by Rosie Scott
I hurried to his side. There were hundreds of enemies swarming toward the tower, all of them rushing to the noise. Thousands more waited in the marketplace beyond, unwilling to get so close. Shadows of people dotted the streets in every direction as they came out to see what was happening.
That's so many people, I thought, beginning to build air magic in both palms.
“Kai, no,” Azazel murmured.
“There are hundreds right here. I can wipe most of them out before they even have a chance to touch our army.”
Azazel's jaw stiffened as he looked out over them. “You will give away our position.”
“Only long enough to cause mild interest before the slaves breach this part of the city,” I argued.
The archer exhaled slowly, before he finally relented. “Do not miss.”
I held both hands before me, palms facing together, combining the two air spells into one massively powerful energetic creation. The energy trembled between my hands, causing them to tingle with reaction.
“I won't.”
Thirty
There were no skies in Hazarmaveth. Otherwise, I might have chosen to rain fire down upon the city much like I had in Sera. In the underground, my options for large-scale magic spells were limited. I could not call upon the skies to unleash their fury, but I could do my best to mimic the cataclysmic forces of nature. After all, I was the goddess of magic, and the air surrounding me was ripe with residual energy from recent explosions.
Swirling winds rushed through the magical barrier between my hands, circling and circling the ball in a furious warpath. The magic roared so loudly, its screams were noticed by the group of women below. One of the assassins shouted directions back at her sisters, and another one frowned up at me, connecting the spell with my appearance. Yells of my name rang out through the air as they realized one of their high-value targets had walked straight through their front door.
I thrust the spell forward, releasing the wrathful winds, allowing them free with their rage. A swirling funnel rushed forward, growing in length and width as it spun to the assassins. Screams of rage and terror shook off of the stone around them as they tried to scatter, but they'd been too cluttered in a group, and bumped into each other in their confusion.
The tornado began to pick up its victims even before it reached them, the winds so powerful it swept adult women off their feet. The thick, dark gray winds were soon spotted with assassins, their screams lost amongst the demonic roar of the storm. As the funnel forced its way through the group of women, it left a path of destruction in its wake. Buildings nearby were cracked, weakening and crumbling structures. Bodies were thrown into the stone of nearby walls, leaving splashes of blood, flecks of white bone shattered amongst the gore. One of the women swirling around the bottom of the funnel vomited from motion sickness, the acidic bile spraying around the tornado in splashes of yellow-brown.
“Holy hell!” Azazel exclaimed beside me, before picking up his bow and firing arrows into the stragglers. I took a moment to give the both of us shields. I didn't have to worry about the glow of the life energy calling attention to us anymore. My tornado was taking care of that.
The funnel continued north, spitting out victims as often as it offered others its deadly embrace. Hundreds of bodies were left broken and discarded along the cavern floor. The people in the marketplace scattered, screaming in terror as the tornado ran out of space to the north, and continued east.
“Dispel it!” Azazel pleaded. “There are slaves in the marketplace!”
“I cannot dispel it,” I replied regretfully, watching its path carefully. “It is a spell summoned by hand, not by sky. It will continue until it runs out of energy.”
Azazel's nostrils flared, but he could do nothing, so he said nothing. He fired more arrows into the masses, just as the slaves broke into the northern half of the city below us, rising war cries only terrifying the wounded assassins even more. Arrows were shot back at us from the ground, peppering our shields and causing them to flicker.
“Aggh!” The scream startled me, and I spun, coming face-to-face with an assassin who had somehow climbed this tower without us noticing. Perhaps she had used the same illusion magic we had. It mattered little. I had no time to react. A dagger sunk into my gut, before she ripped the blade to the side, attempting to disembowel me.
The armor Anto had gifted me long ago was well-made and strong, but not impervious. The tempered leather split, inviting the skin and muscle beneath to join its destructive party. I coughed with trauma and surprise as I backed away from her, grasping at my gut with a desperate hand. Blood audibly splattered across the stone in my path, draining from the wound as if it were poisonous. Ringing pierced my head, and I squinted with the pain, collapsing backwards to the ground.
