The Sorcerer's Ascension Read Online Free PDF Page A

slumber.

    *****

    The half dozen dark cloaked men galloped down the moonlit road towards Brelland, the capital and seat of power within the kingdom of Valeria. As the King’s Blackguard, they had access to fresh horses at several private stables used expressly for them and the royal messenger service. They were also authorized to commandeer any horse from any citizen in the empire in the line of duty. It would take the men less than two days to travel from Southport to the capital, a trip that would normally take more than a week by normal horseback.
    The men were on their third change of mounts and had already covered over a third of the distance to Brelland. Their business was urgent, a matter of national security. The artifact they had discovered in the possession of the ship captain was as good as a death sentence to anyone that possessed it. Whether the man was guilty or had been set up as a dupe was not their concern. Protecting the King from assassination and usurpation was.
    None of the riders saw the rope stretched taught across the road between two trees, intentionally dyed grey to make it nearly invisible in the pale moonlight. The two lead riders caught the rope at full gallop, one across the chest, the other shorter man across the throat, crushing his windpipe and killing him almost instantly.
    Both men were thrown to the ground as if they had been snatched out of their saddles by a giant, invisible hand and dashed onto the road. One of the men struggled to regain his senses while the other lay still and unmoving after issuing a few short choking sounds. The next two soldiers ducked low, sensing the type of trap that had been laid, while the remaining two reined in their horses before reaching the strung rope.
    It was bad luck and poor judgment that the leader of the group was one of the men in the lead as well as the one carrying the artifact. Given the importance of their mission, getting the artifact to the king was the only thing of importance. Had someone else been carrying the ebony gauntlets, they would have continued running without pausing for the fallen men. It was a duty each of them were fully aware of and not one man among them would hold the others with anything resembling contempt or scorn for leaving them behind.
    One of the riders reached down to haul their fallen captain onto his own horse as dozens of men burst out of the trees on foot as well as horseback. Seeing that they were surrounded and unable to quickly retrieve the gauntlets from the dazed captain, the blackguards prepared to sell their lives for king and country.
    Small hand crossbows appeared from under the guards’ heavy black cloaks and filled the air with a sound like large, angry hornets. The small darts uncannily found their way into exposed throats and between helmet eye slits, dropping several ambushers before the elite guards drew the swords that were unique to the King’s Blackguard. Only slightly longer than a shortsword, the blades were wider and weighted to help them cut through armor and block heavier blades without fear of being snapped in half.
    Guiding their mounts with their legs and knees, the blackguards charged fearlessly into the mass of ambushers, short blades flashing with lethal speed and accuracy. Such an ambush should have been an unqualified success against any opponent, particularly considering the gross numbers pit against the ambushed men. However, these were not ordinary soldiers. These were the King’s Blackguard; the best trained and most feared men in the kingdom. Even the king’s elite special guard recognized them as their superiors when it came to small unit combat.
    Hand crossbows were cast aside as hands flung small throwing knives into the faces and exposed flesh of the ambushers. The ambushers responded with the twang of a dozen light crossbows. Two of the blackguards seemed to disappear from their saddles as the bolts swarmed past or stuck in the suddenly empty saddles of their mounts.