Warrior Mage (Book 1) (7 page)

“Made it,” Lakeo panted softly, crawling toward him. “Here’s a tip, Yanko. Never get boobs.”

Another time, he might have appreciated her attempt at humor, but all he could think of was his uncle’s death and that he had to warn his father of the invaders. He glanced up as he crawled through the remains of the tunnel, aware that someone might look down at them from above. So far, the invaders seemed to be staying near the lift, but he would make an easy target for an archer if that changed.

He reached the end of the area where the ceiling had collapsed, but the rubble pile rose so high, that he had to squeeze and squirm again to find his way back into the tunnel that still stood.

“Stoat’s teats,” Lakeo whispered, pausing while he worked his way under the ceiling. “I had no idea you could do something like this.”

“Earth science is more powerful than people think,” Yanko said, sliding head-first down the rock pile until he could stand on solid ground again.

Lakeo squeezed in after him, wincing as her chest and back scraped the confines of the rock above and below. She refrained from further comments about boobs. “Is that why you chose it?”

Once she reached the ground, Yanko jogged back down the tunnel, keeping his sword ready—some of the looters might well still be back here. “I chose it when I wanted to convince some bees to leave their hive so I could steal a taste of their honey. I was six.”

“I thought all six-year-old boys wanted to hurl fireballs.”

Yanko skirted a new rockfall, wondering again if the hole would still be there. “I was always comfortable in the forest.” He wouldn’t mind running and hiding in the woods now, as he had done as a boy whenever he was upset or in trouble. Somehow he doubted that would solve his problems this time.

“There it is.” Lakeo pointed over his shoulder.

The hole still gaped in the ceiling—if anything, it was wider now—with a big pile of rubble underneath it. Surprisingly, a rope dangled down.

“A trap?” Lakeo wondered. “Or were the invaders looting back here and going out that way?”

Yanko tugged at the rope, found it held his weight, and shrugged at her. “Maybe the miners left it for us.”

She snorted. “Optimistic. Maybe they dropped it down to help each other. That’s an ugly climb.”

Yes, they would have had to claw their way up fifteen feet before reaching the top of the hole. Yanko looked at his sword, wondered where he would put it since he didn’t have a scabbard or even a belt, and thought about trying to find a way to his room. But the sounds of men pushed aside rocks floated down the corridor after him.

“No time,” he muttered.

He could make this work until he reached home. Careful not to cut himself, he clenched the back of the blade between his teeth. He jumped off the rubble pile, grabbed the rope, and hauled himself up. The tip of the sword banged against the side of the hole, and he almost lost it—and his lip. Fortunately, the walls were uneven, and he found footholds to help him along.

By the time he reached the rim, his jaw ached, and he wanted to yank himself over the edge, to relieve the burden. Instead, he forced himself to ease only his eyes over the rim. A cactus, a bunch of boulders, and a stunted juniper were all he could see. He would have liked a better view, but this should mean nobody would see him climb out. He laid the sword on the dusty earth and rolled over the edge. After he waved for Lakeo to follow, he stood up, the weapon back in hand. He peered over the top of the boulder, and his mouth dropped so low, he nearly cracked his chin on the rock.

He had predicted dozens of raiders, but there had to be hundreds of men, lizards, and carts stretching along the road that led to the mine. Torches burned here and there, and people were setting up tents underneath the starlight. Guards patrolled the outskirts of the camp, bows, swords, and even Turgonian firearms in their hands. The group of people working at the mine entrance seemed to only be a subset of this group. Carts had been rolled up to the hole in the earth—as he had feared, the guard shack had been obliterated—and a few men waved and called advice down to those who were trying to unearth their comrades.

Yanko looked in the opposite direction, to the mountains where his village awaited. He hoped answers waited for him there and that his father would have a plan for dealing with these people, these invading thieves and murderers.

