Air

by Rosie Scott

The army did not appear to have a standard uniform. Surely Glacia had been too busy building warships and preparing for this invasion in other ways, so they didn't find the need. The majority of the snow elves wore light armor colored in shades of white and cream. Much of it was lined in the fur of animals they'd hunted for supplies back in their homeland, but it appeared that many of the soldiers had stripped down to the bare minimum they needed for protection. Even in the coolness of Red Moon, the temperature here was warm for them.

  The Icilic were as tall as the other races of elves, though many of them looked to surpass even seven feet. On the whole, they were thin and practically muscled, and many of them carried weapons that belied that fact. I saw a variety of weapons meant to support their magic. They had a love for bows in particular, probably due to their hunting habits. It was clear to me that the beasts of Glacia could be monumentally hard to slay since many of the melee weapons they wielded were large with steel blades meant to cut through thick hide and blubber. Since Glacia relied on trade with Chairel for metals, I also found that many of them wielded weapons made of bone. Most of the melee weapons of the Icilic looked to be bladed; there were varieties of glaives, axes, spears, and tridents.

  I worried that many of the Icilic would know necromancy. An absurd amount of them had hair as black as Cerin's. The rest were all in shades of white and silver, and I saw no exceptions. Men and women alike wore their hair in long styles, as if short hair was a foreign concept. Many of them kept it back from their face or up in ties as they traveled through unfamiliar warmer temperatures.

  The grasslands making up the northern cup of Eteri were vast, but the army conquered this land like a horde. I couldn't imagine how many of them had stayed to annex Esen because it appeared all of them were here.

  “You were right,” I murmured to Azazel, my heart already pounding as I watched the approaching army. “They have many more soldiers than we do.”

  “We were outnumbered underground,” the archer replied, reminding me. “We have done all we can in utilizing the land here. We have an advantage.”

  “Every advantage we have in battle is also theirs,” I commented. “Necromancy, magic, possibly even the lesser magics. We will have to provide our soldiers with both physical and anti-magic shields. It will be chaos.”

  “That is why I said we have an advantage, not all of them.” Azazel nodded to his left, where the Highland Pass cut through the two highland cliffs like a break in the land's flesh. “Once that massive army files down to such a size, it won't be so intimidating after all.”

  I huffed dryly. “Yes, but once we ambush them, they could come up through the tunnels beneath us. They could take out Makani and Welkin.”

  “The tunnels were not made for an army of that size, either. We will deal with it as it comes.” Azazel stared forward into the mass of foes.

  “I admire your optimism,” I commented.

  “It's not optimism, Kai,” Azazel admitted. “It's desperation.”

  A wave of anxiety flowed through my gut, but I said nothing.

  “Do not forget,” Azazel added after a moment, “your power is immense. Even if our foes wield necromancy, their spells will likely be weaker than yours. You have the ability to steal lives more quickly than should be possible, and their army will be confined.”

  “I am powerful, but I am just one person,” I pointed out. “I cannot be everywhere and reach everyone.”

  “No,” Azazel agreed, “but you were just one person in Narangar.”

  An exhale burst through my nostrils.

  “Perhaps this is just me seeing things that aren't there,” Azazel went on after a moment, “but I believe your power is growing. Our war in the underground allowed both you and Cerin to leech thousands upon thousands of lives, and our time in Eteri so far has only added to that. If our theories on necromancy are correct, you could be far more powerful now than you have any right to be at your age of godhood. I cannot imagine even the most skilled of water mages summoning a tsunami as large as you did to destroy the harbor.” The archer hesitated. “Bhaskar once said he could destroy Arrayis with his power. As you proved to us just this past High Star, so could you.”

  “This is not the time for self-reflection,” I murmured.

  “No, but it is time for strategy. You are the greatest asset of war that exists, Kai.” Azazel nodded toward the masses of enemies ahead. “There is a reason you have many allies. There is a reason so many fear you. Your power alone is worth an entire army. If you approach this battle with such a mindset, perhaps we won't be so outnumbered.”

