering it near invisible in the twilight. When Leo spotted it, he decided to begrudgingly give Mathis his due; the directions might have been fanciful, but they had worked.

The hut stood in the center of a small clearing. There was a garden ringed with small white stones and filled with various herbs. A fire was burning merrily. A black cauldron hung over it, white steam rising from the boiling water within. Leo shook his head at how stereotypical a picture this presented. He was starting to wonder if the tales of magic on Earth had their origins in this world; it would certainly explain why this world looked like it had stepped out of a book.

As they drew closer, the door to the hut opened, and Leo heard Don snort behind him. The man who exited was clothed in a brown robe; a dirty white rope served as a belt. He was old, with a wispy gray beard, wrinkles crinkling his face, and rheumy blue eyes.

This was the sorcerer of legend? He certainly had the look of Merlin about him, and a young man wouldn’t have had the time to develop a reputation. However, he looked past ready for the retirement home. His initial appearance didn’t exactly speak to great power.

“Sir?” Leo approached slowly. “Cyrus, the sorcerer? Knight Mathis sent us.”

Cyrus muttered indistinguishable words under his breath. He wandered over to the cauldron boiling over the fire and sniffed at it, still mumbling, and then moved over to the side where there was a small woodpile. He showed no signs that he had heard Leo, or noticed that there were three men outside his house.

“Hello,” Leo called louder, stepping right in front of the still mumbling sorcerer.

He looked over at Don, sharing an exasperated look. Perhaps the old man had succumbed to the rigors of age, or he’d been smelling his own potions too long. Leo didn’t like to assume anything, but he was thinking Cyrus might not be the full ticket. Frustrated that Cyrus hadn’t even acknowledged them, Leo put a hand on the old man’s shoulder.

Cyrus’s eyes snapped up and he looked straight at him. “You are searching for something,” Cyrus murmured. He nodded slowly. “Always searching, sometimes finding, never looking.”

Having spoken, Cyrus looked back down at the woodpile. He picked up the axe and stared at it as if he had never seen it before and didn’t know what it did.

Leo reached over and plucked the axe from his hand. “Why don’t you let us help you with that?” Leo suggested, keeping his tone calm and soothing. He handed the axe to Don with a pointed look. “Knight Mathis said you could help us locate the rest of our unit.”

Finding the rest of their unit was secondary. The mission had to come first, but more people would be helpful to ensure that happened. Plus, it was part of the fabric of being a marine—they didn’t leave people behind. However, the real reason Leo was asking about the unit first was because he didn’t know if they could trust this so-called sorcerer.

He still believed that the magic was a front for advanced technology. Leo wanted to see how that worked, see if this old man could be trusted, before they asked him for a weapon of mass destruction.

“You have lost them. They are lost,” Cyrus said. He looked up at the sky, to the stars that were starting to appear as the sun lost its battle for the day.

“Can you find them or not?” Don demanded. He swung the axe, splitting the log that was balanced on the chopping block with a loud crack. He leaned down and picked up both pieces, tossing them into the pile. He picked up another log, pausing this time to stare intently at Cyrus. “Well, can you?”

Cyrus looked at Don appraisingly for a long moment before his gaze moved to Leo, and then finally ending on Nick. Leo shivered. When his eyes had met Cyrus’s gaze, the veneer of a doddering old man had slipped. He felt almost like Cyrus had examined his very soul.

“That is not the question you wish to ask,” Cyrus stated. “But yes, I can help you find what you seek.”

Nick grinned and slapped Don on the back. Don swung the axe to chop another log for firewood, but Leo didn’t move. He stared at Cyrus, waiting for him to move. This would be the test; this would be the point when they would find out whether magic was just a smokescreen or if this world truly was fundamentally different from their own. He hoped not, as if that was the case, then maybe there wouldn’t be a weapon that would translate to their world.

“Do you need something before you can do whatever it is you are going to do?” Leo asked after a minute had ticked by and Cyrus had still not done anything.

Cyrus shook his head and muttered under his breath. Leo didn’t catch what he said, but he could guess; it was likely something about the impatience of youth. Cyrus wandered back over to his herb garden, kneeling down in the dirt in front, reaching for a few plants.

“So it’s a locator potion?” Nick ventured. Cyrus didn’t respond, so he shrugged. They would see for themselves soon enough.

After a few more minutes had passed, and a half a dozen more split logs for Cyrus’s fire, the sorcerer hauled himself to his feet. A few mixed herbs clenched tightly in his hand, he shuffled over to the cauldron still bubbling merrily over the fire. He tossed the herbs in and picked up a wooden ladle, which he used to stir the concoction.

