Ralph and Hailey were a few steps behind me. We had thrown enough food into some over-the-shoulder bags to last us for a few days’ travel which, as long as we weren’t followed, would be enough to get us to a spot of land where we could gather more. Luckily, our people were adept at living off the land. Carrying any more in our sacks might have looked suspicious.
The city gates grew closer. I could see the lock was not in place and the bars stood slightly ajar.
Hailey’s whisper from behind me was thick with concern. “They left the gates open?”
I could feel a tinge of fear center on my neck. It might seem strange for a civilization as interconnected to the environment as ours to live in a town surrounded by a large brick wall and iron barred gates. Our gates were never open at night, and with reason. I had no idea men were our enemies until tonight. They were just another species we shared our planet with, like any other animal—but we did have other enemies. Our greatest enemy was a dark species long ago subdued that would every now and again be successful in getting through the city walls to snatch one of our children. Because the kingdom of men had no magical connection to the planet, these energumen, as they were called, could prey on them without consequence.
“So what?” Ralph bantered. “We were going out there anyway.”
I turned around in time to see Hailey give Ralph one of her looks. “We have means of protecting ourselves. The humans don’t.”
“So?” I said, surprised at the venom in my voice. “Let the humans suffer. I hope the energumen take them all.”
Now Hailey was angry. “We don’t even know what happened here.”
“You’re defending them? You saw the same thing I did,” I scoffed. “I showed you the memory of Joshua. You know what he said. He never came to get us. What do you think happened to him?”
Now she was close to tears. “They can’t all be dead.”
If even one mage was dead, that was enough for me to punish all the humans—if it were my choice. So I chose to ignore Hailey. I didn’t want to respond and confirm my own fear. Instead I turned and walked toward the gate.
I hadn’t made it two steps before a large man emerged from between two buildings. Since I hadn’t been paying attention to where I was going, I ran into his hard body with enough force that it would have made a normal man stumble over me. This man, however, was so large that I stumbled over him and tumbled onto the street.
“What are you kids doing?” he asked accusingly.
I was surprised to hear Ralph answer before I could even get back on my feet. “We’re from the orphanage. We were told to take this dog for a walk.”
I looked up in time to see the man’s expression pucker. He pointed one long, thick finger toward the gate. “You see those carriages approaching? They hail from the orphanage. I don’t see them here just yet.”
Ralph appeared to physically shrink as the color drained from his face.
“To which family do you belong, boy? Your father will no doubt want to hear about the misdeeds of the liar he shelters as a son.”
“It’s my fault, sir.” I found myself talking before I had even thought the words. “The stories he tells get us in trouble with strangers often. Certainly you can’t blame him for being scared. You are a rather,” I gulped, “large man, sir.”
The looming figure softened his stance enough to put down his pointing finger, but his eyes were still wary of us. “Then this is your dog, boy?”
“Yes.”
“And I assume he is well trained?”
I hesitated, not sure of where this line of questioning was meant to lead me. “Yes.”
“Then if you tell the truth, if he is your animal, and if he is well trained as you claim, make him do something for me.”
So it was meant to be a test. “What would you like to see him do?” I asked.
The man pondered for a moment. When he asked his question, it had a carefully contained inflection, like he was trying to hide something. “Does he hunt?”
“Yes.”
The man took an ominous step forward and started pointing again, this time toward the dog. “That breed cannot hunt,” he said between clenched teeth.
I had to take a step back to avoid being squashed by this man’s sudden tirade. He took another violent step in my direction.
“I assure you he can!” I pleaded.
My feet were off the ground a moment later. The man grabbed me by my shirt and hoisted me up toward his face. When our noses were mere inches from each other he spoke, “Then have him hunt something for me.”
The look in his eye was total victory, but he set me back down and glanced toward Max.
I need you to find something alive for me, Max. Anything will do. Some animal. Bring it back to me.
Max’s expression was the dog equivalent of someone rolling their eyes. How am I supposed to do that?
You’re the dog! Haven’t you ever, you know, chased anything around?
Besides my tail? His expression was playful.
“Well?” The man grew impatient.
“Max, hunt!” I commanded in the most authoritative voice I could muster.
The dog looked at me, obviously disgusted, but bounded for the gate.
The first carriage had just arrived, but was too large to fit through the gate. Max ducked under the carriage door as it opened, and startled the person climbing out. She sputtered profanities as she missed the last step and hit the ground with much less grace than she was obviously accustomed to expecting. Her dress was flowing and fit her wide frame with tailored precision. At the sight of her, the man who had threatened us ran to throw open the gate and greet her.
“Madam Lucacious,” he said, taking her gloved hand and pressing it to his mouth.
“Hello, Frederick,” she responded, acting as if having to acknowledge his presence was difficult.
We used this chance to make our way toward the gate. As soon as we were at the bars, I could see three other carriages lined up behind the first. Each was as large as the one towering above me.
“How many children?” Frederick was asking.
