Sword Bearer (Return of the Dragons 1)

Although I wasn’t the target, I needed to shield myself — needed to speak my own words of power. Not something I had learned with my tutor, but words whispered in my ear when I was only eight years old by my grandfather.

I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped.

I could feel black tendrils of spell smoke reaching out for me from inside the spice shop. I figured they weren’t looking for me now. But what would happen if Gerard heard or sensed me? Would he blast me out of existence? I certainly didn’t have the skills (or the skin) of that beautiful girl in there. What if he attacked me instead?

Until then, no one except the girl had seen me, and I hadn’t even made the smallest noise, since the moment when the girl had put her finger to her lips. After all, hadn’t that been a warning, from the girl, to be silent?

But should I trust her? Just because she was beautiful?

I had always trusted Gerard, even if he was more than a little frightening, and this girl seemed to be Gerard’s enemy.

But the magic that Gerard used was clearly dark magic. And had I really trusted Gerard? Everything was so confusing.

Where was the girl now?

I had to do something, and the black tendrils were growing thicker around me. They were about to sense me anyway.

No more time to think. I spoke a small word of power, the same word spoken by my grandfather Karl Hendrik, and the word was: Licht.

A ball of light burst forth, small and tight, in the middle of the circle.

The tendrils of smoke dove into the light and disappeared, and the light burned on.

The last time I did a spell like that was with my tutor. That time I made a little ball floating above my left hand using the word lumière, the word in my school books.

This time was totally different. I had formed a ball of Germanic light that burned somehow on both sides of the gateway. The light burned bright not only in my room in the castle, but in the shop as well.

If I wanted to escape detection or avoid attention, I’d done a very poor job of it. My spell work was there on display in the spice shop, making a small bright fight against the dark spells of Gerard and the girl.

Things happened very quickly, then.

I saw two faces, as my spell burned brighter, and I felt my stomach burning too, a warm good burn, as if my stomach was full of spicy food, or a little ginger beer.

The girl was staring straight at me, looking puzzled but unharmed. Gerard, however, didn’t look so good. His face was darkened by her spell, his eyes bleary, his pupils huge and black from the darkness. Now he was blinded a second time by my bright Nordic light.

Then his pupils narrowed, and he saw me.

A deep guttural roar came out of his open mouth.

The girl took one last look at me, spoke a word of power: durch, and jumped, her hand outstretched.

I reached out and got her hand in mine.

Her hand felt warm and firm and her fingers clasped my fingers.

Now this was the first time I’d ever held a girl’s hand, believe it or not. And my face was covered in green clay. At least she couldn’t see me turning red under the green. I pushed these silly thoughts aside — this was no time to get embarrassed. Not if I wanted to outlive my pimples.

I pulled at her, through the dark circle.

It was like when I helped Carlo, the veterinarian, with the birth of his filly, Luce. Luce had not wanted to come out either, and we had to pull with all our might.

There was the same resistance here.

I had her hand, and then her head popped through.

“Pull, hard!” she shouted then at me.

I pulled, and looking up, I saw that Gerard held her.