Rebel Mage Page 5

  “Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?”

  Leah spun, the blood rushing from her face. Tilda stood in the doorway, arms folded with her lips pulled down to a frown.

  “Mother, I—” She trailed off as her mother stepped into the room.

  Her eyes! Leah thought. I should have seen it before. They’re so cold. No wonder why she barely looked at me when I walked in.

  “I wanted to tell you, but I thought you’d—”

  “Stop you?” Tilda folded her arms and frowned. “Of course, I would stop you.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Don’t I? Your love has proven to be a rebel—a secret that both you and he have been terrible at keeping, I’m hardly the only one in town to have noticed—and you think you’re going to chase off after him. He’ll be dead within the hour. The only thing you’ll do is be strung up by his side.”

  “We can get away.” Leah licked her lips. “Kaor’s not like the others. He’s older. He’s stronger.”

  “He’s a stubborn fool! Perhaps if you had convinced him to leave before the whole town found out, I might have gone along with it. But I could never countenance you running off like this.”

  “If father were here, he’d understand.”

  “You think your father would let you go off into those woods tonight if he were still alive?” Tilda took a deep breath, her face growing redder by the moment. She lowered her volume as she approached and took Leah’s hand. “Kaor could be the first to get away. Let’s give him the night. If he does, we’ll both go after him. We’ll let it be known we’re going to Hinter. We go often enough nobody will think twice of it.”

  Leah considered the suggestion. It would be less risky, and despite her bravado, she recognized Kaor’s chances of escaping were slim at best.

  He needed her help if he was to survive.

  She didn’t have the faintest idea what she’d do to help him but having another person would at least bolster his hope.

  If I can refrain from throttling him long enough to escape. What if his chance of surviving is dependent on me being with him?

  “No, I’d better go. The fool will need me.”

  Tilda bristled, but her voice was calm. Leah could tell she did this with great effort. “Listen to good sense. You can help him, but not tonight. The only thing you can do is add to the confusion. The forest will be full of dogs and men, not to mention all the lightning. If he gets away, we’ll both go together. I’ve some gold—never mind where it came from—we’ll take it and catch up to him.”

  Leah slung her satchel over her shoulder. “I’m not going to abandon him.”

  “Leah!” Tilda grabbed Leah’s arm, her nails digging into the skin. “You cannot throw your life away! This is foolishness. Pure foolishness. He’s already dead, and you can’t see it. I vow if he somehow gets away, we’ll do everything I said. But tonight, we must wait it out. He made a choice, and now it’s a roll of the dice. Let him take the risk. There doesn’t need to be two bodies when one is required.”

  Leah didn’t answer as she tore free from her mother, leaving the room. Her mother followed her and grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t do this. Don’t go.”

  “I’m all he has. Even Ferk turned in his coat.”

  “You will die! Do you understand that?”

  Leah didn’t answer as she sped toward the door.

  7

  Lights above! Kaor thought, wiping melting snow and sweat out of his eyes. Couldn’t it have been sometime other than night? In the middle of a snowstorm? He had starlight with which to see, but it wasn’t much. Add to that the branches of the large fir trees and the falling snow and he was surprised he could see as well as he did. The storm had a peaceful quality, the large flakes floating to the forest floor and covering the ground like a thick white quilt.

  He ran as fast as he could, his feet slipping and branches whipping his arms and face as he did. Week old snow crunched under the new with every step. His breath turned to mist in the cold night air. It was just his luck that all this had happened right at the start of winter, just as another storm had come. Beryl Ruc wasn’t going to have trouble finding Kaor once he got to the forest. All he had to do was follow Kaor’s frantic tracks.

  As he came up a hill, Kaor slowed to a trot and became more mindful of the branches he passed, taking care to avoid brushing up against them if possible. His increase in care was timed well. He wanted to avoid disturbing the blackened jids that inhabited this part of the forest if he could. The large spiders generally left humans alone, but if one was disturbed, it would bite before scampering off. They hadn’t yet gone into hibernation but would within the next week.

