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

Milo stood up and looked behind them, and then swore ferociously as he spotted two of the canvas-backed trucks rolling over the hills toward their position.

“Hold on,” Ambrose warned, and they plunged toward the mouth of the gorge.

Milo looked ahead and dared to hope that there among the boulders, the smaller, narrower Rollsy would have a chance to take a path the trucks could not. Considering he’d managed to lose all their fuel, that was about the only hope they had of evading the Americans and their goons. An extended chase was out of the question.

Milo mentally urged the Rollsy to move faster, and as they neared the gorge, he imagined they had begun to move so fast that the air rippled around them. A moment later, he was sure it wasn’t his imagination, but a real distortion in the air.

“Milo?” Ambrose called, an anxious edge in his voice.

“I have no idea,” Milo confessed at the top of his lungs as they plowed on. The entire gorge wobbled and flexed like water before their eyes.

Then, as if emerging from underwater, they roared into a wooded vale where the dying sun lit the mist beneath the boughs on fire.

Ambrose swore as he looked around in utter wonder at the soaring evergreens standing sentinel over the vale, each taller than any tree he’d ever seen. The gorge wasn’t only verdant but also larger, wider, and deeper than he would have thought possible.

Both men gawked, for a moment forgetting they were being pursued by violent men in a flash of childlike wonder.

Then they realized that they were racing at breakneck speed toward a wall of trees.

14

The Sacrifice

Ambrose swore and sawed the wheel with reckless abandon.

The Rollsy began to slide sideways, throwing up a sheet of water as it skidded through the shallows of a pebbled riverbank that hadn’t been there moments ago. Ambrose bellowed several colorful curses in French as the Rollsy refused to respond. The drag of the water and the tires plowing through sand robbed them of some momentum, but not enough as the vehicle skidded free of the shore and slung around toward a towering pine. Milo braced for the impact as the barked column consumed his view of the world.

The Rollsy hit the tree broadside, crumpling the armored flank on Milo’s side in a sense-blasting crash.

There were a low hiss and several heavy clunks beneath the hood of the vehicle, and the engine died with a dull clinking sputter. For a moment, nothing stirred in the wood except the languid curls of mist and the soft burbles of the gentle river. The entire mouth of the vale seemed to be holding its breath after the violence of the impact, waiting in trepidation for something to stir in the wreckage.

Ambrose was first, slumping in his seat after unpeeling his hands from the wheel with a groan. He looked at Milo, saw the steady rise and fall of the magus’ chest; there was cause to be hopeful he would wake soon. He gave a low sigh and slowly squirmed around to fetch his discarded weapons from the back of the cab.

Milo woke with a start a few seconds later and then gave a grunt as he twisted his head to elicit several loud pops. His body was stiff and unsteady, but he found himself thankful as he looked down and saw the buckled-in door. His unmolested leg lay less than a finger’s breadth from where the metal had imploded into the cab, rending through the cushion of the seat.

“That could have been worse,” Milo hissed as he forced his sore body to move, shuffling clear of the collapsed door.

“We need to get into the trees,” Ambrose said as he made to swing out of the cab. “If we could get through, there’s no reason that they can’t follow us here.”

As though in affirmation, the rumble of engines sounded from where they’d come. They weren’t coming as fast, but there was no mistaking that they were indeed coming down into the valley. Milo let a hand stray to the knife in his coat and wondered if it would be better to toss it into the river. He considered coming before the marquis empty-handed, but then he thought about the trucks rolling in with Ezekiel, and he imagined dragging the monstrous man before the marquis.

Why settle for the hexed knife when the recipient of the curse was right there?

Milo sprang out of the Rollsy and scuttled over to Ambrose, who busied himself checking his weapons and ammunition. His Gewehr and bandoleer were nowhere to be seen, but one of the stocky carbines was over his shoulder, and he was busy yanking the oddly layered magazines out of the other two carbines and stuffing the reloads into his pockets.

“It’s our turn to do the ambushing,” Milo said, pointing with his cane out of the vale, where the sound of the trucks was growing ever louder. “I need you to help me pull it off.”

Ambrose frowned as his gaze swept across the vale, and he turned in a small, shuffling circle. He sighted down the carbine barrel at the mouth of the vale, mustache twitching, then looked back among the mist-swathed trees. Milo didn’t need the big man to say anything to tell him he didn’t like the setup, but the engines revved, and a bloodthirsty “YEEHAW!” echoed around them.

“They have us outnumbered,” Ambrose noted flatly. “And we know as much about this terrain as they do.”

“Sure.” Milo shrugged and threw his best devil-may-care smile. “But we’ve got something that evens all that out.”

Ambrose’s brows knitted as he gave Milo a bemused look.

“Magic?” he asked, his head tilting to one side.

“Not a bad guess.” Milo grinned. “But I was talking about you, my avenging angel.”

To punctuate the point, Milo punched the big man’s shoulder, which turned out to be as good an idea as punching the tree that had nearly smashed the Rollsy. Milo shook his tingling fingers as Ambrose