Rogan ran down the stone steps yelling, “I got it! Let’s get out of here!”
Distracted, Beck didn’t notice one of the creatures standing over him until it was holding a legion sword to his eye—the only visible breach in his earthen armor. Beck flinched in shock when the thing spoke to him.
“Do not move,” the giant commanded.
Beck looked up at the huge form and was calculating how to shift the earth just enough so that the sword point didn’t penetrate his brain, when he saw something in the creature’s eye that surprised him.
It was indecision.
Unexpectedly, the invader swung its head up, paused, and then threw down the weapon. Beck rolled away and followed the monster’s gaze.
There was Kiernan, barely able to stand, leaning on her sword. Like the rest of them, she had been fighting for her life.
“Kiernan!” he shouted in relief, getting to his feet and allowing the armor of stone and dirt to slide off him. She stumbled over to him and into his arms.
Nothing ever felt so good to him in his life.
“We have to get out of here,” she said, green eyes worried.
“I know.” He reached out to wipe a smudge of dirt from under her eye. “You go. I have to make sure everyone gets out safely. I’ll catch up with you.”
“No need, Beck,” Airron said, appearing at their side. “There is no one else. It’s just us.”
Beck stared at him uncomprehendingly. “What do you mean?” he asked looking around and realizing how eerily quiet it suddenly seemed. Dead bodies, human and creature alike, were strewn across the encampment. “Hell,” he whispered under his breath. “Where is Anders? I sent Anders to round everyone up!”
“Over there.” Airron pointed to Jon’s corpse. The young earthshifter, his blonde curls matted with blood, lay face down with his own sword through his back.
Beck felt sick. All of the legionnaires and the first wave of attackers were dead.
Kiernan squeezed his arm.
“The entire legion gone?” he muttered, running a hand through his hair as he continued to survey the area in disbelief. The buildings, engulfed in flames, crackled ominously in the silence.
“Just the four of us left standing, and we don’t have time for discussion,” replied Airron, pointing toward the channel. “That fireshifter in black will be sending more troops in any minute.”
Rogan looked at the mindshifted invader and thrust his thumb out. “What about him?”
“We take him with us,” Beck growled. “I want to learn more about why they are here and what their plans are. Can you keep him under your control, Kiernan?”
She nodded and locked eyes with the creature. His head tilted to the side as he processed the thought she inserted. The invader then turned and walked away from them.
“What did you do?”
“He’s off to saddle five horses for us.”
“I’ll need a saddle, but not a horse,” Beck said and put a finger and thumb in his mouth to whistle. Within seconds, a shiny black head appeared at the top of the valley and Chasin raced down the hill toward Beck’s call.
When the prisoner returned with the gear, Beck saddled him and swung up onto his back. As he waited for the others to finish, he lifted his head suddenly at a faint noise. It sounded like a cry for help.
Hauling on Chasin’s reins, he kicked the horse into a trot and guided him toward the burning barracks where he thought he had heard the wail. “Dear, Highworld.” He dismounted when he saw a small hand waving from under a much larger body. Beck shoved the dead man aside and found Rory Greeley beneath, bleeding from a gash on his head, but otherwise unhurt.
Beck held out his hand and Rory took it with a grim smile. “Thank you, sir. I knew you wouldn’t leave me.”
Beck grunted and helped Rory up into the saddle. “No, I wouldn’t leave you, Rory. Not if I could help it.”
Beck and Rory joined the others and all were overjoyed to discover that another of the legion had survived.
“Now we do need another horse,” Rogan pointed out.
“He can have mine,” Airron said, disrobing and stuffing his clothes into his pack. He threw it to Rogan when he had finished and shifted into a white Haventi, arrogantly rearing up on his hind legs to paw at the air.
The five riders and six horses sped away up the hill and then turned back for one last look at the valley and the generations-old Northwatch Legion encampment.
This time, they saw not the beauty of the Crown Bluffs, the waterfalls and the blue lake that they admired less than a day ago, but the smoldering fires of ruin and an unknown enemy swarming mercilessly over the land held by their forefathers for three hundred years.
