by TurtleMe
My blood burned at the sight. Landing deftly on the ground, I sprinted toward the enemy, fully intent on removing him from this battle.
“Tessia! Where are you going?” Darvus hollered from behind me.
“I’ll be right back!” I responded, not bothering to turn back.
My vision narrowed in on the enemy mage as I easily cleared the distance between us, but just as I was about to drive my blade into his back, a golden pane of light flickered in to being between us. The barrier shattered when my blade struck it, but it gave the mage enough time to scurry out of my path.
“Sneaky little elven witch,” the enemy mage spat. The whirling blades of wind surrounding his hands grew larger as he prepared to strike.
“You’ll pay for the elven blood you’ve spilt with your life,” I replied coldly, unleashing the first phase of my beast will onto the enemy.
“Sh-Shield!” he screamed, sprinting toward his guard.
A golden light flickered into existence, but before it could even fully manifest, the sharp tendrils of mana surrounding me had already pierced several holes into both mages’ bodies.
Having defeated these enemies, my gaze was drawn toward the dead elf beside me. His empty eyes seemed to be looking back at me, blaming me.
I can do this, I repeated through gritted teeth.
“Tessia! We need you back!” Caria called. It took me a moment to find her in the fog; she was facing a group of three Alacryans. Her expression was grim, but she wasn’t losing ground even against three enemy mages.
“I’ll be right there!” I shouted. Augmenting my sight, I peered through the layer of fog to try and find any of the so-called Shields hiding nearby. Taking any Shields out would seriously weaken the attackers, since they didn’t seem to be able to defend themselves with magic.
I spotted a Shield conjuring a panel of light around two other Alacryans, but before I could engage him, an enemy mage charged at me. I easily dodged his flame-clad spear and carved a bloody line through his neck, but as I turned back to the Shield, I spotted another ally in need of help.
A human soldier had been backed up against a tree by two enemy mages, who were closing in on her. I knew my main job was to reinforce my teammates and to stop the Alacryan troops from advancing, but that task became more difficult every time an allied soldier fell.
With a flick of my wrist, roots shot up from below the two Alacryans, anchoring their feet to the ground. Compressing the air around my swordstaff, I cast Wind Cutter, launching a translucent crescent of wind at the immobile mages.
An earthen wall burst out of the ground, intercepting my spell. By the time I darted around the barrier, the human girl was already on the ground, a frozen spike protruding from her chest.
I cursed inwardly, angry at myself for being too late. Meanwhile, the enemy mages managed to free themselves from the grasping roots and prepared their next attack—this time, at me.
With a manic cry, the mage dashed toward me, his entire right arm enveloped by a lance made of ice.
The emerald vines of mana that surrounded me like an aura knocked aside his feeble attack and plunged into his stomach and chest, killing him instantly.
The second Alacryan conjured a stone barrier that formed around him like a little cave, clearly hoping to be rescued before I could break through his shield. With a snarl, I summoned roots and vines from the earth underneath the dome, and I could hear his screams resounding dully within. More and more plants filled the hollow space, and I knew they would crush him if he didn’t release his spell. Moments later, the screams cut off, and the barrier began to crumble, revealing the Alacryan’s broken body.
My eyes shifted toward my dead ally, still leaning against the tree nearby.
I cursed again. I needed to take down more of the enemy’s mages. The more I brought down, the better chances my allies had. That was my duty.
The emerald aura surrounding me shot out more translucent vines that whipped, wrapped, and pierced any enemy that approached, and I realized that, while in the first phase of my beast will, my most effective method of attack was to simply get within range of the enemy mages. Even the Shield’s magical barriers proved ineffective against the emerald vines, which could move over, under, and around the barriers faster than they could be altered.
I sprinting from one group of enemies to the next, darting into their midst—often before they even knew I was there—and letting the vines do their work. While the forest was a handicap to many, the endless rows of trees worked to my advantage. Not only did the emerald vines of mana constantly protect me and strike out at my enemies, every tree around me also beckoned to call and hid my presence.
From somewhere out in the fog, I heard a man shout, “Focus on the gray-haired girl!” Seconds later, a condensed beam of fire shot down from the top of a tree.
Rather than dodge it and hope none of my allies would get hit by the blast, I waved my swordstaff and channeled a spell through the mana-amplifying gem on its hilt.
Thick roots rose from the ground beneath my feet, sacrificing themselves by blocking the beam of fire.
Thankfully the fog makes it hard for fires to spread here, I thought as the burned roots withered away. I shuddered to think about the entire Elshire Forest burned down by the spells being thrown about.
“Head Tessia!” a desperate cry rang out nearby. Whipping around, I saw Hachi lying on the ground just a dozen yards away, his hand desperately reaching out for me. A bullish Alacryan was standing over him, already swinging a stone hammer—
I felt a sick jolt in my stomach as the hammer crushed Hachi’s skull. His arm dropped to the ground, crimson spreading out in a red halo around what used to be my ally’s head.
“No!” I yelled, seething in anger. However, before I could reach the man to vent my rage in his flesh as my vines tore him apart, a glowing axe separated the Alacryan’s head from his neck.
