Death Never Dies

by Milton Garby

  He'd turned his back to her.

  She screamed and jumped at him, grabbing him from behind and shoving him onto the steps. Sadly, before she could grind his face into the stone he caught himself on his hands. Then the elf lifted his legs and flipped himself over with her attached, crushing her against the stairs instead. She struggled to push him off, but then a sharp pain flared in the side of her head as he elbowed her and got off.

  With a weak groan she collapsed limply into the stairs, gasping for breath. She vaguely heard Fardol shout some nonsense about how 'the Light could not be silenced' followed by a surge of yellow light, but most of her attention was on Higris running down and reclaiming his dagger, then running up to her confidently.

  "Not so tough without your magic now are you?" he asked as he got close, raising his weapon.

  She lifted a leg and kicked him in the crotch.

  With an almost comical noise he doubled over and dropped his dagger again, keeling over. Sara fought through the pounding in her head and got to her feet, tackling the incapacitated cult leader a second time. This time she had more success, knocking him off the stairs and onto a flat section of road right beneath it. He brought his hands up to fight her off, but thanks to her crippling shot she had no trouble balling up her hands and whacking him in the face several times, including one glancing blow to his throat that left him nearly choking. Getting off of him, Sara flipped the elf over onto his stomach and held his squirming hands behind his back as he kept coughing. She rifled through his pockets, searching for...

  There! She felt something hard in his left pocket and pulled out what looked like a blue wedding ring, covered in inscriptions. It was a magic suppressor, made of cobalt instead of steel.

  She prepared to crush it - the runes made it fragile - but Higris suddenly thrashed and dislodged her, sending the ring flying out of her grip and into a nearby sand dune where it rested in a tiny crater. This time Higris pinned her and delivered a solid punch to Sara's gut, forcing the breath out of her. With one hand he grabbed her left wrist and pummeled the other into her face, snapping her head into the sand with a splatter of blood from her now broken nose.

  Sara had never been hurt so badly. Whenever she fought she had her shadowy barrier active, and in Stormwind the duels never got so physical. She felt like she was suffocating from having the wind driven out of her lungs, and her face felt like it was peeling off, melting from the inside and dribbling out of whatever holes it could find. She glanced back up as Higris prepared another punch, but then a blast of golden light so close it felt as though it blistered her skin struck and threw him off of her like a rag doll. Sara gasped and rolled over onto her stomach, pushing herself up with shaking hands. Blood pounded in her head and dripped onto the desert sands, but she forced herself onto two feet.

  Ignoring the screams of people fighting and getting hurt and a faint buzzing in the air, she grabbed the magic inhibitor and threw it to the ground. She lifted her foot then stomped it once, twice, and a third time to shatter it.

  The crushing weight on her soul lifted and she cackled, summoning a shadowy barrier around herself.

  Her magic was back. Oh she would never take it for granted again. Her exhilaration was such that she barely felt the nervous energy of Silithus inside her gut, or the blood slowly flowing from her nose. She fixed a recovering and approaching Higris with a wicked sneer and lit up her hands, ready to blast him into pieces. She brought up her left hand as shadow energy turned necrotic green around her hands, the magic scraping and bashing against her bones as she over channeled but she didn't care because now he was too close to dodge her shadow bolt, too close to do anything, and -

  Higris's hands lit up with arcane light and Sara's shadow bolt dissolved. Her magic slipped away like a bar of soap and her attempts to reclaim it were about as successful as grabbing a cloud. The dark magic around her hands was gone, and all that was left were the trails of dark mist her magic always left behind. She reeled back as the blue light of the counterspell finished condensing on her, but at the very least her defenses were up.

  The elf scooped up his dagger and finished closing the distance, stabbing at her shields. The barrier held strong and the recoil wrenched the weapon out of his hands. The cultist swore, but Sara turned away from him. The others were still fighting. Leira was still fighting! Leira might be hurt!

