by Rosie Scott
Orzora had other plans. She stood on the riverbank where she'd hit me, still surrounded by Raphael's life shield as she fought off the dead I'd risen from the water. I swam as quickly as I could to the other side of the river, where the grasslands were trampled from Terran's army but currently clear. This way, I could flank Terran's infantry myself as he focused on aiding his mages and archers. My brother may have sought to protect most of his men by spreading them thin, but it was now harder for him to give them all orders. Also, if Orzora wanted the glory of killing me, she had to get through thousands of infantrymen to do it. Not only did this allow me to cause massive damage to Terran's numbers, but I had the feeling Orzora wouldn't bat an eye at collateral damage herself.
Raphael's shields were immensely strong, but now that Orzora was out of the other god's sight, I had my chance to whittle her protection down. I pulled myself out of the water on the western bank, immediately removing the two arrows out of my flesh from earlier and healing the wounds through my armor.
Terran's cavalry was charging the beastmen in the east. Sprays of blood and colorful flashes of magic lit up the air over the battlefield. On the other side of the river, Orzora was stampeding through the Chairel infantry. She wasn't killing them, but she was alerting them to my new location. I drained most of my remaining leeching high into two charged shield spells, boosting protection from weapon and magic alike. Then I walked to the end of the river, throwing death bombs into the masses.
Dozens of soldiers fell, and even as the infantry started to charge me, more of my black magic left gaps in their ranks. I was swarmed and surrounded, weapons clanging off of my shield as I drained the energy of at least one hundred men into a raging ball of fire. With a scream distorted by the power of the gods, I slammed the magic down at my own feet.
The world disappeared behind an explosion of fire so gargantuan the occupants of Hallmar could see it. My alteration shield trembled as it absorbed the element, but the spell was so powerful that some of its heat made it through my protections and massaged my exposed skin. The fire rushed out in a circle around me like a solid wall, propelling hundreds of soldiers back while lighting them aflame. When the fire finally dissipated, a scorched and smoking circle one hundred yards in diameter was left on the battlefield with me at its center.
Patches of flame rose from smoldering grasses as I stalked forward again, passing collapsing soldiers to reach more. Terran's men were panicking. Some of them ran up to face me with acts of short-lived valor, but others routed. Dozens of soldiers ran around the river to the west, desperate to live and so intimidated by my prowess they risked criminal punishment for abandonment under Chairel's strict laws. I let them flee. My only concern was with those who stayed and fought.
I regenerated my reserves before turning around and going back to the scorched land. Hundreds of soldiers were dead, their skin boiling and melting into the grasses. A few had lived, and pulled themselves out of the affected area with a monumental effort on burned arms and legs. Some had been so close to me they'd been burnt to a crisp, and they were in piles of black ash that only vaguely resembled human forms. Those were the bodies I was most interested in.
By the time I faced the infantrymen who'd come after me, the charred bodies across the field were bursting open and giving birth to a flock of phoenixes. As the elemental birds soared in the skies above and bombarded soldiers with fireballs, Orzora finally shoved her way to the frontlines.
“Your legend precedes you, and yet I find myself impressed,” Orzora shouted at me, her voice labored with her travels.
“I wish I could say the same,” I taunted her.
“I'm going to have so much fun killing you.” She stalked toward me with her mace at the ready, the flanges glinting in the afternoon sunlight.
“You won't,” I retorted, as I prepared another spell. “But you're certainly welcome to try.”
Orzora laughed hoarsely, the steel confines of her helmet forcing the noise to echo. Between my hands was a misshapen stone, building off of itself until it was a boulder so large I had to spread my hands to keep them out of the way of its growth. The goddess screamed as she charged me, her mace held down at her side as she prepared for an uppercut.
