Nature's Peril Part 1 (The Nature Mage Series) by Duncan Pile Page B

him.”
    “To protect him!” Gaspi insisted. “Surely he will understand that!”
    Taurnil interrupted, speaking quietly: “Do you think we did the wrong thing Talmo?”
    “I do, but it is not my opinion that matters. You will have to ask Rimulth when you next see him. Perhaps he will not share my view.” Taurnil looked greatly troubled. “Don’t worry Taurnil,” Talmo said. “I will not hold it against you. We are brothers you and I, and nothing will change that, but I would not be your brother if I failed to tell you my feelings about this. The same goes for you Gaspi.” With that, the tribesman took his leave of them and jogged ahead of the party into the trees, bow in hand.
    “Sheesh,” Gaspi exhaled when Talmo was out of earshot. “Way to make a person feel bad!”
    “I dunno,” Taurnil responded uncertainly.
    “Look, we had a choice to make, and we made it,” G aspi insisted, but even as he said it, he could feel a niggling doubt. They walked on in silence for a while. Gaspi wrestled with his uncertainty, telling himself that Lydia couldn’t have made the journey, and Rimulth and Emmy needed to look after her, but in the end, he couldn’t quite convince himself. Lydia definitely couldn’t have come along in her condition, and Emmy should be there to look after her, but there had been no real need to leave Rimulth out. If he’d asked the tribesman if he wanted to come along on the quest, he would have said yes in a heartbeat. Leaving Rimulth behind had been his choice, and it wasn’t his to make.
    He sighed wearily. “Maybe we made the wrong choice.”
    “Maybe we did,” Taurnil repeated. They walked on, lost in their thoughts, and neither of them said anything else for a good while.

Six
     
    The door to Ferast’s cell creaked as it swung inwards. He opened blood-rimmed eyes, peering at the hem of Shirukai Sestin’s scarlet robes. “Master, please, no more,” he croaked, pain shooting through his body as he spoke. Since Ferast’s catastrophic failure at the Measure, Sestin had tortured him physically and mentally every day and every night. Ferast knew it wasn’t just for the sake of chastisement. The renegade took pleasure from causing him pain, revelling in every blood-soaked moment. He’d been at death’s door several times, begging for the end to come, but Sestin was a master, using his unparalleled knowledge of the mind and body to keep him dangling there, hanging over the abyss by a single thread. However much Ferast pleaded, that thread never snapped.
    He gasped as h ealing power flooded into him, dulling the sharp edge of his pain and then washing it away entirely. His bloodied vision cleared, his bones knit back together, and before long he was completely restored.
    Ferast stayed where he was. He’d learned the hard way that it was better to wait for Sestin to tell him what to do – even something as simple as getting to his feet. His only strategy for survival was to show his compliance in every tiny matter; even his own torture.
    There was no point getting up anyway. Sestin only healed him so that he could begin torturing him again. Sometimes he got bread and water, but more often than not the pain started as soon as his wounds were fully healed. Ferast braced himself, waiting for the inevitable agony, but it didn’t come. Sestin just stood there, looking at him.
    “ Do you think you have served your penance?” he asked.
    Ferast feared to answer. Sestin was almost certainly teasing him with hope – a hope he didn’t dare to contemplate, for when it was wrenched from his grasp, the pain was all the worse.
    “Do you think y ou have served your penance?” Sestin repeated. The palpable threat in his voice told Ferast he had no choice but to speak.
    “If you believe I have,” he responded, cursing himself for a fool as he felt the tiniest glimmer of hope flicker into being inside of him. He lay there in petrified silence, listening to the rasp of his own ragged