Lusam: The Dragon Mage Wars Book Two (5 page)

Long after Lusam had finally started to reconcile his thoughts about his mother and grandmother, he lay there listening to the gentle rhythmic snores of Renn. He wondered  how he could possibly sleep so soundly knowing what foul creatures inhabited the forest around them? Then he realised the answer to his own question; Renn had faith. Faith in Aysha, faith in his weapons, and faith in his abilities to use them. How comforting it must be, to have such faith that everything would turn out the way it should Lusam thought to himself, as he finally drifted off into a restless sleep.

It felt like only minutes had passed since Lusam had closed his eyes, when he was awoken by the noise of movement within their camp. Startled, he sat bolt upright quickly searching for the danger, but only saw Renn quietly moving around the camp area. It took him a few moments to notice that the sun had already started to come up through the thick forest canopy. Although it wasn't yet full daylight,
there was enough light to see the camp clearly.
“Good morning,” Renn said whilst retrieving his sword that was still stuck in the ground at the edge of their camp.

“Good morning,” Lusam croaked back. He could not help looking at Renn's blade as he withdrew it from the ground, expecting to see gouges or scars in the metal due to the way he had plunged it into the ground the night before, but he saw none. The blade was unmarked, not even soil clung to the spotless blade as he returned it to its scabbard. Lusam's mind inevitably went to Neala, and the daggers he'd magically imbued for her. Reaching down to his belt he removed the dagger he'd retrieved from the battle in Helveel and held it in his hand, it was the only thing he had left of her now. Looking at the dagger he guessed Renn's sword must also carry a similar enchantment to make it so strong and durable.

Renn noticed Lusam staring at his sword as he returned it to his scabbard.

“Blessed,” he stated simply.

“What?” Lusam asked, not making the connection in his still sleep-hazed-brain. Then he realised what Renn was talking about. “Oh, your sword. I guessed it had an enchantment on it like this dagger, to make it stronger,” he said holding up his finely crafted knife.

“No, not enchanted. It is one of many that was blessed by Aysha herself many centuries ago. Its power comes directly from Aysha herself, not from a mage like a normal enchanted weapon. Only a paladin of Aysha may wield such a weapon, in any other hands it would be only a regular sword of no significance. Its power is channelled only by the faith of the paladin who wields it.”

Lusam also remembered the previous day when they had first set eyes on each other, Renn's shield had absorbed his powerful magical missile as if it had been nothing more than a wet sponge thrown at him.

“Your shield too?” he enquired.

“Yes, but the shield is much more unique though. It's thought to have belonged to one of the original Guardians who fell in the great war. Even though they were carried by all of the Guardians, only this one is believed to have survived that period,” Renn replied.

“But if they are so powerful, how could all of the others have been destroyed?” Lusam asked confused.

“Amongst many other vile creatures that flooded into our world from the rift at that time, was one known as a
Vesdari.
It was feared more than any other creature because it was attracted to, and fed voraciously on magic of any kind. The Guardians had no defence against this vile creature. Each time they encountered one in battle it would consume
any magic or magical weapon used against it.
If it made physical contact with any living thing, it would consume every last drop of magic within them, and they would die instantly. Thankfully the
Vesdari
were one of the rarest creatures to come through the rift, or the final fate of our world may have been very different.

“It is written that anywhere there was a fresh battlefield you would find a
Vesdari,
feeding on the injured or dying, or consuming the power held within any of the weapons dropped. Unfortunately, as the Guardians fell, many of their weapons were consumed by them also. One account even refers to various weapons and shields being sacrificed to lure a
Vesdari
away from a raging battle near the entrance of the rift itself. They lured a
Vesdari
deep into the forest and away from the Guardians fighting to stem the flow of creatures from the rift, giving them vital time to try and complete their task,” Renn said looking reverently at his shield.

Lusam couldn't believe a creature like that could even exist, let alone he might encounter one at any time in this very forest. Trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice he asked Renn,

“Are the
Vesdari
still here in this forest?”

Renn noticed how anxious Lusam had suddenly become, as he looked around for any signs of the vile
creature he'd just described to him.
“Don't worry lad. Nobody has seen a
Vesdari
since the end of the great battle. Scholars believe they required the rift to be open to exist in our world. Others believe the magic they fed on was absorbed into the rift, and when it closed they could no longer absorb the huge amounts of magic safely. Several eye witness accounts of
Vesdari
exploding shortly after the rift was closed adds weight to their theories,” Renn said reassuringly.

“Oh, I hope you're right about that. We have enough problems without meeting one of those things too,” Lusam said forcing a smile on to his face.

Renn laughed, and placing a hand on Lusam's shoulder said, “Come on lad, let's finish the last of my travel rations for breakfast before we head off. We'll have to hunt from here on in though, that's if you want to eat anything.”

“That's okay, I can hunt for us no problem,” Lusam said confidently. Renn shared out his meagre travel rations equally, and Lusam added the few berries he had left over from the day before. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.

After breakfast they both retrieved what few possessions they had with them and broke camp. Their pace started off at a slow jog, for which Lusam was thankful, given how stiff his muscles and joints were from the day
before.
After about half an hour Renn picked up the pace a little more, only stopping once briefly to refill his waterskin and drink from a small stream. They kept a constant pace all morning and in to the early afternoon, always heading south through the thick forest.

Lusam had found it easier to maintain the pace set by Renn if he kept his mind occupied with other thoughts. He had been trying all morning to think of a way to communicate with Neala using his magic, to let her know he was coming to save her, but he couldn't come up with anything that might work. He just didn't possess the correct magical knowledge to achieve it. It was so frustrating that he was able to do so much with his magic, and yet, not be able to do the things he really needed to do the most.

