Gemworld

by Jeremy Bullard

  Sal gazed with pride at his brainchild. Standing twelve feet high and fifteen feet wide, the wall ran the length of the southern perimeter. With rubies sapping the heat from the air, and sapphires erecting the ice itself, the wall had taken form in little more than five minutes. “How much of that half-hour we got left?” Sal teased.

  “Yeah, well, I could’ve figured it out myself,” Menkal snapped, then stalked off, barking orders at the sapphires tending the wall.

  Keth used his granite magic to harden the wall further, giving it the density of a glacier. So thick the ice was, and yet it was as clear as crystal...

  Sal’s breath caught at this newest flash of inspiration. He cast his eyes about, looking for materials for an additional barrier. Spying a nearby shack with a pair of overlarge windows, he snagged the granite’s attention and described what he wanted. Keth and Senosh worked together on the project, putting the finishing touches on the secondary barrier just as the attack came.

  The first lightning bolts struck outside the wall, throwing up dirt and toppling trees. The defenders—all but Senosh, Keth, and a handful of amethysts—immediately moved to the places where fallen trees crossed the walls. Lightning continued to streak down the ridge, eventually followed by bursts of fire and rock. Though the wall sustained damage, it held firm. Stray bolts caught a few defenders that had fallen too far back from the wall’s protection. By the time the Earthen Ranks reached the wall, there were footholds aplenty, and the attackers mounted the wall.

  Wait...

  The first wave of attackers reached the top of the wall, fanning out along the far edge as their fellows joined them so they might all attack at once. A few defenders stood far enough back from the wall to see the first invaders. Archers took aim but didn’t fire, for fear of hitting their own men. Rebel mages, their spells more accurate than arrows, had no such fears. They lobbed a few bolts over the wall. Not many, just enough to keep the Rank soldiers on their toes. Senosh and Keth, their work completed, turned to rejoin the defenders.

  Wait...

  The attackers atop the barrier started forward, clearing the way for the next in line. Through the quickly powdering ice, more solders could be seen making their way up. A line of rubies had formed at the base of the wall, trying to melt the solid glacial wall. Frigid water could be seen flowing in rivulets at the rubies feet.

  Perfect.

  “Now!”

  Sal’s shout rang out like a bell over the din of encroaching battle. As the word leapt from his lips, carefully positioned amethysts stepped forward to the secondary barrier and placed their hands through holes in the clear glass to the ice wall beyond.

  Ozone filled the air as the amethysts electrified the wall. Attackers fell in droves wherever they touched ice or water. The smell of cooked flesh rose to join the ozone. The defenders cheered as almost a third of the Earthen Ranks keeled over.

  The excessive current proved too much for the ice wall. Primary purpose achieved, it disintegrated for many yards in either direction, crumbling to so much snow where it hadn’t yet melted. Without the ice wall to support it, large portions of the glass barrier toppled forward, and the real battle began.

  Though still outnumbered four to one, the success of the wall had whipped the rebels into a frenzy. Sal ordered the attack, and defenders along the wall surged forward to engage the enemy. Sounds of battle from farther west told him that Retzu’s troops were doing the same.

  Earthen Rank amethysts, following the rebels’ example, launched lightning bolts down into the snow. No longer packed ice, the snow quickly disbursed the electricity. Those unfortunate enough to be near a lightning strike were blown off their feet. Many escaped serious harm. Some did not.

  One such lightning bolt struck about six feet to Sal’s left, sending a jolt through him that sent him to the ground in spasms. He lay there for many moments, his head muddled with residual current, as defenders surged around him. Closing his eyes, he felt his internal wounds, seeing them in his mind, and touched the emerald soulgem.

  Jaren had tried to give him formal instruction as to how an emerald heals the wounded, but Sal didn’t have time for such formalities right then. Instead, he focused on what he wanted, and let the magic figure out how to make it happen. Emerald magic suffused him, and he felt his wounds close, his burns fade. His strength returned, and he regained his feet, again charging forward into the fray. He continued to draw on the emerald magic as he fought his way up the hill, letting the magic heal his wounds as they occurred.

