Ezo crept behind Kammon, trying to imitate the man’s movements as they got closer to the raider’s camp. Above the trees, he spotted a flash of red that quickly disappeared. Ember had vanished but every so often she made herself seen in brief bursts of color. If he wasn’t looking for her, he wouldn’t have seen her at all.
The camp was two miles from the road and he could see a couple wagons on the outside of their camp. It was hard to see inside it, but the clearing was small enough that it couldn’t be a large group. They had an elementalist though and he and Kammon needed to keep an eye out for that. He could sense the elementalist somewhere, but that meant if the other was looking, they could sense Ezo and Kammon as well.
Kammon stopped and motioned Ezo to his side. “I’ll go in first. Watch my back,” he whispered.
“What if you need help in there?”
Kammon glared. “This isn’t my first battle, Ezo. It is yours though. You might be good with a natural disaster, but you haven’t fought anything that fights back.”
Ezo wanted to argue, but Kammon had it right. He was inexperienced. He let Kammon take the lead, but he wasn’t going to be far behind him. He nodded.
Kammon’s eyes thinned, like he was waiting for Ezo to argue, then he huffed. “Just do as I say.” Kammon stayed crouched along the tree line and moved closer.
As they approached, Ezo could see that the wagons created a wall around their camp. He caught Kammon’s hand and stopped him. He recognized the wagon he’d been traveling in. It was Alvrey’s.
Kammon’s brows furrowed as he looked at Ezo. Ezo pointed to the wagon. Kammon mouthed the word “Yours?” and Ezo nodded. Kammon’s mouth turned down and his frown softened to something more like sympathy. Ezo didn’t see the other wagons from the players though and that had to mean something, right? He refused to think the raiders had killed his friends. Until he found proof, he would keep looking.
Kammon gave him a minute, but as they continued to look at each other, the elementalist nodded at him with a question in his eyes. Ezo returned the nod. He was ready.
Kammon closed in on the opening in the wagons and Ezo stayed behind him, giving him space to work. Ezo watched the red spiral of flames circle around him as he stood up straight and walked into the camp.
There were loud shouts from inside and Ezo saw Kammon pull air around him. It jumped from Kammon’s hands in a large blast. At the same time, he felt magic behind him. He turned, bringing a shield of earth up between him and the magic. It broke on the wall of earth, and Ezo sidestepped it to see what was coming for him. The elementalist that had joined the raiders was juggling the white-blue spheres of air around him as he prepared another attack.
Ezo didn’t wait. He ran, closing the distance between them, and used his magic to pick up the earth around him, throwing it in darts at the other man. He dodged, but more than one hit his extremities. Ezo saw blood welling on more than one spot but he didn’t have time for remorse. He reached the man and cocked his fist back, striking him square in the nose. The man stumbled back and swiped out with a wild burst of air that pushed Ezo back.
Ezo dug his hands into the ground and it started to shake where the man was standing. He struggled to get his footing, but Ezo didn’t give him time. He pulled a block of earth from the ground and aimed it at the man’s head. It hit with a heavy thunk and the man fell unconscious to the ground.
Ezo built another block of earth around him, pinning him to the ground in case he woke.
When he looked behind him, he froze.
There wasn’t one elementalist with the raiders. There were four, and three of them were attacking Kammon. The man’s magic whirled around him in feats that Ezo couldn’t begin to understand. Fire danced among water and air pushed at his enemies. Kammon wasn’t just holding his own, he was winning.
But it couldn’t last. Ezo could still feel the echoes of him from their first bonding. He didn’t have the stamina to keep up this fight.
Ezo couldn’t take his place, couldn’t even understand how Kammon was using the elements as he was, but he could give him the power he needed to fight.
He ran forward, pulling his gloves off as he screamed Kammon’s name so he didn’t startle the man into attacking him. He pressed a hand against Kammon’s back to brace himself and used the other to touch the nape of the man’s neck. As soon as his magic touched the bare skin, he felt the bond flare between them again.
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He pushed his magic into Kammon and felt the other man accept the magic, felt the pull as their strength combined and Kammon fought off the other elementalists. He wasn’t aware of how Kammon used the elements separately but at the same time, he instinctively reached for them with Kammon’s consciousness to guide him.
One of the elementalists was caught in a sphere of water. Ezo’s horror was distanced by Kammon’s need to contain his enemies. As the man passed out, the water broke around him and reformed, digging into the earth below another, turning it into sludge that caused the man to stumble as he tried to cast his magic.
Fire continued to rage against the third elementalist. He was the strongest, holding off Kammon’s attacks. As the other elementalist fell into the mud, Ezo tried to call out to Kammon, but he had no voice. Instead, Kammon seemed to feel his urgency and earth surrounded the man, crushing him into the ground until he stopped moving.
