Asla’s familiar was different than the other two. It was slower but stronger and its hide was thick. Her usual fast Vis- and majestic-enhanced blows barely left a mark. Any attempt to try to focus on a more powerful strike slowed her and allowed it the opportunity to counterattack. She typically had to cease her efforts and redirect her mana to dodge the attack—usually one that could easily cost her a limb if it connected.
Devol noticed her familiar in particular and wondered why it chose to be durable rather than fast like the others. Perhaps she could outpace it no matter how fast it was. If that were the case, there was a limit to what the familiars could adapt to.
He stole a glance at Jazai’s opponent. The coat was thin but it sparkled, which was probably an adaptation to deal with the variety of cantrips the diviner threw at it. That would certainly explain how it could run directly through fire and mana missiles without slowing even slightly.
“I have an idea!” he announced and tossed his dagger to the other boy. “Jazai, go and deal with Asla’s familiar. I’ll take yours!” He blinked to his friend and thwacked the mana missile spat out by the creature to the side with Achroma. It almost struck two Templars training nearby, much to their annoyance.
The diviner was surprised for a moment but scanned the other familiars quickly and smirked. “I see what you’re getting at. I’m a little ashamed that I didn’t think of it earlier.”
“You probably would have if you’d bothered to read Freki’s mind,” Zier noted as he walked up behind the wildkin Templar. “Good morning.”
“I’ll let him chastise me later,” Jazai muttered and nodded at his friend. “Let’s go.” He blinked to Asla and appeared specifically above her familiar to point a hand down at the massive canine. “Pulse!” he shouted and a blast from his hand forced the large creature to the ground. “Go get Devol’s beast!”
She looked at the swordsman’s familiar where it lunged at him while he was preoccupied with diverting the blasts from the diviner’s opponent. Without hesitation, she bounded closer, tackled the beast, and raked into it with her claws. They landed and separated, and although she’d inflicted several deep scratches on its hide, they did not bleed and it had already begun to heal itself while its fur started to thicken.
Not this time.
Asla surged toward it and passed its side to leave several more scratches before she spun and dragged her claws along the other side. The familiar turned to bite her, but she vaulted over it as it tried to latch onto her and focused all her magic into her arms and claws. She swung them in a swift and powerful arc to its neck and the beast’s head tumbled off and vanished as its body began to topple. It disappeared before it landed.
“Man, she was pissed,” Jazai noted and heard a deep growl behind him. He whirled to where her familiar had found its feet and now hurtled toward him. “I guess you are too, huh?”
The diviner knelt and placed his palm on the ground. “Liquify,” he said curtly and the ground of the arena began to turn to mush in a cone in front of him. The creature’s heavy paws sank into it and when it tried to swim clear, its heavy hide made it sink faster.
He began to walk around the changing terrain and after a moment, noticed that the beast had begun to shed its fur to become lighter. “Ha—no, you don’t.” He snapped his fingers. “Release.” The stone took its original form and effectively trapped the beast now that it was too weak to pull itself free. “I have to admit, this was far easier than we made it.” He pointed to the head of the familiar and called, “Blade.” A pointed spear of mana launched from his finger and pierced the creature, which disappeared quickly before the projectile had pushed through to the other side.
Devol continued to knock the cantrip missiles and bolts away as he approached the last familiar. The crowd now ducked or scattered to avoid being hit. The creature was now almost off the edge and he saw it preparing to sprint away.
He directed one of its missiles back at it and it caught the one forming in its mouth. Both erupted and he swung his blade high as the beast staggered. He arced it forward decisively. The blade illuminated and extended to slice his opponent in two before it had a chance to recover and successfully ended the battle.
Freki clapped excitedly. “Well done,” he congratulated as Asla and Jazai exhaled long sighs. The young swordsman grinned and held his blade up in triumph. “It took you two much longer to find that weakness than I thought it would.”
“I didn’t think it would be so obvious,” the diviner countered. “Surely majestic familiars that can be exploited like that probably aren’t helpful in battle.”
The wolf wildkin folded his arms and looked into the apprentice’s eyes. “I normally use them to hunt or for assassination and if I need them in battle, they are told to kill, not train.” He followed this with a rather feral smile, one that Devol was not used to seeing on the usually easy-going Templar. “They seem rather useful then, don’t they?”
Jazai’s eyes widened and he responded with a simple nod. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“Good. Now that is done, we can move on to the big fellow,” the Templar declared and walked to the other side of the arena.
“It sounds good—” Devol said with a laugh before he stopped himself and all three looked at the wildkin in confusion. “Wait—what big fellow?”
Chapter Seven
“What? Did you think it was all over?” Freki asked as he turned to the group and smiled wickedly. “That was only a little training.”
“We’ve been training since yesterday,” Jazai protested and folded his arms. “Do you even have the mana to do whatever you are about to do?”
“I may not have had yesterday but you see, I had a chance to take a nap.” The Templar chuckled and brought his necklace out.
“Good morning, all.” At the loud, boisterous call, everyone turned to look at Wulfsun, who approached from the main gate. The Templar captain looked at all the holes near their arena and in a couple of the other training areas close to it and frowned as he stroked his beard. “What the hells happened here?”
