The Book of Deacon: Book 02 - The Great Convergence (31 page)

Myranda was forced to shift her gaze from the
spectacle as a trio of the soldiers drew near enough to be a
threat. She thrust her staff into the snowy ground at her feet and
focused her mind. Icy vines erupted from the ground and entangled
the first of the soldiers, but before the others could be trapped
the leader again swept the spell away. The single immobilized
soldier fought at the vines. The twang of bowstrings released a
second barrage of arrows, all directed at Myranda. She held up her
staff and focused her mind on the arrows. Their paths shifted and
struck the soldiers she’d attempted to entangle. Myranda looked
away as they vanished into dust. The creatures would have killed
her, and they were barely living things, but still she felt horrid
that she had to kill them.

Another volley of arrows were launched.
Myranda attempted to divert them but the leader's influence quickly
righted them. She continued to fight against his will. She could
feel his strength against hers. After a final burst of will, she
dove to the side. The head of an arrow hissed through her cloak and
across her thigh. She cried out. Her staff sunk deep into the snow
as she tried to regain her footing. The pain was terrible. She
struggled to keep her eyes on the remaining soldiers. They were
approaching her. When she finally made it to her feet she was
surrounded. She tried to summon a spell to mind, but the leader of
the soldiers forced it away. He stood before her. The man looked
more like a nobleman than a soldier. His clothes were nothing short
of regal, the kind more at home in a king's court than a
battlefield. Nothing resembling armor adorned his body. He was
either very stupid or very powerful. He had jet black hair and a
face that would not be out of place on a statue of a god. With a
gaze that seemed to cut through her, he surveyed his foe.

"Myranda Celeste. You are every bit the
warrior I had expected. It is gratifying to meet you face to face.
I am General Bagu, perhaps . . . " he began.

Myranda pulled to mind the last of her skills
she had learned in Entwell. With a thrust, she landed a powerful
blow with her staff. The man reeled backward. The break in his
concentration was enough to let through a blast of magic to scatter
the other soldiers. She tried to get some distance between herself
and the recovering men, but found herself eye to eye with one of
the stone wolves. Claw marks scored the stony hide as it slowly
moved toward her. It left behind a mound of shattered stone.
Finally it stood still, awaiting a command. The real danger was
behind her. She suddenly felt a crushing force closing in around
her. She couldn't move, she couldn't breathe. Her feet left the
ground. Slowly she was turned. The five bowmen stood before her,
arrows readied, their tips fairly pressing into her flesh. The
leader approached her, fury in his eyes.

"You have found your way to the last of the
original Chosen. Should more arise, you would have been valuable.
But your threat outweighs your benefit," he seethed. A pulse of
will snapped one of Myranda's ribs.

She turned all of her own strength of mind to
countering his. Despite her best efforts, the force was barely
lessened. The best she could manage was to hold him off enough to
stay alive.

"Destroy her," the man ordered, deciding now
was not the time for a battle of wills when a simpler means of
execution existed.

Arrows were drawn back, but before they could
fly, a charging form tore through the line of bowman. Myranda
struggled to turn to see the form, but the force around her
tightened. The air was forced from her lungs. The leader raised a
second hand. At the very edge of Myranda's vision, the thrashing
form froze.

"Clever," he admitted, drawing the form
nearer.

Now Myranda could see. It was the stone wolf.
The fingers of the leader twisted cruelly. Waves of black swept
over the body of the creature. It howled in pain, but behind the
howl was a scream. Ether's voice. The stony form shifted slowly to
the stone form of Ether as additional mass of the wolf crumbled
away from the human shape at its core.

"You shall be an adequate prize," he
smiled.

Suddenly he turned. Anger flashed in his
eyes. The form of Myn hung, writhing in pain in the air. Flames
spewed from her mouth until it was forced closed. Myranda focused
her mind. The spell that held her was astoundingly powerful. Ether
had shifted to flame and now struggled with all of her considerable
strength, yet the grip barely wavered.

"Let her go!" came a voice from behind
him.

