Hanja swung the tip of her sword toward Glacinda.
Borya clenched his fist tighter, and the light in the room dimmed in response.
“I said, ‘Enough.’” His voice rumbled low and vibrated the air around them.
“This is ridiculous.” Glacinda swished her skirt. “Gelé,” she called out. “Go home, now.”
Gelé gripped her sword with both hands and tossed her head back. “No.”
“Vivienne!” Sylvia’s shrill tone cut in. “Be a good girl, and let’s go.”
Vivienne didn’t budge.
Eric signed to Andor, “Go home.”
Andor motioned back, “No. With my friends.”
“Marzi!” Hanja’s tone dripped with venom. “Leave them. We will deal with your actions later.”
“Glacinda, is it true what Drosselmeyer said? About the boys? Did you know about that?” Gelé asked.
Glacinda sneered in disgust. “Of course not. I deal with matters of national importance. Not some trivial orphanage.”
“They were boys, Hanja!” Marzi said. “They were young boys! Defenseless children!”
“I knew nothing about it.” Hanja reached for Marzi’s arm.
“But you do now,” Marzi said and yanked her arm free.
“All of you do!” Fritz called out. “The Order is now responsible for this information. Remove Borya for his crimes and retain your honor or ignore it and seal your complicity.”
“This has gone on long enough,” Borya growled. He turned to the other wizards. “Is this what the mighty wizards of The Order have come to? Allowing your apprentices to stand there and defy you? Are you really this weak?”
“Don’t tell us how to train our apprentices,” Hanja spat at Borya.
“I call an emergency meeting of The Order,” Glacinda’s eyes were narrow and her tone sharp and bitter. “We will discuss your future in The Order.”
“Who died and made you leader?” Sylvia screeched back.
Glacinda rolled her eyes and walked over to Gelé. “We’re going home.” She grabbed Gelé by the arm.
“No!” Vivienne’s voice rang out, and Glacinda stopped, taken aback.
“I’m sorry?”
Vivienne breathed heavily through gritted teeth. “You will regret the day you ever touched my sister.”
A vine shot from Vivienne’s hand and hit Glacinda in the gut.
Glacinda grunted and sailed backward, her staff still standing upright next to Gelé.
“Vivienne!” Sylvia yelled in shock and horror. She waved her hand, and the vine vanished under a counterspell. She reared her hand to strike Vivienne but a spire of ice shot through her arm. Blood spurted from the wound, and she whimpered in surprise and pain.
Hanja reached out for Marzi, but Fritz jumped in front of her, grabbed Hanja with both arms, and traveled to the small café he and Boroda had visited in the Southern Kingdom. He struck the stunned and confused Hanja with the heel of his palm and traveled back to the room as she reeled back over the counter.
As soon as Fritz appeared back into the room, Borya raised his staff and fired at him.
Fritz raised his hand, and the beam hit an invisible wall and dissolved.
Borya looked confused. “But you’re an apprentice. You can’t stop that spell.”
“They can if they have the right counterspell,” Boroda said as he appeared behind the stunned wizard.
Borya spun around, and Boroda punched him with a powerful uppercut. He flew up in the air and landed several feet away with a thud.
Boroda shouted, “I don’t need to remind any of you that the Life Bond only applies to your own wizard!”
The apprentices regrouped, backs to each other in a small ring.
“So, is this it?” Gelé asked, out of breath. “Are we doing this? Are we fighting each other’s wizards?”
Vivienne spoke first. “I will if you will.”
“As will I,” said Marzi.
Andor looked side to side, searching his friend’s faces for an explanation.
Marzi signed to him, and he lowered into a fighting stance.
Glacinda struggled to her feet as a broken spire regrew on her icy crown.
Sylvia, wound freshly healed, joined her.
Eric lifted his hammer and signed to Andor, “Your death will not be honorable.” Then he charged, yelling as he ran.
The other wizards joined him.
Marzi whipped knives at Eric, grabbing the endless supply from behind her back and flicking the blades with deadly speed.
Eric blocked knife after knife and kept charging.
At the same time, Sylvia ran at the group, vines snaking from her body, but slipped on a slick patch of newly formed ice. She tumbled forward, her plump body bouncing on the ground.
