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A scream of pain is ripped from Jared’s throat as the fireball slams into him. James is surrounded by fire as it envelopes his cocoon, rapidly raising the temperature within.

Lashing out with magic of his own, James blasts the fire off the barrier and gets back to his feet. Next to him lies the twitching burnt body of Jared. The flame of the fireball continues to burn him, his cries of pain echo across the desert. His eyes flash open and look pleadingly to James.

Swallowing hard, James acquiesces to his request and removes a slug from his belt. With the force of magic behind it, he throws it and ends Jared’s torment. Turning back to the mages, he finds three are still on horseback while the other is on the ground seeing to the fallen rider.

Another fireball is arcing toward him and he envelopes it with a barrier, dragging it to the ground. Unleashing magic of his own, the ground begins to shake. The rider’s horses begin to neigh and rear from fright. Two riders are bucked off while the third hangs on for dear life as his horse takes flight across the desert.

Suddenly, the ground beneath the remaining four mages opens up. Two immediately fall in, the others grab onto the edge and hang on. The shaking of the ground continues causing one of the remaining two to lose his grip on the edge and falls.

Magic springs to life from the four as they work to counter what he’s doing. But whatever they are trying is insufficient to stop him. With a clap, the two sides of the pit slam shut upon the lads inside. The one hanging onto the lip of the opening is caught as the shutting of the hole crushes his lower half. After a moment’s agony, he grows still.

Stopping the flow of magic, the ground begins to settle down. The rider whose horse bolted on him pauses several hundred yards away for only a moment then turns and races away in the desert.

Beginning to feel drained from the magical endeavors, James returns to where Jared and the horses lie dead upon the ground. Everything they had on the horses is now a charred mess. He feels bad for Jared, emotions almost getting the better of him. Putting the carnage behind him, he runs toward the town.

Before he even gets halfway there, Jiron races from between two buildings on the outskirts, the reins of two other horses held in his hands. Galloping fast, he sees James and angles toward him.

James starts to wave to him when he sees a dozen other riders emerge from between the same two buildings as had Jiron. Their angered cries reach him as they chase after Jiron.

James sighs and readies himself as Jiron and his pursuers approach.

Crumph! Crumph! Crumph!

Three explosions throw dirt and sand before the charging riders causing them to come to a brief halt.

Jiron reaches James as the dirt begins falling back to the ground. Grabbing the saddle of one, James quickly mounts.

He glances back to the scene of battle. “And where’s Jared?” he asks.

“Dead,” replies James.

Jiron’s pursuers have halted behind the blasted earth. James creates his orb and launches it toward them.

Seeing the glowing orb flying toward them after having the earth erupt and almost kill them is more than they can stand. Three horses aren’t worth tangling with a mage of such power. Turning back to town, they flee for their lives.

Once they are on their way back to town, James cancels the orb. Turning their horses westward, they quickly get to a gallop and race past the town. James fills Jiron in on what happened and how Jared came to die.

Chapter Twenty Two

______________________

“Damn!” curses James.

“What?” asks Jiron as he walks over to where James is kneeling over a small pool of water. While Jiron was watering the horses from the spring, James had dug a hole and filled it with water to use to scan for hostiles. Looking over his shoulder, he sees over fifty horsemen riding through the desert. “So?”

“Take a closer look,” James says as he moves aside to allow Jiron to take his place.

The riders whom he had first thought