Hundreds of companies of the legion, thousands of men.
Troop 158 would be the last.
Chapter 9
Friend or Foe?
The sun had already dipped below the western horizon when Beck finally slowed their hurried flight south toward Galen’s Pass. Although still more than a day from the foothills of the Balor Mountains, Beck could see their mist-enshrouded tips in the distance.
Somehow, Kiernan had managed to maintain a steady stream of shifting to their prisoner, but she was now swaying dangerously in her saddle. Beck made his way over to a thinning coppice just off the road. “We’ll stop here for the night.”
“About time,” Rogan grumbled.
Beck swung a leg over Chasin and dismounted before the big horse had a chance to come to a full stop. Rushing to Kiernan, he reached up to wrap his hands around her waist and help her down. “Are you all right?” he asked, searching her tired eyes.
“I’m fine,” she said with a small smile.
Rogan offered to care for the worn out horses.
“No, Rory can do it,” Beck said. “You need to take care of those burns on your arms before they get infected. There’s salve and bandages in my pack.”
He turned back to Kiernan. “How long can you keep this up?” he asked, nodding toward their captive.
She sighed. “Hours, if I have the ability to concentrate because the link requires periodic mental reinforcement.”
Beck was impressed. He knew that for most mindshifters, a thought shifted to another person lasted for just a few seconds. “And the shifted person can’t discard the thoughts you give them and act on their own, correct?”
She shook her head and a strand of blonde hair tumbled over one eye. Beck used a finger to tuck the unruly tress back behind her ear. “No. Once I’ve established a connection, the receiver of the magic is blocked from having any independent thoughts during that time and is powerless to counter the directive of the simulated thought.”
“Does the receiver know what’s happening?” he asked. Although the academy offered a cursory review of other forms of shifting, the majority of the time was spent on areas of expertise. There was never a need for more since the magic users of Pyraan never exhibited aptitude in more than one ability.
“Normally, no, because the shifting takes place so fast that the receiver just treats the foreign thought as one of their own. Again, with me, because I can cause such a large span of time to be under my control, a person familiar with magic would know a mindshifter had been involved.” She glanced at the captive. “Especially, when they end up miles from where they last were.”
As if on cue, the captive moaned and placed his head in his bound hands.
“Should I shift again?” she asked wearily.
“No, I want to get answers first if I can. Why don’t you try to rest?”
She nodded gratefully and walked over to sit on a fallen log by the roadside.
Beck went to his pack and pulled out a piece of rope. “Help me tie him up,” he said to Airron who, he was glad to note, had already shifted from his horse form and was dressed. The Elf walked over and dragged the large hostage off the horse to the ground. Beck felt no need to be gentle as he tied the creature’s hands in front of him.
Free now from the p
seudo thoughts that were responsible for his every action since abandoning the Crown Bluffs, the prisoner growled and kicked out with his legs, narrowly missing Airron.
“Easy, big boy,” Airron warned. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not the enemy here, you are.”
The one-eyed invader glared at Airron but said nothing as he assessed his surroundings and captors with obvious mistrust.
Beck paced back and forth in front of the prone figure, large pieces of dirt flying off his boots with every determined step. “What is your name?”
Silence.
“I know you speak our language. What is your name?” he asked again, stopping.
Silence.
Rogan appeared at Beck’s side, twin fireballs flaring to life in his newly-bandaged palms. “Why bother with a monster like this? I say kill it now before it brings more harm to the people of Massa.”
“I’m not a monster and I’m not an it!” the captive roared, sitting upright and struggling against his bindings.
Rogan stalked over and under different circumstances, Beck might have laughed at the diminutive Dwarf glowering down at the gigantic trespasser. Even sitting on the ground, the considerable difference in size was unmistakable. The captive had to have been over seven feet, for sure.
Rogan leaned over him. “Not a monster, eh? Then what do you call people who invade other lands and slaughter the people they find there? Where you come from, what do you call people who butcher innocent men?”
