“Elhrin, I want you to center yourself and concentrate, seeing in your mind what you want to happen,” Master Gryph said, pulling a dark red apple out of his coat pocket. Tall and lean, he stood at ease next to a moss-covered boulder lying at the edge of the river.
Elhrin nodded at her mentor, Gryphon Idwyr, who was a master of the art of magic and had been teaching her how to use and control her special abilities since she was eight years old. Always seeking any excuse to be near any body of water that held fish, he had decided to conduct their lesson for the day beside the Green River situated on the outskirts of their village.
She wondered if he had an ulterior motive for picking one of his favorite fishing holes other than to have her practice her magic, but thought, maybe not, since he did not bring his fishing gear. But then again, thinking back to the times she had seen him use magic to scoop a large trout or catfish out of the water, she knew the lack of fishing gear would not stop him if he wanted fish for supper.
A stiff breeze blew across the river, and a flurry of red and gold leaves detached from their summer long perches to swirl and spiral along its unseen currents. They dropped silently onto the surface of the water and floated downstream like a flotilla of tiny colorful ships. Fall was here, and that meant winter would soon be on its heels.
“Ouch,” she heard Bayle grumble. She looked over her shoulder at her brother. He was suckling on his forefinger and jerked it out when he saw her looking at him.
“The hook got me,” Bayle said, producing a sloppy wet finger.
She didn’t see anything wrong. “Trying to work here,” she said annoyed, thinking maybe she should have left home without mentioning to her mother that Master Gryph had planned for them to practice at the river today within Bayle’s hearing. Her mentor's passion for fishing had rubbed off on her younger brother, and he had insisted on coming along. “Could you go somewhere else?”
“Elhrin, are you paying attention?” Master Gryph asked. He held up the apple and waved it dramatically back and forth in the air for her to see. “Don’t worry about what Bayle is doing. See the apple?”
“Yes, sir,” she rolled her eyes at his dramatic waving. Sometimes, he treated her as if she were still eight instead of seventeen.
“Good. I know you already know how to do this, but remember we are working on control and precision. Magical instinct without thought,” he said, and started to place the apple on the rock, but then decided to take a huge bite out of it before he put it down.
“Why did you do that?” Elhrin asked.
He wiped the apple's sticky juices from his mustache and beard with his sleeve. “No sense in wasting a good apple altogether,” he grinned, chewing noisily. He trod back across the soft sand with a slight limp—the result of an injury he received long ago.
She watched him check to make sure Bayle was out of the way before he glanced down at her. “I want you to throw the apple to me,” he said, raising his left arm and opening his hand to give her a target. “I will allow you to take your time this first try, but it will go quick after that. As soon as I catch the apple I will then toss it back into the air and tell you the next destination for it to go. You will grab it and move it to the target. The goal is to hit it dead on. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Elhrin wiped her palms on her trousers and took a deep breath, feeling the brisk air fill her lungs. She centered herself as he had taught her, raised her right hand toward the apple and let the energy of her magic flow through her, willing it out of her fingertips and projecting it toward the apple. She wrapped the magical strands of energy around the apple tightly, and then recalled the flow back a little more forcefully than she had intended. As a result, she lost her magical grip on the apple and it shot off the rock toward them in a high arc but flew well over Master Gryph’s hand to hit Bayle precisely on the side of his head.
“Ow!” he yelled, clapping a hand to his head. His fingers disappeared beneath the thick waves of sandy hair, rubbing the bruise that was now sure to be there. The apple had hit him quite hard. “What did you do that for, Elhrin?”
Elhrin hid a smile behind her hands. She was trying not to laugh because it probably did hurt, but she had to admit it was funny that out of all the places it could have landed, it had been his head.
Master Gryph lowered his hand to scratch the neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard that lined his jaw and studied Elhrin’s face. She gave him the most innocent face she could muster.
“Don’t bat those big green eyes at me, my young apprentice. Did you mean to hit him on purpose?” he asked.
“No, sir, I truly did not,” she denied, knowing he probably thought back to last week when she had locked Bayle in the privy so he wouldn't follow her. She loved Bayle, but he tended to be a distraction. “But I thought the end result wasn’t all that bad.”
“Yes, but I believe I said to hit a target I chose dead on, not Bayle's head dead on,” he stared at her unsmiling, but his eyes were crinkled around the edges. He was trying not to laugh.
She grinned wide and that was all it took. He burst out laughing, reaching out to muss her untamed, dark curls.
“Go ahead, you two. Laugh all you want. That really hurt,” Bayle grumbled, smoothing his hair back away from his eyes.
“Sorry, Bayle,” she apologized.
He frowned as if he didn't believe her, then knelt on one knee and leaned out over the water to untangle his line from a spindly bramble bush.
She looked back to her teacher, remembering there was something she wanted to ask him. “So, why did you delay your trip to Muryne?”
Officially, he was the Minister of Specialized State Defense for the country of Anderan, and a council session was set to begin later in the week, which he was required to attend, but he had said he could wait a couple of days before he had to travel to Anderan's capitol city where the council met.