You, alone, can fix this. The plea ran through my thoughts, my subconscious begging me to maintain clarity. I did not have a leeching high, so the pain was biting, encouraging my mind to give into insanity. I could not relent.
Azazel is an alchemist, I thought lazily. He can heal me.
The muted grunts of the archer forced me to realize he was in the midst of a fight. My attempted assassin was dead just a few feet away from me, her eyes open but dull, staring straight into my own. Through blurry eyesight, I saw Azazel get surrounded by enemies which poured forth from the stairs.
You caused this, I scolded myself. You called attention to this tower.
Anger raced through my veins. Anger at myself for making a decision that was getting us killed. Anger for not anticipating the assassin's attack. Anger for being so arrogant in my lust for battle that I continued to assume I was hard to kill. Anger had always been my best motivator, and it fueled me again now.
Both of my hands spread over my wound, warming it with life energy as I started to heal. I was lying down from collapsing; I was already in the best position to heal in. I felt the skin of my stomach start to itch intensely as it mended itself, fueled by the rabid energies in the air.
“The god is alive!” It was a hiss. My eyesight was clearing, but the figure who ran to me was still blurry. I threw a hand out, sucking the life straight from the woman's soul with death magic. Her body fell beside my own, the clatter of her weapon scraping across stone.
There were more. Somehow, Azazel was putting up enough of a fight that most of them were on him. The top of the tower was small enough that my magic could reach them from here. I stretched an arm toward the group, death energy crackling as it funneled their lives to me from our distance. All the while, my other hand stayed over the wound, finishing its healing.
My head was still cluttered with shock and trauma from the wound, even when it was healed. There were only two ways to fix that. I could either dull my senses with illusion, or boost my power with the life of the enemies surrounding Azazel. In my desperation to protect my partner, I chose the latter.
I clumsily stood, covered in an obscene amount of blood. Bodies of assassins were piled at the top of the stairway. Azazel was bleeding heavily from multiple wounds, and he'd already been exhausted. He would be dead in minutes if I didn't aid him.
Both of my hands thrust toward our enemies. Two funnels of death magic stole lives from the women who opposed us, at double the rate I was used to. Each assassin fell in seconds, until the bodies were so piled that they began to slip down the stairs. As a leeching high grabbed ahold of my brain, finally giving me the mental relief I'd desperately wanted, Azazel thrust his own hand toward the stairs, wielding the same spell I'd seen him use way back in Thanati to pull the rat toward him. This time, his attention was on the dead body at the top of the stairs, and he thrust it forward and away from us, forcing it directly into the legs of the last assassins on the steps. The women tripped up over the body and lost their balance, falling over into the center of the tower, their screams rising in urgency as delicate flesh and bones raced toward their dates with solid stone.
Azazel held up a hand, next, and red energy glowed over his palm as
it directed the spell to the ground of the tower. Just one small speck showed someone in the tower still lived, though the energy then faded as the target died from her wounds. We were once again alone on the tower, and my brain was trembling with the power of my high. Azazel fell back to the stone floor, heavily injured and exhausted.
I collapsed beside him, searching his body for wounds. Before I even found them, I was giving him excess energy to refresh him and keep his body from giving in to darkness. He breathed heavily through his nostrils.
Thoughts of Theron's death flashed through my head. I refused to entertain them. I reasoned that this situation was nothing like the one which lost me one of my best friends.
Then, I heard a voice, and I realized it was mine. I was murmuring thick apologies to Azazel, like I thought he would die, and I would be the last to see him alive. I had done the same for Theron. I'd never felt so helpless. Apologies had been all that I could offer, and here I was, repeating history.
No. The word was resolute, even though it was vague. Azazel will live.
