A Darker Shade of Sorcery - - (leveled readers .txt) 📗

for you,” Evan cut him short.

He’d had just about enough of bullies.

Sintian’s eyes flashed again, and his smile retreated.

“Do not rise above yourself, Novice,” he snarled, inching closer. “I can have you serve my meals for a week if I wanted, you’re nothing but a child here.”

“You’re only one rank above us. We can do anything you can,” said Jed.

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“Prove it. I’m heading beyond the gate right now, to test my skills against real monsters.” Sintian tossed his book to the ground, “this book was insulting my intelligence anyway.”

“Novices aren’t allowed in the Badlands, idiot,” Jed said.

Sintian bared his teeth in a grin. “Aww, that’s sweet, little Jeddy’s scared.”

“What are the Badlands?” Evan asked.

“The wasteland where the Masters keep creatures we need for training,” said Sintian condescendingly. “The gate is a magical barrier which monsters can’t pass, but we can.”

“He’s lying,” Jed said. “He won’t really go in.”

“Just watch.”

Sintian turned and strode towards the huge black wall Evan first saw the day he met Jed. They followed cautiously. As they walked they passed a group of High-Realmers who pointed at Sintian and sniggered.

“No wonder he’s a weirdo,” Evan heard one of them say.

Sintian’s body tensed, but otherwise he ignored them.

Sintian didn’t stop until they were outside a large steel door set into the gate. A sign read:

DO NOT ENTER UNLESS ACCOMPANIED BY A MASTER. FATAL

DANGER!

“This is a bad idea.” Evan’s hand went instinctively to his sword, Ruaden.

Sintian laughed derisively. “I knew you’d be too scared.”

“Go on then,” Jed dared.

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Sintian put his hand on the door’s padlock.

“There’s an enchanted lock on here, but I’ve figured out how to break it.”

Sintian continued to look smug as his hand glowed bright. The lock gave a click and dropped to the floor. He pulled back the door and stood aside.

“Coming ladies?”

Evan hesitated.

“Let’s just have a look,” Jed reassured him. “It’s just like a zoo.”

“In a normal zoo, there isn’t a high chance of us getting mauled to death,” Evan replied.

“I don’t know. I’ve known some pretty vicious otters,” said Jed, leading the way as they stepped through the gate.

Golden sands stretched for miles upon miles, only ending when they reached multi-coloured mountains far in the distance. The desert looked like it had been struck by a hundred small meteors. Countless lumps of rock were spread around the area, growing larger in size the closer they got to the humongous mountain range.

The scrape of steel cut through the air as Sintian unsheathed his sword behind them.

“I thought we were only looking around?” Fear crept into Jed’s voice for the first time.

“Don’t worry, you two can just watch in awe as I slay everything in sight.”

In the distance was a sleeping reptilian monster.

“That’s a Psyking,” Sintian said, again speaking to them like they were small children.

The Psyking had bone-white scales, enormous teeth and wicked claws. Although it possessed an alligator’s head and tail, its body was vaguely humanoid.

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“Oh, and it can breathe frost fire, so be careful.” Sintian grinned.

Further away was another dozing beast. Evan thought this one looked similar to an ape, only it had red fur and a spiked tail.

“That’s a Guraah,” said Sintian, “and those,” he pointed to a cave a stone throw’s away, “are Onlekks.”

He was referring to a group of four orc-like creatures the size of dwarves. They had muddy brown skin, pig snouts and an extra set of eyes where their ears should’ve been.

“Which should I kill first?” Sintian asked. “Guraah are notoriously heavy sleepers, I could sneak up and kill that one easy. The Psyking will be the hardest, but I fancy a challenge.”

Jed murmured as he gazed at the Guraah, “They all look nasty. Good thing they’re not close.”

As soon as Jed’s words were spoken several pebbles bounced off the nearest boulder. Evan snapped his head round to where the Psyking had been. There was nothing there.

“RUN.”

But as they turned they found the Psyking blocking their path, its ghastly head rearing back.

Evan guessed what the monster was going to do a second before it happened. He seized Jed’s collar and pulled him down as the Psyking spewed forth a torrent of icy vapour.

The frost fire stuck the rock behind them, turning it into an icicle.

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The Psyking charged forwards, its ear-splitting hissing filling the air. Before Evan and Jed could scramble back to their feet the monster was upon them, yellow claws slashing.

One of the claws was an inch from Evan’s nose when Sintian hacked off the Psyking’s hand. Instead of losing his nose, Evan got a face full of blue blood.

The Psyking’s hiss turned into a screech. It stalked after Sintian who backed away, clasping his sword in one hand.

Evan knew they weren’t allowed to use their weapons yet, but if they didn’t they’d die. He and Jed unsheathed their weapons at the same time, giving each other a ‘we have to,’ look.

“Damn,” Jed moved forwards, “we should stab the Psyking in the back whilst Sintian… oh crap.”

Evan followed Jed’s line of sight and recoiled as he saw the group of Onlekks charging at them, alerted by the noise of the Psyking. The four Onlekks snorted incoherently to one another. They brandished rusty iron weapons and looked ready to use them.

