The Champions

by Jeremy Laszlo

  Those swept beneath the ice either drowned or were crushed by the great sheets of frozen water. Those who managed to survive that, were swept over a great waterfall that plummeted into unknown depths beneath the world’s surface, never to be heard from again. Sigrant’s ice mages began working immediately to repair the damage lest the entire army be lost. A moment later, against their better judgment, the remaining battle mages under order of the invading king began their assault on Seth anew. This time Seth let the attacks come. He watched with his vision of the gods and estimated that in his retaliation he had managed to destroy more than sixty of the opposing mages. Minute after minute the barrage of magical attacks came and Seth consumed each and every one.

  Though the opposing sides continued to fight on some fronts, the vast majority stood immobile, waiting to see the outcome of this epic battle of magic. Valdadore’s mages replied by hurling fire at the attacking magicians but so few were the former’s numbers now that they had little effect. Seth waited as his power reserves grew and, once again, as he felt the power becoming too much to contain, he focused himself.

  Spreading his arms above his head, the black-robed death mage raised his palms to the heavens. He was so consumed by the power within him, and concentrating with his vision of the gods on targeting those who opposed him, that Seth never even saw it coming. Though awash in magical ballista of every shape and form, Seth had mastered the art of absorbing the power without harm. Through the magic, however, came a physical attack that he had not anticipated. Not once upon this field of battle had a war machine been seen. Nor had there been any evidence that King Sigrant’s rear lines had finally caught up with the rest of his force. Yet through the magical onslaught a single ballista bolt near eight feet in length arced down out of the sky catching Seth full in the chest.

  The moment seemed to slow to a lurch as Seth was driven over backwards slightly before suddenly stopping. He was completely off balance and yet something held him up from behind. Looking down, a full foot of shaft still penetrated his chest and Seth realized that the bolt had gone clean through him. Leaning him over backwards precariously, the bolt had become lodged in the ground, effectively propping the death mage upon his feet for all to see. The whole of the battlefield sighed. A great howling sound arose as if the world cried. As Seth’s vision began to blur, Sara leapt from those nearest him, stripping off her helm in the full light of day. Everything went dark.

  *****

  Sara landed between two of Sigrant’s troops whom she thought to be officers. They both wore full armor and carried the emblem of the skull upon their chests. Each of them shouted orders even now as Sara dropped from the heavens between them. Twisting as she landed she reached out to each side with an enchanted blade designed to siphon life, and twirling she rose from her crouched position.

  Both officers had registered her now and fear showed plainly in their eyes. Their hearts began to race and Sara smiled wickedly beneath her helm. Her entire suit of armor dripped with blood, both inside and out, and the princess could not have been more comfortable.

  Sara leapt at the officer to her left without warning and wrapping her legs about his face she drove the large man to the ground. Then, without a second’s hesitation, she thrust not one but both blades down through the top of his skull. Wrenching them apart to either side she destroyed her foe as a trickle of life joined with her own.

  Without so much as looking for the other officer, Sara leapt backwards, somersaulting through the air. Before landing she twisted with the grace of a feline and landed lightly in a crouch not a pace in front of her foe. He raised his sword to strike her, thinking he had the upper hand.

  Sara shot to a standing position faster than the human could blink and drove the pommel of one small sword under the man’s chin with devastating effect. So forceful was the blow that both her hand and pommel tore through the flesh under his chin and neck up into the cavity of his skull. With a jerk Sara removed the man’s head as his body still stumbled a step before falling twitching to the ground. She leapt into the air once more.

  Twisting and leaping, striking and dodging, Sara spent the morning bringing death to one feeble human after another. Though she related to them on many levels, Sara had begun to realize that they were no longer her people. She had become more, or perhaps less, and now there were a growing number of others like her. She could feel them. She knew when they fed. She knew each time a new member of her race was created. She had started a process that she might never end, and because of it she had brought a plague to the world. From such an action there was no redemption and though princess to Valdadore, Sara felt more like the queen of the damned.