Ivy's club came down, but it stopped inches
from the head of the man who held the others at bay. He turned and
in a moment she too was suspended in the air. She began to scream
in a combination of pain and terror. Myranda suddenly felt the hot
sting of fear in her stomach. She had been frightened before. This
was different. It was fundamental . . . primal. She felt it rise as
Ivy's desperate struggling increased. Myn seemed to be similarly
effected. It was as though Ivy's fear was spilling over to the
others. Only Ether and their captor seemed unaffected. Soon the
fear was almost more unbearable than the pain.

"Let me go! I can't go back! No! NO!" she
cried.

The grip was loosening. Something about Ivy’s
struggles was having an effect. Suddenly there was a torrent of
magic. It felt akin to the force that had been gathered to restore
Ether, but it came all at once. A flash of blinding blue light
filled the valley and a deafening shriek that swiftly faded to
nothing echoed from all directions. The hold about them was
released. Myranda fell to the ground. Ether did not. She blasted
directly at the powerful man. He was quickly consumed in flame and
lifted into the air. The fiery form hurdled through the air and
into the ruined fort. A few moments and a series of earthshaking
blows later what was left of the ruins began to cave in. A
flickering form erupted from the flying dust and debris. Ether
landed before Myranda. The flames of her body were weakening. The
bright eyes wavered.

"Quickly . . . " the voice almost
pleaded.

"Myn, fire, NOW!" Myranda cried.

The dragon unleashed flame that seemed to
wrap around Ether. After a second and third burst and the shape
shifter seemed restored. She immediately shifted to wind and
launched skyward.

"The leader is not dead. I intend to withdraw
until I am better prepared to finish him. If you value your life,
you will leave this valley," Ether called out. Threads of fear were
woven into her voice.

Before Myranda could object, the windy form
had disappeared into the distance. The ruins were still collapsing.
If that wizard truly had survived, Myranda hoped that the mountain
of shattered stone would delay him long enough for her to escape.
She closed the wound in her thigh, snapped her ribs back into place
and healed them, and climbed to her feet. Myn rushed to her side to
help her. She scanned the valley, but there was no sign of Ivy,
save one. It was a single footprint, more than a dozen paces from
where she should have landed. Where were the others? The last of
the bricks of the fort crumbled into what was now little more than
a pit filled with jagged stone. Deep beneath it, Myranda could
already hear a deep rumble. She would have to move quickly.

Running in the direction the footprint faced,
Myranda found another, more than one hundred paces on. Together
they seemed to be indicating that Ivy had made her way down the
mountainside along the steep but direct path that had been taken by
the soldiers. Of course, with such massive strides, running hardly
seemed the appropriate word. Somehow Myranda would have to find a
way down with similar speed or the leader who had nearly taken her
life moments ago would be upon her to finish what he had started.
Her eyes turned to the only other things in the valley, the supply
sleds. They were small, the sort intended to deliver minor cargo.
She turned one to face downhill.

"Myn, burn the other sled, then find Ivy.
When you do, lead me to her," Myranda said.

Myn quickly obeyed, taking to the air once
the sled was aflame. Myranda pushed the sled and climbed on. It
gained speed quickly. Soon the landscape was whipping by at a
terrifying rate. The path was a gently curving one, but at this
speed she had to lean all of her weight to one side of the sled to
manage the turn. She could have used magic to steer, but a general
throbbing in her body assured her that she had not yet tended to
all of her own injuries, and she had the others to think about. It
was best to save her strength. Here and there, at the base of a
treacherous crater, Myranda would spot another footprint. Myn was
still overhead, far ahead of her, searching. The pass was growing
more narrow, the curves more sharp. A sound from behind like a clap
of thunder served as a reminder that she must not slow.

Finally Myn glided down and kept pace ahead
of the speeding sled. She'd found something. Myranda did her best
to stay behind the dragon, and miraculously managed to guide the
sled safely through a series of successively narrower forks in the
pass. After passing though a point in the path only slightly wider
than the sled itself, the pass opened again. In the distance, at
the end of a long, deep furrow that looked to have been scooped out
of the snow, was Ivy, motionless and face down. Myranda managed to
bring the sled to a halt. She climbed down into the furrow.

Ivy's body was hot, almost scalding to the
touch. A fair amount of the snow around her had turned to slush.
The edges of her cloak were frayed and charred, yet her boots
seemed little the worse for wear. One hand still clutched the club,
the surface of which had been blackened and charred as well.
Myranda rolled the creature over, her face had been in a hollow in
the snow that looked as though it had been melted or perhaps boiled
away. The melting snow was slowly filling it with icy water. She
was breathing, but only barely, deeply unconscious.

