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

“One other thing,” Milo said, the smile dropping as he continued to shake out his hand. “We’ll be taking the cowboy captive, so you’re going to have to hold off on your promise to chop him to bits.”

Ambrose looked unhappier about that caveat than anything Milo had suggested thus far. Head shaking, he turned toward the trees and unslung the stolen rifle from his shoulder.

“Come on.” Ambrose set off toward the woods, moving as quickly as he dared over the obscured ground.

Before turning to follow, Milo drew out the knife, still in its bag leather bag, hefting it in his hand.

“Sniff this out,” he spat and sent the knife tumbling end over end into the river.

Behind him, he heard the engines baying, and he stole a glance over his shoulder to see a pair of headlights glowing in the enchanted fog. Milo looked back at the forest, where Ambrose had shuffled behind a colossal tree trunk. The purple of evening had settled over the valley, and as it deepened before his eyes, Milo felt a tingle of fear. The woods exuded a sinister, primordial aura, and Milo remembered Imrah’s shade telling him of horrors hanging bones and skin from the trees.

“Just remember I’m on your side,” he whispered as he loped between the trees.

The mist swallowed them, a strange, almost perverse amniotic experience.

The air was close and moist, and everything seemed to press in around them. Sounds, strange calls, and croaks that came from no animal humans had ever heard of echoed and warbled on the watery air. The weight of the trees bore down on them, and both were soon crouching under the subconscious pressure.

Ambrose’s gaze swept left and right, searching for a suitable spot to stage their ambush, but the deeper they went, the closer the trees seemed to be. Soon there was nothing to do but shuffle down the narrow path between looming trunks and drooping branches. Twice they stopped dead when something long and pale darted across the path, but each time neither could remember what they’d seen and despite several seconds’ pause, there was no sign of the creature returning.

After a few minutes, Milo was certain he’d made a terrible mistake suggesting they try to ambush their pursuers, and he almost asked Ambrose if they were lost and needed to retrace their steps. Then silvery light shone in front of them, and without a word between them, they both quickened their pace to escape the oppression of that arboreal corridor. Just before they burst from under the trees, Milo could have sworn that he could hear them creaking as though tightening around them.

They emerged in a small glade, where a series of six tall stones, three to a side, flanked a moss-speckled patch of flagstones. The rough-hewn obelisks were covered in thickly daubed and crudely depicted eyes marked with blinding slashes. In the moon-cast shadows of the stones, they saw bones through which grew thick vines.

Milo fought back a shiver.

“So,” Ambrose said, looking around the glade but avoiding the standing stones. “This will work better than anything else. I expect they’ll have to come the same way we did, which means that they’ll probably rush in here, either because they're on our trail or they just want to get out of the woods.”

Milo nodded, then looked back the way they’d come. The shadowed path was dark and narrow, certainly, but on this side, the terror they’d both felt could only be explained by the pervasive magic Milo felt coursing through the air. It was not just the tingling, but he most certainly felt something stirring around them, almost like a vast, sleepy presence yawning. Inside the tunnel of trees, they’d felt the weight of its half-awake stare, dull but terrible.

“Which means I’m going to be at their backs,” Ambrose explained, pointing at a shallow gap in the trees by the glade entrance. “This rifle seemed potent enough when the mercenaries were using them, so I should be able to drop a few of them. I expect when they turn around to return fire, you can step in. Figure you can roast a few of them, Magus?”

The question woke Milo out of his enraptured staring, and his brain scrambled to recollect what his ears had been hearing.

“Um, uh, yeah,” Milo said, trying to shake off the feeling of that huge presence bending low to squint at him. “So, where do I need to be?”

Ambrose scratched his cheek.

“Somewhere with solid enough cover that I don’t have to worry about a stray shot hitting you,” Ambrose told him, slowly dragging his eyes over to the standing stones. “One of those would fit the bill if you could stand it.”

Milo looked at the adorned heathen stones and the bones splayed at their feet and found himself hesitating. He tried to tell himself that after his time among the ghuls of Ifreedahm, this was a simple thing, but the supernatural presence that settled over him had rendered everything about the vale menacing.

But Milo had spent his entire life fighting scared, and ominous homicidal forest or no, he wasn’t about to back down from a couple of painted rocks.

“Yeah,” he almost growled, his lips curling back from his teeth. “I can do that. Just make sure you keep your head down when I start the cookout.”

Milo looked over and saw Ambrose smiling at him.

“You almost make me believe this isn’t a bad idea.” He chuckled before moving toward his hiding spot.

“You’re saying this might work?” Milo called over his shoulder as he marched determinedly toward the row of stones.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” the big man replied without looking back.

Milo carefully maneuvered his feet around the bones as he glanced around the standing stone. Then the mercenaries filed into the glade.

The first three emerged with their rifles at their shoulders, sweeping left and right, their bodies illuminated in uncommonly bright moonlight.

Even from this distance, Milo could see the men were unsettled, their movements jerky,