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

screamed as if in great pain, but soon it was over. Shaw stepped aside and let Jacob take his place. The guard screamed again, and that’s when I realized what I was witnessing. Cason wasn’t just a dark mage. He was a warlock, draining the life from the guard to heal the injuries of his men.

Soon it was the dark mage’s turn. By then, the guard had passed out, and I feared he would die from this one.

“No!” I yelled as I forced myself up, only to put too much weight on my right foot and collapse. Something was severely wrong with my ankle.

Cason finished healing the dark mage and let the guard drop lifelessly to the ground. The other guard continued to squirm in the air as I heard a woman shriek from behind me. I looked back to see Burda. She had not gotten far.

“Run!” I yelled again.

She did run, but it was toward me.

“Don’t!” I yelled. “Get out of here!”

She tried to lift me up, but I was too heavy for her.

“Go, dammit!” I screamed. “Go!”

Cason walked toward us. He let the guard drop as he passed by. “Keep him from running,” he told his healed men, and they held swords up to him.

I needed time to heal myself, but Cason would be upon me in a moment.

I pushed Burda back. “Run!” I yelled for the last time.

She let go of my arms and bolted away.

Cason bent down. I was about to throw him back with dvinia and heal myself as quickly as I could. There was one problem with that plan, though. It wouldn’t buy me enough time.

“Anything broken, Jon?” he asked.

I didn’t answer as I stared up at him.

He ground his foot on my injured ankle, ripping a scream out of my throat as my bones splintered inside my skin.

It felt like ages passed before he finally took his foot off.

“You’re lucky,” Cason told me. “A fall from that height could’ve killed you.”

“He probably used dvinia to slow his fall,” said the dark mage. “He’s stronger with it than you thought.”

“How strong?” Cason asked the overweight man. “Stronger than you?”

“No,” he said. “But close.”

“Then he is still weak, and with an ankle broken this badly he will be useless for a while. Leon cannot mend broken bones.” Cason looked into my eyes. “You’re lucky I have a use for you, Jon. You will give a message to the king. Tell him there’s only one way to keep the people of this city safe. He is to forfeit the castle to me by tomorrow evening. He will do so by putting down the drawbridge and exiting with all of his soldiers and sorcerers. The castle workers are to remain. They will serve me now, as will your king. You will tell him this, and I promise, I promise that fewer people will die by the time this is over.”

I nodded.

“Byron Lawson is to return to Tryn where he belongs,” Cason added. “He will be hearing from someone shortly with instructions. Failure to comply will result in the death of everyone the king cares about, including many citizens of Newhaven who want nothing to do with this war. I am merely trying to save their lives.”

Cason turned around and walked back to the captured guard, who was shaking with fear.

“I expect you to quit your service unless you wish to end up like him.” Cason pointed at the guard lying in the middle of the street. “And you will tell the other guards what happened here, or I will come for you and any family you may have.”

The man nodded.

Cason and his three loyal men took their leave. I wasn’t sure I would be able to heal my broken ankle, but the prone guard—if he was still alive—needed my help first. I got up and hopped over to him as quickly as I could while the other guard checked his pulse.

I crouched down over the man and put my hands on his chest and back. Cason may know my name, but he didn’t seem to realize that not only had I learned the heal spell with uF, and F, but recently I had taught myself to add the lower octave of lF to the spell, increasing its power exponentially.

It drained my mana and stamina like nothing else, however.

I casted the three notes together into this man’s body. I didn’t know where he needed healing, but the heart seemed like the best place to start. If casting Expel was like throwing a heavy rock, then casting Heal was like trying to heave a boulder that I could barely get off the ground. But Heal was even worse, because I had to maintain the spell for it to do any good, like holding the boulder up with steady hands, yet all the pressure was on my mind.

In the case where there was no injury for my mana to find, however, the strain was somewhere in between the two.

“What are you doing?” asked the guard.

“Nothing,” I said as I stopped.

“He’s gone.”

I nodded. “Did you know him?”

“No.”

Someone did, perhaps a wife, a child. I stopped myself as I looked down the street at Cason and the others walking away casually. I figured the overweight dark mage would return to his house for some belongings and then we wouldn’t find him there again. He would go into hiding—wherever Cason was staying in the capital. Shaw and Jacob would be with them.

I had thought Cason was still in Koluk, plotting, but that seemed to be over now. I would’ve liked to think that his whole plan was sending someone to convince the king to give up his castle, but I was not so naive. When that failed, which it would, he would take action.

The guard offered his hand to help me up. “I can make sure you get back to the castle, but then I’m quitting. I have a family to worry about. You’re young. You might want to think about doing the