Supermage

by Aaron Oster

  Morgan was so shocked that he didn’t even think to activate fly. He hit the ground with a thud and rolled to try and absorb the impact.

  He finally came to a stop, groaning in pain as he tried to force himself from the hard ground. He winced, getting slowly to his feet and checking to make sure nothing was broken. Surprisingly enough, he was completely unharmed.

  He heard the sound of approaching hooves and Sarah emerged out of the darkness, leading her horse by the reins.

  “Are you alright?” she asked, squinting down at him.

  “Fine,” Morgan said, looking around for his horse. “Why did you stop so suddenly? I had to pull my horse out of the way and it caused us to fall.”

  He spotted it a few feet away, lying on its side and letting out pained whinnies.

  “You should be thanking me for not letting you run straight off a cliff!” Sarah said, dismounting.

  “There really is a cliff here?” Morgan asked, as he headed over to the downed horse.

  “Yes, you moron! Right there!”

  Squinting through the darkness, Morgan could indeed make out where the tree line came to an abrupt end.

  He was lucky he hadn’t kept going.

  Another few feet and he knew that they’d have been goners.

  Morgan crouched near the horse and removed its saddlebags, then activated wind blade and put the beast out of its misery.

  Sarah gasped as he did this, but she was even more shocked when he walked over to her horse and speared it clean through the chest; killing it instantly.

  “What the hell are you doing, Morgan?” Sarah exclaimed.

  The horse dropped to the ground.

  “I’m making our deaths look convincing,” Morgan said, while dismissing his wind blade and removing the saddlebags.

  He didn’t even feel the slightest bit of remorse when killing the horses and he silently swore that he would never ride one of these monsters again.

  “And what did killing our only means of escape accomplish?!” Sarah yelled.

  “First of all, you need to calm down,” Morgan said, shoving the saddlebags into her arms and striding past her. “The only way we lose those guards is by making them think we ran off this cliff.”

  He walked over to Sarah’s horse once more.

  “Now; if the guards find two horses with their saddlebags missing, there’s no way they won’t be suspicious. So I figured that the best course of action would be to kill the horses, then escape using my fly skill.”

  Morgan stopped in front of the horse and activated heavy handed; then brought his foot back and kicked the horse as hard as he could. There was the sound of cracking bone and the horse’s corpse went flying, breaking through the trees and sailing over the edge of the cliff.

  Sarah glared at him for a few seconds, before conceding that he was probably right.

  This was their best chance at escape and if the horses needed to die, then so be it.

  Morgan walked over to the tree line and peered out over the vast canyon below. Even illuminated by the full moon overhead, he couldn’t see the bottom.

  Perfect, he thought, pleased.

  Sarah walked up next to him. She’d tied the saddlebags around her shoulders and looked ready to go.

  Good. He’d always known her to be the sensible type.

  “Wait here while I move the other horse. Then we’ll get going.”

  She nodded once as he walked back into the cover of the trees. After a few moments, she heard a loud crashing sound and a dead horse went sailing passed her. The sight was so funny that she actually began to laugh.

  Morgan emerged from the woods and when he saw her laughing, smiled as well.

  He’d hated those monsters, but he hadn’t known she had as well.

  ∞

  The two soldiers sat astride their horses as they peered down into the seemingly bottomless chasm.

  “What do you think? Can you tell if they fell down there?”

  This question came from the man wearing the telltale stripes of a captain.

  “Something definitely fell, but I can’t be sure it was them,” the other man answered. “Though if I were to wager a guess as to what happened to a couple of kids, running through the woods on horseback at night…” The man shrugged.

  The captain sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose at the amount of trouble he was likely going to be in.

  Lord Simon would not be happy to hear of his daughter’s death.

  10

  Morgan landed with a tired groan as sunlight peeked over the horizon. As soon as Sarah was on his back, he’d flown out over the cliff’s edge and sank several feet down. They’d followed alongside it for the remainder of the night, neither of them making so much as a peep out of fear of being caught.

  Only once the sky had begun to lighten had he flown back up. The landscape hadn’t changed much. The only difference was that the cliff edge now extended a good distance from the tree line.

  He yawned, rubbing his eyes as he looked for a comfortable place to sleep. Sarah had already found herself a spot; she hadn’t slept at all either, and was now curled up by the base of a tree. Morgan stumbled over to a tree of his own and collapsed onto his back.

  They had traveled a good distance, about thirty or so miles from where they’d faked their deaths. Hopefully this would throw off their pursuers and he’d finally have some peace.

  ∞

  Arnold stared up at the imposing walls of City Six as he and his companion approached on horseback. As they passed through the front gates, he couldn’t help but notice that they had been quite heavily damaged; and recently so.

  “You getting anything yet, Weasel?” he asked the man riding next to him.

  Weasel shook his head. “Too many people.”

  Arnold sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  Even if he was the best tracker in the North Kingdom, Weasel still had his limits.

  “Alright, I guess we do this the old fashioned way,” he said, turning his horse toward the speedier part of the city.

  If information was to be had, this would be the best place to find it.