  I reached over to pull the archer to my side in a friendly squeeze. “I'm glad you're here, Azazel. I half-expected you just to tell me not to be brash.”

  He chuckled softly. “You still need to be told that. You cannot forget that your immense power means it cannot be contained. You could not fully control your tornadoes in the underground, and as much as I hate to admit it, if we'd been with you in Narangar, most of us would be dead.”

  I felt as if I'd been gutted. I'd thought the same thing many times, and that is why I had gone to such great lengths to prevent it. Even so, to hear someone I loved express such concerns only made them seem more real.

  Azazel and I retreated from the edge of the cliff, moving back to be with our army once again. The soldiers spread across the highlands were quiet, though they watched our approach with curiosity for our recent findings. Since I faced south, the open ocean stretched off into infinity to my left, the waves choppy with an oncoming storm.

  “News?” Uriel looked at both Azazel and I. His long, light blonde hair was pulled back in a full lazy ponytail today, keeping it out of his face. The hairstyle made him look even younger, highlighting his perfectly smooth skin.

  “They will be here within the hour,” Azazel replied. “Send the messenger to Zephyr. Tell her to keep her men quiet and on either side of the Pass. When we hear signs of battle, we will aid them.”

  Uriel nodded. “Might as well have as many soldiers stuck in that passage as possible.” He glanced over at Cyrus, who turned to send our messenger. We had one griffon messenger with our army, and Zephyr had one as well. It was the best method we had for relaying messages over the cliff side. “Do you know if they found the tunnel up into the cliffs?” The healer directed the question to Azazel.

  “I don't,” the archer admitted. “The inside wall of the Cleves is out of sight from me.”

  “Let's hope they didn't find it,” Uriel commented. “Hopefully the Icilic's eyes aren't as discerning as yours.”

  “Don't forget Vertun is their ally,” I pointed out. “His knowledge will be their own. If they haven't found the tunnel yet, they will have looked for it.”

  Altan nodded. “Maybe it'll be a good thing if they send some mages up here,” he commented, eyeing the tunnel's entrance into the highlands just farther north. It was little more than a hole in the ground that I'd been told was prone to flooding during Eteri's storms. It also provided rainwater to the underground river below the Cleves that flowed into northern Eteri where the Icilic had spent the night. The tunnel we had traveled through was separate from this second one, so even if the Icilic did find it, they'd still have to get through us to attack Makani. If they found their way up to the highlands, however, Welkin was also at risk. And given the town was visible from the grasslands they'd come through, I had to imagine they would want a way to reach it and take it over.

  “Why would that be a good thing?” I asked the first Sentinel.

  “You and Cerin will need to replenish our energy,” Altan replied. “We need bodies for that to happen.”

  “Ah, I keep forgetting you weren't there to see us wielding our new spell,” Cerin spoke up. “I wouldn't worry about needing close contact, Altan. Kai and I now deal death from a distance.”

  Two red eyebrows raised. “Lovely news. I change my mind, then. Hopefully, they won't find it.”

  Cyrus returned minutes later, and the large messenger griffon
had flown out of sight to deliver its message. The second Sentinel gave us all a knowing look and stated, “I think it is time we lie in wait with our men.”

  The Sentinels and our Renegades spread out along the cliff edge, making sure we had leaders at regular intervals. My friends and I were farthest north and closest to the tunnel with a few hundred soldiers. Just south of our group was Cyrus's, then Uriel's, and Altan was closest to overlooking the southern exit of the Pass. Zephyr's army was in wait on either side of the narrow passage just as we had asked. The ambush was set. The only thing we could do now was wait.

  The long grass was cool and wet beneath my hands as I stayed low to the ground like the others, listening to the echoes of the vast army below. The distant crackling of lightning came from the north once more, before the skies were silent. For being such a massive army, the Icilic below us were extraordinarily quiet. When they did speak, however, it traveled easily to our ears over the lengths of solid rock on either side of them when they finally entered the Pass.

  “Jokul!” The voice was male.

