by Davis Ashura
While Rukh fought, Jessira protected his back, defending and attacking as needed. They moved with perfect synchronicity.
“My God,” Fiona whispered in awe.
“My wayward daughter.” The Servitor called in a booming voice, returning their attention to the mahavans.
William cursed his inattentiveness. Sinskrill’s ruler and the mahavans still had to be dealt with.
“And my trusted raha’asra,” the Servitor continued. “You will both pay for your treason.”
A bolt of fire smacked the Servitor in the chest, and he snarled inarticulately.
“Don’t forget about me,” Mr. Zeus said with a cheeky grin.
“Oh, I haven’t,” the Servitor said. “Never believe for a second that I have.” He gestured to his warriors. “Take them!”
The mahavans rushed forward.
William and the others entered the stone-lined field. Lines of Fire and Air coursed across his chest. His hands dripped with pulsing waves of Water and rustling ropes of Earth.
Blazing Fire roared toward him. A pulse of water doused it. William yanked stones out of the ground to block arrows of air. He sent a blast of flames to evaporate thrusting spears of water. The mahavans’ flurry faltered, and William attacked with bolts of air. Shields of earth met his assault.
Serena fought at his side. She crossed her arms. From her wrists coalesced a braid of Earth and Air that formed a bolt of lightning. It sent mahavans scrambling.
One mahavan leapt skyward and pointed with his sword. The ground tore apart beneath William’s feet. He and Serena jumped aside. When he landed, William thrust out his hands, and from them roared a rolling thunder of white-hot fire. The stench of sulfur billowed outward. The mahavans gave way.
The Servitor aimed his Spear. A boulder the size of a wagon whistled through the sky, aimed directly at Rukh. Dirt streamed behind it like a comet.
William paused and watched the huge stone’s flight. Rukh seemed to suspend himself in mid-air before kicking off the boulder and leaping over it.
Holy shit.
Another stone soared toward Rukh. He remained suspended in the air. His sword glowed, and a golden bar extended forward like a spear. It shattered the boulder with a crack like thunder. Rocks and dust rained as Rukh landed. With no break in motion, he resumed his battle against the unformed. All the while, he appeared as calm and collected as a meditating monk.
With a shake of his head, William returned his attention to the battle at hand. Thankfully, no mahavan had taken advantage of his distraction. All of them had also been caught up in Rukh’s display.
“Attack!” Mr. Zeus shouted.
William lashed out with Spirit. He managed to lock a mahavan from her lorethasra. A bolt of air left her unconscious. Fiona did the same to one of the other mahavans.
Five more to go. The two groups closed. William drew his sword.
Serena spun and thrust with her jian. A mahavan blocked, and she twisted away from the return swing. William sent a pulse of water that hurled an opponent into the one pressing Serena. Both mahavans went down in a heap, and Fiona decapitated them with a pulsing line of water.
William gaped. An instant later, he shook off his revulsion at what Fiona had done. Deal with it later. Work remained.
Fiona and Mr. Zeus battled two mahavans, while another stood guard beside the Servitor.
The numbers might now be in their favor, but the Servitor remained upright. The most dangerous foe had yet to make his power known.
William briefly assessed the Servitor’s calm demeanor before gritting his teeth and tightening the grip on his sword. Maybe they could attack Sinskrill’s ruler and move him away from the anchor line.
William drew water from all around him. He collected it into a wall ten feet tall and sent it thundering at the Servitor and the remaining mahavan. It shot forward like a storm surge.
The Servitor waved his Spear, and the water split to either side of him.
William paused in dismay. No one could do that.
Sounds broke his consternation. A hissing sound like a punctured tire and the rustling of what might have been a thousand rattlesnakes served as his only warning. An attack with Air and Earth. William wrenched a shield of dirt before him. The Servitor made a gesture and several handfuls of rocks elevated off the ground. He thrust his hand, and the stones exploded forward like a shotgun blast.
A bubble of Air protected William from rocks that penetrated his earthwork.
Serena hurled fire.
The mahavan by the Servitor’s side snuffed it out.
The Servitor answered with a white-hot blaze as wide as a wagon.
