Young Adult Fantasy

Completed Manuscript

Excerpt:

CHAPTER 1

Death by Swamp

Night seemed to stagnate, minutes taking hours. Dried mud and swamp slime crusted the top of Lusa’s boots and only the Magics knew how many bug bites she had. Noises of things moving in the grass surrounded her self-made path, sending her into a state of paranoia. Her powers, the Dark Magics, pumped at full force. Their voices were ambient noise, a constant hum. She hated to let them what with their blood thirsty, greedy ways. But this stink-hole of a swamp was full of trouble and she wasn’t ready or willing to die at just sixteen. She had people to find, questions to get answered. So with each sound that wasn’t the incessant chirping of an insect, she cast a spell to try to locate something lurking.

Lusa froze.

Something brushed through the tall grass walling in her path. She turned, thinking maybe this had been a bad idea. Sure, she had her magic, but if she gave them the slightest bit of control, they took over. She couldn’t let that happen again.

Her forehead and neck dripped with sweat and her mouth felt like a sand hole in the middle of the desert. The Dark Magics goaded her to use them. Her fingers twitched but Lusa fought to master them as best she could. The silvery moon shed light down on the path. She hoped the grass gave her some sort of shadow.

A dark figure broke through the wall, a horse reined behind. The Magics’ voices, no longer a soft hum, screamed in her ears. It was human. Blood lusting thoughts circled her mind. Her powers displayed a variety of ways to dispatch the stranger. Their favorite was fire and an image of the shadowed figure engulfed in flames with ear-piercing screams and melting skin was hard to shake out of her head.

The human stopped, arm lowered at side, sword in hand. The person motioned for the horse to stay put. He, or she—the dark hooded cloak made it hard to tell—stared at her. Lusa licked her lips, waiting to see if he would do anything. The human was taller and broader built than a female, so she assumed for now it was a man.

She needed her stupid powers to be quiet, they were distracting her. They did have a point, though. Sword against dagger weren’t good odds.

The stranger moved with his hands and sword held away from him in a gesture of cautious peace. He walked to the center of the path, looked down the row of broken swamp thanks to her Rush of Wind spell earlier, and then back to her.

“You do this?” It was a man, voice gruff but young.

She blinked hard and squelched the thoughts of pyrolysis. “And if I did?”

He shrugged. “It’d save me time regardless.”

She wanted to smile. Lusa straightened a little. “Traveling to Tilyungar?”

“For now.” He paused, and Lusa could imagine his eyes giving her the look over. “You?”

What if he’d come from Myttica? If he knew the truth, controlling her magic would definitely be out of the question. “Not really your business.”

He grunted some sound of amusement and shrugged. The shadow cast over his face annoyed her. He could see her but all she managed to know of his appearance was his thick hooded cloak, a pair of black gauntlets with lining that reflected the moonlight and a strange bulge over one shoulder.

He clicked his tongue and the horse trotted through the last of the unbroken grass. “You should be careful, place ain’t rightly the best to be travelin’ through at night.” The bulge on his shoulder jostled as he and his horse walked away. Maybe another weapon, or scabbard for the sword he held.

Lusa scoffed. “Thanks, but I can take care of myself.” She needed to be careful with her attitude. She didn’t want anothe r dead body the result of getting her Magics all riled up.

“I’m sure you can.” Something in the tone of his voice plucked at her nerves.

Lusa hated feeling that way, and blamed the Magics for their sway. She couldn’t rein in the anger bubbling in her chest. Anger the Magics fed her. She wriggled her fingers, energy surging at the tips, ready to blast something his way. She knew better than to let her powers do this. “I didn’t say I wanted a traveling companion.” This would be more for his benefit, really.

The traveler stopped. He turned, the moonlight catching the lower part of his face, showing the curve of his lips. “I don’t recall sayin’ I wanted to travel with ya.”

“This is my path.”

He gave a slow, perhaps dramatic, look around him. “Last I checked, the swamps were ruled by a king.” He tilted his head. “You don’t look like one o’them . So this ain’t your path.”

The Dark Magics snarled in her head, itching to be unleashed. About to give in, Lusa choked back her spell when a low rumbling noise came from behind him. He pivoted back so that he was perpendicular to both her and the noise, looking ready to go after the bigger threat.

A thick mass of earth ascended from the ground, gurgling and moaning. It collected mud, slime and grass with a furious groan, reaching ten feet tall. A part in the middle of the blob opened, letting out a horrible shriek. Lusa flinched, covering her ears in a futile effort to mute out the horrid sound. A bog monster. They must be trespassing.

Lusa released her clamped teeth and swung an arm up. “Silento!” All went silent from the beasts gaping mouth which was half the size of a man. But it stretched and strained as if still shrieking.

