by Eric Vall
Dragir glanced at me like he didn’t want to say it, but we both knew it needed to be said.
“There’s very little we can do if he’s among the first troop,” Dragir admitted. “We are without our armies here, and the mages will be--”
“He’s only eleven,” Rhys cut in, and he looked past Dragir to me and Aurora. “Please. You have control over where you aim your powers, yes?”
All of Rhys’ fury seemed to have given way, and I realized he’d begun to acknowledge the odds of his son making it out of this battle alive.
“We’ll do what we can,” I told him. “If he makes it through, your troops will be waiting for him, whatever their orders are.”
Rhys nodded his agreement, and Dragir leaned over to mutter to the braided elf.
“Aliasa will not kill you,” he assured him, but Rhys shook his head.
“Like hell she won’t,” he shot back. “She tried to slit my throat less than an hour ago. I only managed to get the dagger from her shortly before you arrived. Then she went for the torches instead.”
I raised my brow and looked over at the two to find Dragir chuckling to himself, and I noticed half of Rhys’ sleeve was burnt away with a few blisters flecking his skin.
“You should have sent her over,” Dragir said with a smirk. “I would have had time this morning … if you hadn’t cut my hand off that is.”
Rhys grinned maliciously. “I’d cut it off again,” he assured him, and the threat seemed to cheer the braided elf up by a degree.
“Aliasa would smother you in your sleep.”
The two elves exchanged a glance, and I could tell by Rhys’ expression this wasn’t bullshit.
The braided elf cursed and looked away, but after a moment of looking down into the ravine, he was grinning once more.
“You know … ” Rhys mused, “there will be a lot of soldiers down there. If you happened to slip and fall, who is to say which elf is responsible for your injuries?”
Dragir sighed to himself and chose not to respond, but I noticed him glance nervously at his bandaged wrist as he flexed the four functioning fingers. His pinky was still a deathly blue, and although the rest of the appendage wasn’t quite the same color as his arm, it still seemed to be making a decent recovery.
Rhys noticed Dragir’s concern as well, and he chuckled in a tone that actually began to make me nervous.
It was unnerving what passed for loyalty in Nalnora, and I couldn’t help wondering which of the two elves would finally kill the other one day.
My money was probably on Dragir, but Rhys had a point about the impending battle.
Anything could happen, and who would be able to say one way or the other when all was done.
Dragir looked mostly unconcerned, though, as he kept his serpentine eyes trained on the mouth of the ravine. Rhys eyed him carefully over the barrel of his bazooka, but I decided I’d just have to leave the elves to be elves.
What mattered was that the Master’s army not have a chance of rebuilding themselves this time.
The guards crouching at our flanks fidgeted as tensions rose, and I checked to be sure they understood Dragir’s instructions explicitly.
They promptly changed their positions in response as we tested our aim a bit, and despite their clear unease handling the rockets, I figured they’d probably do fine.
My loader was a stern-faced elf from House Fehryn with dense golden braids tied at the base of his neck and pale green serpentine eyes that constantly flicked over his shoulder toward the west.
Aurora’s loader must have been at the battle at House Quyn, because he remained as far from the Ignis Mage as possible. The way he averted his gaze whenever she looked back wasn’t anything like the usual disgust the elves showed her. It was more like he thought looking at her might cause him to catch fire by proxy.
I narrowed my eyes when I sized up Cayla’s loader, though. He was a smaller man who wore the garb of House Quyn’s army, and his own gaze was currently glued to the princess’ ass.
I cleared my throat, and when the elf’s dull grey eyes met mine, he visibly paled by several degrees.
“You sure you’re up to the task?” I asked him pointedly.
The elf stared back without speaking, and as he looked between Cayla and me, his gaze fell on her ass every time like a bad tick.
I sighed, and Dragir must have looked over, because he suddenly said something in Elvish to the man that made his eyes go wide with fear, and he remained staring diligently at the pile of rockets he was responsible for instead.
“He doesn’t speak English,” Dragir explained.
I furrowed my brow. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him you would skin him alive and feed his innards to his own family if he kept it up,” Dragir replied. “This is accurate, yes?”
I grinned. “It’s a little elven, but yeah, basically.”
Dragir nodded, but then an ear splitting clap of thunder broke from above, and we all looked up to see the sky suddenly shadowed with thick blue clouds.
“Looks like another mage will be joining us,” Aurora warned. “Everyone keep an eye on the water.”
“We won’t have to worry about any raging fires this time,” I mused.
“Might get a bit slippery, though,” Rhys added darkly, and he smirked over the barrel of his bazooka at Dragir.
Then Cayla’s loader suddenly tapped her arm and gestured toward the west.
“They’re here,” the princess informed us, and Dragir and Rhys snapped their attention back to the mouth of the ravine.
The air became thick as the humidity in the jungle heightened, and just as the rattling of armor began to echo from the west, heavy drops of rain started to fall from above.
What remained of House Syru’s soldiers led the Master’s army now, and even from a distance, I could tell their skin had become sallow and almost green under the possessive power of the Master’s rune. Their bulky muscles cut at sharp angles along their broad shoulders and arms, though, and each of them carried a tungsten axe in both hands. They moved mechanically with hollow eyes and bared teeth, and my first instinct was to put them out of their misery.