My own yells of exertion rose over hers as I launched the boulder forward. The colossal stone collided with Orzora's shield and finally broke through it, crashing into her torso and continuing on its path. Goddess and rock alike hurtled through the crowds of infantry, leaving a smear of broken bodies through their ranks. I marched after her, stepping over the fresh corpses just before raising them to cause chaos at the center of my brother's army. On my way, I collected more energy from Chairel's soldiers.
Orzora and the boulder finally crashed to the grasslands in the east, so close to the outskirts of Azazel's army that I caught glimpses of my friends fighting. The huge stone landed on the goddess, crushing her legs. But the gods were crafty, and their powers were immense. I was far too intelligent to think that Orzora had been killed so easily.
As if to prove me right, the goddess's scream pierced the air, so angered that it was as distorted as mine had been. The boulder lifted up into the air, and Orzora threw it back in my direction with her immense strength.
My head was throbbing with an intense high, so every sense was sharp. I thought about changing the boulder to sand in mid-air before I decided to use Terran's ally against him. I merely dodged the stone, letting it fly past and back toward the Chairel infantry. The earth trembled when it landed in the midst of green armor and flesh, where it continued to skid along the battlefield and collect victims.
Orzora still laid on the battlefield. Somehow, she'd managed to keep ahold of her mace when she'd been hit, and it was on the grass beside her as she ripped the dented and ruined armor off her legs. I was confused as to why she was stripping until I saw her flattened and bloodied pants start to fill out again as she regenerated her shattered limbs.
“Are we related, Orzora?” I asked her, as I neared her once again.
“No. What the hell makes you say that?” The goddess retorted.
“Malgor had the same powers as you, and he was my uncle.”
Orzora spit to the side at the mention of the god of war. “Yeah, well, I had these powers first. I'm much older than Malgor is.”
“Is? I think you mean was.” As Orzora glanced up at my correction, I informed her, “I killed that son of a bitch.”
Even as Orzora swung her mace at me from the ground, I was thrusting magic at her torso armor. Both of our aims were accurate, for as I flew back over the grasses from her strength, I could hear her armor dissolving. I landed in a heap, grasses cool on my palms as I picked myself up again.
Orzora was already standing, only wearing underclothes and a helmet now that her armor was taken from her. As she came toward me again, I threw enervat straight at her. Though a black cloud of life force rose from her chest and imploded into me, she continued walking. I figured that the vitality part of her powers not only contributed to her regeneration abilities, but also to how much energy damage she could take to kill.
Cripptus le imun. Dark gray death magic was murky in one hand before I thrust it at her, weakening her immunity. Nothing outwardly changed as she slammed her mace into my shield again, throwing me back.
“Stop hiding behind your damn shields,” Orzora lamented.
“Oh, forgive me. Sure. Let me dispel them for you right away,” I retorted sarcastically, regenerating the protection as I stood back up. “I had to work to get through your shield, Orzora. Do a little work to get through mine.”
As if my words had reminded the goddess she'd had protections at all, she thought twice about pursuing me and glanced back at the raging battle farther west. “Raphael!”
It was my turn to run forward while she was calling for aid. There was no way in hell I was going to let Raphael regenerate her shield. While my previous death magic still coursed through Orzora's body and weakened her against disease, I thrust two d
ifferent necromantic spells at her designed to take advantage of such a thing.
Orzora retaliated, swiping her mace so hard into my shield that it finally broke through, crushing into the armor at my hip, its flanges ripping pieces of me straight out through the leather. The force of the hit threw me to the side, and flecks of my skin, muscle, and blood sprayed over the grasses between us. I landed on the ground again, immediately holding my hands over the wound to heal it.
Orzora came after me, her golden eyes determined before the confidence in them started to fade. Her pace slowed as the fabric of her underclothes began to darken with moisture while her body erupted in open sores. Her eyes registered panic as the combined powers of the plague and premature decomposing overrode her regeneration. The mace fell from crumpling fingers as she was no longer able to hold it. Her breaths croaked through the air desperately, and then every muscle in her body relaxed with death as she remained standing. Both her bladder and bowels expelled their contents, and the goddess collapsed in a puddle of her own filth.