William ducked beneath it and retreated. He fell back, and saw Mr. Zeus calling up earth to trap the mahavan he battled in an enclosure of stone. Fiona crushed the man’s head between a pair of boulders.
The final two mahavans retreated to stand several feet behind the Servitor.
Serena moved up to William’s right. Fiona and Mr. Zeus moved up to his left.
The two groups paused. Seconds had passed since the battle’s birth, and in that brief time, the ground was already chewed up. Fissures carved the field. Clumps of mud and stone lay scattered about. Smoke poured skyward, merging into the gray clouds. Thunder rolled and rain fell. Footing grew slicker. Echoes of power rumbled, and William’s nerves tingled.
The Servitor smiled. “I will enslave you all.”
William lashed out. He sent a line of white fire blazing at the Servitor. As expected, Sinskrill’s ruler split the flow into two.
William still controlled both lines of fire. He redirected them with the perfect control only accomplished through endless hours of training with Ward Silver. The fire snaked about and hammered into the mahavans. Both screamed before falling. Their bodies smoked like charred husks.
William swallowed. He’d killed someone. Two someones. He’d always known it might be necessary, but knowing and doing were two different things. He didn’t know what to feel. Screw it. He shuddered. Deal with it later, too.
Rukh and Jessira had ended their battle with the unformed and stepped alongside William and the others.
The Servitor faced them alone now. “For the evil you have committed, you will not survive this hour.” Sinskrill’s ruler sourced his lorethasra, and the scent of crushed stone filled the air. The Servitor held a vast ocean of power.
Jake sat up with a groan. Cobwebs and confusion lingered in his mind.
Where was he?
He shook his head. His gaze remained blurry. Something distorted his vision. No sound, as if everything was submerged in water. He wiped his eyes, blinking heavily to get them clear. Red rocks and a wide valley in a desert slowly came into focus. Sounds returned with a ringing roar.
Elements raged. His friends fought mahavans. Jake’s head pounded. His ears throbbed. His eyes ached, but eventually his mind began working again. His thoughts cleared at a glacial pace, and he recalled where he was and what had happened.
Jake shook off the last of his confusion. His whole body hurt, but he ignored the pain. He regained his footing and sourced lorethasra. He called up another wall of dirt and set it several paces behind Jason’s and Daniel’s.
“Son of a bitch!” Lien clutched her arm where a lance of fire had burned past her defenses. She stood, reckless and dangerously unprotected, fury etched on her features, to face the attacking mahavans.
“Lien! No!” Daniel shouted.
Jake watched Lien dig a bar of granite from the ground. It shivered off red dust and howled like a buzzsaw as she spun it through the mahavans’ embankments. Dull booms echoed as the stone ripped through the protections. Two mahavans crouching behind it startled, their eyes comically wide.
Jake snarled silently. Those two were his. Before the mahavans could react, he blocked their ability to source lorethasra. Lien sent twin hammers of shrieking air slamming into their heads. The impacts resounded like stricken coconuts. Both mahavans collapsed, either unconscious or dead.<
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Lien moved on to another group, unaware of the spear of yellow fire blazing toward her. Heat haze billowed off it. Jake pushed it aside with a wall of air. Lien fought on. Her eyes blazed like the fire dripping down her arms, and erupting from her hands. She attacked with no thought for defense.
Jake gritted his teeth. Then he’d be her defense.
A boulder of ice shot toward her head. He splintered it with earth and fire. More flames blasted toward Lien. Jake protected her with shrouds of water from the muddy clay around them. Sulfurous steam billowed as the two braids impacted. Mist, smoke, and fog wreathed the saha’asra. Explosions hammered the ground. Mud blasted upward like inverted rain. Cries of pain and angry exhortations came from both the magi and the mahavans.
Mr. Karllson roared. A spear of air had spiked his thigh, and blood poured down his leg. He collapsed behind his earthwork.
His cry of pain finally woke Lien from her haze of fury. The fire in her eyes faded and they took on their normal color. She cried out, racing to Mr. Karllson’s side and trying to staunch his wound.
