Rise of the Mystics Read online

  Everyone was working out of the system of fear.

  Strange how that was so plain to me and not everyone else—maybe because my old programming had been wiped clean.

  Strange how I was in as much fear as Karen, maybe more, without any clue how to get out of that fear. When I’d first come out of the MEP two days earlier, I hadn’t felt any fear. Now it was bone deep.

  That’s what Vlad wanted.

  I only hoped Steve was safe.

  “So,” Karen said, “you’re saying that these two men who found you at the cabin were like Vlad, these . . .”

  “Leedhan,” I said. “Shape-shifters from another dimension.”

  She was having a hard time with it all, even after seeing it firsthand. It didn’t fit her programming.

  “Like demons? From your dreams?”

  “I don’t know about demons, but Steve said I talked about the other world when I was in Project Eden.”

  “Is that world real?”

  “You tell me. Was Vlad real? Were the Leedhan who took the shape of Anika and the men at the cabin real?”

  “So . . . the Steve we find at the cabin could be Vlad again. He could be there right now.”

  The thought scared me. “I suppose.” But I couldn’t see why Vlad would do that same thing again, now that we knew.

  “How many Vlads are there?”

  “One. The others are his Leedhan. They can change their shape to look like other people. If I’m right, Vlad was one of three who came to the cabin. I killed two of them, but Vlad shifted into a body that looked like Steve’s later that night, knocked him out when he was asleep, and hid the real Steve like he hid Anika. Make sense?”

  “No. I mean, it does, but how’s that even possible?”

  “In the same way making the desk move was possible.” I shrugged.

  “Tell me exactly what happened at the cabin.”

  So I told her in as much detail as I could. Whatever Karen had believed before was being turned upside down, but she was still having a hard time believing.

  Maybe she didn’t want to believe, because it meant she’d been manipulated by Vlad all along and would probably pay a price. I wondered if the world would forgive her.

  “Can you stop the next bomb before it goes off?” I asked.

  She took her time answering.

  “No.”

  “You have to!”

  “I can’t!” she snapped.

  I let it go and put my mind back on Steve.

  The sun was just up when we reached the cabin.

  We found Steve ten minutes later, bound and gagged in the small barn next to the cabin. I ripped the ropes free, ignoring the thought that he might be Vlad.

  “Vlad was you!” I told him, throwing my arms around him. “He took me to Karen’s house.”

  His eyes were red and dazed, fixed on Karen. “He . . . Something attacked me and knocked me out while I was in bed. I woke up here.” He looked at me, confused. “What happened?”

  An hour later we sat quietly in the cabin, everything out in the open. Steve was watching Karen. Karen was lost in a world of political power I knew little about. I was slowly sinking into a new desperation.

  The problem was simple: no one knew what to do.

  Even more, no one really trusted anyone. Except Steve, who trusted me. But I wasn’t sure I could trust him. It was the business of Vlad to deceive and confuse. In all truth, I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure that this Steve wasn’t Vlad. Or that Karen wasn’t one of the Leedhan.

  I couldn’t get Vlad’s last words to me out of my mind. The only thing you can trust is fear. And I am he.

  Karen took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I should go.”

  “Not a chance,” Steve snapped.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m the president’s chief of staff! It’s almost eight o’clock, and it’s a two-hour drive back, longer in traffic. He’ll be pinging me any second, wondering where I am.”

  “And what exactly would you tell the president? This is all a terrible mistake and we’re going to spend the rest of our lives in prison? I’m sure that’ll go over big.”

  “What do you expect me to do? Sit here while the world blows up?”

  Steve stood and crossed to the shotgun. Picked it up. Then to her purse. Dug out her phone. “You said you have no way to call off the bombings.” He took out a chip of some kind to deactivate it. “So you won’t be needing this either.”

  She stood, furious. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He tossed the phone onto the couch, shotgun cradled in his arm. “Sit down!”

  “I can’t just vanish!”

