The Silent Tempest (Book 2) (12 page)

His sonic attack hadn’t worked as well as
he had hoped, however. It had shaken the wolves, but they had recovered
quickly. Two of the wardens sent spear-like blasts out before he could restore
his defense, impaling him through shoulder and abdomen. Tyrion fell, landing
off balance and hitting the ground as he raised his enchanted shield once more.

Near the wagon he could see that Kate’s
crossbow had taken down one of the wolves that had been assigned to take them,
the other was nowhere to be seen.

Bleeding and in pain, Tyrion struggled to
stand on his one good leg. Five wolves circled him as he opened his mouth and
laughed, “You missed my heart. You’ll regret that.”

One of the wolves stood, shifting into
human form before speaking, “You’re dying, Tyrion.”

“You first,” he answered, grinning. There
was madness in his eyes.

“You’re losing blood, growing weaker,”
said the Gaelyn warden. “You can’t protect the children anymore either.
You’ve lost. Drop your shield, and I will make it quick.”

“I’ve got enough blood left in me to
finish you off,” said Tyrion. “That’s all I need.” The shield around the
wagon reappeared as the words left his lips. Another mage stood within the
circle, a powerful one by the feel of him.

Shit,
thought Tyrion. One of the Gaelyn mages was inside. He had
lost.
But I can still kill this one.

A look of uncertainty was on the Gaelyn
warden’s face now, and he backed away. He turned to the wolves, “We return to
Garoltrea. This fight is done.” Shifting back into wolf shape, he and the
other wolves retreated.

Confused, Tyrion watched them go, but he
didn’t waste the opportunity. Turning his attention inward, he began sealing
blood vessels, stopping the bleeding that was rapidly killing him.
Punctured
lung, clean hole through the liver, and the leg…
Any of the three would
have been fatal on their own, but only without prompt attention. He closed the
small arteries and veins that had been damaged and sealed the skin on the
outside. There was more to be done, but it wasn’t urgent, nor did he have the
energy for it just then.

Tyrion slid slowly to the ground. He was
bone tired—and thirsty. He still didn’t understand their retreat, and his mind
was too fuzzy to focus on the other mage, the one that still stood within the
shield that protected the wagon and the others.

“I’ll kill him later,” he muttered to
himself as his vision narrowed to a dark tunnel. His eyes closed, and he let
oblivion take him.

“We should kill him now while we have the
chance.”

The voice was that of a girl, though he
couldn’t be sure which one.

A male voice responded, “He’s dying anyway.
Let’s just go home.”

“The wardens will come after us. Some of
them are still alive,” said another boy.

“He isn’t dying.” That was Kate. “And no
one is going to ‘finish’ him, not while I’m here.”

“We’ll load him onto the wagon and keep
going,” said another. Tyrion recognized that one, it was Gabriel Evans. His
voice held a certain confidence and a trace of authority, something it hadn’t
had before.

“Who died and made you king?” asked one of
the girls.

“You’ll do as I say,” answered Gabriel.
Tyrion felt a surge of aythar, and a brief flash of light made the inside of
his eyelids turn orange.

“You don’t even know how to use that yet,”
said the girl, still somewhat defiant, although her tone was quieter now.
Tyrion was guessing that voice belonged to Brigid.

“Gabriel is right,” said Kate. “Help me
get him to the wagon.”

He felt her hands sliding under his
shoulders and other hands at his ankles. The pain that went through him as
they began to lift was unbearable. “Stop!” he groaned, opening his eyes.

“He’s awake,” warned one of the girls
watching from the side.

Looking up, he found himself staring into
Kate’s face. Her hair had come loose from the bun she had tied it in and was
now a red tangle, falling around him. Her cheeks were red, and her eyes looked
puffy.
She’s been crying again,
he thought.

He addressed Gabriel, who stood near his
feet, “There’s a better way. Use your mind and try to imagine a flat plane,
strong and hard, underneath me. Once you’ve got a good hold on the image, push
your aythar into it, make it real, then you can use that to lift me and put me
in the wagon bed.”

“There’s blood all over you,” Kate
informed him. Her voice sounded thick.

He met her eyes, but then let his gaze
drift, noting the way her neckline gaped as she leaned over him.
Damn,
she’s grown since I left.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “It’s all mine.”
Looking back at Gabriel he asked, “Can you do it?”

The youth nodded, closing his eyes.

Several minutes and a few painful jolts
later and Tyrion was lying in the back of the wagon. Kate sat beside him and
Gabriel had climbed into the driver’s seat.