Fairly soaking herself to the bone in the
process, Myranda dragged Ivy to the sled. She loosened the straps
and removed packs and bags that had survived the ride thus far
until there was enough room for Ivy to lie. Whatever mysterious
heat had kept her warm thus far was fading fast, and soaked as they
were, neither of them would last long in the snow. Myranda flexed
her knowledge of water magic, wicking away all that clung to their
bodies. She then pulled off the rough canvas that had been wrapped
around the cargo and threw over Ivy.

Carefully Myranda probed with her mind,
sweeping again and again for any kind of injury. Mysteriously,
impossibly, Ivy was completely unharmed. Her only plight was that
her spirit was utterly drained. It was only with the whisper of
strength that remained that the once powerful essence clung to the
body. If this creature could recover, time alone would serve as the
cure. With nothing more to do, Myranda sat on the edge of the sled
and gave her racing heart a rest, Myn by her side. She tried to
grasp what had just transpired.

In one day she found one Chosen and lost
another. The one that had left her was anything but what she would
consider a hero. Ether was self absorbed and obsessed with her own
superiority. The other was a study in contradictions. She seemed
full grown, but behaved like a little girl. She seemed not to know
a word of magic, yet she had a soul powerful enough to break that
wizard's grip. Her will seemed weak, yet she was capable of forcing
her emotions on others unintentionally. She could not land a single
blow on the wizard, yet she was able to traverse half of a
mountainside in a heartbeat.

Myranda's head throbbed. She willed away some
minor injuries Myn had sustained while in the wizard's grip, then
tended to what was left of her own. She could not sense Bagu
drawing nearer. Perhaps he had yet to escape. Another attempt to
find him revealed that she could not sense him at all. Briefly she
wondered if he was concealing himself, but she pushed the thought
aside. If he had followed her this far this quickly, there would be
nothing she could do to stop him. He had no reason to hide.
Standing again, Myranda looked over the supplies she'd uncovered.
There was a longbow and some arrows, including a quiver of the
crystal tipped ones. Those might be useful. Another bundle seemed
to be entirely chains, ropes, and shackles. Ivy must have been
difficult to restrain. She separated a rope from the bundle. There
was not a scrap of food or a drop of water. The nearmen must not
need it, and if her own stay had been any indication, the tiniest
amount of that horrid swill would last months at the torturous rate
at which they rationed it out. Myranda secured the useful items to
whatever open space was left on the sled and began to push it
carefully along.

By the time the mountain turned to flat land
again it was well into the long cold night. The tundra was not
nearly as cold as the mountain had been, but it was quite a bit
colder than the field she had left on the other side. In her years
of wandering Myranda had never been so far north, nor so far east.
She was nearly to the coast. Had she taken a few turns differently
in her descent of the mountain, her trip may well have taken her to
the shores of the North Crescent Sea. The sea was entirely
separated from the mainland by the Eastern Mountains, and thus few
ever saw it. Of course, it had been her view every morning when she
was in Entwell, but the thought had never occurred to her when she
was there. Perhaps because it was such a paradise, the thought of
an icy forbidding sea would have been out of place. For a moment
she let her mind linger on more pleasant times. She thought of all
she had learned, all of the people she had met. She thought of
Deacon . . .

A gust of icy wind and a hint of light
struggling through the clouds above the mountain shook her back to
reality. If her sense of direction had not failed her, she was in
the thin strip of flatland between the Eastern Mountains and the
Elder Mountains to the north. Were she to follow the southern edge
of these mountains west for a few days, the walls of the northern
capital would come into view. It was the most heavily fortified and
largest city in the kingdom. Nestled among the mountains and with a
pair of legendary walls, the Tresson army could sweep across the
whole of the Northern Alliance and be turned back by the forces
defending the capital for years. In the past the place was called
Verril. When the three kingdoms united, it came to be called simply
Northern Capital. It was a name as sterile and utilitarian as any
that had been created since the war began, just another in a long
line of changes that stripped the culture and history from the land
and its people.