Lord Of The Freeborn (Book 7) Read online

  He opened his mouth to scream.

  Then a sudden force cinched around him, crushing his ribs like a huge fist. He felt heavy weight for a brief moment, then he was being lifted into the air. Was this Hezarin’s work? Was she delaying his pain for her gratification? He struggled against her binding.

  He twisted to scream at her, but his voice stuck in his throat when he saw Garrick standing atop the walkway.

  Garrick, Lord of the Freeborn, glowing with the starshine against the dark of night.

  Garrick, god-touched, depositing him safely on the ground outside the government center wall.

  Garrick had returned. Garrick had saved him.

  Just as Will had known he would.

  Will stood knee-deep in a snow bank.

  The cold came back in full then, but Will ignored it. He felt the bottoms of his feet against the frozen ground below, but he didn’t care. He ignored the bitter wind that seemed to be everywhere at once.

  He looked up to the deepest part of the sky above, that place where he had just been falling from, and he heard Garrick’s voice echo.

  His heart beat a rapid fire rhythm. He raised a fist, and felt his chest nearly burst.

  “Garrick!” he pumped his fist and called as the mage turned to join the battle. “Garrick!” he pumped again and called again as the mage disappeared on the other side of the wall. “Garrick!”

  Suddenly the boy found himself crying.

  Chapter 16

  Garrick leapt from the wall and landed in the manor yard below. Snow melted around him, and raised a cloud of silvered mist that faded into the darkness.

  Darien looked from the ground, his eyes crimson and bloodshot.

  Hezarin’s face became a twisted mass.

  She cast a river of fire at him.

  He splayed his hands and ran life force through gates to meet it. Steam hissed and popped with an earsplitting boil. It was an easy magic now, effortless—his standard gates fell into place almost without his thought, and the energy of Existence flowed with obeisance he had never felt before.

  He planted his feet before Hezarin with a new sense of confidence.

  “This is my plane,” he said. “Get out.”

  “Never.”

  She growled and threw magic at him, creating wheeling discs with serrated edges that gave earsplitting screams as they arced through the air. He stood his ground, deflecting them left and right.

  The planewalker’s desperation showed in her gaze. She hesitated, then reached her magic toward Darien, who was still defenseless on the ground. He gave a deep groan of pain.

  “It’s you or him, Garrick. Which one of you dies?”

  Garrick paused.

  “I’ve given you your chance, Hezarin. Let no one say otherwise.”

  The planewalker grunted. “I’ll take that for your answer.”

  Darien gave a garbled groan.

  Garrick raised his hands and a vortex flow of energy rose around him. The wind became a gale, and every fire in the vicinity bent toward him. Hezarin’s magic shredded into fragments, and spiraled into Garrick’s vortex, and Garrick fed on it, drinking it as a steady stream, molding it with his hands, his fingers moving over it like a weaver’s dance across the loom.

  Hezarin gasped for breath. Her eyes widened as Garrick brought his spell to its end.

  He dropped his hands.

  The wind halted.

  Darien had fallen free.

  Snowflakes dropped in casual silence.

  Then Darien shielded his face, as did Ellesadil.

  But Will, who had run back to the front gates, watched it all.

  He watched as Garrick reached into Hezarin and pulled her life force into himself, watched as the planewalker screamed in agony, watched as she buckled at the knees, then the waist. He watched as Garrick drew her in with a breath that grew deeper and deeper, an inhale that seemed to never end.

  Will watched as Garrick’s entire body pulsed crimson and golden and blue and black, watched as Garrick destroyed the planewalker and took on a power like none had existed since perhaps the dawn of Starshower itself.

  Chapter 17

  The scars of battle smoldered in the cold darkness. Voices sounded in the distance. Fires crackled throughout the city despite the damp snow.

  Garrick stood in the courtyard, the aura of power fading, but not quite dissipating. He felt the pull of the city, heard cries of the wounded. Power coursed through his senses. He felt fullness. Intense warmth bled from every pore.

  Darien used his father’s sword to help him stand up between Garrick and Ellesadil.

  “I’m glad you returned,” Garrick said to him.

  “I came back for the city.”

  Garrick saw Darien’s hurt then, the depth of the humiliation Garrick had caused. Yet still his friend would die defending Dorfort.

  “That’s a good reason,” Garrick replied. “Dorfort has always been more worthy of your regard than I am.”

  Silence roared between them.

  Garrick fought the elements of Hezarin’s life force, and the wall of need he felt building over the city. There were injured in Dorfort’s streets. There was pain. He felt it all, and rubbed his hands together absently as he steeled himself against the turmoil it caused inside his mind.

  “What have you become?” Darien said.

  Garrick shrugged.

  “I am who I always have been.”

  “It’s untoward to pretend, Garrick.”

