The concussion of the blast knocks them down and a giant plume of fire reaches toward the sky. Several buildings surrounding the explosion begin to collapse from the sheer force of the blast. The soldiers in the courtyard are knocked to the ground and James can hear their cries of shock as they see the sky light up with fire. Once they regain their feet, they race off toward the sound of the explosion, leaving the courtyard empty.
"Damn!" Tinok says as he looks at the fireball reaching to the sky.
"Let's go," James says in astonishment as he races to the gates leading to the outside of the city. His legs are a little shaky but are able to keep up the pace. Debris begins to hail down upon them as they make for the gates, dirt and stones falling from the sky pelt them as they cross the courtyard.
Delia cries out when a sizeable stone strikes her in the left shoulder, knocking her to the ground.
Tinok comes to her aid. "Are you okay?" he asks as he helps her to her feet.
"Not really, but I can make it," she says with determination as they hurry to follow after the others.
When they reach the gates, they discover that there's a section still missing, allowing easy access to the outside. They hurry quickly through to the other side, where they pause momentarily as they see men racing toward the city from all over the countryside in response to the blast.
Staying close to the wall, they hide in the shadows as they begin making their way away from the gates. Jiron grabs James' shoulder and says, "Look, over there." He points to a section of the enemy's camp off to the south.
Scanning the direction Jiron's indicating, James sees several horses tied to a tree near a group of tents. Fortune! Fortune! They're all saddled. A large campfire is burning in a pit near them, bathing the entire area in light. They'll have to make their way through some of the camp in order to get to them. They're all saddled. A large campfire is burning in a pit near them, bathing the entire area in light. They'll have to make their way through some of the camp in order to get to them.
"With everyone running to see what's up in the city," Jiron says, "we should be able to get the horses with little trouble."
"Let's hope so," James says apprehensively. "If anyone's looking when we enter the light, we could have problems."
"We've got little choice," Tinok says when he joins them. "We'll never get far on foot."
Turning to Tinok, James says, "Jiron and I will get the horses, you stay and protect the ladies until we return."
He waits for Tinok's nod and then he and Jiron run toward the horses. When they get close, James sees that there are a total of seven horses. They slow down and approach more cautiously when they're close to being illuminated by the fire. They edge around the fringe of the light, trying to get as close to the horses before entering the light and risk being seen.
When they're as close as possible, James looks around and sees that no one's in the vicinity. Signaling Jiron, they both hurry over and begin untying horses as fast as they can.
The horses begin making noises as they hurry about their work and all of a sudden, the flap of the closest tent opens up and a man peeks out. "What are you men doing with my horse?" he asks with an edge to his voice as he exits the tent and begins to approach them. He's wearing a plain cowled robe with the hood thrown back revealing shoulder length red hair. His eyes are dark and James can see anger smoldering behind those eyes.
James glances to Jiron and they both come to the same decision. Jiron's knives flash in the firelight as they spring to the ready. James takes a stone he had in his pocket and casting his spell, unleashes the magic as he throws it at the approaching man.
The instant before the stone leaves James' hand, the man flicks his wrist. When the stone nears him, it hits a barrier and ricochets away into the night.
Startled by the ineffectiveness of the stone, James hesitates a moment, trying to understand what had just happened.
"The mage!" the man cries out in shock, then his eyes get a calculating look.
Jiron launches himself at the man, knives flashing in a whirling pattern. As if he was dealing with an annoying fly, the man waves his hand toward him.
James feels a prickling along his skin as he watches Jiron being lifted off the ground and thrown a dozen feet away. Understanding comes, He's a mage too! He's a mage too! James directs his magic to the ground under the mage's feet and lets it flow. James directs his magic to the ground under the mage's feet and lets it flow.
Crumph!!!!!
The ground explodes upward with incredible force. When the dust clears enough, James sees the man still standing there untouched. A three foot diameter of ground remains undisturbed beneath him.
"Is that all you have?" the man asks with contempt, words heavy in accent. He swirls his hand and it begins glowing red then he flicks it at James. A red light flashes toward him, striking him hard in the chest, knocking him backward onto the ground.
As the man makes his way through the crater that surrounds him, he says to James, "I was expecting more of a challenge, how disappointing."
James lays there unable to breathe, gasping as he tries to take in a breath. He sees a knife fly through the air out of the dark toward the mage, but it hits an invisible protective shield and bounces harmlessly away, landing on the ground.
Once the mage clears the crater, he gestures with both hands while staring intently at James. Suddenly, James' legs begin to cramp, he can feel their muscles knotting and twisting causing him great pain. He cries out from the pain and in desperation casts a spell, one he used many times back home, role playing. He feels it using up the remaining power within him, leaving him weak, barely able to move.