A sheet of lightning coruscated feet from Jake, and he dove aside. Ozone overwhelmed all other smells. Jake searched for his attacker. His eyes widened when he saw a mahavan riding a waterspout. From high up, she flung bolts of fire and lightning.
“How’s she doing that?” Jason asked. His features held an equal measure of fear and admiration.
Daniel growled like a bear and reached deep into the ground. A shotgun blast of pebbles hit the mahavan riding the waterspout. She tried to defend with a shield of Air, but was too slow. Some of the pebbles got through. Her waterspout dissipated and she plummeted, hitting the ground with a dull thump. She didn’t get up.
Jake sensed someone looming to his right. He rolled out of the way.
Two mahavans had flanked their position.
Jake tried to push them off with a blast of Air. He only got one of them. The other twisted aside and grinned at him.
“You die this time, you sniveling weakling,” a rat-faced mahavan said.
Jake rose to his feet. He sourced his lorethasra as deeply as he ever had. A white haze filled his vision.
Dalton stood before him.
The smell of sulfur rose. Jake knew what was coming. Fire rippled across Dalton’s chest and neck. It blasted from his eyes.
Jake was ready. He held pulsing braids of Water and rippling weaves of Earth. They snuffed out Dalton’s fire. Jake stepped toward the mahavan.
Dalton snarled. He aimed a spear of air at Jake’s chest.
Jake called up a braid of earth. The weaves collided in a grinding sound of breaking rocks. Jake stumbled under the blow, feeling it against his mind as much as his torso. He ignored the pain and paced closer. Dalton retreated. Sweat, dirt, and mud coated his thin face and lank hair.
Jake continued walking him down.
Dalton ceased his withdrawal and snapped off a sidekick. Jake took it on an Earth-armored shin. Dalton threw a right hook and a straight left. Both punches met air. Dalton’s expression grew desperate. He snapped off another sidekick.
Jake trapped the man’s leg in a braid of Air and smiled. The white haze still filled his vision. He reached out with a braid of pure Spirit and locked Dalton’s lorethasra. The mahavan tried to break it, but Jake wouldn’t be denied. No matter what else happened today, he’d see this bastard dead.
Dalton stared at him in dawning terror.
“You die today, you sniveling weakling,” Jake said. He set fire to Dalton, immolating him in a flash of heat and light. The mahavan screamed. The ground around him blistered. The smell of burning meat billowed, and Dalton’s coal-blackened corpse crumbled into ashes.
Jake stood unmoving, strangely empty of all emotion.
His thoughts cut off when the anchor line shimmered. Someone else had come through. Jake couldn’t see them, but it looked like two more mahavans had entered the saha’asra.
The odds, poor as they’d been before, had become absolutely brutal.
Serena swallowed heavily. For all their accomplishments, their greatest test remained.
The Servitor stood against them. A lifetime of teaching, a lifetime of fear of her father’s power told her he couldn’t be defeated. Shet’s voice on Earth. The Master’s most powerful servant. The records and accounts of his abilities were scarce and vague, but Serena sensed that if anything they undersold the terror of an unbridled Servitor.
And for whatever reason, her father had yet to unleash his full abilities.
Serena bit back a bolus of panic when her father sourced his lorethasra. The power he held . . . it dwarfed the imagination.
“Come and earn your doom,” the Servitor called.
Rukh and Jessira were the first to take on his challenge. They moved with that odd synchronicity and flat affects Serena had noticed since the battle’s birth.
“You two.” The Servitor smiled. “I shall enjoy tearing you apart and learning your secrets.”
The Servitor blurred. Serena blinked. One instant, he had been standing still, the next he’d launched into motion, too fast to follow.
But Rukh apparently could. He blocked a blow from Shet’s Spear. Jessira ducked a return swing. She aimed a kick, but the Servitor ghosted away. He spun his Spear, and lightning-fast thrusts and swings reached for Rukh and Jessira.
Serena could barely see the strikes coming.
Jessira gave way while Rukh blocked all the blows aimed at him. He smiled after a final set of lunges and swings, the first emotion on his previously expressionless face. “If that’s the best you can do, I’m unimpressed,” he said.