  “You can and you have. You know as well as I do that you can call off the bombings. You don’t want to because you’re terrified of crossing Vlad, I get that. But short of saving lives by making the call, you’re doing nothing and going nowhere until we figure this out.”

  “And you think we can do that from here?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m not ready to hand Rachelle over to the authorities, which is what will happen if I let you go. You’re staying here until I have full assurance of your help.”

  They went on, but I tuned out because the voices of fear were now pushing down so deep that I could hardly think straight.

  Everything that had happened to me had been organized by Vlad. He’d taken my life, my mind, and now the last threads of courage that might help me.

  I was the 49th Mystic, on some journey to find the seals that appeared on my arm, but that’s pretty much all I knew. That and one other thing: fear was my enemy. The fear now creeping through all of my bones.

  Normally, fear came into a child’s life slowly, like water being heated up so a person hardly notices how hot it’s getting. Not with me. I’d been thrown into a pot of boiling fear.

  The thought only increased my fear. I felt panicky.

  I stood and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Steve asked.

  “I need to think. If you need me, I’ll be in the barn.”

  He said something, but I was already out the door. Then at the barn, walking on feet I could hardly feel. Then in the corner next to some dried-out hay bales and an old tractor.

  I slid down to my seat, dropped my head to my knees, and began to cry.

  27

  SAMUEL OF HUNTER brought his mount to a stamping halt on one of seven hills overlooking the battlefield. Drew it sharply around to face the valley of teeming death called Miggdon. Vadal sat on his steed, breathing hard, armor scarred, face streaked with red paint, bloodied sword resting across his saddle.

  From their right, Suzan of Southern galloped at full speed, leading a band of twenty Forest Guard. All were as bloody as Vadal, but today the stench of Horde blood was a thing to relish. The more the better.

  Vadal spat to one side. “The Eramites aren’t making things easy. With them, the Scabs outnumber us two to one.”

  “Three to one,” Samuel said. “We always knew sacrifices would be made.”

  He scanned the valley. To the west, the main Horde body, well over a million strong, were sacrificing their own as they chewed into the smaller numbers of Elyonites sweeping in with quick strikes before doubling back to regroup.

  But the Horde had the sense to create three fronts, north and south complementing the main force to the west.

  Samuel had arrived six hours earlier with the two thousand Circle fighters willing to risk war in defiance of the order to stand down. The order of Thomas, who’d abandoned his beloved tribe in their hour of deepest need.

  Aaron had taken Samuel’s advice and split his force into six regiments, two to attack each grouping of Horde from the front and the back, leaving archers on the hills to pin the Horde in the valley. The Forest Guard were divided evenly among all six regiments, lending their more experienced tactics.

  Thousands of bodies littered the ground already, mostly Horde but only because Albinos retrieved their dead, unlike the S
cabs.

  The greatest challenge proved to be the Eramites, who favored archers nearly as adept as the Albinos—something none of them had anticipated.

  Suzan reined her horse up, snapping orders. “Take them back to the camp!”

  Only then did Samuel see that half of the fighters were either badly wounded or dead, leaning over the horses to which they’d been strapped.

  She looked at Samuel with crazed eyes. “They keep pinning our fighters in the valley, picking them off one by one as they make their escape. It’s a mess!”

  “How many of ours?” Samuel asked.

  “Alive or dead?”

  “Dead,” he said.

  “I don’t know. At least a few hundred.”

  “Are you sure? So soon?”

  She waved a hand at the valley. “Look at it! Aaron overestimated his strength in this terrain. The Elyonites are stealth fighters, ghosts in the forest, but here, even speed doesn’t give them the advantage they expected. Qurong’s no fool.” She shoved her chin at the bloodied desert. “The Horde are like a hammer out here in the open.”

  Samuel felt the first pang of concern since the battle had begun three hours earlier.

  “How many Horde dead?”

  Suzan considered. “Twenty thousand, if I were to guess. Half that many Elyonites.”

