The Vacant Throne: The Legend Of Kairu Vol 3 (9 page)

“
We have incoming,” I
said. Bill looked at me wearily and I nodded. “You be the shield,
I’ll take care of them. We keep moving though.”

He nodded and readied his shield. I
scanned behind me and caught sight of one of the archers. I reached
back and launched a Lightning Bolt towards him. The bolt was
inaccurate and the Evenawk dodged it easily.

The sound of an arrow hitting Bill’s
shield drew my attention and I swept the area around the archer
with fire. It squawked in pain as an arrow pierced into my
shoulder. I spun my arm and sent an Ice Bolt towards the archer,
dropping him to the ground.

My arm started to itch and burn as the
scales repelled the poison. The scales did little for the arrow
though, as it remained stuck in my shoulder.

I’ll do what I can to
block the pain out,
Cathy said.
Just don’t do anything stupid to damage the
muscles further.

The pain started to dull and I scanned
the trees for a sign of movement. I had my free hand ready with a
Ward for when the next arrow was fired. I felt around and found a
life sign to my left. I brought my arm slowly to that side and set
up the Ward behind Lady Sandra. Two arrows deflected off the Ward
and I saw movement. I summoned my power and launched a Lightning
Bolt towards the remaining sky archer. I heard a squawk followed
closely by the rustle of the trees as it fell.

Two more were coming,
but they were far enough behind that I was sure they hadn’t seen
us. I planted the Illusion spell on them and pressed forward. We
had reached the path down the mountain and I disabled the Sentry
Stick I had set up and told Bill to hide.

Using the mountain side as cover, we
dropped to the ground and breathed as quietly as we could. The two
Evenawks flew over us and started scanning the mountain side. I
motioned for Bill to stay still and he watched in horror, waiting
to be found. The Evenawks finished their scan and disappeared in
the direction of their capital city. The Illusion spell had
successfully made us seem invisible to them and I breathed a sigh
of relief.

“
How’d they not see
us?” Bill asked quietly.

“
I hid us with
magic,” I answered, pulling the arrow out of the scales.

I dispelled the area to make sure there
wasn’t any more poison and my body returned to fleshy skin. I
healed the small wound and muscles and went to check out Lady
Sandra’s wound. My eyes opened wider as I noticed the arrowhead in
her side with most of shaft broken off.

“
Why didn’t you tell
me she had been hit with an arrow?” I asked Bill.

He looked down and his eyes grew wide
too. “She must have broken the shaft off herself. Is she going to
bleed out?”

“
That’s not what I’m
concerned about,” I answered, cupping my hand around the wound.
“The Evenawk were using poison tipped arrows.”

“
What?” Bill asked
shocked.

I started removing
the poison through the wound and throwing it off to the side. After
I removed two handfuls, I placed my two fingers on parts of her
body to feel if there was anymore. I was confident that I had
extracted most of the poison, but her life signs were really low
and fading quickly. The poison had been in her system for too
long.

She certainly is
strong to have lasted this long though,
Cathy said.

I healed the wound on
her side and tried to strengthen her body, but she was still
unconscious. No matter what I did, I wasn’t sure if she was going
to pull though. I pulled my spell book out of my backpack and
viciously flipped through it, hoping to find a miracle.

I have an idea that
could help,
Cathy said
carefully.

We need all the ideas we can get.

See,
she started but stopped. I could feel her trying
to hide her emotions from me.
She’s too
weak to live. You can feel it and I can feel it. The poison is
killing her and we don’t have a spell to bring her back from the
dead. She is important to ensure that Balendar can be reunited and
fight against Desroche and his Evenawks.

Very important.

Well then, what if
we...
I felt her shift around
again.
What if we transfer me into
her?

Chapter
8

You want to transfer yourself into her
body?

My face showed my
shock and Bill looked at me quizzically. “What’s going on?” he
asked, worried that something worse was going to happen.

“
Still just absorbing
what happened,” I answered, more truthfully than he would realise.
I snapped out of it and looked at him. “We need to head back down
the mountain and find some way to heal her.”

“
Good idea,” Bill
responded.

We picked up the limp
body of Lady Sandra and threw her arms over our shoulders again. I
wasn’t looking forward to the trip down the mountain. The battle
and flight had left me pretty stiff everywhere in my body and
returning to the forest had passed through my mind, but it would be
up to us to stop Desroche.

I looked to Bill and the old guardsman
had a look on his face that suggested he would never be the same
again. It had been a rough few days for him, starting in Thurlborn
Peak and ending with his friends lying dead at the gate of
Scert’chak. When he gets back to Davalin, it wouldn’t surprise me
that it would be the end of his fighting days.

Don’t get
distracted,
Cathy said.
We have much to talk about.

I know. I just wanted to get moving
again so we didn’t weird Bill out by staring at the wall.

Fair enough,
Cathy replied, gathering her emotions and
retreating to the back of my mind.

What are you doing?

Trying to remove my
influence from you and vice versa so we can talk this out,
Cathy answered, sounding further away.
This is a huge topic and we need to be...clear
headed would be the right word, I think.

Alright.
I tried to form some mental walls to separate
myself from her.
What you are asking for
is to kill her so you can take her body.

She is already going
to die,
Cathy said, keeping her tone
even.
If we lose her here, we don’t stand
a chance of getting Balendar reunited. They will never trust
another Mage again.

