Court of Fey: Rules of Magic, vol. 2 (The Rules of Magic) by Lance Horsman & Lance Horsman

Author:Lance Horsman & Lance Horsman [Horsman, Lance & Horsman, Lance]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yamabushi Publishing
Published: 2024-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10: I run no more

Northern Wallachia, 1462

Gradzi was a remote fishing village almost a full day’s walk north of Poenari Castle. With dense bush and trees walling up the Arges River Valley, the small reprieve from the heavy foliage came in the form of a section of open ground dominated by a string of small huts alongside the river, with a paltry patch of fertile farming soil behind them.

Miriam heard the music playing as she neared the village. They had not seen her yet, but there was no point in them posting lookouts – so few travellers came this way, and when they did, there was normally someone out and about that would shout a word in warning.

Not today.

Today they were crowded around the furthest hut, not all managing to make it inside. Those that couldn’t get in bunched outside, craning their necks for a view. Some children had wheeled out barrels to stand on, and the most enterprising had pulled up planks and tree boughs, balancing them between the tops of barrels and standing on them like some crazy backyard trapeze act.

She heard the clapping and Samael’s loud “hoppa!” before she even reached the closest hut. As she arrived at the village, she heard the stomping, and then the opening strains of the fluier and caval – the gypsy whistle and the long shepherd’s pipe. A violin sprung up, and the people outside the hut started stamping in time to the dance, enraptured by the performance. Caught in Samael’s web of magic, illusion and lies, more likely.

Not even the village dogs came to greet her.

Miriam forced her way through the stamping and hooting villagers, receiving some surly looks in the process, and some looks of recognition too – she was known as his daughter, but most did not believe it.

Samael danced in the centre of the centre. In fact, he was the centre, exactly where he loved to be. In the middle of the room, on a hard, packed dirt floor, he pounded out the Wallachian stamping hore. Around him stood a circle of dancers, arms interlinked, and around them an adoring hub of villagers, bustling to stay in the building, with just as many edging in the door and windows.

In the furthest corner from the door, old Crina was on the violin, while Bogdan played the shepherd’s pipe, and a villager she didn’t know on the fluier – the gypsy whistle. The beat that Samael pounded out was hard to ignore, but she had to get to him. There were riders, further up the valley.

The Samael that danced amidst the adoring villagers was but a hint of the archangel he truly was. He was still tall, still muscled, still blonde haired and blue eyed. He was still chiselled, and he had given himself a scar, and a blonde beard sprinkled with grey. In retrospect, she reflected, it was not his best disguise. He just looked like an older, Varangian version of himself.

As usual, everyone loved Samael. The men looked up to him, and the women adored him.

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