Magic Spawn Origins

Magic Spawn: Chapter 35

by Meredith Skye

* ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ *

Over near the pond at the old mill, Ehina watched the procession of the dead as they continued past her, followed by the necromancer Molan, and the young magic-spawn boy.

Hidden behind the large ash tree, Ehina slowly let out her breath. As she watched, the group congregated out in front of the old mill at a murky river-fed pond. To get a better view, she slipped quietly through the underbrush to another large ash tree. This one's trunk alone stood three times as wide as Ehina and taller than the mill itself.

There at the water's edge one of the skeletons set a torch in the ground, lighting the mottled brown grass, the placid water of the pond, the dark-cloaked wizard and the stone mill in the background. Next to it, already in place, was a curious, ceremonial metal brazier set up on a small metal pole so that it was just shorter than the height of a man. This metal bowl had a magical purpose. Ehina recognized it something used as part of blood-magic rituals.

The skeletons carrying the coffins had brought them to the edge of the dark water. One of the others opened the lid. Ehina gasped as they dumped the contents. Not one, but five, corpses splashed into the water. The second group opened their coffin and did the same, dumping out five or six limp bodies. Ehina fervently hoped that they had pillaged old graves and that these were not freshly killed bodies. Immediately, she worried for Rian and his friends.

Would they be next?

Those groups of skeletons took the coffins and retreated, back down the path they'd come from. Ehina kept very still as they passed for fear of being seen.

In the dim torch light, the wizard moved to the edge of the pond. The pale boy trailed behind him. Then, from the stone building, two skeletons brought forth a human girl. She dressed as the local humans did, in men's pants and a jacket. Her short brown hair was unkempt as though she'd been struggling with her captors. She could have been Rian's age or a little older.

Rian had said Molan captured his mother, but this human couldn't be her. Too young. Even now, the skeletons who escorted her had to keep ahold of each of her arms to prevent her from breaking free. They forced the girl to walk forward until she stood in front of the magical brazier.

Then Molan began an incantation, with a muttering of magical words and subtle movements of his hand. A fire appeared in the brazier that stood between the wizard and the woman.

A light began, centered on the boy, Kyran, and growing around him as the wizard continued to chant. The girl gasped, as though in pain as an eerie green light gathered along her skin and face and swirled up into the air, drawn from her, past the wizard and over to Kyran. The green light turned into a slow moving swirl of power around the boy.

It was the sort of thing that Ehina had only heard of in tales. There hadn't been a wizard such as Molan in decades, not in their realm. The wizard was sucking the life-force out of the woman, sacrificing her for this spell.

A low scream began in the girl and grew in intensity and volume as the girl struggled to keep hold of her life-force. A spark of anger kindled inside Ehina. This was what she had trained for all these years—to fight the very worst and very darkest of evil from beyond the borders of the known Realm. That was the whole purpose for the Arlunni Guardians.

She felt a thrill of purpose. Perhaps she was meant to come to Earth, to face this challenge. Maybe even to kill Molan! It could prove her worth as an Enforcer.

The girl's scream weakened now, as the magic-spawn drained her life-force.

Ehina had to act.

She drew her blade and took a deep breath. Then she left the safety of cover, coming out from behind the tree. She stepped into full view of the most dangerous wizard to threaten Cathal in 30 years. He stood there, watching with passive approval, a slight smile on his lips as the young girl's pale lifeless body began to sag.