  Lightning crashed through the night sky, startling Kaor as it sizzled through the falling snow while lighting up the forest. Thunder boomed a second or two later, shaking him to his core.

  At least there’s no question the mage has arrived, Kaor thought. A mage and Beryl Ruc. Multo take me. It won’t be long now. He’d never before heard of lightning during a snowstorm, so the arrival of a mage was the only explanation. It sometimes took as long as an hour before a mage responded to the gong. This one had come much faster than that. Kaor hadn’t been gone from East Ridge for more than half an hour.

  On instinct, he brought up his stolen bow and arrow, but stopped before pulling back the bowstring because there wasn’t anything for him to shoot. His knife bounced against his buckskin trousers as he continued on his way.

  He was yet to hear anybody coming from behind, though he didn’t doubt Ruc was close. Ruc’s hounds were well trained and wouldn’t make a sound until they had their quarry in sight.

  Ruc’s stories had always terrified Kaor as a boy. As a man now on the run, Kaor tried to remember every detail, searching for anything he could use. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind. He might have chastised himself for not paying better attention, but what was the point? It would do him no good now.

  Pulling to a stop, Kaor gasped for breath as he wiped away snow that had stuck to his eyebrows. It melted on his fingers and he wiped the water on his jacket before returning his hand to the fletchings of his arrow. There didn’t appear to be anybody in pursuit, but the sound of him struggling to breathe might block out warning of their approach. Taking a deep breath, he held still for a few moments and listened intently.

  Lightning cut through the night sky, but it was further away than the first had been. After the thunder receded, he waited and was unable to detect anybody behind him. That was cold comfort. Ruc always bragged about how he caught his quarry unaware. A deer or a kid, makes no difference, he’d said.

  Kaor gripped his bow. He’d kill Ruc before the man’s dogs ripped him to shreds.

  The Emperor’s mage couldn’t yet know Kaor’s location. The lightning was not even close. The last strike was followed by another. The three lightning bolts were random enough that he was as safe as he could be for the moment.

  The mage is hoping to make me panic. He wants me to make a mistake. Kaor shivered and brushed the snow off his jacket. It was fine for a night around town, but it wouldn’t serve him well once he was deep into the woods. That had been the one thing he’d neglected to put into his stash. He wished now he would have hidden his winter coat, even if uncle Ferk had noticed and asked about it. Little good it would do him now where it hung back on the wall of Ferk’s home.

  Lightning struck, closer than any of the others, and sent Kaor scurrying.

  Judging by the quality and number of strikes, the mage already had a large source of light at hand. That meant he was back in the village, absorbing light from the bonfire and torches of the townspeople; not chasing Kaor with the hunters.

  Kaor shivered and looked up into the swirling snowstorm as multiple lightning strikes came within seconds of each other. The lightning had a green tinge to it. He’d never noticed that before about mage generated lightning and wondered what it meant. Did his own have the same thing? He couldn’t remember.

  Perhaps he had been too focused on helping the townspeople gather wood for the bonfire to notice in the past.

  Kaor pushed away the thought and accompanying feeling of guilt with a snort of derision. Here he was, running for his life, and he was wondering about the color of the lightning that was being used to hunt him.

  The increasing strikes also meant Kaor was dealing with a lightning mage. He didn’t know enough to say all the distinctions, but he was certain lightning mages were some of the most powerful, often fighting at the head of the Emperor’s armies and sometimes removing the need for a battle at all.

  It had been decades since the empire was last at war. More than a century since the last uprising. If common belief was correct, it was the fear of the Emperor’s mages that kept the peace.

  All mages knew how to create lightning, but the lightning mages specialized in killing with lightning. They tended to see lightning or some variation thereof as the solution to most problems.

  Kaor didn’t know what would be worse. A lightning mage or one of the others. All had their limitations, but any could kill him dead without lifting a finger.

