Hunted Sorcery (Jon Oklar Book 2), B.T. Narro [digital book reader txt] 📗

I took the offensive and showed him just how much better I was with the sword. He couldn’t keep up as I jabbed and swiped, never giving him an opening to counter, never giving him a breath to cast.

It took just about no time for me to get through and jam my sword up into his ribs. He screamed as he stumbled backward. Dropping his sword, he put both hands over his wound, no doubt to heal.

Go ahead, I thought as I charged. I didn’t care about him closing the wound near his stomach so long as I pierced his heart.

He tried to strike me with dteria, but I had my own wall of dvinia up.

His eyes widened in shock as he clearly realized this would be the end of him.

Something heavy came down on top of me and slammed me to the ground. I felt a man on top of me after, as heavy as a boulder. He grabbed me by my hair and exposed my throat.

“Kill him.” It was Pearson’s—no, Valinox’s—voice.

Cason had closed his wound by then. He bent down as if to pick up his sword, but stopped in obvious shock as he noticed something behind me.

“There’s no time,” Cason said as he moved his hands to his sides in some spell.

Then I noticed the dteria around him.

Thinking I had some idea what he saw behind me, I knew I just had to stop him for another moment and this would all be over. I reached out my free hand as Valinox sat on my back, casting with lG, G, and uG to grab Cason’s energy with as much strength as I could.

He went nowhere.

“He’s holding me down! You need to lift me!” Cason said as he panted in exhaustion.

Pearson jumped up from me. I felt a great surge of dteria around Cason.

I cursed inwardly as I wasn’t sure exactly what this was going to do to me, but I wasn’t about to let him go free after all of this if I could help it. I grabbed Pearson’s energy with all the strength of my mind.

Something in my skull tore.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I heard animalistic noises that made little sense to me as I faded in and out of consciousness. I wanted to get up and fight, but there was a blinding light in front of my eyes and a searing pain through my head.

I put my hands up to my temples and focused on the notes I needed, pushing my mana to the right frequencies until I felt it was ready. Then I pushed the spell out of me.

My mana went back into my body through my head, coursing through me with incredibly painful healing power. It was almost too much to bear.

Cason was just a bloodied corpse on the ground, I saw, and a group of male krepps was hissing with great smiles as if proud. Grufaeragar leaned down in front of me.

“Jon, you hurt?”

I shook my head. “What happened?”

“We kill Cason! Other fly high.” His yellow eyes found something behind me. “Souriff!”

I turned to see her landing gracefully near us. The rest of our army was quickly approaching.

“Good work, krepps,” Souriff said. “Any slower and Cason would’ve escaped.”

“We happy please Souriff and human allies. Great honor!”

“Honor!” echoed many of the other krepps as they beat their chests and hissed.

Souriff then told me, “I don’t know how you kept Cason from escaping, but I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

I nodded and looked around, still in a daze from everything that had happened. Through blurred vision I could faintly make out more people coming our way, allies most likely.

Souriff pulled me up as I asked, “So Pearson is Valinox, the demigod of mtalia?”

“Yes.” She looked over at the dozens of soldiers almost to us.

I gasped as I realized something. “Michael!”

“Who?”

“If Valinox used Michael as an illusion, then where is Michael really?” I was angry I hadn’t thought of it earlier. “He’s probably hurt.” I couldn’t bring myself to suggest another possibility, that perhaps the traitor had killed him and hid his body.

“Where might he be?” Souriff asked.

I thought back to the last time I had spoken with him. It was just before we’d gone into our rooms to prepare for the execution.

“The castle—the apartments. I’m sure his body was hidden somewhere in there.”

I felt sick using the word “body” for my friend.

“Let’s go.” She turned around and allowed me to climb on her strong back.

Reuben was just arriving, the first of the army. He was the best rider, though he’d had to leave his horse a ways back.

“Jon, what happened?” he shouted between gasps of breath. “What are you doing on that woman’s back?”

“Michael’s hurt back at the castle! Let’s go, Souriff.”

“Hold on tight.”

“What? Wait!” Reuben yelled, but we didn’t have the time.

I almost slipped off from the incredible speed in which she hurled us upward with dvinia. What a feeling, though, now that I was a little more used to it. We soared much higher than even the tallest of trees.

Just as we started to slow in the air, I felt another ring of dvinia wrapping around my legs and her waist. She hurled us higher and farther, the city wall passing so far below that it was just a thin line.

Soon we started to come down. It didn’t look like we would make it to the castle, but there was another shift of momentum, a burst of dvinia throwing us sideways.

We were coming down straight onto the apartments of the castle. My jaw was aching again, making me realize that I was gritting my teeth together in fear, our speed much too fast.

“Keep holding tight,” she said and encased us with dvinia.

We slowed suddenly at first, then more gradually as she pulled her dvinia up against gravity. By the time we reached the roof of the apartments, we were drifting at a slow enough pace for her to land safely with me still on her back.

I had only guesses as to what might happen