The approaching mage chuckles as he sees a clear, shimmering bubble appear between them, floating in the air. "What's that suppose to do?"
He casts another spell and the bubble begins sparkling as if fireflies were contained within. The mage's face loses its look of confidence and begins to exhibit worry. The sparkles begin increasing in luminosity as the man's face slowly turns to a look of confusion.
Jiron comes to James' side and asks, "You okay?"
Exhausted from the spell he just cast, he gasps, "Will be." The effect of the mage's earlier spell begins to dissipate and the pain in his legs subsides. Jiron turns to the mage and with knives ready, advances on him once more. James grabs his arm as he starts toward the mage, stopping him and warns, "Don't touch him or the bubble."
"Why?" Jiron asks.
Shaking his head, he replies, "No time to explain, we've got to get out of here. Now!" he shouts, then lapses into unconsciousness and sags to the ground.
Jiron looks to the mage who is shaking his head with a look of horror as he stares into the bubble, the sparks within gaining size and intensity. "No!" he cries in terror, suddenly dropping to the ground. The bubble is getting brighter and brighter by the second.
From out of the darkness, Tinok and the girls come running toward them. "Get the horses!" Jiron shouts as they approach. He begins to untie the remaining horses from the tree.
"What's that?" Cassie asks as she makes to approach the bubble.
'"Get away from it!" Jiron yells at her. "James said not to touch it."
He hollers over to Tinok and says, "Help me get James on a horse." When he comes over, they lift him up and quickly secure him onto the horse with some rope.
Delia mounts a horse and then looks back over to the mage who is by now whimpering in terror. His hair, once a vivid red has now turned grey and he's beginning to shrivel in upon himself like a grape having spent too much time in the sun.
Jiron mounts and says, "Tinok, you stay next to James and make sure he doesn't fall off." He turns his horse toward the southwest, "Let's stay close together," he advises, "and maybe we can survive this." He glances over to the bubble; the sparks have grown until they now fill the entire bubble with a white light whose intensity is painful to look upon. The mage on the ground is no longer moving and appears dead.
Kicking his horse in the side, Jiron rides through the camp, the others close behind. Out of the darkness ahead of him, several men suddenly appear. Holding on tight, he rides straight through them, knocking them over. He looks back toward the bubble, and the light is now extremely bright, illuminating a large portion of the camp. He can see dozens of men running toward it, one of whom is wearing a cowled robe just like the other mage had. They race past the tents and reach the far side of the camp.
They pass numerous soldiers but none seem to notice them, all eyes are turned to the now brilliantly bright light. The guards at the fringe of the camp take notice of them approaching and command them to stop. A crossbow bolt flies past, nearly striking Tinok as they race through. They flee into the dark grasslands to the southwest of town, leaving the guards behind. They don't get too far before...
Schtk!
They look back at the sound from the backs of their horses, everyone holds their breath in anticipation of what may happen. Then...
Booooooom!
A giant explosion, ten times the force of what they experienced when that building blew earlier. They feel the concussion wave as it washes over them, luckily they're far enough away that it doesn't hit them with enough force to knock them over, just causes their horses to miss a step. They stop and look back at the camp.
Reaching toward the sky is a tower of flame, the roar from which can be heard even though they're now far away from it. The base of the fire extends throughout the camp in every direction, burning everything within.
They sit there in awe as the flame punches through the clouds and then slowly dissipates, appearing as if it's sinking back down to the ground.
"Dear god!" Cassie exclaims.
They all glance at the unconscious James and then look to each other. Tinok asks, "Just what have we gotten ourselves into?"
"I don't know," Jiron replies, shaking his head as he glances again at James. "I don't know." Kicking his horse, he leads them out into the grasslands.
Chapter Three.
James awakens in the morning light. Sitting up suddenly, his head begins to spin and starts aching as if a hundred little hammers are pounding away on it. He holds his head until the pain has subsided to a more tolerable level and then looks around as he takes in his surroundings. The others are still asleep and five horses are picketed a little ways away from the camp, the saddles had been left on for a quick getaway.
A moment of panic sets in when he can't locate his backpack, then he realizes he had been using it as a pillow. Opening it up, he reaches in and removes some food along with his water bottle.
Deciding not to wake the others, he sits there and eats while he contemplates the events of the day before. The Empire's mage almost had me The Empire's mage almost had me, he thinks to himself. I'm just a rookie compared to them, they've probably been doing this for a long time. My spells seemed to be rather ineffective against him, too. Going to have to work on better, more innovative spells, gotta surprise them next time or I'm toast. I'm just a rookie compared to them, they've probably been doing this for a long time. My spells seemed to be rather ineffective against him, too. Going to have to work on better, more innovative spells, gotta surprise them next time or I'm toast. He remembers his last spell and smiles, He remembers his last spell and smiles, I bet he never saw that coming! I bet he never saw that coming!
