The Vacant Throne: The Legend Of Kairu Vol 3 (27 page)

She sighed. “I know.
But at the same time, I don’t. Things are different now that I am
in a different body. It feels different, but at the same time, it
feels right. Does that make sense?”

I chuckled. “I might be the only one
who makes sense of that because I feel it too. I wonder if it is
like Carlia said. Because our souls merged together and then
separated, they just want to be back together.”

“
I blame you for
that,” Cathy joked.

I laughed. “I know.”

“
Good,” she said.
“I’m going to roll over now and go to sleep.”

She rolled away from me and I couldn’t
help but laugh again. After a couple of minutes, I reached out and
wrapped my arm around her. “Just in case you get cold in the
night,” I said.

“
Sure, any excuse to
feel me up,” she said.

“
Go to sleep, Cathy,”
I said.

I felt her shift a little closer to me
and I closed my eyes.

*****

Another dreamless
night passed with an early wake-up call from the blasted sun. What
I wouldn’t give for a couple days off to recover. It had been
nonstop since Lady Middleton first showed up in the forest and I
was hoping the end would be near soon. First, we had to walk three
days to reach the Nesqian border through a corrupted Archanion.
They really needed to invent something to make communications
easier.

I rolled over and Cathy’s arm slid off
me. She groaned and rolled away from me. “Come on,” I said. She
responded with another groan and sent a little power to my fingers.
They grew cold and I touched Cathy’s cheek.

“
What the Void!” she
exclaimed, shooting up into a sitting position. “You do that again
and I’ll murder you.” I chuckled and sat up. “No, I’m serious, I
will end you.”

“
Relax,” I said. “It
wasn’t that bad.”

She rubbed her cheek and I stood up to
gather our gear. Cathy sighed and joined me to put on her armour. I
searched through the pack quickly for something to be called
breakfast and found the pile of salted meat.

“
Jerky?” I
offered.

“
That’s a little
forward, we only just met,” Cathy joked. I allowed my shoulders to
slump as she grinned and took the meat. “Thank you.”

I fastened the pack on my back, slid
the flowery staff in between and started to eat my breakfast.

“
Didn’t you have a
sword?” Cathy asked.

“
No,” I answered. “I
kept losing track of it so I didn’t grab a new one when we left
Thurlborn. I probably would have lost it yesterday after all my
clothes were burned off.”

“
Speaking of which,
are you still going to wear that robe?” Cathy asked.

“
We have a couple of
nights camping out in the open ahead of us,” I answered. “I’ll hold
onto it until we get to Nesqa. Maybe it is time for me to take
Natalie’s advice and get some armour. The Nesqian stuff only covers
vital organs and leaves a lot of skin bare. I can use my Harden
Skin with no problem then.”

“
Good!” Cathy said.
“You’re finally learning.”

“
Hey, you can’t blame
me for not being in a hurry to wear something like...” I pointed to
Cathy’s armour.

“
Aww, but look at the
way it accents the hips and chest,” she said, modelling the
armour.

“
Yes, but it wouldn’t
look that good on me,” I said. “I am lacking a little in the
chestal region.”

Cathy giggled. “I
don’t know. You should try it on. It could give your flat chest the
needed push up. It’s time for you to start accenting your assets,
darling.”

“
Time to go,” I said,
pushing past her.

“
Aww, did I make you
uncomfortable?” Cathy teased.

Our journey was going
to be a long, but necessary one. We were close enough to Ghanlar
that we could keep an eye out for anymore camps the Red-Brown Mages
had set up as well as keep Cathy away from the distortion. It meant
an extra day of travelling, but it would be worth it in the long
run.

The first day was about getting out of
the forest towards the edge of Archanion. It had proved to be the
safest spot to camp when we travelled with Lady Middleton’s group
and it worked like a charm the second time around.

The second day proved
fruitful as Cathy found the tracks of Evenawks and a single set of
Human footprints heading deeper into Archanion. The number of
Evenawk tracks suggested just a scouting party but the Human tracks
had us interested. If it was a Mage we might be able to stop them
before they set up the staff. If it turned out to be Balendar
scouts, we could save some innocents. Cathy took the lead and we
followed the tracks.

We pursued them for
most of the day, drawing no closer to the distortion than I was
comfortable with. Cathy, to her credit, hid whatever feelings she
had and stayed focused on the task. When we stumbled upon a fresh
battle scene, we knew we were getting close.

The battle had been
with the wildlife. Another pack of wolves driven to the edge of
sanity had attacked the group and claimed the lives of a couple of
Evenawks. The wolves had been completely eliminated making the area
safe, but I still felt guilty that they had to be
killed.

We left the dead behind and saw the
formation of a small camp on the horizon. Cathy and I scouted it
out from a distance, being careful not to be seen. A few times I
had to cover us with an Illusion spell when an aerial scout flew
overhead.

The camp was nowhere near completed and
we were right to think it was a scouting party. Their job was to
set up and wait for reinforcements. With it and the staff’s
destruction, it should cause enough disruption for Markus’ army to
take back the land before Desroche could recover.

Cathy suggested waiting for nightfall
before we attacked. We would use the darkness to surround the camp
and play to our strengths. I would take the Mage down and hit the
sky archers from behind while Cathy caused a distraction.

We spent the evening doodling battle
plans in the dirt and watching out for sky patrols. When the sunset
disappeared from the sky, we circled around the camp and headed for
our positions.

I reached out with my
mind and concentrated on the Mage. He would periodically scan the
area around the camp, possibly looking for more wildlife, but his
limited range wasn’t a cause for me to be concerned. The Evenawks
circling the camp were the true guards.

Cathy and I didn’t have a signal.
Everyone was too alert and edgy. Any sound or unexpected sight
would be treated as hostile and attacked. I had to wait for Cathy
to strike first, whether I was in position or not. Luckily, I made
it as the first sounds of alarm broke through the quiet night.

