The Sorcerer's Vengeance: Book 4 of the Sorcerer's Path (32 page)

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Joshua and just over a dozen former black tower students, including his friend Umair, made haste down the dirt streets of Rapture and heard the horrific crash. The young apprentices and novices quickly turned about just in time to see the tower crumble and fall.

“Only when darkness falls will you be able to see the path you must follow,” Joshua whispered but Umair was close enough that he heard what his friend said.

Umair and Joshua had both grabbed the satchels Agatha had given them along with a spare set of clothes, quills, and an inkpot; the only things they really owned. The other students that decided to go with them had grabbed their own few necessities and followed. Both apprentices undid the buckles holding the satchels closed and looked at the contents.

Inside was not a half-eaten salami sandwich as they had half feared but a couple of traveling spell books, a small pouch of coins, and several magical scrolls. Everything they would need to make a long journey.

“You don’t think that loony old librarian knew what was going to happen?” Umair asked in amazement.

Joshua shook his head. “I don’t know. She is definitely an odd bird, but look at what she gave us.”

It was a mystery, one they were unlikely to get a clear answer to so they just accepted it as a good omen and focused on getting out of Rapture. They made it to the west end of town where a large caravan was lining up to take a load of ill-gotten goods to Langdon’s Crossing. It took several minutes for Joshua and Umair to find the wagon master who was busy shouting at the drivers to get them in line.

“Excuse me, sir, do you have a moment?” Joshua asked the wagon master.

The portly, unshaven man looked at the two young men with undisguised impatience. “No I don’t. Now quit bothering me, I’m already behind schedule.”

“Then you would not be interested in having a few black tower spell casters to help guard your wagons then?” Joshua asked.

“What do you mean?” the wagon master asked suspiciously.

“My friends and I are from the black tower. We would be willing to provide our support in exchange for food and transportation to Langdon’s Crossing.”

“You look a bit young to me to be wizards,” the wagon master replied doubtfully.

Joshua cast a minor cantrip and a small ball of flame floated above his open palm. The wagon master rubbed his chin thoughtfully. It would not be a bad idea to have wizard help in case of attack, and at the cost of food, it was a real bargain. The last time he had hired a wizard for protection it had cost him more than a dozen swords would have. This was the worst time of year to be making this run too.

“All right, you find yourselves room on the wagons and I’ll see that you get fed all the way there, but don’t come asking for coin when we arrive. I’m doing you a favor by making room for you,” the wagon master told the two apprentices.

“Yes, sir, thank you, you won’t regret it,” Joshua replied.

Joshua and Umair sat on top of a load of linens and various goods and studied the traveling spell books. No one under the rank of adept was allowed to keep his or her own spell book at the black tower. The wizards said it was too dangerous for the younger students to have access and was required to have a master with them when they practiced their studies. Joshua thought it was likely a way to better control them.

“I think the younger students should prepare defensive spells to use on the guards. The little bit of offensive magic they could bring to bear simply wouldn’t make much of a difference in a large fight,” Joshua was telling Umair who agreed with him.

“You, Maira, and I will be the ones to focus on the offensive magic while the younger students will prepare wards against arrows and weapons to be cast on the guards. Once they do that they just need to stay out of the way if there’s trouble.”

“It may not be a bad idea to have them prepare one offensive spell so they can defend themselves in a pinch,” Umair suggested.

“All right, they can do that. Then I want to assign the novices and journeymen to a pair of guards or a wagon. It will be their job to use their wards to protect the guards around that particular wagon,” Joshua said, laying out their strategy.

“Do you really think we will be attacked? It’s only a few days to Langdon’s Crossing,” Umair asked.

“I don’t know, Umair, but if we are I want to be ready. Our lives depend on being able to protect ourselves, at least for now.”

“Josh, do you really think we should be going all the way to North Haven? It’s like a thousand miles from here. And on the word of some strange sorcerer that may have just destroyed the tower! Even if there is another school up there, what makes you think he or anyone else is going to be any better than they were,” Umair asked with a glance towards the column of dust that used to be their home and school.

“You didn’t talk him, Umair. You didn’t see the look in his eyes or the—strength, and I don’t mean just magical strength, I mean strength of character and—I don’t know what. But if you had, if you had seen what I saw, you would understand.”

Umair studied his friend’s face for several long moments then nodded. “All right, let’s do this then.”

Joshua and Umair went to the other students, assigned them to a wagon, and explained their plan. Maira, the only adept among them, agreed with the logic of it and added her support. They passed the two spell books around so that everyone could prepare the spells they would need in case they were forced to defend themselves and the caravan.

The wagons rolled out barely fifteen minutes after everyone got situated. The students studied for nearly the rest of the daylight hours and a few continued to prepare themselves using the light of the campfire when they made their first stop for the night.

Everyone was nervous and not just because of what happened at the tower, although that was almost the exclusive topic of fireside conversations that first night. Few of the young wizards had traveled far beyond the sight of Rapture. Most of the students were selected by one of the wizards from the tower from local families.

There was no real choice whether or not to attend. When a tower wizard spotted someone with magical talent, they simply informed the family, sometimes, and whisked the person away to the tower for indoctrination. No permission was asked, no recompense offered.

Almost no student left the tower walls for the first three years of their training, training that consisted almost entirely of learning blind obedience to their masters. The attrition rate of students lost during apprenticing and experiments was almost one in five by the time one reached the rank of adept.

Despite the fear the sorcerer caused in his escape and the fear of this unknown journey, nearly all of them were eager to leave the tower and looked forward with longing to a new life even if it took them away from the families they once knew. If they returned to their families, assuming they would not be shunned which was highly likely, they would return to a life of poverty. Despite the harsh environment within the tower, life was structured and many found studying magic fulfilling and would not give it up that easily.

