He flinched when a lightning bolt slammed into his window and broke against the wards. He smiled. Shizuku had insisted on checking the protections herself. It seemed his wife still loved him. When he’d told her about Maria, Orin had experienced an instant of doubt. He didn’t remember ever seeing her that angry. She calmed down after a while, especially when it became clear there was nothing either of them could do about the situation.
The city withstood three and a half minutes of pounding before even more portals opened and Department reinforcements in their distinctive gray robes emerged. Mingled amongst them were scores of civilian volunteers from all over the Alliance.
Despite the chaos and terror of the moment, it felt good to see people pulling together for the common good. It filled him with hope.
Then Morgana levered her scepter and the first gray robe burst into flames. She fell ten feet before a gusher of water spilled over her and snuffed out the flames. The water wizard that saved her carried the injured woman toward Department headquarters. As the building with the strongest protections in place, it was designated as a safe place to bring the wounded.
Orin abandoned his window and hurried downstairs. He had no power to affect the outcome of the battle, but he could do some good helping with the injured.
He reached the lobby, which once again resembled a hospital, at the same time as the first of the casualties, a civilian in white that looked like she’d been sliced up by swords. Speaking of swords, Sho stood off to one side with his sword strapped to his waist, ready to do his best to protect the wounded. Shizuku had enchanted his weapon so it had at least some hope of cutting through a wizard’s defenses.
Orin motioned the Department wizard helping her injured friend towards the nearest bed. Shizuku left off organizing supplies and joined him beside the wounded wizard.
The uninjured wizard ran back to rejoin the fight as soon as she set her companion down. Outside explosions sounded, mingled with the crack of lightning. He fought down the desire to check on the progress of the fight and focused on stopping the bleeding of an especially deep gash on the wounded wizard’s thigh while his wife began her healing spell.
The wounds slowly closed one after another. When the last one had sealed Shizuku sighed. They’d saved one at least and that was something.
He didn’t have time to revel in their momentary success. Two more injured wizards, both of them able to walk on their own, came in through the door. He wished they had more healers, but he didn’t dare remove any more light wizards from the battle.
They’d just have to muddle through. A fourth injured woman staggered through the door.
That would be easier said than done.
Morgana watched the pitiful wizards rushing around, trying to counter the attacks of herself and her followers. Despite their pathetic skills, the enemy had kept the damage to a minimum so far. That would last as long as she wished to allow them hope and not a moment longer.
Two of the newly arrived Department wizards had found the courage to challenge her directly. Their ashes were now floating in the breeze.
She sensed Indra’s approach before she spotted her overeager second-in-command. Indra bowed. “Mistress, the enemy puts up a decent fight. With your permission, I’d like to take the Society members and deal with them directly.”
Morgana waved a disinterested hand. “Go for it. You have two hours before I get serious. After that, anyone on the ground is a target.”
Indra bowed again, slipped her dragon mask on, and flew off. The girl had power and dedication. Perhaps when she’d completed her revenge, Morgana would offer her a nation to rule. She couldn’t be everywhere at once.
Indra had barely left when power crackled in the air and a wind portal opened. From it emerged a woman in a pale-blue robe, black hair whipped by the winds, strength radiating from her as she faced Morgana without fear.
“You are Morgana, leader of this invasion?” the woman asked.
She nodded. “And you are?”
“Ashi, the strongest wizard in the Empire of the Rising Sun. The emperor has declared you must fall, so fall you will.”
Morgana chuckled. “You are strong, child. Perhaps if you’d attacked me by surprise you might have gotten in a lucky strike. But to appear, declare yourself, and challenge me directly…You must be mad.”
“There is no honor in striking an opponent from behind, certainly not for the captain of the emperor’s palace guard.”
Morgana shook her head at the mingled arrogance and stupidity on display. This insignificant speck of nothing imagined herself worthy of challenging a half-elf to single combat?
“Are you prepared?” Ashi asked. “I intend to show you no mercy.”
“I appreciate your candor. You may cast the first spell.”
Ashi needed no more prompting. She chanted and magic gathered around her hands. Morgana recognized the Wind Blade spell and the power behind it. Not nearly enough, but impressive nonetheless.
When Ashi reached the final word of her spell, Morgana raised her scepter.
Thunder cracked and her dragon lurched, nearly knocking her from her perch. A second and third spell slammed into her mount, gouging chunks out of its side.
The wind blades slammed into her. She went flying off the dragon’s back and fell toward the ground.
She caught herself after a few feet, just in time to watch her mount explode in a burst of fire.
On the ground, a group of five wizards in robes representing different elements shifted their focus to her.
She sensed another wind blast approaching and slashed it apart with ice pillars.
Quick as thought she zipped away from her position, avoiding the incoming spells by a hair.
Morgana gathered magic and hurled a massive fireball at the massed wizards. Her spell was negated by the dark wizard before impact.
A lightning bolt barely missed her, but it distracted her enough that Ashi’s vortex caught her and sent her crashing into the side of a building.
Morgana’s light shield absorbed the impact easily, but the fact that she’d taken the hit at all angered her no end.