* * *

“I can’t believe I didn’t get my money out of my room,” Lakeo grumbled as she and Yanko climbed the trail that led into the mountains where he had grown up. He had opted for this route instead of the road, afraid the invaders might be using it. They had sneaked out of the camp without being seen, but he didn’t know how long their luck could last—or if the rest of the countryside was safe. “And my bow. But mostly my money. I’ve been saving that up for months. How am I going to get to Kyatt now?”

“I can’t believe I didn’t get food and canteens,” Yanko said, finding that more pertinent. They had walked through the night, which hadn’t been bad, but the sun had climbed into the sky, its heat beating down on them, a reminder as to why so few settlements existed on this side of the mountains. Even in the fall, it could be intense this far south. Fortunately, they had started climbing before it had grown too hot, and now the junipers and pines provided some shade. A small relief. His head ached with every step, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep, or to find a healer, though he knew it was overexertion that made his brain hurt, not any injury. If Arayevo were there, she might know of some medicine from the forest that could make him feel better. Or she would touch his shoulder and smile at him, and
that
would make him feel better.

“At least you know how to find water sources. You’re handy to travel with.” She thumped him on the back.

Yanko was fairly certain she was trying to cheer him up rather than being obtuse about his need to mourn, but he would have preferred to walk in silence. To reflect on his uncle, on the fact that, in the few months Yanko had worked with him, Mishnal had become more of a father to him than the man who had caused him to be born into the world. Had his uncle’s words been true? That Yanko’s father feared he would leave? And turn into his mother? Yanko had often wondered if he might take after her, at least in looks. He already knew that he had her aptitude for magic, but he had a broader face than his father and his brother, and his eyes were a deep, dark brown while theirs were a few shades lighter. But he had never seen a picture of her, so he didn’t know. His father had removed everything from the house that was hers or that reminded him of her.

“If you can call two drops on a thorny leaf a water source.” Lakeo rubbed her lip.

Yanko sighed. He wasn’t going to get a chance to reflect on his feelings and his uncle’s passing. Maybe it was just as well. It was too raw right now, and as tired as he was after the chaos and walking all night, he wasn’t far from weeping. He did not want to break down, not in front of Lakeo. Not until he was back home and could find some privacy, perhaps in the very forest that had never stopped calling to him.

“Once we get over the pass, it’s much damper,” he said.

“So... we’ll get three drops on a thorny leaf.”

“Maybe four. And most of the leaves aren’t thorny.”

Yanko veered off the trail to climb up a cluster of boulders, the dry rock laced with tenacious lichen. At the top, he raised his hand above his eyes and squinted back into the desert. He wanted to know if the invaders remained camped outside of the mine. If so, if he hurried, his people might gather forces quickly enough to take back what had been taken—the material goods, anyway. But they had come too far, and he couldn’t see the area anymore, not with his eyes. Though he was reluctant to make his headache worse, he tried to stretch out with his mind, hoping the openness of the land between here and there might let him push his senses farther than he usually could.

But he barely reached a mile back, and the amount of wildlife in the area overloaded his mind—his thoughts snapped back into his head with all the gentleness of an arrow to the eye. He groaned and slumped against the boulder, rubbing his temples. That should have been warning enough to give his mind a rest, but he had sensed something more than deer and squirrels out there. Even as his thoughts had been jerked back into his skull, they had brushed past the road.

He wiped sweat from his brow and pushed his senses in that direction again. Yes, there were humans out there. At first, he let himself hope that his father might have already received the news about the mine attack and that he had gathered troops, troops that would descend upon the intruders and punish them for their arrogance. But these men were walking and riding with lizards of burden, with carts strung out behind them. His father’s team would have been led by men in carriages powered by magic, lightweight craft that could have moved much more quickly. These had to be more invaders, or was it the same troop? Heading over the pass? If so, the village was in danger. He had to—

Halfway through the thought, his senses snapped back again, this time with a blinding flash that brought light, then darkness. He slumped against the boulder, his legs giving out beneath him.

He did not realize he had lost consciousness until a shake to his shoulder roused him. He blinked blearily up at Lakeo, his head aching as if it had been pounded like an anvil in a smith’s shop.

