Page 18 of The Sorcerer's Alpha

“I’ve done what I can,” Sycamore said. “I’m sorry.”

Marut held Bunny back to fall in beside Rhododendron as they walked through a wide valley. “If we can’t outrun them, we should—can you fight at all?”

“No,” Sycamore said. He craned his neck back to look up at an eagle gliding high above, then said, “We have some time. Maybe enough. If you can find us somewhere to hold them off—”

Time for what, Marut wondered but didn’t ask. He was better off the less he knew about the wizard’s magic.

High ground was their only hope. He had his bow, and Sycamore had whatever it was he could do, and that would have to be enough. To fight off, optimistically, however many fewer than twenty to thirty riders remained after his team had given their lives to minimize that number.

He shouldn’t let hope outweigh realism. He should do as Keerti had bidden. The Skopoy weren’t, in his experience, evil or inhuman, and if he was captured, he expected to be treated as a prisoner of war in the standard way and eventually ransomed back to Chedi. But the rules for wizards were different, and he didn’t know what would become of Sycamore if he was taken. The worst case for Chedi was that he could be used against them in some way. The worst case for Sycamore personally, Marut didn’t want to consider.

With limited time, he couldn’t search too long for the ideal spot. He picked the highest hill he could see nearby and rode for that, urging Bunny up the slope to the narrow ridge at the top. It was a poor place to make a last stand, with no cover and minimal visibility. The two of them alone couldn’t hold a chokepoint, though, and at least this way, if all else failed, they could run.

At the top, the wizard dismounted and crouched with his hands pressed to the ground. Marut counted his arrows and made sure his knife was at hand. He could see the dust cloud that was the Skopoy approaching from the east. His hands shook slightly as he dismounted to check Bunny’s tack. All was as ready as he could make it. He drank some water and ate some dried meat. Then he mounted again and waited for the Skopoy to come upon them.

The dust cloud rapidly grew closer. Soon Marut could make out individual riders, which meant they could see him, too, if they were looking up high. He counted eleven, and felt a great surge of anguish go through him at the thought of his brave friends expending themselves on this failed, foolish mission. He couldn’t fight off eleven trained warriors, especially if one or more was a sorcerer.

His hand went again to his knife. The wizard squatted on the ground, eyes closed, defenseless. It would be a mercy to end this now.

The riders vanished into a canyon. Soon thereafter, the dust cloud disappeared, which meant they had slowed their horses to a walk. The slope of the hill was shallow enough that Marut couldn’t see the base, and couldn’t tell if the Skopoy had stopped or turned in a different direction, or if they were passing by the hill so close that they were hidden from his sight.

“Sycamore,” he murmured, hoping the man would hear him, and Sycamore looked up. “You should mount.”

Sycamore nodded and rose to his feet. Then his eyes widened, and Marut turned to follow his gaze.

Skopoy riders were coming up onto the next ridge over, bows up and arrows nocked.

Well, there it was.

“Get on your horse,” he said to Sycamore, turning at the same time to check over his other shoulder. There was a horse riding up the ridge behind them, and then another, and then he reached down and seized a fistful of Sycamore’s coat and helped haul the wizard up onto Rhododendron’s back. Their time was up.

He turned Bunny, readying to plunge down the slope and pray there were no riders coming up to meet them. Across from him, on the other hill, a man with an abnormally long neck drew back his bow.

The arrow flew. Marut yanked Bunny to the left, jostling into Rhododendron and shoving her aside, and Sycamore gave a pained cry and raised his hand to touch the dark bloom of blood on his coat where the arrow had passed through. Through his shoulder instead of his heart.

“Sycamore,” Marut said, reaching for him, and—

And then—

All went white.

Marut blinked. His eyes showed him nothing, only flat, blank whiteness, like standing in the midst of a blizzard.

The world snapped back into place with a nauseating sideways wrench. Wind howled around him, filled with snow: an actual blizzard. He hunched over in instinctive reaction to the icy blast. Snow—?

“Sycamore,” he said again, his reaching hand completing its motion and grasping the wizard’s elbow. His ears rang and his head swam. He blinked hard, trying to clear his foggy vision. He didn’t see any Skopoy, but he saw little of anything.

Sycamore slumped on Rhododendron’s back, his trembling hand hovering at his shoulder. He coughed a few times. “Marut?”

“I’m here,” Marut said. He rubbed the back of his hand against his eyes, each one in turn. The ringing faded. His vision cleared. Still he could see nothing: no Skopoy, no canyons, no sun rising or moon setting. Only empty gray sky and snow. Not a blizzard after all: a very light snow, with tiny, dry flakes, but blown around so much by the wind that it seemed like a great storm.

The frigid wind buffeted them. Thin currents of snow shifted across the ground. They were, as far as he could tell, entirely alone in the world.

Sycamore raised his head slowly, as if it were almost too heavy to lift. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Marut said.

PARTII