They spent the rest of the day in the clearing. Wali recuperated, and Yacob trained using his magic. He was working on how to transform his fist into stone as he had unwittingly done when he struck Holder Mark. Yacob could not accept that the man was his father. Mark had a part in his conception but nothing else. Yacob could invoke his power with Wali’s help to manipulate the area around them, like raising and clearing a circle of earth. He could light fires and even cause his fist to burn but causing his hand to become stone again proved very difficult.
They cleaned up the camp the following morning, erasing all traces of the circle and what had happened—moving on toward their destination, the city of Belge.
The road was well made, a two-wagon-wide path of raised hardpack with a thick coat of rough gravel. The work of earth mages as the road itself drew the barest trickle of power from the ley line that ran concurrent to it. This was the first time Wali had encountered such a large-scale enchantment. There were stone markers every five kilometers, each a square cut post marked with some simple runes that maintained the road. They kept the road dry and flat and held a minor self-repair feature. The main road was pretty straight, though it did curve around hills or other natural obstacles. Bridges were wooden single-lane affairs with stone footings, all well maintained. They saw little traffic other than a few passing carts laden with goods headed in either direction.
For two days, they walked. They passed through a small village halfway through the first day and a waystation the day after. The waystations were little more than a wall-enclosed area with a small inn and attached barn or corral for livestock and horses. Wali noticed that the waystation was about a day’s walk from the village. When he asked the old woman managing the tavern, she said it was by design and that all through the Harvest Kingdom’s waystations would be a single day apart or close to that, depending on where the cities where the settlements were located. They traded work for a hot meal and a bed at the way station, splitting wood and doing other chores for the older couple who lived there.
Late in the afternoon of the third day, they were passing through a hilly forest when Tag alerted Wali to trouble. Seven creatures the spirit did not recognize lay in ambush not far off the road. Wali shared Tag’s eyes for a moment. The creatures were some black-furred humanoids. They were about the height of a human but with longer arms and broader shoulders. They looked like some human-hyena hybrid. They wore no clothes and had no weapons beyond the nasty-looking fangs and stubby claws they all sported.
Wali stopped in his tracks and waved for Yacob to do the same. Wali briefly conferred with Yacob before sending the other youth on ahead. Not liking to use his only friend as bait, the only way to avoid a confrontation would be to turn around and return. This would likely lose them three or more days as they backtracked and found a way around. If they could turn the ambush against the attackers, it would save time and earn them some much-needed combat experience. Wali knew how to fight; he was pretty good at fighting beasts and using his spear. Yacob barely knew how to throw a punch at this point, but his earth and fire manipulation was improving rapidly. Wali had a theory about Yacob’s roadblock regarding his magic, an internal mental block that would need to be forcibly broken. This might be the chance for that.
Wali linked his Void and Senses glyphs with some mana as he pushed his intent out. He faded from view as he turned nearly invisible. He made no sound and left no scent in the air. He moved to the side of the road and walked ten paces behind Yacob. Yacob knew that Wali was there, his trust for Wali complete.
A hundred yards further down the road, a throaty yipping and barking filled the forest. Seven furred bodies rushed at Yacob from the forest, three from the left and four from the right. Yacob reacted with fear and anger. He had known this was coming, but the reality was different from the idea of it. He felt the earth around him respond to that instinctual response. He could sense the beasts, and he felt the claws and feet of his attackers on the ground. The flames responded to the anger at being attacked, and he felt power ripple out from his heart, and flames shot down his arms.
This display of fire caused the attacking monsters to slow a bit in their charge as Yacob turned around, trying to keep the surrounding monsters all in sight at once. This was more than the opening that Wali needed. He raised Gale and heard the elemental shout with joy, “Throw me! I will feast on their blood!” With a grunt, Wali launched the spear and grabbed for the twin tusk daggers. A thunderclap sounded as the spear shot forward, shifting into a bold of pure lightning as it flew on. It splashed through the closest target, burning a football-sized hole through it before it arced through another. Gale then shifted course slightly along its trajectory and caught a third who had begun to duck with a glancing blow. The first two were dead before they hit the ground, and enough voltage had hit the third to stun an elephant causing it to lay on the ground spasming.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
The moment of surprise broke, and Yacob lunged forward, slamming his fist into the nearest creature. The flames splashed off his arm like a bucket of burning napalm thrown on the beast. The punch staggered the snarling monster, but the fire quickly caught on the thing’s mottled black and gray fur. Howling in pain, it went berzerk, lashing out at anything it could reach. It caught Yacob a blow on his forearm, pushing the big man back. A second monster saw Yacob’s other burning arm and the results of the flames on the first creature. This one suddenly needed to be elsewhere in the forest. It fled off into the trees yipping and barking. The third turned to fight Yacob, attacking with fang and claw.
