Akkarin made good time though he did not dare increase the pace over a fast canter given the darkness. It did not take him long to reach the center of the small village they called home. The streets were quiet given the time of night, and Akkarin slowed his horse further, not wanting anyone to wake and wonder where he was rushing so late at night. Once he reached the edge of the village, he turned onto the main east/west road, loosening the reins to increase his horse's speed. The road, though not as well-travelled as those in and around Imardin, was popular enough that it was in decent condition, and Akkarin did not worry much about obstacles slowing him.
He slowed as he reached the first town on the road, casting out his senses, but he felt no signs of a magician. Even with senses as fine as his, he knew he should make a much more thorough search, but he doubted the attack had occurred so close to his home or he would have felt the magic more strongly. He rode on, hoping he would not be too late.
By the time the sun was rising, Akkarin was growing closer to the area where he thought the attack had occurred. He checked the next village much more thoroughly, but when he left it with the sun high in the sky, he still had not found the unknown magician. He repeated the procedure with three more villages before he felt a pulse of magic that was not quite as strong as before but much closer. Akkarin urged his horse in the direction from which it had come, and in just a few minutes, he saw the first signs that something was wrong—a man on horseback, his saddlebags overflowing as he galloped down the road in the opposite direction from Akkarin. In the distance, Akkarin saw another horse and rider, and he knew he was heading in the right direction.
Given the number of people fleeing the village, Akkarin had to slow his pace, and as he saw the buildings of the village in the distance, he dismounted to walk his horse. He had felt the attacker using magic a couple more times, and he kept moving in that direction. It did not take him long to find the unknown magician—smoke just east of the village indicated a campfire, and Akkarin's keen senses told him the unknown magical presence came from that direction as well.
He found a hitching post to which he tied his horse, pulling his black robes out of his saddlebag. After donning the robes, he reached into his pocket and took hold of his blood gem. I've reached the village where the attacker is.
Sonea's response was almost instant and suffused with worry. Stay safe.
I will. He let go of the blood gem, making his way quickly out of the village and toward the fields behind it where it looked like the unknown magician had made his camp. The sun was setting, casting long shadows which hid Akkarin somewhat though he would have preferred the cover of darkness. He stopped behind some shrubbery some distance away from the camp, peering through the limbs to see what was happening. He spotted the campfire almost immediately with a single figure leaning close to it for warmth. A short distance away, he saw multiple other figures huddled together. He could not make out any of their features in the darkness, but he imagined they were the Ichani's slaves.
Akkarin shrank back into the shrubbery, considering his plan. He knew he needed to separate the slaves from the Ichani to ensure he could not take their power, but it was not a task Akkarin wanted to undertake. Still, he had done it before, and he would do it again if he felt it was the right thing to do as he did currently. When the Ichani fell asleep, he could make his move. Hopefully after the man's quick victory against Lord Grongen, he would be feeling complacent.
It did not take long for the man next to the fire to stretch out on a sleeping roll, and Akkarin waited nearly an hour after he had done so before carefully circling the camp, staying in shadows as much as he could. It took nearly a quarter of an hour to reach the slaves, but the Ichani did not move at all during that time. As Akkarin approached the small group of huddled figures, he stopped suddenly. Only two of them had typical Sachakan features—the rest all looked Kyralian. Not only that but there was one lying a short distance from the rest wearing green robes. Had the man kept the unfortunate Lord Grongen nearby? And why?
Stealing silently closer, it did not take Akkarin long to find his answer. The green-robed magician lying on the ground was not Lord Grongen. His facial features were quite familiar, and it took Akkarin only a moment to place them. Dorrien. Akkarin was not quite sure why Dorrien was there, but from what he knew of the man's somewhat impetuous personality, Akkarin would not have been surprised to hear that he rode to the village as soon as he had heard Lord Grongen's cry for help to come to the other Healer's aid.
Akkarin crept a bit closer and reached out to touch Dorrien. He breathed a silent sigh of relief when he felt the life energy still beneath Dorrien's skin. He sent his senses briefly into Dorrien's body, but there were no serious injuries—Dorrien was simply magically exhausted. Looking at the larger group, Akkarin saw one of the two Sachakan slaves was sitting up, staring in the opposite direction from which Akkarin came. He was obviously on guard duty. Akkarin approached him from behind, quickly overpowering the other man and drawing the knife across his throat. Once Akkarin had drained him of all his power, he dragged him a short distance from the others and returned to deal with the other slave. As he crept up to the sleeping Sachakan, he heard a soft gasp behind him. Spinning around, Akkarin saw one of the Kyralian villagers had awaken, a girl who could not have been older than ten or eleven. Her mouth dropped open, and Akkarin sprang forward quickly to place his hand over it. "I am here to help," he hissed in her ear. "But you need to be very quiet. Nod if you can do that." After a moment's hesitation, her head moved up and down. "I am going to take my hand off your mouth now. Remember to stay quiet." Slowly, he pulled his hand from her mouth, and the girl fortunately did not scream.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
"Better you don't know."
"You're going to kill the man who hurt us, aren't you?"
"I thought you agreed to stay quiet."
"He deserves to die." And what does that mean for me? Akkarin could not stop the thought from forming, but he pushed it aside.
