Shaper of Stone (The Shapers Book 1) (14 page)

I raised my right hand and aimed it at
the guard while I was running. Shira’s training had paid off.
It was like a part of my mind split off to control the magic while
the rest of my brain continued at full speed to the rescue.

The guard was less than ten feet away
when he turned to face me. I never slowed down. My hand outstretched,
I visualized the middle blade sticking out of my hand shooting
forward like an arrow. It struck him in the chest and vanished as it
passed right through him. Dark blood immediately began to pour from
the hole it left behind.

The guard stood there for an instant
before his sword fell from his hand. A second later he collapsed in a
heap in front of the doorway.

A howl of pain came from within the
building as I hurdled the body and slammed into the door. And then
bounced off of it. My shoulder erupted in pain. Damn! That always
looked so easy in the movies.

“Move!” shouted Garit right
behind me. Before I could obey, he pushed me aside and kicked the
door with the heel of his boot. It exploded like he hit it with a
battering ram. Light from within flooded the street.

Over Garit’s shoulder I saw the
building that Balruc had emerged from earlier. That door was also
standing open. The other guards were already rushing out of it.

“We got company coming!” I
shouted before Garit vanished inside. I didn’t hesitate as I
jumped through the shattered doorway to follow him.

Inside the warehouse the air reeked of
vinegar. Shards of broken jars were crushed underfoot as I entered
the building. Garit stood in front of me. His attention locked on the
other person in the room.

It was Balruc. The side of his head was
covered in blood. It took me a moment to realize why. His right ear
was missing or at least a big chunk of it. He was hacking at a pair
of crates with his sword. Splinters of wood flew with each brutal
swing.

He never looked back at us. He just
screamed, “The bastard is hiding back there. When we get him
out I’m going to skin him alive.”

I could see the spit flying, and I was
standing behind him.

Garit didn’t answer. Instead he
raised his sword and slammed it down with enough force to split a
rock. Somehow Balruc saw it coming. He spun away without attempting
to block the strike, whipping his blade in a low, wide arc that Garit
stepped right into.

Garit’s blade sank into a crate
as he grunted in pain. Balruc regained his balance and stepped in
with a reverse strike. The blade came up at an angle from the floor
to the ceiling.

Garit threw himself back, dodging the
deadly blade. He landed on his back in the middle of the floor. His
sword still lodged in the crate.

Balruc leaped forward and stomped on
Garit’s left knee. I could hear the bones crack under the
pressure. If I didn’t do something Balruc was going to kill
Garit.

Well, it worked on the one guard.

“Hey fat man!” I shouted
and when Balruc turned to look at me, I let fly the two remaining
nerafpan blades sticking from the back of my hand.

The fat man snapped his sword to the
side and knocked both blades out of the air.

“I’m going to enjoy this,”
he growled as he closed in on me. “There is no one to protect
you now. Even Vatrale won’t blame me for killing you.”

He might have gone on ranting like that
for a while if it weren’t for Tavi. As soon as Balruc turned
away from him, Tavi crawled out from under the crates. He carried a
shard of wood about three feet long in his hands.

Balruc raised one foot to take a step
forward. Tavi charged. He buried the shard of wood in Balruc’s
thigh. Balruc screamed and slashed down with his sword cutting the
improvised spear in two.

Balruc might be bigger than us. He
might even be better than us, but he couldn’t stand up to all
of us. Once his attention was diverted from me, I channeled into the
nerafpan wrapped around my left wrist and fired three new blades. He
didn’t block these. They tore into him.

He spun to face me, only to have Garit
attack. Bleeding on the floor and unable to stand, Garit had pulled
his dagger and crawled his way toward Balruc. When the larger man
stopped spinning, Garit sank the dagger into his foot, pinning him to
the floor. Balruc’s scream could have woken the dead, but he
stayed on his feet.

I couldn’t believe he was still
standing. He was covered in blood with four blades sticking out of
him. Any other man would have fallen by now, but not Balruc. He stood
there staring at me. I could feel the rage building up in him. He was
pissed.