  It was odd, the vast mix of emotions within Sara. For as unnatural and inhuman as she felt, she could never remember feeling so alive. Perhaps her alteration was both a blessing and a curse. One thing was for certain: Sara needed to find a way to stop the spread of her condition. She needed a plan.

  Passing the day killing like a graceful predator, Sara thought mostly about how she might stop those she had created. It was not until near midday when Borrik landed nearby that Sara was broken from her anguished thoughts of self-redemption. Seth it seemed had called a regrouping of his troops. Sara knew better than to ignore his warning and immediately turned and began working her way back to her loving husband. She wondered how she could continue helping him with the struggles and burdens he had, when her own threatened to drown her. If nothing more, she would at least do her best to assist him here upon the field of battle.

  It was not long after receiving the order to fall back that Sara approached Seth. Growing ever nearer, she was within a hundred yards of him when the enemy’s mages unleashed a magical storm of attacks unlike anything she had ever seen. So relentless and furious were the attacks that Seth was completely lost from view for many minutes. Not daring venture any nearer, Sara simply stopped to watch how things unfolded. Nearly the entire battlefield came to a screeching halt. None had witnessed a display quite like this. Even James, Seth’s own father, had faced less than a third of this power.

  Sara watched as suddenly the barrage appeared to break through an unseen barrier and then Seth became visible. Sara smiled. Her husband was a man of immense power. Some thought him invulnerable to any attack. Some thought him a god. Literally thousands of magical projectiles were snuffed out at having come into contact with the death mage. After a moment of him just standing under the assault, obviously focused, he raised his arms, his hands becoming visible from his sleeves.

  Sara realized he planned to direct whatever attack he had prepared, and being directly in front of her husband, she decided to move before he obliterated her. Crouching low, Sara sprang to the side at the same time invoked her enchanted boots.

  “Jump,” she shouted and rocketed into the air over the heads of thousands of men. Landing, Sara watched as her husband unleashed more death than he had ever done before. With an immense tearing sound the ground was rent apart and thousands fell instantly into a giant chasm created in the earth. While the chasm swallowed those who stood where once there had been land, a great howling magical wind sprang forth, tearing thousands more off their feet. The currents within the wind were so violent that those caught upon its currents were torn limb from limb as flesh was stripped from bones and body parts were thrown to rain down upon those who survived.

  Next, from even further away, screams arose as more crushing and cracking sounds tore through the air and the giant frozen lake began to break up, the water beneath the ice spilling into the chasm Seth had opened. Sara thought that it was over, her husband having obliterated over ten thousand men, but she was mistaken as a tidal wave of fire was unleashed to quench the life of those who remained near to her husband. Those were the victims that had the worst of the situation. None of them died immediately, their screams turning to clouds of smoke as they wandered about like living torches until their lives snuffed out.

  For a moment, after Seth had single-handedly dropped ne
ar fifteen thousand men, the battlefield appeared calm as almost no one moved. Then the mages loyal to Sigrant unleashed their will upon Seth once again. With lower numbers of opposing mages, Seth remained visible under the onslaught this time and Sara could not believe the enemy mages were naive enough to repeat the same mistake twice.

  The attack lasted only a minute or two before Sara watched her hopes and dreams, as well as those of her nation, crumble beneath a single bolt fired by an invading siege engine. Sara saw the bolt before it penetrated the magical blasts of all the enemy mages, though it vanished for an instant before the magical attacks slowed and then ceased.

  There stood Seth, impaled upon the ballista bolt that had hit him square in the heart and pinned him in a near standing position to the ground. Sara’s heart skipped a beat. Her husband’s troops saw their god, injured as he was, and it appeared they went insane. Roaring and howling like mad beasts the werewolves began tearing anything that moved to pieces in an effort to get to their fallen master. Sara, though in disbelief, needed to be at her husband’s side. She crouched and again summoned the power of her enchanted boots. In less than a second she stood before Seth, watching his life blood trickle down the wooden shaft.