Hearing one of the sleepers stirring, he looks over and sees Cassie as she leans up on one arm and looks over in his direction. He holds up some of his food, silently offering it to her, but she just shakes her head no. She grabs her pack and gets up, coming over to sit next to him.
She opens her backpack and takes out some of her own rations and then asks as she begins eating, "You okay?"
"Better," he replies through a mouthful of food. "The more powerful the spell, the more it takes out of you. Sleeping last night has helped a lot. After I'm done eating, I should be fine, if a little fatigued."
"That's good," she says. "We were all worried about you last night, after you passed out."
"It's what happens sometimes," he tells her. "Just how long did we ride last night?"
"Several hours, I think," she guesses. "It seemed like a long time. Everyone was getting too tired to stay in the saddle so we stopped here and made camp."
"We probably shouldn't stay here too much longer, the Empire will want to find us in a bad way," he says.
During their conversation, everyone else awakens and joins them for breakfast.
"What was that thing you did last night?" Tinok asks when he settles down next to him.
"You mean the bubble?" James asks.
"Yeah," he answers. "When it went off, it must've taken half their camp with it."
"Really?" James asks, surprised. "I wasn't sure what was going to happen to tell you the truth. I've never actually done that one before. What happened, exactly?"
He sits there and finishes eating while Tinok relates to him the events after he passed out. When he gets to the description of the explosion, James is quite astonished.
"You see," he explains when Tinok is done telling him, "I designed the bubble to do two things. One is to absorb the power from any magic spells currently active in the area, and the other is a little more complicated. You see, when a mage casts a spell, he opens a conduit from his core of power, usually only enough to accomplish whatever spell he intends to do. My bubble grabs that flow, pulling the power into itself, while at the same time preventing the mage from closing the conduit. The result is that all the mage's power is sucked out of him and absorbed into the bubble. That must've been what was giving the bubble the light, the mage's power that it had absorbed."
"Now here's the part I've never been able to really test before," he explains. "What happens when the bubble is filled to capacity and reaches critical mass?"
"Critical mass?" Delia asks, confused. "What's that?"
"Critical mass is when something is filled to capacity and ready to 'pop', for lack of a better term," he explains. "In this instance, it could no longer hold the power, so it exploded. I would guess the size of the bubble and the amount of power it had absorbed would determine the intensity of the explosion."
"You could wipe out an entire army with one of those!" Tinok exclaims.
Shaking his head, James says, "Not necessarily, after all it would only work if there was a mage present. Also, if everyone ran away before it exploded, it wouldn't be doing too much harm."
"I see your point," he says, somewhat disappointed.
"Now," Jiron interjects, "what are we going to do about rescuing my sister and your friend?"
"Well, first of all, where are we exactly? Which way did we go when we left the City?" he asks.
"We headed southwest," Jiron answered.
"So it's safe to assume that we are currently in enemy territory," James concludes, "and will continue to be for a long time."
"Yeah," agrees Tinok.
"I propose we continue to head south and try to find out where the slavers intend to take them," he suggests. "Once we know that, we'll have a better idea of what we can do."
"Let's get going then," Jiron says, anxious to get started.
"I agree," James says, shouldering his backpack as he stands up. He goes over to one of the horses and swings up, head spinning from the exertion. When it calms down he scans the surrounding countryside and is relieved to find nothing moving across the grassland, except for the tall grass, waving in the breeze. The southerly breeze feels good as the summer sun begins to warm the day.
He notices that Delia needs Tinok's help in climbing into the saddle and that she is favoring her left arm. He walks his horse over to her and asks, "Are you okay?"
"A stone hit me when the building exploded last night," she explains. "It hurts, but I don't think it's broken, just bruised."
Feeling guilty at being the cause of her pain, he says, "I'm sorry."
She smiles at him and says, "Hey, don't worry about it. We got out didn't we? This is pretty minor compared to the fate I would've had if we hadn't." She pats him on the arm with her right hand and gives him a reassuring smile, then continues, "So don't feel bad. I don't, okay?"
He smiles back at her and says, "Alright, I won't" Glancing around to see that everyone has already mounted and is ready to go, he turns his horse to the south and breaks into a canter. The others follow along behind.
He takes the lead with Jiron next to him, the girls in the middle, and Tinok eating their dust at the rear. After they've traveled a ways, he asks Jiron, "Just where did you and Tinok learn to fight so well?"
"The Pits," he replies.
"Pits?" James asks.