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  The Circle of Duty

  Book 2 in The Circle Series

  Owen Elgie

  Copyright © 2016 Owen Elgie

  KINDLE Edition

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored, in any form or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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  For family.

  My parents, Marian and Fred. My wife, Jo. My sister Beth and brother-in-law Tom and my niece Lucy.

  Oh the horror they’ve witnessed as I’ve worked on this book. I’ll bet they can’t wait for book three.

  Also by this Author

  The Circle of Fire

  1

  Staring out over rolling hills and craggy mountains, watching on casually as the sun set through the majesty of deep reds and buzzing oranges. All the while, a warm, drifting mountain breeze tugs ever so slightly at your clothes and your hair. On paper, that seems to be one of the most romantic ways to spend an evening with a beautiful woman. Six weeks ago I would have totally agreed with you.

  That was six weeks ago.

  As I looked out at the remarkable vista that was presenting itself to us, I could feel the thought of coming back here with Andrea at a later date lodging itself at the back of my mind. It was sat quite comfortably next to ideas about candle lit meals and walks along the beach. I really was getting quite soppy.

  Six weeks on, however, and I was standing on a wide expanse of jagged rock looking out over the magically enhanced view coming from The Hive prison buried deep within the mountainous western border of Argentina. The Andes had never looked so beautiful. They had also never looked so terrifying. As I scanned all around me, the aforementioned beautiful woman appeared at my side.

  “It’s good to be back. Is everyone in place?” Andrea’s rolling Russian accent was like a super charged purr, the barest hint of subtle suggestion layered over each syllable. Well, that’s what I thought anyway. We had spent a great deal of time together over the last six weeks and I couldn’t really help myself but see her as more than just my teacher in all things magical.

  Since our first meeting where she had been part of my welcoming committee into The Circle, a supernatural force of age old power that stood guard over the prisons of the creatures that had been hell bent on the destruction of the human race, our relationship had been changing.

  Where previously I was the pupil and she was the teacher imparting wisdom, now it felt more like we were stood together as almost equals. We had both been put in life threatening positions where we had had to rely on the other and as such we had grown closer.

  “The teams are all ready, we’re just waiting for Frederico to get to us,” I replied without taking my eyes off the countryside before us. “He’s still getting used to the finer points of bridge jumping.” I didn’t mean to puff out frustration with my comment but it seemed to rumble forward anyway.

  Andrea nudged me gently in the side. “It does take a while to really finesse the process, doesn’t it?” she said as she cocked an eyebrow. My habit for dealing with almost every situation with humour and Andrea’s frustrated reaction had changed slightly so now she was starting to give as good as she got. Not every time mind, but enough for me to notice the change.

  “Are you ever going to let me forget that?” I was starting to get a little tired of her always prodding me about what was a relatively minor mistake.

  “Jumping us forty miles from our intended landing site, with no pressures of battle to cause the mistake, you are going to be hearing about that for a very long time. I’ll never forget the look on your face when you hit the water. At least it taught you to be more focused on what you were doing rather than just assuming that everything you do is going to be right.” I gave her a mock angry giggle and placed my arm around her, pulling her closer to my side. Pulling her to me, she settled into the nook of my shoulder and we leaned into each other. We had fit together like the interlocking pieces of a jigsaw, perfectly. Again, that’s what I thought.

  Andrea was stiff with apprehension. She felt like a wary cat that was being held against its will, still but looking for the moment of release. Despite her discomfort, we stood together and just let the evening wash over us.

  I still couldn’t work out why she was so ‘off’. Every time I had tried to show any form of affection or at least familiar physical contact, she had barely been able to get away fast enough. I had seen her display very different behavior towards me during the weekend we first met and she seemed to be giving me positive signals all of the time so I thought that she must have had feelings of some kind developing. Maybe she just wasn’t a big fan of public displays of affection?

  We both stood watching the view before us, Andrea fighting against either my embrace or her own insecurities and me warring with the almost intoxicating need to pull her fully to me and kiss her. Who would have thought that standing on the edge of a violent conflict could be so tense?

  Thankfully, the tension didn’t last.

