Warlock Apprentice, Black Lake Novel 4

Chapter Twenty-Two

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I said a short prayer thankin’ Giba, the Blessin’ rune, for any help she could give me. For a few moments it seemed a little blasphemous, but I got over it. Considerin’ what lay before me, I cringed over the little practice I had stealin’ the power I required from the ethereal to do the littlest thin’, create the tiniest flame.

“Time to go,” Selene said softly, layin’ his hand on my shoulder.

I rose from my knee. Funny, formally bowin’ to pray. Religion was never a daily part of my family’s life. Even as we read our passages before breakin’ bread for Sunday dinners, it was more about bein’ well-read, than feedin’ the soul. The Book was one of our few texts, afterall.

“The Scriptures is readin’ every youth must complete before they can claim they are adults,” my mama said on more than one occasion. Now I said a prayer not to the saints, but to somethin’ that represented my connection with the ethereal.

Was that sinful? I tried to recall a lesson about the evil of idolatry. Was puttin’ my life in the hands of a rune like this a sin?

“You all right?” Selene asked.

“Why don’t ya feel it when Morgan stamps Bacchus?”

Selene puckered his lips a moment. “The gift manifests itself differently in all of us.”

Manifests? “Like healin’, for Morgan?”

“Aye,” Selene said.

“What’s my gift?” I asked.

With the fire smothered with ash, Selene’s face disappeared in the dark as Morgan walked away from us, the glow of Bacchus’ ram head fadin’. But I stared at the spot where Selene’s silhouette had stood.

“Seems the emotions of others prick you strongly,” the wizard said.

For an instant I returned to the day on that desert when I swore I sensed the thoughts of the donkey. Even animals? There had been the panic from the mountain lion too.

“Come.”

Selene’s boots scuffed in the gravel floor. The tiniest hint of a silhouette formed as he moved between me and the fadin’ light Morgan carried. I followed. Four days, my imagination twisted over my demise, and the badness of it had swelled in my head. Don’t think I’d ever experienced dread before. Fear, on more occasions than I wished to ponder. Especially recently. But dread, though not as sharp, eats away at the stomach, and confidence.

I blinked at the glare streamin’ in through the shaft entrance. I drew in the fresh air, unspoiled by the fire we had maintained inside. I shivered as I stepped down the crag worn by the constant flow of water seepin’ from inside the mountain. The sky was a blue no artist could capture, without a cloud in sight.

In the books I’d read, bad thin’s always happened under gray skies. Did that mean, maybe, we’d accomplish stealin’ Louisa away from the Northerners? But the ruse Selene and Morgan had decided our best chance, would encumber our own majic as well as that of the three Northerners. If it came to fightin’ hand to hand, would three men wieldin’ swords be any less dangerous than wards and bolts of fire?

I took in the shoulders of the ogre leadin’ us. Despite walkin’ ten steps in front of Selene, twenty feet in front of me, the human’s nearer physique still failed to eclipse the ogre. With only a hundred-pound staff, I could imagine Morgan standin’ up to two sword-swingin’ humans. But what did that leave me to do? Nothin’ but racin’ to cut Louisa’s bindin’s.

Guess that ain’t nothin’.

But I wanted to fight too. Stand next to Morgan and Selene, like a fellow warrior, not a child left to run errands. Not that freein’ Louisa’s just an errand.

Selene walked in silence, head twistin’ left and right, watchin’ and listenin’. Held his scabbard taut with his left hand. Held his right hand outward, the ring glowin’. The free majic irritated me like an angry hornet divin’ in front of my face.

I concentrated, loosenin’ my grip on my walkin’ stick, focusin’ on the ethereal connection, and a grin slowly crossed my face. Could sense Selene’s emotions, tight, measured, inwardly focused. The ogre’s reached me too, calm one second, angry another, as though he mulled through a half-dozen different concerns. There was peace, but also the ability to unleash a torrent.

I shivered anew as the ogre’s sense of smell invaded my own. The ogre could scent the remnants of animals that recently crossed our trail, of the birds in the trees, the richness of once-live thin’s turned up in the soil under my and Selene’s boot heels. The sharp snip of the pines burned my sinuses.

“Ohhh,” I wheezed, the air drawin’ from my lungs.

Selene stopped, turned to face me and asked, “What is it, lad?” His eyes narrowed as he waited for an answer.

How could I explain that for a moment, I walked in the ogre’s—well, not his shoes, since he doesn’t wear any. But walked in his steps. It was so real.

“Nothin’,” I said, shakin’ my head.

Selene squinted a moment, turned, and jogged several steps to catch up with Morgan. I took a breath, but wasn’t eager to get too close to them again. Didn’t prefer to err in angerin’ the ogre. Wouldn’t he be able to sense the intrusion in his mind?

There are dangers in the forest, eyes lookin’ upon us, Northerners settin’ ambush. I didn’t believe for a minute Blake and his pals would do as they claimed. Was that some kind of foresight? Or common sense? My papa complained a time or two I didn’t have a lick of that. My constant studyin’ of mystical runes the past few-days prolly warped my mind to think in new ways.