“Adrian Ravener.”
Beck heard Kiernan suck in her breath behind him. Beck’s suspicions were now confirmed. The man in black on the ship at the Crown Bluffs was the centuries old Mage whose actions killed hundreds of thousands of people in the Mage War. Just like Galen Starr, the evil wizard still lived.
“My name is Titus and I am a Cyman. This is not our war, but we ‘ave no choice but to fight in it. It would be best if you surrendered to the Mage so that more of your people do not die needlessly.”
Beck eyed the prisoner, realizing in that moment that he was far more man than beast.
Rogan let his fireballs dissipate. “What do you mean this is not your war?”
The Cyman turned his head and refused to answer.
“We should kill him,” Rogan said softly without taking his eyes from the Cyman.
Beck looked questioningly at his friend. “Since when do you talk about killing people so casually?”
“You know, it’s a funny thing, Beck,” he snapped, “but when people try to kill me and my friends, I tend to want to do it to them first before they succeed.”
Rogan was right. These Cyman people had declared war on Massa. Their brutal actions at the Crown Bluffs by spilling the blood of innocent Massans were unredeemable. Beck thought of Jon Anders’ body sprawled in the dirt.
“What do you want?” Beck hissed through clenched teeth. He reached down, grabbed the shirt of the Cyman with both fists and lifted him off the ground. The earth began to tremble along with his fury. Kiernan jumped to her feet when the log she was sitting on rolled with the wave of disturbed soil. “Tell me!”
Even had the Cyman wished to reply, it would have been impossible with the steel grip Beck had under his throat.
Surprisingly, it was Rogan who diffused the situation by putting a hand on his shoulder. “That’s enough.”
Beck reluctantly dropped the Cyman to the ground. “Kiernan, please shift him again. I’ll be right back,” he mumbled in frustration and set off into the woods. Although he felt it highly unlikely that the Cymans could have caught up to them, he didn’t want to underestimate an enemy he knew very little about.
It did make him wonder. Could the shifters of Pyraan win a battle against the number of invaders he saw out on the Arounda Ocean? Would they be forced to call in reinforcements from the Iserlohn Army of Men? Maybe even the Dwarven and Elven armies? Beck readily admitted that he wasn’t a good judge of the number of troops needed to win a war.
Eying a modest caprock, he climbed on top to get a view of their back trail. Although, he didn’t see anything, what he heard was terrifying enough. Something hurtled through the woods in his direction at tremendous speed.
He dropped back to the ground and crouched. Whatever it was tearing his way either didn’t know he was there or didn’t care. He gave himself room to fight as the attacker came skidding around the caprock.
Bajan!
The Draca Cat ignored him completely as his hind legs scrabbled for purchase and he bolted in the direction of the others. Beck’s alarm at seeing the panic in the usually unflappable Draca Cat sent him sprinting behind.
The shifters tensed up in surprise when they noticed Bajan, but Beck’s eyes were on the Cyman warriors rushing down the road toward them. Demon’s breath, they’re fast!
“Look out!” he yelled and summoned a ball of earth, the quickest and easiest way to stop the threat. He flung the missile at the first soldier in line and it knocked him backwards into the others. His unexpected attack halted their advance for a moment, but the Cymans regrouped quickly and rushed forward once again.
There were ten of them.
Bajan leapt onto the road and issued a spine-tingling roar. His lethal, spiked tail rose threatening in the air with a promise of great harm to anyone who dared to approach.
The Cyman in the lead recognized the danger that the Draca Cat posed and held his arms out to both sides to stop his cohorts. “Give us the boy!” he shouted.
Beck glanced back at Kiernan, now rapidly shifting thoughts into Titus’s mind. Face slack, the young Cyman walked over to the picketed horses and stood with his back to both groups.
“What ‘ave you done to ‘im?” yelled the leader. “Come ‘ere, Titus!” The Cyman inched forward.