A burst of mixed fire and lightning blew the wall around her to pieces and sent debris raining down. She held on to the excess power and wove it into her defenses.
The smoke cleared revealing five of her six opponents arrayed in a semicircle in front of her.
“Surrender and you’ll be taken to the Lonely Rock to resume your sentence,” Ashi said. “It must be clear to you that you can’t defeat the six of us.”
Morgana threw her head back and laughed. The unmitigated arrogance of these mortals to speak to her so.
“I think not.” Morgana slammed her hands together and released a wave of mingled lightning and wind magic that sent the wizards facing her flying.
A chunk of rubble flew out of the building behind her and skipped off her shoulder.
Morgana turned her attention to the ground and quickly spotted the earth wizard that had attacked her. She infused lightning into her body, anchored it into the ground, and rode it to the pavement.
In the wizard’s moment of surprise, Morgana struck her with the scepter, releasing a burst of fire.
When the smoke cleared nothing remained of her opponent beyond a black outline on the building behind her.
The remaining wizards had shaken off the worst of the effects of her Stunning Wind spell. Morgana didn’t intend to give them any longer.
She reversed the course of her lightning spell and rode back into the sky, appearing in the middle of the wizards. “Inferno Blast!”
A torrent of blue-white flames exploded out in every direction. When they cleared only Ashi remained though burns covered over half her body.
Their gazes locked and Ashi asked, “What are you?”
“The end of your world.” Morgana reduced her to nothing, just like she would all those who opposed her.
Lady Raven waved the Orb of Darkness at a trio of corpses and summone
d magic. Black tendrils shot out from the orb and struck the bodies, infusing them with the essence of Hell. They rose, their black eyes darting all around the filthy alley where she’d found them.
The elf artifact worked even better than she’d dared hope. Years ago she read about the Orbs of Darkness. Apparently, the elves created them in an attempt to overcome their inability to wield dark magic. The experiment had ended in failure for them, but the Relic Hunters that located the first orb found they worked just fine for the human necromancer that used it to kill them.
Now she finally held one of her own. With it she could create even more powerful undead. The crude zombies she raised on her own were like rag dolls compared to the wonderful new creatures she’d risen. Fast, strong, and infused with dark magic so that only the most potent spells could pierce their defenses, the undead would make her the queen of London, not the wretched Lady Tiger.
Queen of the Dead, she quite liked the sound of that. Lady Raven started to open a dark portal then remembered the barrier Lady Tiger had raised. She could still travel through Hell, but not beyond the city limits. She was trapped in here with her enemy.
Or maybe it was better to think that Lady Tiger was trapped in here with her. As long as the barrier was in place she wouldn’t be able to escape. Her former superior would make a fine undead. Lady Raven would have to think of an especially nasty form for her.
A shiver ran through her when one of her creations was destroyed. The attack had come from the south; it was unlikely Lady Tiger had done it. That left the nuisances from the Ministry. Jemma and her merry band had raised a strong fortification and they only ventured out for short raids. Maybe she could catch them out and add a trophy to her undead army.
She opened a dark portal and stepped into it. An instant later she emerged beside the remains of her creation. Cut down after less than a week of unlife, sad.
A stream of fire streaked out of nowhere, struck her dark barrier, and fizzled. A red-robed Ministry wizard appeared as her invisibility spell ended. She hurled a fireball at Lady Raven with equally poor results. If this was supposed to be a trap, her enemies hadn’t planned very well.
Lady Raven lashed out with dark energy augmented by the orb. With the elf artifact in hand, she didn’t even need to cast – it protected her from the effects of backlash, at least when she used dark magic.
An equal burst of dark magic canceled out her attack. Three Ministry wizards appeared, with Jemma in the lead, a black ring crackling with power on her finger. If Jemma’s power in dark magic equaled hers, her advantage was lost. One of them anyway.
“Dark Shield!” Lady Raven shaped the spell into a sphere and wrapped it around herself.
Spell after spell splashed against it, wearing her down. Even with the orb, she couldn’t hold out long against this many wizards. Lucky for her, the orb held another useful ability. Every undead she created was connected to it. She sent her thoughts into the darkness, calling her children to her side.
A handful were close and in less than a minute the spells that had almost shattered her protection shifted targets. Her creations died again, but they bought her all the time she needed.
The dark portal opened under her feet and Lady Raven fell through it. She mourned the loss of her servants, but only for a moment. After Morgana’s attack, there were plenty of replacements lying around. It would be the work of hours to replace what she lost.
Lady Raven would bide her time and build her army into a force to be reckoned with. Then she’d find Lady Tiger and Jemma and kill them both.
Orin wiped the sweat from his brow, leaving a streak of blood behind. The wounded were pouring in faster than they could keep up. His arms were soaked in blood up to his elbows. Beside him, Shizuku wasn’t in any better shape, panting with exhaustion as she tried to save the most recent arrival, a young woman that looked like she’d graduated from the Academy last year. Her right leg was missing below the knee, and though whatever spell took it had burned the wound closed, it had also burned the rest of her body to a blistered mass.
The wizard convulsed and Orin did his best to hold her steady. The glow around Shizuku’s hands brightened then winked out. The wizard went limp.
