The Box Omnibus #1 (The Box, The Journal, The Sword) (22 page)

Call me crazy, but something about having my life threatened makes me feel so alive. My heart starts pounding and my body hums with nerves and anticipation. The best part is m
y mind starts working faster than it manages to in any other situation.

For instance, if there wasn’t a knife to my throat, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the three other people shifting in their hiding spots
crouched in the grass, nor would I have been able to figure out the reason why he’s using a knife and the other three have crossbows is because they probably can’t use magic. An advantage I will happily exploit.

I wonder if Rose also loves the adrenaline of a fight because she reacts in a calculating and cool manner as well
. She blinks three times at me and then glances toward one of the closest shooters. I can’t help but smile. Good, she’s caught up and still isn’t shaking in her boots. I’m starting to like this girl.

“Are you listening to me?” the knife wielder says when I take too long to reply. “All of your coins and anything valuable you have. Give them to me. Now.”

“Wait,” I say, feigning confusion. “All of our valuables? But you said coins last time. You can’t keep upping the stakes.”

“What?” He shakes me out of annoyance,
enough to prick my neck, but not so much I’m actually worried he’s going to kill me. “Quiet. Give me your money and valuables. Or I will slit your throat.”

“I’m confused,” Rose says with her eyes wide and her body language giving the attacker every signal she can manage of being a scared young woman. “Our valuables? But what do you consider valuable? Because my mother tells me my hair is the most precious
thing in all of the land, and I should be proud to have it. Do you want me to cut it off and give it to you?”

As she’s talking, I reach my hand into
my pouch of dust. For now all I do is cup it in the palm of my hand and wait for the opportune moment. I’ll need Farah to be paying more attention since her help will be needed. Right now she’s too busy chasing her own tail to notice we’re in danger.

“Just…” Clearly my attacker has never dealt with two girls who don’t immediately do everything he says. “Drop everything you have. On the ground. Right now.”

“O—okay,” Rose stutters while unlatching the broaches holding her cloak on. She gives me a look as though I should do the same and I wink back. Yup, I love her. One step ahead of me at all times. Or at least equal to me. Maybe a step behind. We’ll say a step behind.

I reach for the green rope holding my cloak on and manage
to loosen the knot before he presses the knife unnecessarily hard against my neck.

“Are you girls insane?” he says. “I don’t
want your clothes. Money, jewelry, that kind of thing. Hand them over, and stop messing around.”

Keep shouting. Make a scene so Farah will finally notice something’s wrong.
 

Finally h
er lion head checks to see what all of the noise is about while the goat one tries to eat an entire bush in one bite.

As soon as she sees the knife at my throat, she lets out a growl that makes even my knees
feel weak, and then she leaps into action.

Everything happens at once as all three of the crossbow
users’ leap from their hiding spots for a better aim at Farah. The bits of the grass and brush they’d been using as disguise scatter everywhere, and not one of them are able to land a shot on Farah who’s too quick. I use the distraction to turn on the guy behind me, knocking his hand with the knife away while spinning to blow dust in his eyes.

He drops to his knees, clawing at the air in front of his face and screaming in fear. I
have no idea what the dust has made him see, but it’s definitely doing its job of scaring the crap out of him. Though hopefully not literally, because things would become smelly fast.

With the knife guy down, my attention goes
back to the crossbow people. They’ve scattered in three different directions, though I’m not sure if they split up as part of a clever strategy or reacted in blind terror. I grab for the closest to try to take her weapon from her, but she’s too fast. She sweeps around and kicks the inside of my hand, forcing me to drop all of the dust I’d grabbed.

I
put some space between us and rip off my cloak for easier access to my bandoleer, hoping somehow I can manage to reach it before she takes a shot with her already reloaded crossbow. Before I have a chance to blow the dust she pauses, give me a once over, and then spins around and drops her weapon in order to run away faster.

Well, that was easier than I expected.

I expect to find another person ready to attack me when I turn, but Rose already has her down with a knee on her chest and two slim blades crossed over her neck. The final attacker made it a decent distance before being pinned under Farah’s huge, clawed paws.

“Got her?” I ask Rose as I dip down to grab the dropped crossbow.

“She’s not going anywhere.”

The girl grunts and struggles against the
weight and blades, until her eyes fall on me and she instantly falls still.

What is this? Did I accidently cast some an illusion
on myself without realizing it? If so, go me. I did a sexy job of it apparently. Let’s see if it scares the guy Farah caught as much as the others.

Even though I have no idea how to use the crossbow, though there’
s a trigger so I’m assuming it’s not too complicated, I walk up to the guy under Farah and point it at him.

