Bearers of the Black Staff

He glanced around, searching the slide until he found the dark slit in the rocks that marked the opening back into the pass. Not so difficult from here, but it would become more so the farther he went.

Nevertheless, he did not consider turning back. He pushed on, making his way along the trail, covering ground steadily as the sun rose and the daylight brightened. He followed the trail all the way through to the other side of the mountain wall, and there he found his first fresh traces of the creature he tracked. It was bleeding again, and the pattern of its footprints suggested that its wounds were bothering it more than before. He looked ahead, finding changes in the terrain only a short distance off. The mountains he traversed ended in woods that were barren and dead, the trees stripped of life and toppled onto one another.

Beyond that, he could see nothing but the hazy roll of a landscape that stretched on for miles and miles until it reached another range of mountains.

He made a fresh determination of where he was, taking mental notes of landmarks he knew he must find again on his return, and started walking once more.

Ahead, the skies were beginning to darken with towering rain clouds that were streaked with lightning and filled the horizon. A storm was coming on, and it was coming on quickly. Sider picked up his pace. A heavy rain now would wash away all trace of his quarry’s tracks, and he would have virtually no chance of finding it after that. It wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen; it seemed unlikely that the creature would be eager to venture back into the valley after having suffered its injuries. But he couldn’t afford to chance it.

His thoughts drifted randomly, as thoughts will do, to memories of his early years, before he carried the black staff, before his predecessor sought him out and told him he was the one who was meant to carry it next, before he was anything but a boy not as old as Panterra Qu was now. It was a long time ago, both in years and experience, and much he could just barely remember. But there was one memory that he kept, one that he would never lose. It surfaced unexpectedly now and then, a long slow teasing of what might have been if he had taken another path than the one he was on. Life would have been so different. Everything would have been changed.

He gazed off into the distance, seeing not the landscape but the promise of something he had let pass by.

There was a girl …

He sensed the creature an instant before it attacked him, his instincts warning him as they always did, if only barely this time. The beast catapulted out of the rocks like a juggernaut set loose on a steep downhill run, all speed and bulk and power as it came at him. He brought up the black staff, runes blazing to life in response, a protection that reacted more quickly than thought. His magic surged about him in a shield that kept him from being trampled into the earth and instead resulted in a glancing blow that flung him twenty feet to one side. He struck the ground with stunning force, but scrambled up anyway, fighting to orient himself as the creature swung back around.

Sider Ament roared at it as he fought to bring his magic to bear, but the creature was on him too quickly, and he managed only to keep his defenses in place long enough to save his life for a second time. The creature, a thousand pounds if it weighed an ounce, caught him up with its lowered head and threw him again. This time he slammed into the hardwood trunk and branches of an oak and dropped like a stone. Pain lanced through his left side, and he could feel rib bones crack. He only barely managed to hang on to the staff. Nausea swept through him, followed by a hot searing agony that caused him to cry out.

He was a fool, he thought, struggling to rise, making it to one knee. The creature had done exactly what he had warned himself it might. Sensing that it was being followed—or perhaps catching sight of him at some point in his pursuit—it had circled back and waited in ambush. He had aided the beast in its efforts by allowing his attention to wander. He had allowed himself to think of her, when thinking of her was always dangerous, always and always …

The creature struck again, and his thoughts scattered. Whipping the black staff about so that one blunt end pointed directly at his attacker, he sent a sharp burst of magic exploding into its muzzle. The beast barely slowed. Shaking off the attack, grunting in a heavy rumble that generated deep in its belly, it lowered its head further and came on. Sider watched through the screen of his pain and desperation, knowing he lacked strength enough to stop it.

In the final seconds before the creature reached him, he shrugged off his backpack, struggled the rest of the way up, and staggered two steps to his right to find what protection he could behind the huge oak, then used the staff to generate clouds of black smoke and fire to try to confuse his attacker.