The Unsuspecting Mage - Brian S. Pratt [191]
The soldiers see the children running and race to catch them, their swords drawn. James reaches down, picks up several rocks and begins felling soldiers, using magic to give the stones speed and accuracy. One after another the soldiers fall, but still they come, their numbers steadily increasing.
The children finally reach James and with Miko in the lead, they flee down the side street, trying to elude the soldiers. At the next crossroad, Miko hesitates, asking, “Which way?”
One of the older children says, “This way!” pointing to the right, down a street with several tall buildings bordering it.
Miko looks to James who nods and they head in that direction, running as fast as the littlest can go.
James realizes that the soldiers will catch them if he doesn’t slow them down, so he yells to Miko, “Find someplace to hide, I’ll find you.” He stops and turns to face the oncoming soldiers as Miko leads the children away.
A bolt flies past his left ear, shaking him up, but he steels himself and concentrates on the buildings bordering the street. When he releases the power, the buildings explode outward from both sides of the street, smashing into the soldiers as they enter between them. The rubble effectively blocks the street so James, whose head has begun to throb with that last spell, turns and tries to catch up with his friend.
He glances at the outer walls of the City as he runs and sees the enemy now has complete control of it. The fighting throughout the City is beginning to diminish as the defenders realize it’s a hopeless cause and begin to surrender.
James races down the street when a squad of enemy soldiers emerges from a side street, blocking his path. They see him skidding to a stop and one of them yells, “Stop! Stay right where you are!”
Not heeding the command James ducks in through a doorway and finds himself in a laundry. Racing past the empty tubs he locates the back door and comes out in very small alley, which is wedged in between two tall buildings.
He heads to the right, running down the alley as the soldiers enter the laundry behind him in pursuit. Light illuminates the alley from an open doorway up ahead and the sound of men’s laughter can be heard coming from the other side. He runs toward it and races inside.
There in the middle of the floor are two enemy soldiers holding a girl down on the floor while a third tears off the remainder of her clothes.
Anger blossoms like a red hot sun inside him and he releases a surge of power which picks up the men, slamming them into the wall. Their bodies hit with such force, they smash through the thin wall and fall lifeless onto the street on the other side amidst the rubble.
The girl looks up and sees James coming toward her. Screaming in terror, she gets to her feet and runs out the door and into the night.
James bolts through the hole in the wall just as the pursuing soldiers enter the doorway behind him. “There he is!” one of the men shouts.
He makes his way around the dead men lying amidst the rubble and flies down the street, enemy soldiers in hot pursuit.
James is getting winded, only the fear of dying keeps his feet moving at all. His breath is coming in gasps and a pain has begun to grow in his side. He glances behind him and sees the soldiers are gaining on him. Fear of being caught gives him a burst of adrenalin but it is short lived.
Ahead, the road comes to another intersection where another squad of the Empire’s soldiers are crossing from the left to the right. From behind he hears a pursuing soldier yell, “Stop him!” to the soldiers crossing the intersection. One of the crossing soldiers pauses and glances down the ally and sees James approaching. He yells to his commander and the squad turns into the alley, blocking his only escape.
James comes to a halt, trapped. Panting for breath, he pauses for just a moment to regain some of his strength.
The soldiers, seeing James stop, slow their advance. “Come on,” one of his pursuers says to him, all cocky. “There’s no use running. You’ve got nowhere to go.”
James concentrates