The Southern Trail (Book 4) Read online

  The man seemed to know Marco was his main adversary, for he immediately pointed his hand at Marco and released a bolt of green energy. It traveled faster than the arrows had, faster than Marco could react to, and it struck him in the chest, directly upon the small flower mark on his chest. Marco was flung to the ground, his shirt burnt and blisters upon his skin, but unharmed otherwise.

  Marco rose to his feet and created a shield dome, but dropped it down around the other sorcerer, isolating him and his powers within the dome as the Nappanee soldiers began to flee eastward towards the Acropolis. There were still a great many of them on the move, gladdening Marco’s heart to know that the men he – in a sense – had recruited were still in good shape and still moving forward.

  There was the sound of an explosion beside him, and Marco jerked his head to see that the dome over the sorcerer was filled with smoke, and the man lay on the ground.

  “What happened there?” Marco asked out loud.

  “That sorcerer shot some fire out of his hand, and it bounced off that magic of yours and struck right back at him!” an excited soldier next to Marco said.

  Marco closed his eyes and focused his will to dissolve the shield around the sorcerer, then strode over to examine the man. His head and shoulders were blackened and badly burned by whatever energy attack he had intended to aim at Marco. There was a shout down the road, and Marco looked up from the horrific sight.

  The black outfitted soldiers of Docleatae were marching towards Marco from the direction of the blasted city walls in the west. Their numbers were strong; too strong for Marco to even consider leading his forces against them. He took a small bit of comfort in knowing that the attack by his Nappanee forces had drawn so many soldiers away from the battle on the harbor side of town.

  Marco focused on the air overhead, remembering how he had manipulated it to defeat the sorceress in the Lion City. He raised his hands as he thought of the energy in his golden hand, and he began to pull the atmosphere overhead downward, then directed it to blow directly westward, into the faces of the attacking forces that were approaching.

  The Docleateans’ progress slowed down as the wind blowing at them appeared, then strengthened into a brisk breeze that made them shield their eyes and grab onto their cloaks. Marco focused on adding energy to the wind, and the black-garbed men ceased to make any progress against it at all, as the last of the Nappaneens passed Marco.

  “Come with us, young lord,” one of the officers called as he gathered up the last of his men.

  “Go on, take them eastward,” Marco told the man without looking away from his object. “I’ll catch up in a minute.” He knew he could add one more level of strength to the wind, and disrupt the other army completely if he focused for just a few moments more.

  Marco looked upward, and saw a puffy cloud approaching. He prepared to reach for it, and once he did, he watched in amazement as his column of air began to pull it downward, turning it into a plummeting column of fog that then spewed outward upon the attackers, not only knocking them over as Marco raised the velocity of the wind, but soaked them with moisture, painfully striking their faces and exposed skin with the droplets of cloud water.

  The Docleateans were falling to the ground, and the attackers’ advancement was halted thoroughly.

  Pleased, and tired from his use of so much power for so many purposes so quickly, Marco ceased to pull the air to the ground. He turned and saw that he had a half dozen men waiting behind him, acting as a body guard for him. He grinned at them, then motioned for them to head towards the Acropolis, trailing behind the rest of their army.

  “That was a heck of a job!” one man told him. “I don’t think you even need us along, do you?”

  “More than ever,” Marco answered. “We need good fighters who can keep fighting; I’m pretty worn out from that,” he admitted.

  “Don’t you worry; we’ll take care of you,” another man promised, and they all hurried their steps to reach the stragglers of the main army body.

  Within two minutes they were back among their fellows, and the Acropolis was visibly closer, but they could hear the sounds of shouts and swords clashing up ahead. “Let’s go see what we’ve run into,” Marco told his followers, and they raced up towards the front.

  There were two problems, Marco saw. The column of men had been ambushed once again from a force stationed on a side street, one that was aided by archers who stood atop an adjacent building and fired down in deadly fashion upon the Nappanee forces. The other problem was that the boulevard was growing narrower as it approached the center of the city, and men were being crammed together, unable to move freely.

