The Jack of Souls (Multi-award winner!)

Chapter 6b - Magic

Molly dropped Sir Azure, and leapt in pursuit, too far behind to protect the ambassador, but near enough to lend aid once engaged.

The horsemen galloped down the incline, as if they'd bowl Brolli and the ponies over the precipice. Brolli had dismounted, and Willard glimpsed him loping up the incline in the bizarre knuckle-walking manner of his people. One of his long arms windmilled, launching a globe of witch-silver the size of an apple. The globe struck the stone at the foot of the squire's charging stallion and erupted in fire and smoke. It was as if the apple had set off a boiler explosion, pitching the squire and his horse together into the void.

The groom's mount scrambled to a halt in the smoke, rearing and throwing the groom to the road, where Willard drew Molly to a sparking, skidding stop. The boy's spitfire spun from his fingers and cracked on the stone, where it discharged, spraying its flaming resin on the cliff wall. Molly reared, pawing the air. One hoof bore a spot of blazing resin, and she came down with it on the chest of the scrambling groom with an audible crunch. Dancing sideways, she stamped in a vain attempt to snuff the fire.

"Brolli!" Willard shouted. "Are you all right?"

Brolli emerged from the dissipating smoke, daylids pushed up on his forehead like dark-glassed tooler's goggles. His owlish gold eyes shone. "That felt good." He rested on his knuckles and flashed Willard a wide grin with thick and prominent canines. "My aim is not so fine, though. I must practice."

Willard grunted, relieved. "Admirable aim from my perspective." Swinging a leg over his saddle, Willard dropped from Molly's stirrup, a move that sent nails of pain through his feet and spine.

A quick examination of Molly's chest and legs revealed no other resin burns. The spot on her hoof had burned out, leaving a crater of blackened keratin.

"Blasted spitfires," Willard muttered. "Damned messy."

"Not so clean as my magic, yes?" Brolli flashed the wolfish smile.

Willard peered back up the road to the gallows, where, sure enough, several heads peeked from a makeshift cabin built into the foundations. "Let me remind you that all magic is dirty to my people, Ambassador. Now mount up and get that blanket on, if you please. Probably too late, but it can't hurt." He hauled himself into his saddle with a pained grunt. "By the way, you owe me two silver."

Brolli grinned. "Your hex struck out at these men, yes?"

"Oh, yes." In the harbor below, Willard saw the squire's horse standing on the beach beside the ferry, dripping and trembling, its saddle sideways. The squire would have drowned in his armor. The groom's horse had fled back down the road to the landing; it now trotted out on the beach to join its stablemate.

Brolli cocked his head to one side, brow furrowed. "How did you acquire this hex?"

"You make it sound like I bought it at market. No idea how it came to me, or why. It first appeared some ten years ago, and soon after it ended my career. Queen banished me from court. Had to. You can imagine the havoc it made there."

Brolli nodded. "It is sad. I am sorry."

Willard grunted, and took up the leads of the ponies. When Brolli returned the blanket to his head, Willard led the ponies huffing and blowing up the remainder of the incline. When he reached the gallows and could glimpse the road across the cliff face, he paused to let them rest.

The Sapphire had stopped his company short of Gallows Ferry. Some in his company pointed to Sir Azure's riderless stallion, which trotted up the road behind them. As Willard watched, several grooms and squires rode back to intercept him.

Willard smiled wearily. Your numbers dwindle, Sir Sapphire. How you must wonder what just happened.

Willard removed his helmet and thumbed the sweat from his eyes. Though the sun had set, its heat still radiated from the granite all around him as if it were noon.

Something moved at the base of the gallows. A door had opened slightly in the cabin. Inside, panicked whispers.

Willard ignored them and fastened his helmet behind his saddle. Let them look. No sense hiding his mortal skin any longer. If he fell outside Gallows Ferry, at least Anna would hear that his skin had been of ordinary hue, that he had not drunk the Blood.

A grimy man appeared in the door of the cabin, dressed in the coveralls of a tooler.

He ambled out to the edge of the road with a hint of swagger to his stride and not a whiff of the usual cringing due a Phyros-rider.

To Willard's eye, such rash boldness spoke of hex madness, as sure as sunset in the western sky. Black Moon take it. He did not relish bystander casualties.

The tooler advanced upon Brolli and stopped several paces away, hands on his hips, eyes prying suspiciously at the blanket. Behind the tooler, an apprentice cowered. The lad clearly hadn't been stricken by the hex, for he trembled like a reed in a windstorm.

"Master tooler," Willard said, in a tone of warning that made the apprentice cringe. "Return to your cabin."