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

be considered a full-scale town and was nearly fifty kilometers away.

Milo expected that was where the Soviets would come from, and as he swung his gaze toward that area, his stomach clenched.

There, winding across the rough ground like a vast glowing worm, were the lights of the advancing Soviet column. Crawling but still advancing, he could see them: over a hundred armored vehicles and trucks chugging along, headlamps glaring into the night. Rippling like an escort of ants besides the undulating column of light were the ranks of marching men. There was no way to accurately assess their numbers in the dark, but Milo knew there couldn’t have been less than three hundred and possibly twice or three times that number, depending on if any groups ranged too far ahead or behind to be easily spotted near the line of vehicles.

Seeing such a force arrayed against them, Milo understood Lokkemand’s anger and decision to retreat. Before a force like this, his paltry escort was an afterthought, and with no magus to try to balance the scales, what choice did they have but to run?

“They’ll get a surprise when they get to the fortress,” Ambrose shouted, obviously having noticed the spectacle to the southwest.

“Won’t hardly make a dent,” Milo called back over the wind.

“But it will make them wary, and that will buy us time,” Rihyani said, her smile flashing at him in the moonlight. “Our success depends much more on their delay and less on how many we kill.”

Milo knew she was right, but it still galled him to think that he was supposed to be the tipping point in this war, but he still felt so small before the realities of industrialized battle.

They continued in silence as more of the countryside rolled beneath them, and they lost sight of the Soviets. The harness connecting Milo to Ambrose and Rihyani, fashioned from what must have been carriage leathers, was beginning to cut fiercely into Milo’s shoulders and back when Rihyani pointed to the east.

Milo forgot about the harness as he watched an entire village being put to the torch.

Thatched roofs crackled brightly, a stomach-turning exaggeration of the welcome glow that should have shown from their windows. A line of trucks, ten or so, stretched through and out of the plaza of the village, where figures moved in and out of the firelight. No one seemed to be attempting to put out the flames. A venerable mosque with an aged minaret stood in solemn witness to the destruction, its darkened windows looking for all the world like downcast eyes in the firelight.

“What is going on?” Milo shouted, unable to tear his eyes away.

“Recruiting,” Ambrose shouted back, nodding at the sight of figures being torn from small knots of people and dragged toward the trucks. “Conscripting the next round of meat for the Butcher.”

Milo looked on mutely, staring as the flames leaped higher. He wondered if soon the flames would climb high enough that the wind would catch fire, and at that thought, something kindled inside of him.

“We’re going down there,” he declared, canting clumsily toward the burning village.

Rihyani didn’t fight him, but their speed decreased markedly.

“What about Stalin?” she called. “If we stop him, doesn’t that put an end to all of it?”

“We can’t save everyone, Magus,” Ambrose shouted, casting a forlorn glance at the destruction below.

Before Milo could reply, a tussle broke out amongst those extracting conscripts from the crowd. Rifles barked, and two figures crumpled as a third was dragged toward the trucks. The fire in Milo’s chest melted any hesitation.

“Maybe,” Milo hissed through clenched teeth. “But I can certainly save some of them.”

He threw a fierce look at Ambrose and Rihyani.

The fey nodded, and Ambrose returned it with a grim smile.

“That or die trying!” the big man roared.

Their angle of descent and their speed increased.

Milo’s fingers tightened on the cane, whose raptor skull was freshly graven with runes inlaid with silver.

Now we get to see what you can really do, he thought and a chill ran through him as he felt Imrah’s spirit stir within.

I aim to please, master.

The conscriptors could be excused for not looking skyward as the trio descended upon them.

They were busy after all, dragging men, boys, and the sturdier women from their families. Their attentions were on selecting those who looked useful while threatening everyone else with further violence. They hadn’t come with the intention of burning down the hovels and shooting the old woman and her enfeebled husband, but the backward peasants refused to see reason.

Though the Glorious Revolution had been forestalled by the pressing needs of the War, the cause still required bodies, and like it or not, these ingrates would have to do. After all, even such simpletons should have known that all worthy causes require sacrifice.

Being so distracted, they didn’t see the trio touch down behind the mosque, where they hastened to undo the jury-rigged harness. Even as they unbound straps and buckles, their eyes swept the deep shadows between the firelight as they endured the screams and wails of the beleaguered villagers.

From where he stood, Milo saw a knotted clump of shadows cast by families huddling away from the soldiers. The fury still burned in his chest, but he checked himself as he felt his muscles tensing to pounce. Though they hadn’t planned on this fight, they couldn’t play fast and loose with so many innocents at hand.

“Rihyani,” Milo hissed as he crept toward the edge of the mosque’s shadow. “I need you to find a way to get those people moving out of the village. I don’t want them standing around and catching a stray bullet.”

Looking around, he saw Rihyani frown in thought. Then she gave him a confident nod.

“I have an idea,” she said. “But it’s only going to work if you engage the soldiers.”

Milo nodded and looked at Ambrose. “I think we should avoid gunfire as long as possible,” the magus whispered. “We need to make sure one of those bastards doesn’t hear shots