The Chimera Coup by Christopher G. Nuttall

Author:Christopher G. Nuttall [Nuttall, Christopher G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Mythology Press
Published: 2022-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Sixteen

Somewhat to John’s surprise, the rest of the journey passed without incident.

It wasn’t an easy trip. The ancient road was cracked and broken in places, and a pair of tunnels had collapsed years ago, forcing them to find a way through the mountains without getting trapped underground. The landscape changed radically with every passing mile, threatening them with everything from thunderstorms and flash floods to sunlight so bright it burnt their skins. They saw flashes of green and purple lightning in the distance and felt waves of wild magic brushing over them as the wind changed.

The sense of being watched came and went, putting them all on alert as they neared their destination. John found it hard to sleep, let alone keep watch. It was hard to keep himself from firing off curses randomly into the undergrowth.

His heart sank as they approached the border. The first party had reported a thorny barrier marking the edge of the sorcerer’s mini-kingdom and, John was disconcerted to notice, they’d understated the case. He’d seen charmed hedges spelled to catch intruders surrounding Katrina’s estate—she’d assured him no one could get through without an escort unless they had enough magic to burn the estate to the ground—but this was an order of magnitude more threatening. It rose into the air so high, he knew he couldn’t levitate or fly over it without crashing to the ground. It should be visible for miles around, and he was disconcerted that they hadn’t even noticed it until they were too close for comfort. There had to be some powerful obscurification spells worked into the wood.

He shuddered helplessly as his eyes probed the darkness. The tree trunks and branches were twisted together into a thorny nightmare, leaving no room for anyone bigger than a child to crawl through without getting caught and bled to death. Nothing moved within the shadows. He saw bodies—animal bodies—trapped within the hedge, slowly decomposing to feed the nightmarish barrier. A chill ran down his spine as they made their way to the gatehouse. There was so much magic woven into the thorny hedge, it had taken on a life of its own.

Joyce nudged him. “Can you take us through the barrier?”

John shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. The hedge magic was very much like the elemental’s power. He had the uneasy sense that anything less than burning the entire nightmarish barrier to ash would be insufficient, given how much power was worked into it. The sense of being watched by inhuman eyes was almost overwhelming. He was sure the branches and roots were moving when he wasn’t looking.

He’d wondered, when he’d first heard about the dark sorcerer, why his subjects hadn’t simply run away. He knew now.

He kept one hand near his focus as the gatehouse grew in front of them. It was a solid fortress, built out of stone rather than whatever the ancients had used to construct their buildings. Dark magic crackled over the structure, poisoning the air, as the guards scrambled to block the road.

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