The Seeker and the Sword (A Hollow Fate Novella) by Todd Herzman

Author:Todd Herzman [Herzman, Todd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Once the flames had died down, they’d found rope in one of the left-over wagons, which the fire had blessedly left untouched. Lilah bound Kianna’s limbs herself—popping the girl’s shoulder back into place as she did—relieved her father hadn’t wanted to kill the girl for being a thrall.

Every seeker knew how dangerous blood mages were, and how insidious their control could be. All they needed was a person’s blood to take control over them. Though Lilah hoped the process was more difficult than that; the basics boiled down to the mage ingesting a person’s blood, exerting their control, and putting the person in their thrall.

Then the thrall was in the blood mage’s control until either one of them died.

It was often impossible to tell if someone was a thrall, as the mage didn’t always exert full control. But when they did, the thrall could change in an instant...

Just as Kianna had.

Lilah stared down at the girl. She stirred, perhaps waking up.

‘I've not heard of a blood mage coming this close to the capital,’ Jercolf said. ‘I thought they sailed ships and kept to raiding coastal villages.’

‘The God King’s blood mages, perhaps,’ Seeker Haldin replied. Lilah shivered at his mention of the God King. ‘But not all blood mages belong to him.’

‘He definitely spoke like a Kharleon trader. I don’t think he’s from Albion.’ Lilah sat on one of the open top wagons as her father pulled splinters from her wounds.

‘Why did you choose against armour?’ Her father raised an eyebrow.

‘I didn’t think a mage would use weapons.’ She winced as her father cleaned the slash on her arm, the one she’d received from Kianna. ‘I know, I know. I shouldn’t have assumed.’

Jercolf walked over to the dead guard, the one she’d killed, then looked over his shoulder at Lilah. ‘You could take his armour.’

Haldin finished cleaning the slash and wrapped a cloth around her arm. ‘The armour mightn’t fit well, but it’ll help.’

Lilah stared into her father’s hard eyes. ‘How are we going to defeat him? He’s got a whole caravan under his thrall, and we have only one seeker.’

‘Should we go back for reinforcements?’ Jercolf asked.

Haldin shook his head. ‘No time.’ He stood. ‘We must not let a blood mage run rampant in our lands, close to the capital or not.’ He looked from Lilah, to Jercolf. ‘Often, as a seeker, it comes down to facing our enemies alone. We are the only defence our empire has against the threat of magic. There are too few of us. There always has been; there always will be.’

Lilah stood. The slash on her arm stung, and every little cut she’d gained when the wagon had exploded throbbed. The air was full of smoke, making her cough. Her head still ached; her throat still burned. She’d cleaned her eyes with water found in one of the wagons, but the ash still clung to her eyelashes. All she wanted to do was head back to Hirlcrest and make it straight for the Red Rose.

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