Death

by Rosie Scott

  I glanced over at Zephyr as we moved forward. “Admit that being outnumbered gives you more opportunities to have a lot of fun.”

  Zephyr laughed at that and grabbed the chain-sickle from her belt. “I won't disagree. Fighting alongside you reminds me of fighting beside Altan, Kai. I'm grateful for that. I miss the lofty bastard.”

  “Me too,” I agreed. With my mind on my fallen friend, I summoned fire next.

  Erupci a fiers reservur. The magical barrier in my palm clattered violently as the fire within built power and pleaded with me to unleash it. I urged my friends to stay back as I tested my newly created spell for the first time in battle.

  I threw the magic to the wooden boards just before the feet of a new onslaught of Celds. The planks affected shone orange with tiny, pathetic flames that rose barely a few inches from the wood. I nearly thought the spell was weak and worthless, but then the first soldier ran over it.

  Fffssshhh!

  The element erupted into a pillar of wild flames so powerful that it threw the first man up into the air, his skin boiling with intense heat as his body was toyed with many feet above the walkway. The majority of the energy used for the spell was only now being expended, for the explosion wasn't finished. Unlike a fire bomb spell which would explode and then dissipate, this spell was designed to keep erupting until it ran out of charged energy. My success with the charged life spell had encouraged me to continue creating spells that would work similarly, and it was satisfying to find charging worked with material elements.

  The flames continued shooting upward like a possessed geyser, throwing Celds up and back from the area while lashing outward and lighting others who tried to run by on fire. Some soldiers thrown up by the eruption fell over the nearby railing. The blast of fire finally died down, leaving a gap in the Celdic frontlines where multiple burnt foes collapsed over charred wood.

  “Whatever that spell was,” Azazel began, “I like it. Flashy.”

  I chuckled as I summoned three phoenixes out of burnt Celdic corpses. “I'll use it more often to appease you, then.”

  Azazel reached out to one of my phoenixes, giving the summon an alteration shield to reject magic. It was a smart idea, for many of the Celds were water mages and could otherwise defeat the flaming birds with little issue. I directed the other two elemental creatures to me where I repeated the gesture before sending them free.

  We fought our way through the walkways until the covered bridge was just ahead. Thorn and Sedge Elwood were still alive and fighting a new batch of assassins who had infiltrated the area from the other side. Many more royal Celds were in pools of blood, but some of the dead were unblemished, proving that either leeching or broken hearts had claimed them.

  Before we could reach the royalty on the bridge, we had to get through the reinforcements that flooded the walkway from the right, where a path wider than most curved around the nearest tree and continued into the center of Celendar. The location of this pathway ensured it kept delivering hordes of reinforcements from an intersection of multiple routes far ahead. Sedge and Thorn were closer than ever to us, but they'd never felt so far away.

  Zephyr directed her army to the right of us, serving as a blockade to keep the constant reinforcements from reaching the covered overpass. The Sentinel came to clash with a Knight of Celendar, showing no fear as a longsword was swiped in a downward angle toward her. Zephyr dodged the hit, and she threw the weight of her chain-sickle around the hilt of the giant weapon, immobilizing it for a short moment so she could rip the sickle end of her weapon between the knight's armored plates. It wasn't enough to kill the man, but labored breaths echoed out of his helmet as he tugged at his blade. Zephyr was powerful, but her strength didn't match that of the knight. He tugged out the longsword from the marred wood by Zephyr's feet, and since the grasp of her chain around the weapon held, Zephyr tumbled forward at the mercy of her own weapon.

  Holter desperately pushed through allied soldiers to the frontlines of Zephyr's army. As the Sentinel fell at the knight's feet and struggled to stand, the scout reached a hand out to the knight's rising longsword as if using magic, but the energy was clear.

  Sss...

  The magnificent steel longsword disintegrated at the center of its blade into granules of metal and carbon. The weakness caused the tip of the sword to crack off and fall to the planks below. As the sword slowly turned to sand, the knight let go of it angrily, his hazel eyes glaring at Holter through the slit of his helmet as both longsword and the attached chain-sickle fell to the wood.