Beck stepped into the middle of the road blocking his way. Rogan, Airron and Kiernan silently joined him. The ground began to roil, flame ignited, air shimmered and the distinctive rasp of the Sword of Iserlohn echoed in the night.
Beck didn’t want this to come to violence, but knew that they would win if it did. These were not magical creatures standing before him and the shifters could easily destroy them, even without Bajan’s help. The Cymans fought with brute strength, not magic.
Even so, Beck suspected there was more to these Cymans and their reason for being here in Massa. Adrian Ravener had forced them into this war, and Beck was determined to find out how.
“He stays with us,” Beck said. Then, he gambled. “Turn back now. This is not your war and you know it.”
The soldiers looked at each other uneasily. The leader spoke up again. “Titus should learn to keep ‘is mouth shut.”
Beck didn’t reply.
“Give ‘im to us and we will leave. For now.”
Ignoring the demand, Beck questioned him instead. “Why are you here?”
The Cyman hesitated for a moment and then declared, “We fight for the survival of the Cyman race. We fight for the lives of our women and children and for our very existence. Even without magic, that makes us a very formidable opponent to the isle of Massa. Do as the Mage instructs and your people will not be ‘armed.”
“What is your name?”
Again, the Cyman hesitated, blinking his one eye. “Teag.”
“Just Teag?”
“We are not allowed surnames.”
“You fight for a man who doesn’t even consider you enough of one to have a proper identity?” he asked incredulously. “I don’t know how the Mage has managed to coerce you into this affair, but together we can rise up against him and keep all of our people safe.”
Teag snorted. “You do not know Adrian Ravener or you would not make that statement. There is no one on the isle of Massa who can challenge ‘is powers. That is why ‘e is ‘ere. The Mage is capable of immense destruction single-handedly.”
Beck smiled forbiddingly. “So am I.”
Teag narrowed his eye.
“The boy stays with us, Teag, so that leaves you with two cho
ices. Leave now and stay alive or fight and die.” At his words, he felt Rogan, Airron and Kiernan brace themselves in readiness for an attack. Bajan snarled at the soldiers, saliva dripping from his jaws.
Teag glanced at his fellow companions. “We cannot win against your magic this time, but Adrian Ravener can and will. You must ‘eed my words, magic user, and tell your people to surrender to the Mage.”
Teag turned to go, but stopped to look at Beck. “When next we meet, one of us will not survive the encounter.”
With that, the giant spun on his heel and ran with remarkable speed back up the road, the rest of the Cymans following closely behind.
Rogan let the fire in his hands disappear. “I wasn’t sure how that was going to go.”
“Me either,” admitted Beck. “Can you and Rory get Titus mounted and ready to leave? Make sure his hands are bound tightly in front of him.”
Rogan nodded and hurried off.
The air shimmered as Airron began to undress. “I don’t know why I even bother wearing clothes,” he mumbled. “I’ll take a look from above for another secluded spot for us to stop for the night.”
At Beck’s nod, Airron took a few running steps, shifted into a hawk and wheeled away into the night.
Beck turned to Kiernan. “Send Bajan to track the Cymans to be sure they are headed north and not trying to deceive us by circling around.”
***
Before Kiernan had a chance to deliver Beck’s order, Bajan reached out to her.
I will do as Beck asks, Princess.
Thank you, Bajan. For this and for saving my life at the Crown Bluffs.
You were in trouble again. It was my honor and duty.
I never would have imagined that trouble would take this form, Bajan. The island of Massa invaded? Our friends killed in battle? She shook her head and buried it deep within the thick fur at his neck.
You cannot imagine how worried I was when I saw enemy soldiers on the march behind you. You are safe now, little one. That is all that matters. Bajan pulled back to look at her. Stay near Beck. For some reason, his scent has changed and he smells just as concerned as I over your welfare.
***
As soon as Bajan sprinted away, Beck approached Kiernan from behind and rested his hands lightly on her shoulders. She didn’t turn around, but leaned her cheek into the back of one of his hands.