Lusam: The Dragon Mage Wars Book Two (28 page)

“Good point,” Renn replied. “We better continue running, they can't be that far behind us, and it will be full daylight soon.”

“Okay, west it is then,” said Lusam, and he set off running in a westerly direction, with the others closely following behind him.

It was mid-afternoon before they stopped again. The ground had become slightly more rocky, but they were still firmly inside the forest, and easily trackable. Renn had managed to procure some basic travel rations for their journey, but he had been forced to leave some behind when they were attacked. His best guess was that they would last two or three days at best, especially now there were four mouths to feed. He handed out the travel rations and they all ate in silence, each keeping an eye out for movement from
the direction they had just come.
It wasn't long before Alexia spotted something in the distance.

“There they are,” she said quietly, pointing out the movement in the distance.

“Time to go,” Renn said, just as an Empire agent spotted them and the shout went up. A tree less than six paces from Lusam exploded as a magical missile struck it, then another and another. They needed to put some distance between them, and fast. Lusam briefly turned and released several magical missiles of his own, each one harmlessly impacted on their shields, but his attacks did seem to make them pause for thought. Or at least that's what Lusam thought to start with, but a second later he felt the familiar silence spell grip him, and his voice no longer obeyed his commands.

Although the spell didn't affect Lusam's magic, it was incredibly annoying and frustrating to not be able to speak at all. He gestured to Renn that he could no longer communicate verbally, and surprisingly enough, Renn seemed not only to understand what was wrong with him, but he also didn't seem surprised in the slightest. They all continued running through the thick forest with the Empire agents in close pursuit for over an hour, neither group gaining ground on the other. Several times magical missiles either impacted trees around them, or sailed straight past
them, only to impact trees further in front of them.
Lusam wanted to tell them all to try and keep as many trees between themselves and their pursuers as possible, but it seemed they had all worked that out for themselves already, zigzagging through the trees as they went. It was about half an hour later when Lusam felt the spell fade that was keeping him silent.

“I hate when they do that!” Lusam exclaimed.

“Yeah lad, I bet it gets annoying after a while doesn't it. It's their standard first attack move. If they silence you, you can't strike back at them with magic. Our magi have been trying to work out a counter measure for over a century, but with no success,” Renn said.

“But it doesn’t stop me from using my magic, it's just damned annoying,” Lusam said.

Renn laughed loudly. “Yes it is. It can be cured, but only three ways; time, kill the mage who cast it, or enter a temple of Aysha. Each of those will cancel the spell effects, but no magical defence or cure has ever been discovered,” Renn said. “As for it not effecting your magic... we know that, but they don't. Maybe we can use that to our advantage.”

“Hmm, maybe,” replied Lusam.

A few miles later they entered a steep tree lined gorge. It looked like an ancient river or glacier had cut a
giant vee shape into the land.
There were rocks and boulders of all sizes littering the ground, but very little cover available. Once the Empire agents entered the valley behind them, they were going to have a clear unrestricted view of them.

“I need everyone to be in front of me, right now!” Lusam shouted. Everyone obeyed without question, but he felt he needed to explain his reasons for ordering them about anyway. “In a minute when the Empire agents enter the valley behind us they are going to have a clear shot at us. It takes much less effort for me to shield myself than it would all four of us, so please stay directly in front of me, and whatever you do, keep running.”

They were about half way through the gorge when the first magical missile impacted on Lusam's shield. At first he absorbed the impacts with ease, but as the number and frequency of them increased, he began to find it harder to maintain his shield. He knew he wouldn't make it to the other side of the gorge alive, and if he died, so would all the others. Desperately he looked around for some cover, but there was none. The sides of the gorge were far too treacherous to attempt to climb. They were covered in scree and larger boulders, but he still desperately searched for any signs of cover high above them, even knowing they could never reach it in time, even if he found some.

Lusam's mind and body felt numb with the
relentless drain on his power reserves.
Never before had he used so much power so fast, and he was finding every thought or movement a battle in itself. Then he saw it, high above him on the left side of the gorge was a huge overhang of rock. If he couldn't get himself and the others to any cover, then maybe he could bring the cover to them. He struggled on until he thought they were well past the overhang, and any danger of falling rocks before putting his plan into action.

“STOP!” he shouted, as another three missiles impacted on his shield and he staggered forward. “Lie down on your bellies for a minute, I think I have a plan.” They all followed his instruction, but not before another couple of missiles found their mark. He was the last one to lie down, after he turned to face the oncoming enemy. He could clearly see them at the other end of the gorge. They had stopped at the entrance to concentrate their fire at them, rather than attempting to do it on the run. Several more missiles came down the gorge towards them, but flew past above them harmlessly.

“What do you have in mind lad?” Renn asked from behind him.

“We need some cover, or I'm not going to make it to the other side of this gorge. I plan to try and bring down that large rock back there, and block the gorge. If they can't see us, they can't shoot as us,” Lusam replied. He sent out his
mage-sight to the rock-face, searching for weak points and fissures within the rocks, but he just didn't have enough power left to reach out so far, and maintain his shield at the same time.
“I can't do it, my shield is taking too much power for me to reach the rock-face, and I can't drop my shield in case we are struck again,” Lusam said. He heard movement coming from behind him and saw Renn appear at his side. Renn removed his shield and placed it directly in front of himself and Lusam.

“Now you can lad,” Renn said.

