Tides of Faith: Travail of The Dark Mage Book Two (68 page)

The ring of soldiers was
tight, half a dozen blades attacked and it was all he could do to
keep them at bay and the girl safe. When an opening came where he
could press the attack, he had to let it go in favor of blocking a
thrust or hack aimed at the girl.

Winds whipped fiercely
now. Their roar nearly drowned out all other sound. He could feel
their tug and feared they would not make it in time.

Then the girl screamed.
Miko turned, but not fast enough. A blade shot forward aimed at her
chest. He couldn’t bring his sword around in time to save her. Time
slowed…the blade came forward and just as it pierced the front of
the girl’s shirt, a curved dagger hooked it, knocked it aside. Miko
watched as the cloaked figure’s hand wrapped around the soldier’s
neck and twisted. The fetid odor was very strong now. For a
split-second, their eyes met, the cloaked man and his, then the
battle resumed.

Soldiers fell to Miko’s
sword and the cloaked man’s dagger. Together they fought for the
safety of the girl. Then, they were before the doorway. Such was
the fierceness of the maelstrom that it rent the very cobblestones
from the ground.

The cloaked man stood
within the doorway.

Miko made to enter and the
curved dagger rose to block his way. He raised his sword to force
his way in, but the girl stood before him and laid her hand upon
his blade. She smiled at him and he lowered his blade.

Turning to the cloaked
man, she said not a word, merely smiled. The man’s features were
obscured by the shadows of the hood, yet it was clear he looked at
her intently. His hand raised and rested upon her head. She and he
stood still for a moment, their eyes gazing into each other’s, then
he released her, and the cloaked man stepped aside.

Taking Miko’s hand, the
girl led him into the building.

“He’s hidden, that’s for
sure.”

Father Vickor glanced to Tinok and
nodded. Two hours on the road since leaving the tavern and not a
sign of where Potbelly had holed up for the night.

Tinok brought his horse to a stop and
glanced back the way they had come.

“What do you…,” began Shorty before
Tinok shushed him to silence. A moment later came the sound of
riders fast approaching.

“Shorty…” Tinok said and then motioned
toward the side of the road.

“Right.”

Slipping of his horse, Shorty moved to
a vantage spot off the road where he wouldn’t be readily observed
and readied his knives.

“What are you going to do?”

Tinok turned to Father Vickor,
“Depends who it is.”

Moving to the side of the road, they
waited for the riders.

Eight men rode hard in the moonlight.
They were nearly upon Tinok and the others when they noticed them
and came to a stop.

The riders formed a semi-circle around
them and one came forward. “Who are you?”

“Could ask you the same question,”
Tinok replied.

“None of your smart mouth,” the rider
spat. “Now, I asked you a question.”

Tinok pointedly ignored him. “Are you
looking for someone?”

“Not that it’s any of your business,”
the man replied, “but we’re looking for a pair of
riders.”

“Haven’t seen anyone on the road for
hours.” Tinok rested his hand on a knife hilt. “What do you want
them for?”

“They’re murderers,” the man spat.
“Killed a bunch of our friends earlier this evening.”

“Out for vengeance, are
you?”

“Damn straight.”

“They wouldn’t be those cursed fellows
we heard about back at the inn, would they?”

“That’s them.”

“Figure just the eight of you can take
them?”

“We got more than enough,” the rider
laughed.

“You should have brought more.”
Drawing his knife, Tinok kicked the sides of his horse and
hollered, “Now!”

Bolting forward, Tinok slammed his
knife in the man’s chest, pulled it out as his horse drew him past,
then charged into the middle of the remaining seven.

Smaller, well-balanced knives flew
from the darkness with deadly accuracy. Riders cried out as blades
sank into their backs.

Tinok’s knife felled a second rider as
the man tried to pull his sword and a third before the rider had a
chance to draw back his blade to strike. A fourth cried out as one
of Shorty’s knives struck him in the back and Tinok finished him
off with a swipe across the throat.

Father Vickor hollered, “Stay back,
Kip!” as he rode forward to attack. His mace struck aside the man’s
sword then with a back-handed swipe, caved in the side of the man’s
head. Before the dead rider hit the ground, the fight was
over.

Wiping his blade on a dead man’s
shirt, Tinok said, “We’d better get these bodies off the road and
hide them.”

“Kip, gather their horses,” Father
Vickor said.

“Yes, Father.”

Taking Tinok by the shoulder, the
priest turned him round. “Was this really necessary?”

Gazing intently into the priest’s
eyes, the knifer replied, “Absolutely. We don’t know how much time
Scar has and now we can continue the search without fear of
pursuit.”

From where he was gathering his
throwing knives, Shorty said, “At least for a while.”

“It will take those back at the inn
over a day to figure out they aren’t coming back,” Tinok replied.
“By that time we will have found them and be long gone.”

“Do you think we
will
be able to find them
tonight?”

Tinok grinned. “Now that we no longer
have to worry about avoiding notice, I have no doubts.”

Potbelly worried for his friend. It
had been far too long since Scar had eaten or had anything more
than a wetting of his tongue to drink. He glanced down the backside
of a slight hill to where he had placed Scar and the horses. “We’ll
get you right yet.” Sighing, he turned his attention back toward
the road and the pursuit that he was certain would develop at some
point. Once the sun came up, he wasn’t sure what to do. Should he
risk traveling on the road in the hopes of meeting up with Miko’s
priests? Or would keeping to the wild country keep them safe until
they put enough distance behind them that pursuit would be
unlikely.