The stranger threw a glance over his shoulder while raising his sword. “Mage?” He sounded surprised.

Lusa didn’t have time to respond to stupid questions. She dodged some flying mud-rock. The stranger threw his blade up to deflect another oncoming object from the mouth of the creature. The rock shattered, sending debris in all directions.

“Fyra telum!” An arrow of fire burst from her fingertips. The monster absorbed it with no harm. She let out a furious scream, her powers—a jolt of pure malice—filling her to the brim. The land around her swirled and blurred. A consequence of using her powers—or rather—allowing her powers to use her. With a shake of her head her vision cleared but the hunger for destruction overwhelmed. The Magics were getting harder to keep in check.

A popping sound let out of the monster. The pair ducked from the onslaught of rocks. Closing the distance, the stranger slashed down hard. Pieces of mud flung every direction. Parts of the bog clung to her face and dripped down her chin. The smell was worse than having dung flung at her.

“Glacialis nor!” Her streak of blue light whizzed over the man’s shoulder and slammed into the bog monster. The thing paled into a frozen mass. “Hah!” The Magics swam through her blood, victorious.

The ice statue creaked and Lusa frowned. With a crack, shrapnel flew from the bog monster’s explosion. Lusa leaped sideways to the ground.

“Your spells don’t seem to be workin’, mage!”

She spit out a mouth full of putrid swamp slime and jumped to her feet, deciding if she was going to vomit, to aim for the man’s boots.

To her disbelief, the thing was recreating itself. “You don’t seem to be doing much damage yourself!” A large mud-rock slammed into her shoulder. She ignored the sting and dodged the next one. “What the hell kills these things?” With dagger in hand, Lusa charged, stabbing into gooey mud.

Matching her fury, the man joined in the attack. His sword came slicing down the center of the monster, cutting it in half. Lusa panted to catch her breath, light-headed as the Dark Magics absorbed her energy for their own. She strained to focus on the target. The dagger was useless. The man swung his sword, slashing and cleaving whatever pieces the bog tried to rebuild. Without completely letting the Dark Magics loose, her mind stuttered, unable to think of an effective spell. But she had to keep them leashed.

Lusa spun around at a high-pitched screech. Her heart spiked to her throat. Scaly, fanged and eight feet tall, a red eyed lizard-beast swung its sharp claws in the air.

“It’s still alive!” the stranger’s voice roared over the lizard’s scream. Lusa spared a glance over her shoulder, seeing him swing his sword through the bog monster repeatedly.

She shouldn’t have looked. The scaly monster flew through the air as she turned back. It slammed into her. Breathless, she lost her grip on her weapon to the blow, the dagger sinking into the mud. Swamp-ooze sucked her down and clung to her clothes. She felt smothered on all sides, as if the ooze itself was pooling in her lungs. The beast’s claws dug into her arms and, with speed Lusa couldn’t escape, sank its fangs into her shoulder. Her flesh burned as if white flames seared it.

Lusa’s scream ripped through her throat, hoarse but strong. “Telekina windosa nu!” The rush of winds snatched the beast, its teeth, and plenty of Lusa’s skin, and hurtled it across the swamp. The Dark Magics controlled the wind, throwing the creature into a cloudy green pool.

“Glacialis pondus!” Lusa’s body shook. Her knees buckled but she fought to stay standing. The swamp puddle turned to green ice with the beast locked beneath. The bog monster’s shriek threatened to shatter her eardrums. Lusa wobbily spun around.

The stranger grunted. “Shut it up!” The silence spell must have faded.

She tried to ignore her weakening state. She wasn’t about to let this disgusting piece of mud win, especially in front of this man. Lusa pointed to the monster and summoned the Magics to fully take her over. The blood in her veins turned frigid. Ice cold air swallowed up the humidity. Her black hair whipped around her face. The power felt good. Lusa bared her teeth and pointed at the monster.

“Sile—” her words morphed into a scream. A sharp pain shot from her bitten shoulder down to her feet. Thudding to the ground, Lusa fought for control of her body but failed. Pain coursed through her like tiny slivers of metal. Numbness crept over her body as the venom of the scaled beast polluted her blood.

Through the sudden fogginess of her vision, she saw the bog monster withering away from the swordsman’s rush of blows. Her body jerked into involuntary motion. Shaking violently, Lusa tried to fight the seizure as the numbness faded and pain ripped through her once more. The haunting whispers of the Dark Magics were all she could hear. She begged them for the power to overcome this death, no matter the cost. But just as quickly as the pain overwhelmed her, the voices disappeared, and everything shattered to black.