  Marco darted to the side of the street, and called his self-appointed followers to join him, as he ran into the building that was the nest of the attacking archers. He and his men raced up the stairs and burst onto the roof top; the archers and their guards turned to look at the new arrivals, and a pitched battle immediately ensued. Though they were outnumbered, Marco’s forces carried the victory, as Marco’s enchanted sword helped him take on an over-large share of the bloody work.

  “Put those bows to use!” he told his followers. “Start firing down into the side street!” he ordered.

  The men willingly took up the cause, and caught the Docleatean attackers off guard as the arrows from above sudden began to claim victims dressed in black instead of purple. The men of the Nappanee army in the street, seeing their assailants distracted, rallied and forced the black-dressed soldiers to retreat.

  Marco and the others on the roof grinned at one another. “Now, everyone downstairs and back with the army,” Marco directed. He followed the others to the stairwell, then stopped to look around. There were several columns of smoke rising to the east, but not so far away, he noted, as if the fighting in the other part of the city had moved closer, hopefully because Iasco’s forces were making progress. And the Acropolis now loomed virtually overhead, so close was his own force’s destination.

  Marco followed the others down the stairs, and they resumed heading east towards their next engagement.

  The soldiers at the head of the column fought a battle at the foot of the Acropolis before Marco even caught up with them. They were gathering in a square, one side of which contained the restaurant where Marco and Ophiuchus had danced. It had been his only dance with the spirit, and it had been her only dance ever, before she had surrendered the right to have a physical body anymore. He thought about the sacrifice the spirit had made to allow him to make the journey to revive Iasco. And in bringing the high priestess back to life, Marco had set in motion the chain of events that now placed him back in Athens, at the foot of the Acropolis, once again.

  He was aroused from his revere when he flinched from a sudden streak of fire, one that hit the restaurant and set it ablaze in an explosion of light and heat. Another sorcerer had come to do battle.

  Chapter 4

  Marco looked for the location of the sorcerer, and spotted the man when another fireball went streaking across the sky to strike a second building, creating another conflagration on the opposite side of the square. The men around Marco wiped their brows, and Marco realized that the sorcerer was attempting to broil the Nappaneen force between the two powerful blazes. He wracked his brain, trying to find a solution, and he realized he had the tools he needed.

  Marco wrapped his golden right hand around the finger of his left hand, the finger that spouted water through the enchantment of Diotima. He pointed both hands up in the air, and released as much power as he could, channeling it through the finger.

  A vast river of water seemed to erupt upward, spouting like a powerful geyser. It flew high into the sky, and dissolved into a falling downpour of rain that fell relentlessly. It was heavy, painful rain, water that carried its weight back down to the ground, causing the combatants on both sides of the fight to cover their heads and cower in place under the down pour.

  Steam rose immediately from the two fires, dark white and gray clouds th
at billowed outward as the fires were doused by Marco’s efforts. Seeing the fire dissipate, Marco ended his exertions, and released his grip on his finger, letting the fountain’s water cease to shoot upward. He was tired from the effort, and tired from the previous efforts, yet he knew there was another sorcerer he had to face.

  He needed to strike quickly, he decided. Before the sorcerer had time to think, while the man was still reacting to the falling rain – Marco would exert his energy and hope that he succeeded.

  “Tell the men to start climbing up onto the Acropolis,” Marco shouted at the closest officer he saw. He turned and took a deep breath, pulled his thoughts together, and then pushed more energy out of his hand, to create another dome of power, and he placed it atop the other sorcerer, entrapping the man and a handful of nearby soldiers.

  The crowd of Nappaneen soldiers in the square was scrambling for cover; some were already beginning the hike up the path to the top of the Acropolis, while others were diving into doorways and buildings to find protection from the battle that was brewing between the two sorcerers. Men disappeared and reappeared eerily among the drifting mists and wisps of smoke that floated away from the two smoldering buildings.