With the others out of the fight, Kammon turned his full attention to the last elementalist. It was a fight of strength and stamina. The other man wasn’t near as strong as Kammon, but Kammon was worn from the battle while the raider had saved his strength until now.
He felt something moving in Kammon but didn’t understand what it was. Then, as he looked around Kammon’s body to the other elementalist, he saw it. A streak of red and gold as Ember flew from her perch above the fight. She dove from behind the other man and Ezo saw the moment she became an arrow, piercing the man’s chest and emerging on the other side.
The man fell and Ember disappeared in a spray of blood.
Kammon stumbled and Ezo lost contact with him. The man fell to his knees and Ezo barely kept his own feet as the bond was released. He felt bile rise in his throat, but he swallowed it down as he grabbed Kammon’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Kammon nodded and brushed his hand away, but he didn’t get up. Ezo walked away from him and stepped properly into the raider’s camp. There were three men on the ground, weapons fallen into the pools of blood that surrounded them. There was no one else there. He lumbered over to Alvrey’s wagon and opened the door of the cabin area. It was empty and he was torn between relief that they weren’t there, and fear of what had happened to them on the road.
He closed his eyes, but everything hit at once, and he staggered to the corner and held himself upright on the wagon as his stomach emptied.
He sat heavily on the wagon’s footboard and took a deep breath. He told Kammon he’d do what he had to, but he’d never really believed the raiders would fight like that.
A canteen was placed in his hand and he looked up at Kammon. He hadn’t heard the other man approach. He looked pale and Ezo saw the tremor in his hand as he handed the water over, but he was upright. “Are you okay?” he echoed Ezo’s earlier words.
He took a drink before he answered. “I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry it came to this.”
“What happened to them?” he asked, pointing to the other bodies.
“When I stepped in I realized there was more than one elementalist. I didn’t have time to do anything else. I used a blast of air to knock them all to the ground. The blast killed the raiders, except the elementalists that managed to shield themselves.”
“You didn’t try to subdue them. Just kill.”
“Should I have waited for one of them to stick a knife in me while I fought off three elementalists? Knowing you were fighting a fourth behind me?” He scoffed at the idea. “I don’t want to kill, but I will not risk my life for murdering raiders. They won’t harm the locals any longer, and that’s what I came here to do.”
Ezo wasn’t even sure he could argue. When he was bonded to Kammon, it had been a fight for survival. He didn’t blame the man. He just never wanted to see this side of a fight before.
“Your friends?” Kammon asked as he sat on the other side of the footboard.
“Not here.”
“Was this the most ornate of their wagons?”
“No,” Ezo said as he looked up at it. “In fact, this was the most basic. Alvrey’s wagon was for healing, not for the show. Why would they have taken this and not the others?”
Kammon looked behind him and peered through the door. “There doesn’t seem to be any damage done to it either. I think we still need to find your friends. They may still be ahead of us on the road.”
“You think so?”
“I think the wagon would have more damage if there was a fight. We’ll rest tonight and pack what we can into the wagon, then take it to the next village, along with the surviving raiders. Hopefully, we’ll meet your friends on the road.”
“Alright.”
“Do you know any of these herbs?” Kammon asked as he climbed into Alvrey’s wagon. “Would any of them knock our prisoners out?”
Ezo nodded. “I know how to make a sleep tonic that should do it.”
“You start on that and I’ll start cleaning up the camp.”
He knew what that meant and he grabbed his hand before he could walk away. Kammon looked at the hand on his and slowly met Ezo’s eyes. “And later you’ll be explaining that.”
He swallowed against a tight throat but ignored Kammon’s words. “Can you do what you need alone?”
Kammon looked away, staring at the ground before he answered. “No. The bond is strong enough to stay open without touch right now. Will you allow it?”
It was another thing his uncle said was impossible. “How?”
Kammon looked at him then and pressed his hands together in front of his chest. As the magic came to Kammon, it reached toward him. Ezo held his hands out in the same manner and pulled his own magic around him. He met the faltering wisps of Kammon’s magic with his own. He felt the bonding then and let out a deep breath.
Kammon lowered his head as he spoke. “Thank you.” He walked off before Ezo could respond.
He felt Kammon in the back of his head though, and in his soul, like a ghost hiding in Ezo’s mind. He looked down at his hand and thought of all the impossible things Jacob had spoken of. Of all the things Kammon was showing him to be untrue.
He didn’t want to have that conversation, but after everything else, he owed Kammon the truth.
Even if Jacob had warned that the truth in the wrong hands could cost him his life.