  At the base of the ridge, he found his first target—a mid-ranking ruby officer. The ruby directed the mage soldiers under his command, waving his flaming sword as he shouted orders. Sal had a clear path to the ruby and he made good use of it. Ducking past what few Rank soldiers fell into his path, he advanced on the ruby, slashing at the mage’s neck as he came in range.

  Sparks flew down his blade as the ruby parried the blow. The Rank mage thrust his sword at Sal’s abdomen, only to have Sal skip to the side at the last second. Flipping the sword upside down in his grip, Sal slashed the blade upward, neatly parting the ruby’s armor, and bowels, with barely an effort. The victor was off in search of another foe before the corpse had even hit the ground.

  Sal was oblivious to much of the battle, seeing only the rebels or the Rank soldiers before him as he fought his way up the ridge toward the mages that were attacking from the summit. Some were sitting on winged horses, and as Sal and the defenders made their way up the ridge, the riders began to take to the air. They regrouped at a point beyond the treetops, and then resumed their rain of fire, lightning, ice, and stone upon the struggling masses below.

  Finding his new objective, Sal left off the melee around him and bolted for the remaining riders, slowing only long enough to bat the occasional attacker out of the way with his sword.

  Suffused as he was with emerald magic, his wounds didn’t even have time to register before they were sealed. He took injuries sure enough, but they were short-lived, and not worthy of his attention. His vision narrowed as he fought through the melee, taking in the nearest rider and excluding everything else.

  In that vague, detached way that is known only to soldiers in the heat of battle, he noted that every fighter that caught the edge of his blade dropped writhing to the ground, even though many of the wounds inflicted were not in vital areas. One such victim fell to a nick on his forearm. Though mildly curious, Sal didn’t dare stop to ponder this. He just chalked it up to good luck and pressed on, the incident all but forgotten by the time his sword swept the next obstacle aside.

  Cresting the ridge, he closed on his next target, a ruby commander in thick leather armor, barking commands and throwing spells while anxiously awaiting his turn to take to the skies. The air above them was filled with other mages and their mounts. Apparently, the mounted officers weren’t big fans of close combat. Go figure.

  Sal circled to his right, slipping from the ruby’s line of sight. Running up some nearby boulders, Sal dove for the mage, tackling him broadsides.

  The mage reflexively wielded a gout of flame, igniting the foliage beneath them. Sal landed atop the mage, and the fire enveloped them both. So fast was Sal’s attack that the ruby took injury from his own spell, hair and skin crisping before he could absorb his own magic. The emerald waves coursing through Sal’s veins protected him from much of the spell’s effect, and healed those wounds he did take.

  Sal rolled to his feet as they came down, the blade of his sword skimming lightly across the ruby’s hand. He rounded on the ruby and brought his sword to bear—then froze, horrified. The nick he’d left on the ruby’s hand festered and rotted before his eyes. The ruby shrieked nightmarishly. Whatever poisons were in the wound quickly spread, inching up the ruby’s arm and throughout his body, swelling and finally dissolving flesh as it traveled. Stunned, Sal watched as the mage was completely consumed, his entire body decomposing in a matter of seconds. Last to go was the mage’s face, a frozen rictus of pain.
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br />   Sal stared dumbly at the blade, which was emitting a faint green aura.

  His magic.

  Somehow, the magic he was tapping to heal him...

  No time now, he thought, forcing all thought from his mind except the battle surging around him. Sheathing his sword, he mounted the ruby’s pegasus and urged it into the air. Riders scattered as his mount soared upward.

  He took the horse high above the battle and circled quickly to take stock of the situation. Many of the riders had grouped together a bit further above him, and were collectively showering their magic on targets below. Others were gliding back and forth over the battlefield, serving as scouts for their ground troops. A few amethysts could be seen levitating above the fray, throwing down the occasional lightning bolt. None paid any attention to him, not even those who’d been pushed out of the way as he took flight. They assumed that he was one of them, arrogantly believing that a mere rebel could not capture one of their prized mounts. Picking out the nearest of the riders, Sal spurred his prized mount forward.

