The Spirit Wilds: Magic of the Green Sage (Fall of the Sages Book 1), стр. 44
The golem stopped glowing, as did the sage. She stood. The golem leaned its face forward. Gayla put her face against the cool rock and smiled, her eyes twinkling.
“Be at peace, my friend.”
The golem grunted, then he stood and lumbered away up the hill.
Gayla picked up her hat, ran her fingers through her apple locks, and put the hat on. She went to Tuni’s side and gave her a long look.
“Are you okay, Tuni?”
“Not in the slightest.” Tuni sat down. “I…didn’t think it would be like this.”
The sage sat beside her. “It isn’t always this traumatic. Sometimes no one gets hurt. That happens a lot, actually. But this a dangerous world, and things go wrong, and I can’t stop it all. We can’t save everyone.”
Tuni felt a tear come to her eyes, but she kept it down. “There’s nothing you can do for them?”
“Nothing can bring back the dead, my dear,” Gayla said. She turned around to look at the knights. “As for those that may not be dead, well, I’m not all powerful, and healing magic takes a lot out of me. But, if you’d like, we can see if there’s anyone we can help.”
“I’d like that, please.”
Gayla smiled. “You have a good heart. I saw you save that knight, even if he didn’t deserve it.”
Tuni shrugged, her cheeks warming. “He was doing what he believed was right. That doesn’t make him bad; it just makes him wrong.”
“Wise words,” the sage chuckled. She stood and offered Tuni her hand. “Come.”
For the next hour, despite her pain, Tuni accompanied Gayla around the town and mines looking for survivors. Unfortunately, except for the knight she’d saved, there were none. His companions were dead, and all the townspeople were dead too. There seemed to be too few bodies for the size of the town, so Tuni hoped that perhaps there were survivors that had fled. If there were, they didn’t have time to stick around and wait for them to return.
Once they were done, with a heavy heart, it was time to return. Tuni had not expected her first foray into the world of the sage to be so…bleak. But she wasn’t dissuaded from this path. She wanted to stay by the sage’s side.
Perhaps in the future, she’d be able to save these people.
14
Dorrick
Dorrick was out for a long time—a long time—because when he came to, he was surrounded by knights and Al-Sevaran guards, trying to pick up the pieces of the town. His lips were dried and cracked, his head throbbed, and he felt terribly stiff all over. He tried to sit up, but his body protested as pain exploded through him.
“Whoa, slow down, Sir Dorrick.”
He flinched. Next to him knelt Dame Konna—Captain Konna, to be more accurate. She had hair as red as their capes and held it back in two severely tight buns on her head. One green eye blinked at him with sympathy and concern. The other was covered by a leather eyepatch from where a spirit took her right eye when she was a young adolescent living on one of the farms outside the city.
But why is she here? “What— What happened?” he asked.
She frowned. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, Dorrick.”
And then it all rushed back to him, though he wished it hadn’t.
The mountain spirit, the battle with it, that girl with the bow and the witch…and the squires… And… And…
Marcella.
No.
Dorrick grimaced as he pushed to his feet, but he bore the pain. Dame Konna protested, but he ignored her. He stumbled forward, everything hurting, his armor too heavy, his cape like an anchor weighing him down.
Knights, squires, and guards were at work around him, taking away the bodies of the deceased. Dorrick limped on, trying to find his dearest friend.
He passed rows of cloth-covered corpses. He found a priest and some knights standing over a couple of his squires—Nessa and Tomys—looking broken and bloodied, their gazes distant and blank. Dead. His breath hitched in his throat. Right… They were gone too. Payne and Borner were probably gone as well, though he didn’t have a specific memory of them dying.
With each step, he unclipped a bit of his armor. First his cape, the symbol of his knighthood, fell away in a twirl. Then his gauntlets, with a thud at his feet. He undid his breastplate, which gave way and crashed to the ground with a loud screech. That left his chainmail, but he left that on as it would have been harder to take off. He felt lighter, the weight not bearing down on his injuries.
And yet, his heart had never been heavier.
When he was just about ready to collapse from exhaustion, as the pounding in his head was growing too much for him to bear, he found her…his sweet, sweet Marcella. She was on her back, her head turned to him, eyes looking right at him.
But they didn’t see him. They didn’t see anything. They were cold. Lifeless.
She was dead. Like all the others.
A sob escaped him. He fell to his knees.
It was true. It was true. She’s gone. Marcella was dead, taken from him. He’d never see her smile again or hear her laugh or feel her lips against his. They had so much time, time to live the lives they’d dreamed about, fighting spirits and keeping humanity safe. And now that was all gone.
Their job was a dangerous one—any mission could end in death—but he hadn’t expected it to end quite so soon.
It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair… It isn’t fair!
Dorrick wanted to go to her, to hold her one last time, but as he picked himself up, he finally realized that Marcella had an audience around her. A man in a fine frock coat—magenta velvet with gold trim and buttons—crouched over Marcella, shaking horribly, his skin red from crying and from anger.
Hovering over him was the last person in the world Dorrick expected