God Mage (17 page)

As she walked away, the other girls
surrounded her, making a human shield so she could change out of
her torn and tattered dress without the others eyes on her. When
Brenda noticed Bren looking, she shook her hips a little giving him
just a slight look at Faye as she shimmied out of her torn dress.
Blushing, Bren turned back around to find Cass laughing. “It is
good to see that you can still blush when you need to,” Cass said,
giving Bren a wink. “Wish we had the horses,” Cass added as he
looked out across the glass desert.

“I don’t think they would do us much good out
there,” Bren said as he followed Cass’s eyes. “The ground is too
smooth, they would slide and break their legs before we got a
mile.”

“You’re right,” Cass said with a heavy sigh.
“I would still like something other than my own feet to carry me
across that though. Guess putting it off won’t get us across it any
sooner.”

As Cass stood, a rustling sound came from the
grass behind them. Everyone went silent and grabbed their weapons
and waited for whatever had made the sound to emerge. A few seconds
later four soldiers wearing the Brotherhoods armor burst through
the grass.

Though the Brotherhood had found a way to
follow them, it seemed they didn’t know exactly where they were as
the soldiers did not have their weapons in hand when they came
through the grass. Bren put all of his power into his hind leg and
jumped forward. He had nearly forgotten how much power was in his
body now as his lunge brought him across the glass field more than
ten yards, right up to one of the soldiers.

Both Bren and the soldier were surprised, but
Bren was faster and brought his blade across the man’s stomach,
cutting him clean in two.

As soon as the man fell, Bren rushed toward
the next soldier. This one had time to prepare, and while his sword
was not ready, he brought up his large steel tower shield. Bren
brought his sword down hard and it collided with the shield. No
matter how sharp the sword, it couldn’t cut through the two inches
of steel, but it did leave a large gash. As the sword and shield
collided, the soldier was thrown back more than three feet to the
ground. As the man fell, Bren jumped toward him ready to drive his
sword home, but the man brought his shield back up again, though
weakly. Bren kicked aside the shield with all of his strength and
heard a pop as the man’s arm was pulled from its socket. The
soldier let out a loud scream, but it was quickly silenced as Bren
severed his head from his neck.

Turning around, Bren found that Cass and
Brenda had taken care of the remaining two soldiers. Bren retrieved
his pack and staff and looked at the dead soldiers lying on the
ground. “How did they find us?” Bren asked himself.

Think about it.

“It’s me,” Bren said out loud.

“What? Cass asked as he finished cleaning his
sword on one of the dead soldier’s cloaks.

“The Brotherhood mages don’t have to use
magic to sense it,” Bren said more to himself than to his friend.
“Each mage has a unique magical presence, and they are following
mine.”

“Well that explains how they found us,” Cass
said, paying Bren’s words little heed.

“No matter where we run, they will be able to
follow us,” Bren said, trying to get Cass to understand the
situation.

“They have been following us for a long
time,” Cass said, shrugging off Bren’s comments. “As long as the
mages can’t use their magic, I am still happy.”

“You don’t understand,” Bren said in a more
direct tone. “I can’t use my magic to protect us anymore, and as
long as you and everyone else are with me, they will be able to
find us. I think it would be best if we moved in different
directions. Once enough time has passed, head back to Torin. I
don’t think they will worry much about you. It’s me they’re
after.”

“I think it is you who doesn’t understand,”
Cass said in matter of fact tone. “I am not going off and leaving
you alone. You can ask everyone else, but if you stop to think, I
am sure that you already know their answers as well. Your best
choice right now would be to stop thinking in that manner, and get
your gear ready so we can leave before the rest of them bust
through the grass.

Bren tried to think of something else to say,
but nothing came to mind. Cass was right; none of his friends would
simply walk away from him. In fact, most of them would have to be
dragged away. Knowing there was nothing more he could say, Bren
slung his pack on his back and turned toward the massive glass
desert.