  She charged up the steps as fast as she could in her injured state, the rush of blood deafening in her ears. Now that the suppressor was destroyed she saw that the people she'd brought stood a chance. Maria stood at range, clutching a gash in her side as she and her imp launched fire magic. Fardol had tackled someone to the ground and was beating them to a pulp with Light-enshrouded fists. Leira had disarmed someone and, using her newly acquired dagger, fought two cultists at once. There were several other skirmishes going on, kicking up sand with fists, weapons and spells. Someone near her feet gasped weakly, dying from a bloody hole in their chest.

  Maybe she'd revive him later.

  The priority was helping Leira. She couldn't use her magic and, being inside a bubble of magic, nor could she punch and kick. But she could always just... run them over.

  Pushing her legs, Sara zeroed in on Leira's fight and then suddenly a puff of smoke enveloped her. Sara's mouth opened in a startled shout - no, a startled bleat as everything seemed to grow tremendously. She fell to the ground and fell forward onto all fours, looking around. A quick glance down at her arms left her confused. Stubby, thin, dark, ending in a solid hoof. It took her a moment to realize she'd been polymorphed.

  Sara whipped around and, unused to four legs, fell clumsily to the side within her barrier. The arcane light faded from Higris's hands and was replaced by crackling ruby flames as he aimed a spell at someone else. She had to stop him! Sara got up and charged him, only to fall with an angry baa halfway there. By then, he'd shot his fireball at Fardol and knocked the dwarf off his feet.

  Three more failed attempts at charging him later, another puff of smoke engulfed her and the fading spell returned her to an upright position on its own. Her nose had ceased bleeding, her head was clear, it was like she hadn't been hurt at all. Even better Sara could feel the counterspell's effects wearing off. That was it. Higris had used his counterspell so it'd be a while before he could cast it again, and it would be minutes before any other polymorphic magics could touch her. He'd kept her and her faceless magic out of the fight long enough, but now! Now blazing emerald power pooled in her fists, casting a faint shadow on the land as she took aim and - !

  She didn't even feel the impact.

  One moment she was preparing to turn Higris inside out, and the next she was flying through the air. Then her flight came to an abrupt end, burying her and her magic shell inside a sand dune. Once her head stopped spinning, she turned around to see what had just happened.

  Oh come on! she thought.

  The impact that had knocked her through the air was from a creature landing. It resembled a sphinx, standing a good fifteen yards tall. Every inch of its body seemed to be made of jagged, craggy black stone, reflecting the sun in all directions. A lion body extended backwards with two golden bracelets around its forepaws, and a pair of enormous wings sprouted from the sides of the creature with a barbed tail swishing behind it. Except instead of proper flesh and blood, the wings were made of rocky feathers that turned from dark blue to sun-bleached bronze at the tips. Its upper body was vaguely humanoid, but also made of stone. Clawed hands clenched at its side, lightly touching a golden waistband. Its head appeared to be a skull, colored brilliant tan with glinting green emeralds for eyes as it stared her down, casting a shadow upon the rest of the fight.

  Needless to say, everyone stopped fighting to take in the appearance of the monster.

  Then the other monsters came. From over the mountains and walls surrounding them crawled a swarm of dog-sized silithid scarabs, and from the hexagonal door they'd been approaching came a handful of qiraji.

  At first she t
hought they were human women, but they only resembled her race in passing. They wore light blue blouses and baggy pants of the same color, and a veil over their faces revealed only glowing green eyes and tufts of black hair. Their helmets - or perhaps those were also part of their bodies - were green to the side and patterned like a compound eye, and the rest of the helmet was black save for the two silver horns sticking straight up. Green sickle claws the size of Sara's forearm sprouted from their shoulders and their feet were almost birdlike with their gray talons, to say nothing of the four insect wings buzzing and humming at their backs or the green stingers they had in place of hands.

  Silithid, qiraji, and if memory served the construct was an obsidian destroyer.

  Snarling, Sara quickly formed the spell matrix for a shadow bolt and loaded it with murderous power. Within seconds she shot the laughing magic skull at the obsidian destroyer's head. It looked her way and with eerie calm, lifted its left hand into the shadow bolt's path. The skull froze in place and dark violet magic flowed from it into the obsidian destroyer's hand until, within a second, the shadow bolt was no more.