On Wali’s side of the fight, two were already dead; one lay twitching on the ground, and the last stood there gaping at what was happening. Wali vaulted over the prone figure and pounced on that one. His twin daggers slammed home into the beast’s chest as it turned to him. One blade ripped a large gobbet of flesh out of the chest, the other injecting a corrosive poison straight into the lungs and heart. The monster let out a confused yelp of pain before blood bubbled out of its mouth as it dropped. Wali stepped back and stabbed down to put twitchy out of its misery.
One remained, furiously trying to land a blow on Yacob. His arms had converted into stone from the elbow down. Yacob blocked the jaws and claws of the monster with his stony arms, purely defensive as he tried to keep from getting injured. Wali circled to the side and plucked Gale from the tree it had lodged in. “I REVEL IN THE BLOOD OF THESE VERMIN!” Gale shouted in triumph through their mental link.
Wali shook his head and turned back to Yacob and the last monster. The creature saw that it was now the one who was overmatched and outnumbered. It, too, decided that it had pressing concerns far away from here. The two young men let the beast go. “THROW ME! I WILL KILL IT!” Gale shouted in its bloodlust.
Ignoring the spear, Wali just stood and looked at Yacob. ”Good work there. You all right?”
Yacob again looked down at his arms, “What? Yeah, I’m okay. How did…?” He trailed off.
“Your magic is controlled instinctually. Now that it has been awakened, you need to learn to tame it.” Wali explained.
“What?” Yacob asked, confused.
“You made it happen because you were scared and mad,” Wali said flatly.
They watched as Yacob’s arms slowly returned to normal. The man’s sleeve was shredded, but the flesh under was unmarred. “So, how do I do it on purpose?”
“We’ll work on that tonight. For now, let's get out of here before those things come back with friends.” Wali said as he turned back to the road. “Whatever they are.”
“Feral Gnolls,” Trickster said in his head, “Lesser cousins to the regular Gnoll. These are either just manifestations of the local mana build-up or forerunners to a pack.”
“Please explain further,” Wali asked.
“Gnolls are pack hunting creatures. The standard issue Gnoll stands well over two meters and is as intelligent as most humanoids. They use weapons as you do too. Pack creatures, usually thirty or so to each pack leader. They will use the feral ones as scouts and fodder sometimes. With as many as there were here, this was a unique manifestation of the mana, or they are pack scouts.”
“Okay. I get it now.” Wali replied. He knew that true monsters were not natural creatures. They could breed and eat like any creature but often coalesced from tangled pockets of high-density mana. If left alone, they would act like ordinary denizens of the world, hunting, sleeping, and whatever else monsters did. Wali looked backward at the dead monsters. They lay bleeding on the ground. The first one he had killed with Gale was already steaming, visible streams of mana starting to rise from its body. The mana of the world was like a vast ocean of power. It flowed in streams (ley lines) and moved around like the atmosphere. Patches of high or low-density mana flowed with whatever impetus carried it. Some areas had high-density mana typically as if they were in a deep part of that ocean; others had very little, as if they were desert islands with no water. The Brown Wastes were one such place, and the Colri Plains could be considered a shallow part of the ocean. The Harvest Kingdom was an area where the local mana density could be viewed at a normal baseline. This forest must have a deep pocket or some eddy in the current to have coalesced into monsters.
They moved down the road, finding no further danger in the forest. The trees thinned out on the crest of a hillside. Before them spread a wide valley, its patchwork fields lay before them. The road bisected the valley heading north to south. A small river cut its way through the valley going the other direction. Centered in the valley lay another town, similar to Bramble but with high stone walls. Wali could see five distinct holds equidistant from the town itself. Each hold was a small cluster of buildings not unlike Holder Mark’s. From here, he could see that they were in much better repair. Two of the three had quadrants of fields visible, each a different shade of brown and green. He recognized the pattern of crop rotation he had been taught. The true power of the Harvest Kingdom was its never-ending supply of food. The quadrant fields were markers of livestock, wheat, hay, and fallow fields. Each year they would rotate which area held what crop. Two other holds had a six-field rotation, beans, corn, vegetables, sheep, cabbage, potatoes, and fallow fields. The final was a single open space with a few more significant outbuildings. A few large herds of horses could be seen from their vantage point.
A cart rumbled up the road pulled by a pair of the animals, and a trio of folks walked alongside. The road was wide enough for the boys to avoid the cart easily. However, their bloodied appearance and somewhat simple garb drew some stares. Wali and Yacob smiled, knowing that this cart would have been caught in the ambush if not for them.