  From behind us came the familiar sound of the crackle/hiss of the Cascade Bridge gateway opening up. A blue/white light spread out over the ground in every direction and the smell of ozone wafted all over the area we were stood in. We quickly jumped apart, the force of Andrea breaking clear sending me staggering in the other direction. We turned to face the ring of magical power that hung behind us. For people as strong in the supernatural arts as Andrea and myself, a Cascade Bridge is a relatively easy casting which can create a doorway between two points. I hadn’t been fully involved in the control and use of magical energies for that long but I had been picking things up quickly. For people as powerful as the Elder, the oldest and most powerful member of The Circle, it was as simple a task as breathing. For The Mage, the central power which bound the whole Circle together, he could move the population of a city the size of London or New York in seconds, he was that powerful. It is a much easier way to travel over great distances without having to worry about booking flights or having to consider traveling time. All you do is concentrate on the ring construct and an image of where you want to end up, and boom! Through you go. It was a casting which needed a great deal of power to create and control so was something that only the creatures at the very top of the magical food chain could master. That translated to being only the Guardians of The Circle and the demons of The Hive. I’d heard that other creatures had been able to master it in the past but they were very much the exception rather than the rule. As far as I was aware, the Guardians were the only ones with the power to open the bridges.

  For people who weren’t as strong as Andrea and I, though, it could prove to be quite a challenge.

  The ring stood before us and did nothing but hum, the thick band of magical energy which was holding the gateway looked to be both rigid and pliable. Then it flickered ever so slightly and looked like it was threatening to wink out. I took a step forward and began to focus my mind on the power that was floating before us, aiming to pour out some reinforcement of my own to the spell so it would stabilize. Andrea pushed at my arm and snapped my attention to her before I could do anything.

  �
�What are you going to achieve by helping him?” she inquired in that tone that all parents seem to muster when they are attempting to educate their children in the errors of their ways. Maybe the teacher/pupil relationship wasn’t quite finished with after all. I stood myself up a little straighter, just to emphasize how much more powerful and fearsome I was than her, and prepared to answer.

  Andrea rolled her eyes at my display of bravado and raised her eyebrows. “Well?” She never took any of my posturing seriously and always seemed to have the ability to make me feel like a six year old who had been caught with his hand in the sweetie jar.

  “We need to get him through sooner rather than later so we can get ourselves into position. We don’t have the luxury of time for Frederico to make several thousand mistakes in the easy castings while we wait for his arrival.” I was right, obviously, and as such turned back to the bridge gateway which was now flickering quite badly and started to draw my own power to bear on the ever weakening magical construct. Andrea kicked my leg. Not hard enough for it to really hurt but enough for me to have to swing my attention back to her.

  I span round again and could feel my frustration starting to rise.

  “What?!” I inquired in only just less than a shout, a wave of deep crimson passing over my vision as my instincts took over and I drew in power. I did have a reasonably short fuse and all the confusion around Andrea’s behavior towards me was starting to get under my skin a little.

  Andrea held her position but I could feel the temperature rising around her as she countered my display of power with one of her own.

  “If we help him with the easy things now, how will he be able to rely on his own skills when he really needs them?” Her voice had taken on a slight hint of a growl as she spoke which made me take a firmer hold on my senses. We were both starting to get ready to fight over the most trivial of points so I needed to calm down before I did, or made her do, something stupid.

  “We don’t have the time,” I told her as the building anger in me faded and I released my growing power. I straightened my shirt just to prove the point, and show that I was totally in control of my anger.

  “He needs to have as much confidence in his abilities as we can muster in the short time we have available. If the Guardian feels they are ready, they can achieve a great deal more than if they have fear of what they are capable of. Remember, making someone think they are in control can go a very long way.” With that, she placed one pale skinned hand on my arm and squeezed ever so slightly. I relaxed at her touch and smiled lopsidedly at her. She smiled back, and then turned to face the Cascade Bridge again. I turned with her and stared at the ring as it threatened to collapse under the weight of expectation which was being poured into it from this side. I didn’t make any attempt to reinforce the power ring and just stood there on the rocky ground, hoping that the bridge would work.

  For a very long minute, it seemed that the bridge was spending more time flickered off than it was on. We both willed that it work but I could feel the growing dread that it was doomed to failure. I would be proved right but that made me feel guilty.

  Looking on with ever shrinking hope, I took another step forward and began to gather in my power. I could see that the bridge was doomed to failure and had given it more than enough of a chance to succeed. I pulled in my attention and prepared to shore up the construct before me but before I could do anything, the bridge suddenly snapped into life completely and hovered in place with all the requisite power coursing through it.

  The sudden out pouring of energy from it took me by surprise and I stood stock still, with my eyes wide and my mouth open as a very young, gangly man with black hair burst through with an expression of both surprise and pride plastered all over his face. Dressed in ill-fitting black fatigues and heavy walking boots, he stumbled to a stop as he looked at the two of us. He frowned slightly as he looked at me and the strange expression I was wearing while the bridge snapped out of existence behind him.

  “Anthony. Did I scare you?” His voice was ridiculously high pitched and almost sounded like an impression of an Argentinean accent.

