Wizard Ch. 16

Sadie gasped and John slid off his stool to stand and face her. "What--"

"My lord, please," Arika said. "What occurred there is dreadful and my lord demanded restitution when he found out. I believe I've talked him into giving those poor misguided people the opportunity to atone for their mistakes. In fact, I go there next."

"You work for them? Those things out there?" Holden interrupted.

Arika smiled. "I work with them, as do you. We all work for the right and proper lord of these lands, Dargoth."

"Dargoth?" Several people, including John and Holden, asked in unison.

Arika smiled. "Yes. He will provide his protection for all his willing subjects. But to be his subject certain laws must be obeyed."

"Sounds like another petty would-be-noble trying to live off the labors of others," John mocked her.

Arika snarled. "There is nothing petty about Dargoth. He is mighty and any that stand against him will--"

"Be beaten? Torn limb from limb? Beheaded? Fed to the help?" John finished for her.

Arika's eyes narrowed and, for a moment, he saw a primal rage in them that set him back. She blinked and it was gone. She smiled sweetly instead. "You see, Lord John, I was taken to Dargoth after I left that town. I saw him and basked in his magnificence. We spoke and I understood what he wanted. I could be that. I could be what he wanted. I offered myself to him and he accepted my service. He rewarded me, making me as I am now. As you see me. A beautiful woman with gifts that I am more than happy to share with the faithful."

John watched her reach up and ran her hands over the cups of her corset that lifted her breasts high on her chest. Whatever she'd been before, this was what she was now. A creature of wants and desires and, it seemed lusts.

"I can work with that," John said.

He didn't hear the hiss from Sadie. John used his magic and threw it at Arika. It struck her bare chest like a stream of thick water, splattering across her breasts and molding itself to her cleavage. She gasped, drawing in the magic to her mouth even though she couldn't see the infernal energies in play.

John felt them work their way into her, sliding down into her core and spreading. They reached out, tingling and touching her in places she did not know existed. Her pupils widened and her eyelids fluttered as her she began to pant. Her skin flushed from her face to the bared parts of her chest and, he knew, those parts he could not see.

Arika moaned and staggered. A hand went to her belly and slid lower, pressing her skirts between her legs. She shook her head and bit her lip. Blood glistened and ran down her chin. Her other hand she lifted and held up, her palm facing him.

John staggered back as a magical force struck him. He fell into his chair and the bar behind it. He would have fallen had he not grabbed the bar and used it to catch his balance. He straightened himself and turned back to face her.

Arika had turned and fled though. She flung her arm out and the door went flying off its hinges. It truck something and bounced away to crash to the ground. She turned and met John's eyes and hesitated. John's magic was in her and he felt her wavering. He summoned more of the darkness and began to push it down the etheric ropes that linked them so he could feed the magic already in her. Arika pulled her hand from between her thighs and made a circling motion in mid-air, her palm facing toward him, a heartbeat before his new pulse of lustful energy could slam into her.

John grunted as the link he'd established with her was severed. Whatever magical spell she'd used had broken their tenuous connection. Her hand clamped back to her loins and she rushed out the door and into the night.

A shout and a roar followed. The shout was a woman, though John wasn't sure which one. The roar, well that was easy. Nothing could roar quite like a plains tiger.

"After her!" John growled and started to move.

"Wait a minute!" Holden said and grabbed John's arm.

John spun on the man, his hand already tracing the spellform he needed. His hand glowed with eldritch power as it raced toward Holden's chest.

"No!" Sadie shouted while grabbing John's arm just above his elbow. She staggered but held his arm back, his open palm and its terrifying spell a few inches from Holden's chest.

Holden stared and jumped back, gasping and trying to make words come out of her stuttering mouth.

John glared at him and then turned and rushed out the door. Sadie followed behind him without a second look at the stunned villagers.

John saw someone on the ground. Someone in dark armor. "Artesia!" John hissed. "Help her!" he said to Sadie and then turned and ran to the right, looking for the blond servant of Dargoth.

John ran down the well worn road toward the mine and then started up it when he heard a roar that wasn't Sasha. He turned and saw fighting further along the path that he'd turned off of. He rushed back down and raced along it until he rounded a bend and found Jennaca wrenching her kukri from the side of a dragonkin. Sasha was watching her too even though she held the neck of another dragonkin between her mighty jaws. It clawed a few more times at her with fading strength but her longer legs kept it from doing more than brushing the fur of her flank. It went slack at last and, with a final jerk that caused a satisfying crunch of bone, Sasha dropped the dead beast to the rocky path.

"Jen!" John called as he ran up to her.

"Artesia," she said. "The door slammed into her and--"

"Sadie's with her," John said. "Did you see Arika?"

Jennaca wiped the blood from her sword on the dragonkin's hide and then yanked her hand axe from the dragonkin's lower back, where she'd struck it to paralyze its hindquarters and tail. "Arika? The girl from Rock Haven?"

"The same," John said. "Not so much a girl after all though."

"What about her grandfather?"

John frowned and shrugged. "He wasn't here."

She nodded. "Well, we saw someone run this way. She had blond hair and a dark cloak."

"That's her," John said. "Come on!"

Jennaca was at his side in an instant. "Sasha, hunt!" she called.

Sasha rumbled and sprang forward ahead of them. She cleared a small rise ahead of them and disappeared. They heard her roar and doubled the pace to run up and over the small hill. Sasha was waiting a dozen feet away on the other side. The mighty tiger paced n a circle and sniffed at the ground where something lay crumpled in the darkness.

John and Jennaca ran to it and stopped. Jennaca gasped while John knelt down and picked it up. He held up Arika's cloak and tossed it to the side. Her shoes were there, one flipped over and the other hidden on its side beneath her skirt. A few feet ahead John saw her corset on the ground, the laces snapped apart and lying in pieces.

"She's gone," Jennaca said.

John stared at her discarded clothes and then looked up the path ahead of them. He turned to Jennaca. "Can you track her?"

Jennaca studied the ground and frowned. "I can't see well enough."

"I can help you," John said. "Or we can get torches and--"

Sasha gave a low road and backed up so she was closer to Jennaca.

"I think we've got something more important to worry about," Jennaca warned him. "A few torches would come in handy right now."

John lurched to his feet and spun around. He saw shapes slipping between rocks in the darkness. Slick, sinuous, dark shapes with dark eyes and sharp teeth. He incanted a spell and flung his hand up over his head. Several motes of light sailed into the air and hung suspended nearly a score of feet over their heads, lighting up the pass and causing the dragonkin sneaking around them to hiss as the darkness was taken from them. John counted four of them but, if what Aisley had said was true, reinforcements were nearby.

"Nice!" Jennaca praised.

John readied his next spell, searching out what might work best against these resistant creatures to make them easier to kill. "You didn't bring my spear?" he asked.

"I gave it to Roxanne when you called on us," she said.

"Well, I hope she hurries!"

Jennaca spun slowly as the dragonkin advanced out of the rocks. One leapt onto a boulder nearby and hissed down at them. "And ruin all my fun?"

John risked a glance at his spunky huntress. "Fun?" he mouthed.

Jennaca didn't answer, she was already leaping the dragonkin that had chosen the same moment to leap at her.