  He loosed his sword from its scabbard and held it high, releasing emerald magic into the blade as before. Ducking his head, he swept under the rider’s horse, the blade biting where it would. The pegasus screamed wildly as it reared, bucking the mage out of his saddle. Even as the mage fell, the grim work of the emerald magic was evident. The cut in the beast’s belly festered and spread, quickly consuming the horse’s underside before spreading to its flank and back. By the time it had fallen below the canopy, the once-pegasus was an unrecognizable fleshy lump, and worsening.

  Sal saw none of this. As soon as his blade bit into one pegasus, he moved on to the next. It tore at his heart to destroy the magnificent beasts, but the horror of what he was doing was irrelevant. The horses were enemy assets on the field of battle. That made them targets.

  He moved from one attacker to the next, cutting a swath of destruction through the enemy formation, horses and riders raining down in his wake. Most of the horses were long dead and in varying stages of decomposition by the time they splattered on the ground. None of the mage riders were so lucky. Broken bodies—some of them painfully alive—littered the ridge beneath the dwindling Earthen Rank flight, a grisly testament to Sal’s attack.

  No more than a dozen survived his first pass. Only two of those—an emerald and a granite, both fleeing—survived his second. Sal didn’t consider for a moment letting them live.

  One rider, the emerald, already had a good head start on him, and was on a beeline for Schel Veylin. The way he was pouring his healing magics into his mount, Sal thought it unlikely that he could ever catch up, even if he had a hundred miles to try. But the granite mage was quite another thing entirely. He was still close enough to rejoin the fray and wreak his own kind of havoc, and that was something Sal that couldn’t allow.

  Seeing Sal leap to the pursuit, the granite rider banked his horse and spurred it to a full retreat, swooping low over the treetops and stirring whole flocks of birds from their perches with his passing. Sal stayed high and did his best to evade the birds, but still got pelted with broken feathers and droppings for his trouble. The rush of air covered the fading sound of battle as he left the forces of Caravan behind.

  Clearing the cloud of feathers, he caught sight of the mage again. Sal slid his sword back into its scabbard and lay forward on his mount, urging it to greater speed. Holding the reins in one hand, he placed his other on the horse’s neck. Sal felt for the emerald magic still flowing thick in his veins and wielded, directing it out into the horse as he’d seen the Rank emerald do. To his satisfaction, he felt the fatigue bleed out of the pegasus, consumed by wave upon wave of emerald magic. The steed beat its wings harder, and they began to close on the granite.

  Wind tore at Sal’s hair, his jerkin, stinging his eyes. Trees whipped past beneath the riders, the canopy becoming an endless green blur as the miles sped by. As fast as Sal was going, he wasn’t gaining much ground and the granite was still a good way off. He needed to slow him down.

  Eyeballing a spot just ahead of the granite, Sal reached out to Sapphire and wielded. The mana was slow in flowing, the spell’s target being so far away from its wielder. Still, the spell took, and the granite flew straight into it.

  Blue-tinted magics erupted in the area, and a cyclonic wind swirled the treetops into a frenzy. The granite was unable to steer his mount clear of the cyclone in time, and the horse balked. It reared, throwing its rider about in the saddle. The granite jerked on the reins, pulling the horse’s head to the left. Haltingly the creature obeyed, and mount and rider skirted the magic-borne storm.

  Sal released the spell and let the winds die down. It had served its purpose. It had given Sal the time he needed to close the distance.

  Still higher that the mage, Sal took aim, cocked his right arm back, and swept it forward in a throwing motion, wielding sapphire magic as his hand came down. An icy spear flew from his hand and sped toward its target.

  The spear tore through the granite’s padded leather armor, barely missing the small of his back. The mage glanced over his shoulder to see where the attack had come from. Spying Sal, he threw a hand up and wielded, sending a granite sphere backward in response.

  Sal pulled up hard on the reins, and the pegasus evaded the sphere easily, sweeping back down into pursuit. He could just make out the highest of Schel Veylin’s thick spires in the distance, minuscule white dots standing out against the flat green canopy of the Vale. He judged that they were still a good hundred miles off or so, but that was less than a day’s travel at the rate they were going. And every mile was drawing him further from the battle at Caravan. He shifted to emerald again and wielded, giving his mount an extra burst of speed, and dove for the granite.