I forced my mind clear. Azazel's chest rose and fell shallowly, which called my attention to the glistening armor over his heart. It was of little wonder why he was slipping toward death so quickly. He'd been stabbed in the heart. In the back of my mind, I was amazed he'd survived at all. More often than not, it was an instant kill. Though during my time in healer's training years ago, we had often been taught about the rarest exceptions to wounds that were often instant kills. Through luck, circumstance, or rushes of adrenaline, bodies could survive even the most mortal of wounds. I didn't have much time, but I could fix this.
I pressed both hands over his chest, both to stop blood loss and to force life energy into the organ from the closest proximity possible. Azazel's eyes were closed, and he was deathly still save for breathing. I pulled energy desperately from our environment, giving it all to heal his heart. The warmth that radiated from my hands came back to me twofold, proving the healing was working.
I watched Azazel's face for reactions, finally getting one. His brows dipped toward one another with pain. Even that was a good sign.
I poured energy into his wound until I felt his heartbeat finally return to normal. I lifted my palms away from his skin, letting the magic work on healing his flesh. By the time the wound was fully healed, I found Azazel staring at me in utter confusion.
“You brought me back to life?” He questioned, his voice rough with pain. I moved on to his other wounds next.
“Resurrection is a lie spread about in fables for children who cannot yet handle the realities of life, friend,” I mumbled. A hoarse roar of a bear rang out from the east. Vallen and the other beastmen were here. “You did not die.”
“I was stabbed in the heart,” he protested lightly.
“Yes. Something you handled quite well, considering,” I mused.
Azazel closed his eyes again, lying still as I worked over him. “You are an amazing healer,” he finally breathed.
“And you are an amazing ally. Thank you for putting up with my stupid decisions.”
The archer smiled. After a long pause, he murmured, “It was a good idea. In theory.”
I chuckled softly, finishing mending his last wound. As a final bit of aid, I gave him more energy, hoping to cure his exhaustion.
“Your tornado is gone,” Azazel said, noting the lack of its roar.
“Yes.” I stood up from his side, holding out a hand to help him up. He took it gratefully, coming to a stand beside me. Both of us looked horrific, our skin and armor stained in the blood of many, friend and foe alike. “Did it hit the marketplace?”
Azazel stared out over the half-wall toward the northeast. “It did.”
I swallowed hard, refusing to look over at the destruction. “I killed slaves,” I finally said, so he wouldn't have to.
“There were innocent casualties, yes,” Azazel admitted, before reaching down and grabbing his bow from a puddle of blood. “But you killed hundreds of our enemies before they had a chance to hurt the soldiers. When you wield as much power as you do, Kai, you cannot reasonably expect it to be contained.”
The casualties of Sera came to mind. I finally peered to the northeast, forcing myself to face the destruction. The marketplace was in absolute shambles. Many buildings along the tornado's path had collapsed or were missing entire walls. The trading stalls were misplaced and scattered. Bodies floated through the neon blue river, streams of red darkening its glow. I counted at least a dozen unintended male casualties.
...but I counted hundreds more casualties of our foes. In the span of minutes, I had single-handedly wiped out a small army's worth of enemies. There were thousands more, of course, but in my mourning for the innocents lost here, I needed to force myself to remember my decision had been made for a strategy that would help my army, not hinder it. The spell had been so devastating because of our claustrophobic location, and the enemy's formations below. They'd had little ability to flee, and were easy victims. If I had the opportunity, I knew I would make the same decision again.
So I quit mourning. I had little time for it now. I caught a glimpse of Cerin rushing into the marketplace as a blur of silver and black. Moments later, hundreds of the tornado's victims began to rise, including the corpses which still floated down the river. The dead pulled themselves heavily out of the water, heeding my lover's call.
“I cannot hit anyone else with my magic from here,” I told Azazel, watching Cerin's scythe swipe cleanly through an assassin's throat, leaving her body flailing as the head flew into a crowd of foes feet away. “I'm going to join the fight.” I glanced over to him. “You coming?”