One god dead. One to go. I held my breath as I passed Orzora's corpse to keep from smelling it. My eyes caught on two bubbled life shields in the frontlines near Azazel's army, and I headed there. I had an inkling that Terran and Cerin had found each other.
There was pandemonium across the battlefield, and more of my brother's army was fleeing. The Chairel cavalry had killed many beastmen, but Calder was consistently raising their corpses from the dead as reinforcements. Now, the cavalry was all but demolished. Undead mounts were charging into the infantry and causing panic. Many living horses were cantering around the battlefield without riders, aimless and scared of the action. Calder was leading his beastmen to the southwest, out of cavalry to fight and focused on the melee soldiers next.
That left just the Chairel mages and archers fighting Azazel's army. The archers were dwindling, for my home country used them sparingly and had sent few. The mages were the biggest threat, though their widespread spells mostly succeeded in killing what was already dead until the corpses rose again.
“Raphael!” Terran's voice was hoarse with panic. “Shield!”
I found my brother in the midst of a melee fight with Cerin, the clang of steel ringing out in the air. Terran's round life shield was flickering with weakness. Though Raphael didn't appear to be fighting, he'd used so much life energy during this battle that I found it suspicious. Even though he was a god, his reserves should have been low. The breezes from earlier in the fight were gone, and the skies overhead were darkening as evening fell and tumultuous storm clouds moved in from the north. The storm that was slowly creeping our way was held off by the mages battling below. Raphael had been building such magnificent magical shields that he had to have been getting energy from elsewhere. I thought back to Orzora. Perhaps both gods Terran had brought today were able to regenerate their own reserves.
“I can't yet!” Raphael finally yelled back, his own shield getting pummeled with hits from the nearby undead. The god's wasn't yet flickering.
Can't yet. That would indicate my suspicions were right because Raphael knew he would gain the energy over time.
I stalked up to the battle between my brother and lover, another boulder building between my palms. If it worked against Orzora, it would work against Terran. This stone wasn't as large as the one I'd used against the goddess because most of my high was gone. But Terran was human.
“Terran! Think about retreat!” Raphael shouted, his golden eyes on Hallmar behind Azazel's army. “Enemy reinforcements are coming! Hallmar is taken! Our men are fleeing!”
“Not yet!” Terran yelled back, swinging his sword into Cerin's scythe once more. My lover was bleeding from multiple wounds, and he no longer had a shield. My brother's fury had forced him to the defensive without a chance to regenerate his protection, and few of Azazel's remaining soldiers were healers. “Not until he and my sister are dead!”
I thrust the small boulder at my brother, and the stone shot past multiple allies until it collided with his weakened shield. Terran was propelled so abruptly away from Cerin that my lover's scythe flipped out of his grasp from the momentum, spinning through the air until it landed on the grasses beyond.
“Your business is with me!” I screamed at my brother as he hurtled through the air. “You will fight me, Terran! Fight me!”
Terran's shield flickered out only when he hit the riverbank on the opposite side of the battlefield from the spell's powerful momentum. I heard the crack of a bone as he landed, and when he sat up on the grass, he favored his right arm. My brother's green eyes panicked as he looked over the battlefield with a clearer mind. A good portion of his army laid in waste just east of the river, and many of his men were now fighting for us as corpses. Thousands had fled. His once magnificent army was now as sparse as patches of grass in a wasteland.
Cerin threw a death bomb at my brother, but the spell fell short at such a distance, fizzling out in the river. I no longer had the energy to send after him.
Pssh!
The water of the river rippled out as Raphael jumped into it, swimming away from our side to Terran's. As the god swam, he yelled, “Retreat, Terran! I urge you! Regather your men! You will die if you continue this today!”
