Xenoth chuckled. “You see, boy, fighting with magic is like using any other weapon. It requires skill and strategy as well as strength. It requires discipline, and a lifetime of practice. To conquer your foes, you cannot simply hoist the largest sword you find and swing it as hard as you can. Victory goes not to he who roars the loudest.”
The orbs blurred toward Amric, and three more crashing strikes buffeted him. His forearms, still raised above him, were quivering and numb. His breath burned in his throat and whistled between his clenched teeth. The presence within had subsided to feverish, insistent murmurings. Through a mental fog, Amric realized there was coherence to what it was saying. It was articulating a desperate plan.
“To be certain, there is a time and place to hold nothing back,” Xenoth continued. By the direction of his voice, the man was moving around Amric in a slow circle. “However, in this case it is hardly required, since you are a minor threat at best.”
Amric ground his teeth at the naked derision in the Adept’s voice. He knew that Xenoth was trying to taunt him, but it galled him that the man was right. Would Xenoth leave once he had slain Amric? Or would the black-hearted bastard feel compelled to finish Amric’s friends as well?
The presence was still adamant within the warrior’s head. I do not like our odds, Amric thought back in grim response, but neither do I have a better plan. Everything in one strike, then. Be ready.
Three more hammering strikes rang against his invisible shield, and the glowing spheres drifted away in unsteady orbits. Amric closed his eyes, sucked in a breath, and burst into motion.
Guided by the mysterious presence within, he pushed outward with explosive force, casting away the clinging energy of the threads. He surged to his feet, cursing both the lethargy of his movements and the way the world tilted and swayed around him. He found the dark figure of Xenoth no more than a handful of paces away, and he gathered his will for a single surprise strike that would encompass the entirety of the strength remaining to him.
The chilling smile upon the Adept’s hard, angular features was the first true indication that the plan had already failed. Amric strained, drawing upon the power of Essence that surrounded him, the lifeblood of this world, and it responded to his call. Unlike the raging torrent of before, however, it gathered in sluggish, grudging response, as if sharing his weariness. Not enough, he realized, and not fast enough by half.
There was a flash of movement from the black-robed Adept that failed to fully register upon Amric’s dulled senses, and the impact followed an instant later. A sheet of blinding light filled the warrior’s vision, and he was hurled backward. It felt as if a massive, armored war horse had hammered into him at a full charge. He flew through the air and slammed into the ground, sliding to a stop on his back.
He could not recall any sound accompanying the explosion, but his ears rang now with the echoes of a deafening roar and there was a warm trickle at each ear that could only have been blood. The world wavered and fractured above him and darkness leaked through the cracks, but he struggled to hold the fragments together as he clung to consciousness.
An infinite instant later, the tall figure of Xenoth loomed over him. His voice was alternately an intimate whisper and a distant shout.
“What is this, then? Still alive, boy? Your instinctive defenses are impressive indeed. Perhaps there is something to be said after all for not holding back-”
The other within Amric struck out like a coiled serpent, sending a lance of white fire at Xenoth from the warrior’s trembling hand. With a startled curse, the Adept slapped it aside and leapt back. It was the last feeble strike of the exhausted entity, however, and the incorporeal presence withdrew to swirl protectively around Amric’s mind.
“A wilding!” Xenoth exclaimed, his tone heavy with both wonder and revulsion. “You are a wilding!”
Wilding? Should that mean something to him? Amric tried to focus upon the word, upon his foe, upon anything at all, but it kept slipping through his grasp like quicksilver. There was a trio of staccato reports nearby, somewhere past the periphery of his vision. Xenoth flinched and turned away, raising his hands. A searing flash of light came from that direction, followed by a brief but intense wash of heat.
“Interrupt me again with such pathetic attacks, woman,” Xenoth snarled, “and I will come find you out there in the darkness. Your life hangs upon my whim, and your end will not be pleasant if you try my patience further.”
The man loomed over Amric once more, cold triumph illuminating his harsh features. He shook his head and looked over Amric with narrowed eyes, as if facing a particularly colorful and venomous creature, and yet unable to resist the temptation of further study.
“A wilding,” he breathed. “I have never been so close to one.”
A searing jolt ran through Amric’s frame, and he stiffened in pain. The other within him lashed out again, weaker yet, and Xenoth laughed. An invisible weight settled upon him, pressing him to the earth.
“Fascinating,” Xenoth crowed. “This must be how you managed to evade my search all those years ago. Could it be? Could your wilding magic have shielded you somehow on sheer instinct, even at that age? Such power and subtlety from an infant, an ignorant creature-it strains belief! And yet, with your parents slain, there was no one else on this primitive world that could have concealed you from me.”
Parents? Amric’s head spun as he tried to orient on the Adept’s words. He recalled nothing of his parents or his time before he lived among the Sil’ath. Years later, when he had been old enough to frame the proper questions, his adopted family had responded in the laconic manner for which the Sil’ath were known: he had been found, alone and helpless, and they had chosen to take him in. This terrible man was the first he had encountered who knew anything of Amric’s origins. This man had known his parents, and he knew as well what fate had befallen them. The warrior pressed his lips together, forming them around the first of many questions, but only a low groan emerged.
Above him, Xenoth’s face had grown pensive, and his gaze drifted in pursuit of some distant memory. “This also explains your parents’ sudden defiance of the Council and their persistent interest in this remote world. It must be why they fled here in the end. They were trying to hide you.”
Xenoth rocked back on his heels, stroking his short-cropped beard in thought.
“The question at hand, then, is what to do with you,” he mused. “Wildings are executed at birth by edict of law, and yet the opportunity to study one who has managed to survive to adulthood could have considerable value to an interested few. You are sentenced to die twice over, however, as both an affront against nature and as the offspring of traitors. I am forced to anticipate the Council’s wishes on the matter, in the face of this unexpected development. Would they wish the long-delayed sentence carried out immediately, or would they wish you brought back as a unique specimen?”
He leaned down toward Amric and spoke in a lower, conspiratorial tone. “It seems you compel some measure of loyalty among these lesser creatures with which you surround yourself. Even now they approach again, skulking about in the darkness like rats circling a lion with all the ferocity they can manage.” The Adept chuckled, a harsh sound devoid of warmth, but his dark eyes glittered with satisfaction. “Fear not, boy, I have a surprise in store for them. I only hope that I am not forced to slay them all, one by one, before it is ready.”
Amric went cold inside, and in his mind’s eye he bore witness once more to hungry flames devouring the lean figure of his friend, Innikar. Xenoth was correct; his companions stood little chance against this powerful monster. Amric tried to lift his head in a dizzying effort, tried to force a shout of warning from his throat, tried to tell them all to stay back, but the result was scarcely more than a bestial growl even to his own ears. He made another attempt, twisting his head to either side and giving it a frantic and vehement shake of negation. He almost lost consciousness; only by laying his head back against the ground again and pulling in deep breaths did he manage to stave off its departure. He had seen no motion in the darkness beyond the silvery pool of light from the globe overhead, but he had to hope that the others had seen him and recognized the warning.