Free Merchants and Mages (Highmage's Plight Book 2) by D.H. Aire

he muttered.
      “Milord?” Se’and said, confused as she offered him a cup of steaming hot caf.
      “Never mind, just an old figure of speech.”
      Fri’il gestured at the hot cereal, bread and butter she’d brought up.
      They ate quickly, gathering their belongings. They had a trap to walk into. Never a dull day for a simple merchant, he thought, or what the locals, doubtless, would consider the work of a mage. He gripped his staff and willed it to quiescence.
     
    The horse that was not a horse bent to allow George and Fri’il to mount. Raven fluttered her wings, then dove from her perch and changed form in the alley. Moments later, she bounded in front of them and led the way out of town.
      They left through the west gate as George almost felt sorry from
    the mageling and his minions who intended to rob them. Well, the Imperials would likely be pleased in the drop in crime that was about to result.
     
    “They’s comin’!” Towsin said.
      The elfblood smiled as he finished chanting the last words of his spell. Yet, what he heard himself saying were not the words he intended.
      The Summoning was rather smug… This was one self––taught elfblood – and you could never make up for not having a good education. It led to subtle mistakes. Being confounded was something that having been trained in developing solid wards would have prevented.
      It was a shame, really – such a waste. The Empire needed unity not this squandering of gifts for material gain.
      Well, that was something the Summoning might be able to change… Literally. If the intangible spirit form wrapped in a spell could grin, it would have.
     
     

 
     
     
    Were-Horse
    Chapter 10
     
     
     
    T he mare nickered as the Summoning touched its thoughts.
      YOU NEED NOT BE THE LAST OF YOUR KIND.
      She whinnied, looking around.
      The Summoning chuckled, MILADY, A SUITABLE HOST HAS BEEN PREPARED.
      George frowned as Raven slowed just outside the glade.
      “Milord?” Se’and said.
      “The Summoning is much too pleased about something,” George said as he pulled his staff from his bindings. Fri’il scooted closer and drew one of her daggers with her right hand.
      The large mare nickered.
      George leaned forward as his mount slowed. He patted its mane as it turned her head back to look at him. She stopped and began pawing the ground.
      “Uh, Se’and,” he said just before his mount charged forward.
      Se’and let out a curse and spurred her mount forward.
     
    The elfblood saw the charging warhorse and shouted at his partners to let fly. They released their arrows and quickly drew and let fly two more.
      The beast bounding into the glade was struck – the arrows shattered against her furred chest. Their second set shot toward the warhorse and stopped in midair as the staff in George’s hands flared.
      “He’s warded!” the scarred man cried.
      The elfblood cursed and gestured at the bespelled ground.
      The warhorse barred its teeth and leaped over it as the man upon its back yelled, “Shit!”
    The elfblood ducked as the warhorse’s body passed over his head, then
    landed and kicked out with both hind legs. The mageling was hurled off his feet and squarely onto the warded ground, which flared.
      Se’and cast a dagger at the archer with the scar on his face, even as Raven charged his companion, who swatted at the beast with his bow.
      The man clutched Se’and’s dagger in his shoulder as he fell across the edge of the warded ground, near where the elfblood mageling had fallen and lay moaning. Then the mageling gasped, realizing he wasn’t dead – only to lose all memory of his miserable past, forgetting the death of his human mother and being left alone as a hungry child in a world too long at war with the evil beyond in the Northlands. He forgot his name; forgot magery.
      His mind went blank as he stared in confusion at the large mare that came up to him. He threw up his hands in