“What happened?” asked Tyrion.

“When they came in…” she began before
pausing and restarting. “There were two of them. I shot one, but I couldn’t
stop the other one, but then, Gabriel did something.”

“His power awakened,” said Tyrion.

Kate nodded, “Something happened, and then
the other wolf fell over, its body was almost in two pieces.”

Killed a warden,
thought Tyrion.
Even I couldn’t have managed that right after
my power awoke.

The sound of retching caught his
attention. Gabriel was leaning away from the driver’s seat, vomiting onto the
ground.

“Get out of the driver’s seat, fool,” said
Tyrion. “Let someone else drive.” He turned his head toward Kate, “Tell Tad
to drive. I’m sure his father must have taught him.”

She gave the orders, and the teens moved
to obey her, then she looked back at Tyrion, “What’s wrong with Gabriel?”

“Nothing,” he answered. “He’s just got
vertigo. The magesight does that when you first get it. His brain is
struggling to deal with his new sense of aythar. Have him sit back here with
us. Tad can drive, and the others can walk.”

“I’m not going,” said Piper Jenkins. “I’m
going home.”

Everyone froze for a moment. The other
teens were considering her words. Tyrion felt Kate leaning back in the wagon,
bracing against something, and pulling. He ignored that, focusing on his next
threat.

“I’d regret that, girl,” he told her.
“I’ll be very displeased if I have to sit up and waste my time and energy on…”

“Nobody leaves,” said Kate, interrupting
him as she stood, crossbow in hand. It was cocked and loaded.

“You wouldn’t do it,” said Anthony Long,
challenging her.

Kate leveled the weapon at him, lifting it
to her shoulder and sighting along it. “Run and we will find out.”

“You can’t be siding with him!” protested
the boy. “He’s a lunatic. He’ll kill us all.”

“No,” she said calmly, “he’s right, and
what’s more he just saved your ass. The wardens will be back, and there are
others already on the way. If you go home you’ll just be putting your families
in danger. Lunatic or not, we’re going with him.”

“What’s going to happen to us when we get
there?” asked Piper uncertainly.

“I don’t know,” said Kate, “but if he
thinks it’s better than what will happen if the wardens catch you, then I
believe him.”

You’ll probably wish you
hadn’t said that later,
thought Tyrion.

The wagon began to roll, and the teens
followed, unwilling to chance Kate’s threat. After a mile or two, Tyrion
figured the chance of one of them running had significantly diminished.

“Go home, Kate. You don’t need to do
this,” he told her.

She patted the crossbow, “I think you’re
wrong.”

“Someone else can hold that,” he
suggested, looking at Gabriel who seemed to have mostly recovered from his
nausea.

The boy nodded, “I can hold the bow.”

Kate gave him a doubtful glance, “Have you
ever used one of these before?”

He shook his head, “No, but it doesn’t
look too complicated.”

“I’ll keep it,” she said, addressing
Tyrion again. “Besides, someone has to take care of you.”

Tyrion closed his eyes again. He had
failed, and he knew it. Now that he was injured he couldn’t force her to go
home. “Get me some more water then,” he told her. “I’ve never felt so dry in
my life.”

He had learned from past experience that
thirst was one of the most notable side effects of blood loss.

***

Haley stood in the arena, naked before a
crowd of… well not thousands, but surely hundreds at least. She wasn’t cold,
for she had been practicing at Tyrion’s technique for staying warm, but she
shivered nonetheless. She was vulnerable, bare before spectators, and standing
across from the boy who would kill her.

He had the look of a killer too, coarse
faced and mean. The youth was probably close to her age, but being male he was
larger. His nose was crooked and misshapen as though it had been broken in the
past, which, according to what Tyrion had told her about the people of
Sabortrea, was not unusual.

He grinned at her, exposing a mouth that
was already missing several teeth. It was not a friendly expression.

A voice was speaking to the spectators,
but she couldn’t understand any of it. Her father had mentioned that listening
for the name of her opponent’s grove would provide valuable information, but
she couldn’t sort out the words well enough to pick out what grove they had
said. Besides, she didn’t plan on winning.

“I’m not going to live like this,” she
repeated quietly to herself. Today would be her first, and last fight.

Several blue lights stood atop pillars
spaced around the edge of the arena. A chime sounded, and they shifted from
blue to red. The match had begun.