  “Oops,” Holter quipped sarcastically as the knight reached for his side weapon.

  Zwip. Holter was newly surrounded by a ward of life magic, and then he jerked back from where he stood. It confused me for a split second before I noticed Zephyr's hand on his arm after tugging him away. The Sentinel was still on her knees before the knight as he unsheathed his one-handed sword. Once Zephyr saw Holter was safe, she rose both hands to the sky.

  BOOM!

  A thick bolt of lightning cracked through the canopy, surrounding the knight until his silver and blue armor appeared to give off its own glow. Both Zephyr and Holter were so close to the hit that they tumbled back, but the Sentinel's wards saved them both from the spell's damage. Holter was thrown into the nearby railing and fell to the walkway, disoriented but safe. Zephyr skidded over the wood before she came to a stop and finally stood, watching as her spell shook the knight so violently that his most unprotected bones clanged noisily against the inside of his armor. When his corpse finally fell amidst fried bits of affected greenery, Zephyr grabbed her newly free chain-sickle from where it sat in a pile of metal sand and glanced back at Holter.

  “Thank you for your aid, friend,” she offered.

  “Thank you for not killing me with your lightning,” Holter replied, to which Zephyr laughed.

  Zephyr pointed to the covered bridge and met my gaze. “Go, Kai. Have fun butchering royalty. I'll deal with the reinforcements.”

  “Keep an earth mage nearby,” Holter suggested, eyeing the other well-armored knights in the crowds ahead.

  Zephyr smiled, amused by the younger man's instruction. “Will do.”

  When Holter returned to us, he smiled at me bashfully and said, “Sorry I broke apart from the group. I try to prevent tragedies when I see them happening.”

  “There's nothing wrong with that,” I replied, leading the Renegades toward the covered bridge. “Beware that such a mentality can lead to more pain when you find yourself unable to help. You and I are alike, Holter. Saving friends gives me the greatest joy, but the inability to brings mental ruin.”

  Holter was quiet for a moment, but Nyx piped up, “I don't think any life lessons will be learned when you tell Holter you two are alike, Kai. He'll be bragging about that for weeks.”

  Embarrassment fell over Holter's features, and I smiled over at him. “I'm not the only one he looks up to. 'Oops?' You're starting to sound like Nyx.”

  Holter laughed at the mention of his previous quip. “It sounded badass in my head.”

  “Fitting you would say it while being badass, then,” I complimented him. Holter beamed with my praises as we continued forward, our gazes biased for Celdic royalty.

  Ten

  Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

  Dozens of pairs of Celdic eyes were on us as the heavy footsteps of Maggie's steel leg reverberated off of the bridge's roof, alerting them to our presence. Sedge and Thorn were consistently on the frontlines of their own unit, so they were farthest from us as they met the assassins infiltrating the walkways from the stairs leading up on the next tree over. Celdic royalty crowded the rest of the long bridge, their identities only known to us by the emblems on their armor. The shadowed overpass and its wooden boards were soaked with blood. So many bodies cluttered the structure that I couldn't find Silas's, which was a relief for the time being. A bluish glow lit up the area in spots where persistent fungi bunched out of cracks of wood, and blue-white illusion lights p
erched periodically on the rafters.

  “Focus on the knights, Maggie,” I requested, eyeing her large war hammer.

  “Aye,” she agreed. “And can ya watch my leg? The last thing I need is for one of the earth mages to be cheeky like Holter and turn it to sand.”

  I nodded. “Azazel and Holter—keep Maggie protected with alteration shields if I cannot.”

  “I'll give her wards as well to double up on that protection,” Cerin offered, since he had no access to alteration magic. Black fog rose from the wood around Cerin's thick boots before it formed into tendrils that scattered over the bridge and raised the nearby dead. The Celdic gazes ahead gained an edge of fear and disgust in necromancy's presence, but one of them stalked forward with determination in her blue eyes. The royal woman gave herself a life shield just before it was pummeled by the undead, and then she lifted up both hands, where icicles crawled over two magical barriers.

