Mickey Reichert - The legend of Nightfall

Nightfall tensed, guessing the mudman somehow represented himself. Apparently, it required construction from ground he was touching and also a proper proximity. Otherwise, he felt certain Ritworth would have used the technique on him previously. He wriggled backward in retreat, the movement maddeningly slow, adjusting his weight to find a balance between hampering and propulsion.

The next sequence of blade through mud also tore his chest like fire. He screamed without intention, and agony forced him to catch his breath. For an instant, he felt the wizard’s presence within him, reaching for a talent driven by pain from the core. Nightfall heaved his concentration aside, focusing on whatever other issues he could dredge to mind. For no reason he could fathom, Edward’s lesson filled his thoughts, cycling endlessly. Charseusan blue-green swamp mud. That is the name of what you’re stuck in. A glimpse down his tunic showed him flesh unaffected by the magic. No blood had actually been drawn, only the pain that accompanied such a wound. He inched backward as fast as the mud allowed.

Ritworth laughed again, the sound pitched to inspire terror. He jabbed the knife blade deep into the mudman’s gut.

Pain skewered Nightfall, and the memories cycled, still present but no longer under his control. It’s called for the charseus plant, a blue-green grass/algae that can live over or under water. The mud’s mostly made up of dying plants and other dead things. Nightfall clutched at his gut, scarcely daring to believe his intestines still hung safely in his body. DEAD THINGS. He writhed, scuttling farther backward, and the suffering disappeared. Apparently, he had managed to work himself beyond range of the spell. Seizing the sudden reprieve, he gave another heave. His spine crashed against something solid, jarring him to the teeth. Surprised more than hurt, he glanced at the object he had hit, the bay mare half-submerged in swamp mud. The blue-green comes from the live charseus plant.

Ritworth swore, then laughed again. He cast another of his freezing spells, gaining him several steps closer to Nightfall, now trapped against his beast. "Too easy." He drove the dagger deep into the mud figure’s groin, twisting as if to sever every organ.

Spasms racked Nightfall, the pain beyond any he had known. Had the damage been real, he would have surrendered to oblivion. Now he knew only the agony, his single need a quick death. He felt Ritworth’s presence join his own, felt the other tug and pull at a mind-set flying for the surface, trebling pain that already seemed long beyond his ability to bear. He screamed again, doubling over so suddenly his face slopped into the goo. His thoughts ran without him. The live plant makes lots of air. That’s why there’re so many bubbles just under the surface of the mud. The words meant nothing now, but the desperate, gasping breaths he took to fill his lungs with mud and end his life did. Air funneled in, accompanied only by a thin stream of choking dirt. You do know how to swim, I presume?

Somehow, Nightfall managed to suck in bubbles without choking too violently on the slime that accompanied them. His legs felt liquid, but he pressed them against the horse’s side. The torture became an all-encompassing universe, the flaying of soul and talent from body an agony so fierce it would not dull. Yet, his mind clung to the realization that distancing himself from the sorcerer would stop the pain. Using the horse as a springboard, he launched himself at an angle toward the bank. His hands and legs flailed and hunched like a frog’s. Beneath the surface of the swamp mud, he held his breath and swam, finally gasping in a lungful of bubbles when the need for air became too desperate.

The body pain vanished first, and Nightfall felt the sorcerer’s grip slipping as his weight-shifting talent receded back toward the core. Still bound with Ritworth, he felt the sorcerer’s enormous rage and frustration as his own. The magical grip clenched tighter, clinging to the gift it almost had. Then, abruptly, the hold disappeared, and surprise replaced the anger.

Nightfall clawed his way to the surface, gagging and sputtering on the mud he had forced his lungs to bear. He smeared stinging muck from his eyes in time to see Prince Edward’s follow-through sword stroke, an attack that had, apparently, missed its target. Nightfall had come within a long arm’s reach of the bank. Ritworth gathered power, presumably for his ice spell while the prince tensed for another attack.

Nightfall scarcely noticed the jangle of the oath-bond, the once-excruciating pain seeming minuscule in the wake of so much more. He scrambled to shore, fighting legs that seemed too weak to carry him. His muscles did not properly obey. He tripped, falling flat on his face. Spell and sword leapt forth at once. Though surely intended for Edward, the Iceman’s sorceries struck his blade instead. Edward dropped a weapon suddenly too cold to handle. It struck the ground, exploding into splinters. Nightfall scrabbled to his feet, now seizing one of the daggers he had not managed to locate while encased in swamp. He hurled it for the back of the sorcerer’s neck.

But mud weighted the blade, making its flight unpredictable. It struck Ritworth’s arm, dull edge leading, just as Edward bore in with bare fists. The wizard spoke a harsh word and flapped his hands. His body rose from the ground, and he flew over Edward’s head toward the safety of the forest. The prince sprang back. Nightfall threw his last two throwing knives. The first pierced the air a split second behind the soaring sorcerer, the blade plummeting into the swamp. The second missed cleanly as Ritworth swept from sight.

The goading throb of the oath-bond lessened to its usual tingle, and the near absence of pain seemed a joy and comfort beyond anything Nightfall had known. He headed for the pack horse, digging rope from the bundle and ignoring the flopped body of Snow. He had wanted to rid them of the gelding’s nervous presence forever, it seemed, yet never in this fashion. He could not help feeling guilty for the thoughts he had held against it in much the same way he felt his own wishes had caused his mother’s death. For now, he needed to concentrate on freeing his mount.

Prince Edward headed back down the frozen pathway. "Are you badly hurt?”

“No, Master. Just shaken. I’ll be fine." Nightfall continued freeing the rope as feeling returned to his body.

Edward drew closer, glancing around for Ritworth’s return.

Nightfall did not trouble himself to do the same, trusting the trained perception that came from years of living on the street to alert him to danger. Never again would he allow illusion, excitement, and frustration to blunt that necessary sixth sense he needed for survival.

The prince drew up beside his squire. "Why does a sorcerer want your soul?”

Nightfall coiled the rope, forming a loop to catch the bay mare. He glanced at Edward, knowing the prince had grown up with a sorcerer as his father’s adviser and certain even this sheltered youth had heard rumors. Denial would gain him nothing, only distance him from the trust he had sought to gain and mostly succeeded. The sorcerer’s claims had already revealed too much. "Master, I didn’t mean to hide anything from you. The fewer who know about my ability, the better. A word in the wrong place… if a sorcerer overheard… or one who would sell information to sorcerers…" He rolled a sad gaze to Edward, continuing his work with the rope but letting the thought trail. "I’ve never told anyone before." Except a vicious, back-stabbing whore who sold me to your father.

Prince Edward fell silent for several moments, absently looping the extra rope, assisting his squire unconsciously. "I understand." He frowned. "So who told this sorcerer?"