The Mage From Nowhere, page 4
“We can use his wagon.”
Michael glanced over at it. “Still, Aliana…it’s a long way back. I say we let him go. You already shot him in the leg. I mean, that should be punishment enough.”
“Don’t let laziness be the voice of justice.”
“Michael is right,” Tarak said. “I learned my lesson, my dame…correction, um, my woman?”
“That’s not any better,” she corrected. “Say ‘madam,’ if you must say something.”
“Ali,” said Michael. “Where do you think madam comes from?”
It was silent for a moment.
“Wait a minute,” Michael said. “You sound familiar.” He pointed at Tarak.
“We met earlier today.”
“Tarak?” Michael asked.
“Correct.”
Michael muttered. “Ah, Tarak, why do you have to put me in this position?”
“How do you two know each other?” Aliana asked.
“We met at a drinkery, uh, a tavern,” Tarak answered.
“Michael!” scolded the woman.
“I had just witnessed Eden kissing that hippopotamus! I needed a drink.”
“There is something I did not mention, Michael,” Tarak interrupted. “I spent the day deciding if I should let people know. I think it best that I do.” He paused to make sure Michael was taking him seriously.
“Uh, all right?” Michael said. “Always so formal,” he muttered.
“I am the son of Caarda.”
“This again,” complained the woman. “He’s been telling that lie since I first confronted him.”
Tarak contemplated showing them the now-closed wound, but he would need surprise if he couldn’t convince them of his identification and had to make a run for it.
“Nice try, Tarak, but demigods can’t have children,” Michael said.
“We’re not supposed to think of them as demigods anymore,” Aliana reminded him.
“Deviants. Whatever.”
This will not work. Seeing that the woman had set her bow on the ground next to her and considering how dark this forest was, Tarak didn’t need a distraction. His father was the only person faster than him, and he doubted the speed of the average man had changed much in four hundred years.
Tarak took off.
“Oy! Stop! Oy! How are you running like that?” Aliana yelled as she and Michael chased after Tarak.
He darted around trees and bushes, across a shallow river, then down a short path. He heard Michael yelling from above for Tarak to stop. Then Michael’s yells turned into shrieks as he crashed down next to Tarak and rolled into a tree.
It was only the woman after Tarak now, and she was farther back. He rushed through the forest, taking the clearest path available. He looked back several times and soon lost her. He kept going for good measure. There was no way either of them would find him.
He had almost stopped as he realized he wasn’t going to find his axe or wagon again, but he couldn’t go back for them. He had other ways to make coin. He would bet on arm-wrestling matches. That was the fastest. He would buy another axe eventually.
He hid deep in the woods, long past the point of catching his breath. He was getting cold with no shirt, so he took it off from his leg and put the bloody thing back on. No, his blood had wet the shirt and made him chill faster. He took it off again. Lord and bane, he really hadn’t thought this through. No matter. He wasn’t in prison. That was what mattered.
He would leave this place as soon as he could. He hated the city, anyway. Watching that wind sorcerer take off into the sky did make him want to learn what else sorcery could offer. In due time. He was young, only seventeen years old. Or was he technically four hundred and seventeen? Whatever he was, he still had plenty of time to figure out what to do with his life once he got out of here.
He heard footsteps—he couldn’t believe it! What kind of luck did they possess to find him?
He didn’t have it in him to hurt either of these constables, even if the woman had shot him. He ran the opposite way instead but gasped as he encountered the silhouette of Michael.
A gust of wind picked up Tarak and held him in the air. His flailing and shouting did no good.
Suddenly he fell, and the two constables jumped on top of him.
“Hold his arms!” yelled the woman as she tried to wrap rope around them.
“I’m trying! He’s way too strong!”
Tarak pushed himself up with both of them on his back.
“How?” Michael yelled as he and Aliana rolled off.
Soon he was free and making another run for it, but an arrow lodged in his ass.
He yelped and stumbled but caught himself before falling. Another arrow struck him, this one in the back of his leg. He fell and rolled over, immediately grabbing the arrows to pull them out, but had to halt.
The woman stepped on his shoulder and showed him an arrowhead in front of his face. “Don’t you fucking move!”
“She’s a ranger, Tarak,” Michael said. “There’s no point in running.”
Tarak slowly put up his hands. He didn’t know what a ranger was except annoying.
“I know I shot you in the leg earlier,” Aliana said, feeling around his leg with the tip of her boot. “You should be bleeding half to death.”
“I told you. I am the son of Caarda.”
“Good god, Ali,” Michael said. “I think he’s telling the truth!”
Ali gasped as she took her foot off Tarak and stepped back. He calmly rolled over and pulled the arrows out of his body, first from his leg, then his ass.
“What I told you earlier was also the truth, Michael. I just lost everyone. My father gave me no choice. He put me in a bubble of time and I remained there for four hundred years, though it felt like mere moments. My whole world is gone. Everyone I ever knew is dead. I only ended up in this time period today. I am still figuring out…well, everything.”
“But Deviants can’t have children,” Michael said for the second time.