  With the crackling of breaking glass, an arc of ice shot forth into the masses of undead, puncturing corpse flesh in hundreds of places and causing the bodies to fall back to the wood. I was immensely confused, for the arc spells were ones I'd created myself in Eteri a few years before. Either the Celds overheard our allied soldiers recite the spell during the Battle of the Southern Plains, or dwarves with the intel had reported it to them during our Hammerton campaign. It didn't matter how they learned the magic, however; icicles were hurtling across the expanse of the bridge toward all the Renegades, and ice could cause both magical and physical damage. The spell would chip away at all of our protections if I didn't stop it.

  I passed my friends, walking between shambling corpses and toward the oncoming wall of ice. Thermal winds whistled between my palms. Blood splattered the front of my life shield as one of Cerin's corpses was hit with ice, and then I slammed the air magic down at my feet.

  Hot winds exploded outward, throwing allied corpses back and melting raging icicles. The resulting water splashed to the bridge all at once, mixing with puddles of blood until the liquid slowly drained from the sides of the overpass and splattered to the forest below. The nostrils of the water mage flared with frustration as she decided her next move, and then a rushing river of water rampaged forth from her hands.

  The current of water engulfed the corpses and carried them with it. There was so much of it that even though it gushed over the sides of the bridge, most of it stormed directly toward us. Just as the current reached me, I sent my own water magic forward. Starting with the water in front of me, the magic hardened it into ice. As the river roared forth from the other mage, the water bunched up behind the wall of ice and splashed outward as it froze as well, affected by my own magic as it continued to expand from my initial casting.

  The water finally stopped flowing as the mage realized she'd only created a blockade of ice that separated two sides of the overpass like a thick whitish-blue wall. I sought life with alteration magic, seeing her form walking toward the ice. I strengthened both of my shields, prepared for anything. I wasn't sure of the mage's intentions, but I knew what mine were, so I waited like a hunter, letting my prey come to me.

  The royal woman hesitated, and then other forms came forward behind her. Perhaps she meant to attack us all at once after turning the ice wall into steam to remove it as a blockade. It was a smart idea to set up a temporary ambush using a wall of ice I'd formed myself. I was almost impressed, but then I grew impatient with her hesitation. I glanced back at my friends, making sure they were all shielded and ready for battle. Cerin had re-raised the dead in the immediate area and was surrounded by multiple bloody minions. Satisfied, I turned back to the wall, building identical spells in both hands.

  La spyk a friz te risa. I'd only ever used the spell once in Glacia when the land itself was ice, but I figured the magic would work the same if I switched the direction. I thrust the energy forward, waiting to see if my theory was correct.

  Crrk!

  Two razor-sharp ice spikes shot forward out of the wall and into the gathering Celds, leaving it conically concave on our side in two areas. From the resulting sprays of blood that misted in the air on either side of the bridge, I knew the spell hit. Gasps and pained gurgles echoed out for a moment from skewered soldiers before I reached toward the ice and directed it to turn to steam.

  Ice rapidly heated, melted, and then rose as droplets of vapor. The water mage I'd been fighting and another Celd were both dead, victims of icicle impalement. As the wall between the royalty and Seran Renegades dissipated and turned into a dense fog, a battle immediately ensued between us.

  Maggie focused on a knight at the front of the group, thrusting the head of her war hammer at the man's helmet. The helmet dented in toward his forehead, and he abruptly fell like a dead weight as blood drained from his eyes like tears. Another knight rushed forward, clashing his longsword into Maggie's life shield before the weapon fell out of his grasp at the coaxing of one hit of blunt steel.

  Cerin confronted a woman who wore an Elwood emblem on her chest. She rose a sword up to meet his scythe with one hand and held a metal shield before her abdomen with the other. The blades of the weapons screeched across one another in a deadly embrace. My lover then abruptly jerked back his weapon, and the sudden retreat left the woman unbalanced. Cerin took the slight hesitation to kick his clunky black boot into the center of her shield, and the blow was so strong that the snap of bone echoed out from behind its metal. The woman cried out with the pain of her newly broken arm, and the shield loosened in her grip. Cerin whipped his scythe toward her neck before she could recover, and the perfectly sharpened blade sliced through the entirety of her throat in one smooth move. Her head fell beside her body amidst locks of cut brown hair. Cerin caught my gaze before he came to his next enemy, and he smiled charmingly when he noticed my look of attraction.