There was something about the way their backs hunched against their own bulk, and the mindless determination of their expressions, that really drove Dragir’s warning home. The longer the rune possessed them, the worse they got, and I could tell they were locked in a strange balance that left them deteriorating just as much as they were gaining in stature. Still, they hulked bearishly above all of the others at their backs, and as they began to file past, House Kylen’s remaining army looked to be taking a similar turn for the worse.
Without any metal armor to hide their forms, it was easier to see the way their brawny backs curled as if they were nearly starved, but they trudged forward with nothing but bloodlust burning in their eyes.
The newly acquired elves of House Ceres were easy to recognize, not only because they had some semblance of health, but because they greatly resembled their leader who caught my eye immediately.
His blaze of red hair was slicked back and knotted with dirty bones, and his bright yellow eyes flashed hungrily as a slightly crazed smile twitched at the corner of his lips.
The head of House Ceres had been one of the members at the hall of the Elven Council when we first came to Nalnora, and his clear hatred and viciousness had been notable to me then. Now, the members of his House stuck out just as much despite their builds being less brawny than Kylen’s or Syru’s.
The several bones, teeth, limbs, and pelts of beasts which they wore knotted in their hair and around their necks made them prominent in their own way, and I noticed several women littered amongst the unwashed horde as well.
Scrappy and unkempt pelts were tied haphazardly around their bodies, and they moved like feral cats with blades hanging from their leather belts that were already stained with old blood they’d never wiped away.
There were no children anywhere, though, and not
even Rali appeared to be present.
I furrowed my brow as I carefully scanned the hundred or so soldiers marching through the ravine below us, and the only hierarchy in the masses seemed dependent on House Syru’s soldiers, who trampled everything in their path as they advanced toward House Fehryn.
The entire ravine was filled from one embankment to the other, and still more soldiers continued from the west while the footfalls of the extensive army trembled through the ground.
We remained silently looking down from the cover of the undergrowth along the upper embankment as the possessed army filed by, and none of them saw the attack coming.
At my order, all six bazookas fired at once, and when they met their marks amongst the frontline of House Syru’s soldiers, the explosions burst with a deafening bang and echoed throughout the entire ravine. The purple flames sparked on impact and tore their way across the elves’ flesh, and I could see their metal armor melting right into their chests as they wailed in agony.
The fire only continued to spread, though, until row after row were engulfed and left writhing on the ground.
Our loaders leaned forward with their jaws dropped as they watched, and when I nudged my own to reload the bazooka, he returned to his post much more eagerly this time.
Aurora’s loader was grinning to himself as he watched her fire the next rocket he’d loaded, and I could have sworn I heard him chuckle when she curled her lip into a ruthless smirk and motioned for another.
Then another clap of thunder rang out, and the rain pelted down in earnest from the sky.
It wasn’t a downpour, but sheets of heavy drops that struck painfully across my arms and never let up, and I realized the moist jungle was more than enough fuel for the Flumen Mage to work with for as long as they wished.
The rain made an honest effort at squelching the runic flames that bubbled across the flesh of the Master’s army, but six more rockets met their marks and ignited the next several lines regardless.
Just behind them, at least a dozen soldiers suddenly stumbled and clutched at their throats, and as Shoshanne slowly siphoned every bit of oxygen from their lungs, they dropped hard to their knees. When they finally lay twitching in the sodden ferns, another dozen soldiers froze and began grappling at their chests as well.
Each pull of the trigger sent a palpable surge of power through my grip, and there was something more that my senses tuned into as I became more familiar with the runes at work. Beyond the charge of the trigger rune, I began to feel a heightened connection to the weapon, and I wondered if this was the rune Dragir had added while we were in the north.
The weapon emitted its own energy field, and I eased into it until there was virtually no line of disconnect between myself and the bazooka. I could feel the strength of its power billowing around me, and a heady sense of assuredness came with each pull of the trigger.
Dragir and the others readied their bazookas once more, and I shifted to raise my palm toward the oncoming troops far off down the ravine.
I let my Terra magic sift into the drenched soil beneath their feet, and I traced deep fissures into the ground as I went. Then, with a clenching of my fist, the fissures abruptly broke open, and just as another onslaught of rockets seared their way through the ravine, waves of soldiers began to plummet into the earth.
Thick black mud surged in after them as the rain poured angrily from the sky, and the soldiers began to trample each other and slide while they shoved blindly ahead.
With their formation broken and nearly every one of Syru’s army burnt away, the rest of the troops became unbridled.
Aurora swiftly sent out a wall of searing white flames, and she ignited those who clambered up the edges of the ravine to escape the deluge of rain flooding the place.
Then arrows began to fly in our direction, and we all ducked the oncoming volley.
The arrows of House Ceres struck the piles of rockets around us with tinny clangs, and I looked uneasily at Dragir, who was also eyeing the ammunition with concern.
When our eyes met, we seemed to reach a mutual agreement, and we swiftly tapped our loaders to get them back in order as fast as possible.