Not as pissed as me. Since I woke up in
this world I’ve been a burden to everyone around me. I needed
others to take care of me, to help me and to guide me. Everyone who
has ever been good to me had been hurt. It was time for that to stop.
No one else was going to get hurt protecting me. It was my turn to
protect them.

The two blades that Balruc blocked
earlier flew into the air and hovered beside me. The three in his
back quivered in response to my mental touch. I may not have been
able to shape stone or water or fire, but I sure as hell could shape
nerafpan.

The blades in Balruc’s back
ripped free. Together they began to circle around Balruc.

“Damn you!” he shouted as
he pulled his sword back for a killing blow.

The blades, all five of them, shoot
forward. None of them missed. Balruc staggered backwards from the
force of the attack. His foot was trapped by the blade pinning him to
the floor. He couldn’t move. Instead he fell back, crashing to
the ground. Dead.

“No,” I said under my
breath, “Damn you.”

I turned to face the open doorway.
Three guards were standing there. Their swords were drawn.

Garit had stopped moving. He was just
laying on the floor. I hoped he was just unconscious, but I couldn’t
tell. It could be worse.

Tavi stood next to me. The broken stick
still clenched in his fist. It was more like a dagger than the spear
he wielded when he attacked Balruc, but the kid carried it like he
meant business.

And me. I was just standing there,
between the guards and my two friends. The blades ripped free from
Balruc’s body and flew toward me, changing shape as they drew
near until there were five swirling stars of nerafpan circling around
my shoulders. Blood still dripped from them.

“Drop your swords!” I
growled.

And they did.

-o-

“You,” I snapped while
pointing to the guard in front. “Find Hahns and tell him what
happened here. He is waiting for me at the barracks.”

He looked at Balruc’s body on the
floor then at me. Damn if he didn’t smile at me. “Aye,
m’lord. I’ll do as you say.”

He then turned and vanished into the
night. Oh man, I hoped that wasn’t a dumb idea. With Balruc
gone would they follow me? Where did their loyalty really rest? They
were trapped here as much as the prisoners. Maybe they were just as
anxious to be free. Maybe they were just waiting for the chance to
turn on us.

A second guard stepped forward,
“M’lord. We should tend the wounded.”

“We can help,” added the
third man.

I nodded my head and stepped back,
stumbled and sat down hard on one of the crates. The nerafpan stars
circling around me fell out of the air and clattered against the
ground. I might have joined them had Tavi not caught me by the arm.
It didn’t seem like I had much of a choice. I needed the
guards.

“Help Garit. He saved us.”

I put my hand on top of Tavi’s
hand as he steadied me. I was so tired. All I wanted to do was curl
up and sleep, but I couldn’t stop yet.

Garit groaned as the guard rolled him
over, but he didn’t wake. I couldn’t believe how much
blood there was. How much of it was Garit’s and how much was
Balruc’s.

I took a deep breath. I needed to get
up, but I was afraid that if I stood I’d just fall down again.
What would the guards do then?

Instead of standing, I asked about my
friend and protector, “How bad is it?”

“The cut is deep, and he has lost
much blood. It is not good.”

I dropped my head and pushed myself to
my feet. One step. Two. A third and I was next to Garit. I fell more
than knelt, but either way I made my way down to sit on the bloody
floor beside him. I leaned forward so that my head was near his.

“Hold on buddy.”

I didn’t have any idea what I was
doing, but I knew it could be done. Duncan’s ability to channel
was healing him. The power Vatrale stole from me restored his
vitality. The wounds Carvis suffered didn’t seem so bad when I
saw him later. The power had the ability to heal. I was sure Vatrale
used it to help Carvis recover. Could I do the same for Garit?

I was just so tired. It would be easy
to make a mistake.

I straightened and shifted to the side
so that I was facing Garit. The guards moved back to give me more
room. I didn’t know if it was out of respect or fear, and at
the moment I didn’t care.

There was the wound to his stomach. I
tried to control my breathing as I reached out to place my hands over
the bloody cut. Tavi stepped behind me and steadied me by placing his
hands on my shoulder. At least this wasn’t in vain. We saved
the kid.