It began to look like all of their planning was going to be in vain until the raiders struck the caravan just before dawn, only a day out from Langdon’s Crossing. It was near dusk and almost time for the wagon train to make their last camp for the night. The desert looked peaceful and as empty as it had appeared for the past three days when a large number of horsemen erupted from a depression just a couple hundred yards from the trail they were traveling along.

There must have been over fifty of them, all wearing light robes and head cloths to protect their flesh from the merciless sun. The Sumaran raiders shouted a trilling battle cry as they charged forward on their swift horses and swung their curved swords over their heads. The caravan guards were outnumbered at least three to one and the chances of their survival looked grim.

The young magic students moved just as they had practiced. In the black tower, one learned to follow instructions or face severe punishment. Many students who fell in disfavor had a tendency to disappear, a victim of one of the masters’ experiments. The younger students cast their wards against arrows and weapons onto the caravan guards just as two dozen arrows flew from the short, recurve bows carried by many of the raiders.

Several caravan guards flinched as the arrows dropped amongst them but grinned broadly when the deadly shafts fell harmlessly to the ground in front or beside them. The guards returned with a volley from their crossbows, unseating several raiders before dropping the weapons and crossing steel with the attackers.

Joshua, Umair, and Maira used their offensive spells before the raiders could reach the wagons. Lightning and bolts of magical power struck raiders from their saddles and caused nearby riders to lose control of their frightened mounts. But even with that arcane help, the raiders quickly closed with the caravan guards.

The guards defended themselves well against the mounted raiders due in large part to the magical shields the novice and journeymen spell casters had cast upon them. Sword strikes that would have been crippling or even lethal glanced off or inflicted only minor wounds, arrows that should have pierced armor and skewered vital organs skipped away or halted to drop at the target’s feet.

Joshua saw that even with that protection, the raiders’ greater numbers and mounted advantage would quickly overwhelm the guards. The apprentice conjured a massive sonic blast that sounded like a dozen thunderclaps sounding at once. Horses reared and threw their stunned riders to the ground, many of which were quickly cut down by the guards before they could regain their feet.

Emily was a fourth year novice but a student in which her masters had seen a lot of potential. She hid under the wagon, watching the horrific battle unfold before her young eyes. Jebbada, one of the guards assigned to her, was fighting one of the bearded raiders right in front of her. The big Sumaran had Jebbada pinned against the wagon with his greater size and skill. The Sumaran slammed his buckler into Jebbada’s wrist, pinning his sword arm against the side of the wagon as he raised his blade for the killing blow.

Jebbada turned his head away from the inevitable killing stroke, but before the Sumaran could bring his curved sword down to deliver it Emily darted out from under the wagon, spreader small fingers wide with her thumbs touching, and cast a jet of flame right into the man’s face, horribly burning his skin and setting his greasy beard on fire.

The Sumaran dropped his sword and pressed both hands to his ruined face, screaming in terror and agony. Jebbada quickly silenced him with a sword thrust through his heart. Laughing, Jebbada reached down, picked up Emily, and kissed her firmly on the cheek before shoving her back under the wagon and rushing to help another hard-pressed guard.

The Sumaran raiders were taking heavy losses and were surely going to retreat, but just as it looked like they would break a second group of raiders broke from cover and charged. The second group was half the size of the initial attack, but with the caravan guards just barely able to fight off the first group and shorter by several men due to casualties, the reinforcements were sure to overwhelm them.

Unseen behind a low mound a short distance from the caravan, Agatha watched the reserve group of bandits break from cover and charge to help their sorely pressed comrades.

“Oh no you don’t!” Agatha said bitterly and conjured a huge wall of fire just in front of the charging horses, causing them to rear up in panic as their riders jerked their reins to avoid the conflagration.

Now that the reserve group was stopped, she sent magical bolt after bolt into them, dropping riders from their saddles and causing the others to flee. Seeing that their reserves had been neutralized, the bandits finally broke, running for their horses or leaping behind the saddle of one of their brethren and made for the safety of the desert.

Seeing that her children were going to be all right now, Aggie smiled and walked away to make her own way to North Haven. Her children needed to be strong and confident, and this little journey should help with that. As she disappeared behind the dunes once more, the deep wrinkles that covered her face smoothed out but did not entirely disappear. Her wispy white hair turned a darker grey and became thick and full, and walked straight and proud with no sign of ever having walked with a stoop to her back.

Joshua, Umair, and Maira ran down the line of wagons to check on the younger students and were gratified to find that none had gotten seriously hurt in the battle although five of the guards suffered mortal wounds and six others had injuries that needed to be tended to before the wagons could move out.

The wagon train arrived in Langdon’s Crossing just before nightfall thanks to the wagon master pushing his men and animals hard. Langdon’s Crossing was technically not on the sea, so after a great deal of thanks and a token payment from the caravan master, the former black tower students walked the three miles to the port of Langdon’s Crossing where a second town had sprang up to accommodate ship traffic. Technically it was not a port. It had no sheltered coves and the sea was too shallow to bring the large ships to shore so all cargo had to be ferried out on large, shallow-drafting, flat-bottomed barges.

Joshua, Umair, and Maira began asking around the taverns of the small shipping town about passage north. They had no idea how much a captain would charge for fifteen passengers to North Haven and prayed that they had enough. There was also the real fear of being offered passage then taken south and sold into slavery. Well, any captain that tried that was going to have his hands full with these ones Joshua vowed.

In answer to their queries regarding passage to North Haven, the tavern owner pointed to a small group of sailors sitting at a table in the corner. All three nervously looked at the huge graying minotaur that sat at the table with the other two men but necessity reinforced their courage.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, might I have a moment of your time?” Joshua asked, keeping a wary eye on the formidable minotaur.