“That’s…um, it’s my fault,” Devol admitted and waved to the crowd. “By the way, I’m sorry about that everyone. I should probably have paid more attention to where those were going.”
“Eh, I’ll get Macha to send a couple of guys to fix it,” Wulfsun told him as he entered the arena and walked to Freki. “Right then. What did I miss?”
The wolf wildkin nodded to the three friends. “Well, they finally eliminated the familiars.”
“Seriously? Only now?” He snorted a laugh and shook his head. “It took them long enough.”
“It was Devol who suggested the plan. He worked it out rather quickly, I must say,” Freki told him.
The Templar captain pounded his chest. “Of course. He’s my apprentice so he has to be sharp to apply my teachings.”
Devol raised his hand. “We haven’t trained for more than ten days together, Wulfsun.”
“See, he’s a natural.” The large man beamed. “It doesn’t even take that much to get him going.”
“Ten days? Truly?” Jazai asked. “I would have thought he’d put you through the wringer every other day.”
“I did too.” The swordsman shrugged and rested Achroma against his shoulder. “But he is used to simply training everyone. I haven’t counted the times when he’s trained the three of us together.”
“That is far more often,” Asla agreed as she knelt and stretched her back.
“Speaking of mentors, what about you and Freki?” the diviner asked her. “After all this time together, you still didn’t know how to defeat them?”
“He does not use them often when we train,” she explained, sat, and stretched her arms. “In fact, I can only think of two other times when he brought a familiar out to train with me. It usually took the shape of the big one when he did and was mostly used similar to how one would use a training dummy.”
“So do you have any idea what this ‘big fellow’ he’s ta
lking about is?” Devol asked.
Asla stood and shrugged. “I do not. He has mentioned it a few times before as something mostly used during missions. I suppose it must simply be a big version of the familiars.”
“That doesn’t sound too difficult,” Jazai reasoned. “It might be annoying but not difficult. It can only adapt to one of us at a time, right?”
“Unless there is something about it that makes it special,” the swordsman interjected dubiously. “He seems very confident about it.”
“So are yer gonna bring that beast out, huh?” Wulfsun whispered and continued to stroke his beard in thought. “It’s a right nasty fellow. You usually only take it out when you and I are sparrin’.”
“True, but I want them to understand what they will go up against in the trials,” Freki stated and looked at his necklace. “There will be others there with majestics and most likely malefics too. I think they need to understand that the majestics’ power alone is not enough to give them an advantage—that power is a part of the others too and if they run into someone who is as trained as you or I…” He shrugged.
“I follow.” The Templar captain nodded. “Let it loose but watch it carefully, won’t ya?”
“Of course.” The wolf wildkin nodded. “You as well?”
Wulfsun laughed but tried to stifle it. “I might take it on myself if it gets to be too much for them. It always provides a good fight.”
“Try to hold off for a while.” Freki raised an arm. “Are you three ready?”
Devol turned to his friends. Jazai and Asla looked tired but not completely worn out. It would probably be up to him to deal with whatever this was for the most part since he was the freshest among them. They nodded to him and walked to his side as he lowered Achroma and prepared to fight. “Show us what you’ve got, Freki!”
The wildkin Templar nodded and held the stones on his necklace together. Mana flowed out and everyone stared as it formed into a large orb a few meters away from the trio, then quickly took shape and form.
The swordsman watched in awe as another canine familiar appeared in front of them. This one was not simply a larger version of those they had fought but appeared to be all three combined. It was an extremely large three-headed hound—at least a few feet larger than Wulfsun. Each head looked like one of the familiars they had recently defeated, only far bigger and almost the size of the original familiars themselves. Its body was a composite of all three. The bulky hide of Asla’s familiar shimmered with the magic resistance of Jazai’s and it had the strong legs and ferocious claws of Devol’s.
“Damn it, we killed these things.” The diviner grunted, held his hands out, and checked his rings.
“Familiar forms cannot truly die,” Asla reminded him. “At least while the user is still alive.”
“So you’re saying we should kill Freki?” he asked and earned a glare from the wildkin girl. “Hey, your suggestion, not mine.”
“There’s only one target. This shouldn’t be as big a problem right?” Devol asked and held Achroma in a guard stance. “It’s quite big so it can’t be that fast, can it?”
“And off you go!” Freki shouted. The three-headed creature howled and charged the three friends, and its massive form overshadowed them almost instantly.
“Oh,” the swordsman muttered as Asla bounded to the side. Jazai grasped the collar of his friend’s jacket and blinked the two of them away seconds before a large paw pounded the floor beneath them and left a large indent.
The two boys reappeared behind it. “So, do you have a plan?” the diviner asked as he sifted through the cantrips in his head. The young wildkin slashed at it with her claws to gain its attention.
“All I can suggest is to try a seriously large attack,” Devol replied and earned an annoyed glance from the other magi. “What? The familiars before had a weakness to exploit. This one is…” They looked at it and studied the size and various defenses it had. “A little tougher.”