Azazel nodded toward the steps. “Lead the way.”
The archer followed close behind me as I made my careful way down the stairs of the tower, making sure I didn't slip on the blood or bodies which still cluttered them. The few times I started to lose my balance, Azazel's hand righted me. He was an extremely attentive partner, and I found I was just as comfortable working with him as any of my other friends.
We reached the base of the tower, finding the door open to the streets from our previous pursuers. The bottom stone floor of the tower was full of the wreckage of women who had tried to kill us at the top, bodies and limbs exploded and broken. I held my breath as I passed them to the open air beyond.
A giant battle was happening in the open marketplace. In the northwest, where my tornado had passed through, it was mostly a wasteland of scattered bodies. I hurried through the wreckage, raising an army of the dead. Azazel hurried alongside me, regarding the corpses surrounding me with a distant curiosity. This was his first time witnessing necromancy, and he only seemed intrigued.
“There are assassins who fled into the rich sector,” Azazel informed me. I stopped to turn to him. He pointed to the west, where the city was dark and the buildings were high.
“We will find them later,” I replied, watching as one of the corpses shuffled over to a dagger which had fallen to the cavern floor. It picked up the weapon, before shambling back, pleased with its choice. The corpse watched me with a hollow stare for orders. It was an Alderi assassin, but the dead woman looked so much like Nyx that I found myself disturbed.
Azazel watched down the nearest street of the sector he'd spoken of, before he quickly loaded his bow with another arrow, and loosed it immediately after pulling back the string. The ammo disappeared through an open window. Satisfied with a kill that I hadn't even been able to see, he looked back to me. “There are many there. They will prepare a counter-attack.”
“I don't know what you want me to do, Azazel. I cannot send the dead through there on their own with orders to attack. They will not differentiate between foes and slaves unless I am there to direct them.” I flicked my eyes back to the marketplace. “Let us thin out the masses, and then we will send the slaves there. They have the brains to sort enemy from ally. My dead do not.”
Azazel nodded, finally agreeing. We continued our trek north, h
urrying over stone streets, the neon glow of the nearing river brightening our path. I raised more dead as I went, until the marching of my army violently vibrated off the stone surrounding us, leaving trails of blood from the recent corpses in their ranks.
We reached the northernmost point of the river, and turned right. Immediately, Azazel began to shoot arrows to the east, because we had reached the edges of battle. There were thousands here, cluttered through the relatively open market sector, fighting in streets and alleyways, and clashing in the market square. Splashes of water audibly rang through the air as both living and dead people were thrown into the many splits of the neon river.
One of Azazel's arrows fell a woman near the edge of the battle, and the sister next to her glanced in our direction. With her eyes on me, she screamed, “Kai Sera is here!”
I thrust both arms forward, and the army of the dead charged, thirsty for the blood of foes who looked just like them. Screams rang out across the cavern as the women recognized many of their attackers, and were forced to raise arms against the bodies of those they hadn't yet had a chance to mourn.
Azazel held his bow at his side for the moment, unable to take a shot while the dead rushed around us like a collective mass. I took the distraction to give him a shield, before repeating the spell on myself. Then, without more hesitation, I charged into the fray, alongside undead companions.
The gurgles and hisses of my soldiers popped and sizzled with internal decay as the corpses fought our foes with the cold hatred only the dead could exude. Steel clashed against steel, ringing out in waves around me. I thrust my hands through the bodies of the dead, taking lives from my enemies one at a time. One of the dead assassins wielded a crossbow, and I watched as she wielded it like a melee weapon, swinging the bow in an uppercut into the foe's jaw, causing the other woman to spit blood and teeth.
Shing! Shing! My shield was flickering with hits, but I couldn't see my attacker. I spun to look behind me for the enemy, refreshing my shield with a hand. Through the crowd of dead, I saw Azazel raise his bow, his eyes on me. He loaded one arrow, and waited until the dead between us parted.