“Are you going to behave?” I ask while I point the bolt at his
head, Farah letting out another only slightly less frightening growl.

“Get it off,” the guy says between sobs. “Please. Please get this thing off me.”

Pathetic. For a bunch of bandits, you’d think these people would have dealt with their share of large creatures and people who could fight back. The fight’s over before I had a chance to enjoy it.

I sigh my disappointment
. “Farah, off.”

She whimpers,
would clearly prefer me to tell her to rip the guy to shreds, but sadly for her I’m not as sadistic as her last owner.

“Farah,” I say in my no nonsense voice. “No.
Off.” 

For a second I think she’s going to disobey, and I’m going to have to do something drastic, but luckily when I bark her name one last time, she takes the hint and steps back.

Only once Farah is off the guy am I able to see how young he is. He can’t be much more then thirteen, and Farah has done more of a number on him then I’d first thought. His clothes are torn and quickly soaking with blood as he weeps on the ground, unwilling or unable to move.

I shift my crossbow away so he’ll maybe stop crying, but it’s too little too late. The kid only weeps harder.

I’m not sure what to do. I’ve never taken first aid, and besides, it’s not like I have a whole lot of extra material around to wrap up his wounds with. Plus, should I be feeling sorry for this guy? These people attacked us first after all.

As I start to turn around to ask Rose what she thinks, she shouts out, “Sin! Watch out,” which is followed by a growl turned into a yelp.

By the time I’m able to move around and see what she’s shouting about, she’s already been grabbed by the knife wielder. He doesn’t seem to be at all affected by the dust anymore.

But it’s only when I see Farah do I fully
understand how much trouble we’re in. She’s twisted in an awkward angle and about ten feet in the air. She tries to struggle, but something happens, making her yelp in pain and causing her entire body to go limp.

She seems to be...dead.

“No!” I know I scream the word, but part of me doesn’t believe the sound is coming from my mouth. “No, please, no.”

“Interesting,”
a woman says from somewhere near Rose. “Not a single tear when a fellow human is hurt, but for this monster you can barely hold them back.”

She has to be alive. She has to. Even if she isn’t moving. “Please...
let her go.”

“That thing nearly killed my scout,”
the woman says in a dry tone.

I finally manage to drag my eyes away from Farah and to the woman. Her light brown hair is tied tightly in a bun at the back of her head with small braids leading back to the rest, keeping any shorter pieces
out of her face. Her slim frame is covered in an outfit almost exactly the same as mine, with a blood red corset covering a black short sleeved lace shirt and skin tight black pants tucked into tall black boots. The real difference is the sword and crossbow strapped to her hips.

One of her arms reaches toward Farah and I’m betting if I had Lou’s power, I’d be able to see magic flowing from her fingers to the chimera.
 

Standing behind her with an expression only slightly less terrified than when she ran, is the girl whose crossbow I’m holding.

“She was protecting me,” I say with more confidence now that I know what I’m dealing with. “Your people attacked us first.”

“You care about the creature?” the sorceress says without showing any signs of sympathy. “Then
prove it. Help her.”

I instantly raise my crossbow to point at her chest. She wants to goad me? Fine. I’ll play her way.

Problem is, all it takes is a swipe of her hand and the weapon is magically torn from my grip to fall on the ground several feet from me.

I’d expected something similar to happen, so while I’d been making a fuss of
raising a weapon to her, my other hand was pulling a handful of dust from a pouch. I know better than to attack someone as powerful as the sorceress obviously is, so instead, I blow the dust toward the two people guarding Rose. Sadly, Rose is too close not to be caught in the magic too, but hopefully she can hold herself together until the fear fades.

She does better than I expect. The second the dust hits her captives, she twists to elbow the knife wielder in the gut and
head-butts the girl as they both start to freak out, not sure what to attack first; Rose, myself or the wind.

As they do their thing,
I drop to my knees and pull the injured boy up to use as a human shield. I take the sharp end of one of his dropped arrows and press it to his neck. By the time the sorceress is able to calm the other two, Rose has already freed herself and has two knives held out in a defensive stance while she slowly backs toward me.

The sorceress starts to throw
a direct blast of magic at me, but stops herself when she sees the hold I have on the kid.

“Let my chimera go,” I say when I’m sure she’s not going to do anything more.

Everyone freezes in place, waiting for a cue from their leader. She in turn examines first me and then Rose with a shrewd gaze.

If it weren’t for a slight twitch in Rose’s shoulders, I would have guessed my magic hadn’t affected her at all. As it is, I’m impressed she hasn’t curled up in ball on the ground
and started crying.