  Not knowing what to do, Sara ripped her helm off her head. As the sunlight began to burn her flesh, for just an instant her eyes and the eyes of her husband locked before his became unfocused and rolled back, lifeless. Sara strained her senses. Seth’s heart had ceased beating; his breathing had stopped as well. Her husband, the most powerful man upon Thurr, was dead. She shrieked in both anger and pain, tears streaming from her eyes as her flesh burned away from her face.

  *****

  Borrik stomped a path through gore and bodies to the fallen king. Heaving Garret off the ground, Borrik wrapped his two left arms around the king and together they slowly moved towards the rear lines. Borrik could feel the king failing and made a suggestion.

  “Your majesty, if you will release your blessing I can fly us to the healers and get you treatment,” Borrik half growled loudly over the battle.

  “I…can’t,” Garret replied. “My blessing is all that is keeping me alive.”

  Borrik damned his luck, and unfortunately he did it prematurely. No sooner had the king replied, than he collapsed. Not even the strength of two of Borrik’s inhuman arms, even in his blessed form, could keep the huge man upright. Like a sack of boulders the king fell, and so heavy was his body in its blessed form that when he hit the ground he left an impression almost a foot deep in the already trampled soil. The king lived, but was unconscious.

  Borrik did the only thing he could do. Reaching down he grabbed the king by his ankles and began dragging his near lifeless body across the battlefield. The inhuman leader of Seth’s inhuman army could never have imagined how hard his task was going to be. The beast of a man had dragged the king less than fifty yards, and already he was forced to pause to catch his breath and relieve his cramping muscles. The giant steel king weighed more than he had thought possible, but even so Borrik did not have much time to rest.

  Just moments after he stopped, the battlefield changed tremendously as mages by the hundreds began flinging spells from everywhere. It was at times like these where being taller than everyone else upon the battlefield was a disadvantage. Grabbing the king again Borrik pressed on and began dragging him anew. Only a second passed and Borrik knew telepathically that his master was the focus of the fury of the mages. For now, however, Borrik could be of little help to his master and as such he continued to drag the king.

  Time and again Borrik was forced to stop and dodge magical ballista before continuing. After each incident he hurled dual fireballs back at the attacker out of spite before grabbing the king again and moving on. After several minutes of pulling and jerking the king by his legs it became quickly apparent that his true master, Seth, had finally put up with Sigrant’s mages long enough.

  With an earth shattering sound like thunder a hundred times over, the ground began to shake and heave and Borrik witnessed through his soldiers’ eyes a great chasm opening up in the ground. Following that was yet another unnatural sound as an unworldly wind blasted across the plain ripping soldiers from their feet and shredding their bodies, sending them to rain both into the chasm and upon the remaining troops across the land.

  Moving as fast as he could, Borrik dragged the fallen king as far as he was able before his master unleashed a giant tidal wave of fire decimating even more of the enemy. From then on pandemonium broke lose over the field of battle. Enemy mages began casting again, and even a few brave soldiers picked up the fight where moments ago they had paused for fear that they too would be destroyed by the death mage’s wrath. Once again Borrik was forced to dodge magical attacks whilst dragging the king. Seeing his predicament, a common soldier, perhaps an officer of some sort, took up the call for a healer as Borrik passed. The call was echoed throughout the battlefield and a clear path was opened for Borrik and Garret.

  No sooner had Borrik felt he might actually reach a healer before the king died than an image flashed across his conscious. A mournful howling erupted over the battlefield to which Borrik lent his voice. Anger and hatred filled Borrik as he dropped the king and leapt into the air.

  Though the right thing to have done might have been to locate some healers and fly them to both Garret and Seth, Borrik was overcome by his feral instincts. Pack mentality dictated that he had to see his dead master for himself, and immediately. Already the surviving troops under Borrik’s command began to gather around their fallen deity.