"You should turn away." The girl stared at him a moment longer before doing as he asked. Akkarin quickly dealt with the slave before turning back to the girl. Reaching down, he found the magical bonds around her wrists and ankles and examined them for a moment before breaking them with a thought.
"I want to help!" the girl declared as she stretched out her wrists and ankles. Akkarin looked at her a moment. She looked quite young in the moonlight, but he noted a determination in her expression that reminded him a bit of Sonea. He gave her a small smile. Before he could speak, her eyes narrowed, and she spoke the next words with a ferocity that belied her age. "He killed my whole family except me."
Akkarin understood the need for vengeance all too well, but he also knew that she was much too young to make such a decision. Still, it would not hurt to give her a task. "I'm going to release the others as well. Wake them once I do and go back into town. Find a building to hide in, preferably far from here. You will need to carry the other magician."
"Why did you kill the men who came with him? He trapped them just like us."
"No, they weren't like you." Akkarin released the bonds of the next Kyralian, a man a few years younger than himself.
"Who are they?"
"You can wake him now," Akkarin said, nodding to the man he had just freed and ignoring the question. "Hopefully seeing your face instead of mine will keep him calm."
"Are you sure you can fight the man? I saw the other magician try, and it did not go well."
"I have my ways." Akkarin freed a third Kyralian, this time a teenage boy. The girl stared at him a few moments more before seeming to decide he spoke the truth. With a nod of determination, she stood and walked over to the first man he released, shaking him gently. Satisfied, Akkarin released the bonds on the remaining six people. When he finished, the Kyralians had gathered in a small group, eyeing him and the body of the Sachakan slave he had not removed somewhat nervously. "Go back to the village and take cover," he instructed. "And please carry Lord Dorrien with you." He nodded to the unconscious Healer.
One of the three men in the group shuffled forward and cleared his throat. "You should come with us. I saw what that man did to him and Lord Grongen." He nodded to Dorrien. "No point fighting when you can't win."
Akkarin held his gaze for a moment. "I intend to win." The man hesitated only a moment longer before he nodded and motioned to the others. Three of them picked up Dorrien before heading back to the village. Akkarin watched them go until they had disappeared into the shadows of the town. Once he could not see any of them, he turned toward the Ichani. He still lay on the ground by the fire, presumably asleep, but Akkarin had not lived as long as he had by letting assumptions reduce his caution. Putting up a strong shield, he carefully approached, ready to strike at the first sign he needed to do so. When he reached the other man, he saw the shimmer of a shield around him which eliminated his plan of simply draining the man's power in his sleep. Instead, he gathered a good deal of power and sent it in a concentrated Forcestrike through the ground.
The shield unfortunately held though Akkarin saw it deform under the force of the blow. The Ichani's eyes flew open, and he immediately pushed himself to his feet as Akkarin sent a series of strikes around his shield. The Ichani returned the strikes with some of his own, and Akkarin strengthened his shield with a grunt when he felt the power the man commanded. Assessing his opponent, he sent a series of heat strikes up from the ground, satisfied when they seemed to surprise his opponent. After a brief stumble, however, the Ichani righted himself and began his attack again with renewed vigor. Despite the power of his strikes, they were clumsy, directed at only one part of Akkarin's shield. Like most Ichani, he had no real strategy, relying on sheer power to win his battles. Akkarin could handle that.
Strengthening his shield where the majority of the hits were occurring, Akkarin weakened other parts as he sent out a series of Forcestrikes, concealing weaker ones behind the strong ones. After a few of those, he sent out what looked like a Heatstrike, splitting it at the last second into a series of Forcestrikes which scattered around his opponent's shield. He saw a flicker as one almost pierced it and concentrated his attack on that area, managing to punch through with a well-placed strike. Taking advantage of the weakness, he sent another series of strikes which knocked the Ichani over backwards, and his opponent's shield winked out of existence. Quickly, Akkarin tried to bind him with magic, but a shield appeared just before Akkarin's strike hit him followed quickly by a Forcestrike that caused Akkarin to stumble. Narrowing his eyes, Akkarin again strengthened his shield, quickly checking his reserves. He still had plenty of power left, and he had seen no sign of another Ichani despite the fact that their magical battle would surely have attracted one. Satisfied, Akkarin gathered a good deal of power, forming it into a Stunstrike that he sent straight at the Ichani's shield. At the last moment, the strike split, hitting two spots on the back of the shield. The shield only stopped one of them; the second caused the man to fall heavily to the ground. Immediately, Akkarin leaped forward, slashing the man's wrist and pressing his hand to the wound. He drained him until he was so weak that he would have no resistance and then pressed both hands to the side of his head and slipped into his mind.
Twenty minutes later, Akkarin sat back on his haunches, the foreboding he had felt all day suddenly much stronger. He considered his opponent for a moment, but it did not take long for him to realize that he had no real choice—he would have to wait for the Guild.
A/N: I've noted this before in at least one of my other stories, but I have never read the Traitor Spy Trilogy (and do not intend to), so the only information I don't use the version of Sachakan society explained in that. I do plan to give an explanation for who Savara is eventually though since I know she is part of The High Lord (even if she does not come into my version since I told the entire thing from Akkarin's perspective). So you will see her name pop up at some point (though I'm seven chapters in so far, and I haven't gotten there yet).
