Phoenix Chosen #3 (The Phoenix Guardians #3)

17. Kalistratos

17

KALISTRATOS

I peer through a narrow gap in the wagon’s side wall and watch the narrow, crooked trunks of the pine trees begin to roll past. Everything becomes quiet as we fall into the canopy’s shadow. The bandits use some kind of trap to slow the wagon, and that’s what I’m waiting for. I feel Tyler beside me, and though I cannot see him in the darkness, I know he has his sling out and ready. I carefully roll over to change my view to a hole in the floorboards, through which I can look at the wheel cutting through the dirt. My erect cock falls against the wood, and I have to quickly adjust myself and tuck it against my stomach to complete my turn.

Tyler, dammit, look what you’ve done.

But he isn’t wrong—my phoenix energy is thrumming and full. I’m ready to take on our opponents, no matter how many may be waiting in ambush for us.

The wagon clatters on, unhampered, its wheels locked into the deep ruts cut into the earth. The donkey complains once with a snort and a squeal. I strain my ears to hear beyond the cart’s noises. Bandits often use a signal to coordinate their movements. In the noisy backstreets of Athenos, we used hand signals. But in the silence of a forest, I would expect to hear a bird call.

Ages seem to pass with nothing but the cart, my heartbeat, and Tyler’s breath inside the cramped space.

What if they don’t take the bait?

If we glide through the forest unhindered it would mean leaving empty handed—or worse, delayed even further. I already know that Tyler will not be willing to move on without helping these people, and while I love his heart for this, I feel the growing pressure of Praxis Skotos trailing us. Our efforts to delay and divert him can only last for so long.

The wagon jolts, then jolts again.

Gral bellows to the donkey and snaps the reins. “Move! Go!” Under his breath, he mutters, “Gods protect me.”

Through the side gap, there’s nothing but dim forest surrounding us. But looking down through the floor hole, I’m surprised to see globs of mud clinging to the wheel and spokes like fingers reaching up from the ground, growing and building to form a tight fist that stops us from moving forward entirely. Gral curses and urges the donkey, but nothing can be done.

We’re trapped.

There must be magic at work here. There’s nothing else that can explain what I’ve just seen.

Tyler whispers my name.

“Wait,” I whisper back, and push my eye to the wagon’s side. I see several cloaked and hooded figures emerging from the darkness. “They’re coming. Get ready.”

“But, Kalistratos, I think?—”

A bright plume of fire bursts over the wagon, illuminating the trees, and its heat singes the cover like the sun on a tile roof. I hear Gral curse as he throws himself off the driver’s seat. Another burst of flame. The firelight speckles the gaps in the fabric like orange stars.

“Son of a bitch!” Tyler shouts.

“Here we go,” I say to him.

I throw off the cover and leap over the side, freezing time as my feet hit the ground. The heavy linen ripples in the air like a sail in front of the flames curling above Airos’s head. My dagger is in my left hand, my short sword in my right, and my still-erect cock is swinging beneath my chiton like a fucking polearm. I dash like lightning through the brush, making straight for the hooded bandits surrounding us in the forest. I’ll keep Tyler out of harm’s way by incapacitating as many of them as I can. That will clear the way for Airos to go after the sorcerer.

I reach the first cloaked figure and swing my blade at the back of his knee—a shallow strike that will put him down without hurting him too badly. The tip of my sword kisses its mark, but something is strange with the way the blade bites the flesh. I grab the back of the man’s cloak and tear it from his body.

What is standing before me sends me stumbling backward in surprise. It’s not a man. It’s not even a living being.

It’s a pile of mud.

My back hits one of the figures, and it topples over with me. In my shock, the time cord slips from my grasp. The flames explode above Airos. Tyler sits up from the back of the wagon. Gral scrambles through the dirt. I grab and yank the covering from another one—also a lifeless mud decoy.

What in the name of the Gods is this?

Then, a cloaked figure leaps from a branch over the front of the wagon and lands on their hands and knees in the dirt. I scramble to get back to my feet, shouting to get Airos’s attention. He’s already spotted the cloaked sorcerer and jumps down from the wagon, blocking the man’s path. With a burst of green flame, Airos’s staff appears in his hand. The sorcerer staggers backward and raises an arm in defense.

“Listen to me,” Airos says. “We mean you no harm. We want to help you.”

“What are you saying, Airos?” I growl. “Take him down!”

The sorcerer flinches like a cornered animal. Airos raises his hand at me like I’m a child to be silenced, but keeps his eyes fixed on the hooded sorcerer. “Don’t listen to him, he’s an idiot.”

Airos holds his staff out in front of him, then to my shock, slowly places it on the ground.

By the Gods, what the hell is he doing?

I look to Tyler, standing in the back of the wagon. He looks back at me and shakes his head, telling me not to do anything. What have they seen that I haven’t?

Airos moves cautiously towards the sorcerer like he’s approaching a skittish feral animal. He reaches out to pull back the man’s hood.

I hold my breath. For a moment, he seems ready to allow Airos to touch him. Then, just as Airos’s fingers reach the lip of the tattered fabric, the sorcerer swings his arm like a striking snake and catches him on the chest. There’s a noise unlike anything I’ve heard, like a hundred trees snapping all at once. Airos collapses. The sorcerer flees into the woods.

I’m about to stop time and throw a dagger into the man’s back when Tyler shouts my name.

“Don’t!” he yells. “Kalistratos, he’s Phoenikos!”