Orin still had a hold of her when his wife touched his arm. “She’s gone.”
“Damn it!” He knew they couldn’t save everyone, but the young ones hurt the most. That girl might have been Maria. Not for the first time he was glad she wasn’t here.
“I need a minute.” Shizuku shuffled off, looking twice her age and weary beyond belief. She stood at the windows in the front of the lobby and stared out.
Maybe he should have held a few more light-aligned wizards out of the fight to help with the wounded. Orin wished there was something he could do for her, but his talents were limited. All he had to offer was a shoulder to cry on when she needed it.
He took a step toward her. When his foot hit the tile an explosion sent him flying back. Glass went everywhere.
Frantic, Orin scrambled to his feet. Shizuku had been right beside the glass when it blew. She lay on her back a few feet away, dozens of jagged shards of glass sticking out of her face and arms. He rushed over to her. Thank God, none of the wounds looked deep.
“We went to a lot of effort to kill these people,” a high, crazed voice said. “And here you are trying to heal them.”
Orin looked up from Shizuku to find a rail-thin woman in a green jumpsuit standing just inside the lobby. She was backlit by the sun so he couldn’t make out any details, but she had to be one of the escapees.
“I guess I’ll have to finish what the others started.” She raised her hands and blue energy swirled around them.
Orin had been so distracted by the explosion he forgot about Sho. Faster than any man should be able, Sho lunged in, drew his sword, and swung all in one smooth motion.
The wizard’s hands flew from her wrists. Her scream was cut off, literally, when Sho’s second stroke sent her head flying in the opposite direction.
The woman’s body collapsed and bled out all over the tile, mingling as it did with the blood of her would-be victims.
Sho flicked the blood off his sword, sheathed it, and returned to his post in the shadows of the lobby. No word spoken, not even a nod of acknowledgment.
With the immediate threat dealt with, Orin returned his focus to Shizuku. “Let’s get you to a chair. I’ll find some tweezers and pull the glass out.”
“Hurry, Orin.” She groaned. “God it hurts.”
He guided her to the only empty seat in the room then fetched a large pair of tweezers. The blast had imbedded dozens of shards in her flesh. Every time he pulled one out he flinched in sympathy. Not for the first time Orin wished he had the power to do something for Shizuku beyond what any mere mortal had to offer.
But he didn’t. All he could do was his best, all the while wondering where Conryu was. If ever they needed him, it was now.
Lady Dragon hung in the air and surveyed the city, trying to get a feel for the battle. Instead of pockets of resistance, they had wizards opposing them everywhere. The defenders weren’t making much difference, but they were slowing things down enough to be annoying. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with Morgana’s mission. Getting the pests out of the way was her job.
Ten minutes passed and she frowned. The wizard she’d dispatched to destroy Department headquarters hadn’t returned yet. There couldn’t have been that many people guarding the place given how many flew around outside trying to stop Morgana’s followers. What was she doing down there?
Lady Dragon shrugged. If you wanted something done, you had to do it yourself. Lady Lion flew a little ways away, keeping a lookout for threats approaching from the north.
“I’m going to check in with the wizard I sent to the Department. I won’t be long.”
Lady Lion nodded and resumed her vigil. It was nice not to have her subordinate argue. That was why she sent Lady Wolf off to hunt on her own.
The flight to D
epartment headquarters took less than a minute. The building looked intact except for the smashed windows. Where did that idiot get off leaving her task half finished?
She strode through the shattered front door and found the headless, handless corpse of the woman she sent. Beyond the body were dozens of cots filled with wounded citizens. Not the most awe-inspiring group of defenders.
A quick Inferno spell would clean this mess up. She raised her hands and drew a breath to cast.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and leapt back. The sword of the stranger barely missed her wrists. A second later and she’d have suffered the fate of the first wizard.
The warrior didn’t give her a moment to gather her wits. His sword darted in, lightning fast. Furious backpedaling kept her in one piece.
Try as she might, Lady Dragon couldn’t focus long enough to cast a spell. She stumbled over a cot and fell on her ass.
“Enough!” Rage and magic combined to send a wave of unrefined fire roaring at the swordsman.
When the smoke cleared she expected to find nothing but a pile of ash. Instead he stood there, unharmed, a light magic shield glowing around him.
She clenched her jaw and tracked the magic to a bleeding woman on the far side of the lobby. She had her hand extended and magic poured out of it, engulfing the swordsman.
Lady Dragon pointed at her and chanted, “Fire rage—”
The sword nearly took her hand for the second time.
She glared at the swordsman.
“I am your opponent.” He had the coldest voice she’d ever heard.
“So be it, fool. Smokescreen!”
Billowing black smoke shot out in every direction. Lady Dragon took the moment of freedom to put her defenses in place. She’d been far too confident coming in here without them. After so many years of conflict she should have known better.
Earth magic strengthened her skin and light magic reinforced it. She opened fire portals in each hand so she could access her power without chanting. That done she snapped her hands out, dispelling the smoke.
Death Incarnate: Aegis of Merlin Book 7 (The Aegis of Merlin) Page 11