Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2) by Aaron Schneider (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📕

the days of sweat, blood, and other strong scents that had accumulated on his person. At its deepest, the stream only came up to his knees, so Milo had to stoop and plunge his shivering arms in to draw out water in cupped hands.

He’d slapped a double handful across his face when he noticed Ambrose had approached a bar of soap in one hand and a small towel in the other.

“Thanks,” Milo said, taking the soap and starting a lather on his chest and underarms.

“No problem,” Ambrose muttered, his gaze roving across Milo’s chest and shoulders before he pointed at a crudely tattooed cottage resting on a taloned foot on Milo’s left arm. “Any of those still give you trouble?”

Milo looked at his own tapestry of old wounds and ink, each a bittersweet memory. He remembered the days when he believed he was part of a band of brothers, when he’d felt they were bound together in a pact of defiant hope. For all the hurt and fear that had come after, he couldn’t help but see the old marks and remember the few good times in his short, ugly life.

Then his eyes settled on the skull on an orthodox cross on his wrist, and he felt a sharp, hot sting in his chest. Nostalgia became bitter ash at the back of his throat, and he spat into the stream.

“A few,” he muttered and went back to washing.

12

The Unlikely

Tsminda Sameba was a romantic’s phantasm, sprung from canvas into the real world.

Sitting atop a high hill before the steep slopes of Mount Kazbek, its steeple and separate belltower made it look as though it was a gatehouse perched before the arduous trek to the white-headed peak. The track up to the church wound a penitent’s grueling path in a series of switchbacks and a final looping spiral to the courtyard of the church. This final run around the church was dotted with votive alcoves crowned with crosses, clutching icons to their stony bosoms. The entirety of the scene left both men muted in wonder and trepidation as the Rollsy chugged up to the courtyard. A wall of stacked stones ran alongside the courtyard channeling foot traffic, if there had been any, from the courtyard to a smaller stone-paved platform that led to the church doors.

A black-garbed man built like a low-slung ox stomped out of the church doors, waving his hands furiously at them as he skirted along the wall.

“You didn’t tell me you had family here,” Milo quipped as the Rollsy slowed to a stop.

“You noticed the tell-tale family coloration, did you?” Ambrose chuckled as the man came storming up to the cab, black beard bristling as his dark eyes glowered furiously at both of them.

“This is no place for soldiers!” he shouted, only partially out of anger since the wind and the Rollsy engine made a conversational tone impossible. “Turn this car around and head back down the way you came.”

The man planted himself firmly in front of Milo’s door, arms crossed over his broad chest. Milo couldn’t open the door without hitting the man, which he assumed was precisely the idea.

“Hardly hospitable, Father,” Ambrose called in Russian, turning off the engine as he half-rose in his seat to face the irate man. “What about a little Christian charity for weary travelers?”

“Not priest, deacon,” the man said in broken Russian. “Need things to go village now!”

With a jab of his finger, he pointed down the hill at the village of Gergeti, which Ambrose and Milo had been keen to avoid lest their presence cause a stir. A few men dressed like German soldiers might lead people to assume a German force was moving through the area, and while the agreement between Germany and Georgia had held thus far, Milo’s errand was too important to take chances.

“Deacon.” Milo spoke up, the elixir he’d learned in Ifreedahm granting him the ability to be understood in any language the hearer spoke. “We don’t mean to intrude, but we are looking for someone. A word, and we’ll be on our way.”

The deacon turned to Milo, bushy eyebrows raised in surprise as he looked the magus up and down.

“There is no one here but the priest, me, and one another deacon,” he said, curiosity stealing some of his bluster. “We have no business with soldiers, so you must be in the wrong place. If you are really looking for someone, you would be better off talking to those in the village. Please, go back down now.”

“We aren’t soldiers,” Milo said as he stood up and swung one lanky leg over the cab door. “And we’ll be off as soon as we can. We need to ask about someone and have you or the priest point us in the right direction.”

The deacon eyed the magus warily but took a single step back so Milo could dismount without standing nose to nose with him.

“Tell me who you are looking for, and I’ll tell you if I have anything to say,” he declared with a shrug of his shoulders. Despite his attempt at unruffled control, Milo didn’t miss how the man eyed Ambrose’s Gewehr.

“We were sent by the contessa,” Milo said, meeting the burning eyes under the man’s beetled brows. “She told us to come here and ask to see the marquis.”

The deacon stood for a long time, staring at Milo as the wind whipped across the worn paving stones of the courtyard. Milo held the man’s gaze, fighting the sudden and dominating urge to scratch his nose as the faintest smell of incense reached his nostrils. Behind him, the Rollsy creaked as Ambrose shifted impatiently in the cab.

“Wait here,” the deacon said before turning on his heel and walking back to the church.

With a relieved grunt, Ambrose threw himself out of the cab and set about stretching his back as he eyed the double doors and the paned windows above. The stones were centuries old and looked it, their surfaces pitted and chinked. Despite