Fallen Magician (The Magician Rebellion) (32 page)

Tomlin pulled out his dagger, but could find no opening in the orc’s attacks. Zakux wielded the overly large sword with more skill and precision than most others possessed with a short sword.

“
Anytime you want to help-” Tomlin suggested to Alia as he ducked under a horizontal swing before rolling to his right narrowly avoiding the blade that crashed into the stone where he was crouched an instant before.

“
Sleep,” Alia commanded with a wave of her staff.

Zakux relented and appeared disoriented, but forced his eyes to stay open. “Magikans,” he spat the word. He swept his sword downward in Alia’s general direction, but she did not retreat, knowing that she was too far away to be hit by the weapon. Instead Zakux buried his blade in the stone and caused it to erupt casting large chunks of stone at the woman. He wielded an enchanted sword.

Alia hastily erected a barrier, but was still forced to her knees by the repeated impacts.

Tomlin tried to sneak up on the orc, but was rewarded for his troubles with the back of Zakux’s fist landing squarely across his face knocking him off his feet as well.

Zakux looked back and forth between the two downed magicians unsure of which one to kill first.

“
Please,” Tomlin begged, “if you are going to kill us, then I beseech you- kill her first.” A wobbly finger pointed at his master.

The orc spun to look at Alia and they both wore looks of surprise. Zakux returned his glare to Tomlin, “Are you completely without honor, human, that you would allow one of your females to be sacrificed before yourself?”

“
Well, technically she isn’t one of
my
females, so I guess I would.”

An infuriated Zakux raised his weapon above his head about to cleave the boy in too when Alia struck his hands with her staff causing him to drop his blade reflexively.

Tomlin held his grimoire and pointed a finger at the orc. “Sleep!” his voice rang out and bounced off of the walls as a flash of light emitted from the enchanter’s finger. This time Zakux’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground. Within moments he was making a noise that was reminiscent of a lumber mill cutting into s heavy oak.

“’
Kill her first?’” Alia asked helping her student up.

“
What? I thought it was brilliant,” Tomlin tried to sound chagrined, but failed, “He was completely ignoring you until he realized you were a magician and orcs are notoriously chauvinistic. By offering you as a sacrificial lamb, I knew he would be so incensed that he would focus all of his attention on me. You should really be thanking me.”

There was a strange logic to what Tomlin said that spoke to his ability to read people, but Alia wasn’t about to concede so easily, “And what if he had taken you up on his offer?”

“
Then I would have buried my dagger in his back. Besides it never would have been a problem if your own sleep spell would have worked.”

“
Yes, well being with child tends to take a lot of energy out of woman. Sometimes I am surprised I can cast anything at all,” Alia rubbed the small bump in her belly that would soon become much more prominent. She nudged Tomlin over to the sleeping orc. “Now find some rope and get him tied up. We need to find out if this Zakux knows anything that might help us find my baby’s father.”

A shadow grew over the land of Wolfsbane. Healthy grasslands browned and flowers, once blooming, wilted as the shadow passed over them. A lone shepherd tending his flock aged decades in a matter of seconds before falling over in his field leaving a dead, shriveled husk where moments before stood a virile man. His flock, too, died from the shadow's plague, as did a wolf stalking the herd.

Still the shadow grew.

It extended over the kingdom of Aurelia. The Blackwood Forest died as the trees decayed and fell one after another. Mollifas fared no better as the largest city in the kingdom fell to the plague of darkness in a matter of seconds. Prince Janus- no, he wore the crown of king upon his head, clawed at invisible hands around his throat as his eyes rolled back in his head and his body shuddered a death spasm.

Still the shadow grew.

Lion's Landing crumbled underneath the shadow’s approach. Women and children died in the streets of the once prosperous city. Sailors frantically ran to their ships trying to cast off before the shadow reached them to no avail. The ocean quaked and the boats capsized trapping the sailors underneath.

Still the shadow grew.

The North Lands fell next. Kellen wore his armor- now dull from disuse, tarnished like his soul- and stood against the shadow. His natural speed and strength did nothing to help him push back the shadow as others fell around him and in the end his blue flames were extinguished by the dark and it took him as well.

Still the shadow grew.

The lands of man were emptied of all life and the orcs fell next as the shadow consumed the Dread Marsh and the lands beyond. Their mightiest warriors were as nothing when faced with the formless death that Korok had predicted long ago. Then the goblins fell. For all of their ingenuity, they could not hide from the shadow.

The shadow enshrouded every corner of Aurelia leaving the kingdom devoid of all life so that only the sorcerer, Sane, stood alone; the lone protector of a dead land. Then the shadow came for him too.

***

Sane woke with a start as beads of sweat dripped from his forehead and nose. His body shook as he tried to wrestle himself free of the vision. In the land of Wolfsbane a threat of unimaginable power was growing. He briefly wondered what the magician rebels known as the Collective were planning in Wolfsbane that would trigger such a nightmarish vision. Could it have been Byrn as Korok predicted? But he disappeared with Sari nearly a year earlier and had not been seen since that day.

“
Did you have another of your dreams, One-Eye?” asked the sorcerer’s keeper who watched over him as he slept.

Sane was forced to answer by the collar around his neck and gave a full accounting of what he had seen.

“
Excellent,” replied his keeper, “I will inform His Highness and Prince Janus to begin investigations into Wolfsbane immediately. Perhaps now we can finally put an end to those fiends that have been dogging us. It may well be time for Aurelia to finally march to war and bring the magicians to their knees.”

I hope you enjoyed the second book in the Magician Rebellion Series and if so, please do me a favor and write a short review on your favorite book website (or three). It only takes a few minutes, but can have a huge impact. Also, if you’d like to contact me directly to tell me what you thought of Fallen Magician, good and bad, I can be reached at
[email protected]
.