  He was right. Darien had always been able to see under his skin better than Garrick could himself.

  “I am god-touched,” he said, accepting that term in ways he hadn’t before. “But I am still a man. No different from you in any way that matters.”

  Lord Ellesadil cleared his throat to draw attention. He held his damaged arm against his ribcage, but still managed to place his weapon back into its sheath. He looked at Garrick.

  Around them, the city burned.

  “I think we should gather our wits.” He looked at Darien. “I suggest you gather the guard and take action to stop the blaze.”

  “No,” Darien said.

  Ellesadil started, unfamiliar with such disobedience.

  “I cannot direct your guard,” Darien said.

  “What?” Ellesadil cried.

  “I nearly took your life, Lord. I’ve disgraced myself.”

  “I’ll hear nothing of that. You saved my life. There is no man alive who could have done better in my service. You belong in Dorfort.” Ellesadil paused and found just the right inflection. “In fact, I’ve needed a commander of my guard since your father passed, Darien. I’ll accept none other than you.”

  Darien paused, his expression torn.

  Ellesadil glanced at Garrick.

  “What do you think, Lord of the Freeborn?”

  Garrick was suddenly jealous. Darien had a home, a place to be. His entire life had been about Dorfort, and now he would be tied to the city in the most meaningful way he could imagine.

  “I think the J’ravi name will sound good in that post again.”

  Chapter 18

  Will ran to Garrick, then. The boy threw his arms around Garrick’s shoulders, an act that showed exactly how much Will had grown over the past year. When Garrick had first taken the boy in, Will’s hug would have been around the waist.

  “Garrick, sir! I knew you would come back!”

  He was shivering.

  “You need to get inside where it’s warm,” he said, running his hand over Will’s head.

  “I’m all right,” Will said.

  A current of Hezarin’s life force swelled toward the boy. Garrick pushed it away, and concentrated. Will was in that awkward age where he needed true guidance, not the second-hand mentoring Garrick had been providing so far.

  “I’ll take Will inside,” Ellesadil replied, rubbing his arms now against the cold. “We both need to get out of the elements, and I could use his help to gather the guard and announce my new captain.”

>   “Thank you,” Garrick said.

  “Come along,” Ellesadil said to Will.

  Will gave only a perfunctory argument as Ellesadil put a hand on his shoulder and led him inside, leaving Garrick alone with Darien. The two of them watched Ellesadil and the boy disappear through the doorway.

  The sounds of voices grew in the nighttime.

  Garrick looked at his friend.

  “I’m sorry,” he said simply.

  A neutral smirk crossed Darien’s bearded face. “We’re fine.”

  Garrick looked to the wall and felt the pressure of Dorfort’s panic rising outside. “I think you have a city to save.”

  “You mean, we have a city to save, right?”

  Garrick clenched his eyes shut against the pressure and listened as Hezarin’s power roiled inside him. He thought his head might explode. He could use her energy to save lives tonight. He could use it to heal. But he didn’t know if he could trust it. He didn’t know if he could trust himself. What would happen if he drained himself too far after he has absorbed a planewalker? Would his hunger’s pendulum swing back even further than it had in the past? And if it did, could he stop at merely the destruction of Dorfort?

  He shook his head. “If I stay here now, I fear the city will suffer.”

  “The people need you.”

  “No, Darien. They need you.”

  Darien took in the devastation that was the government center—the dead guardsmen and mages, the destroyed walls, and the burnt buildings.

  “Look around, Garrick. It will take months to make these repairs,” he said. “You, and the Torean order, need to stay in Dorfort.”

  Garrick shook his head again, harder this time.

  “If this has taught me one thing, it’s that I cannot lead the Freeborn.”

  The sounds of the people rose over the roar of burning fire. In the distance, the guard was beginning to form. “Commander J’ravi!” one man yelled.

  Darien stepped forward to stand firmly before Garrick.

  “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps the city would be better off without you. Perhaps it doesn’t need you. But I need you, Garrick. And I need you now. I know what you can do, and I’ll take my chances. I need you to go into my city and heal its wounded. They are innocents, Garrick. They didn’t deserve this.”

  Garrick raised his gaze to meet Darien’s and saw the inner fire he had felt many months ago in Arderveer. His friend’s gaze was firm and direct. It was personal.

  “All right. I will do my best, though I don’t know if you understand what you are asking.”

  “And the Freeborn?”

  “Give them to Amanda. She is young, but she is strong and inventive. She’ll hold the core together.”

  Darien nodded. “That is probably the wisest course.”

  “Whatever you do, it cannot be Reynard.”

  “I understand.”

  Behind them, the guard began to form.

  “That’s it, then,” Darien said. “We have more to discuss, but first let’s get Dorfort under some semblance of control.”

  “Agreed,” Garrick said.