  ∞

  Morgan woke up suddenly. Something was very wrong.

  He stayed absolutely still as he tried to figure out what had woken him. It was quiet. Too quiet. The birds and insects had gone silent and the only sound he could hear was the soft rustling of leaves overhead.

  Ever so slowly, he cracked his eyes open and peered around. Sunlight was streaming in through the leaves directly overhead, meaning he’d been asleep for several hours. Sarah was off to his left, but unlike him, she was still sound asleep.

  There could only be one reason why it was so quiet.

  Morgan got slowly to his feet, eyes sweeping the surrounding forest for any sign of movement. He made his way quickly over to Sarah and shook her awake.

  “What’s going on?” she asked sleepily.

  “There’s something in the forest and it’s likely stalking us as we speak,” Morgan said quietly, his eyes never stopping their scan of the surrounding forest.

  “How can you tell?” she asked, getting up on her feet and picking up their bags.

  “Listen- the forest is too quiet. No birds or insects are making any noise.”

  It was then, that Morgan spotted it out of the corner of his eye. Something massive and covered in fur.

  Morgan reacted without a second thought. Activating tailwind, he threw Sarah over his shoulder and ran toward the tree line. He heard an angry growl, then the sound of snapping branches, as whatever it was gave chase.

  He burst out of the trees and out into the open space between the trees and the cliff edge. He ran another few feet before setting Sarah down and taking up a fighting stance.

  Sarah was visibly shaken, but activated her mage shield and a blue light flickered across her skin.

  “Did you see what that thing was?” Morgan asked, as he used wind blade twice, encasing both arms in the whirling lances of air. />
  “Only flashes,” she answered, keeping her eyes on the tree line. “Whatever it is, it’s very big.”

  They didn’t have to wait very long to find out. There was a low rumbling growl that shook them to their cores and a massive shaggy bear emerged from the trees.

  It was terrifying. The beast was at least eight feet at the shoulder and over fifteen feet long. Its head was the size of Morgan’s torso, and had a mouth full of wicked looking teeth. Its fur was a mix of browns and dark greens, making it perfect for camouflaging in the forest.

  The bear padded silently toward them, its eyes fixed on Morgan.

  How on earth did a creature that big make so little noise?

  He was forced back to reality as a massive spear of ice flew directly at the creature, burying itself a few inches into its hide. The bear roared in pain, then charged directly at them.

  They’d both been too tired to remove their armor before going to sleep and Morgan was now glad they hadn’t.

  He would likely need every advantage he could get in this fight.

  Morgan used tailwind once more and rushed the charging animal. Two more icicle spears hit the creature as he closed in, barely doing anything other than further enraging the bear.

  He barely managed to dodge a swipe from its massive paw, nearly losing his balance in the process. Only his high agility kept him on his feet. Darting forward, he attempted to skewer the bear with his wind blade, but instead of sinking into the bear as he’d been expecting, the lance merely bounced off; not even leaving so much as a scratch.

  Just what kind of monster was this?

  Morgan jumped back from the creature and dismissed his wind blades.

  They weren’t going to do him any good against a creature like this.

  While he’d been attacking, Sarah had readied her next skill. As soon as Morgan moved back from the bear, she used frostbite and the temperature around the bear plummeted as the skill took effect.

  When the bear next moved, it was noticeably slower than it had been.

  Morgan kept his eyes on the bear as it turned its attention toward Sarah.

  “Any ideas on how to take it down?” he shouted over to her. “My wind blade barely left a scratch and your icicle spear doesn’t seem to be doing much either!”

  He felt the timer on his tailwind run out then, but since the bear was slowed, he was confident he’d still be able to avoid its attacks.

  “Try using your super skills instead,” Sarah shouted, as she used her condense water skill. A block of ice formed around the bear’s head and for a moment, Morgan though it might go down. Then with an enraged roar, the ice block shattered and the air around it seemed to shimmer with heat.

  Holy crap, Morgan thought to himself.

  The bear had an ability.

  Morgan was fascinated as he watched the bear’s fur take on a reddish tint as it slowly stalked towards them. Small gouts of flame escaped its nostrils, then it roared and the temperature rose by a noticeable degree.

  Sarah threw another icicle spear but this one didn’t even make it halfway before melting. The creature snarled one last time, then lunged toward Sarah, teeth bared and tiny eyes glittering with hatred.

  It was then that Morgan hit it from the side. Hard. He’d activated his heavy handed skill and punched the bear as hard as he could. He could feel the bones in his hand grinding together as the bear’s ribs gave way under the attack.

  The bear was thrown off course with a pained roar, but it was quick to recover and turned back toward Morgan; charging at him without a second of hesitation.

  This time, it was Sarah who attacked, launching an icicle spear directly into the spot Morgan had just damaged. This time, the spear sunk a good foot into the bear, tearing up its insides. The beast roared in pain and rage, but didn’t slow its charge.

  Morgan planted his feet and roared back, screaming as he brought his foot around in a massive roundhouse kick. His foot snapped into the side of the bear’s head with such force that it was thrown a good two feet to the side. The bear, expecting to meet resistance, plowed face first into the ground; its momentum forcing it forward a good few feet before it came to a halt.