Jazai nodded and glowered at the beast. “Do you need some time?”
“Only a little,” the swordsman promised. They nodded to each other and the diviner blinked away and began to fire cantrips at the head that resembled Asla’s original familiar to hold its attention and pull the beast in the opposite direction from where she still held the focus of the head she’d targeted.
Devol began to funnel mana into his blade and the light inside grew consistently brighter. He took a moment to look at Freki and Wulfsun. When the wildkin Templar glanced casually at him, his gaze held a knowing look. The boy ignored it and prepared to strike. He drew the blink dagger again, tossed it under the creature’s stomach, and teleported beneath the large body.
He lowered his blade and prepared to run it through the familiar’s belly but it leapt skyward. Taken aback, he glanced at Jazai and Asla, who seemed as startled as he was.
“It has three heads and at least one was always aware of where you were,” Freki explained. “You might want to consider that in the future.”
The young swordsman looked up reflexively. The triple-headed beast had turned to face him and began to plummet toward him. He raised his blade and shouted a battle cry as he released the mana stored within to form a large blade of light.
Devol peered through the blade as it ascended toward the familiar and aimed for the middle head—that of Jazai’s familiar—but that head and the one next to it contorted and swapped places. His weapon was about to pierce it when the head of his earlier familiar opened its maw and bit the blade to crush it. The blade of light began to crumble around Achroma and left only the normal blade as the creature was about to land. He dove out of the way as it made impact and the force of it knocked him farther across the arena while Asla and Jazai hunkered down instinctively.
The boy’s roll ended in front of the two Templars who watched them. “It’s a neat trick, right?” Freki chuckled. “The familiars can change places with one another. I can even change places with them in the field.”
He sat and rubbed his head. “Why didn’t they do that during the last match?”
The wildkin shrugged. “I’m training you, not trying to kill you. If you want to defeat it, I hope you have other tricks you can pull out of that blade.”
This suggestion triggered a memory of the night before and what his father had said to him. He stood and looked at Achroma. “It won’t obey me, it will listen to my heart,” he whispered. His grasp tightened on the sword and he ran toward the beast as he raised his blade.
He looked at his two winded teammates where as they struggled against the creature. Thoughts of the Oblivion Trials ahead of them and the fights and struggles behind them made him feel as though the adversary they face represented another obstacle in their way—in his way. He needed to make sure it fell.
One of the heads turned to him and registered his approach. It batted the other two out of the way with one large paw and focused on him with a snarl. His friends called a warning as all three heads lurched forward to bite him. Wulfsun began to step forward to intercept the attack as Devol yelled even louder than before and swung his blade in a vicious downward arc. In the next moment, a bright light consumed him.
The boy could see nothing and struggled to determine where he was and what had happened.
“That was an excellent attempt,” a strong but ethereal voice told him as he was surrounded by a bright white nothingness. “You may catch on quicker than I did, but you are still not quite right.”
A form began to appear, taller than he was with long hair of a different shade of white, but he couldn’t fully make it out amidst the light around him. It held another object up shaped like his blade. “But you will get there, Devol.”
The bright light faded as quickly as it had appeared and the young magi only saw darkness until his body landed on the floor of the arena.
Chapter Eight
Something tapped the young swordsman’s cheek—no, more than that. It slapped his cheek and he began to stir. When his vision cleared
, it focused on a large array of flowers hanging above him.
“Devol, are you all right?!” Asla asked. He turned his head slowly to where she stood close to him. Behind her were Jazai, Freki, Zier, Wulfsun, Vaust, and the grand mistress, all of whom looked at him with a mixture of concern and curiosity.
“Yeah…yeah, I think so.” He nodded and pushed carefully to a seated position but shifted in surprise when his hands settled on smooth, delicate material. When he looked down, he realized he was on the grand mistress’ bed. “What happened? Did the familiar knock me out?”
Freki, Jazai, and Wulfsun looked at one another. “It never had the chance,” the young diviner stated and focused on him. “You—or Achroma or whatever—did that bright light trick and it was cut to ribbons. Whatever you did was incredibly fast too. I almost didn’t realize it was slain before it disappeared.”
“I…I don’t think it was me,” Devol said and breathed deeply. “I don’t remember being able to attack, only being caught in a bright light. I thought I was being teleported or had been caught in a barrier or something.”
“It wasn’t you?” Asla questioned. “But I was sure I saw your blade strike it.”
“She had a better look than I did,” Jazai admitted and wandered to the large window in the grand mistress’ room that overlooked the training areas below. “It wasn’t only the familiar. You damn near leveled the area.”
“Do what?” he asked and pushed to his feet. He stumbled forward a few steps but Asla and Freki helped him to stand. She wanted to take him back to the bed but he continued forward until he could steady himself by leaning against the window.
His eyes widened at the sight below him. His friend was right. The arena they had been training on was utterly destroyed—mostly by the familiar, he assumed, and all the fighting before he had arrived—but what caught his attention were large gouges across not only the platform they had been on but the ground behind it and through the arena across from there as well.
The Oblivion Trials (The Astral Wanderer Book 3) Page 4