  Only a minute and a half after the bolt impaled his master, Borrik plummeted from the sky. Spreading his wings at the last moment, he landed within a great cloud of dust. There before him, after the dust settled, were his master’s corpse and the body of his master’s wife which was smoldering as her flesh burned away beneath the sun. Borrik raised his wings casting the area in shadow, protecting the princess. Falling to his knees Borrik growled in anguish, a mournful, sorrowful call that was taken up by his men who then began to kill anything that moved. Naught but Borrik and Sara remained at Seth’s side, both willing to die beside the man who had made them the monsters they were.

  *****

  The call for a healer had come through the lines of soldiers like a battle hymn that had picked up volume each time it was repeated. The king had fallen somewhere upon the field, and the call was as yet unanswered as nearly every healer in the Valdadorian arsenal had fled far behind the lines. Rising from his current patient, Ashton reached down and helped the soldier back to his feet. The man had been lucky. Had he not found Ashton he likely would have bled to death upon the field after sustaining a slash wound through the artery in his armpit. Now the man clasped wrists with the healer who had saved his life, and grabbing his spear and shield he rushed back through the lines to the fight.

  Ashton looked around the field to determine where the king might have fallen. Climbing a slight rise in the terrain he could see sunlight gleaming off a large mass a few hundred yards away. With no time to waste Ashton began running full tilt through the crowd, ducking and dodging any obstacle that stood in his path. Against his oath, Ashton forced himself to pass two other injured soldiers in his attempt to reach the king. With his bloodstained robes flapping as he ran, Ashton sprinted the last several yards as the king came into view and he was finally certain of his destination.

  The scene was a mess. The king lay unconscious upon the ground in a massive twisted heap. A great smoldering hole lay upon his ribcage, and on his opposite side his entire arm was missing, shoulder and all. In its place was a gaping hole from which copious amounts of blood had been lost, but now barely trickled. Ashton did not even know where to begin.

  Unsure what else he could do, Ashton dropped to his knees beside the giant of a king and began to pray to his goddess. Within an instant Ashton exploded in white light, his entire body becoming enveloped in power. In the past few months Ashton had grown immensely as a healer. He had sur
passed all of his instructors’ expectations, and now had outstripped many of their abilities as well. Even Ashton had limitations, however, even if he didn’t know them all. But first things first, Ashton needed to assess the king’s injuries.

  Placing his hands upon the king Ashton felt more than looked for many moments within the fallen body of his friend. So great were Garret’s injuries, Ashton wondered how he had survived at all. Besides the fact that Garret had lost an arm, shattered a collar bone, and had a gaping hole where that arm should have attached to his body, the lung upon that side of his body had been torn as well and had filled with blood and other fluid. His opposite lung had been charred, as had been his heart and several major blood vessels. Another hole had been blasted in the king’s side; the only thing holding his insides within him were the charred bones of his ribcage upon that side.

  Ashton began work on the blood vessels. If they remained damaged, no matter how much power and time Ashton expended, the king would die from blood loss. After a few moments all the blood vessels, both minor and major, had been repaired allowing Ashton to move on to organs. Next Ashton repaired Garret’s heart, reconnecting the destroyed fibers of the muscle in each chamber and repairing the valves until the heart again was whole. Then Ashton moved onto the lungs, first forcing the king’s body to reabsorb the fluids within them and then mending the damage and charred tissue.

  Nearly half an hour had passed since Ashton first got the call that the king was down. Now he repaired the muscle tissue between the king’s ribs, wrapping them all in a protective layer of sinew but otherwise leaving the wound open. Double checking his progress he moved to the king’s shattered collar bone and carefully pieced the bone back together before interlacing the fragments once again with new calcium. The majority of the life-threatening damage repaired, Ashton sat back a moment, assured the king’s vitals were normal, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Around him the battle waged on, but Ashton and the king were relatively safe, being some distance from the front lines.