“Incorrect, and I am proof.”
Michael asked Ali, “Do you think Caarda said something to the king about this?”
“I’m still not sure I believe it.”
“He picked himself up with both of us on top of his back!”
Tarak slowly got up and turned to show the back of his leg. It was no longer bleeding. Soon the wound would be completely gone.
Aliana crouched down for a close look. Her mouth dropped open. “Oh my god.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re still under arrest for the felling of trees on the king’s land,” Aliana told Tarak. “Seeing as how you heal like one of the Deviants, you should be fine to walk back, and I won’t hesitate to shoot you again if you misbehave.”
Michael asked him, “I have bruised and battered my body worse than a tenderizer to meat. Can you do something about that?”
“I know nothing of how to heal others. The healing of my body comes naturally.” Tarak realized then that he had left his wet shirt behind during the last scuffle.
“Oh,” Michael said in obvious disappointment. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were earlier?”
“I was not sure I wanted anyone to know.”
“Why not?”
“Because I am much more than my father’s son, and as soon as I reveal that part of my identity, it becomes everything.”
That didn’t seem to be enough of an answer for either of them.
“And I despise my father,” Tarak added.
“But Caarda is an incredible—” Michael paused. “Is ‘person’ even the right word for someone like him?”
Tarak rolled his eyes. “Aye, a person, an annoying person. Consider how he has forsaken me. He refused to inform me I was to stay in a bubble of time for four hundred years. Only once it was over did he show me what he had done. He gave me no choice.”
“Where is he now?” Ali asked.
“He left Dorrinthal. He wanted me to come with him. However, I cannot stand to be with him any longer.”
“So then why are you here cutting trees?” she asked.
“I am out of coin.”
Both she and Michael scoffed and glanced at each other.
Aliana asked Tarak, “What can you do with sorcery?”
“Nothing,” he admitted.
She and Michael glanced at each other again.
“Nothing?” Michael asked Tarak.
“Correct,” he said.
“I suppose if you came from a time four hundred years ago it explains why you speak differently,” Michael replied, putting a hand over the back of his neck. “I don’t know. Ali? What do we do with him?”
“I suppose the king would want to meet him.”
“But why? He doesn’t even know sorcery.”
“That’s true,” she murmured.
A moment of silence passed.
“You must let me go,” Tarak implored.
“I’m more inclined to arrest you,” said the ranger, then waited as if this was a test of sorts.
He sighed. “Then bring me to the king if that is the alternative. I will make use of myself.”
Tarak had been caught committing a crime. They would make him serve the king as a lowly constable, never anything more. Or they would decide he wasn’t worth the trouble and throw him in prison.
Michael said, “You speak like someone who’s been in a prison cell before.”
“Incorrect.”
“He’s kind of irritating,” Aliana told Michael.
“That’s just his way of talking. I don’t think he means to sound like an ass.”
Both of them looked at Tarak.
“I do not,” he said. “I apologize if my manner of speech offends you…madam.” He just wanted to be left alone, here and later. Talking like everyone else was the first step toward no longer being noticed. No “drinkery.” No “dame.” Probably no “gamey” either. That was already slang in his time.
“He sure is big and strong,” Michael mused. “I’m sure we could find some use for him.”
Aliana asked Tarak, “You really have no skill with sorcery? None?”
“None yet,” he hinted. “But I do have some idea of how mana works. Do you still call it mana?”
“Yes,” Michael said. “But you can’t cast a spell?”
“I cannot.”
Aliana clicked her tongue. “Caarda is the most powerful sorcerer I know. Didn’t he train you?”
He tried.
If Tarak had slept and eaten, and had just a little coin left, he would find some way to get out of these woods and away from these bothersome sorcerers. Oh how he wished he’d taken his father’s lessons more seriously.
“My father wished to wait until after we were safe from the other Deviants to begin teaching me to cast.” It was a lie. Caarda had been adamant that Tarak learn to cast, but Tarak seemed incapable. “Caarda did not want his family to find out I was his son because I could be used against him. Our lessons were usually brief because of that.” That was completely true, but Caarda did want Tarak to spend more time training on his own. “He planned to teach me now, but I was too angry to let him.” That was probably true as well. “I told him to leave without me, and I do not have regret. You might know him as someone great, but I have never seen that side of him. He is gone and I am here, and I am better for it. I tried to inform the king of my lineage, but I was not granted access to the castle. Thus I am here.” With no money, no shirt, tired and hungry. “I request one final time that you let me go. I implore you, and I predict our paths will cross once I am strong and provisioned. I can do more for your kingdom than if you take me back and parade me in front of your king.”
Again, this was true. It might take him years, but he would make something of himself eventually. He had always planned to, just…he kept putting it off.
I have had too much fun for far too long. It really was time he grew up, considering prison was the alternative.
“Give us a moment,” Michael said. Then he and Aliana walked a few steps away and spoke among themselves.
Tarak could make another run for it, but the ranger seemed able to find him from far away. Unless he planned to run until morning while exhausted and starving—which he was in no mood for—he was not going to escape.
But maybe there was another way.
