“I cannot leave you,” she said hoarsely.
Well, the sentiment was appreciated, though he thought it extremely ill-advised. He took less than a trio of heartbeats to decide there was nothing to be done save hope she would have the good sense to flee if he fell. For all he knew, she thought he wouldn’t.
He looked at her one last time, nodded sharply, then strode past her out into the glade before he thought better of it.
Actually, what was there to think on? That mage there was obviously accustomed to the theatrics of black magery and possessing a few decent spells, but surely nothing more. He had certainly dealt with much worse in the past. He’d been in full possession of his magic, of course, but just because he couldn’t use that magic at the moment didn’t mean he didn’t have it still.
If nothing else, he would bluster his way through. He’d done it before.
He stopped some two-dozen paces away from the man and looked at him with as much disdain as he could muster.
“Face me if you dare,” he said coldly.
The mage only shifted and looked at him from inside a heavy hood. He said nothing.
Well, that was annoying, but perhaps a sterner hand was called for. “Nothing comes without a price,” he warned. “You will pay a heavy one for your cheek, I assure you.”
The mage laughed, a harsh, cutting sound. “There is no price to be paid when I’m the one with all the spells.”
“And why would you think you’re the one with all the spells?” Acair asked softly.
“Because I know more about you than you think.”
Shards of steel suddenly erupted from the man’s mouth as hespoke, a dozen impossibly sharp spikes that remained there, fixed, as his words slid past them.
Acair caught his breath. The sight was without a doubt the worst thing he had ever seen in his very long life of tiptoeing in and out of places he never should have gone. The spells the mage wove were simple, foolishly so, but they took on something entirely different as they came out of his mouth. They were horrifying.
Considering how many of those sorts of things he’d used in the past, he thought he might be something of an authority on the same.
He looked behind him to see if Léirsinn had actually listened to him and fled. He wasn’t surprised to find that she had ignored him, though he genuinely wished she hadn’t. She was staring at the man out in the clearing, looking as surprised as he freely admitted he felt. She looked at him.
“Who is that?” she mouthed.
He gave her his bestno idea but we’d best run very fastlook, which he was certain she’d interpreted properly. A pity that course wasn’t open to him.
The other thing was, Mansourah of Neroche had suddenly risen to his feet and was throwing spells at that foul mage that left Acair almost blinking in surprise. Mansourah’s command of slurs and insults was lacking, of course, but Acair expected nothing less. Obviously a few suggestions needed to be made.
The prince’s collection of truly terrible spells, however, was genuinely surprising. That, he decided, was something that might make for a decent conversation over a decanter of very expensive port.
It occurred to him rather abruptly that whilst he wasstanding there, babbling nonsense in his own head, that pampered prince from that rustic hovel in the north was doing what had to be done. It was ridiculous and embarrassing and had to stop immediately.
He tried to think clearly, but for the first time in his life, he found he couldn’t sort through everything before him. He began to feel a bit of sympathy for those mages he’d destroyed in his past, lads he had stalked, terrified, then sent off to their just rewards only after having left them groveling at his feet.
Damnation, but he was starting to see why there were places in the world where he just wasn’t welcome.
“Acair,” Léirsinn called, “look. Mansourah says... well, look!”
Acair forced himself to focus on the matter before him and knew as clearly as if Mansourah had shouted the same that the prince wanted him to flee. The spells were coming at that great-hearted archer like a rain of arrows shot from scores of bows. Endless, painfully sharp, impossible to elude—
Acair took a step backward in surprise.
He supposed that might have been the worst thing he’d ever found himself doing. He couldn’t even credit it to an unfortunate stumble. It was cowardice, nothing less.
It was intolerable.
He gave himself a metaphorical slap across the face, stilled his mind, and forced himself to think clearly. He had the spell of un-noticing he’d retrieved from under his grandmother’s chair, of course, but that would only buy him a moment or two more. It wasn’t going to be enough.
When it came right down to it, the solution was simple.
