The Demon Horsemen Read Free Page B

prisoners of a shaman who had executed them one by one with his limited magic, and her wild anger that had generated a lethal fire. I will not kill at random , she warned herself now. My anger must be controlled, focussed. I accept who I am, what I can do .
    She spotted an expanse of folded white fabric piled against the crumbled stonework of the old Hohdan temple—a deflated dragon egg—and spied the wooden carriage that would normally hang beneath thefabric partially hidden in the ruins. The Kerwyn soldiers had resorted to patient subterfuge to catch their quarry.
    She studied the men and their stations in and around the temple ruins, searching especially for those on watch. She identified three sentries secreted at points in the ruined building and surrounding foliage, positioned to take a clear shot with their peacemakers at anyone approaching or entering the space where Swift was being held. She guessed there would be others. How do I do this? she pondered.
    She crept back through the dark green bushes and undergrowth along the river until she reached a ruined building that might once have been a shop or a house. She hid behind the collapsed stone walls and assessed another angle of approach to the temple ruin. When she was satisfied she could get there without being spotted by any of the soldiers she’d seen, she focussed her energy on a large, rotted wooden beam in the rubble. White smoke curled from the wood and then it ignited, flames licking along the edges, the smoke filtering skywards.
    She eased out of the building and paused to see if she was being watched, then crossed a vine-tangled roadway into another ruin. From there she made her way through a maze of shattered walls, partially blocked doorways and bushes towards the temple. She stopped to listen every few paces, and flinched when she startled a rabbit from the undergrowth. Behind her, a column of white smoke rose and thickened. Ahead and to her left she heard a shout. The soldiers had seen either the smoke or the rabbit. She tensed in anticipation. When she was certain there was no one coming in her direction, she pushed through the undergrowth with more speed, moving as quietly as she could towards the temple.
    To her disappointment, very few of the soldiers had left the area, although most were staring in thedirection of the river and the smoke. A soldier stood over Swift, his hand brutally gripping her hair. He appeared to be asking her something. When she didn’t answer, he shook her head and spoke again.
    There was no choice. Meg pointed at the shoulder of the first of the three soldiers on watch higher in the temple ruins and a bolt of amber energy shot from her finger. The soldier screamed and flopped against the wall, his peacemaker falling to the ground below. Meg was already firing at the next man, who cartwheeled from his post into the undergrowth. Her third target was lifting his weapon when Meg’s bolt struck him in his right arm.
    Pandemonium erupted among the soldiers at ground level. To add to the confusion, Meg conjured a fireball in their midst, although she aimed to miss as many as possible to minimise injury. The roaring flame scattered the men, several dropping their peacemakers as they dived to the ground or ran for safety. She conjured a second fireball, which exploded several spans in the air, and sent energy bolts smashing into the stonework. Five soldiers came running out of the bushes from the direction of the fire she had set as a diversion, and she sent them scrambling for their lives with half a dozen deliberately aimed energy bolts.
    Meg relaxed her arms and amplified her voice to sound above the crackling flames. ‘I order you to carry your prisoner to the far side of the stone bridge. Place her on the stone slab by the building with the blue tiled facade and return to the other side of the bridge. If you do this, I will let you live.’
    She waited for a response.
    ‘Who are you?’ a voice called.
    ‘Do as I