Life and Death Decision

Chapter 5

I woke up early the next day, testing my gift from the life-giver to see if it persisted through the night. I sent a magical message to Tyme telling her that we're on our way. I breathed a sigh of relief, praying for a couple of minutes to give my thanks to the gods before I walked to Rose's room. I opened the door, finding her sitting at the edge of her bed with a translucent cyan flower in her hand. "Yay! It's going to be windy today!" She muttered, not noticing my presence until I stepped into the room with my heavy boots.

"Are you ready? We're going to go get a horse from the stables after breakfast."

"Can't we skip breakfast?"

"You have to eat, young lady. How do you expect to grow...you know what, you have a point; let's go." I opened the door for her, but she leaped up to wrap her arms around my neck. I now carried her like a bag, going down the stairs and toward the village stables to purchase a horse. "Alright, get off of me and onto the horse."

"Aw, horsie take care of me, okay?" She gently stroked its mane, getting the beast to whinny gleefully. "I finally get to ride a horse. Mom and dad never let me." She smiled at me as I placed my hand on her back.

"Just be careful, okay? And hold still." I imbued her body with a magic ward to protect her. A faint green glow surrounded both our eyes as I took my hand back and mounted the horse with her in front of me. "Hold on tight," I said to her as I took the reins and ordered the horse into a full gallop.

We left the city early, riding down the path at full speed toward Aitog. I focused on controlling the horse as Rose enjoyed the ride by pointing at landmarks and humming a song. I was about to relax and go into a horse riding trance when I saw a bright orange light coming from our right. It looked like fire, which would've made me stop to investigate anyway, but it shot right at us and exploded right at our horse's hooves. The shockwave sent us flying backward as we crashed onto the dirt.

The flames licked at our bodies and utterly incinerated our steed. I turned toward the source of the attack, seeing two rugged-looking bandits wielding a pair of staves, one a male human and the other a female with demonic horns. Rose and I got to our feet, wincing in pain as the two mages cast spells to attack us. The first sent out bolts of energy at me, impaling my armor as the magic dissipated in puffs of purple smoke.

The second one placed his hand on the first before the two of them vanished. I turned toward Rose, wanting to run away as fast as I could, I wanted to get her out as soon as possible. I wanted to, but I knew that escape would be incredibly difficult since we didn't have our horse anymore. I grit my teeth, this was going horribly! "I pray to the life-giver, beseech me your strength to protect those I..." I saw the light begin to form around my wrists before it shattered like a piece of glass; they stopped my spell before I could finish casting it! I gathered light in my palm, forming it into a whip before that too vanished.

"Sage! Let's run!" I heard Rose yell before I saw her sprint past me in the direction of Aitog. She raised her hand above her head, twirling her fingers around as the cyan light danced around their tips. She took in as much air as she could, which wasn't a lot, and screamed. "Help!" A flare shot out into the sky from her hand before it burst into eight distinct rays of light that rained down around us. I had barely finished licking my wounds when I heard the distinct growl of a pack of wolves approach us. Not now, we're already in trouble!

I didn't have time to worry about the beasts since I saw that the clouds above us started to swirl unnaturally. Large balls of ice pelted the ground where I stood, buffeting me and denting my armor. I could feel my bones begin to shatter with every bit of hail that crashed into me. My breathing was heavy and I could see it due to the drop in temperature.