Darvus appeared behind the Alacryan’s corpse, his eyes fierce. “Are you out of your mind? Why the hell did you break formation and go off on your own like that?”
“It’s not like that!” I retorted. “I was saving our troops!”
“Yeah?” he scoffed, “You were supposed to be in position to back Hachi and his team up! You were supposed to be keeping him alive!”
I shook my head, my face burning with anger and regret. “You don’t understand, there were—”
“We all had our positions assigned—positions you assigned,” he snapped, cutting me off. “Because you ran off, two others are critically injured and their right flank is completely exposed! In what world is that ‘saving our troops’?”
Shaking his head, Darvus dashed off, unleashing his anger on the unfortunate enemies nearby. I wanted to explain, wanted him to understand, so I started after him, but then a searing pain spread across my back.
The protective aura from my beast will seemed to have shielded me from the worst of it, and the damage felt minimal, but it still hurt like hell, whatever it was.
If the attack had been stronger, I could’ve died, I thought, the realization hitting me like a bucket of cold water. The promise I made to my teammates—the promise I had made with Arthur— would’ve been broken because I was caught up in trying to play the hero, to do everything myself.
Snap out of it, Tessia! Darvus is right, we need to stay in formation.
I headed back toward my initial position, exerting more mana into the emerald aura protecting me. The enemy appeared to be having trouble keeping their own troops in formation, and the forest was full of small groups of Alacryan soldiers who charged recklessly through the trees.
Turning into a whirlwind of blade and magic, I fought through several such small groups, but we were vastly outnumbered and more and more of the enemy were bypassing our small blockade every moment. I could only hope that General Aya’s army would take care of them, and that the elven refugees had made it far from here.
Damn it, where are the others? I cursed, trying to find my
way back to Stannard, Caria, and Darvus.
I couldn’t tell how much time had passed since the battle first began, but one thing seemed painfully clear: I wasn’t fit to be a leader.
The guilt that I felt manifested itself into a voice in my head, constantly reminding me that I was the one that led every one of my allies here to their death. It didn’t matter that I was a silver core mage with an S-class beast will—getting emotional over every ally death showed that I wasn’t capable of making rational decisions for the good of the whole. A leader had to be calculating, to understand when sacrifice was necessary…
Shaking the voice out of my head, I continued making my way toward my initial position. Finally, I caught sight of Stannard just a few dozen yards away.
“Stannard!” I yelled, hoping the conjurer could hear me over the chaos.
However, my voice attracted someone else’s attention: It was a human, adorned in black armor, his long blond hair billowing around him. He rode a corrupted wolf-like beast and was surrounded by guards of a different caliber than the rest of the Alacryan soldiers I’d faced.
He looks like someone important, I thought, channeling more mana into my beast will as I prepared to defend myself.
“Leave the girl to me,” he commanded, and his guards immediately complied, stepping back and lowering their weapons.
I kept my face impassive as the man dismounted from his wolf and strode toward me. His black armor was a finely crafted suit of both plate and chainmail. Hanging at his waist were two ornate-looking swords embedded with fine jewels on the hilt.
He unsheathed his swords. “As expected of Tessia Eralith, to barely have any wounds. It’s an honor to meet you like this.”
Keeping my swordstaff pointed at the man, I took a cautious step forward. “How do you know my name?”
He smiled politely. “You can call me Vernett.”
The translucent green vines thrashed wildly around me, manifesting my frustration and anger. I hated when they talked. We both knew what had to happen here; words wouldn’t change the fact that this man wanted to undo my entire way of life, reduce my home to ash, and build a war machine atop the charred remains.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I growled, making the statement a threat.
Vernett shrugged as he got into a fighting stance. “Perhaps beating me in combat might make me talk. After all, you Dicathians seem to love interrogation.”
If that’s how you want to play it...
I launched myself at the Alacryan, getting in range before he could properly react. Mana tendrils snaked out from me, striking at his exposed face. As they approached, however, they slowed drastically, coming to a complete stop before even reaching him.
Looking smug, Vernett swung his blade almost lazily, and I easily dodged back.
I followed up with my swordstaff this time, but it felt as if I was swinging through a thick viscous liquid. By the time my blade reached Vernett’s unprotected neck, it was moving so slow that it couldn’t even draw blood.
The battle continued, but we were at a stalemate. I was clearly stronger, faster, and more adept in combat, but because of his unique variant of defensive magic, I couldn’t land a solid hit and was forced to move constantly, which took us into the middle of other skirmishes.
A soldier in a silver breastplate—one of my soldiers—lunged at the Alacryan just as I launched a crescent of wind. Heedless of the soldier’s blade, Vernett jerked him into the path of my spell, using him like a shield.
The man’s chest spurted blood as his silver armor was cleaved open by the wind-blade. His eyes, wide with shock, looked to me in terror and disbelief, then his head drooped lifelessly to his chest.
“Bastard!” I roared, dashing toward Vernett, my blade out like a spear.
Laughing, he threw the body he had used as a shield at me, forcing me to dodge as he backed away, directly into an ongoing struggle between an elven augmenter and an Alacryan Striker.