“You’ll be impressed when I split you in twain,” the Servitor promised. Serena sensed her father source his lorethasra more deeply.
A tree branch crashed toward the Servitor’s unprotected head.
He managed to leap clear and snarled in outrage.
“I wish to leave this island and you impede my progress,” Travail said, shifting the branch to his shoulder.
“I will strip the fur from your hide,” the Servitor promised.
“Threats in the midst of battle are a waste of breath,” Travail answered. “Fight us or let us go.”
“Us?” The Servitor dipped his head in acknowledgment. “You are correct. I’ll fight all of you.” He darted forward and leapt over Rukh and Jessira.
Serena gasped. The Servitor landed before her. She desperately raised her jian and partially blocked a blow from the Spear. A line of fiery pain ripped down her side. Blood soaked her shirt. Serena tried to heal the wound, but found herself cut off from her lorethasra.
Two more cries of pain warned that Fiona and Mr. Zeus were out of the fight as well. They slumped unconscious. Serena stumbled backward as Rukh and Jessira arrived. They drove off the Servitor.
William’s sword glowed like it had when he’d fought Kohl Obsidian.
The Servitor retreated, a flicker of alarm on his face. “Who are you to wield the Wildness?”
William pressed forward. His eyes glowed as white as his sword, and he simply smiled in answer.
Serena screamed in frustration and fury. The battle of her life, and she couldn’t do anything to help.
She watched, impotent as Rukh attacked the Servitor from the right. Jessira came from the left. Travail with his branch swung from dead center. The Spear spun about in defense.
A blast of air hammered at Jessira. She held her ground and leaned forward. Her hand thrust forward. From it crackled green webbing. It billowed around Jessira like a sail caught between opposing winds. Her teeth clenched in effort. The air in front of the webbing glowed red. She slowly gave way.
Rukh and William relieved the pressure. They attacked with a storm of slashes and thrusts. All were smoothly blocked or shifted aside. The Servitor’s Spear raged lightning against William, but his glowing sword sucked it in. An earthquake sent Rukh leaping skyward. As soon as he landed, he immediately reengaged.
White-hot fire blasted from the Spea
r, aimed at Jessira. She twisted aside. The blaze struck behind her, hammering a hillside and ripping it apart. Trees snapped, broken into kindling. Mud and stones boomed in all directions. Serena’s ears ached from the thunderous explosion.
Electricity crackled and buzzed about the Servitor’s form. He levitated skyward and thrust the Spear forward. A wall of fire and lightning sheared off of it.
Rukh took it head on. Crackling green lines, similar to Jessira’s web, fractured about him. When it passed, he leapt for the Servitor, sword aimed like an arrow.
The Servitor dropped to the ground, barely evading the blow. Rukh flew past him.
Serena raged at the lock barring her use of lorethasra, clawing at it with thin braids of Fire and Earth, bare threads compared to what she could normally weave. There! She’d weakened it.
Fiona groaned, and Serena flicked a glance in her direction. Mr. Zeus sat up, blinking owlishly.
William came from the Servitor’s right, Jessira from the left, and Travail from the center. This time the Servitor was the one to give way. He defended.
A blast of air knocked William off his feet. He shouted as he tumbled end over end. Rukh took his place. He attacked with slashes and thrusts. Travail swung his branch.
William and Jessira returned to the fray.
Unable to defend against all their blows, the Servitor leapt into the sky again. He floated above them and hurled his Elements. Water poured forth like from a fire hose. Furrows burned into the ground. Mud exploded. Steam lifted, and visibility diminished to less than thirty feet. The stink of sulfur suffused the air, mixing with those of blood and ozone.
William and the others evaded all the blows.
The Servitor remained aloft. This time he sent snakes of hissing air and water at the four who stood against him.
Travail dove aside. William bent low behind a wall of dirt, but a flung stone slipped by his defenses. It clipped him, and he crumpled. His sword stopped glowing. Serena went to help William, but a rippling bar of lightning cut her off.
Again Rukh leapt upward, reaching an impossible height. He hurled a ball of fire. It screamed like tearing wood as it covered the short distance between the two men.