Warrior Priest of Dmon-Li: The Morcyth Saga Book Three (23 page)

“You lie!” one of them shouts.

“We already had assurances of safe conduct
through your lands,” he tells them. “What possible reason would we
have to break the Pact?”

When his words are translated, muttering can
be heard coming from more than one. “Anyway, we’re leaving this
area and are not coming back.” He turns his horse toward the north
and then says before he leaves, “Follow us at your own peril.”

“What about us?” cries the rider.

“This stuff should disappear in a little
bit,” he replies. Kicking his horse, he gallops away to the north,
Jiron and Miko following.

“You should have killed them,” Jiron tells
him.

“I don’t kill unless I have to,” he replies.
“That may be hard for you to understand, but that is the way I
am.”

“You killed that rider easily enough,” he
states.

“True, but he was attacking and I didn’t
believe he’d listen to reason,” he counters.

“No,” he agrees, “I’m sure he wouldn’t have.
Think they’ll stop following?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” he says. “I did give
them something to think about though. Once we’re out of their
territory, I’m hoping they’ll stop.”

“Then all we’ll have to worry about is the
Empire’s forces and Abula-Mazki,” he says. Grinning, he continues,
“That should be easy enough.”

James grins back, “I like your
optimism.”

They continue on to the north, again keeping
the river at a distance as they move along the eastern edge of the
hills. James is still concerned with the disappearance of the
riders they’d seen earlier to the west, across the river. He’s sure
they haven’t given up the chase, but just where are they?

He direly needs something to use as a
reflective surface so he can scan the area for hostiles. But the
only place would be near the river and that area could prove
unhealthy right now. When he brings his water bottle to his lips
for a drink and discovers it’s empty, he realizes they’re going to
have to chance the river anyway.

They begin moving toward the river, keeping
to the area between the hills. Jiron takes the lead as they move
through the hills, keeping his eyes out for anyone in the
vicinity.

When they reach the edge of the river, Miko
begins watering the horses as Jiron continues keeping a
lookout.

James finds a suitable rock and begins to
dig out a hole at the river’s edge. Once he has a hole two feet
across, he digs a channel to let in some of the water from the
river. When he has enough and the ground has saturated to the point
where it won’t immediately drain back into the dirt, he closes off
the channel so the small pool can maintain a still surface.

He concentrates as the image in the pool
shimmers and then sees an aerial view of them at the riverbank.
Scrolling the image in a wider arc, he sees the entrapped riders.
He grins when he sees several of them have managed to extricate
themselves from the goo. It will still be some time before they all
get free. Despite what he’d told them, he really doesn’t know how
long that stuff will stick around. ‘Stick around’, he lets out a
chuckle at his pun.

Getting back to the job at hand, he scrolls
to the south and finds the riders they’d seen across the river.
Somehow, they’re on this side now and just entering the hills to
the south, maybe an hour or two away. He scrolls the image further
down but doesn’t see any sort of bridge.
Must be a ford in the
river.

Scrolling north, he fails to see any sign of
the rider that had been riding hard to the north. He scrolls even
further but only sees more of the river and plains. The draw of
magic to scroll so far is becoming quite strong, seems the farther
he scrolls the image away from him, the more magic it takes to
sustain it.

He brings it back to the immediate area and
sees no one else. Canceling the spell, he gets up and comes over to
where Jiron is keeping watch.

“The riders we left in the goop are still
stuck,” he says with a slight grin. “Behind us, the riders we saw
on the other side of the river managed to cross and are now
entering the foothills.”

“How far behind us?” he asks.

“Couple of hours, I would think,” he
replies.

“And ahead of us?” Jiron asks.

“It looks clear for quite a ways,” he tells
him. “I couldn’t see more than about five miles but didn’t see
anyone there.”

“What should we do about the ones behind
us?” he asks.

“Someone’s behind us?” asks Miko as he joins
the discussion.

“Yeah,” James informs him and then quickly
relates what he just told Jiron. “Maybe I need to give them a
little surprise when they get here,” he muses. “We have time.”

Ever since leaving the Gathering of the Clans, Sub-leader Ragni of
the Grey Wolf Clan has had serious doubts about following these
men. After witnessing what had happened back at the camp, he soon
realized that maybe they should just let them go.

But Abula-Mazki would not be denied. Their
chief was too much under his influence and so when he went after
them when they fled, Ragni and several other Sub-leaders took their
men with him.

When the pass exploded in front of them, he
thought the rage of Abula-Mazki would kill them all. Somehow the
warrior priest had survived the rocks. All the men around him had
been crushed but none of the rocks had even so much as touched him.
Somehow, he’d reined in his rage at those who they were pursuing
escaped. When told that the only other way to follow would be to
backtrack to the eastern pass, his rage again erupted.

Riding like to kill the horses, he pushed
them on until they were through the pass. Once on the other side,
Abula-Mazki had sent the Sub-leaders and their groups in different
directions in an attempt to locate them, while keeping two of the
groups with him. Ragni was glad that his was not one of the groups
that had stayed with the unpredictable man.

He had moved his men across the river to
patrol the western bank. Earlier they spied their quarry and sent a
man north to raise the alarm while the rest of them backtracked to
the ford.

Once across, they continued the pursuit
halfheartedly. Ragni had no desire to confront a mage who could
bring down mountains, but dare not show this to his men. They
entered the foothills, moving quickly for a little over an
hour.

One of his men cries out from a hilltop
where he’d been scouting. “I see their campfire.”

“They took the time to camp when they knew
we were giving chase?” Ragni muses to a nearby rider.

“Either they’re sure of themselves, or
stupid,” the rider replies.

Nodding his head, Ragni motions for the
scout to return to the group. Once he’s returned, Ragni says, “Use
bows and take them unawares, we cannot let the mage have time to
cast a spell.”