Before starting their trek, Cass wanted to
listen for other soldiers that might be behind them. As he said, it
wouldn’t do to have a group of archers coming in behind them while
they were on open ground. At first, Bren couldn’t hear anything,
but after a while, he heard a soft rustling. From the sound, it was
still a long ways away. “I think we should go now. I would bet we
have less than two hours before the whole Brotherhood army bursts
though.”

“That’s not long, but it will get us well out
of bow range,” Cass said turning away from the grass forest.

The first steps into the glass desert was
much easier than Bren expected. There were a few smooth spots, but
most of the large sections of glass had been broken and then broken
some more, so it was truly a desert of broken glass. Some of the
fine pieces worked into his boots and poked at his skin. Bren
worried about the others, but knew they didn’t have time to stop
and look for a solution.

The slippery parts caught Bren by surprise a
few times and caused him to slip. Bren picked himself up each time
and did his best to make sure to help those who were having
trouble.

The most dangerous part of the walk was not
the glass below them, but the lightning that seemed to be attracted
to it. A few times, it struck so close that Bren’s and the others’
hair stood on end moments before and after it struck.

When they could barely see the edge of the
grass forest, Bren noticed people starting to come through. It was
hard to see how many or what weapons they carried but Bren could
tell that it was far more than they needed for a handful of
people.

As they made camp, Cass stationed one of the
guards to watch for the Brotherhood. It was easy to see them on the
open ground, but that also meant they could be seen as well, though
not as easily, as twenty people were far harder to spot than two
thousand.

“It is going to be a short night,” Brenda
said, sighing lightly. “Thankfully, we had a good sleep yesterday
because I don’t think another full night will be coming our way
anytime soon.”

T
he Brotherhood was
closing in on them fast. The first few days across the glass desert
they were able to gain some distance, but that changed quickly as
their feet began to become raw thanks to the small slivers of glass
that worked their way into everything.

To help alleviate some of the pain from the
glass, Cass had the idea to line the top of their boots with extra
clothing. It worked to a point but it didn’t help heal the places
that the glass had already damaged.

At night they would lay down their bed rolls
knowing that they would spend most of the time meant for sleeping
scratching at their skin and trying to forget the annoying little
grains of glass that were blowing over them.

Bren was starting to think that it couldn’t
get any worse, but he should have known better than to think such
thoughts. Now before them, was a large wall of wind and glass, and
it was moving in their direction—fast. If he had the use of his
magic, Bren could easily block the deadly tornado or destroy it
completely, but right now, that wasn’t an option, and everyone was
looking for a way out of the open but with nothing around for miles
except more glass, it was looking grim.

As the moving wall of glass came closer, Bren
could see lightning coming from inside the tornado. It lit up the
glass, sending rays of multicolored light cascading across the
ground. If it didn’t mean a sudden death, Bren might have enjoyed
the beautiful sight.

“We will have to bury ourselves,” Cass said
when the storm was not more than half an hour away.

“In the glass?” Brenda asked, her eyes going
wide. “Are you insane? That wind tunnel will pick it and us up, and
there will be nothing left but little pink clouds.”

“It’s our only chance,” Cass replied. “We
will have to use our blankets to cover our bodies and just hope for
the best. We can’t outrun it; the storm is moving faster than a
racehorse at a full gallop.”

“I will be picking slivers of glass out of my
hindquarters until I am an old maid at this rate,” Brenda said as
she pulled her blanket from her pack and began to use it to
dig.”

Everyone quickly joined Brenda in digging but
for every handful they pulled out of the ground half of it slid
back in. “Thuraman, is there anything you can do?” Bren pleaded as
the winds started to pick up and Bren could no longer see the edges
of the tornado.

I can use a shield to protect you but I
won’t be able to stretch it more than a few yards in every
direction.

“Everyone to me,” Bren yelled over the
roaring winds.