In spite of herself, Haley created a
shield, nervously pouring her strength into it.
I won’t fight back,
she
told herself,
but I can’t help defending myself.
She would wait,
letting him batter her until she lost control, and he killed her.

A light touch against the shield startled
her, almost wringing a cry of alarm from her throat. Haley was nervous, her
nerves wound so tight she felt as though she might explode.
That was just a
test.

The boy vanished, reappearing off to her
right almost instantaneously.

So he’s Mordan. Like most of
the people here.

Another attack came, this one slightly
stronger, but still ineffectual. She ignored it, closing her eyes, but her
magesight still showed her the battlefield. She wanted to block that out too,
but it would probably cause her to have to release the shield. Haley wasn’t
prepared to do that.

More attacks came, and her opponent became
bolder, attacking more frequently and moving less. Gradually he was realizing
that she had no intention of fighting. Still, nothing he did came remotely
close to cracking her defense. Seconds wore on into minutes, and nothing changed.

Cracking her eyes open, Haley could see
the boy was breathing hard, as though he had been running. His aythar was
flickering slightly, and it seemed dimmer.

He’s getting tired,
she thought,
but he hasn’t done anything yet.

The attacks had stopped, but she felt
something new happening. The ground beneath her was shifting, soil and rocks
sliding apart. Haley was sinking. Puzzled, she watched the earth move until
she was standing six feet below ground level, then the excess moved to cover
her.

She was being buried alive.

He couldn’t break my shield,
so now he’s going to suffocate me,
she
realized.
That’s probably better than the other ways I could die.

She tried to believe that, but as the thin
layer of air within her shield grew stale, her heart began to pound. It was
dark, and her lungs were heaving. Claustrophobia set in, and she began to
panic.

No, no, no, no!

Flailing with her aythar, she tore at the
earth, pushing and ripping until the soil around her churned and moved like
water. The teen who had buried her fought to keep her down, using his aythar
and the weight of the soil already above her to press her down, but his
strength was no match for hers. Haley’s head emerged from the ground, and she
gasped as fresh air filtered in through her shield.

He kept struggling, trying to force her
down, but the boy had half sunk into the churning earth himself while they
battled. His aythar flickered more now, and it was clear that he was tiring
fast. It was almost sad how easily Haley had worn him down.

She tried relaxing, letting him win, but
as soon as the darkness closed around her head, she panicked again. Fighting once
more, she forced herself up, and then she wrapped her enemy within bands of her
own aythar, squeezing tightly against his shield.

Haley didn’t want to bury him, she didn’t
want to kill him. She just wanted it to stop.

Desperate, he thrashed about, throwing his
strength into the shield around him, trying to force her back, but she wouldn’t
let go.

“Just stop!” she yelled, angry and
frightened, but he refused to listen.

His aythar was squirming beneath hers,
like a worm trying to escape a bird’s vice-like beak. He wouldn’t quit, and
her fear was fading, being replace by irritation and annoyance. She just
wanted him to quit, to stop fighting.

Mad, she squeezed harder, screaming at
him, “Leave me alone!” Suddenly his shield collapsed with a strange popping
sensation, followed by a wet crunch as his chest was enveloped by the crushing
force of Haley’s mind. With her magesight she could feel his ribs crack.

Horrified she stopped, releasing him, but
it was too late. A single groaning shriek had issued from him, and he was
unconscious now. Blood ran from his nose, but the broken ribs and bruised
organs in his chest were what made Haley sick.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, though there was
no one to listen. “I didn’t mean to do that!”

She looked up, staring into the crowds
gathered at the edge of the arena, overwhelmed with guilt. Everything she had
ever learned growing up indicated that she had just made a terrible mistake.
Hurting people was wrong. She had been sent into the arena to fight to the
death, but her mind just couldn’t accept it.

“I didn’t mean to kill him!” she shouted.

The spectators remained silent, watching
her. Several had strange smirks on their faces, and one even laughed. Dalleth
stepped into the arena, a look of mild annoyance on his face. Walking closer,
he loomed over her, “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” she answered, bowing her head
as tears ran down her cheeks and nose. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

“He’s still alive,” the Mordan She’Har
told her.

Her magesight had told her that much, but
she knew the boy was dying. His heart had been bruised, his lungs were barely
working, and he was bleeding internally. “He’s dying!” she insisted, hoping
the She’Har would help him.

“Yes,” said Dalleth, “but it could take
hours. I would rather not wait around here that long.”

Haley gaped at him, “But, I—I—I won. It’s
over. He can’t fight. Can’t you help him?”