Free Mage Hunter Omnibus (Complete 5 Book Series) by Ty Johnston Page A

but not too close. If this is our mage, we don’t want to give him a big, easy target. You two got bows?”
    Hammer grinned as he lifted a large crossbow in his hands. Towlin did much the same on the other side.
    Guthrie looked down and saw a similar weapon strapped to the side of his riding beast. Reaching down, he untied the crossbow and cradled it in his arms while retrieving a short arrow from a small leather quiver behind his right leg. “No time like the present,” he said, arming his bow and kneeing his animal ahead.
    As planned, the other two riders rode out to the sergeant’s sides, Towlin on the left and Hammer on the right. Behind them, the remnants of the church continued to crackle and snap as the fire began its slow death. Werner and the other militiamen watched in silence, more than a few of them preparing their own bows.
     
     

 
    Chapter 6
     
    Before the three riders stretched a desert of cold white. The harsh music of the burning church soon dissipated upon the wind, its replacement the heavy breathing of the horses and the chuffing sounds of hooves stomping along through the snow.
    For some while the mountains lining the horizon seemed to grow no nearer, and Guthrie realized they were several miles from that particular range that separated Ursia and Dartague. Their prey was not so far, then, though still a ways off.
    As they grew nearer, it became apparent their target was a single person and he or she was not upon a riding beast but wading through the ankle-deep white powder. Each of the riders glanced down and ahead, but there was no evidence of someone having tracked through on foot.
    Guthrie received a slightly different view from the others, one he kept to himself. As he had drawn nearer the distant person, it had become apparent the figure was indeed glowing. More than that, there was a line of weak light stretching from the person back toward the church. This wizard or whomever it was might be able to hide his or her tracks from the sight of the average person, but Guthrie could pick up the trail with the special vision afforded him by the ice witch. Not for the first time, he wondered if what the blue-hued woman had forced upon him was a gift or a curse.
    He was soon to find out.
    When the riders were only a few dozen yards away, the figure in the black cloak spun about. His head was bald but for wisps of dark hair flying about above his ears. His face was haggard and worn like old leather. His hands stretched from his robes like claws, the arms pale and thin as the legs of a stork. Upon his features was a look of rage, but such a vision vanished, replaced by curiosity.
    As the riders pulled their steeds to a halt and fingered their crossbows, the dark mage thrust forward a hand, pointing to Guthrie in the middle of the three. “You!”
    The sergeant leaned forward in his saddle and stared across the head of his riding beast. The wizard was no one he knew, yet the person seemed to recognize him.
    Twang!
    From the right. Hammer had launched an arrow, the big man obviously taking no chances, giving the wizard no time to summon a spell. The black dart skated across the distance between the big warrior and the wizard, then snapped in mid-air and crumbled to the ground just before hitting its target.
    The wizard tossed back his head and cackled.
    Tomlin on Guthrie’s left raised his crossbow and loosed a bolt, the arrow diving true and straight for the dark-robed figure. Again the flying javelin burst apart before striking the mage, turning to splinters and falling to the snow.
    Guthrie did not waste his arrow. Instead, he snapped his reins and trotted his beast ahead.
    “ Sergeant, stay back!” Tomlin yelled, but Guthrie paid him no attention.
    The horse fully obeyed its rider at first, but the closer it got to the wizard, the more the animal slowed as if it sensed something unnatural and disturbing. Guthrie could not blame the animal. That now familiar sheen of golden light was blossoming