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

“Are you mad?” Captain Saakadze cried.

“Get the rear guard up here,” Ezekiel called as he swung forward to fire the Gewehr before Milo could emerge for another blast of witchfire. “And keep an eye out for the fat one.”

The resignation in Captain Saakadze’s voice was palpable, but he shouted back down the forest path, and Milo heard the rush of feet coming down toward the glade between the crackle of suppressive fire hammering at the stone.

Soon they’d have enough to flank his position, coming at him from too many angles to counter them all at once. He needed to give Ambrose a better shot before that.

Steeling his nerves, Milo willed the beak open and darted to the other side of the stone to spray a torrent of green flame. He expected it would be a distraction, an impotent show of force before he raced back to the second stone in his row. As it was, one of the mercenaries had advanced several strides since opening fire.

The belch of flame bowled him back and set him alight.

He didn’t even have time to scream as Milo’s sudden appearance filled his startled lungs with hungry flames. His body spasmed on the ground, and a single round from his carbine flew off into the dark. Whether the shot came from the superheated metal or an expiring twitch, Milo never knew.

Milo continued the sweep of the flame and caught another advancing mercenary, but the man was farther from the blast, so only one side of him kindled. To Milo’s horror, the man screamed but did not go down as flames licked his body. The magus was ducking back behind the standing stone when the burning man let out a blood-chilling shriek and charged Milo, firing from the hip as he went.

None of the mad shots struck home, but that didn’t deter the flaming mercenary, who gripped his smoldering gun like a club and launched himself at the magus. His body reacting before his mind could calculate a response, Milo turned the wild swing aside with his cane, just as Ambrose had shown him, and then snapped the shaft of the cane up and across. The blow took the pain-maddened man across the unburned side of his face, resulting in a spray of blood and teeth.

Reflexively Milo swept the cane down hard on the man’s exposed wrists, sending the carbine-cudgel tumbling among the vine-wrapped bones. Snarling and spitting crimson froth, the mercenary lunged at Milo to trap him in a fiery embrace, but the magus pivoted back. The man stumbled, and with the moment of respite, Milo drew on the potency of the staff.

The burning man rose as Milo swept the cane out in a two-handed stroke. The stone shaft connected with the man’s neck, shattering vertebrae, but its arc would not be denied as it drove his flaming head to crash into the standing stone. There was a sickening, squelching crack as the man’s head deformed against the stone.

The slashed eyes stenciled across the stone seemed to glint as though each had received a fresh spattering of blood, and Milo felt the magical presence stir violently. His skin erupted in gooseflesh, and at his feet, fresh vines burst from the ground to coil around the body of the dead mercenary. Milo lurched back a few steps, horrified as the thick tendrils of plant matter smothered the lingering flames and dug deep in the open wounds like carrion worms searching for choice morsels.

He was so overcome he didn’t realize he’d moved too far from his cover, and a shot ripped a bloody furrow across his calf. Milo’s leg buckled underneath him, and he pitched backward to the ground, shock robbing him of his voice.

“Ezekiel, you idiot!” Percy shouted from his hiding place behind the tree. “We need him alive.”

“Cease fire!” Captain Saakadze shouted.

“Hold your horses, Percy. I just winged him.” The cowboy chuckled. “Damned fine shot if I do say so.”

His breath whistled between Milo’s teeth as throbs of agony rolled up through his leg. In the back of his head, a voice was screaming for him to focus and grab the unguents from his coat, but by the time he’d gotten organized enough for the effort, hard hands were grabbing him and rolling him over. At one point, what must have been a foot brushed his wounded leg, and he let out a snarl of pain and thrashed. A knee was planted in his back, and he felt a barrel being pressed against the back of his head.

“Don’t move,” shouted a voice Milo was sure couldn’t have come from a man any older than himself.

“Alive!” Percy called. “I need him alive.”

“It’s a witch!” Milo heard one of the mercenaries shout in Georgian.

“A kudiani!” another cried. “Iacob, don’t touch it!”

“You let him go, and I’ll drop you where you stand.” Ezekiel’s voice was much closer than before. “Keep him right there, and I’ll hogtie the little witch.”

Milo tried to twist his head around to see what was happening and caught a glimpse of the glade filling with the rest of the mercenaries and the advancing cowboy before his captor reacted.

“Face-down,” a wide-eyed teen growled at him before ramming the barrel into Milo’s face.

The unforgiving rim jammed hard enough into Milo’s eyebrow to break the skin, and his blood dripped onto the soil. Between spasms of pain from his leg, he wondered if the gore-hungry vines would be drawn by his blood, it being so near, but a glance showed they hadn’t moved an inch. All the same, he thought he should keep a weather eye on the earth as droplets of blood dripped from the corner of his eye. It turned out that he wouldn’t have to keep his vigil long.

He heard Ezekiel’s perpetual snuffling giggle nearly on top of him when Ambrose decided now was the time to open fire. The carbine roared from within the trees, and Milo felt something hot and wet spatter across the back of his