Terran's chest heaved with labored breaths as he hurried to stand up from the ground with one good arm. “Kai still lives,” he protested, his voice desperate and panicked.
“Your children still live,” Raphael argued desperately, pulling himself out of the river and hurrying to Terran to heal his arm. “We need to regroup. Gather the others. You can still protect them another day. You will die if we continue this. Then your children will have no one to protect them.”
“Retreat!” Terran screamed, his hoarse voice rattling out into the air above his remaining soldiers. “Retreat to the west!”
“No, Terran!” I roared. “You fight me today! I will spare your children if you fight me now!”
Terran's eyes found mine, distrusting, but he said nothing more. With his arm newly healed, he hurried to a riderless horse nearby, grabbing its reins to mount it.
No. I spun to the south, running as fast as I could along the riverbank. I could not let Terran escape, but I desperately needed energy. Though his men were fleeing to abide by their general's orders, I threw death bombs into their backs as soon as I was close enough for the spells to hit. The energy came back to me, filling me with a high. I threw more and more until the grasses along the western riverbank were matted with the dead.
Terran and Raphael were already galloping away, and his soldiers followed. Many of the men and women had found lost horses from the defeated cavalry and were escaping just behind them. I lifted my hands up to the sky, quickly calling upon the heavens.
The skies rumbled and sizzled as they prepared to rain fire. Even before the first meteor fell, I gathered more energy from the backs of Terran's men. I glanced around me, finding a soldier in the midst of mounting a horse. I shot an ice shard at her head, and the woman fell, hanging from the horse via one stirrup with a leaking open skull. The horse started to trot away, its ears flicking back and forth with fear. I ran up to it, grabbing its reins with one hand while jerking the woman's boot free of the stirrup. I put my own boot where hers had been and swung myself up into the saddle.
I heard my friends screaming after me in fear. After all, the skies above Terran's retreating army were just now releasing their meteors. It was possible that running after him would kill me, but I wasn't convinced the spell would hit him, and I wanted my brother dead.
BOOM! The ground ahead and to the right exploded with the force of a ball of fire, and the horse beneath me whinnied nervously and danced to the side in panic. I paid no mind to the tremors of the earth as I kicked my boots into the animal's side, urging it forward.
“Come on! Come on!”
The horse finally decided to listen to my pleas, lurching forward with such speed I grabbed the edge of the saddle to keep my balance. I'd only ever ridd
en the hyenas of Nahara, and they were slower than horses. My heart shredded my ribs with adrenaline as the horse raced forward, the wind yelling harshly in my ears.
BOOM!
The meteor landed in the midst of the retreating infantry, and soldiers exploded out from the impact. As I galloped past, I could feel the ripples of heat from the fire. Soldiers yelled in panic at my arrival, but their voices soon faded behind me as I left them be. The hooves of my horse ripping into the land pounded through my head like a rough melody.
BOOM!
Two meteors hit the earth at the same time, one far behind me and one in the cavalry ahead. Horses and men scattered from the impact and the resulting heat. Even the mounts unaffected were neighing in fear and fighting their riders for control.
Meteors continued falling, but they were all behind us since we'd galloped out of the spell's targeted zone. Terran and his remaining mounted soldiers were pushing their horses so hard the ground was torn up in their wake. The rumbling of thunder echoed through the skies above us. Now that the battle was over, the storm was finally arriving.
Strings of foam slipped from my horse's mouth and flew past me. Its breaths were labored, but still it ran. I put my hand beneath its mane to its sweaty neck, refreshing it with life energy. It bobbed its head as if in gratitude and quickened its pace.
BOOM!
Natural lightning cracked through the heavens, veining over the Firn Caps in a display of white light. A soft chorus of rainfall followed as the storm clouds released their burden. My view of Terran and the other horses was now vague and obstructed, but my horse was running faster than theirs thanks to the excess energy. My legs were splattered with mud as it flipped up from my horse's front hooves due to newly moistened earth.