Renegade Wizards by Lucien Soulban Page A

travel will be easier, and find us a damn inn for the night so we can sleep properly for once. No arguments! I will suffer no more disrespect from either of you. Once you’ve spent another ten years within the orders, serving them to every bloody inch that I have, then maybe you can address me as an equal. Until then, I find you wanting—in age, in skills, and in manners! Now shut up. Do you hear me? And I swear … one more argument, and I’ll give you both a lesson in magic you won’t soon forget.”
    They sat there a moment, their horses uneasy in the storm of rain and argument. Both women stared at Par-Salian in shock; they’d never seen him so short-tempered. Until then, he’d taken matters in stride, perhaps too much so. They could see the raw, exposed nerve now. Whether or not Tythonnia agreed with his outburst, it was no time to argue her position. She nodded her head and wheeled her horse about.
    “This way,” she said. “There’s a village nearby, I think … maybe they have a barn we can use.”
    A triumphant smile began to mark Ladonna’s lips, but Par-Salian silenced it with a glare. He would brook no more quibbling that night, for which Tythonnia was grateful. Shewasn’t sure how much longer she could hold her temper in check. She wasn’t sure how much longer any of them could hold back. She hoped a night spent somewhere warm and dry would improve everyone’s disposition.

    Tythonnia, Par-Salian, and Ladonna stared at the village in disbelief. A road eaten into the plains’ grass served as its axis. No more than four or five buildings dotted either side, likely once small shops that catered to travelers and local farmers—a trading post, a smithy, a tavern. Fire, however, had made them indistinguishable. Bodies lay in the streets, some purple and bloated in rainwater puddles, others charcoaled by the flames. The sky seemed to cry harder at the sight, and the curtains of rain drenched the macabre stage.
    The three exchanged glances, uncertain of what had transpired here. In the mud lay a sword or two, and an ominous farmer’s scythe stabbed into the spine of the ground. Otherwise, there was nothing to show for their deaths, no arrows or dead horses, no signs of battle. Just corpses and the cindered remains of buildings.
    “We should leave this place, I think,” Ladonna said.
    “We can’t leave the bodies out to rot,” Par-Salian whispered.
    “We’ll tell one of the neighboring villages,” Tythonnia said. “Hartford is a day’s ride from here.”
    “Whatever killed them might still be about,” Par-Salian said.
    “Exactly why we should go,” Tythonnia replied. She glanced around and was sickened by the charred body of someone too small to be an adult. A fabric-sewn rag doll, untouched by the flames, lay inches from the corpse’s fragile hand. Tythonnia looked away.
    “No,” Par-Salian said. “I will not send more villagers to their doom. Not without knowing what unfolded here.”
    The same thought must have crossed Ladonna’s and Tythonnia’s minds because neither of them pressed the matter. They would follow Par-Salian. He was older than both of them, and while age counted for little, he was rumored to be in line to lead the White Robes. That meant there was tremendous magic at his disposal.
    Ladonna climbed down from her horse.
    “What are you doing?” Par-Salian asked, his voice an urgent hiss.
    “You wish to play leader? Fine!” Ladonna said. “Good leaders know when to rely on the expertise of their allies.”
    Tythonnia bit her tongue as Ladonna handed her the reins of her horse. The black robe wizard calmly walked up to one of the unburned corpses as though long intimate with it. She kicked away a rag doll lying near the body and managed to turn the corpse over onto its back with the tip for her boot.
    Tythonnia could not stop staring at Ladonna in that moment. There was something in her expression, the mesmerizing and lethal grace of someone utterly sure in her