Even before dawn begins to dispel the darkness, they get underway. The short rest break they had wasn’t enough, but they need to put as much distance between themselves and Ki as they can. Now that it is light, they will be much more leery of anyone approaching.
James takes out his mirror and brings the mine area into focus to see what he wrought. As the image clarifies he finds the mine complex completely gone, buried under tons of stone. The whole area is crawling with people as they search for survivors, though he seriously doubts if they’ll find any.
Then he scans their immediate vicinity and finds a force of a thousand men east approaching Ki from the south. Whether in response to what he did there or if they were already on their way, he isn’t sure.
Scrolling the image, he scans the road ahead and finds where their road intersects with another at a sizeable walled town. There they will need to take the road moving more westward in order to reach the next and most important area to hit.
He wasn’t entirely truthful with Jiron and Jared when he told them of a storehouse and stockpiles of weapons. What he plans to hit is much bigger than that and likely to prove quite dangerous. For further to the west lies the Empire’s School of the Arcane. He doesn’t have any grand design to take on the mages there and kill them all, it’s doubtful if he could even accomplish that.
No. What he wants to destroy is their library. Of all the things he’s come to understand about making magic do what you want, is that knowledge of what you are trying to accomplish is the most important thing. He believes that taking out their library and the books contained within will greatly reduce their ability to train more mages effectively. The idea of destroying aged tomes of knowledge really bothers him however. But leaving knowledge in the hands of those who will use it to the detriment of others bothers him more.
Finished with his mirror, he returns it to his pack. “The area ahead of us looks clear,” he tells the other two. “By tonight, we’ll be at a crossroads where we will turn more to the west. Then another day and a half will see us to our destination.”
“After that we head home?” Jared asks.
James nods. “That’s right,” he replies. “After that we rejoin the others and get out of the Empire as fast as we can.”
“Good,” says Jiron. He’s been thinking about Aleya and has been missing her. The memory of her in his arms makes him want to see her again.
All that day they keep a steady pace with short stops to keep up the horses’ strength. It was during one such rest in the latter part of the day when James again pulls out his mirror to check for hostiles in the area. Not finding any, he scrolls down the road to the town ahead that lies at the crossroads. From the looks of it, it isn’t more than an hour or so away.
As he brings the image closer to the city, the image starts turning hazy. Using more magic, he tries to overcome the distortion. Suddenly, the glass of the mirror begins to warp and the metal frame which he is grasping grows red hot.
“Damn!” he cries as he quickly throws the mirror away.
“What happened?” Jiron asks. Stopping there in the road, he turns back to find out what’s going on.
“I don’t know,” replies James.
They look to where the mirror lies in the dirt on the side of the road. Smoke tendrils begin rising from it as the mirror and metal frame both begin to turn fluid. As the metal starts to drip, a fiery glow appears within the melted glass.
Jared gasps as a form wreathed in flames seems to rise from the glass.
“Fly!” yells James as he turns his horse and flees down the road.
The other two turn and race after him as the figure behind them continues to grow.
“What is that thing?” yells Jared.
“I don’t know,” replies James. Bending low against the neck of his horse, he works to make it go even faster.
A deafening roar sounds behind them as the fiery creature leaves the ground and begins to soar toward them. Even from this distance they can feel the heat radiating from it.
James lashes out with magic but the spell of force which should have knocked it backward barely phases it. “Make for the city!” he yells to the others as he reaches into the pouch hanging at his hip and pulls out one of the power crystals.
Slowing the forward momentum of his horse slightly, he turns in the saddle and holds the crystal toward the now rather close creature of flame. “Hold!” he yells and a shimmering barrier appears around the creature.
The creature slows when it becomes trapped within the barrier and begins settling to the ground. Within the barrier it’s exerting massive pressure and the power of the crystal is draining rapidly.
Tossing the crystal to the ground, James kicks his horse and races after the other two who are now a hundred yards ahead of him.
Crack!
With the shattering of the crystal, the barrier vanishes and the creature once again resumes the chase.
A crackling noise sounds behind James and he glances back to see a spear of flame flying toward him with incredible speed. Responding with magic, he manages to deflect it at the last minute, causing it to veer to the left where it strikes the ground several yards away.
Other travelers on the road see the fiery creature chasing after James and scream as they run for their lives. Wagons are abandoned as people flee into the desert for their lives.
Taking another crystal, James again cries ‘Hold’ as another barrier springs into being surrounding the creature. Just as before, the entrapped creature begins to sink to the ground as it fights to escape. Tossing that crystal to the ground, he slows his horse to a slow walk as he hurriedly begins to untie the sack of crystals from behind his saddle. He works the knot binding it closed furiously but only manages to cinch it tighter.
Removing his belt knife, he cuts through the leather thong just as the power crystal cracks and the barrier trapping the creature disappears. Roaring to life once more, the creature springs into the air.
James opens the sack and hunts for a specific pouch of crystals, one tied with a string dyed blue. Before he finds it, crackling noise announces another of the fiery bolts coming toward him and he again responds with magic. The bolt is deflected to the right where it impacts with an abandoned wagon.
Ka-Bam!
The wagon erupts in a fiery explosion. Out of time, James takes his last power crystal from his belt pouch and again confines the creature. As it settles again to the earth, he hunts for the pouch with the blue string.
“Aha!” he cries triumphantly when he finds it. Quickly untying the string he pulls out two crystals glowing a dark crimson. These crystals are the last of the ones he created to deal with the hell hounds, those creatures of fire sent by the followers of Dmon-Li. This creature could very well come from the same place.
Crack!
The crystal maintaining the barrier shatters and the creature is again hurtling forward. Tossing both crystals toward the creature, James unleashes the magic contained within them. Immediately, a shimmering blue field springs to life surrounding the creature. Its roar of pain can be heard as the frigidly cold barrier sears into it.
James adds his own power to that of the crystals as he fights against the power of the creature to implode the barrier and kill his attacker.
Crack!
James’ unbelieving eyes flick toward where one of the crystals now lays shatters on the ground and the glow of the other is diminishing rapidly. “Damn!” he cries. He isn’t going to be able to do it. Even if he drains himself to the point of unconsciousness, there’s little chance of stopping this creature. He continues to use his own magic to hold the creature while he turns his horse and begins putting some distance between them.
Kicking the sides of his horse, he quickly gets it back to a gallop. Half a minute later, the remaining crystal shatters. With that, the drain on his own reserves is too great and he’s forced to let the spell go. When the barrier disappears the creature again roars to life, the sound similar to that of a forest fire and the chase is on.
Jiron and Jared had come to a halt while he was facing off with the creature. But when they see he lost the battle and was in flight, they again bolt down the road.
As James races down the road, he removes the remaining crystals from his sack one at a time. These crystals contain spells he so painstakingly worked to get just right. With a thought he removes the embedded spells and quickly uses them to power barriers to slow the creature. Each one only gives him a minute or two to get