  “What is it?” This voice was male as well, though it held a tone of strength and confidence.

  “What is the plan if we cannot find the half-breeds?” Plural. I was technically a half-breed, but I doubted that was how the Icilic would refer to me. I wondered if there were two or more Icilic half-breeds in Eteri. I glanced over to Cerin, trying to make sure he'd also caught it. He only looked back to me, his silver eyes perplexed.

  “The half-breeds are the least of our concern,” Jokul replied, sounding slightly irritated. “And we do not speak of plans while on the move. Do you not remember the cowards who ran from battle in Esen? Some will have hidden, but others may have delivered news of our attack. When Eteri strikes back in defense, we can expect they will either use brute force or stealth.”

  “They will be out of their element,” the other man mused. “They are not used to being on the defensive.”

  “Right. The time to strike is now.”

  “I only hope our reinforcements arrive on schedule.”

  “They will,” Jokul promised. “Eteri's navies are not kept farther north than Makani. The ships in Esen will be all we contend with.”

  “And now they are added to our roster.”

  “Yes. I have to admit, I didn't think the Vhiri were capable of such complex systems. I would have had our men start to replicate them, but Esen clearly does not deal in metal.”

  “Reva does. The whole town looked like a mine.”

  “Yes, but we will leave it up to Izotz and the others to take. Our army is not large enough to do it all.” Jokul's voice started to fade off as the army continued through the Pass. To my left, Azazel remained focused, continuing to listen to the conversation while we could not.

  Some of the soldiers below chatted as the Icilic continued to file through the Highland Pass, but none of what they said was noteworthy for intel. Upon the highlands, it was so quiet that I had to remind myself that seven thousand battle-ready people were here.

  Then, like a shrill alarm from the skies, a bolt of purple-white jolted down from the heavens to our left, sizzling into flesh over the ground out of our sight. The electricity pumped its heat between both sets of cliffs, proving that it was the doing of Zephyr rather than nature.

  It was our cue.

  “Ambush!” The scream was so intense and panicked that we heard it despite being so far from the other end of the crevasse. Our entire army of seven thousand stood and rushed toward the cliffs, prepared to unleash chaos into the Pass below. I did not hesitate to give alteration shields to the friends Azazel didn't, and throughout our army, the soldiers who knew the spell did the same. We did not yet prepare physical guards, because we figured the Icilic would resort to magic first, and we needed to conserve our energy.

  My first look down into the Pass was obstructed as the world around me disappeared in blinding white. Only when my absorbing shield fed me with an abundance of energy did I realize I'd been hit by lightning. I retaliated with enervat, wishing to add to my reserves before utilizing other elements. A cloud of black encapsulated a group of soldiers twenty strong. When it raced back to fuel me, however, I found that nearly half of the foes still stood, protected by wards.

  So many Icilic men and women throughout the crevasse below were protected from our magic that I came to realize something: the snow elves were predisposed to life magic. I saw no alteration shields. The only other elements I saw them utilizing were air and water, and we knew at least some of them were necromancers. But for now, so many of the Icilic knew life magic that they could not attack us from our distance unless they were archers.

  Cerin realized this as well, already shielding Jakan and Nyx as they stood at the edge of the canyon, throwing Naharan stars and shooting crossbow bolts into the soldiers below. Some of the ammo bounced off of life magic harmlessly. Arrows peppered into the shields of my friends and me, ricocheting off of the magic and landing in the grasses below. Azazel took a break from shooting to lean down and collect the ammo that could be reused, before firing more arrows off with deadly accuracy.

  I had a leeching high from previous spells, so now I focused on funneling my energy into a combination of earth and fire magic. Between both palms, molten rock spun in swirling designs of crackling fire and blackened earth. The heat radiated from the mixture and through the spell's barrier, warming my hands until they felt massaged.

