A Distant Magic Read Online Free PDF

plants, running for the pure fun of it. Sometimes Adia let her little brother catch her even though he was only four and had short legs.
    In later years, Adia would wonder if their squeals of delight were what brought the slavers to them, but probably not. Slavers were very good at finding victims.
    The first warning came when she glanced up to see a party of large, menacing men emerge from the forest, spears ready and mouths silent. They were not Iske like her, but some other tribe she didn't recognize. As she stared, frightened, her mother cried out,
"Run, Adia! Help your brother!"
    Her mother gestured with both hands and sent a blast of magic across the field, raising a cloud of thick, eye-stinging dust between Adia and Chike and the men. Then she scooped up the baby and raced into the forest, unable to do more for her children.
    Slavers!
Adia heard them swearing and coughing from the dust. Her mother had given her children a little time. Adia ran to her brother and grabbed his hand.
"Come!" she gasped. "The bad men will steal us!"
    Chike ran as fast as he could, aided by Adia's tugging hand. If only she had been initiated! She came from a family of priests and priestesses, and someday she would have power enough to fight evil men, but all she had now was her speed and her stubbornness.
    They were not enough. With a shout of satisfaction, the slavers burst through the dust cloud and caught Adia and Chike before they could escape into the forest. Brutal hands knocked Adia to the ground and tied her wrists behind her. The same was done to Chike, who was crying frantically.
    One of the slavers said, "These brats won't be worth much." The language he spoke was not Iske, but it was similar enough to the dialect of a neighboring tribe that Adia could understand.
    Another said, "They're worth a bar or two of iron if they
survive, so we might as well take them."
    He yanked Chike to his feet while the first slaver did the same to Adia. Her knees and arms were bleeding from her fall. For as long as anyone could remember, slavers had preyed on the Iske and other tribes. No one who was taken ever returned. Her favorite cousin and his best friend had vanished one day, taken by slavers.
    As the raiders dragged Adia and Chike away, she thought of her father's slaves, warriors who had been taken in tribal warfare, but that was different from kidnapping children.
Help me, Grandmother,
she prayed silently. She had been close to her mother's mother, Monifa, who had died only a year ago. As she prayed, she felt the spirit touch of her grandmother's hands.
Survive, little one. There is hope for the future.
    Adia closed her eyes, thanking the ancestors for helping her mother and the baby escape. Then she prayed that her father and the other hunters would come after the slavers and rescue Adia and Chike.
    Hope faded as they joined with a larger band of slavers and were marched out of the fruitful valley of the Iske. The group headed west, toward the great sea. There were dozens of other captives manacled together in long lines that made it impossible for anyone to escape. The first time Adia saw a skeleton lying forgotten in the bush, she shuddered at the knowledge that some poor captive had died on a march like this one.
    Soon she had seen enough skeletons to barely notice them. As more weeks passed, she began to envy those who had died and no longer had to walk or drink stagnant water or try to survive on a handful of cooked grain a day.
    There were a few brighter moments. A tall, strongly built youth named Mazi was shackled behind Chike, and he carried the child for long hours every day. He and Adia spoke different languages, but he made it clear that he considered her brother no burden. Then the slavers met with another group. Sales were made, captives were swapped, and Mazi was taken off by the others. Adia missed him. Only a few years older than she, he had been nearly a man, not a child, and she had felt safer with him near.
    Chike died