The Marenon Chronicles Collection - By Jason D. Morrow Page 0,127

up to him, Silas would be dead in a moment. He stood to a low crouch, in the hopes that the trees safely hid him from his follower. The assassin could be flanking Silas from either direction. With this in mind, Silas took off in a sprint, praying another arrow didn’t follow. As fast as his legs would allow, he ran in a zigzag pattern, jumping over fallen branches through the thick of the woods. The enemy would have a difficult time aiming directly at Silas with the sun going down, and tracking him would become more difficult. He didn’t doubt the assassin’s ability to find him in the dark, however.

He thought about Kaden and Inga. They would eventually start looking for him and shouting out his name to let him know that they were finished for the day. The pursuer would obviously hear them and perhaps kill them as well. Both of them were highly trained and competent individuals, but an unexpected arrow could kill even the greatest of warriors.

Silas had been on their trail for the last thirty minutes and was very close to tracking them down before the assassin had taken his shot. He wished more than ever that he had his staff. The staff of Uriah was a tremendous weapon that turned into anything the bearer needed in a moment of trouble. Silas almost never let the weapon out of his sight since he had used it to kill the Stühoc leader Maroke, but it now inconveniently rested in a strap across Kaden’s back.

After several long minutes of running as fast as he could, he stopped to listen, which proved difficult with his labored breathing. Apart from his own tired body, all he could hear was the summer wind blowing through the leaves above him, masking any sort of movement that could give him an indication of where his attacker might be. It didn’t matter. Silas knew he had not run far enough, and running was not necessarily the answer. It would only be a matter of time before the assassin tracked him down, and Jekyll Rock was in the opposite direction of where Silas now headed.

As his breathing calmed, he rested his body against a tree. Running away might have given him temporary respite, but he knew something else needed to be done. He searched the forest ground for something that might help him: a rock, a solid stick, anything. A few feet away he spotted a fallen tree branch and hurried to it. He grabbed one end and yanked up while he kicked at the middle with is foot. A loud crack echoed through the trees as the branch split in two. Silas winced and glanced up, fearing he had just given away his position. He hoped the branch’s usefulness would outweigh the risk. The split end seemed sharp enough to stab, but it was more about the comfort of holding something in his hands to make him feel less vulnerable. The stick would be no match against a trained fighter, but it was something tangible unlike the magic he had not even come close to mastering.

He leaned against the tree again and took a deep breath. Magic. He had been learning it at a rapid pace for the past three months, but that didn’t mean he was any good at it. Every time he used it, he felt drained and exhausted. Inga was a good teacher, but her abilities far surpassed Silas, which left him feeling like he could never be as skilled. He needed the magic to flow through him now more than ever. He had learned mostly defensive magic; they had spent little time on attacking. But perhaps that would help him here.

He tried to calm his mind, letting the magic of Marenon flow through him like a stream. He could feel it in his chest, his arms. He was going to use what he was best at. Defense. The shield he had been taught to use was effective, but the amount of time he could keep the green bubble of light around his body amounted to very little. His greatest strength was his ability to fight with a weapon, however, and he still felt most comfortable with a sword. But the branch would have to do. He would attack first and defend second.

He waited for several moments, listening more intently for any sign of the assassin. Above the whisper of the wind-rustled leaves in the treetops, he heard the sound