“Just stay near the door,” Magda said. “Your soldiers will fare better if we run from them rather than fight them.”
Abigail nodded, then slipped into the barracks. Over a hundred men were sleeping, the sounds of snoring reverberating throughout the large room. She went to the nearest bunk and shook the man awake. He blinked several times, rubbing his eyes in confusion.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Abigail. Where’s your commanding officer?”
“He’s in the room at the end of the barracks, probably sleeping since we just ended our guard shift at dawn.”
“Tell me about the woman Prince Torin left with.”
“She was pretty. I only saw her from a distance, but I understand why the prince left with her.” He sat up, looking at Abigail more closely, realization seeping into his consciousness the more fully he awoke. “You’re Lady Abigail.”
“Yes.”
He stood up quickly, sleepiness replaced with sudden nervousness.
“Forgive me, My Lady, I didn’t recognize you.”
“Nothing to forgive, soldier,” Abigail said. “Wake the rest of your men while I go speak with your commander.”
She didn’t wait for him to obey, instead heading to the end of the barracks. The soldier started yelling at the men nearby while pulling on his boots. The commander came out of his room, disheveled and half asleep.
“What’s going on out here?” he bellowed. Then he stopped and stared, trying to blink away his confusion.
“Lieutenant, do you know who I am?”
“Lady Abigail, what are you doing here?”
“I need your help, right now. Wake your men and get them ready.”
He hesitated, seemingly stunned by the abrupt awakening and the presence of Abigail.
“Now, Lieutenant.”
He nodded quickly and started shouting. Within a few minutes he had over a hundred men up, dressed and gathered around Abigail and Magda to hear their orders. Abigail explained the situation quickly and impressed upon the soldiers that the men they were going to detain were not the enemy.
She went back to her quarters, followed by a company of soldiers, citizens moving hastily out of their way. Just before they reached the council chamber, the roar of a wyvern shattered the late morning air.
Abigail looked at Magda, concerned for the two witches who had remained with the wyverns.
“Amelia and Jillian are in trouble,” Magda said.
“We have to contain these men, then we’ll go to the aerie.”
Ash smiled brightly when he saw Abigail, then abruptly snarled when he saw soldiers flow into the room behind her.
“You can’t do this! Mistress commanded us to stop you.” He drew his sword, his men following his lead.
“Take them without hurting them if you can,” Abigail commanded. “Disarm them and detain them under close guard.”
The company of soldiers swarmed into the room, surrounding and cutting off escape for all of the soldiers under the Sin’Rath’s spell. Ash and his men lashed out but their blows fell on shields, few doing any damage. One by one, they were disarmed, tied up, and lined against the wall.
“You can’t do this,” Ash pleaded. “Mistress commanded us to stop you from following her. We can’t fail her.” He started crying uncontrollably.
“Lieutenant, keep these men here. We’ll be back soon,” Abigail said.
She and Magda ran through the streets toward the aerie. They arrived to the sounds of a pitched battle … Amelia, Jillian, two message riders and the handlers on one side and six soldiers on the other, with several more already down, dead or unconscious.
Abigail and Magda came in behind the Sin’Rath-charmed soldiers just as Amelia knocked one sprawling with a force-push. Magda started casting a spell, her voice building from a whisper to loud forceful words that culminated in a shout. A wave of force, similar to a force-push but much wider, emanated from her hands and hit all five of the remaining soldiers, blasting them forward and tossing them onto the ground at the feet of the Sky Knights, who quickly bound their hands and feet.
“We caught them trying to kill the wyverns,” Amelia said. “Fortunately, Kallistos was still awake.”
“Is he all right?” Abigail asked urgently.
“Yes, his warning brought us quickly enough to stop them,” Amelia said.
“We’ll lock these men up with the rest,” Abigail said.
***
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the young woman said. “It wasn’t human. It looked at me and smiled, like it knew what I was seeing, but also like it knew that none of the men would believe me. And they didn’t. I tried to warn them and got this for my trouble,” she said, gently touching the swollen red bruise on her cheek.
Her account only reinforced what Abigail had learned when she interrogated the men under the Sin’Rath’s spell. They were distraught that they had failed to stop Abigail, some of them breaking down in tears, sobbing uncontrollably. Abigail found it to be a chilling display of power.
“Do you know where they took Prince Torin?” Abigail asked, leaning closer and taking the woman’s hand.
“I don’t know where they were going, My Lady,” she said, shaking her head, “but they left out of the south gate. I followed them to the wall and watched them ride south. I wanted to stop them, all of the women did, but there wasn’t anyone able to stand up to them, and they were all so bewitched by that thing that none of them would listen to us.”
“It’s all right, dear, you’ve done well,” Abigail said.
“It makes sense,” Magda said. “The witch would probably want to take Torin back to Karth. The ports along the south coast are her best bet for getting a ship.”
“So we fly south,” Abigail said.
Chapter 15
They’d been searching the roads south of Fellenden City for three days without any luck when they spotted a group of riders on the road to Sochi. The sun had just slipped past the horizon, casting the world into growing shadow.
Abigail signaled Amelia and Jillian to make a pass. When their wyverns both roared, confirming their target, Abigail and Magda tipped into a dive, while Amelia and Jillian circled, gaining altitude for an attack run.
Moments after the wyverns roared, the horses broke into a gallop, all of them angling for a sparse grove of trees alongside the road. Abigail loosed an arrow, missing narrowly, but drawing the witch’s attention. Magda fired a light-lance, burning a hole through the rump of the Sin’Rath’s horse. The dying animal’s squeal seemed to linger on the wind as the wyverns banked to circle for another pass.
Looking over her shoulder, Abigail watched as the witch tumbled from her horse and started barking orders at the men. Two headed for the grove of trees while the other five reined in their horses and spread out to meet the next attack, each nocking an arrow while the witch started chanting guttural, almost animalistic words that carried into the darkening sky.
Amelia and Jillian lined up for a run, gaining speed, diving toward the witch. Amelia sent a blue sphere streaking toward the Sin’Rath. It hit her shield and seemed to flow over the surface of it, weakening her magical bubble of protection. Jillian followed with a string of five wedges of blue magical force, one after the other. The first three hit the shield, dissipating with the impact … but the fourth broke the magical barrier and the fifth grazed the witch across her shoulder.
Her guttural chanting culminated with a shriek followed by a streamer of black smoke rising from her outstretched hands toward Jillian. It moved quickly, separating into several tendrils as is neared, then wrapped around the wyvern’s wings, binding them to the beast’s body. Abigail heard the staccato popping of Jillian’s locking bolts coming loose just a moment before she leapt from her saddle. Her wyvern hit the ground with a terrible crash; the sounds of bones snapping and flesh rending filled the night.
Jillian landed gently several moments later, her featherlite spell slowing her descent. As she ran toward her dying steed, Abigail heard her yell, “No! No! No!” She felt a pang of sympathy for her as she nocked another arrow and focused on the task at hand.