  Sara blinked at the display of anti-magic. "Oh boy," she said weakly. Then the qiraji and silithid attacked.

  From her position in the sand dunes beside the stairs none of them attacked her, but everyone else was besieged. Leira fought against two of the feminine qiraji while Fardol slammed a fist into the ground. The ground beneath him cracked with yellow light, holy energy billowing out from him to ten yards away. It forced the scarabs to skitter away, lest they tread on the consecrated land. To her satisfaction, she noticed that the qiraji and silithid weren't leaving the cultists unmolested.

  Then the obsidian destroyer blasted her with lightning.

  She yelped and jumped, but thankfully the electric magic deflected across her barrier. Then the corrupted construct leaped into the air, far higher than anything made of stone should've been capable of, and landed on top of her shadowy defenses. It knocked her away like a playing ball and she nearly ended up tumbling down the stairs before she found her footing. Sara gasped when she inspected the damage; there was a tiny crack in her green shield. It could damage her shields!

  She repaired the crack and prepared another shadow bolt, finishing the spell within a second and launching it at the obsidian destroyer. Like before it held out a hand and disassembled the spell, but in that time Sara began casting a corruptive spell to eat away at its very being. The spell was simple, but she didn't use it often so it took some time to recall it, though when she was done faint black clouds began to buzz around the destroyer. For a moment at least, because then it balled its hands into fists and slammed them into each other. Where they collided a blue sphere burst outwards, curving back around its form. The light engulfed the construct and dispelled her corruption spell.

  Her eye twitched.

  Alright, no more Ms. Nice Sara. As it ran at her she reached deeper into her mana pool and began forming another spell. It was a personal creation of hers, operating on the reverse principle of her resurrection spells. Wicked green mist formed a ball in front of her chest, and then she held out both hands at the rapidly approaching obsidian destroyer. From her orb of death energy a twisting beam of emerald lightning blasted out, seeking the construct's very life essence. And it missed.

  With impossible dexterity the stone sphinx dodged to the side, then its own hands lit up with arcane power. It held its left hand up and made a throwing motion at her, sending a blast of ball lightning at her. Like before it deflected off her shield, and as it stood there contemplating its failure to damage her barrier, Sara successfully nailed it in the chest with a fully powered shadow bolt. The magic projectile splashed harmlessly off its glossy skin. Then it seemed to figure out what it was going to go and held its right hand at her.

  A sphere of arcane runes materialized around Sara and, before she could react, they vanished, taking her shield with them. Her first thought was that the obsidian destroyer had dispelled her shield, but when she looked up at it and saw a gleaming green sphere around its form, she realized it had spellstolen it!

  She was already casting a shadow bolt and it was too late to stop, so she watched as the blast was effortlessly absorbed by her own magics. Then the obsidian destroyer was right in front of her, whipping around with its impossible agility. The length of its tail came flying at her, piercing through her stolen shield as though it wasn't even there, and Sara tried to jump back to avoid it.

  Too late.

  The tail cracked along her legs and sent her flying with a choked off scream. She expected to land on the hard stone of the stairs, but instead she hit something soft and cushioned. Fighting through the pain, Sara looked over to see who'd she hit, and found herself staring into the compound eyes of a qiraji battleguard.

  The feminine creature's eyes went wide and it backed away from her in a hurry. "I-I'm sorry," it stammered in accented Common. "I didn't mean to - " But Sara hardly heard it over her pain and instead cut it off with a desperate blast of unrefined shadow magic that left it without a torso, the body slumping to the ground.

  She looked back as the obsidian destroyer glided towards her like a snake, placing itself right on top of her and raising an enormous, stony paw. Sara gasped in panic and summoned another shadowy barrier. The paw came down with a thunderous crash, but left no visible mark in her shield. With the time she had, Sara glanced downwards to see what the damage was. She wished she hadn't. Both of her legs were broken, the stark white bone sticking through the thigh in both of them and... and was that her blood sinking into the sand? That wasn't good. That wasn't good. What was she going to do?!