  “So we’re slaughtering them. It’s twenty thousand fewer Scabs to kill our children.”

  “And they slaughter us.”

  “Because we’re using the wrong tactics,” he said.

  “How so?” Vadal demanded.

  “We underestimated Qurong. As did Aaron. We overestimated the strength of his Court Guard in open battle.”

  “Obviously. But we’re still taking three of theirs for every one of ours.”

  “As sweet as revenge is, killing them all does us no good if we lose most of ours in the same battle. We’re not thinking clearly!”

  “So think clearly,” Suzan snapped. “Because our fighters will lose a taste for this mad quest of yours. If Thomas knew—”

  “Thomas doesn’t know because Thomas isn’t here!” Samuel cut in. “He’s abandoned us!”

  “The way you abandoned the 49th Mystic?” she jabbed.

  “That woman wasn’t the 49th, I tell you!”

  “Maybe not, but the old man did tell us to wait on the plains for her. Without her, none of us would even be here.”

  “So now you doubt. You could have stayed with Mikil, but here you are. Why, if only to cut me down?”

  “Shut up!” Vadal snapped. “Both of you chose to be here, so be here or go back to Mikil!”

  They sat three abreast, staring at the valley. Like a sweeping army of black ants, the Horde was surging around a smaller group of Elyonites caught in the center. Black on black. At this distance only the red banners flown by all Albinos distinguished them from the enemy, who used no color.

  The Horde flowed over fallen bodies, uncaring. The dead were dead until after the battle, they said. They would collect and mourn each only then. As for the wounded, they recognized no wounding, only life and death, freeing up their warriors from caring for those who’d been compromised.

  Bold. Ferocious. Samuel couldn’t help but respect their mettle.

  “What do you suggest?” Vadal said.

  As they watched, the encroaching Horde army ate into the fleeing Elyonite rear guard before slowing and beginning their retreat back into the main body.

  “Tell me, whose war is this?”

  Vadal frowned. “The whole world’s.”

  “But who drives it? Besides this nonsense of the 49th Mystic,” he added, glaring at Suzan, who kept a firm jaw, facing the valley.

  “Aaron, who would rid the world of heretics, including all Horde,” Vadal said. “Isn’t that what you said?”

  Samuel cut to the chase. “And Qurong, who blames the Elyonites for the loss of his son. It’s the only reason he would drive his full army across the desert to confront such a vast enemy.”

  “And Eram, commander of the Eramites,” Suzan added. “He sees an opportunity to own the whole world, no doubt.”

  “Yes, but without Qurong, Eram has no stake in this battle. Our mistake is engaging the Horde with full strength before we cut off its head. Without Qurong to guide them, their army would be like a stumbling bull.”

  “Qurong’s surrounded by the very army that keeps us pinned down. No Albino could get close.”

  “True. So we go in as their own.”

  “Scab? Even if you knew how, who would be willing to contract that dreadful disease?”

  “No one. Which is why we’ll skin one and wear it into their camp, a warrior wounded and bloodied from the heat of battle. Right down their throats.”

  They both stared at him, but neither was arguing.

  “A small force, three or four.”

  Vadal frowned. “You’d have to fight your way out.”

  “Then twenty or fifty. The Elyonites are giving up thousands each hour. Surely Aaron would be willing to sacrifice a small force for such an opportunity.”

  Vadal turned back to the valley, intrigued. “It could work. But would you be willing?”

  It was daring and dangerous enough to be unsuspected by the Horde. Nightfall would be the time. For the glory of it, he would be willing. If he were personally responsible for the death of Qurong . . .

  Chelise would mourn her father’s death, but the rest of the Circle would secretly honor Samuel. If he couldn’t turn the tide, on the other hand, they might blame him personally for so many deaths.

  “Yes,” he said. “I would.”

  “As would I,” Vadal said. “We would need Aaron’s support.”

  “And he’ll gladly give it.” The idea grew larger in his mind. After so many failings, his risk would recover his honor. And if it resulted in his death, he would die knowing he had risked his life to save the Circle. Hadn’t that always been his intention?

