Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2) by Aaron Schneider (best color ereader .TXT) 📗

“What’s wrong?” Milo asked, not bothering to keep the anxiety out of his voice. “Why aren’t we speeding toward the marquis?”

Ambrose was alternating between the two maps, brows furrowed as his mouth worked at forming words he never got around to speaking.

“Ambrose?” Milo prompted, about ready to give the big man a shake of the shoulder when he threw both maps down on the seat between them and laid his boot into the accelerator.

“Just hope that old priest knows what he’s about,” Ambrose growled over the rising roar of the engines. “He’s got us heading into a wooded vale with a river, but according to Lokkemand’s map, that gorge doesn’t have a forest or a river. It’s just a bare gorge.”

Milo picked up the maps, more to feel involved in the process than to check Ambrose’s map skills. If he said things didn’t match up, they didn’t.

“It’s the only lead we’ve got,” Milo said as he frowned down at the maps. “And we can’t expect that Zoidze hasn’t given them the same information. The Americans could be heading there the same as us. That cannot happen.”

Ambrose nodded and turned back to the road for a moment before swinging his gaze back to Milo.

“About the cowboy,” he began, mustache wriggling like it always did when he was searching for words. “I don’t think, or my best guess is, that he isn’t a Nephilim like me.”

Milo sighed and slumped a little deeper into his seat.

He’d expected as much, though he couldn’t have explained why he’d intuited the same. Perhaps it was something about the utter difference between the two men. Ambrose seemed awkward, even bumbling, as he ambled about daily tasks, but in battle, he was a force of nature moving with a speed, sureness, and strength that could turn the tide of a fight in an instant. Even if Milo hadn’t known Ambrose to be half-angelic, he would have known he was inherently potent and glorious after seeing the man at war. Even if Ambrose had been a villain and used his prowess for evil, it would have been a grand and spectacular sort of violence, the kind to cow cities and break armies.

Ezekiel Boucher was nothing like that.

Dangerous, extremely so, but it was all quickness, low cunning, and viciousness. It was a murderer’s way of violence—not the sort to rally allies and intimidate foes, but something which would seem cheap even to allies and abominable to the enemy. A man that rotten, and Milo wasn’t just thinking of the scalp hunter’s hygiene, couldn’t be heroic or tyrannical even if he wanted to.

That meant he was some other sort of dangerous being who was nigh impossible to kill, which currently was the last thing Milo needed on his list of concerns.

“What is he?” Milo groaned as he looked out and saw the sun sinking toward the mountainous horizon.

“Cursed,” Ambrose said with a shrug. “That’s about all we know about him.”

Being reminded of the curse brought the hexed knife to mind, and Milo felt where the knife lay in his coat pocket in a wrapping of greased leather.

“He said he could smell the knife on me,” Milo said, his skin crawling as he felt the blade through the fabric and hide. “I wonder if the curse has some kind of connection that he can track?”

Ambrose gave Milo a sidelong look that told him the thought was not a comforting one.

“You could pitch it,” Ambrose suggested, thrusting a chin to the rocky slope to their left. “Wing it hard enough, and you could send them down into that ravine sniffing for us.”

“I wish I could,” Milo murmured honestly. “But I need to make sure the marquis knows what kind of curse we are working with, and the best way I know to do that is by making sure we have something carrying the curse with us.”

Ambrose nodded, but his face was twisted like he’d smelled something foul.

“I suppose,” he agreed, shaking his head. “We’ll have to hope we aren’t bringing too much trouble to this marquis’ door. Not sure about the fey, but most people don’t take kindly to strangers showing up uninvited and making a mess.”

“I agree, but once again, what other choice do we have?” Milo asked, and since both knew the answer, they shared a weary shrug and lapsed into silence. As the miles rolled beneath them, there was only the chug of the engine and the keening of the wind to fill the stillness.

The red sky was deepening into the first shades of a bruise when they crested a hill and looked down into a rocky gorge.

“This should be it,” Ambrose grumbled as he brought the Rollsy to a halt. “But I don’t see any trees or rivers, do you?”

Milo squinted down into the barren cleft between climbing slopes, trying desperately to fight the rising panic in his chest. There were signs that a small stream had wound between the tumble of rock, but the pebbled ground was dry, and the typical green of the springtime Caucasus was only a mangy patchwork. Milo wasn’t certain a single tree could survive amongst the parched boulders, much less a wood.

But the priest had seemed so certain, so sure.

“What do you want to do?” Ambrose asked, looking at Milo, his expression grim.

It was doubtful that Rihyani would last long enough for them to get back as it was. If they retreated to Shatili and tried to form a new plan, they knew they would be returning to watch her die.

“Let’s get down there.” Milo sighed, shaking his head at the lunacy of the direction. “Maybe we can find something to help us figure out what happened to the marquis’ valley. Maybe they left some sign.”

Milo didn’t have to look at Ambrose to know he was staring at him pityingly.

“Okay, Magus,” Ambrose said. “But don’t get your hopes…”

Ambrose’s voice trailed off, his head cocking to one side. His expression darkened to a vicious scowl.

“They’re coming,” he snarled, throwing