His men all nod and get their bows out and
ready. When all are set, they move as one around the hill toward
where their quarry has their camp.

As the camp comes into view ahead of them,
he sees their quarry sitting there relaxed around the fire, meat
sizzling as it cooks over the fire. Off to one side are their
horses tied in a picket line.

He signals his men to quietly surround the
camp, using animal calls to one another, letting him know they’re
in position.

Once he’s heard the last call, telling him
all are in place, he gives out with the call to signal the attack.
Arrows fly into the camp as they simultaneously fire at the enemy.
They drop their bows as they draw their swords and follow the
volley of arrows into the camp.

Suddenly, a light encircles them and golden
bands arc toward the sky where they meet above the center of the
camp.

His men cry out and try to leave but soon
realize they are trapped in a cage they can’t escape. That’s when
Ragni realizes the mage is facing them. He’s shocked to see all
their arrows in the ground, each one having missed their mark.

The mage says, “To follow is to die. Turn
around and go home!”

Then the mage, his companions and the horses
all begin to change. Their features turn into demonic visages and
their hands become claws with long, sharp nails. They begin howling
and growling as they advance upon them.

His men cry out with fear, pressing
themselves as far away from the demonic creatures as they can. Two
of them, warriors tested through many battles, faint dead away as
the creatures come closer. Then suddenly, the creatures swell to
twice their original size as they let out a roar of ear shattering
intensity.

Then with a blinding flash of light, the
creatures, the camp, and the cage disappear.

From a nearby hill, Jiron gives a quiet
chuckle as he sees what’s going on over there. “Man you’re good,”
he tells James.

James doesn’t respond, just continues
watching, hoping it’ll be enough to dissuade them from
continuing.

When the light flashes and all becomes
still, he holds his breath, hoping it worked. Then suddenly the men
down there erupt in a flurry of motion as they wake up the ones who
fainted and run back to their horses. They mount quickly and he
sighs with relief when they turn and race south just as fast as
their horses will go. For these men, the chase is over.

Once the riders have moved through the hills
and are once again out of sight, James stands up and makes his way
with the others back down to where their horses are picketed.

“That should discourage any pursuit from
them for awhile I would think,” announces James.

Laughing, Miko says, “I would think so. I
thought they were going to soil themselves when we turned into
demons.”

“How did you manage that, anyway?” Jiron
asks.

“Can’t really explain,” replies James. “Has
to do with light and perception.”

“It was effective anyway,” he says.

“Doubt if it would fool any serious mage,”
he tells him. “Abula-Mazki wouldn’t have been fooled, I’m
sure.”

Once they’re mounted, they head north again.
Even though the pursuit from the south is stalled, if not stopped
completely, there’s still the rider who’d raced north. James
wonders what he is up to as they head once more to the north.

Continuing north until it’s almost dark,
they then move toward the river so James can look around to see if
there are any forces closing in.

He digs his pool again and once the water
has filled it and becomes placid, begins to scan the countryside
for hostiles. To the south, it’s clear. He smiles to himself when
he realizes his attempts to thwart pursuit had met with success. To
the east all he can find are more plains.

Looking westward past the river, he finds
the road going north and south. He scans the road in both
directions and is satisfied when he doesn’t see anyone upon it.
There is a small town sitting on a crossroads further north, but
nothing which concerns him is going on there. The road goes through
the town as it continues its way north while another one begins,
heading due west out of town.

The town there does have a garrison but
doesn’t look to be very large and it shows no signs of preparing to
leave. He moves the image northward and finds the river continues
on through more plains until entering another set of hills.

Getting up, he says, “Looks like there is no
one near, so it should be safe to have a fire tonight.”

“Good,” Miko exclaims. “I hate being in the
dark out here.” He scans the area and tries to find sufficient fuel
for the fire, but there’s not much available. When he has gathered
all he can find, he looks at the small pile and says, “I doubt if
this is going to last the night.”

“Probably not,” agrees Jiron. “But it should
last through dinner.” He looks over and sees James returning to
camp with three small rabbits. He takes them from him and proceeds
to get them ready for the fire.

James sits and rests, a little tired from
the magic expended earlier in the day. He seems to be able to do
more with less effect as he goes along. Must be like weightlifting,
the more you do, the more you can do.

Miko gets the fire going and in no time the
rabbits are cooking.

The evening passes uneventfully after dinner
as they take their turn at watch.

Before setting out in the morning, James
goes back over to the small pool and again scans the area for
hostiles. “Jiron!” he hollers.

When Jiron comes over, with Miko right
behind, he shows them the large force of riders on the plains.

“Where are they?” Miko asks.

“Best I can figure, about an hour to the
southeast,” he says. “And Abula-Mazki is with them. It looks like
two or three times the number that we surprised back in the
hills.”

“Is that all?” Jiron asks.

As he continues to scan, they see another
force approaching from the northwest, having already entered the
west side of the hills the river flows through to the north. “Looks
like they have us boxed in,” says James.

“If we can make it north along the river
quickly,” Jiron suggests, “we may be able to move past them before
they connect with the riders.”

“Then we better hurry,” James says, getting
up. They mount and quickly break into a gallop heading north. He
wishes he still had his mirror so he can scan while riding, but
that’s long gone at the bottom of the ocean.

Moving fast, they are soon approaching the
hills to the north. Hoping to have beaten the soldiers coming from
the west, they continue to follow the river as it moves among the
hills.

Suddenly from the west, they see a scout
crest a hill. They watch as he raises a horn to his lips and blasts
a series of notes.

“That’s done it,” James says, just before a
rock leaves his hand and sails toward the scout on the hill. They
watch the rock fly through the air and then strike him, knocking
him off his horse to the ground.