  He studied the small grouping of men on the hill across the valley where Aaron had last been staged. “Is Aaron still on the hill?”

  “An hour ago he was on the hill to the west, bent over a map with Jamous.”

  “Jamous is with him?”

  “No longer. Something to do with gathering more of the Circle to deal directly with the Eramite archers.”

  Made sense. Why had he not been consulted? He felt a pang of annoyance.

  “Send word to our fighters. Archers and surgical attacks only. Don’t put yourself in danger. A new day will bring a new battle. Survive this day.”

  “They’re with the Elyonite Court Guard. They can’t just pick and choose where they want to fight.”

  “Of course they can. I’m their leader, Aaron is not.” He dug his heels into his mount.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find Aaron. Tell our fighters, Vadal. Tell them all.”

  QURONG RODE west flogged by rage, away from the battle, beyond the walls of warriors that protected him. For six hours the Albinos had thrown their full weight behind countless attacks, darting in and out like dogs intent on taking down the bull. They had underestimated his power—his army had killed at least thirty thousand of the Elyonite guard. He’d lost twice that, maybe more.

  But none of this was the cause of his rage.

  Jacob was. His own flesh and blood caused him this grief. The son of Qurong had betrayed them all.

  And even more than Jacob, the Horde girl who called herself the 49th Mystic was the cause for his rage. The one who’d seduced Jacob into betrayal.

  He was well aware that he was throwing caution to the wind by sending his full army into battle on the first day before they had time to better understand the Elyonites’ tactics. But he’d lost his interest in strategy when Jacob had shown himself as Albino.

  If his army couldn’t prevail before falling by half, he would retreat. All would be for naught.

  If they did prevail, he would still retreat in loss, because he was lost without Jacob. So a
ll was already for naught. He was now slaughtering Albinos in Jacob’s name as a means of mourning his son’s death.

  Five hundred warriors rode with him, flanked by another hundred scouts scattered two miles in all directions. The Elyonite commander, Aaron, had sent word of a summit three hours earlier. They would meet west of the valley, where no other warriors loitered. No details, only a vow that no harm would come to Qurong or his guard.

  Ba’al had insisted he accept the invitation. Surely it was regarding the 49th Mystic, the old goat said. But in Ba’al’s mind, everything was about the 49th Mystic. At times, Qurong wondered if he’d gone insane.

  “Just over the knoll, my lord,” Kircus said, nodding at the rise a hundred yards ahead. “He’s waiting already.”

  Qurong gave the leader of his Throaters a nod.

  The passage of the old wizard and his lion through Qurong’s ranks had thrown Ba’al into fits. Talya, they called him. His power couldn’t be denied, and if Ba’al was right, it was the power of blinding, a foretaste of the 49th’s mission to subjugate all Horde.

  They crested the knoll and Qurong lifted his hand, halting his column. A hundred Elyonite guards waited in the draw below. He watched as a single white stallion stepped out ten paces, then stopped.

  Aaron.

  “Wait here. I go alone.”

  “My lord—”

  “Wait here. Keep the high ground covered.”

  He drew ahead slowly, letting his mount amble, waiting to see if Aaron would leave his guard and come alone.

  He did, as anticipated. Whatever Aaron had on his mind, it was for his ears only.

  They met halfway, at the base of the slope. The commander was dressed in black with a red band around his sleeve. Leather gloves, unsoiled by battle. This one might be their finest warrior, but he delegated the bloodletting to simpler minds.

  One look at his sharp jaw and eyes and Qurong knew he was a strategist to the bone.

  Aaron dipped his head. “So we meet.”

  “What do you want?”

  A slight smile twisted the man’s lips. “Indeed. No need to mince words.”

  “We mince bodies. Many of them your own.”

  “And many more of yours.”

  “Far fewer than I anticipated. Your reputation is overblown, as are all rumors.”