After mentally agonizing over the fact he couldn't communicate magically with Neala for most of the morning and early afternoon, he eventually decided that he needed to think of something else instead. If he wasn't able to communicate with Neala, he had to make sure he arrived at Stelgad before her and her captor did. He had no idea how far, or how fast Neala and her captor had travelled since they had left Helveel, but he needed to find out somehow. So he set to work on thinking about a way to achieve his goals, whilst all the time keeping pace with Renn.

It was mid-afternoon when they finally stopped at
the bank of a medium-sized river.
It was maybe thirty paces across from bank to bank, and ranged from ankle to waist deep. Several large moss covered rocks stuck up above the surface of the slow moving water, but they weren't a natural crossing point due to their lack of numbers, and their spacing. Both Lusam and Renn quenched their thirst at the riverbank, and then Renn refilled his waterskin for a second time that day.

“It doesn't look too deep, but I think we should try and find a place to cross further up or downstream. Running is bad enough, but with wet clothes it would be even worse,” Lusam said looking up and down the river for any obvious crossing points.

“I agree, but we can't afford to waste too much time looking for a crossing. You go downstream and look, and I'll go upstream and look. No matter what we find, we meet back here in twenty minutes. It looks like a good place to catch fish from these rocks anyway,” Renn said pointing towards the rocks with his chin.

“Okay, that sounds sensible, but don't worry about the fish, I'm good at catching them. I'll try to catch us some when we meet back here in twenty minutes,” Lusam replied. It didn't take Renn long at all to come across a fallen tree spanning the river just around the next bend. He tested its stability by climbing on top of it and trying to make it move
by jumping up and down and shifting his weight around, but it was completely stable and not going to move anywhere unexpectedly.
Renn noticed that half way across the fallen tree one of the branches was a perfect shape for trying to catch fish. It was almost completely straight, as tall as him and had three perfectly spaced branches growing from its tip. He crossed the fallen tree and cut the branch free from the main trunk with his sword. Taking out his knife he shortened the three branches on the end and then sharpened them into spikes, making his branch resemble a wooden trident. Happy with his new acquisition he headed back early to their rendezvous point, where he planned to catch some fish until Lusam returned.

Lusam had no luck finding a crossing point, in fact the river seemed to get wider and deeper the further he walked downstream. He didn't think it was worth walking any further in this direction, and just hoped Renn had had more luck than him at finding a crossing point. On his way downstream Lusam had noticed a few raspberry bushes hugging the shoreline and decided to collect some on his way back. At least he wouldn't go back completely empty-handed. He quickly collected as many of the berries as he could hold, and then started heading back upstream to meet Renn. It must have been at least twenty minutes by now, and he didn't want Renn worrying that he had got himself into some kind of trouble.

Just before Lusam came within sight of their rendezvous point he heard a loud shout, followed by splashing noises, as if someone was being attacked in the water. He dropped his two handfuls of berries on the ground and sprinted towards the sounds as fast as he could. By the time he reached the source of the commotion he had a large powerful fireball fully formed in his right hand ready to defend himself, or Renn from any would-be attackers, and a strong force-field surrounding his entire body, just in case it was another one of the strange men in black robes that had somehow found them here. What he saw instead of a battle scene, was quite possibly the funniest thing he had ever seen in his life. Renn obviously had been trying to catch fish whilst standing on one of the slippery moss covered rocks, but now he was in the water on his back splashing around between two rocks in the shallow water. Above him, holding him down was a strange looking fishing spear wedged tightly between the two rocks so Renn couldn't stand up, and on the end of his spear was a large skewered fish, still flapping and trying to escape its fate. Lusam couldn't help himself, and burst out laughing at the sight before him.

“Stop your laughing, and get me out of here will you!” Renn screamed at Lusam, while he held on tight to the fishing spear to keep his head above the water. Lusam let his fireball fizzle out in his hand, then he thought about how best to get Renn out of his situation.

After a few seconds Lusam said, “Okay, take a breath I'm going to release you by breaking that pole.” He concentrated on the fishing pole and it snapped like a dry twig.

“NO! Wait....,” was all Renn managed to say before the fishing pole broke in two with a snapping sound, and his head disappeared under the water. Surfacing a couple of seconds later he managed to stand up in knee deep water, coughing and gasping for air, and looking more than a little worse for his ordeal. Lusam really struggled not to start laughing at the sight of Renn standing there dripping from head to toe, and still holding half of the fishing pole in his right hand. Renn waded towards the far river bank and clambered up the slippery muddy bank. By the time he reached the top he was not only completely wet through, but covered in mud too. Lusam couldn't take it any more and burst out laughing at Renn's expense. Renn stayed silent until Lusam regained control of himself, before throwing what was left of his fishing pole into the river.

“By breaking the pole like that you just lost us a good fish, who knows if we can get another?” Renn stated in a controlled even tone. Lusam was very surprised at how calm Renn actually was considering what had just happened to him. He knew if the roles had been reversed it would have taken him much longer to calm down whilst being soaked to
the skin, cold and hungry.
Lusam searched the water with his magic and quickly located two good sized fish. He enclosed both fish in a small force-field and catapulted them to rest at the feet of Renn, who was still standing there dripping water onto the floor from all of his clothing. The fish startled Renn as they came hurtling out of the river directly at him and he took an involuntary step backwards, tripping over a root and landing hard on his behind, with two large fish flapping around on the ground between his feet.