Everyone ran to where Bren stood. When he
laid down on the ground, the others followed his lead. The first
sign they had that the storm was upon them was the small pieces of
glass that started to blow over them, then Bren could see a few
lifted into the sky then he couldn’t see or hear anything at all.
Bren closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against the sound of the
roaring wind. When everything died down and Bren slowly opened his
eyes he found that he was under a layer of thin glass shards.
Reaching up he encountered Thuraman’s shield. Looking to his left
Bren was happy to see that everyone was safe as well, though they
didn’t seem to be enjoying their glass coffin.

“Do you think it is safe to move yet?” Faye
asked meekly.

“Only one way to find out,” Cass replied
reaching his hand up and touching the shield as well. “I didn’t
think you could use magic,” Cass commented as he pushed against the
invisible wall.

“I can’t,” Bren replied honestly. “This is my
staff’s work.”

“If you can use your staff, then can’t you
fight the Brotherhood like you did before?”

“It’s not that simple,” Bren replied. “The
staff can only work one of two ways. It can use spells that have
been etched into it by my father, or I can give it a spell and feed
it magical energy. Since I can’t feed it energy, and it has to rely
on its own stores, then we are limited to what spells are already
ingrained in it.”

“Are there any ways I can use you to attack?”
Bren asked feeling silly for not thinking about it before.

Not on a large scale, but I can release pent
up energy, though with my limited capacity and you not helping
resupply me, I would be severely limited in the number of attacks I
could use. At the same time though, the magical energy around here
is so strong it might not matter that I can’t receive any help from
you.

Digging out of the glass was a lot harder
than Bren would have thought. As soon as the shield fell a very
heavy glass mound fell upon them. Cass was the first one to reach
the top and helped the others pull themselves out. One of the
guards got a large piece of glass stuck in his eye, which blinded
him on one side. Luckily, other than that, there were no major
injuries. Shaking the last of the glass shards from his clothes,
Bren lifted up his blanket to find it couldn’t keep a flea warm.
Though it was little use to use for sleeping anymore, Bren still
stuffed it in his pack in case he could find a use for it
later.

Thanks to the storm, Bren had forgotten about
the Brotherhood until two of their soldiers showed up walking
toward them. Their metal armor was a bit dented but other than
that, it looked as if the storm had done little damage to them.

“Brotherhood,” Bren shouted as he dropped to
look for his sword.

Cass had his drawn well before Bren could
pull his from the tangled mess that lay at his feet. The
Brotherhood were skilled warriors but compared to the Katanga, they
might have been children with pointed sticks, and Cass had been
expected to become a Katanga officer.

As the first soldier approached Cass, he drew
back a large double handed sword, but Cass didn’t jump or even move
out of the way of the impending blow. As the heavy sword descended,
Cass took one step to the side and held his sword up, pushing the
heavy blade to land safely to his left. As the soldier tried to
pull his weapon back up Cass stepped into the man and pushed him
with his shoulder. The heavy armor might protect the soldiers from
blades or glass, but when standing on something that slid beneath
you, it made it hard to keep your balance. The Brotherhood soldier
fell back, and like a turtle, was wriggling in an attempt to right
himself. Cass headed toward the man but quickly found the other
soldier moving to block his path. Cass started to turn to meet the
other man, but Brenda jumped in from the side bringing her sword up
and cutting off the man’s sword hand. Cass didn’t stop to watch the
fight; instead, he turned to the man who still lay on the ground
trying to maneuver himself onto his side so that he could push
himself up. Cass didn’t give him the chance.

Cass calmly walked over to the man and kicked
the edge of his helmet knocking it off the man’s head. “Need a
hand?” Cass asked the man who answered by spitting at Cass.
“Thought so,” Cass said with a grin just before he drove his sword
into the man’s skull.

Bending down Cass pulled the dead soldier’s
cloak and cleaned the blood from his sword. After wiping it down
three times, Cass gave it one more look and when he was satisfied
that it was clean, replaced it in its scabbard. “I think we should
run now,” Cass said as more than a hundred Brotherhood soldiers
came into view as the fine dust began to settle from the storm.