God Mage by D.W. Jackson Page B

morning
started long before the sun crested the horizon. As they left
through a dark exit far away from the one they had entered, Bren
caught Hayao looking back with a slight look of loss on his face.
Bren thought about saying something, but nothing he could think of
seemed like the right choice. Bren had left his own home, but he
knew there was always the choice that he could go back. Hayao
didn’t have the same choice.
    As soon as they neared the edge of the
forest, Bren called the others to stop. “Hayao take everyone
northeast until you reach the first town and wait for us.”
    “What are you planning?” Cass asked following
Bren as he headed in the direction of the Brotherhood’s impromptu
fort.
    “Just thinking of getting their attention,”
Bren said.
    “So you don’t know what you are going to do
yet,” Cass said laughing lightly.
    “No idea, but I am sure that I can come up
with something,” Bren replied.
    Bren’s best guess was that it would take a
little under a half hour to reach close enough to the fort to see
it. That wasn’t much time to think of anything but it was enough to
start getting ready for whatever came to mind. With each step, Bren
slowly began to pull in small amounts of magical energy.
    Planning something foolish again. Just when
I think that you have shown more brains than your father, you start
to do things like this.
    “I don’t plan to do anything foolish,” Bren
said lightly to Thuraman.
    Doing anything other than leaving right now
would be foolish. The best choice is to leave and let the
Brotherhood continue to build their little fort.
    “And leave the village to deal with them?”
Bren asked shaking his head.
    Yes. You don’t owe them anything. It is no
different than allowing them to fight for you. There are always
sacrifices; there is no reason that it has to be you.
    “I refuse to lose what little humanity I have
left,” Bren said vehemently. As soon as he said the words in his
mind Bren started to consider just what Thuraman had said. He
doubted that the Brotherhood would be able to get into the valley
easily, and given what had happened a few days beforehand, he
doubted they would even try until they got more men. Bren shook the
thoughts from his mind. The second he began to think in terms of
only what was best for him, he would lose what little of himself he
had been able to take back.
    By the time the fort came into view, Bren had
built up a large amount of magical energy, so much that while he
didn’t feel full, it was getting hard to keep it all under control.
If he had to compare it to something, it would be like trying to
lead eight horses at once when all of them wanted to go different
directions.
    Bren and Cass had walked along the forest’s
edge, so as soon as the fort was in sight, they moved back in the
forest line so that the chances they would be seen would be
reduced. The Brotherhood were not idiots and had built their fort
far enough away from the forest that anyone trying to approach it
had to cross a large expanse of open ground. The area was flat as
well, making it impossible to approach the fort from any direction
without being noticed.
    Bren wished he knew how to make himself
invisible the way Faye did. He had watched her use her power, but
he still didn’t understand how it worked, and that was the key to
magic. Internal magic users were different. They didn’t always need
any understanding; it was almost innate with them. Mages, on the
other hand, had to understand how things worked—at least in a basic
sense—and Bren was at a complete loss when it came to how Faye’s
power worked.
    That said, it didn’t mean that Bren was
without options. He just didn’t have any that he thought would work
as well. “Any ideas?” Bren asked his friend as he looked at the
soldiers who were beginning to leave the fort in the direction of
the forest.
    “I have a few,” Cass said in a hushed
whisper. “We just need to get their attention