We neared where the ravine opened to the highland plateau where Morgan’s cabin lay, and the ogre slowed, movin’ to the left, across the creek, and deeper into the trees. Selene, sword drawn, moved to the right, climbin’ the rise, evidently plannin’ to enter from high ground. I stopped. What should I do? Follow one of ’em, or wander in through the front door, so to speak?

I chose the latter option. Neither of my friends hissed at me otherwise, so I worked to calm my fears, drew from the ethereal best I could, raised my chin, and strode forward.

Crows and jays fluttered higher into the trees as I reached level ground. They had to already be antsy. The air seemed stagnant, unhealthy. My mind playin’ tricks? Time to be practical, and not act like a frightened girl.

A new sense tingled my forehead. I could even identify where the force was that originated it. So that’s how the ogre and wizard recognized our kind, huh. How Selene found me and Morgan, Blake and them found the cabin.

A man stepped away from a tree thirty feet ahead, out of the shadows, and I lurched to a stop. The man grinned, the white of his teeth cuttin’ through the forest gloom.

“You’ve come a long way in four days,” the man said. “Maybe Nador is a better teacher than I imagined.” He looked to his left and right, before shoutin’. “Everyone just stay where they are, if you don’t want the ugly female ogre harmed.”

A deep, seethin’ anger welled inside me. Louisa’s beautiful, inside and out. This scum didn’t have the right to touch her. I wanted to run at the stranger, club him with my stick. I grabbed the hilt of Selene’s gifted huntin’ knife strapped at my waist.

“Calm yourself,” the Northerner chided in a high-pitched voice.

“Where is she?” Selene’s voice meandered from the trees on the right.

“Safe, for now,” the man answered.

“Let her go. We accept your offer.” Selene’s voice had moved closer.

“Just stay where you are,” the Northerner called. His voice rasped with tension. He gripped the hilt of his sword. “Ogre! You do the same.”

“Let Selene and Louisa leave as ya promised,” Morgan said. He had to be cloaked in a ward, he was so close, yet still invisible. “Yar battle is with me alone.”

“Ha,” the man barked. “We remembered yar threats, what sounded foolish at the time. Only an idiot fails to reconsider his situation.”

“What situation is that?” Selene asked.

I closed my eyes for a moment. Had to stop sloshin’ my eyes back and forth to face the speaker, or I was gonna get dizzy and fall over like a drunkard.

“Let’s just say we don’t trust you, Selene.”

“If you live through this, when we get back, I’ll call you out for casting aspersions upon my character.”

Aspersions? I grimaced. Couldn’t Northerners speak Standish?

The man laughed again, but I caught the instant jerk of panic over havin’ to face Selene one-on-one. I countered his laugh.

“What do you find so funny, boy?”

“Yar realization that unless yar plan goes perfect, ya’re like carrion to a vulture if ya face Selene without yar pals backin’ ya up.”

Selene’s casual chuckle drew a sincere smile out of me, before I clamped down tight on the emotion. Now was not the time to let down my guard. Time to concentrate. I repeated my chosen champion-rune’s name silently.

The Northerner snapped serious too. “The chance of us getting out of the Range isn’t likely, without the female ogre for insurance.”

They’re called hens, ya moron.

“We’ll work out our differences,” he continued, “when we stand on Northern soil, away from your interfering dragons.”

“That wasn’t our deal,” Morgan shouted.

“Same deal. Just the switching takes place on safer ground, for us.”

“Can’t let you do that,” Selene called. He had moved closer.

“I told you to stay back.”

I sensed the stranger’s fear, and Selene’s wish to kill the man. Selene walked out from the trees. He pulled his cape off with his left hand, keepin’ his sword lifted in his right.

“They’ll kill her,” the Northerner screamed. “They will.”

“All Blake will know is that you never returned, and that if he kills Louisa, he certainly won’t get out of the Range.”

The man stepped back. “I’m here under a flag of truce,” he wailed.

“Ha,” Selene shouted. “You see any armies here? You’re only due the peace you offer us.” He stopped twenty feet from the stranger, who still backed up, slammin’ into the trunk of a tree, where he froze.

Morgan strode through his ward and fell into a run. Did he intend to ensure he got the privilege to kill the Northerner? The man wrenched to get away from the tree and pivoted toward the ogre. The sword in his hand resonated with power.

But Morgan veered toward Selene. “Leave him be!” he shouted. “I’m not takin’ any chance they’ll harm Louisa.” Morgan held Bacchus low, wieldin’ it like a club.

A knowledge, not a vision, slipped across my mind. Bacchus had taken more than one life like that, goblins all, no easy foe.

Selene’s face blanched.

The Northerner turned and ran like a mob of goblins chased him.

“You fool,” Selene shouted. “He’s getting away.” He took two steps, but stopped when Morgan sidestepped to stay in front of him. “Morgan! This is our chance to better the odds.”

Morgan, face cut sharp, stopped ten feet from Selene. The energy shriekin’ inside the aura contained by the ogre and his staff made me cringe, a hundred times worse than the sensation of finger nails drawn across chalkboard slate.

“Improper to kill a bein’ who puts his life at risk to parley. Nor am I willin’ to endanger Louisa.”

Selene jabbed the hilt of his sword at the ground and swore.

“I think you’ve erred.” Selene shook his head.

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