“61.” The woman responded to Frederick’s inquiries with the shortest sentences possible. As she made her way into the town, she looked down at us, her face twisted in disgust. “Uhg,” she groaned. “It might be 64.”
Ralph, Hailey, and I looked around at each other, trying to understand her meaning. It wasn’t until the children started unloading from the carriages that we realized we looked as ragged as they did.
“This is perfect,” Hailey whispered. “We can use the kids as a distraction to weave through the carriages and around the wall.” She was already leading us out the gates and toward the same hill where we had met Joshua earlier that evening.
My eyes were on the children as we carefully made our way toward the open country. Each child carried a small lumpy pillowcase, no doubt filled with a few personal belongings. They huddled together, wearing weary looks on their faces as they surveyed their new surroundings.
I admit I wasn’t watching where I was going. I was too busy taking pleasure in the image of these human children all being terrified of the city walls that towered above them. When I ran straight into the back of Ralph, I muttered a quick apology. I took a step back, expecting him to turn around and yell at me for not paying attention, but he stood there with his back to me. That’s when I noticed his hands were balled into fists. He looked intently between the ground and Hailey, who was also frozen in place.
“Are you sure?” she asked in a quivering voice. I realized I had missed something.
Ralph didn’t answer immediately. I took a step to the side so I could see around him.
“Edmund?” Hailey’s voice was pleading with me.
When I could see between them, I followed Ralph’s eyes to a large snake coiled stealthily in the high grass.
“It’s just a snake,” I said, stating the obvious, almost questioning the reason for their rigidity.
T
hen Ralph muttered a word that all three of us had already thought once tonight. The word caused my stomach to ball like Ralph’s fists and a surge of adrenaline caused my body to tense as rigidly as my friends’: “Energumen.”
“Are you sure?” I repeated Hailey’s question.
This was Ralph’s gift. He had the ability to see things the rest of us couldn’t see; the possession of a creature, like this snake, for example. Ralph nodded his head, and we all took an instinctive step back.
Energumen weren’t particularly dangerous to children of our age. The first spell we learned as soon as we could speak was the one to remove an energumen from their physical host. Energumen were spiritual creatures that had powers of their own, but could only manifest those powers if they had possession of a living body. An energumen in a physical body was definitely something to fear, but the knots in my stomach weren’t because of that. The spell to exorcize the energumen was visual, and the men who made our entire magical race vanish were only a few yards away.
As if sensing our tension, the snake reared its head, its dark, hallow eyes centered on me.
How odd and how strange, we could all hear it speak, that I would find three little mages while seeking for men. Its voice was strangely sweet and alluring, quiet, like a whisper that sounded like a song. The creature inched toward us. We took another step back. Perhaps I will take you back to my realm, and leave the men be. A great reward for one mage; imagine the prize for three!
The snake lurched forward and we fell back. I felt myself hit the ground and heard Hailey and Ralph fall near my side. I tried to rebound but an unseen force pinned down my body. The world seemed to shift and I could feel the use of magic around me. My gaze was thrust into darkness, another spell cast by the energumen.
“Edmund!” Hailey called out to me, “What do we do?”
I didn’t know how to answer her. If the energumen took us we would be dead, but if we used our powers to stop it the men would undoubtedly see and we would meet the same fate as our entire race. My mind, which had maintained rational much longer than I would have expected it to during this whole ordeal, was blank.
My friend, my friend! What is wrong?
This voice was familiar, but that familiarity sent another shock of fear coursing through my body—not for me—but for the owner of the voice. “Max! Stay away!” I called, but I was too late.
I heard a growl and a loud bark followed by the snapping of Max’s powerful jaw. The response was a rhythmic chuckle that hissed. My mind conjured up images of Max fighting the snake, unaware of the evil contained inside. His growls were like the ones down in the cellar, when his white fangs and yellow eyes glowed viciously in the pale light. Those images, terrifying as they were, seemed playful compared to the murderous look in the empty eyes of the possessed snake.
Another snap of teeth, then a whine, and I knew it was over. I could hear Max’s heavy breathing but his growls changed to high-pitched cries. The energumen would come for us.
I didn’t know who cast the spell, but the sound of it was thunderous. The blindness was replaced by piercing white light. I could hear the energumen scream as it was ripped from its host. The spell was so healing that, for a few seconds, I thought myself invincible.
All that gave way when I heard the screaming.
At first it was far away, like in a dream, but as I slowly realized I was still lying on the ground, the screams grew closer and louder. I opened my eyes to see frantic children running around us as they fled up the hill. I got to my feet quickly. I thought I saw Ralph do the same, but his red hair was swept away into the crowds of screaming human children.
I only made it up the hill a few steps before two children barreled into the back of my knees, knocking me back to the ground. I sputtered as the taste of dirt filled my mouth. Movement, different than the rampage of children’s feet, caught my eye. I turned my head to the left to see the snake, which was now just a snake, trying to escape the stampede. It nipped at a few heels that got too close, but with all the targets, it never got to sink its teeth into any.