  “Did you scare…?” I mumbled under my breath as I re-gathered my composure and turned to face Andrea.

  She was wearing a very smug expression which had been interlaced with barely contained giggles following Frederico’s entrance. That made me angrier and the red flashes started to seep back into my vision.

  “Come on Guardians,” I growled to the pair of them. “Let’s go and do what we do,” and I started to stalk my way down the hillside towards the magically altered view of the countryside before us, expecting the others to follow me. They did and I could sense the fearful aim of Frederico to do what was expected of him and live up to what he was supposed to do, and the subtle happiness of being proved right coming from Andrea. That and the focus on doing what we do.

  The breeze felt good as we strode down towards the bottom of the hillside but was taking the edge off what was stretching out before us, giving a false sense of comfort. Just to prove that I had some kind of control, I called over my shoulder as we descended,

  “Let’s go be Dragons!”

  2

  As we strode on down the hillside I could feel a very slight buzzing starting to develop on the edges of my mind. It felt like I was stood next to a very powerful electric generator but it was nothing more than an annoyance. My usual early warning system of mental gymnastics hadn’t been triggered so I knew that I wasn’t in any immediate danger, but the buzzing sensation grew with every step. The first time I had walked this path I had been on high alert and had misread what was in my head. I had mistakenly thought that this sensation was the spinning in my head which signaled an impending attack but now I was more familiar with the differences.

  I looked over my shoulder as we descended to check on Andrea and Frederico. Andrea was wearing the blank expression of someone who was totally untroubled by the mental force pushing in at her or she was showing herself to be quite a bit stronger than I was. Frederico was a very different matter. He was looking worryingly pale and shook his head with almost every step as he tried to clear his thoughts.

  “You OK Freddy?” I asked in as casual a tone as I could muster. I could understand what he was going through but Andrea’s words stuck in my head. He needed confidence in his abilities or he was ultimately doomed to failure. He looked up at me and his expression hardened as he poured resolve over his features.

  “I was born for this,” he growled back as he puffed his chest out and scowled just to emphasize how tough he really was. On a heavy set man, that whole ensemble could have looked intimidating. On a seventeen year old who looked like the slightest breeze would knock him over; it came across as more comical.

  I nodded and looked away as fast as I could before the smile spread across my face. He needed confidence.

  “The barrier has been reinforced around the prison,” Andrea added, “I can feel the power is much stronger than it has been in the past.” I turned to start to tell her that it was exactly the same as it had ever been but my words didn’t make it out. Frederico was now much straighter and he was more comfortable in his stride. Confidence is a wonderful thing. Andrea looked at me as we walked with the blankest of blank expressions but I could understand the sentiment perfectly.

  This was the third time that we had been forced to defend this prison from attack in the last four weeks. On the two earlier occasions, the Hive forces had managed to score very damaging victories. We had managed to maintain the prison but on both occasions, the guardian had fallen. Frederico had lost his father and his sister in the last month and now he was directly in the firing line and very green with it. He had been training, practically since he was born, for this moment, the moment that he would be forced to stand as the sole force against the rancid hoards massing against his whole existence. No wonder he needed as much confidence as we could pump into him.

  That said, he was handling it better than I would have done had
I been in his position.

  We continued our descent steadily, in silence and I let my mind drift back to my Awakening and how I had reacted. Looking back, I think that I had the easiest journey into the battle.

  I had grown up without knowing any of the magical back stories that were draped around my family and was totally isolated from the supernatural war which was raging the world over. I had grown up in London and had what can only be described as a ‘normal’ life. When the power of the Fire Dragon Guardian was passed to me, I hadn’t had any of the years of training to prepare me so I wasn’t being weighed down by the knowledge of what was coming after me. I had just treated the whole thing as a challenge that I needed to overcome. Andrea had been chosen by the Mage to be the Guardian who would be best suited to the task of guiding me into my role as a Hive Prison Guardian. She was also handed the task of helping me to learn all of the details of magic and castings which I would need to master for my new role in life.

  Leaning my senses back towards Frederico, I could make out his resolve stronger than ever but buried underneath all of his bravado was a very real terror. He may have had all of the training and skills drummed into him, and they do say that knowledge is power, but it was building to the point of paralyzing him utterly.

  “Who are we bringing to the battle this time? These animals need to be hammered this time.” My question was aimed at Andrea but was again meant as the start of a rousing speech for Frederico.

  She looked at me with a questioning expression but quickly worked out what I was doing.

  “We have the three of us as the Dragon force but we have massively increased the support groups. We have roughly two thousand troops spread out throughout the shielded perimeter; we doubled our force from the last attack.”