  There was open space between Marco and the other sorcerer, and Marco could see the man’s face clearly. It was the sorcerer Marco had seen when he and Ophiuchus had fled into the Ploutoneion Cave. The man had floated in the air, and thrown balls of dense explosive energy, he had detonated a shield Marco had erected in defense back then; suddenly, knowing how powerful the man was, Marco had little hope that his dome over the sorcerer would be as effective as the first one had been.

  He inhaled deeply, just as the sorcerer created a brilliant flash of light, one that flew out in a wave and dissolved the dome evenly across every square inch of its surface.

  “Remember me?” the sorcerer said. “I am Iamblichus. I believe we’ve met before, but this time you don’t have a divine spirit with you to save your tail from getting stepped on, do you?”

  The sorcerer had supreme confidence, and he walked casually towards Marco.

  Marco instinctively raised his sword to protect himself, holding the weapon in his right hand.

  “That isn’t going to do you any good in this battle, little boy,” the sorcerer sneered, and he shot a string of black and red fireballs at Marco.

  “Help me, spirits,” Marco prayed softly.

  “We’re with you, Marco,” a pair of voices whispered, as his sword gyrated energetically. The metal blade seemed to glow as it moved faster than Marco’s eyes could follow, and it batted away every one of the fireballs, causing them to fly in all directions and explode throughout the square.

  “Well,” Iamblichus said softly. “Maybe you are more than you appear. You can’t be any less.”

  The sorcerer sudden flew up into the air, then fired a steady beam of energy at Marco. Marco held the sword up to deflect the powerful energy, yet he felt it driving him downward, making his knees buckle. Iamblichus began to circle higher in the air around Marco, changing his height as he changed his angle of attack, and Marco awkwardly moved around to protect himself.

  Iamblichus passed behind an ornate fountain that stood in the center of the square, and as he did, Marco rolled away from his spot, then somehow cloaked himself in invisibility, and rolled further, right up to the base of the fountain.

  “Where are you hiding, little boy?” the predatory sorcerer called as he slowed his floating pattern and dropped slightly lower, staring around the square. He waved his hand, and a protective shield formed beneath him, a glowing disk of energy that he stood upon. Then he waved his hand again, and a vast, circular wall of energy appeared around the perimeter of the square, a pen that trapped Marco within its confines, while Iamblichus began to fire random energy balls around within the square, exploding buildings and holes in the pavement as he hoped to kill or injure his adversary by chance.

  Marco, in the meantime, climbed up onto the square’s central fountain, scrambling upon the dark bronze castings, seeking to reach the top of the elaborate structure. He reached the top, and waited as Iamblichus slowly cruised through the air. “I’m going to hit you sooner or later,” the sorcerer warned. “Let me see you and I’ll make sure it’s a quick, painless end.”

  There were sounds in another part of the city, a set of booming explosions.

  “Come along child, I have other duties I need to perform, and this is slowing me down. This hunt is wearisome,” Iamblichus complained as he floated close to the fountain, and fired off another series of explosions.

  “Then let’s put an end to it,” Marco said through gritted teeth, as he jumped off the fountain, his sword held high over his head. He released his invisibility to allow himself to focus, as he flew past the sorcerer on his descent towards the pavement below. As he became visible, and as he passed the startled sorcerer, Marco swung his sword sideways with a two-handed grip, and sliced it cleanly through the man’s neck, decapitating him.

  Marco continued to fall. He had a glimpse of many things. He saw the wall of energy around the square fizzle away. He saw the sorcerer’s head tumbling down beside him. He saw the pavement rushing up to meet him. And then he blacked out.

  Chapter 5

  “Marco, can you hear me?” a woman’s voice called softly.

  He wasn’t sure where he was, or why he felt such pain. The place where he lay smelled musty.

  “Marco, they’re out searching for you. If you can hear me, we need to move you,” the woman told him.