A booming voice silenced all of the screaming. “Children! Sit down!” it commanded.
I whirled to see Madam Lucacious running up the hill toward us.
“Sit!” she demanded again as she lifted her dress above her ankles so her running legs could stretch for further strides.
The children began falling to the sitting position in waves. I rolled over and got into the sitting position as well, hoping to blend in.
Madam Lucacious stopped as soon as she was close to the first line of sitting children, which was still far enough away from me for comfort. It took me a minute to take in my surroundings. I realized all of us were now far enough up the hill that I could see over the town wall.
The spell must have triggered a reaction inside the town as well. I saw the same confusion and frantic behavior inside the wall as I had seen with the children.
A cold hand touched mine and I recoiled. I spun to see Hailey sitting by my side. Her expression was fearful.
Ralph? I mouthed to her.
She shook her head, indicating she hadn’t seen him, but then motioned her head sideways down the hill. I followed her gaze to where Max was lying in a motionless heap of long black fur.
My feet reacted before my mind did. Before I could consider the consequences, I bounded to Max’s side. There were a few reactions from the children, and I was sure I had caught the eye of more than one adult, but I was sitting again so quickly that I must not have caused too much panic.
Max’s eyes were dull, but he was breathing. I ran my hand through his fur gently, not surprised to feel thick wetness under the fleshy parts of his stomach. The energumen had been cast out, but the snake was still naturally venomous.
I’m sorry, his thoughts seemed to waft to me on the wind.
“You’ll be okay,” I said, a little weaker than I wanted to.
Max rested his head on my lap, closing his eyes while I stroked the fur between his ears.
When I looked back up, a large group of men had gathered at the base of the hill. Some appeared to be standing guard while others clamored excitedly, making large gestures with their hands in an attempt to visually explain to their neighbors the large flash they had seen. A quick survey revealed a few of the children mimicking their elders, clapping their hands together in an attempt to recreate the cracking noise they had heard.
I realized I was clinging to a hope that perhaps the spell would be misunderstood as a lightning bolt, but the gathering army of humans pushed that hope down to where it formed a pit in my stomach. Feelings of fear were becoming too familiar, but with that familiarity came greater control of the emotion.
I thought I was going to be able to erase any look on my face that might betray how I felt until the clamoring men grew silent. Every eye moved to the base of the hill as the air grew thick with tension. I could see some shuffling in the crowd before it parted and a man wider than the keeper at the gate stepped to the front, eyeing all of the children with contempt.
This man had an interestingly proportioned body. He was shorter than most of the humans I had seen. In that case, he was shorter than most of my people, but his thickness reminded me of a tree. The color of his skin was darker than I had ever seen, so dark that his head seemed to vanish against the black sky behind him—except for the whites of his eyes, which burned like lava.
It was Madam Lucacious who finally broke the silence. “General Dougal, your grace,” she curtsied.
The man spoke out of the side of his mouth without taking his eyes off us. “Madam Lucacious, in your opinion, what took place here?”
“Nothing I have ever seen,” she responded.
“Not natural then?”
“I don’t see how.”
I could see the muscles in the general’s arms tighten at her words. “Have you been trained in these matters?”
Madam Lucacious shifted uncomfortably, hesitating before she responded. “Told, ye
s. But not trained.”
“Did you see anyone on the hill?”
“Just my children.”
Dougal’s arm flew so quickly toward the man next to him that I didn’t actually see him grab the man by the shirt and reposition him so closely that their eyes met. The general spoke so low to the man that I had a hard time piecing together his sentence. “Take your battalion and cut off anyone found fleeing through the forest.”
The man dashed through the crowd and back into the city, a few others following him.
General Dougal turned back to Madam Lucacious. “Test them all. If any magics are found among them, kill them.”
The pit in my stomach leapt, bursting through my body like pinpricks. Every hair was standing on edge.
“Okay, children!” Madam Lucacious’s voice boomed, and she clapped her hands even though she already had everyone’s rapt attention. “Pluck a strand of grass,” she did this herself, demonstrating, “and hold it in your hand with your fingers curled around the base. Pretend your fist is a pot, with the blade sticking up.”
The pit in my stomach began moving upward again. I felt nauseated. This simple test would be successful, but how the humans had learned it bewildered me. I glanced at Hailey, whose colorless face stared at Madam Lucacious with horrified intensity. She already had her blade outstretched in front of her. I saw a second blade sprout between her shaking fingers.
The one power we couldn’t control was our connection to the earth. In fact, this connection wasn’t even a power, but the source of our powers. Placing a broken blade of grass in our palm, with our warm fingers around it had the same effect of being planted directly into the lifeblood of Mother Earth. Rather than comparing the plants between children, these humans would be able to see the plant growing in our hands.
The group of men at the base of the hill moved toward us. They carefully inspected the first line of children’s plants before excusing them into the town. Sixty children; probably fifteen men. The lump of fear I felt was now a physical lump in my throat. Still, I didn’t dare reach for my own blade of grass.