  Sarah came up next to him, her body shaking with adrenaline and fear as the two of them stared at the motionless bear.

  “Do you think it’s dead?” Sarah asked, in a low voice.

  “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I broke its spine with that last attack,” he answered, wincing as he felt his leg throbbing in pain.

  He hoped he hadn’t hurt himself too badly.

  “Should we go over and check?” Sarah asked, taking a step forward.

  Morgan placed an arm on her shoulder and shook his head.

  When she looked back, the bear was rising once again.

  Its head was crooked at an odd angle, its jaw seemed to be dislocated and it was bleeding heavily from where Sarah’s icicle spear was still embedded; but it was undoubtedly still alive.

  “What do we do?” Sarah asked, panicked.

  “We finish what we started,” Morgan answered.

  He took a step forward, wincing as he felt another shooting pain in his leg. He gave up on walking altogether, using fly to hover a foot up off the ground.

  “I’ll distract it, you try and finish it off,” he said, floating toward the malformed bear.

  Sarah nodded, then used frostbite once more. The bear snorted in anger, but didn’t activate its ability. Either it couldn’t use it again, or was too hurt to.

  Morgan flew closer toward the bear and used heavy handed. The bear swiped out at him and despite it being slowed, he barely managed to avoid the attack. He flew in and threw a few punches into its face- not enough to do any real damage, but enough to distract it.

  Sarah watched as Morgan darted around the enraged bear and readied her skill. Then taking a moment to aim, she used icicle spear four times in a row.

  Morgan flew high into the air as he tried to avoid another attack, but the bear reared up on its hind legs and took another swipe at him.

  The monster was nearly twenty feet tall standing up.

  He winced as he felt a line of hot pain shoot up his injured leg. The bear had finally managed to score a hit, opening a line of gashes on his leg. But the bear had made a mistake and was now wide open for a counter-attack.

  Morgan spun in the air, using the momentum of the turn, as well as his skill, and drove his good leg into the bear’s head in retaliation. There was a loud crunching sound as the side of the beast’s skull caved in.

  Somehow, it still wasn’t dead.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Morgan exclaimed, as the bear landed back on all fours. “What the hell are you made of?”

  The bear took a step forward as four icicle spears slammed into its skull in rapid succession, burying themselves deep into the beast’s already damaged skull.

  The bear took one more staggering step toward him, then finally toppled to the ground. Dead.

  11

  Morgan stared at the bear for a few seconds, skeptical that it was really dead. Then he let out a whoop of joy as he flew over to Sarah.

  “You did it! It’s finally down!”

  Sarah smiled tiredly at him before slumping to the ground herself.

  Now that the excitement was over, Morgan could feel the pain of his injuries beginning to set in. He let his fly skill run out, allowing himself to drop down near Sarah and winced as he looked down at his leg.

  His new pants were torn where the bear’s claws had slashed him and this aggravated him more than any injury the beast inflicted. Rolling up his pant leg, he could see a small trickle of blood flowing from each cut. However, he could see that they were already beginning to scab over.

  He sighed in relief. It wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d feared.

  Finally, he looked up at Sarah. She looked shaken, but was otherwise unhurt.

  “What the hell was that thing?” he asked her.

  “I’ve never seen one of
those before, but I’m pretty sure that that was a dire-flame bear,” she answered in a quiet voice. “I can’t believe we killed it.”

  “Neither can I,” he answered truthfully. “Did that bear have some sort of ability?”

  She nodded, looking over to where the bear lay in a slowly spreading pool of blood. “It has an innate resistance to magic, as well as a chi charged ability called raging flame.”

  So there were creatures out there that had abilities and could resist other’s abilities? If all he had to rely on were his mage skills, the two of them may very well have died.

  “Do you think we got any energy from that thing?”

  Sarah actually smiled at this. “We likely didn’t get anything from killing it, but if you fetch its core, you’ll likely get a whole bunch of both.”

  “It’s core?”

  He’d heard of cores before, but never really knew where they came from, or what purpose they served.

  “Yes, all animals that can use abilities are called beasts and they all have cores. They’re located where the heart would be and is the best way to increase in rank.”

  Morgan was quite excited to hear about that.

  There was a better way of ranking up than killing people. That was a relief to Morgan.

  He floated up from the ground and drifted over to the bear. Rolling up his sleeve, he plunged his arm into the still warm corpse and dug around for a bit. After a few moments, his hand closed around a hard, spherical object and he removed his arm with some effort.

  In his hand was a glowing blue and red sphere, roughly the size of a grapefruit. He shook his arm a few times to try and get rid of some of the gore, then shrugged. He floated back toward Sarah and saw her eyes go wide as he dropped it on the ground before her.

  “I’ve never seen one this big before,” her voice, tinged with awe as she stared at the glassy sphere.

  Morgan landed next to her and peered down at the core. “How do you get the energy out of it?”

  Sarah finally looked up at him and grimaced at his gore covered arm. Morgan gave a surprised shout as icy water drenched his arm, cleaning the filth from it.