“Thanks,” Lusam replied. He dropped his shield and concentrated once again on the rock-face, this time reaching his goal. He found several large fissures within the rock-face and began attempting to expand them. First he created a force-field within a fissure and then tried to expand it, but he didn't have enough power to split the rock any further. Then he noticed a small trickle of water running through one of the fissures and it reminded him of something that had happened to him as a young boy.

He had made a small clay pot with his grandmother one autumn day, and they had baked it hard in an oven. He had been very proud of his creation, and insisted that it should be used for something other than simple decoration. He told his grandmother he would collect rainwater in the vessel overnight, but she had warned him about leaving the
pot outside in the cold all night.
He had ignored her warnings, and woke to find the water within frozen, and his pot completely destroyed as a result. He was very upset and couldn't understand how water had destroyed his perfect pot, and his grandmother had told him:
“Water is the most powerful of all the elements Lusam. It creates the great oceans and rivers, carves out lakes and canyons, and can even wash away mountains over time. Nothing can withstand the power of water, not even your pot.”

With the wise words of his grandmother still fresh in his mind he set about his task. This time instead of trying to split the rock using his force-field and the brute force of his magic, he instead blocked the exit of the water and let it build up within the fissure. Once the water had completely filled the void he sealed the top of the fissure with his force-field, creating a pocket of water within the fissure. Next he quickly reduced the temperature within his force-field and began to freeze the water inside. As the water froze it quickly expanded within the fissure, creating a great force that pushed against both sides of the rock until it finally split with a loud cracking sound.

The rock-face seemed to move in slow motion at first, falling away from its parent rocks on its long journey to the bottom of the gorge. It gathered speed quickly, collecting dozens of rocks and boulders with it as it came crashing down the steep sides of the gorge to the valley floor below.

The results were far better than Lusam could have hoped for. Blocking the valley between themselves and the Empire agents were now hundreds of tonnes of rocks and boulders. He had no doubt that they could clamber over or around the makeshift barricade, but at least they could no longer attack them directly, and it should give them time to get out of  the gorge and find some cover.

“Well done lad,” Renn said, patting Lusam on his shoulder.

“We should get out of this gorge quickly, and try to find some cover before they're able to climb over those rocks. I'm not sure how many more hits I can take, but I know it isn't many,” Lusam said, wearily regaining his feet.

It was at least another ten minutes before they reached the far end of the gorge, but thankfully there were no sign of the Empire agents yet. What they saw beyond the gorge filled them with both hope and fear in equal measures. Below them was an immense valley floor, or at least they thought it was. They were unable to see anything through the thick impenetrable mist that covered everything for as far as they could see.

“I don't like the look of that,” Neala said.

“Me neither, but I like the look of the men behind us even less,” Alexia replied.

“It's going to be impossible for us to navigate down there,” Neala said looking worried. “We could travel in
circles for days and never know it.”
“Given the alternatives, I don't see we have a choice,” said Renn.

“Agreed. And if we can't see anything down there, neither can they,” Lusam said glancing back over his shoulder at the first Empire agents to appear over the fallen rocks. “Besides, we just ran out of time to debate it,” Lusam said as two missiles narrowly missed them, flying harmlessly out into the valley beyond.

Chapter Thirty

They half-run, half-slipped down the steep slope into the valley below. Thousands of small stones littered the slope, making the footing treacherous. Lusam was amazed that no one was injured when they finally reached the valley floor below and entered the incredibly dense mist that covered it.

“We need to stay very close to each other from now on. If we lose anyone in this mist we might never find them again, and we certainly can't start calling out to them,” Lusam said.

“I suggest we walk from here on in. The ground here is much more rocky, so try to stay on the rocks as much as possible and we will switch directions as soon as we have an opportunity to do so on harder ground,” Renn said. They all agreed and headed off into the mist, stepping only on rocks where possible and staying close to one another.

After a further two hours they came across what
looked like an ancient dried up river bed that lead off in a different direction at almost ninety degrees.
The ground within the riverbed was as hard as rock, showing no signs of their footsteps when they ventured onto it.

“Wait here a minute, I'll be right back,” Alexia said.

“Where are you going?” Lusam asked.

“To buy us some more time,” she replied, disappearing into the mist. Alexia found the last evidence of their passing, and began to leave fresh evidence in the form of footprints leading away from their true location. She terminated her tracks at a large outcrop of rocks, and returned to the riverbed in a wide arc, making sure not to leave any evidence of her true direction of travel. If her plan worked the Empire agents would follow her tracks to the outcrop of rocks and spend a long time searching for their tracks again, which of course they would not find.

Alexia found the riverbed easy enough, but she wasn't sure in which direction she would find the others. After a moment she decided to head off to her right, and was quickly rewarded by the sight of the others coming into view through the thick mist. She explained what she had done, and once again they set off together, this time following the ancient riverbed.

As they walked Lusam began to notice how strange the trees and foliage were in this valley. He was used to
seeing all the different trees and plants in the forest where he grew up, but he recognised very few of these here.
Then he also noticed something else very strange; the trees had moss growing on them all around their trunks, and not just on the north facing side. The only explanation he could think of was that this valley was always covered in the thick mist, and that made him extremely anxious. If they couldn't see the sky to navigate by the sun or stars, and there were no signs to follow on the ground, how would they ever get out of this valley? He decided to keep the information to himself for now, as the most important thing right now was to escape their pursuers. Escaping the valley could come later.