by Tj Dixon
“I’m not letting a boy take power from me!” One woman yells and there are furious shouts of agreement.
“I’m not kissing a boy!” Another woman yells.
“There’s no need to kiss!” Hilda shouts to be heard over the outraged protests. That seems to silence people for a moment. “Peter can take your power just by placing his forehead against yours.”
“I’ve never heard of a mage doing that.” A woman says in disbelief
“How can a boy take power from so many people, anyway?” Another woman asks. It seems most of the people who are outraged are the women. The men seem more accepting, perhaps because they are used to doing what they are told. Most of the people here are men too, perhaps because women are more likely to be trained as mages. There are still close to a hundred women here though.
“I’m not placing my forehead against some snotty little boy.” A woman says and things seem to be getting out of control again.
“I’ll only take power from the men then, since the women here are unwilling to help save themselves.” I tell Hilda and she nods.
“Very well. The cowardly women can move to the back. Every man in the room will give power to Peter.” Hilda says. There is a moment of silence.
“I’ll give power.” One woman says a little sheepishly.
“Me too.” Another woman says and soon almost every woman is in agreement. There are no protests from the men. I am not surprised given how men are treated in Contractia. They are used to doing what they are told to.
It takes a while to take power from everyone who is willing to give it. To my relief though, I do so without interruption from an army of goblins. My power feels like it is now bubbling. I can feel a weak demonic voice in the back of my mind struggling to be heard, but I am easily able to ignore it.
“It’s time to take the fight to the enemy.” I tell Hilda with a confident looking smile. To be honest though, I am filled with dread at the thought of fighting so many enemies. Even with two thousand mages it is a daunting prospect, especially since the women here are right that many of our mages are used to using their magic in craft and alchemy rather than in fighting. It is better than waiting here to die though.
“The catmen will be relieved to hear that.” Hilda says with an amused smile.
“Let’s hope they didn’t go ahead without us.” I joke.
“I think we’d have heard them if they did. I don’t imagine they’d leave for battle quietly.” Hilda tells me and I suspect that she is right. “I hope they are as brave when they start fighting the enemy.”
“I’m sure they will be. The force of their anger at the goblins is like a hurricane. My real concern is whether they can fight wisely whilst they harbour such strong emotions.” I tell Hilda.
“That is true but against such odds I would rather have brave allies who pay no heed to their own survival than wise allies who use us as pawns in their strategy. If their anger is a hurricane then let the catmen tear through the enemy ranks, just like a hurricane would. Even if every single catman dies doing so, they may still pave the path to victory. At the very least they will make the goblins pay a high price.” Hilda tells me.
“You seem nothing like your daughters. I can’t imagine either Cherry or Sherry talking calmly about sacrificing their allies like this.” I tell Hilda.
“I do what I must in the hope that they will never have to. A vain hope though it may be now. I hope you are also ready to do what you must.” Hilda tells me.
“I will do whatever it takes to get everyone out of here.” I tell Hilda.
“People will die. If you are unwilling to sacrifice anyone, you will end up sacrificing everyone.” Hilda tells me bluntly.
“People will die, but they will not be sacrificed. At least not by me.” I tell Hilda firmly.
“There is no more time for talk.” Hilda tells me, because we have almost reached the main corridor.
“You’re the highest ranking mage here, so aren’t you going to give a speech to encourage everyone before we fight?” I ask.
“There’s no point. Everyone already knows what they are fighting for, and even if I wanted to the catmen will not wait.” Hilda tells me as the roar of the catmen fills the main tunnel. From the sound of it the catmen have already begun to advance.
“Good luck and don’t die. Your daughters would be sad.” I tell Hilda who laughs.
“I’ll see what I can do, but no promises.” She tells me and then starts squeezing past Contractian mages as she heads to the front. Rin, Hermes and Midori were all waiting for me at the edge of the main tunnel.
“How did it go?” Rin asks.
“I have about as much power as I can handle.” I admit.
“So you do have a limit?” Rin asks curiously.
“Sort of.” I answer, not wanting to get into the details right now.
“It looks like everyone is starting to advance.” Midori says as the mages in front start walking forwards.
“Then we had better do so too.” I say and walk forwards, ahead of Rin, Hermes and Midori. At the very least they are three people I will not let die, at least not whilst there is still life in me.
It is only a couple of minutes before the tunnel widens and we are able to advance a lot quicker. The Contractians at least have the sense to advance in ranks of three, rather than spreading out and weakening our forces. Three mages fighting together are much better than three mages fighting one at a time.
Hermes quickly fills the space to my left and Rin takes my right. Midori is directly behind me. I am glad they are all so close to me, because it makes keeping them alive much easier. Up ahead I hear the muffled war cry of the catmen and the quiet echo of pained and fearful goblin screams. It sounds like the catmen truly are tearing through the goblins.
The tunnel continues to widen and increase in height too. If my friends weren’t here I would fly over the other Contractians and join the fight as quickly as possible. Midori moves forward on Rin’s right now. Soon there will be space for more mages to fight side by side. The mages in front have already split up and joined the three ranks in front. Just ahead I sense a catman who has been badly burned, leaning grimly against the wall in agony.
