Michael Foster - She Who Has No Name

Samuel spied a path he knew and led them along it, towards his hidden entrance in the palace. ‘This way!’

They emerged from the opening and the sensation of magic poured over each of them as they stepped out into the open. Again, the clamouring sound began as soon as they broke the magical skin that covered the hole, but they knew they would be away from there in moments. Samuel led them away, stealthily exiting the room and darting across the halls as guards ran in every direction.

He drew them out into a quiet courtyard, beneath the darkening sky. Day was now fading into twilight, with only a hint of brightness still marking the sky to the west.

‘Oh my!’ Balten said, closing his eyes. ‘This feels wonderful. I had forgotten what a cool breeze felt like.’

He cast a spell upon himself and his torn rags knitted themselves back whole,and the dirt and crud dropped away, leaving him standing in the neat Paatin clothesin whichhe had first surrendered. After a moment, he looked like a new man.

‘We need to hurry,’ Samuel said.

‘Where are they?’ Balten asked him in return.

‘To the north,’ Samuel said. ‘In Yi’sit.’

‘I should have known,’ Lomar said. ‘Taking the Empress from there will be no easy task. I will go for the others. Leaving them here once we have escaped isnothing more thana death sentence. With the alarm sounded, they may already be under guard.’

‘True,’ said Balten. ‘We will deal with Om-rah and meet you at the Temple of Shadows with the Empress in hand.’

‘So be it,’ Lomar said with a nod. ‘Samuel, be careful.’ And with that,hewalkedaway back into the palace.

As Balten and Ericeach called their power,Samuel slipped the grimy ring upon his finger. At once, its power filled him and he struggled to fight back the dizziness and force the world back into clarity as it warped and blurred before his eyes.

‘Let’s go,’ said Balten and he leaptaway with a great magical jump.

Eric followed in quick succession and Samuel came behind. They cleared the palace walls on their first leap and followed each other, leaping through the streets-to the alarm of the city folk beside whom they came bounding. In five more leaps,they were into the pastures and Samuel began to draw ahead. He filled his efforts with snippets of the Flying spell he had gleaned from the Paatin Queen, improving it with each attempt. It could not keep him completely airborne,as he had hoped, but he stayed aloft much longer than the others, surging ahead of them,with his cloak flapping wildly behind him. It tookonlymoments before they had left the rich lands beside the river and entered the simmering desert.

‘Samuel!’ Balten called out as he sprung upwards from the sandy dunes, leaving a puff and an indent behind. ‘We can’t keep up with you. Try to slow Om-rah down. We will not be far behind.’

Samuel nodded silently. He could feel the current burst of magic waning and, as he fell to earth, he reached into the ring for more magic. As he struck the desert sands, he released the next spell and the magic of the ring flared out, throwing him forward so that the air stung his face. Eric and Balten were quickly left far behind.

He judged that Om-rah would have easily reached the Well of Tears by now, but he could not give up. He drove himself desperately forward, the Argum Stone burning its magic into his marrow with each leap.

It had not been longbeforehe spied the lights of Yi’sit rising above the dunes. About halfway between him and the town, he noticed a magical glow upon the sand and he knew well the corrupt look of the magic.

‘Om-rah!’

He looked behind, but Eric and Balten were now too far behind to be seen.

The Paatin arch-wizard seemed to notice him approaching.Longbefore Samuel coulddrawnear, Om-rah had taken flight and risen above the dunes on his flitting wings, making a beeline directly for the settlement.

Samuel landed where the arch-wizard had been waiting and he saw what had delayed the man for so long. A camel lay dead,with most of its head missing,and the remains of two Paatin nomads lay beside it, amidst a flurry of blood splattered all over the sand.Mostof thenomads’ bodies wasmissing. It seemed that Om-rah’s penchant for fresh meat was fortunate, as he had stopped for a snack along the way.

With barely a pause to take all this in, Samuel boundedaway, leaving a cloud of sand erupting in his wake.

He gained quickly on the Paatin arch-wizard, for Om-rah was reliant on the beetle-like wings that extended from beneath his dark cloak and they could only carry him so quickly. It would only take another leap to reach him, but Samuel was already gritting his teeth with pain.

At the apex of his next leap, he sentouta Holding spell. He had hoped to bring the hulking wizard to ground, but Om-rah sensed the spell’s approach and deflected it easily. In response, he made a great trilling call that carried far and wide. It was a sound that no human throat should be able to make, yet Samuel sensed no magic in its utterance.

Almost at once, the lights of other Paatin wizards came flooding out from Yi’sit-first a few,and then more and more, as wizards swarmed from the town like angry wasps.

The final orangestreaksof the sun had now drowned into the west and night itself had fallen. To the east, the pale scar of the Star of Osirah was just climbing out of the sands, looking like a fiery white serpent flying atop the dunes.

Samuel landed and yelled with pain as he released his final jump. His magic felt as if it was tearing at his insides, but he could not stop now, so close to stopping the infernal wizard.

He aimed himself towards Om-rah as well as he could and he flew swiftly, crashing into the giant in mid-air. It felt as if he had struck a wall of granite and both of them tumbled from the sky, careening down onto the desert sands. Samuel managed to soften his fall with spells, but Om-rah dropped like a stone, sending up an explosion of sand where he struck.

Samuel hoped the wizard was dead, but he was taking no chances. He ran up the softside of thedune as quickly as he could,shields firmly in place. He had just reached the crest of the dune when a great black form loomed up at him and a claw snapped out. If not for hislightningreactions,it would have taken his head off, but the impact still threw Samuel tumbling back down from where he had come.

Scrambling back to his feet halfway down the dune and spitting sand from his mouth, Samuel spied the Paatin arch-wizard hobbling away as fast as his legs would carry him. He seemed quite inefficient at running, but it was a boon for Samuel to have damaged the tyrant’s wings.

Samuel scrambled around the side of the dune and beganto scrambleup and after Om-rah on the next. When he climbed to the top, however, what met his eyes made him stop in his tracks. To his magician’s sight , it seemed as if a thousand burning torches were flowing up and over the sands towards him. He knew what it meant-the wizards were coming to theaidof their leader, and more continued to stream from Yi’sit by the second. Whencethey had all come, he could not guess, but their numbers were overwhelming.

Om-rah used his wings to clear the next gap in the dunes, but Samuel could see he was having difficulty carrying his weight, with his black cape torn and trailing behind him. Looking down, Samuel was aware that the footsteps of the arch-wizard trailed ahead-but they were not the marks of feet or boots. Rather, the sand was patterned with the strides of great claws.

Spells began to whizz past him and Samuel called again to the ring-first putting up some initial defences, then rallying himself for an assault of his own. He could not let the arch-wizard get away from him.

Om-rah met the first of his underlings and continued through the sea of wizards without a pause, intent on reaching the settlement. There were too many wizards to deal with individually and so Samuel would need to find a way to deal with them all quickly.