  Marco opened his eyes; his vision was blurred, and the room was dark. There was a single point of light somewhere behind the silhouette of the woman who was bent over him. He instinctively raised his hand to his mouth and sucked on his enchanted finger, sipping the cool, refreshing water momentarily, then dropped the hand back to his side.

  “Oh thank God!” the woman said. “I was so worried you might not awake. That was a hard fall to the pavement,” she said.

  She bent down and kissed him on the lips, a thorough, familiar kiss. The lips that pressed against his were full, and soft. Their taste was warm, and salty, and desirable.

  “Pesino,” he murmured.

  “Yes Marco! Yes!” the former mermaid spoke eagerly. “It’s so good to see you alive, here on the surface of the earth. And fighting so hard – you’re a warrior and a sorcerer now!

  “But we have to get you out of here. Can you move? There are people from both sides of the war out going from house to house looking for you, and they’re not far away,” she spoke with urgency in her voice, her face so low and close to his that he could feel her breath on his cheek.

  Marco moved his legs and felt them respond. “It’s a miracle, but I think I can move,” he said. He felt innumerable points of pain all around his body.

  “Where are we? How are you here?” he asked.

  She responded by placing her arms beneath his back, and helping him sit up.

  “We’re in the cellar of Asterion’s and mine house,” she answered.

  “Oh Marco, it’s so good to see you! I’m so excited, even if you’re not,” she gushed, and she gave him a light hug.

  He suddenly snapped out of his daze, and understood who he was with.

  “Pesino!” he gasped. “Pesino! You’re here! Let me see you,” he demanded.

  She slipped away from him, then returned with a candle that had been on the table on the other side of the cellar room they were in, illuminating her face in the warm glow of the small flame.

  She was as lovely as ever, and Marco searched her face intently, remembering the long trip they had spent together, the hardships they had shared, and the manner in which she had changed and grown, while he had grown in his appreciation of her.

  “How do you feel? Can you stand and walk?” she asked after several seconds of mutual examination.

  He swung his legs around, over the side of the table he sat on, then slid off the table, and gasped as his right ankle painfully buckle
d, unable to readily carry his weight.

  “Here, let me help you,” Pesino told him, as she shifted her position. She draped his arm over her shoulders, then raised up. “We need to get upstairs; everyone else is waiting up there.”

  “Who is ‘everyone’?” Marco asked, as they awkwardly moved forward.

  “Kate and Cassius and Asterion,” she answered, as they reached the foot of a stairwell. “Gawail was with us for several weeks after,” she paused, “after we were separated from you, but he set off to go home when the weather turned warmer.”

  They started climbing the steps, one tread at a time, each of them silent, simply soaking in the pleasure of the other’s companionship once again.

  When they reached the top, Pesino pushed the door open, and they hobbled up into a dimly-lit unfurnished room. “This is the back of the house,” Pesino explained. “The kitchen is right in through there,” she pressed on a door handle to open it, and Marco caught a glimpse of Kate and Cassius looking anxiously at the doorway. And then, within seconds, he was engulfed in the warmth of his friends, as Asterion and Cassius lifted him off Pesino’s shoulder and carried him into the home, where they set him down on a chair by a fireplace.

  Marco felt tears forming in his eyes, and he saw the same in Kate and Cassius’s faces as well.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here! This is so wonderful!” Marco told the pair.

  There was a rustling sound behind him, and he turned to see Pesino enter the room, carrying a large wad of cloth.

  “Here, get him out of those clothes and put this dress on him,” she said as she tossed the clothing at Kate. “Asterion, go keep a watch out back. I’ll look out the front,” she smoothly gave orders, then disappeared from the room, as Asterion did likewise.

  “Take your clothes off Marco. Can you get that boot off you injured foot?” Kate asked, as she stood and held up a woman’s dress in front of her, then shook the cloth vigorously. “We’re going to disguise you.”