Dark Tidings

Chapter 22 - Here Be Trickery and Deceit

Driven by terror, the pair ran and ran, but before long their lungs gave out and they crumpled to the ground in a heap. They gasped and gulped and wheezed, both unable to speak. Being shot out of the sky and a bit of running had knocked every last breath out of them but fear was screaming at them to get going, this was not the time for the luxury of a lie down.

They were just outside a town which lay nearly ten miles away from their take-off point. This gave them a decent start over their hunters but probably nowhere near enough for their trail to grow cold, especially if magic was being deployed in the chase.

"What the hell was that?" said Tung as he rolled onto his back and sucked in lungfuls of air. "What sort of demonic magic knocked us out of the sky?"

"Magic deployed by our pursuers, I'll bet."

"Oh great, so now Mifal's using magic to catch us?"

"Looks that way but how did his men deploy it? I'm the Royal Wizard, only I can do magic for him."

"You've been replaced, old man, Mifal's got himself a new court wizard and he's part of the hunting party."

"Damn. Our magic was the only thing keeping us ahead of the pack. If our trackers have their own magic then our advantage is gone."

"So I've gone through all this pain for nothing," complained Tung.

"Not necessarily," said Madrick. "I know a bit about the local landscape and we're not too far from the border of Mifal's kingdom. I reckon it's twenty miles at the most and once we cross into the adjoining land I think we'll be relatively safe. Mifal could still send spies to track us but why would he bother? We're not important to him, although we would be if he ever found out about the Scroll."

"Sounds good, that means I'd have time for a wee sleep."

"No, no, no," said Madrick, "All in all we've been damned lucky so far, we need to keep moving if we're to stay ahead of the chasing pack."

"But you said that twenty miles from now we'd be safe."

"I know but twenty miles is twenty miles. Create another spell, Tung, we need all the help we can get."

There was no reaction whatsoever because Tung was fast asleep. This was becoming an infuriating recurring situation. Madrick was talking to a comatose Tung. Eventually, with a lot of hard shaking, he managed to rouse him from his stupor.

"Create another spell, Tung. Now."

Tung, although only half awake, obliged. Here we go again. Read the Scroll. Say the incantation. Collapse to the ground. Madrick catches the head. This time, it was a great example of exactly how it should be done. This time, it was nearly perfect.

"What do you see? What is the image?"

"Aaagh, my head is full of flames. My brain's on fire. AAAGH. Make it stop. Do something, get this out of my head. NOW."

He started slapping the sides of his head with his hands as if his hair was on fire.

"Don't panic. It'll be the Fireball Spell. Just say it but point your arms at that ring of trees. Where you point is where the flaming ball will hit."

Squirming and moaning, he fought through his head fire and found the words. He 'spoke' the letters and an enormous ball of fire crashed from his hands and engulfed five of the twelve magnificent oak trees which had dominated the landscape for nearly a hundred years. The five trees burned vigorously and crashed to the ground in a smouldering heap. It was horribly awesome. Tung regained his senses just in time to see the last of the great trees vanish in the super-heated firestorm.