can see dozens of men running toward it, one of whom is wearing a cowled robe just like the other mage had. They race past the tents and reach the far side of the camp.
They pass numerous soldiers but none seem to notice them, all eyes are turned to the now brilliantly bright light. The guards at the fringe of the camp take notice of them approaching and command them to stop. A crossbow bolt flies past, nearly striking Tinok as they race through. They flee into the dark grasslands to the southwest of town, leaving the guards behind. They don’t get too far before…
Schtk!
They look back at the sound from the backs of their horses, everyone holds their breath in anticipation of what may happen. Then…
Booooooom!
A giant explosion, ten times the force of what they experienced when that building blew earlier. They feel the concussion wave as it washes over them, luckily they’re far enough away that it doesn’t hit them with enough force to knock them over, just causes their horses to miss a step. They stop and look back at the camp.
Reaching toward the sky is a tower of flame, the roar from which can be heard even though they’re now far away from it. The base of the fire extends throughout the camp in every direction, burning everything within.
They sit there in awe as the flame punches through the clouds and then slowly dissipates, appearing as if it’s sinking back down to the ground.
“Dear god!” Cassie exclaims.
They all glance at the unconscious James and then look to each other. Tinok asks, “Just what have we gotten ourselves into?”
“I don’t know,” Jiron replies, shaking his head as he glances again at James. “I don’t know.” Kicking his horse, he leads them out into the grasslands.
Chapter Three
James awakens in the morning light. Sitting up suddenly, his head begins to spin and starts aching as if a hundred little hammers are pounding away on it. He holds his head until the pain has subsided to a more tolerable level and then looks around as he takes in his surroundings. The others are still asleep and five horses are picketed a little ways away from the camp, the saddles had been left on for a quick getaway.
A moment of panic sets in when he can’t locate his backpack, then he realizes he had been using it as a pillow. Opening it up, he reaches in and removes some food along with his water bottle.
Deciding not to wake the others, he sits there and eats while he contemplates the events of the day before. The Empire’s mage almost had me, he thinks to himself. I’m just a rookie compared to them, they’ve probably been doing this for a long time. My spells seemed to be rather ineffective against him, too. Going to have to work on better, more innovative spells, gotta surprise them next time or I’m toast. He remembers his last spell and smiles, I bet he never saw that coming!
Hearing one of the sleepers stirring, he looks over and sees Cassie as she leans up on one arm and looks over in his direction. He holds up some of his food, silently offering it to her, but she just shakes her head no. She grabs her pack and gets up, coming over to sit next to him.
She opens her backpack and takes out some of her own rations and then asks as she begins eating, “You okay?”
“Better,” he replies through a mouthful of food. “The more powerful the spell, the more it takes out of you. Sleeping last night has helped a lot. After I’m done eating, I should be fine, if a little fatigued.”
“That’s good,” she says. “We were all worried about you last night, after you passed out.”
“It’s what happens sometimes,” he tells her. “Just how long did we ride last night?”
“Several hours, I think,” she guesses. “It seemed like a long time. Everyone was getting too tired to stay in the saddle so we stopped here and made camp.”
“We probably shouldn’t stay here too much longer, the Empire will want to find us in a bad way,” he says.
During their conversation, everyone else awakens and joins them for breakfast.
“What was that thing you did last night?” Tinok asks when he settles down next to him.
“You mean the bubble?” James asks.
“Yeah,” he answers. “When it went off, it must’ve taken half their camp with it.”
“Really?” James asks, surprised. “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to tell you the truth. I’ve never actually done that one before. What happened, exactly?”
He sits there and finishes eating while Tinok relates to him the events after he passed out. When he gets to the description of the explosion, James is quite astonished.
“You see,” he explains when Tinok is done telling him, “I designed the bubble to do two things. One is to absorb the power from any magic spells currently active in the area, and the other is a little more complicated. You see, when a mage casts a spell, he opens a conduit from his core of power, usually only enough to accomplish whatever spell he intends to do. My bubble grabs that flow, pulling the power into itself, while at the same time preventing the mage from closing the conduit. The result is that all the mage’s power is sucked out of him and absorbed into the bubble. That must’ve been what was giving the bubble the light, the mage’s power that it had absorbed.”
“Now here’s the part I’ve never been able to really test before,” he explains. “What happens when the bubble is filled to capacity and reaches critical mass?”
“Critical mass?” Delia asks, confused. “What’s that?”
“Critical mass is when something is filled to capacity and ready to ‘pop’, for lack of a better term,” he explains. “In this instance, it could no longer hold the power, so it exploded. I would guess the size of the bubble and the amount of power it had absorbed would determine the intensity of the explosion.”
“You could wipe out an entire army with one of those!” Tinok exclaims.
Shaking his head, James says, “Not necessarily, after all it would only work if there was a mage present. Also, if everyone ran away before it exploded, it wouldn’t be doing too much harm.”
“I see your point,” he says, somewhat disappointed.
“Now,” Jiron interjects, “what are we going to do about rescuing my sister and your friend?”
“Well, first of all, where are we exactly? Which way did we go when we left the City?” he asks.
“We headed southwest,” Jiron answered.
“So it’s safe to assume that we are currently in enemy territory,” James concludes, “and will continue to be for a long time.”
“Yeah,” agrees Tinok.
“I propose we continue to head south and try to find out where the slavers intend to take them,” he suggests. “Once we know that, we’ll have a better idea of what we can do.”
“Let’s get going then,” Jiron says, anxious to get started.
“I agree,” James says, shouldering his backpack as he stands up. He goes over to one of the horses and swings up, head spinning from the exertion. When it calms down he scans the surrounding countryside and is relieved to find nothing moving across the grassland, except for the tall grass, waving in the breeze. The southerly breeze feels good as the summer sun begins to warm the day.
He notices that Delia needs Tinok’s help in climbing into the saddle and that she is favoring her left arm. He walks his horse over to her and asks, “Are you okay?”
“A stone hit me when the building exploded last night,” she explains. “It hurts, but I don’t think it’s broken, just bruised.”
Feeling guilty at being the cause of her pain, he says, “I’m sorry.”
She smiles at him and says, “Hey, don’t worry about it. We got out didn’t we? This is pretty minor compared to the fate I would’ve had if we hadn’t.” She pats him on the arm with her right hand and gives him a reassuring smile, then continues, “So don’t feel bad. I don’t, okay?”
He smiles back at her and says, “Alright, I won’t” Glancing around to see that everyone has already mounted and is ready to go, he turns his horse to the south and breaks into a canter. The others follow along behind.