“You’re nothing but an infant wearing a shiny badge,” he gloated as he sliced off the leg of the elven soldier, purposely leaving him alive and in agony.
“Shut up!” The emerald vines surged with power as I imbued them with more mana, extending up toward the trees and killing two Alacryan Casters before falling upon the Striker, who had turned to flee our conflict.
With no more obvious targets in our vicinity, Vernett halted his slow retreat and waited for me to attack. My vines bore down on him, surrounding us both in a writhing mass of emerald green, but they could not touch him. Playfully, he batted each one away with his sword.
“You should’ve kept the tiara on your head, little princess. Leading with a sword doesn’t suit you.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I screamed. Succumbing to my rage, I activated the second stage of my beast will, and the world around me turned green. My body seemed to move on its own through the verdant mists, the battle around me suddenly quiet.
The cocksure Alacryan flinched back, finally showing signs of concern, but it was too late. I reached out and a translucent green hand grabbed Vernett while the trees around him moved to form a cage.
“Call off your troops,” I demanded, my voice thick with power.
Vernett coughed out blood; I could feel his ribs cracking through my magic, but still he smiled. “What troops?”
Looking around, panic seething just under the surface, suppressed for the moment by my beast will, I saw that we were alone. The battle had moved forward—or I had been pushed back, led away from the heart of the conflict.
I could sense my troops falling without me to lead them, more and more of their corpses lying on the forest floor with each passing moment. Through my beast will, I could feel their lives, and their deaths… there were so few defenders left… because of me—because I had let this man manipulate me, isolate me, and remove me from the battle.
“I’m happy you think so highly of me, but, like yourself, I’m merely a distinguished soldier,” he gurgled, blood leaking from the corners of his mouth. “The difference between us is that, unlike you, I know I’m only pretending to be a leader.”
My vision swam as my emotions raged within me: anger, frustration, disappointment, regret, guilt… it was almost a relief when the piercing pain shot through my chest, giving me something to focus on, pushing my thoughts away.
I found myself looking up at the forest sky, my body unresponsive and very, very cold. Vernett’s pained but arrogant expression bobbed into my view as he looked down on me.
What had happened? Another enemy mage?
Vernett clicked his tongue in disapproval. “You were so short-sighted that you couldn’t see what was right in front of you, could you?”
I closed my eyes, waiting to die, wishing that so many others hadn’t had to die because of my poor decisions. It wouldn’t be so bad, I thought, if it was just me.
A horn blared from the distance. When I opened my eyes, Vernett was gone.
I heard the crunching of leaves as someone approached. A face appeared above me, looking at down at me with an expression so cold that I half wished that I had died… General Aya.
219
Army Approaching
ARTHUR LEYWIN
Compared to the speed with which my thoughts and worries flew through my mind, our flight to the forest of Elshire had gone by at a crawl.
When I wasn’t looking back towards the beast army, nearly overwhelmed with guilt that I was leaving the troops—and my family—at the Wall behind, I was focusing on the bright path of mana that made a road straight to what I suspected was the heart of Elenoir Kingdom.
‘What sort of spell is capable of such a thing?’ my bond asked as we followed the markers, which shined even through the thick layer of fog above the forest.
I’m not entirely sure, but seeing as how the trail sort of zigzags around various points leading up north, I don’t think it’s a single powerful spell but an accumulation of the same spell creating a path.
It wa
s just my speculation—rather, it was my hope. The thought of an enemy mage being able to basically nullify the ambient magic of the forest with a single conjuration terrified me, and I urged Sylvie to fly just a bit faster. It was already worrying enough to think that something might happen to my family or one of the Twin Horns, but the thought of not making it to Tess in time left me sick and sweaty.
After another hour scouring the forest, following the crooked path of mana that marked the way through Elshire, I finally spotted signs of a battle in the distance. Mana fluctuations were apparent even above the thick canopy of trees below us, but they were old. The battle had ended, and it was impossible to tell from this distance which side had won.
Sensing my shift in emotions, Sylvie dived down closer to the forest, fast approaching the location that I had imprinted into our minds.
As we approached the battleground, however, a figure hovering above the blanket of trees and fog caught our attention. I could feel Sylvie’s fear and anxiousness leaking into me, and she stopped over fifty feet away before transforming into her human form.
I had suspected who—or what—it was when I had first noticed that the floating form had no mana signature, but seeing the familiar figure up close, clad all in black armor, his purple cloak billowing behind him, confirmed it. Compared to the oppressive tidal wave that was Uto, this man was the eye of a terrible storm—just like his master.
“Cylrit,” I said simply.
“Lance.”
Despite my impatience, I exchanged a glance with Sylvie, who already had mana coalescing around her in preparation for a fight.
I was at a loss.
My instincts urged me to fight him; he was an enemy. But at the same time, the Scythe he served had saved my life and was the reason Sylvie and I had been able to advance past our respective bottlenecks.
“Are we to fight?” I asked, somewhat hesitant.
“I have been instructed to keep you from advancing further,” he replied simply, his expression unchanged.
