Shadow and Wild Magic

“We’re almost there!” shouted Master Khan. “I can see the Barrier.”

Shadow ran beside the human wizard. His furry feet sank into the sand at each step, making it so hard for him to move. Behind them were four sindurs who had escaped the caravan in flames. Everyone else was dead.

They reached the top of the dune. The sky was turning orange, and the horizon was but a red blur. That was the Barrier, the magic wall that separated Rallis from the land of humans. They were so close. They were almost there.

No time to stop, they had to move. The sithrax guards were right behind them, chasing them. Giant lizardmen in dirty brown and red armor with spiky crests and jagged teeth. If those monsters caught them, it would all be over, and all of this would have been for nothing.

The whistle of an arrow breached through the air. One more sindur fell. Master Khan turned around and moved his hands in waves. His eyes lit up and leaked blue light. He murmured inaudible words, and then, bang, he shot a lightning bolt at the giant lizards. Payback.

Shadow and Khan made it beyond the dune. They had to escape. They ran and ran, out of breath, but they had to run nonetheless. When Shadow looked over his shoulder again, the other men-lynx were gone.

“We have to keep moving!” Master Khan shouted again.

“They’re so fast!” Shadow exclaimed. “We won’t make it!”

“Don’t say that. I have more tricks up my sleeve!”

Master Khan wore a blue robe, which was slowing him down. He was sweaty and breathed loud like a dying deer. Shadow was faster. Even if he was shorter than the human mage, his legs and feet made him faster. But in this deep sand, would that advantage be enough?

Shadow heard another arrow, sooner than Master Khan. The arrow swooshed between them and landed just a few feet ahead.

That was so close.

One more whistle, Shadow knew it would hit before Khan became aware of it. The arrow pierced through the mage’s leg, making the sound of catching wet fish. Master Khan screamed and fell on the sand, bleeding. Shadow stopped running. He rushed to the mage, the man who was going to get them all out of here. He checked Khan’s wounds, but Shadow had no idea what to do. Blood gushed out of it like a red jet. The lizardmen were now a mere few feet away.

Master Khan rolled over, his eyes flaring blue again. He pointed at one of the sithrax, ready to launch another lightning strike. Thunder echoed through the sandy plains, but the bolt bounced off the lizard’s armor, barely wounding him. Khan lay there, mouth agape and eyes open wide, incredulous. Shadow could see the fear in his dark brown eyes.

“Run,” Master Khan muttered.

“Run where?”

The mage didn’t have an answer to that. Soon enough, the giant lizards caught up to them. One of them lifted Master Khan and slouched him over his shoulder. The other caught Shadow by his collar and dragged him away. Shadow fought against it, kicking the air and sand. He pulled on his own collar so he wouldn’t get strangled by it. The lizardman seemed to have little care whether or not Shadow would be strangled to death.

The sithrax took them and shoved them into a large wagon pulled by two rhinoceroses. They forced Shadow to sit on one side, next to one of the captured sindurs, and they bound his paws together. They dumped Master Khan in the middle of the chamber. The mage writhed in pain, the arrow still lodged in his leg. They closed the iron door. The only light source in this rolling prison cell was the tiny barred roof window. Master Khan fainted right before the wagon began to move.

Shadow stared at his bound paws. He had no idea what would happen next, only that the plan to cross the Barrier had failed miserably. Would they take him back to Lahok? To his parents? Shadow didn’t believe that, but they weren’t going to kill them if they had captured them. They’d probably return these runaway sindurs to their masters or bring them to a new master. He wasn’t sure what they’d do with Master Khan.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” the sindur next to him said in their language. His voice was tender.

“Thanks,” Shadow responded, but he knew the sindur couldn’t guarantee this promise. “Where are they taking us?”

The sindur shrugged. “I’m not sure, but we’re going west.”

This sindur was old, judging by the flecked grey hairs in his red fur. His muzzle was white like clouds. The three others were all of different ages. One was a grey female about as old as Shadow’s mother. One was a young red male. The other one, a little cub no older than five, was white like the old one’s muzzle. Shadow, the last sindur in this prison wagon, was sixteen and black as night.

All of them had wished to cross the Barrier, all of them with different lives. Shadow wondered if the old one had done this before. He wanted to ask but didn’t want to pry either. If he’d done this before, then he’d failed, and this moment here was also a failure.

“Will they kill us?” the little one asked. Shadow noticed the tears and wet muzzle. How long had he been crying without the others hearing him?

The old sindur leaned forward to reach out to him, but it was like he suddenly remembered that his paws were bound.

“I won’t let them kill you,” he said instead.

“Do you promise?” the little one asked again.

The old sindur nodded.

Even in the dark, Shadow could see the scars on the old sindur’s arms. Wounds of battle, perhaps? Of torture, maybe? Wounds of captivity... Wherever those wounds had come from, Shadow knew one thing. The old sindur couldn’t keep his promise. He’d said this to soothe Shadow and the little cub because they were the youngest here. The two others had probably concluded that promises wouldn’t help because they were sobbing in silence. Only Shadow and his bench partner were staring at the void, eyes dry.