The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga Read Online Free Page A

continued,
“and he protects his lands and the forests surrounding them well.
He will know if an army of our size is in the area, and he won’t
take it well. It would be foolish to risk it just to retrieve a few
corpses. I think it would be wiser to…”
    His words were cut short as the Emperor plunged a
steel sword deep into his stomach, and he fell on the floor
dead.
    “Does anyone else have anything to say?” The Emperor
asked with a threatening edge to his voice, still holding the
bloody sword. “Now, go…I want those bodies!”
     
    Chapter
3
     
    The small Wizard fell backwards, exhausted. The items
he had been holding in his hands fell the to ground, a silver
necklace belonging to Avery, a small knife belonging to Jade,
Sasha’s hair comb, a bracelet of Bunny’s, and Skylar’s compact
mirror, all personal items belonging to the Protectors.
    Gumptin had used them for the summoning spell he
performed. When the Protectors had been killed Gumptin had sensed
it. Being a Wizard since birth, he had a stronger connection to the
elements around him, and he had felt it in the air, whispering to
him…the Protectors were dead.
    The villagers had gathered around Gumptin, standing
in the center of their village. They had been worried ever since
the Protectors took off in the middle of the night.
    In another flash of blinding white light, the
Protectors bodies re-appeared on the grassy ground where Gumptin
and the rest of the villagers stood.
    Skylar’s mother screamed at the sight of her bloodied
and torn daughter lying dead on the ground. She brought her hands
up to her eyes to block the image and turned into her husband’s
arms, weeping.
    Avery’s mother had fallen to her daughter’s side and
was now cradling her in her arms, letting her tears dampen her dead
daughter’s long hair.
    “Gumptin, you have to do something!” She choked,
staring up at the Wizard, pleading with tearful eyes.
    The short old Wizard hobbled up to Avery’s mother and
placed his hand on her shoulder, “I…I do not know if there is
anything I can do.”
    “What do you mean you don’t know if there’s anything
you can do?!” Jade’s father shouted angrily, “You’re their mentor!
You’re supposed to look out for them…now you do something!”
    Gumptin ran his hands through his long gray beard.
There was only one spell he knew of that could bring the Protectors
back from the dead and it was far beyond his power to perform. In
fact, he knew of only one group powerful enough to perform the
spell that would even grant him an audience.
    “I will go and see the Elementals.” Gumptin told the
villagers, making up his mind.
    The villagers looked at Gumptin with apprehension.
Everyone knew that the Elementals preferred to watch rather than
intervene in the lives of humans.
    “Are you sure they’ll help?” Jade’s mother asked from
the ground, where she was seated next to her daughter’s body.
    “No,” Gumptin answered honestly, “but there is
nothing else we can do.”
    Gumptin turned away from the tragic scene in front of
him and walked into the thick forest surrounding the village. He
walked along the main road as fast as his little body allowed him
to go. After a half a mile he turned onto a smaller path that
diverged from the road, the path was unmarked and overgrown, but
Gumptin knew it was the one which would take him to where he needed
to go.
    As he walked, Gumptin tried to think of what he was
going to say to the Elementals. After all, the last time he had
spoken to them was over sixteen years ago and that time the
Elementals had come to him, not the other way around. They had come
to him and told him that they were going to create five warriors.
The Elementals were a group associated with the order of the
Ancients. The Ancients are the most powerful of beings, capable of
almost any kind of magic. There are good Ancients and there are bad
Ancients, but mainly they just believe in keeping a balance in the
world, the fragile