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

“Naturally,” rumbled the massive officer. Not for the first time, Milo had to keep his mind from reflecting on the considerably smaller fey inside the illusion. It was perhaps the least dramatic thing they’d be showing the erstwhile messengers, but it was the one Milo was most impressed by. She’d even woven a few shaving nicks onto the thick neck of her disguise.

“Eyes front, Volkohne,” the Oberstleutnant puffed through his mustache, and Milo dutifully complied.

The trio of men staggered before them, their faces set and angry while frightened eyes roved the stones around them.

“What do you want with us?” the farmer Milo recognized asked, his voice convincingly steady.

The man had some steel to him, there was no denying that.

Milo made a show of looking at his superior, who nodded.

“You’ve been brought here because we were notified that you were Bolshevik sympathizers and traitors to your own country,” Milo said, and he held back a smile as the protests and declarations sprang up like geysers.

Milo held up a warning hand, and the men quieted—except the farmer who spat on the ground and thrust his chin toward Milo and the disguised Rihyani.

“Execution, then?” he snarled, taking an angry step forward. “You invade our country and think you have the right to execute us?”

“We were guests until a short time ago,” Rihyani declared in the booming German officer voice.

All three men looked at the illusory officer with open trepidation, even the farmer, but Milo could tell they didn’t understand the words that had been said.

“Oberstleutnant Hindenreich makes the point that we were only called invaders since the rise of the Bolshevik terrorist Stalin,” Milo explained in Georgian. “And it is for this reason he and his forces have now come to restore the rule of law.”

All three looked around the seemingly barren fortress, but only the brave farmer had the courage to respond.

“What forces?” he sneered. “Last we knew, you Germans were running north with your ears pinned back.”

“That is why you are here now,” the Oberstleutnant declared and raised a hand to issue a ringing finger-snap.

Every door in the fortress flew open and out marched streams of federated German soldiers, rifles at their shoulders or machine guns carried in teams. Milo’s and Rihyani’s wills working together ensured that the tromp of their boots, the smell of their sweat, and even the heat of their bodies brushed the senses of the three men. Milo had feared mounting pressure as the men sought to disbelieve what they saw, but even the farmer took the illusory information at face value. The marquis hadn’t been wrong about how much men trusted their senses in the face of what they might have otherwise disbelieved.

The fabricated soldiers came to parade rest behind Rihyani and Milo, faces grim and eyes set forward. Perhaps soldiers might have noticed the fact that they were too perfect, but for the present company, the illusion worked fine.

“You are going to bear witness,” Milo declared as he strode forward to put himself nearly nose to nose with the brave farmer. “You will return to your treacherous masters and tell them that the German Empire does not bow to threats and does not forsake its allies. You will be spared your miserable lives to deliver this message.”

The farmer attempted to meet Milo’s pale eyes, but his gaze kept wandering to the arrayed soldiers, and the defiance leached from his face.

Cowed, the farmer led the other two up the stairs and out onto the battlements. Ambrose, Milo, and Rihyani followed. They all looked out over the valley, the arms of the mountains sweeping to either side. For a moment nothing happened, and the three informants cast nervous looks around, glancing back behind at the courtyard where the soldiers stood and then at their captors. Ambrose grunted and pointed forward with a scowl that had all three turning back toward the valley.

There was a deep rumble as though the earth itself was awakening to bear witness, then across the valley, engines of war made their appearance. Tanks, armored tracks, and artillery pieces growled and chugged and snarled as they mounted the slope and stood glittering darkly in the late afternoon sun. Meaningfully, their weapons were leveled downslope, where the village stood quiet and unsuspecting. It took a moment, but soon all three men were whimpering, praying, and begging.

“My God,” one groaned. “No.”

“My family,” another moaned.

“Please,” the farmer cried, turning to Milo and falling to his knees. “Please, don’t do this.”

Overheard was the throbbing whir of zeppelins plying the skies. Milo hadn’t expected those but pushed the thought from his mind as he looked into the informants’ terrified faces. Rihyani must have been adding last-minute flourishes.

“Do you now understand the cost of treachery?” Milo asked, feeling a little queasy as he watched the men squirm and grovel. “Do you now know what you must do?”

The farmer nodded vigorously, and the other two men followed suit as tears and snot ran freely down their faces.

“Go and tell the Bolsheviks we are here and they are welcome to try and drive us out,” Milo commanded, nodding at Ambrose, who stepped forward to cut the men’s bonds. “And that if they don’t have the spine to defend their stolen prize, we will come and fetch them out like thieves from their den.”

The men stared at their rope-worn wrists and stood trembling before Milo.

“Now go!” Milo roared, driving a spike of raw fear through his will and into the heart of each man.

Shivering and swearing on anything and everything they could think of, the men stumbled down from the battlements under the unflinching glare of the assembled soldiers. They found their feet as they passed through the gate and out onto the road, all three of them running wildly as their heads swiveled left and right.

The sight of their fleeing backs sparked something in his chest in a place next to his heart. There was a tightness, a contraction that was as much