PART TWO: UOF

  The Way of the Mark

  Tenet #3

  “Users of the Way can use any substance to form a spell, except human or animal blood. It is also forbidden to use the substance of the human body to cast any spell.”

  Chapter 26. A WORK OF FIRE

  The man pointing at me stood on the roof with us, and had been one of our own rebel fighters who’d been on the fringes of the group. We all knew a betrayal of some kind was inevitable, but this was the worst possible moment for it.

  Every eye in the square flicked up to our rooftop.

  “Uof, my master, the mage of the twisted Way is here!” the former rebel fighter called out.

  “We must leave now!” Bend whispered. He was already hauling Willow toward the stairwell with a couple of others.

  Several others pointed at me shouting and drawing Uof’s eye to us. Dirk, who stood nearby, cursed under his breath and delivered a single, emphatic punch to the betrayer’s nose, which, intentionally or unintentionally, dropped him off the roof of the building causing shouts from the crowd below.

  Time slowed to a crawl as my mind surveyed the scene.

  No motorized thugs stood on our rooftop, but one man on the building next to ours drew a large caliber rifle to his shoulder, preparing to fire toward our position. We had only seconds. There were soldiers coming toward our direction from the square as well, but they would take longer to get to us. But we were about to take fire from below as well. I had to create a distraction, draw their eyes and their fire, and let the others get away, and I had to do it fast.

  “Dirk, take the others and go, now!” I said quickly, pointing to a building directly behind the one on which we stood. “Get to that building, get down, and disperse as fast as you can. Get out of here and I will draw their fire.”

  I stepped forward to the edge of the rooftop so the whole square could see me standing tall. I wove a quick shielding spell protecting the rooftop for a few seconds, allowing the others to retreat.

  The crowd below screamed when they me, scattering. In the background, a booming voice called out, “Get him!”

  Dirk was about to protest my orders, but another explosion lit the air above us. The concussion shuddered, shooting an array of shrapnel over the rooftop. Two men near the edge of the building outside the shielding spell went down. Someone from below had fired a missile of some kind. Another rifle shot rang out, hitting the rooftop just as a bullet of some kind whizzed well over my head.

  I wove another spell using a piece of the stone shrapnel from the rooftop, draining its matter and creating a pointed shaft like an arrow. I released it from the ground and sent it magically toward the single thug on the rooftop next to ours—he was in the process of trying to reach us—a process that he aborted as the shaft pierced his neck. I lost sight of him as he fell. In my peripheral vision, I could tell other motorized were rushing our position, just as Dirk, Bend, and the mages began leaping across to the other building.

  It was time. I drew the small diamond piece into my right hand and a piece of coral into my left hand. I’d been saving the diamond for years, and today, I needed to make an impression, and well…save my skin.

  The rooftop was suddenly empty, and I heard footfalls pounding up the stairs below me. Every eye in the crowd stared up at me, as I drew the attention of everyone within the vicinity of the market square. Absently, I noticed the magic beacons blazing all around the square. An arrow flashed past my head.

  In seconds that felt like hours, I drained the coral with one hand, still holding onto the diamond in the other. I then wove the matter into a spell without triggering it. Then I drained the diamond I’d held onto for so long. The power that came from such a tiny piece of matter was considerable and I wove it into the most complicated spell I’d ever created, a spell I’d dreamed up years before but never used or shown to another mage.

  More bullets whizzed past my head, and Uof shouted to the crowd below, bellowing as he pointed in my direction. I tuned it all out. This was my single best chance to make an impression on Vale as a whole, and to showcase the power of a true mage of The Way. Barely a minute had passed since he’d announced his reward to the crowd.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I had no time to waste, so I triggered the first spell.

  Above the square a work of fire lit the air with an explosion that crackled and sparkled, spreading out into the air and making the air seem to burn. It was a broad puff of starry work in the sky meant to grab the entire crowd’s attention for a moment. A distraction was all it was and while it burned, I moved back from the edge of the rooftop. When the explosion and light and fire died away, a cloud of smoke was all that was left hanging above the crowd.

  I heard "Oohs" and "Aaahs" from the crowd as they watched the work of fire. Into this haze, I gathered up a running start and leaped out into the air above the square.

  Diving into the air toward the crowd, I triggered the release of my final spell. The spell gave me lift and suddenly it felt like I had wings on my arms and my boots, and in a way, I did. The air became palpable, weighty, and I used that change in the quality of the air to push through it almost as if I were swimming. I leveled out, feeling a sense of buoyancy attach to me, and I shot over the crowd, directly toward Uof and the platform.

