Wizardborn (World's First Wizard Book 3) by Aaron Schneider (classic books for 11 year olds .txt) 📗

nearly as complicated as using that tainted fool Astor to awaken your Qareen.

Milo’s heart leaped into his throat, and his grip on the cane tightened until his fingers popped as he turned the bird skull to face him.

“You taught him magic?” he demanded, his former confidence threatening to topple like a house of cards.

I couldn’t if I wanted to, Imrah replied with a psychic impression of a disgruntled huff. You’re still the only human magus, so stop your fretting.

“Then how did you do it?’ Milo demanded, scowling suspiciously at the faintly glowing sockets of the skull.

I channeled some of my power through him, almost like a shade possessing a dead body, the ghul explained. It was difficult, short-lived, and extremely painful for Astor, but we managed all the same.

Milo wasn’t sure how he felt about the disclosure that Imrah could at least temporarily take over a human body, but even more, he couldn’t understand why she would go to all that trouble. The Qareen was useful in a pinch as accelerated transportation, especially when wind-riding wasn’t an option, but it wasn’t necessary for the rescue. Theatrical certainly, but not worth the difficulties they seemed to have gone through.

Milo expressed his confusion, but before either Rihyani or Imrah could answer, Percy returned with the Qareen’s black sack in his hand.

“Because someone had to get word to your forces in Sergio-Ivanoskye to come north,” the American said, holding the sack out to Milo, bones clicking softly inside. “And your fairy lover seemed unwilling to make the journey.”

Milo looked at Rihyani, who squared her shoulders and raised her chin.

“I wasn’t about to leave you unguarded with that lecherous brute,” she replied archly, giving Percy an acidic sidelong glance.

“So, Lokkemand is coming here?” Milo asked, trying desperately to not get his hopes up as his gaze swiveled between the two of them. “How long before he arrives?”

Rihyani’s gaze sharpened on Percy, who glared back defiantly.

“It’s not my fault,” he protested, crossing his arms. “If you were so worried about it going well, you might have gone yourself instead of fretting over your darling here.”

The fey bared leonine fangs and leaned toward Percy, but Milo held up a hand, and they stilled.

“So, Lokkemand isn’t coming?” he demanded.

Rihyani’s fangs vanished as she shrugged.

“We don’t know,” she said, looking at Milo. “He said he would ‘see what he could do’ and then sent this fool on his way.”

“He threatened to shoot me if I didn’t get out of his sight,” Percy announced with his chin in the air. “Hardly the behavior of an officer.”

“Welcome to the German Army,” Milo remarked dryly, then leveled a scowl at the American. “Didn’t you and your pet abomination have a job to do?”

Percy turned on his heel and began to walk back outside, muttering as he went.

“Typical. Ingrates. That’s what I get for taking another operation on this damned continent.”

Milo watched him go as Imrah’s frosty whisper rose in his mind.

Don’t mistake that one for a dandy or a fool, she warned. I’ve touched his soul, and besides the corruption, I know none of this was an accident. He’s too clever to just happen to be here.

“But what does he want?” Milo muttered.

The ghul did not answer.

“What’s this plan, then?” Rihyani asked, drawing his attention to the immediate concern.

“Our enemy has an army of stolen slaves,” Milo said, feeling his skin prickle into gooseflesh even as he spoke. “And we’re going to steal them back.”

19

These Sacrifices

From above, the city of Petrograd seethed like a disturbed ant nest, roused in the dark of night to defend the colony. Entire companies of soldiers were marshaled, and with electric torches, lanterns, and even armed trucks with spotlights, they swept over the city. The sounds of battle on the wind had alerted sentries that the nest was under attack, but the violence had been too brief to guarantee the location of the assailants. So the barracks, the palace, and even the square within the scrap-metal walls were all emptied.

In places where the buildings were fairly intact, they formed rivers of probing light, flowing down streets as individual lights groped aimlessly at whatever they passed. Occasionally, tributaries and eddies were formed in the blind streams as they found breaks, ruptures, or preexisting pockets in the city's winding streets.

In places where the city was so devastated that a rubble-strewn street was indistinguishable from a collapsed building, the soldiers moved in waves. They lapped over the urban wasteland, slowly but inexorably washing over vast stretches of the city.

For all this incredible, unrelenting effort, none seemed to think it worthwhile to look above the broken crowns of fire-gnawed buildings. If any had bothered to let their lights stray above those jagged tusks of timber and stone, they might have caught a flash of silver twisting in a ripple of black.

Rihyani rode the cold, howling wind, hardly aware of the smell of sooty snow in the air. Her dark eyes darted across the city, trying to guess the number of soldiers the roving lights suggested. Each time she thought she had the troubling figure, more lights emerged to scour another corner of Petrograd.

There were so many. Too many.

None yet had worked their way to the edge of the city where Milo and Ambrose had hunkered down in an abandoned building, but it was only a matter of time before the tide reached them. As inevitable as the ocean, they would come.

Rihyani checked their rate of advance and swallowed a despairing cry, then cut across the wailing air currents. She came within sight of the leaning, cross-topped building at the city’s edge as gray snow began to fall.

“It occurs to me only now,” Ambrose grunted as he heaved a pair of trunks commandeered from the ruins, “that this plan involves magic that has a better than fair chance of killing you.”

Milo looked up from his preparations, his face paler than usual; his skin looked like the translucent belly of a fish. Given the bowl of churning