  SLAM! SLAM! The obsidian destroyer hammered away at her shadowy barrier a few more times before relenting. Then it paused, and Sara took the opportunity to look to the left at the rest of the fight.

  It was actually going quite well. The Twilight's Hammer was in full retreat. The cultists were being chased by the qiraji down the stairs and out of sight, bringing their dead and wounded with them, leaving her own group to deal with the rest of the attackers. Leira and Fardol were cleaning up the qiraji and the steady stream of silithid scarabs was held at bay by her mages and warlocks. A few bodies dotted the ground here and there, but that was nothing she couldn't fix...

  SLAM!

  ... provided neither the blood loss nor the construct killed her first.

  Sara looked up and aimed a shadow bolt right into the creature's underbelly, but its stolen shadow shell absorbed the spell. It paused its next slam, and Sara gasped in fear when it dispelled her defenses a second time right before bringing the massive stone paw down. She summoned another barrier just in time to intercept it, but the limb came so close the SLAM made her teeth rattle. A silithid scarab came over the wall and began charging at her, but she didn't have the time to blast it because the obsidian destroyer lifted its leg again, dispelling her shield.

  She winced as the leg came down again, throwing up another hasty shadowy barrier to absorb it. How was she going to kill the damned thing?!

  Her barrier was dispelled again and, as she was busy reforming it, she noticed the scarab charging her veer around her as if she were an obstacle, throwing itself at a summoned voidwalker. Then the leg came down again, once more too close for comfort.

  "Hey! I could use some help!" she shouted while frantically conjuring her barriers over and over as the obsidian destroyer stomped at her in a frenzy. She was totally impotent, able to do nothing more but channel magic into her defenses and if she slipped up for even a second...

  Luckily, her friend killed the last of the qiraji by running it through the chest with a dagger and then everyone turned their attention to the obsidian destroyer, including Fardol.

  "Hey!" Leira shouted as she charged it, knocking aside dead scarabs as she did. "Hey you! Focus on me!" It glanced her way. "Betcha you're pretty worried about facing someone who doesn't use magic aren't ya?!" That seemed to get its attention, and Sara dimly realized why. The obsidi
an destroyer was built for anti-magic. It would consider someone who wasn't a spell caster a much bigger threat than someone who was, like little old her, laying there and bleeding into the sand. It got off her and roared and Leira, charging at the draenei. Sara winced when it tried to step on her, but Leira danced out of the way and chipped it lightly with her dagger.

  Come on Sara, she told herself. Do something! Spells began to pelt the rock construct's shield to no effect, until one of the mages successfully dispelled Sara's stolen barrier from the construct. Even then though, the spells smashing into it were useless beyond a distraction.

  It swiped at Leira, this time leaning down its upper body and lashing out with stony claws. Again, Leira dodged the swipe and struck a gash into it. Sara pushed her upper body up and aimed a shaking hand at the destroyer, summoning her vast shadow magic. Surely, if she really put her back into it she'd be able to hurt it at least a little, right? Her arms burned as she over channeled again, also causing the bones sticking from her legs to sear her flesh, but she ignored it despite how the pain made her vision blur and fired a thin ray of violet shadow magic at the back of the obsidian destroyer's head.

  To her surprise, she actually managed to make it stumble and chip a small but noticeable fragment of its body off. It looked her way, and Sara gulped. Oops.

  It turned around fully to try and stomp her, forcing her to throw up another dark barrier. But she noticed something behind it. Leira had grabbed onto its tail and hoisted herself up onto the obsidian destroyer's body. Then the draenei ran up the construct, keeping her balance even as it thrashed, and wrapped herself around its head to begin slashing indiscriminately with her weapon. It reared back from Sara with a roar of frustration, and then Fardol came in with glowing gauntlets and smashed into one of its hind legs, the dwarf starting to pummel away at it.

  Sara released another focused beam of magic but her aim was off, so she only succeeded in chipping off the tip of one of its wings. Meanwhile it reached up with its clawed hands to throw Leira off from it and probably into the mountains. Sara gasped. What could she do? She didn't know how to cast her barriers around other people so -