  The smoke from the works of fire covered my approach somewhat as shots rang throughout the square from both Valeguard and motorized thugs all armed with a variety of hybrid weapons. I dove right and left, pushing off the newfound thickness in the air, seeking to make my trajectory impossible to track, difficult to hit.

  The crowd gasped and cowered when they saw the work of fire explode into the sky. But upon seeing me sailing across the sky above their heads, they all lifted their heads. For a brief second, as I came closer to the people of Vale below, I saw a sparkle of wonder in some of their eyes.

  “Shoooooot hiiiimm!” I heard Uof’s voice shouted as I shot toward him.

  Uof actually stepped back as I soared toward the staging area—and his hesitation emboldened me. Before Uof could react in any other way, I landed on the platform in front of the chair, grabbed Ehren under his arms, and rocketed straight up into the air, pushing off the air with my legs, my spell still active and working, allowing me to lift Ehren with me just as the Valeguard rushed toward me.

  Uof fired off a missile from his left arm that came rocketing toward me, a sizzling burn in its wake.

  I rose through a series of explosions and bullets and other projectiles, diving this way and that way, dodging all of it while that single missile stayed with me, following me where I flew. I dodged right and left again, and for a moment, I thought I'd lost it. So, I rose high above the square, straight up through the cloud of smoke left by the explosions of fire.

  Then, I halted in mid-air—a maneuver I could hold for only a moment—and I looked down at the crowd below me and smiled. This I did entirely for effect.

  However, before I could say a word to the crowd, Uof’s missile exploded just below me, shuddering my hold on reality for a moment, jarring my mind, and ringing my ears.

  I sought to gather my senses, feeling the air begin to give way and gravity starting to pull me down and fast. Quickly, I pushed straight through the air away from the square, heading East. Ehren hung heavy in my arms. Worse, several of the explosions had hit quite close to us, and despite the adrenaline surging through me, I knew we’d been hit with some kind of shrapnel.

  A dozen streets away from the square, I dropped us on the ground in an alley between a row of buildings, near a resistance tunnel access I knew was nearby. My arms ached, my side screamed in pain, and I felt my age once again—I still heard much of the exhaustion from our attack on the Factory.

  Even though I knew I had drawn thousands of eyes rescuing Ehren, I'd also drawn down my energy. Despite my ragged breathing, I dragged Ehren along the ground behind me through the alley toward the hidden tunnel entrance. I heard explosions starting to rock the city as I moved slower and slower. I wasn't going to last long—I felt the edges of my vision darken slightly.

  A few feet down the alley, I cracked open the door of a shack that normally served as a storage facility for someone’s grain and hauled Ehren inside.

  Slamming the wooden door behind me, I collapsed to the ground, nearly blacking out as I did. But we weren’t safe yet. I took a couple of slow breaths and tried to collect myself, pushing the darkness out of my vision. Shouts went up outside as guards scoured the streets nearby.

  I have to keep moving, I told myself. They could search this shed at any moment.

  I took a shuddering breath and got up. My head pounded and my arms felt like lead weights but still, I managed to drag Ehren’s body along behind a large pile of grain and toward the back of the small building. A tiny door in the floor led to a wine cellar, and after several minutes of careful shifting around, I dragged Ehren down into the cellar behind me.

  Closing the door above us, I checked him for the first time.

  He was still breathing, though I could tell that they had beaten him severely prior to the beating Uof has given him in the market square. His face was nearly unrecognizable. My own hold on consciousness felt hazy, as the black edges crept back into my vision.

  With considerable effort, I pulled aside a rack of wine barrels and pried open a small door in the mud wall of the cellar. I shoved Ehren into the small tunnel, pushing him ahead of me. I moved the rack of wine barrels back into place and drew the small wooden door shut behind me, crawling into the nearly pitch-black tunnel. It was there, on the floor of a dank, dark tunnel that I laid down. Trying to gather myself in the dark, I lay there, staring at the mud ceiling of the tunnel, breathing hard.

  How had I escaped? I thought to myself, incredulous at my own actions. And what would happen now that Uof had delivered a blow to the resistance with his offer of estates, water wells, and near-immortality?

  I laid on the ground next to Ehren and breathed in slowly. My mind was too thick to process the question properly.

  Lying there on the tunnel floor, I passed out.