Two made for Evan, whilst the other two circled Jed.

An axe wielding Onlekk struck first, but Evan found himself moving automatically, ducking fast before the axe took his head off. Although he had his sword, he instinctively kicked his enemy instead. His foot connected with a hairy abdomen. Surprisingly, the beast fell to the ground.

The other Onlekk made a grab for his arm, but Evan dodged away, stabbing the hand with an awkward jerking motion. The Onlekk howled and gazed at his bleeding palm stupidly, dropping the mace he’d been waving about.

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Evan stumbled as he swung his sword blindly, but he managed to slice off the top of the creature’s head all the same. Bits of brain exploded over his shirt but Evan had little time to be disgusted, considering the first Onlekk had got back to his feet and was now barrelling into him.

His weapon fell out of his hand as the Onlekk wrapped Evan in a bear-hug and they both tripped to the ground. The grotesque beast snorted uncontrollably, picking up Ruaden and preparing to slit Evan’s throat.

He felt his hands go white hot. He recognised the sensation and willed fire to burst out. He wasn’t going to make it though, the sword was coming down.

Abruptly, the Onlekk’s eyeball popped with a sick squelch as Jed drove his axe into it. The beast was silent as it keeled to the ground. One of Jed’s Onlekks however leaped on him from behind as Jed stood over Evan.

Evan leaped to his feet, scooping up the fallen mace and swinging with all his might as the last Onlekk attempted to claw Jed’s face off. The iron spikes obliterated the monster’s head and he fell too, squirting brackish blood.

Evan and Jed turned only to see a second group of Onlekks had arrived and set on Sintian as he fought the Psyking.

Sintian fought like a madman, leaping left and right, hacking off limbs and carving a visceral tableau with their blood. He used his free hand for sorcery, lifting a small boulder with air magic and using it to cave in an Onlekk’s skull. He then used Earth element, making sand rise up and hold an Onlekk in place.

As they watched, Sintian sliced upwards at the remaining beast, a split-second later both halves of its face sagged to the ground.

The Psyking spat out another round of frost fire but he rolled underneath the torrent, rising to his feet only to behead the Psyking with expert precision.

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Sintian swaggered over to them, his smile shining beneath the blood splattered across his face as he surveyed the corpses around them.

“Not bad boys. Although, I killed three Onlekks by myself when I was only twelve.”

“I’ll kill you in a minute you little sh-”

Evan’s shout interrupted Jed’s words. “We need to get out of here. Now!”

Sintian and Jed turned and saw the newest beasts too.

“Yeah, the stench of all this blood will draw a load of monsters,” Sintian said casually.

Evan struggled to take his eyes away. The black spots grew bigger and bigger as they continued to fly towards them. Evan couldn’t make the monsters out clearly, but as they grew closer a terrible buzzing filled his ears.

“Scarada,” Sintian said, “three or four I could take, but… there has to be over a dozen.”

Sintian sprinted towards the gate.

“Time to leave,” Jed yelled as they followed.

It was only a short run back to the gate and Sintian was past the threshold when they still had a few metres to go.

But to Evan’s horror, Sintian slammed the gate shut behind him.

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Chapter 7- Sorcery Unfurling

Evan and Jed collided with the steel, trying to force it open desperately.

“Let us out, this isn’t funny,” Jed roared.

Evan looked back. The swarm of Scarada were close enough to see in detail now, which made it ten times worse. They resembled giant ants, only if those ants had long red horns and leathery bat wings.

The ape-like Guraah, who’d slept throughout their battle, was oblivious as the swarm passed over him.

Evan’s breakfast threatened to shoot back up his throat as he saw the Scarada place their feelers on the Guraah’s body. As big as he was, the gargantuan Guraah was reduced to an empty husk in seconds as the Scarada sucked out his innards.

“LET US OUT,” Evan and Jed shouted in unison, banging their fists so hard on the gate Evan was sure he’d broken both of his.

The swarm left the Guraah and flew straight at them, buzzing with appalling excitement. Suddenly the door was wrenched open and they fell through and onto the Veneseron fields beyond. As he rolled to his feet, Evan saw Sintian slam the door closed again as the Scarada shot towards it.

They had been so close, Evan saw the leading Scarada leech his suckers onto the door as it shut.

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They could still hear the horrible buzzing, but thanks to the magical barriers the Scarada couldn’t get at them now.

As Sintian relocked the gate he laughed merrily.

Evan realised he was panting rapidly. It felt like his heart was spinning round in his chest.

“Why the hell didn’t you let us through?” Jed yelled.

“It amused me, you screamed like a couple of little girls,” Sintian continued to snigger.

Evan had to give Sintian credit for stopping him getting his nose cut off by the Psyking. But his prank with the gate hadn’t been funny, it was sick. They could’ve died.

“I knew you weren’t at my level, if the Masters gave you a mission right now you wouldn’t last two minutes.”

“Well yeah, we just started training, dumbass,” Evan yelled.

The adrenaline that had