Wizardborn (World's First Wizard Book 3) by Aaron Schneider (read me like a book txt) 📕

knew that even with his preternatural strength and speed, it could only end one way, and that was not with a surprise victory on Ambrose’s behalf. There were too many, they were coordinated, and all he had was a knife.

“Ambrose!” he shouted, which sounded more like a donkey braying than anything else. Despite this, Milo called out two more times as he lurched forward. Ambrose stopped a few strides away, blade still in hand.

“Get out of here, Milo!” he growled without turning around. The soldiers were a dozen strides away and had formed a line. Their rifles were at their shoulders, Lokkemand looming behind them.

Milo staggered next to Ambrose and rested his hand on the big man’s shoulder.

“If they wanted us dead, they would have blown us up,” Milo rasped before hawking a mouthful of sour phlegm at the hovel. “I’m not sure what game Lokkemand is playing, but it seems to involve keeping us alive.”

“He’s gone over to the Reich,” Ambrose hissed. “That’s what this is.”

Lokkemand cleared his throat, and the soldier in front of him slid aside to allow him to stand facing Ambrose squarely, hand held behind his back.

“Nothing so dramatic,” the captain said, straightening to stare down his nose at Milo and Ambrose. “I’d rather eat a bullet than join those zealots, but the realities of the situation in this godforsaken country require me to make certain compromises. One of them was the assurance that the operation in Petrograd remained secret. You can see how things have been complicated.”

Milo spat again, this time toward Lokkemand.

“How does doing their dirty work not count as joining their side?” he snarled, wishing the world would stop lurching in and out of focus.

To Milo’s surprise, the captain laughed as he continued to glare down the field at Milo.

“You are very brave and sometimes even clever, Volkohne, but you never seemed to grasp that we are a branch of military intelligence.”

Milo chose to blame his inebriation for his failure to put the pieces together and kept glaring at Lokkemand.

“I’ve brokered an arrangement with the warlord in Petrograd, and soon I’ll have enough to bury the Reich,” Lokkemand replied archly. “It’s not as dashing as midnight raids and quests to discover magic secrets, but it gets the job done.”

“Except it caused the murder of three men and has you pointing guns at allies,” Ambrose growled, ready to explode across the intervening space. “Maybe you should try our way.”

“I do what I can with what I have.” Lokkemand sniffed. “And these guns will only be used if you choose to misbehave. If I was as depraved as you thought, I’d have put you down while you slept.”

Lokkemand gave a sharp wave of his hand and the rifles trained on them were lowered, though still kept in ready hands.

“I can’t have you blowing this operation, but I meant what I said yesterday,” Lokkemand told them. “I want to work together. I don’t want us to be at odds.”

Milo laughed, but the burst of sound made his head hurt.

“You’ve certainly had a funny way of showing it,” he said, wincing.

“If you send a report back to Berlin about Petrograd, the Reich will know, and that means the warlord will know,” Lokkemand said, his voice holding the flat certainty of a man stating facts.

“His name is Roland, that warlord,” Milo told him as he held his head.

Lokkemand’s eyes narrowed, and Milo could almost hear the wheels humming and the gears clacking.

“Well, once this Roland is informed, I will lose my access to information about the Reich, and that can’t happen,” Lokkemand said, then he took a step forward, hands knotting into fists. “That can’t happen! You can’t understand the cancer those monsters in the Reich represent. If I miss this chance, there may be no stopping them from turning my country into something hideous.”

Milo remembered the raw hate in the faces of the youths under Berlin’s streetlights.

“I think I’ve got an idea,” Milo said. “But what you don’t understand is how dangerous Roland can be, especially if he’s sided with Zlydzen.”

The fierce light in Lokkemand’s eyes still burned as he looked suspiciously at Milo

“We’re not just talking Germany, Lokkemand,” Milo continued grimly. “We’re talking all of Europe.”

Milo and the captain stared at each other, wills grappling over the muddy expanse between them.

“My oath is to the Empire,” Lokkemand replied, looking away. “Not the continent. I’m not saying you are wrong; I’m saying I can’t sacrifice the soul of my country even in the face of Armageddon. If we act now, too much of the Reich survives, and chances are we won’t be able to stop them next time.”

Milo found himself struggling not to see Lokkemand’s side of things. The threat that Roland and Zlydzen presented couldn’t be understated, but it was a nebulous doom to the captain, not like the disease he saw infecting the very fabric of his country. They needed some way to tie the two sides together, to provide information, or even better, evidence to damn them both. With such proof, they could catalyze the general staff and thus all of the Empire to attack.

“So, you have contact with Roland?” Milo asked, feeling another mad scheme forming in his alcohol-addled brain.

Lokkemand saw the madness in Milo’s eyes, and he gave the magus a wary look.

“Yes, in a fashion,” Lokkemand breathed. “What do you have in mind?”

A smile spread across the wizard’s face.

12

These Deceptions

“This is a terrible idea,” Lokkemand muttered as he frog-marched Milo up the steps to the train platform.

“Steady, Captain,” Milo murmured as he tried to keep from tripping over the shackles on his ankles while viewing the world through one bruised socket. Lokkemand had insisted they had to sell Milo’s capture and had thus proceeded to shackle and bludgeon the wizard. The fact that Lokkemand had been doing the binding and the hitting made Milo a touch uncertain as to the captain’s motive at being so thorough.

Still, they were here now, and Milo was being led to a waiting