“Get a healing potion out, Rin.” I say quickly. Rin has it out just in time to heal him as we pass. He nods to Rin grudgingly and then moves to try to reach the front again as quickly as possible. “How many potions do you have?”
“Lots.” Rin tells me with a shrug.
“Then focus on healing the wounded. Midori and Hermes, focus on protecting Rin. Try not to get in everyone’s way though.” I tell them.
“What about you?” Rin asks with a frown.
“I’m going to the front.” I tell her firmly.
“At least take Hermes and Midori with you.” Rin says but I shake my head.
“It’s better if you all stay together.” I tell her.
“Then you should too.” Rin says but again I shake my head.
“I can make a difference to the fight.” I tell her.
“We should have had some of the non mages use the healing potions.” Rin complains.
“Too late now. Anyway, they didn’t seem eager to help.” I tell her with a sigh.
“Just keep your promise and don’t die.” Rin tells me.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to die.” I tell her with false confidence. Then I jump into the air and fly above the heads of our allies.
It doesn’t take long to reach the front rank of Contractians. Hilda looks up at me and smiles for a moment as I pass her. The catmen are still a fair way ahead of the Contractians, but their war cry and the screams of goblins are much louder now.
I open my senses as wide as I can and I realise the catmen are having a fairly easy time. The goblins numbers are much less than I had expected. It seems the enemy have only sent a small force to deal with us. Once they realise their mistake the battle will get much harder, but for now the catmen are easily tearing through the shields of the
goblins and ripping their limbs off, or biting down on their necks. It is more a slaughter than a battle and leaves me feeling very uneasy, but it is us or them.
The corridor bends just ahead of the current fight and I notice about fifty goblins hiding their presence just beyond the bend. They are unshielded so make good targets. I fly above the current battle and focus on a single over powered lightning arc. I direct it round the bend, targeting the group of unshielded goblins perfectly. Not a single goblin survives my attack.
My thunderous attack is deafening and echoes loudly for a good few seconds. Perhaps it will bring more enemies, but we cannot afford to fight cautiously. Sooner or later we must fight all of the enemies so if more come now, so be it. The catmen seem to be doing fine so I hide my presence and fly ahead of the current battle.
Goblins seem to be running towards the battle in dribs and drabs, but I ignore them because the catmen can easily deal with this disorganised rabble. I pass a few side tunnels but they lead to empty rooms so I ignore those too. After a few minutes I sense a force of at least two thousand goblins in ranks of twenty or so. They are so well hidden by magic that I almost missed them, but they are shielded and their shields aren’t quite hidden. They seem to be just waiting and don’t seem to have sensed me just like I almost didn’t sense them.
I consider my options. Two thousand is an awful lot of goblins to take on singlehanded even with my current mana, but the catmen will be in dire trouble if they get here ahead of the Contractians, which seems likely given how quickly the catmen are advancing and how little resistance they are facing at the moment. They will be in even deeper trouble if they don’t spot the enemy in advance. So I go with the obvious choice and remain hidden, whilst I wait for the catmen to catch up to me.
As I sense the catmen getting closer I fly above the enemy, taking extra care to remain hidden. To my relief they don’t notice me. I suspect they are now focused on the advancing catmen. I sense goblins preparing to attack and the catmen haven’t raised shields yet.
Before the goblins can release their attacks I dive down amongst their ranks and send hugely overpowered lightning in every direction. Goblin shields all around me are instantly overpowered and dozens if not hundreds die in my first attack. Just as importantly though the magic hiding the goblins is disrupted so the catmen now know what they are up against.
The catmen roar as they advance, with their shields now up. The goblins on the other hand are in a panic, not knowing whether to focus on the catmen or on the enemy in their midst. I take advantage of their confusion and dart through their ranks, sending overpowered lightning ahead of me. As they respond to my attacks with fireballs I weave and dart through the air just above the ground, doing my best to help them hit their own allies.
Despite their initial confusion the goblins recover surprisingly quickly. It almost feels like they are being controlled as they start to block me in with shields that must take hundreds of goblins to form and use fireballs that pursue me even if they initially miss. My own shields are able to withstand their attacks and my lightning is able to penetrate their shields, but they are wearing me down and I am doing a lot less damage now.
The catmen are having a hard time too and are weakening quickly, with more than a few lying injured or dead on the ground. The goblins don’t seem afraid even as the goblin in front gets ripped to pieces, has its neck bitten or has its head torn off. At least a quarter of the goblins are dead too and they are still dying, but they are dying a lot slower now. As my lightning penetrates the overpowered shields it is only killing a few goblins before its power is exhausted.
All of a sudden there is a huge explosion amongst the back ranks of the goblins. Stone shards go everywhere, killing hundreds of goblins. I am just about able to track the explosion back to a group of humans just behind the catmen. They are the human followers of the Kuroneko and I sense Ara Kii amongst them.