  Darien turned to face his guards.

  Epilogue

  Garrick strode toward the gaping hole in the wall. Beyond that wall he would find a city strewn with death and destruction, a city filled with people in need. He felt them already, bleeding, burning, crying out in the nighttime. The life force inside him yearned to be unleashed.

  As he walked he thought three things.

  First, that he was proud of Darien. His friend was a good man, battered and bruised, but a man who knew who he was.

  Second, he thought about Will.

  And third, he thought about Braxidane and Hezarin, and All of Existence

  He had felt his destiny while he was in Existence. He had seen the future of the plane, and the future of all planes as long as they were open to the daliances of the planewalkers. That thought twisted through him in ways worse than Braxidane’s hunger ever could.

  He belonged to Adruin. It had given him its energy. He had fed off its life force. He felt the entire plane as if it was under his skin, whole and vital and important. Perhaps, unlike Darien who yearned for the comfort of Dorfort, he had never felt completely attuned to any one place on Adruin because he belonged to the entirety of this world.

  Perhaps.

  But he knew one thing that no one else knew. He felt it embedded deep in the power he held inside him now.

  The people of Adruin would never be free as long as the planewalkers were free to use them as their playthings. These people who lie dead and dying would be alive and well now if it were not for Hezarin, and Hezarin would not have come here if it were not for Braxidane. What other machinations had combined to create this play? Garrick could not begin to guess. But he had seen All of Existence. He understood that life there was a collection of shifting paths that lead to nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

  He sighed then, feeling what he knew would not be the final shudder of Hezarin’s life force.

  The planewalkers would come for him. That’s what Braxidane had told him.

  That much was true, he thought to himself as he came to the wall and surveyed the city proper.

  “Fine,” he said out loud. “Let them come.”

  * * * * *

  This is the end of Lord of the Freeborn, but the story of Garrick’s struggles with Braxidane and the planewalkers continues in Lords of Existence, due to be published in February, 2015!

  Available at:

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  Subscribe to Ron's Ramblings to be the first to hear about new publications!(*)

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  The Saga of the God-Touched Mage includes:

  Glamour of the God-Touched

  Trail of the Torean

  Target of the Orders

  Gathering of the God-Touched

  Pawn of the Planewalker

  Changing of the Guard

  Lord of the Freeborn

  Lords of Existence

  APPENDIX

  * * * * *

  Map of the Plane of Adruin

  image by Ron Collins

  Acknowledgements

  The universe of Adruin and All of Existence has many people to thank for its existence, not the least of which are Tim Brown, Mike Cox, Ken and Jackie Peters, and my wife, Lisa.

  I need to single out a few others for their efforts beyond all the rest.

  My friend, collaborator, and pre-reader John Bodin's help was—as always—superlative. I want to thank my daughter, Brigid, for stepping into the fray when I needed her. And I want to give thanks to my cover artist, Rachel Carpenter, who was great fun to work with and who did a fantastic job bringing Garrick to life.

  Mostly, though, I have to thank Lisa for everything she's done for me. The Saga of the God-Touched Mage has gone through more twists and turns than I could ever have predicted when the idea first hit, and she's been with me through every step. (Don't worry, honey. It's really done. Really, I mean it. It's done. You don't have to read it for the 111th time!).

  About Ron Collins

  Ron Collins is an award-winning author who lives in Columbus, Indiana, with his wife, Lisa.

  Lord of the Freeborn is the seventh volume in the eight-part Saga of the God-Touched Mage. Ron published Five Magics, a collection of his short fantasy, in 2012. Five Magics includes two tales from Dragon Magazine, a Marion Zimmer Bradley’s FANTASY MAGAZINE Cauldron Award winning story, and another tale that was awarded Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling's “Years Best Fantasy.”

  Ron is the author of two road trip, alternate-history, fantasy, science fiction baseball novels, the first being See the PEBA on $25 a Day (2010), and the sequel being Chasing the Setting Sun (2014).

  He has contributed numerous short stori
es to professional science fiction publications including Analog, Asimov’s, and Nature. His writing has received a Writers of the Future prize, and a CompuServe HOMer Award. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and worked developing avionics systems, electronics, and information technology before spending a decade in Human Resource management.

  Discover other work by Ron Collins at:

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  Search Kobo

  Search Nook Book

  Subscribe to Ron's Ramblings to be the first to hear about new publications!(*)

  (*) We promise not to spam you with anything beyond information regarding Ron's work!

  The Saga of the God-Touched Mage includes:

  Glamour of the God-Touched

  Trail of the Torean

  Target of the Orders

  Gathering of the God-Touched

  Pawn of the Planewalker

  Changing of the Guard

  Lord of the Freeborn

  Lords of Existence

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  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Title Page

  Other Work

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13