Target Of The Orders (Book 3) (5 page)

“I’m not leaving until you do.”

Garrick gave a soft chuckle. “You’ll make me be the one to walk away, will you?”

“Does that threaten you?”

“No,” Garrick said. But inside he felt pressure. A band of fifty people would not move until he left them behind. Action and consequence.

“The Torean House needs to be together if it is to survive,” Sunathri said in a soft tone. “And together it needs to stand for something. What we stand for, Garrick, is the freedom of each person to find who they are for themselves. You may not believe this, but look around us. Nothing holds these people here but that thought. You can leave us, Garrick. But we will never leave you, nor will we fight you unless you take an active side against us.”

“I understand.”

Garrick stood and helped her up.

“Where will you go?” he asked.

“The less you know of us, the less danger we can put you in.”

“And the less danger I can put you in,” he replied.

“That, too,” she said.

He nodded. “Good luck.”

“Luck to you, also.”

Sunathri’s eyes blazed with fierce pride.

In the distance, Darien stood with the Torean wizards, his arms crossed, and his father’s sword sheathed along one leg.

Garrick turned away and walked into the forest heading northward, walking alone and back toward the city where he had a promise to keep.

Chapter 7

When Darien asked if Garrick was going to become a vigilante, the question had irked him.

Vigilante—the word itself seemed sharp and ugly. It held a sense of danger, a hazy aura of radicalism that didn’t appeal to him. The concept of vigilantism felt unyielding and rash. Vigilantes were angry people. Unpredictable. Not swayed by fact. Vigilantes, by definition, were not rational.

But by the time he returned to Caledena, Garrick had decided Elman would die.

What unnerved the most was how at peace he was with the idea.

He had never made such a cold-blooded decision before, but Elman had killed Alistair, and he would have killed Garrick and Darien if it weren’t for the Freeborn rescuers. Call it justice, call it self-defense, or call it a natural consequence of action, it didn’t matter to Garrick.

The orders weren’t going to let him simply fade into the woods to live the solitary life he wanted to live, and since he didn’t plan to be tied to a group, he couldn’t see a different way out. So he would become a vigilante for as long as he needed to be one—which he assumed would be until the orders stopped chasing Toreans.

And Elman would be his first target.

Yes, Elman had to die.

So Garrick walked through patches of thicket, dense woods, and little worn trails with nothing but the calls of birds and the scurrying of rodents as his partners. He got a late start, so the nighttime sky was crystalline and dark by the time he arrived again at Caledena's gates. The song of cicadas filled the air, and dim moonlight made the city was more shadow than passage. His skin tingled in the chill despite—or maybe because of—his body’s adjustments to keep him warm.

He cast magic that silenced his footsteps, and he slipped through the woods at the edge of the city, pressing against walls of dry wood and gliding through alleys and across rutted streets as silently as a cat. The city smelled of refuse. It felt like a cancer.

A derelict slept fitfully at the mouth of a nearby alleyway. Garrick’s life force wanted to reach out to the man, but he was not here for charity. He pushed himself to focus on Elman and his Lectodinian siblings. With the mage’s headquarters in shambles.

Hersha Padiglio’s old mansion was the most likely place for Elman to be.

A few minutes later, Garrick stood in the shadows of an alley just outside the manor. Lights blazed from the building. Three sentries standing inside the surrounding fence confirmed his assumption that Elman moved in.

There would be more sentries, of course. And mages.

A horse whinnied nearby, and the earthy scent of manure brought a grin to Garrick’s face. The stable was occupied.

He set a mage gate and let his dark energy free. One sentry was hungry, another was thinking about a woman he had seen earlier in the day. Garrick held the guards’ life forces in his mind as if they were clay. One thought, and he could kill these men. One thought, and he could step unimpeded into the Lectodinian’s headquarters.

He had killed before.

The idea did not bother him, now.

What did that say about him?

A sharp cry came from inside the stable, followed by a thump like a sack of flour hitting the ground.

The guards came to immediate alert.

Garrick slipped into deeper shadows to watch as two of them went into the stables, and emerged wrestling with a small form between them.

“What is it, Peitar?” the third guard asked.

“Just a punk,” came the reply. “Stop kicking, boy. You’re making it worse on yourself.”

The sound of a backhanded slap cracked against the night.

“Nooooo,” the boy whined.

It was Will, the stable boy who had kept Kalomar.

Will’s youthful essence overwhelmed Garrick's senses. The heat that welled across the boy’s cheek tasted bitter. He felt shame in that heat, he felt weakness.

The men laughed.

“Teach him a lesson, Peitar.”

Another slap came, then another.

Garrick moved without conscious thought, casting a net of magic that flowed over Peitar as he strode toward the group. He spoke more magic.

The guard farthest from him swung his sword and caught Garrick high on the shoulder, but Garrick funneled the guard’s life force into his arm and the gash immediately closed.

Peitar dropped the boy and reached for his sword.

“Alert!” he called. “Alert!”

Garrick cut the guard down with a blast of pure energy, causing the other guards to retreat into the manor.

He grabbed the boy by the shoulder and lifted him to his feet.

Will flinched, but did not run.

