Chapter 8

Akeelay

Chapter 8

More sorcerers attacked the second night. And the third. We were ready for them by then, of course, but it was exhausting to never get a good night’s sleep.

The second night, we didn’t stay in an inn, or even enter a town. Maybelle had suggested that sorcerers from that town might have seen us and reported to Lymlock. I wasn’t entirely sure about that, but it was possible. But still, they found us and attempted to kill us. It wasn’t that important, it was pretty much like the first night.

My knife had continued to reflect spells. It was amazing how well I could use it, even never having had any kind of self-defense lessons. Natural ability? Maybe, but I doubted it. Everything about that knife was weird.

We didn’t stay in an inn the third night, either. This time, though, it was out of accessibility – there were no towns around. We had decided to keep watch, and I had the first shift. When the moon was directly overhead, I woke Maybelle for her shift and fell gratefully into sleep.

I woke up when I heard a whinny and a thump, and quickly leapt to my feet. Maybelle and I looked at each other and rushed for the sound.

When we got there, we saw Jinx on the ground, presumably dead, and three sorcerers standing over him, watching us arrive.

“Hello,” one of them said calmly.

“Leave,” Maybelle and I said in unison. I had to struggle not to laugh at our perfect synchrony. 

The sorcerer who had spoken continued. “If you surrender, we won’t harm you. Yet. Lymlock has changed his orders regarding you. Now he wants you captured instead of dead, if possible. Consider yourselves lucky.” All of this was said in a calm, matter-of-fact tone.

“We’re never going to surrender,” I said in a more confident voice than I felt.

“Well, then, good luck.” Something resembling smug laughter was starting to creep into his tone. He obviously didn’t think we would be much good at fighting them. “He also said that if you resist -” he gestured to the other two sorcerers - “we can skip straight to the part where you die.”

Magykans are so melodramatic.

Maybelle got the first spell in, even though it had no effect. They had a shield spell covering all three of them.

The next spell was from the sorcerer who had spoken. “Sensih!” he shouted. For some reason they were still trying to take me alive, with the unconsciousness spell. I reflected it easily with my knife, hitting the sorcerer to the left of the one who had spoken, purely by luck.

(Although shield spells block all outside enchantments, they can be penetrated from either side by the people protected by it.)

“What?” demanded one of the remaining sorcerers, the one who seemed to be in charge. The other one just glared at me and cast another spell. I tried to hit it straight back at him, but he was ready for it that time and ducked out of the way.

It was interesting how much I really enjoyed their reaction to my – well, the knife’s – talent. It was entertaining to watch how they responded to a human taking away their centuries-old advantage of magyk. Even though I was about to die, I still laugh thinking about it.

Of course, I didn’t think about all of that then. I was too busy blocking spells.

One of them was attacking Maybelle, and she kept throwing spells to try to break down their shield spell. I was trying to angle my knife right to get one of them again.

Soon, though, we defeated them.

“Nice job,” Maybelle told me, breathing hard. “We make a pretty good team.”

“We? You were the one doing all the work!” I pointed out.

Maybelle has some of the strongest magyk out of all the wizards in the castle, and many magykans in general, and knows how to use it. Well, technically, all magykans know how to use magyk. Each of them knows every spell from birth, or at least from the time they can talk. But Maybelle’s good at knowing exactly what spell to use in a certain situation. She’s much better at combat than I am.

“Well, you did take out that first sorcerer,” she reasoned.

“Anyway,” I said, moving on to a different topic, “what are we going to do to travel now? Jinx is dead, I think, and we don’t have anything else to travel by.”

“We might just have to walk, Akeelay.”

I knew she was going to say that.

“Why do we have to save the kingdom? Why aren’t there more experienced people doing this?” I complained to no one.

“They’re all dead,” Maybelle said harshly, and I jumped at her tone. I hadn’t thought about all the wizards that had been killed, or, at the absolute least, captured, but most of them were her friends.

Ugh. I felt really bad now.

“Sorry, I didn’t think – “

“It doesn’t matter,” she said in a more normal tone. “Let’s just start walking.”

“Can we just wait until morning? I don’t think there’ll be another attack tonight, and I’m so tired. Let’s just go a little bit and then please get some sleep.”

Maybelle yawned. “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”

The next day, we walked. A lot. My feet ached by midday. We were passing through a lot of forests, and I worried we would be in the middle of one when night fell. That wouldn’t end well.

But when night came, we were in a broad plain, stretching on and on in both directions.

No sorcerers came that night, which was a relief and a surprise. I hoped never to see them again.