  The mage looked over his shoulder and saw Sal nearly upon him. Throwing up a hand, he wielded, launching another sphere behind him. Sal was able to sweep to one side, the ball of granite missing him by a few scant inches that time. Switching again to Sapphire, Sal showered the granite with needles of ice. The granite threw up his hand to shield his face, but his mount took the brunt of the damage, slowing it further. Sal, who was right behind the mage and above, felt the sting of the ice as well, but gravity carried him still closer.

  Aiming, the granite wielded yet again. This time luck was with him, and Sal’s mount took the attack squarely on the nose. The horse’s head exploded, drenching Sal with gore and bone chips.

  The dead pegasus pitched forward, its wings folded by the crush of the wind. Seizing his last chance to take the granite, Sal threw himself haphazardly from the dead mount. Momentum carried him forward just enough to catch the granite’s horse around the fetlock. His own mount crashed through the treetops below, the snapping of the ancient branches sounding out loudly over the howl of rushing wind.

  Surprised at the unexpected weight, the granite’s horse screamed its protest, bucking sharply. Both Sal and the granite were tossed from the horse, and sent pinwheeling into the forest canopy.

  The thick, springy upper branches whacked Sal as he fell, flipping him this way and that as he made his long, painful way down. His leg stuck in the fork of a branch, and it brought him to a bone wrenching halt. He bellowed his pain and lost concentration, his blue tinged vision clearing as the sapphire magic slipped from him. Swinging there by his broken and dislocated leg, half-blind with pain, he looked “up” to see his opponent’s fate. On the ground many feet below lay the granite, his body twisted into several impossible angles.

  Sal fought nausea and unconsciousness. Waves of dizziness swept over him has he worked himself into a sitting position, just enough to pry his leg loose. He drew together the tattered pieces of his concentration long enough to touch Sapphire, and he watched as the vision in his left eye went a faint blue. He wielded, and was relieved to see the ground below him fluff up with powder-fine snow. Free of the limb, he let himself drop into the snow, sending flurries up around him as he hit.

  He tried to pull himself out of the
snow, but failed as he reached the end of his strength. Reaching out to the emerald magic, he touched it briefly, only to lose it again in his weakness.

  “All this way,” he panted. “A rain of bullets, a blown-out eye, a week in prison, a dang stage coach falling apart around me, a rock growing in my skull, a thousand screaming mages, and a fall from ten stories up. And what’s gonna kill me? Shock and hypothermia.”

  He tried to laugh, but only produced a blood choked gurgle. If God decides it’s time to take me out, that’s fine by me. I got nothing to complain about. I guess there’s only so many times a man can survive the impossible.

  Thinking that thought, he slipped into oblivion, daring the elements to do their worst.

  ***

  Jaren hunkered down behind an overturned wagon to catch his breath. The battle is going well, he tried to remind himself. But his eyes betrayed him. Amidst the carnage, he spied yet another wave of invaders swarming down the ridge.

  Blessed Crafter, Sal ran off into that?

  Jaren surveyed the area at the base of the ridge. The ice wall was all but melted now, the thick glass shield driven into the muddy sludge by the press of a thousand feet. In some places, the shield had broken, though not in small enough pieces to be used as weapons. That wasn’t to say that they weren’t dangerous, especially if one were unlucky enough to step between the razor-sharp edges. More than one invader had pulled his leg from the mud, only to find it bit off at the ankle.

  The emerald judged that it would only be a matter of seconds before the next wave crossed the slushy mess. Sighting a nearby ruby, Jaren whistled, catching his attention. He pointed at the muddy soup, then at his own eyes.

  The ruby grinned wickedly as he took the emerald’s meaning, and barked an order to a trio of rubies further down from him. In concert, they turned their burning eyes upon the mud. The effect was instantaneous.

  Steam billowed in a huge cloud as the mud superheated, glowing an ominous red. Those unfortunate individuals who had been running full tilt down the ridge met magma rather than mud. The screams of the dying would haunt Jaren for months, but the command had achieved the desired result.