“I have a few matters to attend to before I go.” He used his magic to retrieve the apple that had rolled into the river after hitting Bayle. It hit his hand with a wet smack. “Toome and I promised the boys we would round up a team to play a game of Harpaball tomorrow. I regret that we will have to punish them severely, but they do need to see how the game's played properly.”
“Punish us? The only way you over the hill men will beat us,” Bayle gave him a sidelong look as he whipped his line across the surface of the river, “is if you cheat to put the ball in the basket. Especially you, your creaky bones aren't going to let you keep up. I'll be running rings around you and all you will see is a cloud of dust.”
“Boy, you are asking for a cold dunk in the river,” Master Gryph threatened. “I may not be as young as I used to be, but I can still outrun your scrawny self from here to Doogan’s barn and back in spite of my bad leg. You just wait until tomorrow, young man. The only cloud of dust I'll see will be from your teenage tail hitting the dirt.”
Bayle snorted, “Oh no, old man . . . .”
“Bayle, fish,” Elhrin ordered, realizing she better cut him off. He had become increasingly mouthier the older he got, and it had a tendency to land the two of them in the thralls of a competition. Just the day before, they competed to see who could burp the loudest before Master Gryph's wife Marguerite came into the cottage and called them down. Bayle still insists he won.
Elhrin leveled her gaze on the overly tall middle-aged child. “Master Gryph do you think we could get back to work before you two get side-tracked? I’m just lucky you didn’t bring your fishing pole.”
“I have to admit, I did think about it,” he grinned. “But you are right. The days are short, and we don’t have too much longer before the sun sets, so let’s move along. I want you to work on this a bit before I show you how to build a shield.”
“A shield?” she asked, puzzled. “Can’t we just get one from Master Toome?”
“A magical shield, Elhrin,” he replied, patiently. “There may be times you will find that you need . . . .”
A distant r
oar resonated through the trees on the other side of the river cutting off his words. The surrounding forest froze as if time had stopped. Nothing made a sound.
“What was that?” Bayle broke the silence, just as they heard something crashing through the undergrowth of the forest on the other side of the river.
“It’s today,” Master Gryph whispered. “Elhrin, Bayle, run!” he ordered.
“What?” Elhrin didn't understand what was happening, then a horde of creatures materialized out of the shadows of the forest, zigzagging through the trees, running straight for them. She had never seen anything like them before. From the shoulders down, the creatures had all the features of human soldiers, clad in black leather armor, and armed with an array of swords, bows, and spears. But from the neck up, the creatures’ heads looked like the gray and black wolves that roamed the forests of Anderan.
Master Gryph fired a blazing ball of energy across the river. It exploded into the lead monster, ripping its head completely off its body. The horde did not slow at the loss. Some ran headlong into the waist deep river while others ground to a halt at the river’s edge and loaded their bows with arrows.
“Do'athrim!” Master Gryph growled. He flung another deadly ball of sizzling energy at those crossing. This one was larger and more powerful. It exploded with a tremendous boom, sending a geyser of water spraying across the far riverbank. The creatures along the bank ducked under the drenching wave of water. The beasts in the river that had been in the lead were gone. A pool of crimson and chunks of flesh swirled around the rest of the creatures in the water. They looked confused, unsure of whether or not to continue to cross, but a forceful yip from one of the larger beasts on the riverbank compelled them to move again.
“You two, go!” Master Gryph commanded.
Elhrin could not move—couldn't take her eyes off of the snarling beasts.
He grabbed her arm and painfully jerked her behind him. “Run!” he ordered. The fury on his face was terrifying. “Go get Toome!”
“Come on!” Bayle grabbed her hand and dragged her with him.
The sound of dozens of bow strings twanged and the rush of arrows penetrated the air. Elhrin instinctively ducked and covered her head as she and Bayle clawed their way up the slippery bank. Arrows fell like rain on either side of them, thumping into the sandbar or thudding into the trunks of trees lining the riverbank. Strangely, none of the arrows came near enough to harm them. She stopped to look back just as they topped the short, but steep incline.
Master Gryph had his arms raised before him—arrows were colliding into an unseen force and bouncing harmlessly into the river. He was protecting them so they could get away.
“What are you stopping for?” Bayle grasped her arm, almost jerking her off her feet. They started into Doogan Phisk's newly harvested corn field, but their way was blocked by a dry irrigation canal he used to water the fields during the dry spells of summer. She and Bayle didn't take the time to run down to the small bridge Doogan had built over the ditch, they jumped into the dusty, hard-packed bottom and started up the other side.
Another explosion echoed across the field.
I can't do this! she thought and slid back to the bottom of the canal.
“Elhrin, what are you doing? Come on!” Bayle yelled.
“I can’t leave him!” She whipped around, barely able to see Master Gryph at the river’s edge, facing the creatures that were slogging their way through the currents of the river. Arrows thudded all around him and he jerked to the side as if he had been hit, but he did not fall. Getting a grip on her fear, she ran back across the ditch and started to crawl out. Bayle grabbed her arm and whirled her around to face him.
