Empire Builder 4: Breed, Populate, Conquer by King Dante

Author:King, Dante [King, Dante]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Ben stepped over to Uzax, the wizard seeming completely out of it from the spell he’d cast.

“I need… I need some mana,” the wizard said. “Now.”

Mana was something Ben had in ample supply, so he closed his eyes and activated Siphon, sending over a blast of mana into Uzax. The wizard accepted it, his posture growing straighter as the mana flowed into him. When Ben had filled his supply a quarter full, Uzax was able to rise and stand.

Uzax surveyed the carnage. The nearly dozen soldiers burned, electrocuted, or cleaved with blades, the first wizard dead from his fall, and Marlena gone. Uzax’s eyes landed on the third wizard, who still wore a fearful expression.

“You might want to kill him as soon as you can,” Uzax said, raising his finger toward the young wizard. “The last thing you want to deal with is a member of the Xurian Realm on your shores.”

“If that were the case,” Ben said, “you wouldn’t be standing here.”

Uzax let out an amused snort as if conceding the point.

“Where… where’s Marlena?” the young wizard asked. “What did you do to her?”

“I can field this one,” Uzax said. “Marlena’s goal here was to trap Ben in a space between travel points, an endless black he would wander through until he died of thirst or hunger or whatever happened to take him first. Ben avoided that fate. Marlena didn’t.”

The wizard gulped hard.

“Only fitting, really,” Uzax said. “If you ask me, that’s a very, very cowardly way to deal with an enemy. Well, she’ll have plenty of time to think it over while she wastes away.”

“Your name,” Ben commanded.

“G… Goran,” he said. “Goran Alabor. Third rank of the Xurian Mage army.”

“Third rank,” Uzax said. “That means the lowest rank. And that raises the question of why Marlena would bring a wizard as lowly as you on a mission like this.”

Goran opened his mouth to speak, but Ben silenced him with a raise of his hand.

“The real first question is this: how are we going to get back?”

“Well, my spell only was able to bring us here. Nothing about getting us back.”

“Then we’re going to have to walk ?” Melody asked. “That’s going to take a week!”

Uzax put his hands on his hips. “You wanted to take care of the wizard, and that’s what we did. Having to deal with how to get back is a pretty good problem, all things considered.”

Ben glanced over at Lyra, who had a thoughtful expression on her face.

“What is it?” Ben asked.

“I know this region—it was part of the territory where the rest of the Black Army and I hid out after the second tower fell. We didn’t travel this far south, but I’m familiar with the area north of it.”

“You mean the desert?” Zito asked. “The one we’d have to march across to get home?”

“It’s not all desert north of here,” she said. “Only the most direct path. But most importantly, there’s a village not too far from these woods—a lumber town

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