We were approaching
the magical bridge and I connected to it through the bond and the
bridge glowed brightly. We crossed quickly and I dropped the bond
to conserve my energy. We continued down the path, watchful for any
more flying patrols.

We would still find a way to get
through to them. We did last time.

It would be too late
then,
Cathy countered.
Lady Middleton’s support would speed things along. I’m sure
everyone is aware of what happened to her father and her distrust
for magic. If she walked in and supported you with what we’ve seen,
people couldn’t ignore that.

Or they would think she finally snapped
and went crazy.

Things are too
fragile now,
Cathy said.
They would be fools to ignore any reports at this
point.

The hesitation would be understandable.
Desroche really did a number on people’s already fragile minds.

All the more reason
to have me by your side,
Cathy pointed
out.
I want to help you out more and you
have to admit, me having a body would help out greatly.

There’s no denying
that, but we can’t simply end a life for selfish
reasons.

This isn’t selfish
reasons!
Cathy exclaimed in
frustration.
This is about stopping
Desroche! Our only hope is dying on our shoulder and we have a way
to fix that with a small sacrifice.

I sighed.
It just doesn’t feel right.

Do you not trust
me?
Cathy asked sadly.

What?! Cathy, you are
the ONLY person I have EVER fully trusted. We’ve spent two cycles
together and know each other better than two people can.

So let me stand by
your side properly,
Cathy
responded.

“
Are you doing
alright?” Bill asked. “You don’t look good.”

“
I can’t believe what
is happening,” I said to him.

“
I know what you
mean,” he said sadly. “We’ve lost a lot of friends today. I’m sorry
about your friends being enslaved by Davenport, or Desroche as you
called him.”

“
I’m sorry I couldn’t
do more for your friends,” I said glumly.

He nodded as we
stepped into the Archanion Field. We had made it back to our camp
area from last night. The danger of the mountain was behind us and
lingering too long would be a mistake, but we had to take care of
Lady Middleton.

“
They died protecting
our Lady,” he said, his professionalism shining through. “We have
to make sure she survives.”

“
I’ve thought of
something that could help,” I said to him. “Let’s set up a small
camp so she can have shelter.”

Bill released Lady
Sandra and I lowered her gently to the ground. We set up the small
tent Bill had carried with him and placed her inside. Using my
spare clothes as a pillow, I sat her up and checked her life signs.
She was still incredibly weak, but not deteriorating fast. I
applied some more magic to help try and stabilise her.

Are we going to do
the transfer?
Cathy asked
timidly.

Yes. We will have a quick moment of
silence for her, and then I will transfer your soul in.

Agreed,
Cathy said, trying to contain her
excitement.

With everything set
up, I opened my Spell Book and flipped through the pages to the
Spirit Transference spell. When I first found it in a dusty old
tome in the archives, I added it as a novelty; like the Fireworks
or Water Walking spell. I had already used the Firework spell to
blow up a house and I was preparing to transfer a demon into
another body. The likelihood of running across a lake of fire to
escape enemies was growing quickly.

Cathy had stayed in her position in the
back of my mind to continue to hide her emotions. I could still
feel the waves of excitement coming from her as I studied the
spell. Bill was checking over Lady Sandra, trying to do anything to
save her. It was pointless though, there was little any of us could
do. But still, he must have felt helpless being out of his element
here.

“
I need you to do
something for me,” I said to him.

He looked at me, unsure whether he
should be hopeful or not.

“
The spell is going
to leave me vulnerable though so I need you to go outside and
protect our tent,” I continued.

Bill nodded and stood up. “Do what you
can.”

“
I will,” I said.
“But please, disregard any sounds you may hear coming from the
tent. I don’t know what is going to happen, but just...be prepared
for anything.”

He gave me a confused look and left the
tent. I ensured the tent was closed properly before sitting down
next to Lady Sandra. Her heartbeat was weak but still stable from
my magic. When the healing magic wore off, I feared she would die
quickly.

I bowed my head in
silence for a moment before reaching across my mind to
Cathy.
Did you see the book or did you
need to reconnect with my mind first?

I’ll reconnect with
your mind,
Cathy said. Her presence washed
over my body and my head felt temporarily heavy.
Let’s see what the spell says.

I focused on the book
and read through the spell again. I would first have to create a
bond between my soul and Lady Sandra. I would then need to dislodge
Cathy’s soul from mine and force it through the bond. This ritual
was traditionally performed by Mages with loose morals that had two
or three friends to help. Cathy would have to do her share so we
were powerful enough to disentangle our souls.

Seems straightforward
though,
Cathy said,
and with both of us, we won’t have any mistakes.

Yeah, you are probably powerful enough
to do this spell yourself.

Cathy
chuckled.
Probably, but I’m not in a hurry
to try.

Alright, let’s do this.

I reached out with my magic and felt
for Lady Sandra’s soul. The weak flicker from within her was hard
to grasp and the bond kept breaking.

Physical contact may
help strengthen the bond,
Cathy pointed
out.

Where should I...uh...

Her hand, dinkus!
Hold her hand!
Cathy exclaimed.

Right.
I grabbed Lady Sandra’s cool hand.

Cathy
chuckled.
What are you going to do without
me?

I don’t know.

I didn’t want to think about it. I had
grown accustomed to her being in my mind and the thought of her
leaving left me feeling alone and empty. I hid the feeling so Cathy
wouldn’t know. I didn’t want to discourage her. I could still feel
her excitement to be free of my mind.