“We need to go get Master Toome,” he yelled.
“You go! I have to help. There are too many.”
She heard a hideous blood-freezing howl. The beasts were now midway across the river and Master Gryph faced them silently with outstretched arms. A round iridescent sphere flashed into existence above the water in front of him. Pulsing with raw energy, the sphere rapidly expanded to a size as high as the treetops that grew along the water’s edge. Even from a distance Elhrin could feel the power contained in the sphere.
The creatures on the far side released another volley of arrows. Elhrin and Bayle watched, transfixed, as the bolts soared over the water like an ocean wave about to break on shore.
BOOM!
Elhrin forced a painful breathe into her lungs. She was lying on her back staring at the sky, not understanding how she came to be on the ground or why her lungs burned.
Faintly, she heard kittens crying. No, that’s not right. Trying to clear her mind and focus, she realized she was hearing screams. Awful, howling screams and they were coming from the river. She sat up with a groan, and Bayle struggled to his knees beside her. A few arrows were embedded in the ground around them, but luckily, neither of them had been hit.
“What happened?” Bayle asked, sitting back on his knees and wiping dirt from his face.
“Master Gryph’s sphere exploded,” she replied, amazed that she could hear anything over the loud ringing in her ears. She struggled to her feet and had to keep herself from falling back down when she saw the level of destruction that lay before her.
“Son of a . . . ,” Bayle whispered.
Most of the creatures had been obliterated, and the lazy green waters of the river had turned a sickly deep crimson as blood and body parts floated slowly downstream. The trees along the far side of the river and those that were closest to where Master Gryph had stood were decimated. All that was left was shredded and blackened stumps, sticking haphazardly out of the ground like weathered tombstones in an old graveyard.
The few remaining creatures that had managed to escape the explosion unharmed were in a state of confusion along the far riverbank. They growled and barked in their dog-like language at each other. It was clear they did not know what to do. One large black beast used his bow to point across the river and barked a command the others were willing to follow. They all turned and ran back into the woods.
Elhrin glanced at Bayle, noticing that Master Toome and a group of men from the village were running across the field in their direction. That was why the beasts ran.
“Bayle! Where is Master Gryph? I don’t see him,” she asked, fear once again pierced through her body.
Bayle scanned the area. “I don’t know. Let's go.”
They scrambled out of the ditch and ran towards the river.
“There,” Bayle pointed to a large rock along the water’s edge. Master Gryph was lying in the sand on the other side.
“Oh no! No. No. No,” Elhrin cried.
They half-jumped, half-slid down the riverbank and ran to the rock. Master Gryph, pale as death, had half of a shattered arrow embedded in his chest—a dark stain of crimson saturated his shirt around its splintered shaft.
“No!” she screamed, dropping to her knees beside him.
He stirred at her cry. “Elhrin,” he said. His deep voice was hoarse with the effort it took for him to speak. He opened his blue eyes that had just moments before sparkled with humor, but were now clouded not with pain like she expected, but with something else—almost like regret.
“Master Gryph, hang on, help is coming. We’ll get Marguerite,” Elhrin said, as tears began to spill down her face.
Weakly, he lifted a corner of his mouth. Even in this state, he tried to reassure her with a smile. “It is . . . too late,” he breathed.
“Don’t say that,” she said, her heart pounding with fear.
“Elhrin, listen . . . carefully . . . take the pendant . . . around my neck . . . keep it safe.” He could hardly speak, having to gasp for air to continue, and she could hear something liquid rattle in his chest every time he paused.
“No, I won’t. It is yours,” she protested.
“It is . . . yours now . . . do . . . as I say . . . quickly,” he ordered, and began to cough. Groaning, his face contorted in pain and a stre
am of blood poured out of his mouth and flowed into his beard. She reached with shaking hands into the top of his shirt to pull out a luminescent green crystal attached to a gold chain. She opened the clasp and removed the pendant from his neck.
“Put it on . . . never take it off,” he gasped, his voice was barely audible and she noticed that his breaths were slowing down.
“Please, Master Gryph, hold on,” she sobbed, wiping the blood from his mouth with her sleeve. “Please.”
“I’m sorry . . . sweetheart . . . needed . . . tell you . . . not . . . enough time . . . tell Marguerite I . . . love her . . .” he closed his eyes tightly, his body convulsed and he stopped breathing. His face slowly relaxed into a peaceful state of eternal slumber.
“Nooooo!” she moaned, her heart breaking into a million pieces. She laid her head on his chest. “Don't go!”
Crying, Bayle sank to his knees and put his arms around her. The men from the village poured down the embankment. Master Blacksmith Lee Toome tore across the sand towards them while the others jumped into the river to go after the retreating creatures on the other side.
“What happened? We heard the explosions and came as fast as we could.” He stopped short at the sight of Master Gryph lying on the ground. “Damn,” he breathed.
Here ends the free excerpt for Blackridge, Book One of the So’ladiun
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