  He supposed he could count his blessings that it was a lightning mage, leaving the hunters to do all the dirty work. But that still left Ruc. The man was an unstoppable force.

  Kaor jumped as another lightning strike ripped through the sky, thunder crashing into his thoughts and spurring him forward even faster.

  His head brushed against a branch. Cursed night! Kaor thought when he looked up and saw a blackened jid several feet above his head. The blackened jid’s eyes flashed as they reflected light from another strike. It made no move for Kaor as he hurried on by. He hated the blackened jids and killed them whenever he had the chance. To date, he’d managed to take down two of the suckers. He ducked lower and tried to run faster, something that proved difficult. He couldn’t maintain it for long and was forced to straighten or slow down. He decided to move upright and be more vigilant in his watch for the unseen enemies.

  I’m just as dead either way I go. Ruc’s arrow in my back, the bite of a blackened jid, or burnt to a crisp from above, it doesn’t much matter. He wasn’t certain what he preferred. Perhaps with the lightning, he wouldn’t feel much pain. Anything but a blackened jid. He still had nightmares about them sometimes.

  He felt the next strike before it happened, closing his eyes on instinct. It was close enough he sensed it forming just before it hit. He opened his eyes right after it struck, just in time to see it light up a tree in front of him. The old triston oak’s silvery branches were barren and reached more than fifty feet in the air.

  The thunder shook him to his core when a large figure was illuminated in the lower branches. The brief glimpse was enough to know he didn’t have long to live unless he acted quickly.

  An elipser.

  Mother of Multo, Kaor thought, the silhouette of the winged monster burned into his memory, this too? Elipsers normally slept at night, but the light had gleamed in its open eyes as it stared down at Kaor. No doubt it had been awake since the first lightning strike. In another situation, Kaor might have waited to see what the elipser would do, but he couldn’t afford the luxury.

  Bringing up his bow, he let an arrow fly into the darkness above, trusting to his memory of where it had been, more than sight. The elipser screamed. By the scant starlight that made it through the trees, Kaor could see it lunging towards him, its wings pulled close and its mouth open, showing razor-sharp teeth inside. If Kaor’s arrow had done anything, he was unable to tell.

  Stepping back as he grabbed another arrow, lightning lit up the tree, and Kaor shot it straight into the open maw, cutting off the shrieking beast. Its fearsome cry turned into gurgling. Kaor felt sorry for the bat-like creature, but he didn’t have time to put it out of its misery. Hoping it wouldn’t live long, he gave it a wide berth and continued past.

  A horn sounded, ringing through the chill evening air. It was close. The hounds had to be almost to him. He had a couple of minutes left before he would have to turn and fight.

  Ruc loved to brag about the hounds never making a sound until they were on top of their prey. What Kaor wouldn’t give for a reliable source of light so he could send his own lightning hurling towards them when they appeared. At any moment, teeth could come from the dark and hamstring him. If only he’d had sense enough to be discovered during the day. Things would have been very different.

  Quit it, you fool, he chided himself. The empire tended to send two mages on the daytime hunts. He might have been able to fight, but the mages would have wrapped him up in a bleeding bundle of flesh and bone before he could have created a second bolt of lightning.

  The pathetic sounds of the elipser disappeared behind Kaor as he plunged into a grove of pine trees. The needles of one on the left scratched his face. Judging by the feel, more than sight, he figured the tree was dead.

  Thunder boomed overhead, the lightning occurring maybe a tenth of a second before. The hair on the back of his neck and arms sprung up. His ears rang.

  Cursed night, that was close. Perhaps the mage knew where he was after all and was just having trouble aiming his lightning.

  If Kaor made it to the forest of Raskand, the mage and hunters wouldn’t dare follow. Until then, luck was not on his side. The mage might be back at the village, but he would have brought lucent wolves to accompany the hunter’s hounds. The mage always brought at least one so he could see through the eyes of the wolf.