Glacinda sent an icy-tipped spear hurtling at Vivienne’s head, but Gelé raised a second ice wall and stopped the lance midair. Vines sprouted and lashed at her as Vivienne choreographed their movements.
At the front of the room, Borya exchanged blows with Boroda. Each blow boomed and shook the room.
Unlike Borya, Boroda was in fighting shape. He easily dodged the blows and spells hurled at him and returned his own attack with a ferocious energy.
From the back, Marzi pointed her hand at a small chunk of ice. It flashed with a blinding light, spinning in Eric’s direction.
He covered his eyes, and Marzi spun low and kicked at his legs, her foot glowing with a reinforcement spell.
Eric tripped but rolled out of the way and shot at Marzi.
She blocked the spell but the force still toppled her backward.
Fritz sliced into Eric with a fiery beam of heat.
Eric spun, hand clutching his side, and fired back at Fritz. The protection spell deflected the attack but wavered under the force of it.
Fritz sprouted a vine and wrapped it around Eric’s feet.
The giant wizard sliced the vine with a swipe, and Fritz ducked closer and kicked.
Eric barely registered the attack and struck at Fritz.
Fritz blocked the blow with a spell. He felt sweat beads form on his brow. He had to conserve energy.
Hanja appeared and flew through the air at Marzi, her own two swords drawn.
Inches before she plunged her weapons into Marzi’s chest, Andor appeared in a brown puff of smoke and Hanja’s swords sank deep into the fleshy sides of his waist.
Hanja, unable to stop her trajectory, plowed full body into his chest. She looked at the large apprentice, stunned.
Andor ignored the weapons sticking from his sides and punched Hanja full in the face.
Hanja reeled back, tripped over a fallen soldier and hit the floor. Shaking, she rose, then fell to a knee, struggling to regain balance.
Marzi pulled the swords from Andor and began to heal his wounds.
Sylvia and Glacinda exchanged blows with Gelé and Vivienne. The two girls struggled to hold off the more experienced wizards.
Gelé screamed as an icy dart pierced her shoulder.
Andor raced to the side of the room and swung at Glacinda.
Glacinda raised a column of ice in front of him, but Andor’s punch knocked through the pillar and a large chunk hit the petite wizard in the chest. She toppled backward with a croak.
Nearby, Borya missed Boroda’s chest with a spell but clipped his arm.
Boroda snarled and blasted Borya backward with a counterattack.
The older wizard sprang up and charged Boroda, screaming with rage.
Boroda smiled. A calm wizard always wins. He raised his hand, and a column of rock shot from the floor, catching Borya under the chin, knocking him off his feet.
Boroda followed up with a volley of spells, and Borya frantically fended them off with ever-decreasing accuracy.
On the other side of the room, Sylvia lassoed Gelé with a vine, and tiny thorns sprouted from the stems into her shoulders and arms. Gelé struggled against the barbed trammel, but her screams of pain only made Sylvia cackle loude
r.
Fritz looked up from where he had rolled out of the way of Eric’s hammer. “Marzi, take Eric!”
Both Marzi and Andor jumped in to face the enraged giant head-on.
Fritz reached out, sprouted a vine, and wrapped it around Sylvia’s neck.
Sylvia ignored the vine, assuming her Life Bond would protect her.
Fritz tightened his grasp to constrict the vine, and Sylvia released her hold on Gelé.
Gelé fell to the floor in a squat and shot darts of ice into Sylvia’s hands and feet, pinning her to the plant.
Glacinda glanced over at her impaled comrade, and Vivienne, bleeding from a gash in her cheek, shot a volley of thorns into her.
Glacinda shrieked as the darts injected their poison into her. She writhed in agony, a torrent of healing spells swirling around her.
Fritz turned back to help Marzi but Hanja stood right behind him, her hand already posed to strike.
Hanja hit Fritz on the cheek.
He fell back from the blow but rolled to a fighter’s pose to meet her. He blocked her strikes, but they kept coming faster and faster.
She spun and kicked him.
He turned and caught it on the hip.
Hanja fumbled slightly, and Fritz took advantage.
Ignoring the pain, he stepped in close to Hanja and open-hand slapped her.
Hanja looked startled and struck at him.