Even so the goblins reactions are remarkably organised with goblins shielding where it makes most sense, even when that means sacrificing their own life to save other goblins. Are they really that self sacrificing, or was I right and are they being controlled? There’s no time to think, because even with over half their number now dead the goblins continue to put up a good fight.
I sense a few hundred Contractians approaching quickly now though, so I am hopeful that we can win this fight. They are advancing in ranks of close to twenty and somehow I manage to sense Rin, Midori and Hermes near the back. I am glad they aren’t at the front, because this is going to be a difficult fight even with a few hundred Contractian mages.
The human followers of the Kuroneko have already started chanting again but the catmen have the full attention of the front rank goblins and the goblins further back are rather busy dealing with me. As the Contractians come within range and start blasting the goblins with ice shards and lightning though, I decide to fall back. I don’t want to risk getting hit by my allies’ attacks. I also sense my power weakening now and though it is still well above normal, I couldn’t deal with this many goblins all at once with just my normal power.
I land at the back of the Contractian ranks, beside Midori who seems to be struggling to keep up. Rin and Hermes who are just ahead turn around and look at me in obvious relief.
“You survived then.” Rin smiles weakly.
“Of course.” I smile and then frown. “Where are the rest of the mages?”
“They were ordered to defend the tunnel further back. The people who can’t use magic are just behind them.” Rin tells me.
“I would have thought we’d want every mage we could get.” I say, unable to hide my worry.
“It wasn’t my decision, but they didn’t seem eager to fight.” Rin tells me with a shrug.
“Nothing we can do about it now.” I sigh. “At least this fight seems to be going ok.”
“How are you doing for power?” Midori asks me.
“I used a lot.” I admit.
“The dimensional block is down.” Hermes says urgently. Then she frowns and says worriedly. “It’s already back up.”
“Enemies behind us!” I yell and put a lot of power into a lightning blast. Fifty or so hidden goblins die but many more send fireballs at us. As one though the rear five ranks of Contractians turn and shield, just in time to block the fireballs before they can hit us.
A moment later though I sense a couple of hundred Contractian mages the other side of the goblins and they release a hail of deadly metal and ice shards at the goblins. Having tried to surround us the goblins are thrown in disarray as they find themselves surrounded instead. There are about six hundred goblins left alive but they are quickly dying and there are at least five hundred goblin corpses. Before they are able to recover and organise themselves effectively they are reduced to just a couple of hundred and soon to none. I don’t think a single Contractian died from their attacks.
The couple of hundred Contractians quickly catch up to us, happily trampling the dead goblins as they pass them. I turn my focus back to the front and realise the goblins there are also now dead.
“I’m going to fly us forwards to help the wounded.” I tell Rin, Hermes and Midori. Then I pick us all up and fly us over the other Contractians to where the fallen catmen and a few fallen humans lie. Many are dead but some are just wounded. Rin looks like she might be sick, but she isn’t. Hermes and Midori both look like they have seen worse, or at least like they are used to it.
Rin takes out healing potions handing some to each of us. The catmen have finally stopped their advance to rest. Actually right now they mostly seem to be busy eating goblin flesh. I am surprised to see that well over half the catmen still stand despite the bloody and desperate battle they just faced.
I use my senses to work out which of the fallen catmen are dead and which are just badly injured. I soon need to get more potions from Rin but thanks to our help nine of the fallen catmen and two human followers of the Kuroneko are healed and able to fight again, though they should p
robably rest a little before they start fighting again.
We return to the Contractians and are able to heal a few injured people there too. It seems that the Contractians were mostly able to shield the enemies’ attacks, so only a handful of people were killed. Considering how many goblins are now dead I am amazed at how few people we lost in that battle. For Cherry and Sherry’s sake I am glad that Hilda wasn’t one of those killed or even injured.
I open my senses as wide as I can first forwards and then backwards. I don’t sense any enemies ahead but I do sense what appears to be the other Contractians that we left behind. They seem to be joining up with us again. To be on the safe side I should let Hilda know. It is easy to find her, because she is in the centre of the front line.
“Peter?” She asks as she sees me.
“Did you order the people you left behind to join up with us again?” I ask her directly.
“Yes. They’ll be safer with us if the enemy tries to port behind us again. The safest place would be in the centre of our forces. You did a good job by the way. How are you for power?”
“I used a lot. I can’t do that again without replenishing my power and those who can’t use magic have already used their power up giving it to me.” I tell Hilda and she nods with a frown.
“Then take power from some of the mages who don’t have experience or training fighting.” Hilda tells me. It makes sense so I nod in agreement.
Chapter 27 (Peter)
It seems even the catmen were happy to rest a while to recover their mana. The mages who I asked for power were surprisingly happy to give it to me. I suspect they may have seen it as an excuse not to fight, but whatever their reasons I was relieved not to have to persuade them to help me.
My own power is strong enough again that I can hear that demonic voice at the back of my head. It sounds a bit louder and I can clearly hear it telling me to kill everyone around me, but it’s not powerful enough to control me.