I immediately started towards the
Mage’s tent. All the Evenawks were clearing out of the camp towards
Cathy and the Mage emerged from his tent to assess the situation. I
summoned my power and launched an Ice Bolt towards his back. The
Mage turned and the Ice Bolt missed its target and struck him in
the left arm. He cried out and turned towards me.

I broke out into a
full run towards him and my skin changed to scales quickly. The
Mage raised his good arm and sent a Fireball at me. I raised both
scaled hands and the Fireball exploded harmlessly around
me.

I was close enough
now to slow my run to a walk and I summoned my strength and
launched Pulse after Pulse at the Mage. He raised a Barrier and as
each Pulse bounced off of it he wobbled. The strength of my attack
wore him down and as the Barrier started to fade, I stopped and
sent a wave of fire at him with both hands. His barrier shattered
as he was knocked down and engulfed in flames.

With the Mage
defeated, I turned to the sky and sent my Ice Bolts at the few
Evenawks that were able to take to the sky. The sound of giggling
over the squawks of the fallen Evenawks meant Cathy was doing okay
and would be finished shortly. The last sky archer fell and I
launched a chain of lightning to take out the last couple of ground
troopers for Cathy.

“
Hey!” she exclaimed.
“Get your own!”

“
I’m starting to get
sick of killing Evenawks,” I said, my scales returning to skin. “It
feels like killing old friends.”

“
We’re working on
it,” Cathy said. “Every small victory like this means we are closer
to stopping Desroche and freeing them.”

I nodded and watched Cathy approach.
She had five arrows sticking out of her armour and I gave her a
weird look as she approached.

“
Shield wasn’t
working?” I asked.

She held up her shield to show ten more
arrows. “No more room.” She started to pull the arrows out of the
armour. “I enchanted the armour with my magic for a little more
protection.” She flinched as she pulled one out of her back. “Looks
like one made it through. Lucky shot.”

“
Any poison?” I
asked.

“
No, these ones are
dry,” she said, pulling one out of her shoulder and handing it to
me. “They must not have been able to mass produce it after Desroche
took over. Special warriors will be the only ones using
it.”

“
That’s good news for
us,” I said. “The staff should be in the tent.”

She dropped the arrow and followed me
into the tent. Except for a hammock and a table, the rest of the
area was empty. The staff lay on the table next to a note and
candle. We approached it and Cathy picked up the staff.

“
Can I break it this
time?” she asked excitedly.

“
Be my guest,” I
said, picking up the note.

Cathy smiled and took a step back. Her
arms glowed blue and she gripped the staff in both hands. In one
swift movement, she brought the staff down on her knee and snapped
it in half.

She scoffed. “Too easy.”

I turned my attention
to the note. It was a simple scrawl of instructions from Desroche
for drawing the rune and setting up the staff. Power flowed through
my hand and I set the note on fire. It burned quickly and I dropped
it as it turned to ash. The world didn’t need records of this
horrid magic.

Cathy squealed in delight and handed me
the broken staff. “Do this next!”

I grabbed the staff and let the power
flow through each hand. The simple wood of the staff caught fire
easily and it burned down to ash and fell out of my hand.

Cathy clapped excitedly. “Let’s burn
down the tent next!”

I laughed. “That might attract too much
attention. We should go before more people show up. How are you
doing resisting the distortion?”

“
I think my defences
are failing,” she said happily. “It’s amazing!”

“
Yup, definitely time
to go,” I said. “I don’t want to have to carry you to
camp.”

“
But why not?” she
whined.

“
Come on,” I said,
leading her out of the tent. “Walking is just as fun.”

She scoffed. “Not likely.”

We needed to get back on track. Nesqa
could be reached in a day if we moved quickly and I had the feeling
there would be another camp closer to the border. We needed to get
to the Emperor, shut down that camp and get the Nesqian warriors to
join Markus so we could stop Desroche before the entire Evenawk
population was eradicated in this silly war.

Chapter
24

It took until midway
through day three but we had arrived at the border of Nesqa. We had
spent most of the night before putting distance between us and the
distortion so Cathy would stop giggling at everything like she was
five. It helped us reach our goal faster but we were both in the
mood for a mid-afternoon nap. We pressed on into the
tropics.

My strategy was always the same in
Nesqa; wander around loudly until their border patrol picked me up.
The forest was too dangerous to navigate without knowledge of the
land and plants and despite the few times I’ve been here, I am
nowhere close to being comfortable with walking around alone.

Everything in the
forest has the potential to kill if a traveller wasn’t careful.
It’s this natural defence that makes Nesqa tough to invade, but it
also forces its inhabitants to live on the southernmost tip of the
continent; except for a few small farming communities hidden within
the trees.

We didn’t have to wander far before I
detected a patrol advancing quickly on our location. Three warriors
emerged from behind the trees. They were dressed in traditional
light scouting armour; a chest plate of hide and a battle skirt for
easier mobility. It would be a type of armour I would look for
while in town.

I didn’t need to
search with my mind to know that two more warriors would be up in
the trees with their bows drawn. It was the standard Nesqian
greeting, but I was pleased to see that the three weren’t pointing
their spears at us. Today was going to be a good day.

The leader of the patrol stepped
forward, examined my robes, looked at Cathy and then back to me.
“You have my attention.”

“
My name is Moumno,”
I started, using the name he might be familiar with. The leader’s
eye widened slightly in recognition of the name. “I travel with
Lady Sandra Middleton of the Court of Balendar. We are travelling
to Kay Julis to meet with Emperor Naliwa to discuss an alliance
with Nesqa to wage war against the Evenawks. Surely you have heard
reports of the Evenawks recent aggression?”