  I thrust the spell over the cliff's edge, lava spurting into the masses of enemies below. Those without wards were immediately caught beneath liquid fire, bodies melting from the head downward. Lava splattered over wards and fell heavily to the ground, spreading the deadly concoction out over the grasses and between both walls of the Pass, entrapping thousands. I sidestepped down the pass to the north, spewing more of the lava from my hands until the skies above calmed from a lack of energy.

  A river of fire now flowed through the Highland Pass to the north, pulling elves beneath its grasp by melting the limbs that would help them escape. The life mages and the others shielded by wards found themselves panicking, for the longer they stood over the lava, the longer the damage from it chipped away at their protections. Even as I recharged myself by shooting death magic into the group of Icilic just north of the Pass wards were dispelling, leaving many unprotected.

  Screams of agony from melting people rang harshly through the air, magnified by the reflective nature of the high rock walls around them. The Icilic within the passage tried focusing on regenerating protections as often as they could, but at least two thousand were already dead. Shouts of redirection came from the north. The still massive army above the crevasse was retreating into the open grasslands of the cup of northern Eteri, determined to avoid the lava moving toward them.

  An Icilic woman hurried up to the front of this army, giving herself a ward before spewing thousands of gallons of water forward into the Pass. The water rushed through the narrow passage, hissing as some of it turned to steam from the extreme heat of lava before the liquid fire hardened and blackened into solid rock. Because the Pass had been mostly cleared, Zephyr's men were rushing north to pursue the Icilic.

  I ripped the war horn from my belt, lifting it to my lips.

  HUUURRRNNNNN!

  Cyrus whipped his head toward me, hearing the call.

  “Have Zephyr pull her men back!” I screamed at him. Cyrus repeated the call to Uriel down the line, though he then looked back to me.

  “Why, Kai?”

  I pointed to the Icilic dual caster who was in the midst of building a clear spell. Because I knew she wielded life and water, I could understand what she meant to do by process of elimination. Life magic had no clear spells, and the lack of material element meant the mage meant to transform rather than create.

  “She will entrap them in ice!” I yelled.

  Sure enough, the dual caster thrust the magic forward a second later, hitting the edge of the river nearest her. The crackling of ice pierced the
air, hardening and crystallizing water rapidly toward the soldiers of Zephyr's army. Our directions to them had been too late.

  “Aggh!” One of the soldiers screamed as he was engulfed in ice from the knees down, the freezing element burning the skin within his armor. Another soldier behind him knew fire magic and tried to free herself with flames.

  Movement in the corner of my eye called my attention back to Cyrus. The Sentinel held clear magic between his own hands, before thrusting it toward the canyon where still flowing water moved south, not yet touched by the enemy dual caster's approaching magic. The water hissed as it rapidly vaporized, rising as steam until the southern half of the crevasse was full of dense fog. The Icilic mage's freezing energy continued on its path, hitting the tiny droplets of water vapor and crystallizing it. Now the fog was gone, falling to the ground below as harmless snow.

  Cyrus wasted no time in turning the ice surrounding the first soldiers back into water. As the liquid dissipated into cracks of cooled lava, its level lowered. More soldiers came in behind the rest, pulling injured allies back from the fight. Others surged forward, determined to meet the Icilic on the northern end of the Pass.

  Our soldiers were vulnerable, so I rushed to the cliff edge overlooking the grasslands and raised both hands to the sky. The Icilic Army had suffered a few thousand casualties from our ambush, but they still outnumbered us and now were safe from being surrounded. We could not let them get the advantage.

  Generat le meteora a multipla!

  The skies above the grasslands rolled into a blanket of thick charcoal clouds before fireballs rained down upon our foes. Though many of the Icilic had wards, the protection could only keep the elemental energy from hurting them, not the physical force of the collision.

  BOOM!

  Pale bodies exploded outward from the point of impact, some of them on fire. The mages with wards flew through the air, and those who did not have physical shields as well met the ground with multiple broken bones. Meteors raced to the earth, again and again, leaving bodies overturned and mutilated. The grasses of Eteri were on fire, and as it spread many Icilic mages were engulfed. One of our foes called rains from the skies, squelching the flames.