  Cursing his luck, Kaor gripped his bow as he slipped around a bush he couldn’t identify in the darkness. He was able to see the eyes of a small blackened jid staring back at him. He shuddered, afraid the thing might come after him.

  Things wouldn’t have been this way if Kaor’s father had recognized him as legitimate. Kaor would have had the finest training and become a mage in his own right. Perhaps even given an opportunity to work for the Emperor.

  The thought was jarring.

  Did he want that?

  A part of him said that was better than running for his life in a snowstorm with death awaiting him at every turn. But if he couldn’t even deal with his complicity in Mira’s death, how would he have felt being a part of the machine that was doing this to all rebels?

  No, as much as Kaor was angry at his father for refusing to recognize him, it was better this way. Even if he died.

  A howl came from behind, but it was further back than Kaor had feared. It gave him hope that spurred him forward.

  Most mages did little until the lucent wolf caught up to a rebel. Kaor wondered at this mage’s willingness to create so much lightning. Was the mage showing off his power? His ultimate goal couldn’t just be to intimidate Kaor. He had to be doing it to impress the townsfolk. Perhaps the mage had been accompanied by visiting dignitaries from the empire. Maybe Kaor’s father was even among the delegation, unaware his rebel son was the one being hunted.

  Even if the mage was a pompous fool, somebody with that much power at his fingertips wasn’t somebody to trifle with.

  Sweat streamed down Kaor’s face as several more flashes of lightning came and went. If Kaor’s pulse wouldn’t have already been pounding from all the running, the continual lightning was enough to set it racing.

  The last ones had been close enough that there wasn’t an appreciable difference between the strike and thunder. Even if the mage was using the lightning in random attacks, he could get lucky and hit close enough to blind Kaor.

  Kaor would rather suffer a direct hit.

  Death was preferable to losing his vision. Clenching his teeth, Kaor bit back a curse as his hand scratched against a prickly bush he hadn’t noticed. He pulled it up and saw a drop of blood. The crimson appeared black in the night.

  Fresh blood, he thought as he sped up. Something more for the hounds to latch onto.

  8

  As Leah twisted the doorknob and started to pull, the wind burst past the door, forcing it open until it slammed against her boot. The icy chill felt good against Leah’s flushed face as she stepped out into the snow, pulling the door shut behind her with both hands, shifting to keep her cloak from flying out of the crook of her arm. She tried to slam it shut, but the wind made that impossible. As it was, she was lucky to have shut the door on the first try. It felt like she was trying to pull it shut through sand.

  Once it was closed, she sagged against it, leaning on her shoulder. A sob escaped of its own accord, and she stifled another.

  She could do this. Her mother was wrong to tell her to leave Kaor on his own. The whole Multo cursed town was wrong for the way they treated rebels. Instead of hunting them down, they should have been kept hidden.

  The Emperor killed common folk who manifested the ability to call the light. The noble folk became mages. Couldn’t the others see how wrong this all was?

  She’d never dared speak the thought aloud. No doubt there had to be others who shared her sentiments, but they remained silent for the same reason. They were afraid of being branded a renegade, a rabble-rouser, an anarchist.

  Leah let out a sigh as she struggled to take hold of her emotions. Her mother knew better, Leah had no doubt.

  As she took in the flurries of snow, the reality of her situation was thrust into her face as the frigid cold seeped through her clothes, touching the very depths of her bones. It was night and she had just left her warm, comfortable home in the middle of a blizzard.

  As the cold that had initially been welcome pierced every inch of exposed skin and worked on the unexposed, she realized it was a good thing she hadn’t been able to slam the door. If any of her neighbors had been awake, or if there had been passersby on the street, it was the sort of thing that could draw attention.

  We couldn’t have left in the middle of summer, oh no, it had to be at the beginning of winter, during the night, in the middle of a storm, with hunters nipping at Kaor’s heels while a mage summons lightning and thunder.

  Not to mention the lucent wolves.