Several hours now he’d drifted in and
out of sleep as he kept watch. Dreams came and went, some were
quite intense while others less so. His latest one was of him and
Scar sneaking into some long abandoned castle rumored to be filled
with treasure. The fact that evil spirits abounded and would kill
them quickly deterred them not a bit.

Real world intermixed with dream as he
hovered on the cusp of sleep. At times he and Scar would be
searching hidden rooms for magical artifacts only to drift closer
to wakefulness and the dream would fade to a whisper as the dark
landscape upon which he kept watch would come into greater focus.
Then he would once again drift off to sleep and the dream would
take over yet again.

He and Scar find
treasure…
dark landscape…
hidden room with a spectral statue
…dark landscape…
running from the
castle with a horde of ghosts hot on their
trail…
dark landscape…
ghost riders thundering from the sky…
faint light moving way off in the dark…
Scar making a last stand to buy him time…
light moved along the road…
“Potbelly!” Scar cried as he fell to a spectral
blade…
as it drew closer, the light
manifested into the shape of a man…
turning
to his friend, he reached out as Scar said his name one last time
“Potbelly
”… “Potbelly!”

Snapping awake, it took his mind a
moment to realize the phantom moving along the road a ways off was
not part of his dream. It was a man on horseback.

“Potbelly!” came the cry again from
the direction of the phantom.

He broke into a grin when he realized
the phantom was Father Vickor surrounded by the glow of Morcyth.
Standing, he hollered, “Over here”

The priest turned in his direction as
two other riders barely seen in the glow’s radiance galloped toward
him.

“Tinok!” he cried when the riders came
closer. “And Shorty. Am I glad to see you guys.”

“Where’s Scar?” Shorty asked. “Heard
you two got into a little trouble.”

“You might say that.”

When Father Vickor with Kip in tow
joined them, Potbelly took them down the other side of the small
hill to where Scar laid upon the ground.

“We encountered one of those creatures
that took Jira,” he explained. “Scar got hit by its
darts.”

Maintaining the glow, Father Vickor
dismounted and knelt next to the unmoving Scar. The glow reached
out and enveloped the Pit Master.

“I gave him what water he could take,”
Potbelly explained. “Which wasn’t much.”

Tinok patted him on the back. “He’ll
take care of Scar.”

“He sure will,” agreed Kip. “He’s one
of our best healers.” Then he lowered his voice and added, “Though
he doesn’t look it.”

“Heard that, Kip.”

The glow surrounding the two men faded
and then Father Vickor stood and turned to Potbelly. “The poison
has been neutralized, I think.”

“You think?” Potbelly asked. “You
don’t know?”

“Not entirely, no,” the priest
responded. “It acted in a way with which I am unfamiliar, and I
know a lot about such things. But I believe he will make a full
recovery.”

“How do you know?”

Father Vickor shrugged. “It
feels that he will. The Reverend Father calls it the
Priestly Certainty
.”

Shorty didn’t appear convinced. “I
sure hope you’re right.”

“Will know by morning. He should rouse
by then.” He turned to Tinok. “A fire would do him a world of
good.”

“Dare we risk it?” asked
Shorty.

Tinok nodded. “This is why we took out
those searchers. Kip, scavenge fuel for a fire.”

“In the dark?”

Even in the dark Kip withered beneath
the glare Tinok gave him.

“Now would be a good time to practice
summoning the power,” Father Vickor said.

A few moments of futility later, the
young Novice said, “Can you do it?”

Laughing, Father Vickor summoned the
power of Morcyth and slapped Kip on the back. “It will come, young
Kip.”

Kip wasn’t so sure. All the
while he gathered wood, he sought the elusive power of Morcyth, yet
it failed to come within reach.
What if it
never comes to me? What if the Reverend Father is wrong about
me?
Dejected and feeling useless, he
gathered sufficient quantity to see them through the
night.

Once the fire blazed forth and pushed
back the dark, Kip laid out his bedroll and climbed into it. Tinok
took the first watch with Shorty on the second. Potbelly was out
before the fire was lit and would be allowed to sleep through the
night. The last watch Kip would share with Father Vickor. He knew
the Father would work with him to find Morcyth’s power, as well as
drill him in the doctrines of the faith. Sometimes he wished he
could just take watch with Shorty. He at least could tell
jokes.

Sighing, he drifted off to
sleep.

With the brightening of the dawn, Scar
began to stir just as Father Vickor had predicted. At first he just
moved his eyes and slight, uncoordinated movements of his limbs.
But as the sun rose above the horizon, he found his
voice.

“How long was I out?”

“A couple days,” Potbelly replied. “Do
you remember any of it?”

He closed his eyes. “Bits and pieces.
Not sure if they were real or a dream.”

Father Vickor summoned the power of
Morcyth and checked on his patient. “You’re going to be fine,” he
assured Scar. “May be weak for a few days as your body shakes off
the remaining effects of the creature’s poison.”

Scar tried to sit up and Potbelly
moved to help him. He weakly pushed him aside. “Don’t need no wet
nurse.”

“When you can stop me, I’ll believe
you.”

Despite his friend’s complaints,
Potbelly aided him in sitting up then gave him his water
bottle.

Scar upended it and drained it in one
go.

“Easy,” advised Shorty. “You don’t
want to go and make yourself sick.” His advice was promptly ignored
as Scar asked for a second bottle and drained it by half. Then his
stomach growled.

Potbelly laughed. “You’ll be your old
grumpy self in no time.” He handed Scar several slices of jerked
beef.

Tearing off a sizeable section, Scar
commenced to chew as he asked, “Where is everyone else?”