Fritz dodged the strike and slapped her other cheek.
She tried to kick, but Fritz spun in and slapped her face twice.
Hanja pulled out two gleaming daggers and attempted to ram them into Fritz’s chest.
Fritz spun his arms in a circle, deflecting both blades, and followed through with a headbutt.
Hanja’s face was swollen from Andor’s blow, and she dropped the daggers, reeling in pain. A vine wrapped around her waist from behind and yanked her back. Vivienne, flanked by Gelé, stood over her, holding the base of the plant in her hand. Hanja severed the vine with the swipe of a sword, but Gelé launched a chunk of ice, and it clipped the hilt of her weapon, flipping it out of her hand.
“Drossie!” Marzi yelled out.
Eric had her pinned against the wall with one hand. He raised his other hand and a large, serrated knife materialized. Eric yelled and plunged the knife downward.
Fritz yelled out in fright and anger and managed to erect a wall of ice just in time to catch Eric’s knife.
The muscular wizard twisted his wrist and the ice surrounding it shattered. His other hand still held Marzi fast, but the ice wall had grown around it and weakened his grip.
Marzi squirmed with renewed intensity.
Andor raced to Marzi’s rescue and punched Eric from behind, but the Life Bond responded with glowing shields.
Eric caught Andor in the solar plexus with his heel, and the apprentice doubled over. He dropped Marzi and raised his foot to stomp Andor.
Marzi jumped, both feet glowing, and struck Eric’s back.
He lurched forward and tripped over the gasping Andor and fell to the floor.
Fritz shot a bolt of lightning at the prostrate wizard, and he arched in agony as the electricity burned his skin.
At the back of the room, Boroda continued to strike at Borya.
One of Borya’s arms hung limply as blood leaked from his nose and mouth.
Borya tried to punch Boroda, but he was too slow. Boroda blocked the flaccid jab and elbowed him in the face.
Borya tottered backward, spent. He raised a simple dagger and ran at Boroda, voice raw from screaming.
Boroda lifted a stone tile and flicked it at Borya.
Borya blocked it but stumbled to all fours.
Without warning, Andor raced past Fritz with a yell, drew his leg up mid stride, and kicked Borya in the gut.
Borya sailed upward, slammed into a pillar, and fell to the floor. The old wizard twitched but made no effort to regain his footing.
Andor raised both fists, ready to smash the downed wizard, but Boroda stopped him. He motioned to the medallion and mouthed, “Do not kill.”
Andor obeyed but still kicked the unconscious wizard with his heel.
By this time, Eric had risen and was locked in battle with Fritz.
Marzi joined him.
Eric blocked them but with increasing anxiety growing on his face. He returned his own spells, but the apprentices countered them with the complex spells stored in their charms.
At the front of the room, Hanja, who had cut herself free from the vine, kicked Gelé and sent her flying over a table.
Gelé didn’t move.
Vivienne screamed and punched at Hanja.
Hanja slapped her fist away with ease and grabbed Vivienne by the throat. “You pathetic little flower,” she said, sweat beading up on her forehead.
Vivienne choked and writhed in Hanja’s grasp. Blood streamed from her nose, staining her mouth and teeth red. A seed fell, unseen, from her hand. She struggled to hold on to consciousness.
“Flowers always look weaker than they are,” she choked in slow sputters. “That’s what makes us strong.”
Hanja laughed. “Well, then, you mighty flower, better luck in the afterlife.”
Hanja drew back her own sword, the tip pointed at Vivienne’s gut.
Vivienne looked over Hanja’s shoulder, and a smile flickered over her lips.
Hanja whirled around, but it was too late. The Venus fly trap that had silently sprouted behind her snapped with wicked speed and engulfed her entire body.
Hanja cried out and lashed wildly with her sword. She flailed and thrashed, trying to escape, but the thick, viscous fluid inside the plant slowed her progress. Hanja began to shake and foam from her mouth as the digestive juices paralyzed her. She hung halfway out of the overgrown trap, eyes frozen open in terror.
Vivienne slumped to the floor, and Andor rushed to her side.
Eric caught Marzi with a left hook, and she hit a pillar and crumpled.
Fritz yelled out Marzi’s name.