“If you want to take a nap, I wouldn’t mind a break, either, but I thought you were in a hurry,” she said.

“I am,” Yanko croaked, his throat dry. He was looking forward to those leaves with the three drops of dew. He pushed himself to his feet, vowing not to try to draw upon his mental power again, not until he had rested for a night. Or seven. “There are more invaders on the road.” He climbed down from the boulders. “I don’t know if they’re heading to the village, but it’s not far off the main road over the pass. We need to get there before they do.”

Lakeo took the lead, and he was happy to let her, to plod along until they reached their destination. The trail they were on would bring them to the village eventually. To the back side.

“Do you smell smoke?” She sniffed at the air as she walked.

All of Yanko’s senses seemed broken, and it took him a moment before he could catch the faint hint of burning wood on the air. “Yes. Some traveler’s campfire.”

She gave him a long look over her shoulder. “If you say so.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Maybe those people you saw aren’t heading to the village, but have already been there.”

Yanko tripped over a root. “What? No. There’s nothing there except a lake and some gardens around my family’s land. Where we keep bees. That’s the town’s biggest industry. Nobody raids a village for honey. They don’t.” He realized he sounded like he was trying hard to convince himself. Maybe he was.

Of their own volition, his feet sped up. He passed Lakeo and took the lead, almost jogging along the trail, especially when they crested the ridge and the ground leveled out. As weary as he was, he tripped often, but he could not bring himself to slow down.

They passed streams funneling down off the snowcaps, the trees thickened, growing greener and more lush. Clouds drifted into the sky to dull the heat of the sun, but Yanko didn’t see any of it. Halfway across the pass, he had noticed smoke in the distance, too much smoke for a traveler’s campfire.

It was afternoon by the time they reached the far side of the mountain, and his stomach was snarling with hunger, but he didn’t stop until the trail crossed a familiar ledge, a cliff that overlooked the valley and the lake of his homeland. At that point, he verified the source of the smoke. He hadn’t wanted Lakeo to be right. He hadn’t wanted this day—this
month
—to get any worse. But those tendrils of black smoke were wafting from the roofs of burned buildings and burning trees. He was too far up to see people and animals, but the scene told him enough.

“They were attacked too,” Yanko said numbly.

Chapter 4

Y
anko walked around the village, his
home
of eighteen years, in shock. Half of the log and earthen cabins, yurts, and larger buildings had been burned to the ground. Others remained standing, but they were devoid of life. Here and there, a chicken scratched in the earth, but the people and most of the livestock were gone.

The only thing that kept him from collapsing in an inconsolable heap was the fact that he hadn’t seen any bodies yet. Maybe there had been some warning, and his people had fled. But why run instead of standing their ground? Why had they given up their homes? During the war, Father had been a soldier, and many of the other men in the village had been, as well.

Yanko found his answer when he walked closer to one of the Tayo Yant family’s outbuildings, one that had not caught fire. It was, however, charred. He touched the hot log wall, which was still smoldering even though he judged this had been done the day before, and examined the huge circular scorch mark on the exterior. Nobody had done that with a torch. A wizard had flung this fireball. To leave a scorch mark this large and deep, it must have been an extremely powerful one.

There were Sensitives in the village, but he didn’t think there were any others with an aptitude for the mental sciences, at least none who had ever studied it. Yanko’s tutors had always been travelers that his father had talked into staying and teaching him for a time. The gypsy who had been his last one had moved on almost a year earlier, and Yanko did not know of anyone in the area who could have done this.
He
certainly could not. Most of his learning had come through books. Perhaps he had been delusional to think he would ever be qualified to attend Stargrind.

Lakeo strolled out of a shed with two canteens bouncing on her hips. “At least there’s water here. Good well. Nice lake.”

“You took those?” Yanko frowned at the canteens, the idea of his people being stolen from while they were gone irritating him. This whole situation irritated him.

Lakeo shrugged. “Nobody’s using them. We have to walk another two days to the coast, right? I’m tired of licking leaves.”