Next to the fire were some small wooden bowls. Cyrus lifted one and decanted some of the mixture. Leo raised an eyebrow. He hoped that they weren’t watching him cook his dinner. This was getting frustrating.

“You.” Cyrus held out the bowl with his right hand and pointed at Nick with his left. “For your wound.”

“Thanks,” Nick accepted warily.

*****

Nick wasn’t sure he was willing to trust something brewed in a cauldron, over an open fire, in the middle of a forest on an alien world. Cyrus stared at him, unblinking. Nick shifted uncomfortably. The seconds ticked by and Cyrus didn’t move; he was clearly waiting for him to use the paste-like substance. Nick looked at Leo, who shrugged and looked as uncertain as Nick felt. That wasn’t helpful, considering Leo was the ranking enlisted man here, but it was Nick’s body; Leo clearly wasn’t going to order him to accept the medicine.

It was green and smelled funky, but perhaps it was a test, an expression of trust. Maybe he wouldn’t help them otherwise. And Nick hadn’t asked him for a magical healing solution to his injury—he’d offered. Carefully, Nick put the bowl down on the ground. He shrugged off his tactical vest, wincing as the motion tore at his wound.

His shirt was already ripped, allowing clear access to the gauze he’d applied. Hissing with pain, Nick pulled the bandage off. The wound was sickly purple around the blow; the cut was red and raised. He grimaced. He had hoped that it wouldn’t have gotten infected; he’d washed it as well as he could, but clearly it hadn’t been enough. Perhaps it had been the stitching. He wasn’t a medic; the two medics assigned to each of the tactical squads were MIA. He’d just had to do the best he could with what he’d had.

“Damn, man, that’s nasty,” Don swore, stepping closer. “You need a hand with that?” He gestured to the pot of paste.

The injury was on his side, under his right arm, which was his dominant side. He would have to twist and apply with his uncoordinated left. “Yeah, thanks,” Nick accepted gratefully.

Don scooped up the pot. He looked over at Cyrus, who said nothing; he just stood there, passively observing everything. They didn’t have gloves; no alcohol or anything similar for disinfectant, just precious little water, which would do next to nothing. With a shrug, Don dipped his fingers in the paste and spread it over Nick’s wound.

“It’s tingling,” Nick said after a moment. He looked at Cyrus. “Is it supposed to do that?”

A faint smile tugged at the edges of Cyrus’s mouth, and Nick took that as a good sign, or at least he hoped it was. If Cyrus was going to be an enemy, then he could have been pleased with himself for reasons that weren’t beneficial to Nick’s continued health.

“Whoa,” Don murmured. He picked up the discarded gauze bandage and rubbed at the paste.

Nick looked down and his jaw dropped. His wound had disappeared, leaving completely unblemished skin behind. He touched it, and aside from the greasiness of the paste, it felt normal. There was no pain, no sign that he had ever been injured at all. It was incredible, miraculous…it was magical.

“Thank you,” Nick said sincerely.

A simple thank you couldn’t convey how grateful he actually was, especially given that infection had started to set in. He would have been useless, or dead, without Cyrus’s magic potion. For him, that already made this trip worthwhile, and Cyrus had agreed to help them further. He was definitely a good sorcerer.

*****

Leo stepped forward. “Yeah, thank you. We really do appreciate that. In fact, I wouldn’t mind taking some to go,” Leo joked, to lighten the mood, though in all seriousness that would be helpful. If it was something they could replicate on Earth, that would be a huge discovery. But it still wasn’t why they were here. “You said you could find our people.”

“I can help you find what you seek,” Cyrus corrected. “There is a moonbeam plant, a day’s journey from here. It grows on a small island in the middle of a lake.”

“You need this before you can help us?” Leo checked. “It’s a critical component for the spell to find our people?”

Cyrus didn’t respond. His eyes had gone vacant again as he wandered absently over to another corner of his yard. Leo scowled. He was rather starting to suspect that the sorcerer put on the doddering old man routine to avoid answering questions. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Cyrus had failed to say how he would help them.

So far, they had only asked for help finding the rest of the unit. However, Cyrus had pointed out that that wasn’t their real goal. So whether he’d meant that he would help them find their people, find something to defend Earth with, or find the way home was anyone’s guess, and that wasn’t good enough. If they were going to make a deal with Cyrus, he wanted be sure it was clear what they wanted in return.