The Phoenix Ring(32)

"Are you sure we are doing the right thing?" Leonor asked her husband.

"Yes," Eric said, helping his wife over a log that had fallen on the  path. "Borin may be a little rough around the edges, but my older  brother is brave and strong. I trust that he will care for our girl,  with the help of Camp Ward. Besides, our life is far too dangerous for a  little girl, and far too important to abandon now."

"I know," Leonor said, "but I'm just not sure if he's the parenting-"

She was cut off as a large man wearing a tattered, dusty deerskin  stepped onto the path. Eric's hand immediately fell to his sword.

"Who are you?" he asked, as Leonor unsheathed a dagger under her cloak.  Neither saw any weapons on the man, but that meant little if he knew how  to hide them.

"Just a traveler passing through." the man said with a large smile full of rotting teeth.

Eric's eyes narrowed. "Why would a traveler be going on an old side path through a forest in the middle of nowhere?"

The strange man laughed. "I could ask you the same thing, friend. I'm a  hunter, and I find it easiest to find the deer when no one else is  around. Is it a boy or a girl?"

Eric didn't remove his hand from his sword, but he did let the hunter see his child.

"Her name is Aaliyah," Leonor said.

The man smiled. "Aaliyah. She'll fetch a fine price."

A slower man would have pondered the hunter's words or at least taken a  moment to register what had been said, but not Eric. The amogh had drawn  his sword and thrust it into the hunter's side before he had time to  react. But the small family had no time to rest, for at that moment ten  more men stepped out from the brush, completely surrounding the amoghs.

Eric managed to stab the first one before three more pinned him down,  but his actions gave his wife the time she needed to roll away from her  would-be captors.

"Stop!" one of the men restraining Eric yelled. Leonor whipped around,  as the baby started to cry. "All we want is the child. If you give her  to us, your husband will live."

Leonor stared at Eric, his face pressed to the ground and blood leaking  from his nose. If she had been older, maybe she would have ran. As it  was, the girl was only eighteen, and her husband one year older.

She stepped forward one grueling step at a time until she reached the  first of the ambushers, who snatched the baby from her hands.

The man who had spoken last laughed. "Stupid girl," he said, and brought the sword down. Eric never blinked.                       
       
           



       

Leonor screamed a moment before she was impaled by different sword. The  last thing she remembered was her screaming child, held upside down by a  ruthless amogh slaver.



Borin ran into the clearing from which he had heard his sister's in law  distinct echoing scream. By the time he got there it was too late.  Eric's head was held up by a spike in the center, and Leonor sat propped  against a tree, blood leaking from her stomach.

The amogh warrior wasted no time lamenting his little brother, but ran to the fallen girl.

"Leonor, where is the baby?" he asked. He knew she didn't have much time.

"Th-they took her," she mumbled, struggling to keep her eyes half opened.

"Who? Who took her?" he asked, pressing his hands against the wound in  her stomach in a futile attempt to staunch the blood flow.

"I don't know. He-" she had to stop to cough up even more blood, "he was  dressed in deer skins. Go find her, now," she said, feebly trying to  push him away.

"I will, I promise," he answered, keeping his face as straight as he could. "Just tell me one more thing. What was her name?"

"A-Aaliyah," Leonor said, and then breathed her last, joining her husband in silence.

Borin stood slowly. "I'll find you, Aaliyah," he said, as his hands  clenched into fists. "I swear I'll never stop searching until you are  found."



And so he did. It was three months later that he killed the man clothed  in deer skin and all his followers. He used poison to do it, making sure  to let the solution be diluted enough to keep them in pain at least as  long as they had let Leonor suffer. By the time he found them Aaliyah  had already been sold, but to whom he never learned.

From there he spent six years of his life tracing the girl, always one  step behind, leaving a string of bodies in his wake. Then, one day, she  vanished.

He searched a whole year with no luck. It was then that he started  drinking in the bars of Argentah. Fate would have it that he was sitting  at the corner table of one such bar when he looked up and saw her. He  was so used to seeing her in his dreams, in the face of every little  girl he met; especially when he was drunk, that he was no longer  surprised. The apparition would go away in a moment, and she would be  replaced by a perfectly normal girl sitting with her wizard father.

Wait, a wizard? Borin thought, his senses suddenly on full alert, or at least as alert as they could be in a drunken stupor.

He looked up again. Though he had never seen her in the flesh, he had  seen so many drawings, so many "Slave for Sale" posters, that her face  would be forever ingrained in his memory.

For a moment he just watched her, feeling excitement replace disbelief.  She was strong and graceful, even at seven years old. She was as  beautiful as her mother, and as confident as her father, though her life  had been filled with misery.

The wizard, also drunk, was having a very loud conversation with another  man. Eventually, both ran out of ale and pushed their mugs into the  girl's hands. She turned and walked to the keg, her face devoid of any  expression.

Borin saw his chance and stood, though it took him a moment to steady  himself, and made his way to the girl's master, politely waiting for a  break in the conversation.

"Sir, I was wondering, is your girl for sale?" Borin asked.

The wizard barely even glanced up. "No, I'm afraid not. Took me a while  to get one of her breed, and a lot of silver as well. I hear there are  some fine children in the square, though."

It took all Borin had to not clench his fists in anger. "I'm willing to  pay in gold. What could one girl possibly mean to you that three other  slaves couldn't?"

"I told you, she's a rare breed," the wizard said, sounding a little  frustrated. "Her blood is worth its weight in gold amongst wizards."

Borin was horrified. "You've been taking her blood?"

The wizard finally stood. "Why should you care? Come Aaliyah," he said  as the girl returned, "we're leaving." He grabbed the girl's wrist and  was about to turn away when Borin desperately reached out and grabbed  his arm.

The moment their skin made contact, it was as if all movement in the bar  stopped. Borin could only assume that the energy coming from the wizard  was strong enough for everyone else to feel.

"Amogh," the sorcerer whispered.

Borin leaped back and unsheathed a dagger at the same time as the wizard, who also released his wand with his other hand.

Had both men been sober, then most likely the battle that would have  ensued would have left every man, woman, and child in the bar slain. As  it was, the wizard made the first slash, causing Borin to nearly fall  over a table as he avoided the knife.                       
       
           



       

Borin's physical prowess was far superior to the wizard's, and he was  fairly certain he could hold his ale better than his opponent.  Unfortunately, he couldn't fight back without risking hurting Aaliyah.

Someone yelled "Bar fight!" and chaos broke out. Borin found himself  avoiding a punch from a stranger as he watched the wizard pick Aaliyah  up with one arm and run for the exit.

The amogh ran after him and grabbed Aaliyah, who still hadn't said a  word, by her legs, easily pulling her from the sorcerer's grasp.

His opponent whipped around, knife in hand. Borin avoided the slash, but  heard a high pitched scream from in front of him. Aaliyah had been cut  across her face.

The amogh warrior covered Aaliyah's mouth to prevent her from drawing  attention, though he knew it caused her pain, and ran towards the exit.  The wizard desperately threw fire from his wand at them, which hit an  oil lamp.

Borin ducked out the door just as the lamp exploded, showering the bar in droplets of burning oil.

He never looked back as he ran for the forest, Aaliyah struggling in his arms.





Aaliyah wiped her cheek on her sleeve. "The wizard's name is Ferrow. He  was my last and cruelest master. He feared amoghs because he had no  power over us. In time, that fear turned to hate. Every day he would  take my blood, skin, nails …  anything to experiment on. He never figured  out why magic doesn't work on us, but what he took from me can never be  replaced."