“There isn’t time,” Arkin said.
There was time. They weren’t going to leave him here to be eaten or who knows what else.
“No. We are not leaving without him.”
“We have to Legon, there’s no choice,” Sara begged.
Sasha tugged at his mind, and he looked at her. Her face was spattered with blood. Kovos had saved all of them. He gave his life so they could all live and have a chance. Legon wasn’t about to waste that sacrifice. He turned with them and they started to ride.
It wasn’t more than a few moments before Sasha heard the sound of pursuing horses. Maybe they should have stayed and died in the clearing with Kovos. No, that was stupid, but she was still unsure about how they were going to get away. Even if they somehow managed to put distance between them and their followers, what then? They had too much land to cover. She felt Legon entering her mind, accessing the logic portions of it. What was he doing? There wasn’t enough information to properly use the Mahann, was there? She became aware of all of their minds, even Keither’s and the horses. She needed to have Legon check her out when and if they stopped. Her head was still buzzing. Then she felt it-the magic. Something she had felt before, but not like this, not even when she had been connected with Legon. She couldn’t feel the magic before but she did now. Legon widened the connection and she felt a mind that was Legon’s, but now alien and vast. The power of the magic was so strong. She felt a deep well of it in him, and then the spell that stuck her and the rest of the group to their saddles, locking them in place.
Now he was fidgeting in all their heads, tapping every mental resource they had. She felt logic and spatial reasoning centers being activated. The sensory organs of the horses were being boosted and glands in their brains being manipulated to dump huge amounts of endorphins and adrenalin into their bodies. They could now run themselves to death and not feel it with the chemicals coursing through their veins. Now the magic was reinforcing their hooves and bones, making them stronger and more resistant to heat. What was he doing? She felt compelled to look ahead; he was using her to figure out speed.
The horses were going close to thirty-five miles an hour. That was dangerous on this kind of road. Then she remembered that they were altered by magic. Now he was shutting down organs saving energy. Even her own body was changing. The muscles in her hands clinched around the reins. The wind was building as the shouts of the men behind them were growing fainter.
Then the burst of energy came. Massive amounts of magical and physical energy ripped out of Legon and into the horses. They were starting to accelerate, and she felt herself being pulled back but being held by the sticking spell. The wind was strong at forty miles an hour. More and more energy poured from him. Now fifty, then sixty. The trees were starting to blur as they hit seventy miles an hour. A town was fast coming up, the Queen’s banner flying at the edge. But at seventy-five miles an hour, the town flew by them, the guards never having time to figure out what was going on.
Now eighty, and the acceleration finally leveled off. The sound from the hooves was just one continuous noise. After a bit they slowed back down to sixty, but still they kept going. The horses were tiring fast and so was Legon, but still he put more and more into them. Finally she sensed him losing consciousness and worry crept into her mind. If Legon passed out then the spells helping the horses would fail and the animals would be left running at sixty miles an hour. They would fall for sure. They slowed gradually at first and soon they were close to what they could do on their own. As they slowed to fifteen miles an hour, Legon passed out and Sasha unstuck from her saddle. The horses were not completely spent, and she knew that there were still plenty of chemicals in their blood to keep them going for a few more hours.
“Arkin, should we keep going?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“Yes.” He didn’t say any more and she was no longer able to connect with his mind. This worried her too. Kovos’ death was sad. She knew that it would hit her soon and then she would lose it, but Arkin took their safety as a matter of personal responsibility.
They trotted along the road with no one talking. She glanced at Keither, who was looking at the back of Pixy’s head and not making a sound. He had been like his brother today, fighting the way he did. She was proud of him. As she thought this, her eyes began to burn and she tried to focus on logic. There would be time to mourn later.
Keither knew that he should be crying, but he wasn’t. He just didn’t have it in him. And Kovos wouldn’t have wanted it that way. He wouldn’t want people sulking over his death. He tried to calm his cluttered mind but couldn’t. The last thing he said to his brother was that he was selfish, which was something Keither knew to be untrue. He knew what his brother had done for him over the years; kept him from getting hit with arrows, saved him from being trampled by animals. It was too hard to think of the number of times Kovos had saved him from harm if not death. But what had he done for Kovos? What had he done for anyone? There wasn’t much that was for sure. He always had great intentions of helping, but when it came time to do it he wasn’t there. It should have been him that had been killed by the Iumenta, should have been him that had made the ultimate sacrifice for the group. All of the others put in effort, but he was just along for the ride.
Wasn’t that the way that he lived his entire life? He never thought about a trade, never cared to learn his father’s, never tried to do well at anything. About a week into their journey he had turned fifteen. They would have celebrated, but that was right after their run-in with the Royal Guard and by the time he thought of it he didn’t care. Still, fifteen years and nothing to show for it. Yes, he was young, but that was no excuse. By this age most of men in Salmont had picked a trade and were actively engaged in it. What was he going to make of his life?
Arkin rode ahead of the others, trying to fight back emotion as he went. Yet again he had failed as a protector, first with Legon’s mother and now Kovos. He knew that the effect of his death would carry farther than anyone could ever understand. Most didn’t see the connections that all men have. Not only had Kovos’ life ended, but his brother, parents, and an innocent girl back in Salmont had been hurt as well.
“No, our actions are far reaching,” he said to himself. He kicked himself. He couldn’t afford to wallow in self- pity at the moment. There would be time for that later. Now he needed to get them all to safety and to the resistance. Legon had brought them to within a few days of the border. Never had he heard of someone using magic to that extent. Well, at least not a person. A dragon yes, but not a person. Still, a small part of him was happy. It must be true now that he was an Elf, wasn’t it?
The land that they were in now was far more barren than they had yet seen. Thankfully, the area was hilly so they could rest for the night. The sun was almost to the horizon when Arkin found an area for them to camp. Legon was still out cold on Phantom and Arkin instructed them to leave him in case they needed to leave in a hurry. Their camp was surrounded by trees but he still didn’t feel comfortable starting a fire or using magic to make light. It would be easy for scouts to see and infinitely worse, dragons.
No one was hungry or talking. Arkin walked to the edge of camp and knelt, projecting his consciousness out. After hours he finally felt something on the other end. It was a new person that he didn’t know, but he had the right passwords so he passed on his report. He didn’t leave anything out, but most important he told of Legon’s transfiguration. That one got his attention. The person on the other end was shocked; Arkin figured the man wasn’t high enough ranking to be in the loop on Legon. He was instructed to head straight south and to move fast. They would try to send help if they could, but it was doubtful. Arkin made it clear that he understood and broke the connection.
Something was nudging at his mind. It was Sasha. She was trying to reestablish the network. He allowed the connection, and the first thing she wanted was a damage report.
He returned to them. With Legon out it was going to be up to him to heal any wounds. He’d enhanced their bodies during the conflict only enough to stop major injuries, so only Sasha and Sara were spared from minor cuts and bruises. The cuts he would heal to prevent them from infection, but he couldn’t waste energy on the bruises in case there was another attack.
Sara was cleaning up Keither. He hadn’t been hurt all that bad in the fight, but the tree had left a nice cut on his head. Even with Legon healing it there was blood caked in his hair and on his face.
“Sara, I can do this you know,” Keither protested
“I know that, but you don’t have a mirror and you don’t want to miss any.”
She wasn’t just doing it to make him look more presentable for the horses, but more because she was
