Dragon's Tale 24

“Continue running,” I ordered as we left the gates of the trading post behind. 

“What was that?” Lillian asked, shocked. “Why are there so many people trying to catch us?” 

“It’s not the time to talk,” I ordered. “Save your breath.” Then, I turned to Astrid. “We need to meet with your matron, but only after we make sure that we ditched our followers. You know the area the best, so you take the lead. I’m going to deal with our trail and our followers.” As I walked, I grabbed two stones, and hastily drew runes on them before passing them to the girls. “I’m going to stay behind, but I can follow their signature. It’ll also cloak you from other magical detection techniques for a few hours. If you face any danger, crush the stones, and I’ll rush to your side. Otherwise, try to find the meeting spot matron Helena proposed.” 

“Isn’t it safer to move together?” asked Lillian. 

“Not when we have a few hundred legionaries behind us,” I explained, not bothering to soften the blow. “I can deal with them if I faced them alone, but I can’t fight with them and protect you at the same time.” 

She nodded in understanding, but rather than dashing away, she lunged toward me, and captured my lips in a heated kiss. One that was heated enough to tempt me for a lot more, especially since her clothes were drenched with rain, sticking to her body erotically. Pity that I didn’t even have a minute to waste. “Be safe,” she murmured before pulled away. Astrid, not wanting to be outdone, jumped to my lips the moment Lillian pulled back, but she said nothing before she turned and left. 

It was funny just how much Lillian’s attitude had changed in a few days. When we started, she couldn’t even stand the sight of my face, only tolerating me because she had to, and now, the probability of separation enough to send her emotions into chaos. 

Sometimes, being a hero paid off. 

I watched the girls as they disappeared behind the thick curtain of the rain, for once, happy about the horrible weather conditions. The torrential rain made traveling grueling and inconvenient, but it affected our followers, even more, considering that they had to move as a group. The rain worked wonders to erase any tracks we might leave behind in minutes. Most importantly, it reduced the visual range to a point it had to be measured in feet, making it much easier to avoid detection. 

Or in my case, laying traps. 

I hated the situation I was facing. I was being chased by a group of soldiers of unknown size and composition, possibilities ranging from a hundred to several hundred, and I still had no idea why. It was not something political, that was certain. Mobilization of that many legionaries wouldn’t be necessary to deal with Lillian’s whole family, let alone catching a poor helpless heir. 

I was sure that there was another reason, probably magical, but that left a scary number of possibilities. My initial guess was that Lillian was going to be a sacrifice for an illegal and dangerous ritual, but the more I understood about the power of my opponent, the more I started to doubt my initial conclusion. It needed to be something bigger. Even if it was a ritual, Lillian couldn’t be the only part of it. 

Even worse, I had no idea where to get more information about it. The soldiers behind me was an obviously poor choice, and whoever was responsible for their presence, it was too much to expect them to be stupid enough to brief mere soldiers on important topics. I doubted that even the sorcerer-centurion that led the cohort — if there was indeed a full cohort in my tail, which was still a theory at this point — had that particular information. I knew that I certainly wouldn’t give them the full briefing when I could feed them a soup of nonsense about a kidnapped noble. 

I had a feeling that the best source of information was the captain of the pirate ship where everything had started, but that came with another problem. I had no idea about his power, or his whereabouts, two factors that made ambushing him very difficult. 

I sighed as I shifted my focus on my immediate task. My objective was to distract the army that was tracking me, and if possible, I wanted to do that without revealing my full range of abilities. Since they were already aware of my prodigious ability in runes, the choice was obvious. I stopped, and started drawing area-effect runes on the ground, using both my fingers and my magic at the same time to greatly reduce the time required to graft the runes. 

Still, despite their intricacy, the runes were not strong, for two reasons. First, I wanted to hide my strength. Second, stronger runes were easier to detect by a competent mage. Not to mention that inconveniencing them as they followed me was a better idea than killing a few of them and angering the rest, along with marking myself as a traitor of the Republic. 

So, I put several runes, from the ones that would make the mud even more slippery, to small flares of light enough to temporarily blind their scouts. They were little more than schoolyard pranks, but nonetheless, they were effective. 

I picked a route perpendicular to one Astrid was taking —tracking it by the stones I passed to them— and filled the route with a number of the runes. After five minutes, an angry cry reached my ear, just a second after a noticeable flare of light, signaling that my followers had found my tracks. The neighing of the horse followed the cry, signaling that my followers were mounted. 

“Fuck,” I murmured as I sped up my escape, spending less time with the rune traps. The speed of the mounted auxiliaries was inconvenient, but not as much as the fact that my attackers in the trading post were infantry, meaning the other soldiers found my track. 

I was lucky that the forest was not too distant. 

However, I wasn’t able to relax when I finally saw the trees ahead of me —only several feet considering the poor visibility from the rain. Because at that exact moment a small squad of riders appeared behind me, alerting me to their presence with a fireball attack, one that was raging threateningly despite the rain. 

“Stop, you traitor,” called the leader as I dodged the spell. The fireball hit a tree, and the tree exploded violently. Excellent, I thought, happy for an excuse. I cared a shield in front of me simultaneously as I cast a telekinetic spell, funneling the shrapnel created by the explosion toward the horses, pained cries a song in my ears. Most of them were injured and about half of them had already fallen off their horses. 

Only the three in the middle of the formation managed to avoid injury, their personal magical shields shining brightly. It looked like the result of a treasure rather than their personal magic, but two of them carried telltale signs of being a mage —staffs on their backs and material pouches on their belts. They were likely nobles, not a lot of peasants could afford personal magical items, and even if they did, they would prioritize weapons and shields. However, the explosion managed to catch them in surprise, making them unable to cast a shield.

“Damn, that was a bad spell. Why don’t you go back to the school,” I said cheerfully, stopping a second to mock my attacker. The mage that cast the fireball looked young, probably a recent graduate who joined the army to prove himself. Perfect target to anger, forcing him to make even more mistakes. 

“You dare,” he shouted as he cast another fireball.

“Stop-” cried the other mage, who looked to be in his early thirties, easily recognizing my trap, but he reacted too late. The young mage had already finished casting the spell, one that I easily dodged and leveraged to explode another tree, accompanied by yet another rain of shrapnel to accompany the raging storm.

This time, the older mage was ready, and a transparent shield appeared between them, easily preventing any damage. But it gave me the precious seconds I needed to disappear between the trees. 

“Catch him,” called the younger mage, only for his order to be countermanded by the older mage. 

Pity, I thought, as I was curious how much it would take to break the legs of their horses. A forest was not the best environment for horse-riding even under the best of circumstances, and a horrible storm that reduced the visibility near zero was hardly the best. 

I disappeared into the forest, listening to their angry cries. 

The rest of the day passed in an entertaining blur. It was like a hide and seek game, only deadlier. I moved deeper and deeper into the forest, pettering my path with exploding runes, sticky or slippery spells, even magical caltrops. I didn’t neglect to anger the magical animals on my path as well, giving the legionaries following me something to kill.  

Toward the night, I started reducing the number of the runes I was leaving. I was yet to tire thanks to the expanded magical reserves of a sorcerer, but they didn’t need to know that. When the next morning was closing in, I was finally convinced that my tracks were impossible to follow, and changed my destination toward the stones my companions were carrying. 

Reaching their location took me another two hours, but before I could find them, I heard angry shouts, easily recognizing Astrid’s voice. When I walked into the opening, I saw Astrid standing in front of Lillian, surrounded by eight men. Astrid looked angry, but from her demeanor, she clearly knew them as well. 

It seemed to be an interesting situation…