Now it was time to save Garit. I hoped
this works.

I closed my eyes and pictured the power
swirling into my body, gathering in a pool just above my navel. When
the pool was full I let it pour out of me, through my arms then into
my hands. The power seeped out of my palm washing over the wound. It
flowed into the cut, across tissue and muscle. I let it soak into
Garit. The power became as much his as it was mine.

There was a pulse through the energy.
Then another. It was the beat of Garit’s heart. Then it was the
beat of mine. As the power flowed the pulses slowed and found a
common rhythm. They started to beat as one.

I lost track of time.

Then I lost track of everything.

-o-

There was sunlight on my face. The
warmth felt good.

Someone had a cooking fire going
nearby. The smell of smoke and roasted meat mingled together. My
stomach responded with a grumble as it demanded to be fed.

I pushed myself into a sitting position
and immediately regretted it. The world spun around me. There was a
hammering in my temple that I realized was the beating of my heart.
It was just mine this time. I groaned loudly as I reached for my
head.

“You are an idiot.”

My head cleared and I turned to the
speaker.

“Garit! You are alive. What
happened? Where are we? Where is everyone? ... Oh God, I think I’m
going to be sick.”

Garit slid a bucket to me just in time.
I grabbed it and tried to empty my stomach into it. But nothing came
out. I was wracked with dry heaves for what felt like hours, but it
probably wasn’t even a minute before I finally stopped and
could sit back.

We were in the back of a wagon. There
were two others parked nearby. Those were packed with crates and
sacks, while ours was empty except for the two of us and a couple of
packs tossed against the side.

Garit didn’t look that bad. His
stomach was covered with bandages and his leg was held in a splint.
There was even a bandage on his head.

“I thought you were going to
die?”

“Going to die? I thought I was
dead. From what they tell me if you hadn’t done whatever you
did, I wouldn’t be here now. What did you do?”

“Yes. What did you do?” I
spun toward the new speaker and immediately regretted it as my brain
sloshed around. The world once more blurred around me. When my eyes
cleared I saw Shira standing near the wagon. In front of her was
Tavi. She had her arms around his shoulders.

It looked like she was hugging him to
her.

Behind her stood a tall man that I
didn’t recognize at first. Then he smiled and the resemblance
to Tavi was unmistakable.

“Duncan?” I asked almost
too stunned to speak.

He nodded and wrapped his arms around
his family. “We’ll never be able to thank you.”

“Tavi?” I looked to my
young friend who was grinning from ear to ear.

He clasped Shira’s arm and leaned
his head into it as he looked up to her, “Mama.”

Holy cow! I couldn’t believe it.

I threw back the blanket covering me,
jumped out of the wagon and rushed forward to give them all a hug. My
friends quickly backed away to avoid my stumbling charge as my bare
feet hit the ground.

Ow! That hurt.

Before I took another step I heard a
giggle.

A giggle?

Abella was standing there, off to the
side. “We should stop meeting like this Devin Symms.”

I had forgotten how beautiful she
looked. Or maybe she was more beautiful than I remembered. I didn’t
know, and I might have said something really insightful right then if
I wasn’t suddenly struck by a blanket that sort of draped over
my head.

Garit was laughing so hard he was in
tears. “I told you that you were an idiot.”

What did he mean? Oh crap!

I was naked. Again.

-o-

The others were gone. At least for now.
Abella led them away so that I could get dressed without an audience.
Only Garit remained behind. The splint on his left leg didn’t
make it easy for him to move around. He did slide over to the edge of
the wagon with a pack full of clothing after the others left.

"There was a lot of blood,”
he told me. "Talia grabbed new clothes from your room before we
left. No one wanted to clean the old ones.

"Thanks, but from now on when I’m
unconscious can you make sure they leave my clothes alone. This is
the second time I’ve woken up naked with no idea where I am,
and both times Abella was there to see me.”

Garit grinned, "I’ll try to
keep that in mind for the next time.”