25. Twenty-Two

Twenty-Two

" W ho are you?" Asher demanded.

Lily's eyes flew open and she bolted upright.

Five men stood close by. Too close. They were much taller than any man she'd seen in Rencheston. Taller even than Asher. They were well over six feet tall with arms and chests thick and muscled. They wore only leather pants. One had the hide of a mountain goat flung over one shoulder with the horns of the animal resting on top of his own head. Another man wore fur and little caps of armor on his shoulders. All of them were tattooed and had beards to their chest. And each of them bore a weapon in their hand.

Asher crouched near Lily, clearly ready to protect her. She could see his eyes darting from one man to another and then past them. Perhaps his keen tiger eyes could see more men hiding in the darkness.

"What do you want?" Asher demanded. The men hadn't answered his first question yet, and when they remained silent, he calmly stated, "We aren't near the Woir Plateau."

This made the man with the ram's horns burst into laughter and point. "You're in our shadows. Our scouts spotted you earlier today."

"We pose no threat. You can see that. We have no weapons. We're on foot," Asher continued.

Lily was grateful she wasn't alone. Asher remained calm, whereas she was already trembling. Asher must have heard her heart thundering in her chest, because he reached a hand back and placed it on her knee.

She had only just begun learning how to use magic for battles.

"You might not have weapons," one of the two men with black hair stated, "but we know you must be residents of Rencheston. Their prince has been ignoring our requests for taxes on the northern road. We're thinking we can trade you."

Lily couldn't believe they had come this far and these men were going to give them right back. She couldn't imagine the trouble they would be in if they were returned to the castle. They would execute Asher for certain.

She couldn't allow it to happen. She couldn't risk them getting caught.

The spell with the tree roots had worked on the vipers. Asher spoke to these men as if he knew where they were from, and it didn't seem it was Vasha. So her spell should work on them.

"We are not from Rencheston," Asher said firmly.

Lily stood, her mind focused on the pine tree nearest the men.

"You think you'll have better bartering techniques than your man?" the man with the horns laughed.

The others joined in their mocking.

Lily ignored them and leaned on the spell she'd cast earlier that day, using the roots of the plants beneath the feet of the large men to grab at their ankles.

"Magic?" one of them blurted.

"Get on my back," Asher said immediately. He didn't hesitate to transform into his tiger form, and Lily didn't hesitate to straddle him.

"Oy! Seamus, he's a Karasha!"

Lily's eyes widened in horror when the men stepped out of her magical trap. Their strength must have been significantly more than the vipers she'd tangled earlier.

The man she assumed to be Seamus ran after them, quickly closing in, in spite of Asher lunging forward into a sprint.

Lily let out a yelp and fell forward to wrap her arms around Asher's neck. "He's moving too fast!" she warned.

Seamus jumped to Asher's side, swung his club, and slammed it across the side of Asher's face.

Asher rolled, sending Lily to the ground. He came to a rest in an unmoving heap in his human form. The side of his head had a wound, freely bleeding.

"No. Asher!" She scrambled to get back to her feet, her ribs hurting from where his body had landed on top of her. She tried to run to him, but the goat man caught her up in his arms. "You better not have killed him." She began kicking, aiming for his knees, legs, and between them, but she couldn't get enough of an angle.

"Relax, little lady." He pressed his cheek to hers.

"Don't you dare," she snapped. She touched the goat skin.

He dropped her and threw his hide to the ground and began stomping out the fire she had set.

She ran over to Asher, dropped to her knees at his side, and shook his shoulder. "Wake up. Asher, you've got to wake up! I need your help! I can't do this on my own!"

She spotted a man approaching her on the left and got to her feet. "Let us go! We've done nothing to you!"

"We need the boy. And we very clearly need you." Seamus approached from her right. "You must be that wizard's apprentice we've heard of."

Why on earth would men from the north have heard about her?

Lily lifted her chin confidently. "This is my last warning before I do something you'll regret."

"Do you think you're faster than an arrow?" Seamus asked, stopping a couple of feet away from her. He gestured one hand toward one of the other barbarians.

How had she missed noticing him ready an arrow? It was aimed directly at Asher.

Her lips tightened. She'd just gotten him healed from an arrow wound.

Seamus's sword glinted in the light. "Give up now and you'll both be kept safe."

"Why should I trust you? You attacked us for no reason," Lily snapped back. "We aren't from Rencheston. Yes, I have magic, but we're only returning to Vasha."

"Final warning." Seamus stepped forward and pointed his sword at Asher's neck.

Lily gritted her teeth and sneered. In an instant, her anger overwhelmed her and the tree she'd latched on to rapidly dropped brown needles as she sucked the energy from it. Seamus's sword transformed into a wooden stick, and the arrow the other man had at the ready transformed into a snake.

He let out a startled yelp and dropped it, nearly dropping his bow with it.

"You . . ." Seamus growled.

Lily didn't see Asher transform. She only saw him in his tiger form lunge forward and latch on to Seamus's arm.

"Asher!" she yelled.

"Oh no you don't!" Seamus growled and tried to control Asher's attack by lifting him up in the air and trying to slam him down onto his back, but Asher twisted and planted his feet as soon as he got near the ground again. "Ulbrect!"

A second man rushed forward and climbed on Asher's back, grabbed his jaw, and pried it open.

The ground under them trembled.

"Get off of him!" Lily demanded.

The man now without his goat hide grabbed her from behind with one arm wrapped tightly around her neck. "Oh no you don't, you witch!"

Lily's concentration was immediately ripped away from the tree and the ground stopped.

The man had lifted her off the ground and cut off her airway.

She tried to gasp, tried scratching his arms, tried focusing on magic to help herself. But her inexperience was heightened by panic.

Stars filled the edges of her vision.

The men had Asher pinned and were shouting orders at him, but she couldn't understand the words.

Lily's sight went dark. Perhaps the last thing she saw were the stars. Perhaps it was the fireflies. Or maybe it was the fire she had ignited in the forest.