Finally the woman looks up at Farah and her expression shifts from anger to puzzlement.

“I don’t understand,” she says. “There’s no magic on the beast but my own, so it can’t be a shape shifted person. Why then do you care about it so much?”

I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of an answer, but she still holds Farah with her power, and I know Rose isn’t going to be able to hold her own against my magic for much longer.

“She saved my life,” I say. “She turned on her master to protect my mother and myself. I owe her everything.”

I can feel my eyes burn with unshed tears
when I notice Farah still hasn’t moved an inch. She has to be alive. She has to.

The sorceress watches me for another moment. Too long. This needs to end now. But I don’t know how
to force her to act any faster.

As I lose the last
bit of hope things are going to go my way, the sorceress’s stance shifts and there’s a thud as Farah drops to the ground. Without any thought, I let go of the kid and push him away so I can crawl over to her.

Her goat head lifts as I
move close and her tail twitches in the way it does when she’s happy to see me. The rest of her seems weak and shaky, but she’s alive. I fling myself over her back and hug her furiously as she starts to regain her strength and attitude. She growls a warning for me to get off before she stands up and shakes herself out.

While I’m busy checking on Farah, the others have gone to the boy and are checking his wounds. Although I’m curious to know how he is, I know it’s more important for me to pay attention to the sorceress.

“You better hope he’s okay,” she says.

Her anger means nothing to me now that Farah is free.

Rose stumbles back a few feet, and I remember she’s still fighting off the terror inducing dust I’ve blasted her with. I go over to her and lay a hand on her arm, causing her to flinch violently, nearly stabbing me with her knife in the process. She closes her eyes and tries to regain some control over herself.

“It shouldn’t
last much longer,” I say, although I have no idea if I’m telling the truth or not. I don’t usually stick around after using my dust. I’m more of a throw and run kind of girl. “Keep breathing, you’re doing great.”

“You’re
a witch, aren’t you?” the woman says after a minute of watching us. I don’t answer. I think the answer is clear by now. “Where is the sorceress who belongs to your outfit?”

Of course. My outfit. The others must have seen it and
that’s why they ran.

“Dead,”
I say. Her expression hardens and I realize what I sound like I’m saying. She thinks I killed Gran and stole her clothes. “She was my grandmother.”

The woman seems to relax along with me as she nods once. “I’m sorry.” She waits as though expecting me to
explain more of what happened. When I don’t she continues. “It’s always sad to hear of the death of one of my sisters. There are so few of us these days.”

“Yeah, great.” I nod in the direction Rose and I had been walking before the attack. “Guess we’ll be going then. See you around.”

She makes no move to return to wherever she came from, and I have no interest in turning my back on her first. We stare at each other for a few minutes, her face unreadable. 

“You use your powers as a witch in ways I’ve never seen before,” she says. “I’ve certainly never seen someone of your level control such a powerful beast.”

I’m not sure if I should feel honored or insulted. So I simply say, “Her name is Farah.”

The sorceress’s eyebrows rise in surprise, which she quickly covers with a weak attempt at a smile. “Where are my manners? I’m
Rilla. This is Sonya, Albert, Anne and the boy you nearly killed is Peter.”

I don’
t offer an apology, though I can tell she’s expecting one.

“This is Rose,” I say. “And you can call me Sin.”

“Interesting name,” Rill says though she shows no hint of actually finding it interesting. I wonder if it has the same connotation in this world as mine. “Please, feel free to go on your way.”

“Great.” I roll my eyes. “Thanks a bunch.”

“Of course, your friend appears to need more time before she’s fully herself.”

I groan, tired of the woman’s games. “What are you getting at?”

Rilla smiles, and for the first time I actually believe she might be amused.

“Come with us,” she says. “I’
d like to learn more about you.”

“You mean you want to spy on us.”

She shrugs. “Of course, you could also stay here as sitting targets for the next people who happen across you. However, they might not be as generous as me.”

I’ve never met a sorceress
outside of my own family before, but so far I like her even less than Lou. This invitation feels more like a threat, but when I glance over at Rose to see what she thinks we should do, I notice her eyes are squeezed shut and she’s wobbling as though she’s going to fall at any moment. She’s definitely in no state to fight any more and Farah’s in about as bad a shape. It’s either I accept the ‘offer’ or fight five on one. 

“Fine,” I say. “We’ll go with you. But you’ll need to
break the spell on Rose. And if anyone so much as looks at Farah again, they’ll wish they got off as easy as your boy, Peter.”