  Holter and Azazel fired off arrows into the unprotected Celds while following behind Maggie and keeping her shielded. Arrows shot back at them, and I regenerated their guards when they flickered. When a large boulder hurtled at Maggie's shield from a Celdic earth mage, Holter reacted quickly, reaching up and turning the stone to sand in mid-throw. It was little more than a small rock by the time it hit the life magic, and it tumbled down Maggie's shield amongst a handful of granules. The scout then retaliated, shooting metal blades past Maggie and into the masses. Some of the shards bounced harmlessly off of Celdic life shields, but others found soft flesh to penetrate. One ricocheted perfectly off of a life shield and buried itself in a foe's exposed throat. Tendrils of necromantic energy released at Holter's feet next, and by the time the recent dead rose, he was firing off more arrows.

  I lost track of Nyx until I saw brightly colored orbs of illusion magic darting through the crowds beside Cerin where she entertained herself by causing absolute pandemonium. While Nyx was invisible, she shot fear, confuse, and charm spells seemingly randomly into our foes like she wanted to watch the resulting chaos. Confused Celds ran into their allies and sometimes straight into offensive spells meant for us. Fearful Celds fled from battle, pushing through friends to run from the bridge. If something blocked their paths, they would simply commit suicide by climbing over the nearest railing. Charmed Celds were the most helpful, turning on the others whether Nyx's illusions affected them or not. With so many royal Celds confused and fearful, their former friends easily defeated them.

  “I could do this all day,” Nyx said amidst giggles, her voice sounding out from mid-air.

  “I'm sure you could,” Cerin replied dryly, leeching from an enemy before regenerating his shield after it flickered out at the mercy of an earth mage's metal blades. “You're attracting all the attention to me and letting me do all the real work.”

  “I'm being considerate and providing entertainment for us,” Nyx retorted lightly.

  “We don't need entertainment when we can laugh at your face,” came Cerin's juvenile response.

  “How can you laugh at it if you can't see it?” Nyx argued, her voice shaky with laughter
. “And anyway, that joke stopped being funny years ago, bud. I'm not sure it was ever funny.”

  “Then why'd you laugh at it?” Cerin asked, ripping his scythe through the waist of a mage before him. The closer the blade inched toward the spine, the less responsive the man became before he finally fell at Cerin's feet, jerking with severe nerve damage.

  There was a silence before Nyx finally replied, “Because I'm just as childish as you. Now shut up and give me a high, will you? So many spells to cast, such little energy.” Nyx dispelled her invisibility for a moment so Cerin could comply.

  Despite feigning irritation, Cerin built up the charged life spell, passing his high to her. More brightly colored balls of illusion magic shot into the crowds immediately afterward, and Nyx disappeared once more.

  “Kai.” Azazel came to stand by my side as we neared the end of the bridge. Even as he spoke, he continued firing arrows into the crowds ahead. “If we want the upper hand on Sedge and Thorn, we must separate them.”

  My eyes flicked over the heads of the enemies before me to where the father and son duo were still fighting. Life shields surrounded both of them. “Why?”

  “Sedge knows life magic,” Azazel replied. “I've only seen him use it on himself and Thorn. Thorn knows water and earth. Sedge will be enough of a challenge on his own. He fights defensively. Conserves his energy and waits for his enemies to make mistakes while he's doubly protected with both physical and magical armor. Thorn is brash like you, and Sedge seeks to protect him. Together, they're like you and me and complement each other perfectly. Separate them, and they will be prone to mistakes.”

  I smiled at his personal comparison. “So you're saying that without me, you're prone to mistakes.”

  Azazel grinned charmingly and loosed another arrow. The black ammo raced between glistening white energy shields and splatted into the eye of a Knight of Celendar from through the narrow slit of his helmet. “I was thinking more about you, actually.”