Eric laughed cruelly. “I got your girl, Drosselmeyer.” He twirled his hammer in a taunting fashion and set off at a run toward Fritz.
Fritz saw blood trickle from Marzi’s nose, and his eyes turned completely silver.
Fritz cast Boroda’s time spell, and the activity in the room slowed to a crawl.
Fritz studied the protective shield of magic surrounding Eric. He traced the spells as quickly as he could. His charm ran out of energy, and he felt a pull on his own strength. He calmed his breathing and concentrated on the shield’s magic.
Eric inched forward, his hammer beginning its slow descent.
Fritz calmly connected the spell fragments, reversed them, and cast it at Eric.
Time returned to normal speed.
Eric barreled forward, realizing an instant too late that his shield was down.
Fritz spun, and with a deafening roar, punched Eric with a white-hot fist of magic. Eric’s body rocketed into the air.
Fritz reached up, his vision blurring from spent energy. He lashed a spell around him and smashed the giant’s body into the floor.
The stones cracked and cratered around Eric. His arms twisted at odd angles, his open eyes glassed over, and his breath gurgled in short, painful spasms.
The room went quiet.
Fritz fell to the floor, trying to suck in as much air as he could.
Off to the side, Andor cradled Marzi in his arms. She groaned in pain.
In the front of the room, Gelé and Vivienne leaned against the same pillar, their hands weakly wrapped in an affectionate hold.
Boroda rushed to Fritz and checked him for injuries.
“He didn’t show,” Fritz said to Boroda and coughed. “The Black Wizard didn’t show.”
Boroda chuckled and began to wave his hands over Fritz’s chest. “What is that saying about the best laid plans?”
Fritz struggled to stay upright. “I was hoping we could end this today. I really wanted you to get revenge for Perri
n.”
Boroda quieted him. “There’s still time. Let’s just enjoy this victory.”
Fritz started to laugh but cut it short, wincing at the pain. He surveyed the wreckage and chaos around them. “Yeah, I really did great here, didn’t I?”
“I suppose we could have done worse.” Boroda began to heal several wounds on Fritz.
The Order was broken and unconscious. The apprentices were injured and spent, but alive. Soldiers still struggled against icy prisons and viney tethers. The Czar moaned in the distance and lolled his head around.
Boroda gripped Fritz by the shoulders and stared into his dark, green eyes. “Even if I never get revenge for Perrin, I am still proud to call you Drosselmeyer.”
A glowing, blue blade poked through Boroda’s chest. He stared at it for a moment and slumped forward.
Fritz screamed and caught him as he fell. Boroda’s skin turned ashen, and his eyes glazed over.
“Don’t worry, Drosselmeyer,” the Black Wizard said, his billowing cloud of smoke still dissolving. He sheathed his sword and skipped back toward the head table. “I didn’t kill him. I can’t have you getting your medallion before me. He’s paralyzed forever, but he’s not dead.”
Chapter 26
“Take off your mask, Faruk,” Fritz said through clenched teeth. “I know it’s you.”
The Black Wizard waved his hand, and the mask vanished. Faruk smiled at them, eyes wild with excitement.
The apprentices stared at their comrade in stunned silence.
Andor tried to jump up, but Faruk pinned him to the ground. Andor struggled against the spell, but his strength gave out. He lay panting on the floor.
Faruk sneered at Fritz. “How long have you known, Drossie?”
“I had a pretty good idea when you attacked me in the woods,” Fritz said, staring at a new swirl of magic around Boroda, the paralysis caused by a spell he’d never seen before. No physical wounds, outside of the ones Borya had inflicted, were visible. Fritz cradled his master, ignoring the older wizard’s gasps of pain. His long, black cape, now stained with blood, draped over Fritz’s arms.
“Really? I’m impressed,” Faruk scoffed. A rat appeared and scurried across his shoulder.
“The rats gave you away,” Fritz said calmly. “At first, I assumed the rats were a calling card from Nicholaus but when you, as the Black Wizard, used them against me in the woods, well, that’s when I realized how connected everything was … the death of Perrin … the animal attacks on The Order … the attempt at Minerva Mooncup’s.”
Drosselmeyer: Curse of the Rat King Page 26