Both of us fired three more rounds from the bazookas before the next volley came soaring up with a few axes, and my stomach did a flip when I saw a tungsten blade spiraling toward Cayla’s pile of ammunition.
I threw my arm out and pulled every loose rocket toward me just before the axe buried itself into the ground, and then I called out for the two women to change their positions.
Cayla and Aurora nodded, and they locked their bazookas against their drenched chests to crawl along the muddy undergrowth and up the embankment with their loaders close behind.
Once they were in a safer position, I sent their ammunition up to them, and then I swiftly fired another two rockets into the fray.
The army had erupted into chaos below as they either grappled for air or found their skin being peeled away by runic flames, but several still managed to break away in packs and barrel onward toward House Fehryn.
Aurora sent her own flames after those who made it past, and I tore the earth open any chance I could to drag them eight feet into the ground before they reached House Quyn’s army.
The rain continued to batter us until my eyes were blinded by sweat and water, and I wiped my face on my sleeve as I steadied my aim once more. I was just about to pull the trigger when a glint of deep green in the masses caught my attention, and Rhys shot to his feet at the same moment.
Dragir lurched to grab the braided elf, but Rhys tore himself free and barreled down the edge of the embankment and into the swell of soldiers below.
I stared in shock as he met with three brawny soldiers from House Kylen at once, and every elf in his vicinity turned on him like a pack of dogs.
Dragir cursed furiously, and he scowled for a few beats before he dropped the bazooka.
“Do not shoot us,” he growled over his shoulder and bolted after Rhys.
Nothing but possessed and ravenous elves waited for them below, so I turned to the loaders, who sat looking at me for their next orders.
Countering the initial plan of the armies’ leaders seemed like a dangerous move amongst the elves, and I knew Rhys and Dragir had given unyielding instructions for their armies to disperse between Black Rock and House Fehryn only.
Many soldiers had already slipped past our ambush to make their way west, but considering Rhys and Dragir neglected their own orders when they dove into the ravine without a damn army at their backs, I figured, plans change.
“Get to your troops,” I commanded the guards. “Bring as many as you can spare and tell your leader that Rhys has gone after Rali.”
The two loaders nodded diligently and disappeared into the undergrowth, and as I squinted into the chaos below, I motioned for the golden-haired elf at my flank to load another rocket.
Rhys’ green braids were already a third of the way into the mass, and he sliced the necks of every soldier he passed without pause while the possessed elves closed in from every side.
Dragir was close behind and driving his glaive into their guts while he spliced the rest with the serrated blade in his other hand, and I swiped more rain from my eyes as I tried to find Rali.
I finally saw him at the far edge of the ravine, but as I really considered him, he didn’t look anything like he had when he’d fought at House Quyn.
Rali’s own thick braids had been sheared clean off so only a short crop of shaggy green hair remained, and despite his small size, he violently shoved one of Kylen’s soldiers out of his way as he pushed forward toward House Fehryn. His ruddy orange eyes flashed wildly with fiendish determination, and he didn’t hesitate to shove straight past the swinging axes that came within inches of him.
I couldn’t imagine what the hell Rhys planned to do with his already deadly son now that he was irreversibly cold-blooded, but there was no way Dragir or Rhys were going to make it to the kid alive at this rate.
&nbs
p; The braided elf was locked in a group of feral elves from House Ceres who had taken up the discarded axes of the burnt soldiers, and they swung at him with heavy blows while he struck back with two glaives at once.
I fired another three rockets into the fray where the Master’s army continued to file in, and as the purple flames enveloped another thirty elves, Aurora ignited a line of nearly twenty soldiers at once to match me.
Shoshanne was still handily wiping out the troops a dozen at a time, and Cayla kept her bazooka trained on the new arrivals while her loader managed to keep up with the deadly woman’s demands.
With my women handling the masses, I sent the last of the unused ammunition up to Aurora and Cayla before I dropped my bazooka and slid down the embankment with my revolver drawn.
Dragir was cornered by five guards with his glaive flipping tirelessly as I sent bullets into three of their skulls, and when the last two turned on me, Dragir’s serrated saber pierced one of them straight through their back and out their ribs.
The last one had his axe high above his head when I wrenched it from his grip with a turn of my hand, and I let the hefty blade drop through his skull as Dragir and I ducked into the next line of troops.
Rhys was lost somewhere in the swell, and as I scanned for a glimpse of him, I drew my sword with my left hand while I fired my revolver with the right.
Every blow I blocked was returned with a bullet between the eyes, and when the cylinder was spent, I slid the gun into my holster and used my magic to reload while I drove my sword into an oncoming soldier and slit the throats of two more.
The possessed elves continued to wield their own swords despite the blood spilling down their chests, but within a minute of heated sparring, they finally bled out and dropped twitching at my feet.
I worked to catch my breath as the rain continued to beat down, and the mud in the ravine mixed with the blood of the dead to create a slimy mixture that had already risen to my calves.
Then House Quyn’s army tore in from the east, and they scaled the logs and the rocks along the embankments to leap and bury their daggers into the necks of their enemies.