A clamor came from inside. Voices called to each other. His surprise was gone. The guards would soon be accompanied by mages, and while Garrick felt prepared for them, he didn’t care to create such a stir if Will were in the middle of it.

Stand and fight, or ensure he could save the boy?

He was here to deal with Elman.

Here to extract his revenge.

But now a crimson welt glowed across Will’s cheek, and Garrick felt chaos building in the city around him. Elman could wait.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Where’s Kalomar?”

“Follow me, sir,” Will said as he set his jaw and raced to the stables.

Kalomar whinnied as they opened the stall.

“Can you ride bareback, sir?” the boy asked.

Garrick leapt atop Kalomar and gave Will a hand up.

“I can manage,” he said, smiling despite the moment.

He dug heels into the horse’s flanks. The boy’s life force nearly burned him as it pressed into his chest.

“Duck down!” Garrick called out as they bolted from the stables.

Will did as he was told.

“Go, boy!” Will yelled to the horse.

Mages and swordsmen poured from the manor building. Kalomar’s hooves beat upon the dirt road. Fire sizzled around them as they charged through the streets. Will leaned into the animal’s motion, and Garrick shifted around to protect the boy as well as he could.

A shimmering blue barrier blocked their path ahead.

Garrick pulled at his link and cast an electric burst of life force that destroyed the barrier.

Kalomar ran harder.

“To the hills,” Garrick said, pointing.

Will buried his head along Kalomar’s neck and turned the animal. They charged through Caledena, out into the open, and then disappeared into the wood. A few moments later, when Garrick could see no one following, he slowed the horse to protect him from stumbling in the darkness.

“You did it!” Will squealed. “We escaped!”

“Don’t celebrate too quickly, boy,” Garrick said. “The orders will not be happy about being on the short end again.”

Will tried to give a solemn nod, but Garrick saw his face was still bright with victory.

“Come on,” Garrick said, prodding Kalomar farther. “We need to put more distance between us before morning comes.”

Chapter 8

Kalomar walked with a steady rhythm. His black mane shifted with his stride.

Garrick pulled Will against him to keep the boy warm.

They turned east after a short distance, then turned south some time later. Garrick considered casting a spell to hide their progress, but any casting was just as likely to draw attention as ward them against it. He was more worried about avoiding Elman’s magic than anything else.

“I knew you would come back, Master Garrick.”

“How?”

“You promised me,” Will replied. “And I just knew.”

Garrick laughed. The boy had an honesty about him that was easy to admire.

“I think we’re going to be fine,” he said.

“I heard them talking about you, sir.”

“Oh, really? And what did they say?”

“They said there’s a bounty on you.”

“With any luck it will be more than ten coppers by now.”

“What do you mean?”

Garrick glanced at the boy. Will reminded him of when he was a stable boy.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “There are things worse than having a price on your head.”

“Name one.”

Being invisible,
he thought, but didn’t say.

“Getting slapped around by a guard,” he finally replied.

“Oh, that’s nothing.”

“No it's not,” Garrick replied. “And don’t let anybody tell you different.”

Kalomar’s ear twitched.

Garrick pulled up short and gave a curse.

He felt mages scattered about, fifteen—or maybe twenty. They surrounded them, hidden in the dark gullies or behind copses of trees. He could feel them all, but he could only get his bearings on maybe half at once before they started to slip away.

“Wh—” Will’s cry was cut short, and his body went rigid against Garrick’s chest.

The blue light of Lectodinian magic glowed around them.

Garrick was free to move, but Will was frozen solid before him.

“We’re going to do this a little differently this time,” a mage said as he stepped into view. Several others followed in his wake.

“Elman,” Garrick said. “I’ve missed you.”

The Lectodinian walked with a noticeable limp, his gaze poisonous, his face freshly scarred.

“You’re hurt,” Garrick said with deadpan clarity and with as much false concern as he could muster.

“Yes,” Elman said, his finger tracing a long scar that ran down his cheekbone. “The creature you brought into the city killed ten mages before we could bring it down.”

“I’ll be more careful next time.”

Elman smirked. “As you have no doubt have already determined, Garrick, I have many mages scattered about, each with magic targeted directly at the boy. One mistake from you, and he will die.”

Garrick set his gates, and felt the Lectodinian mages. He could handle most of them quickly, but there were too many, and—as Elman suggested—they would surely get to Will before he could take them all down.

“What do you want, Elman?”

“I’m taking you back to Caledena.”

“You plan to execute me?”

“Are you always this dramatic, Garrick?”

Garrick did not reply.

Elman sighed. “Personally, I think that would be the wiser path to take. But Lord Esta feels a need to speak to you personally. I hope you are adequately honored.”

“Who is Lord Esta?”

“Tsk-tsk, Garrick. Even the poorest of mages should know the name of the Lord Superior of the Lectodinian order.”

Garrick stared at Elman.

If the Lectodinian superior wanted to talk with him, he had a bit of bargaining room.

Elman continued.

“The boy stays where he is, but you can get off the horse.”

Garrick nodded.

“Be good,” he whispered to Will as he slid off Kalomar’s back. “And don’t worry.”

Four mages walked cautiously forward, each concentrating on the spell work that held Will frozen. One looped a rope around Kalomar’s neck, then, with a firm hand, turned the horse around.