After a short while, Aliana asked over her shoulder, “Oy, you were going to cut down and split that tree into timber, all by yourself?”
“I have taken down and chopped up larger trees before.”
They spoke to each other a while longer. Eventually they both turned around.
“Come with us,” Michael said. “I’ll vouch for you when we speak to the king.”
Tarak tensed as he knew what had to be done. “And what do you suppose he is to do with me then?”
“He’ll probably have you trained.”
“To serve his needs,” Tarak added. “No matter how selfish they may be.”
“He’s a good leader.” Ali spoke defensively. “He is not selfish.”
“He’s not,” Michael agreed.
A moment passed as Tarak formulated his plan.
“I implore you,” Ali said, fingering an arrow from the quiver near her hip.
“Both of you shall remember that you put me in this position,” Tarak said.
Then he charged.
“Michael!” Ali yelled.
“Shit!” The sorcerer waved his hands for a spell of wind, no doubt, but Tarak had already dived toward the archer.
He tensed as he expected to tackle her, but a wall of wind halted him to a dead stop. He fell flat on his chest. He reached out and grabbed Aliana’s ankle, then pulled. She fell onto her back, but she did not drop her precious bow yet.
Wind pelted Tarak, almost crushing him against the ground.
“Get him away!” Ali yelled.
“I’m trying!” Michael screamed.
The wind rolled Tarak away, but he dragged the ranger with him. Michael ran after them as he stopped casting and took out his sword.
“Don’t make me do this—ah!”
Tarak grabbed his foot and tripped him just like he had the ranger.
She took out a dagger and coiled in on herself in an attempt to stab Tarak’s arm, but he let go of her leg to grab her wrist. She twisted to get her feet against his chest to push herself away from him, but he rolled over her, putting her between him and Michael as the wind mage picked up his weapon.
Tarak hoisted up the ranger and shoved her into the wind mage, effectively throwing both of them away from the bow on the ground. Tarak bent down and picked it up.
“It is done!” he told them, holding up the bow. “I will keep this and leave. Do not find me, or I will take your sword next, Michael, and keep both items. You are already losing a fine bow. Do not lose a sword, too.”
“Something is wrong in your head!” Michael shook a pointed finger. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed, and for what? What’s so bad about coming with us?”
“Shh!” Aliana shushed him as she glanced off into the woods.
“What?”
She didn’t respond for a moment, holding out her palm. “People are charging toward us aggressively! Quick, give me my bow!”
Tarak chuckled. “You think me to be as gullible as a child!”
Michael muttered, “Yeah, Ali, that wasn’t very convincing.”
“It is true, you goddamn idiots!” she said…quite convincingly. “Come on. Give me my weapon!”
Tarak started to wonder if this was not a trick after all as he glanced in the direction she had looked prior.
Too late. Three men barged in from the shadows.
“Halt!” the ranger ordered.
They did not stop. Not only was it surprising that they seemed to come from nowhere, but it was even more shocking that most of them seemed intent on killing Tarak as they rushed him with swords ready.
He had no arrows to use with the bow he had taken, so he smacked it into the side of the first swordsman. He could do little to stop the second, however, and took a blade into his side.
He tumbled with a scream.
“Not him. She’s the ranger!” called the third man, who stayed back and waved his hands for some sort of spell.
“Just went for the bow,” called back the swordsman who had cut Tarak. “Can’t see shit right now.”
Tarak could do little as he lay on the ground and held his hands over his bleeding wound.
“Michael,” Ali yelled, “my feet are bound by something!”
Who are these men? Tarak managed to slowly get up as he watched one swordsman unleash a stream of fire at the ranger. Michael cast at the same time, the wind igniting and blowing the fire back away from the woman and toward the two swordsmen.
The fire spread so fast and thick through the air that it caught leaves above Tarak. The forest became illuminated, revealing what looked to be vines wrapped around the ranger’s feet and legs, binding her to the ground. She looked very different than Tarak had pictured, but there was no time to notice anything else about her.
There was no way to accelerate Tarak’s healing. He could not twist or fight without reopening the wound, but it didn’t seem as if he had a choice. One of the two swordsmen was about to drive his blade through the woman’s abdomen, and the wind mage was too busy warding off the fire mage.
Tarak tackled the swordsman as his blade struck the ranger. Tarak couldn’t see what had happened as he rolled with the man. He wound up on top of this older intruder and got his hands around his throat, but the man stuck his fingers in Tarak’s wound, ripping a scream out of his throat and forcing him to let go…but not before forming a fist and striking the man in the neck.
As the one he’d struck gasped for breath, Tarak charged the sorcerer who seemed to be responsible for holding the ranger in place, a much younger man who fought from the shadows maybe ten steps away. The sorcerer twirled his hand as Tarak got close, and thorns sprouted up all over the sorcerer’s body.
Tarak did not hesitate as he swung at the nature sorcerer’s head. Tarak had never seen or heard of this type of sorcery, but it was clear that these men meant to kill the ranger. She might’ve been a pain in his arse, but she shouldn’t die for that.
